Podcast Academy lessons Congratulations to Doug Kaye and friends for Podcast Academy, a touring roadshow that offers two days of nuts-and-bold advice about podcasting. At $275, it's a great deal (one of the nice things about social media is that so few people are making money at it that the conferences are still cheap!). You can listen to the proceedings at the link above.

A few broad observations:

This is a "just do it" phenomenon. You don't have to invest thousands in recording equipment and you don't have to be all that polished. Just get out there and start podcasting. You'll get better as you go along. And everyone's still making this up. One of the best sight gags came from Michael Geoghegan, who showed a screen shot of the ID3 file accompanying the first podcast produced by General Motors on its FastLane podcasts. The file was empty except for a single cryptic file name, somdthing like Lutz1. The slide got a hoot from the audience and it made a point: even the biggest, most resourced companies are feeling their way along in this new media.

Words and audio need to be tightly connected. You need to fill out your ID3 tags and publish shownotes to accompany the podcast. This is crucial to getting indexed by search engines and found on iTunes.

There's no good ROI model. A couple of speakers took stabs at this topic but I didn't hear anything really useful. Even the most successful podcasters aren't quitting their day jobs. Podcasting should be part of your PR campaign and it burnishes your image in ways that are hard to measure. Geoghegan used the example of Rightlook Radio, a Los Angeles-based mobile car wash company that's using podcasting to educate small business people about franchising. There's no hard return to measure but this company is engaging with customers on a whole different level than its competitors.

People use podcasts differently than the use radio. For example, Dan Bricklin pointed out that podcast listeners always start at the beginning, which means that you don't need to constantly remind people of what your program is about. Doug Kaye noted that a lot of people listen to podcasts while exercising, which means they give you more time to stretch out and explore a topic. The differences aren't immediately obvious but they're pretty significant when you think of them.

Quality counts. There was a lot of talk about equipment and technique. Doug Kaye gave a great talk on the physics of sound and Paul Figgiani had a comprehensive examination of equipment options. It's clear that while the entry cost of podcasting is low, the cost to do it well is not. Expect the bar to move higher as successful podcasters gain traction and buy better equipment.

If you're serious about podcasting, the Podcast Academy is worthwhile investment.
  ¶ 8:57 AM