How To Podcast On Your Blog

I’ve had quite a few clients ask me about podcasting, and how they can do it for their blog. I believe in getting the experts in when appropriate, and Mwangi is a podcasting expert. I’ll let him introduce himself.

Hi everyone, my name is Mwangi and I share the title of “Blog Mastermind Mentor” with Joel.

Now, I know many of you are probably wondering about this technology of podcasting. Is it worth your time? Will it produce the desired results and so on and so forth.

Below I have answered many of the most common questions asked about this wonderful technology. I am sure some of the answers will surprise you, and I hope all of them will assist you.

Before you get to them though, I just thought I would let you know that my ideas on podcasting did not develop in some abstract volume. They are based on close to a year of getting my hands dirty with the technology and six interviews conducted with people who stand upon the top of the podcast mountain of stars.

So what you are reading below is the culmination of many many years of experience and investigation. Without any futher ado, I thank Joel, and wish you nothing but podcasting succcess.

What actually is podcasting?

Podcasting has many definitions, and when I was doing research on what the definition is, I found a number of variations.

I like to use Yaro Starak’s definition, which is:

“A podcast is an audio file distributed by an RSS feed.”

On My Podcasting Tutor we pretty much define it as:

“A podcast is a series of audio or video presentations syndicated on the internet in digital format that is designed to be subscribed to and played on-demand using a PC or portable media player.”

Why would you recommend starting a podcast? What are the benefits?

I think the first thing that is always important to emphasize is that podcasting, just like blogging is just a communication channel.

Ultimately, what matters more in my opinion is the message you want to distribute via this channel.

That having been said, podcasting has a number of intrinsic advantages that other communication mediums don’t. Please note, I am lumping podcasting together with video blogging:

Number one is building relationships. There is no other way I have seen of building relationships with A players in your niche that works quite like podcasting or video blogging.

If your niche has about 30 A-list players in it, if you ask all 30 for an interview, and you have some substance of some sort backing you up -meaning when people look at what you’ve done they can tell you are either a star or an up an coming star or at least someone who is putting in the work – at the very least one of them should say yes and the instant credibility this can give you is huge.

I can honestly say I have networked with Gary Vaynerchuk, Steve Pavlina and Paul Colligan and its all because of the wonderful opportunities brought about by podcasting.

What niche(s) are best for podcasting?

To break it down to its simplest essence,the best niches for podcasting are the ones that fulfill two criteria:
* Have a significant audience
* Have commercial potential

The way to discover these two things is quite simple actually.

If you want to know if your niche has a sizeable audience, brainstorm as many of the common terms in a niche as possible and just go exploring up and down the web.
Are people assembling at forums to discuss the topic? Are there other podcasts or blogs in the niche? Is there any form of Internet life in that niche?

To find out if there is commercial potential, as you do Google research, look to the right of the screen to see if there are any adwords ads that pertain to your niche.

Go to Clickbank, Commission Junction and the other big players in the affiliate market and look to see if there are any people spending money to get to your niche.

If you tick both boxes, then the conditions are great for you to get in and give it your best shot.

And the old expression, “You never know,”, holds true. You truly never know until you select a niche and work it for a few months.

What equipment and technical expertise are required?

Not much really, if you know how to use a computer, download and install software, you should be able to get podcasting within a day if you wish.

If people join my free email list at mypodcastingtutor.com, I have a video tutorial where I show people how to setup only 3 tools and they can immediately get podcasting.

Though I wouldn’t recommend it, because you wouldn’t own the podcast, if you want you can head on over to a place like Blogtalk radio and get started even before you finish reading this.

How do I get this on my blog?

When I first got started, I made heavy use of the podpress plugin and later on less use of the audio player plugin.

Anyone who podcasts on WordPress would pretty much know those two plugins.

Now, podpress, which is what I still use to this day to podcast, hasn’t been updated for months, but that didn’t stop the podpress community from coming up with solutions to incompatibilities that existed between podpress and the latest version of WP.

So I’d probably put my money on podpress, it makes adding your podcast to itunes easier and the community is awesome.

NB: I am yet to update to the latest version of WP, as I haven’t really had the need to, so definitely check in with the discussion surrounding your plugin and the latest version of WordPress prior to installing it or make use of nice folks like you and you’ll never go wrong

How do I add a podcast to iTunes?

Rather than tell you why not show you:

If you can’t see the image, click here to watch the video.

A very common question now, what do I talk about?!?

My recommendation would be to pick an area, that seems viable that I am PASSIONATE ABOUT.

Not just passionate about the end results, but something I am passionate about engaging in and being a part of on a regular basis.

If you select an area like that, you are able to bring a level of creativity and insight that only comes from unforced, deeply engaging participation and investigation of a niche or idea or whatever.

I’d recommend you get on the mic and just go into the flow.

If you are scared of offending people, good. Steve Pavlina and Timothy Ferriss both say that one of the keys to their success is the fact that they have a polarizing effect.

If you just want to be a helpful source of information, good, AJ and Jordan Harbinger from Pickup Podcast got a nationally syndicated radio show by committing to helping men understand dating once every week.

Get out there, give it your best shot, and see what results the word throws your way.

And, to shamelessly plug myself, you want to learn what 6 A-list podcasters did that led to their success, so you have folks you can model, check out my Conversations with Podcasting Gurus package or just watch my free Podcasting Profits Manifesto which is basically a free video presentation where I pulled all their insights together with my experience and knowledge into the one presentation.

Great, thanks Mwangi!

If you have any further questions, please let me know.