By Earl Hall, The Internet Broadcaster
If you are an entrepreneur, the way to position yourself in the industry is by producing a podcast. There are two different ways to do a podcast. Either you can do just audio or you can do a video podcast.
Most of us are familiar with services like YouTube or iTunes. When you make informative podcasts that are full of useful information the word will spread. Of Course you want to make sure you direct people to your website for the full 411 on your products and services.
Your podcast will be a 24hr marketing and sales piece for you, so make it as professional as possible. The first part of this process is going to be your show development or flow chart. How you produce your show is going to dictate the flow.
(Side note: practice and learn how to use windows movie maker. This is a great tool for video podcasting).
Things To Consider
What is your intro going to look like?
Are you going to have breaks?
Are you going to have commercials?
Are you going to have call in guests?
These are the elements of your show. Putting them together and having a professional presentation is very important. You can use different software packages for audio production like Adobe Audition, Sony Sound Forge, or Audacity.
All of these can be seen at my website www.TheInternetBroadcaster.com.
(Side note: Audacity is a free audio production tool with great functionality, but to get real professional quality recordings you will want to use something like Adobe Audition or Sony Sound Forge).
Automated production is available at my site as well to relieve you of the worry of tying together all of your audio and show elements. This automated solution is called Production In A Box. Your podcast production, just like your website, blog, business cards, letterhead, etc. must represent you well.
If you produce a poor quality audio or video presentation, you will not position yourself properly as a leader in your industry. On the contrary you will create an image of poor quality and non-professionalism. You can use the podcast “On A Roll” as a great example of how to present yourself in a professional manner.
If you have never heard my own podcast “The Shout”, you can hear it at my website. My podcast is my way of teaching you through audio, just how your show should sound and be put together.
Music selection is the one thing that you truly want to be specific about. Yes you need to have music for your intro and there are a lot sites that you can download free music for podcasting. A great package that I use personally to put together my show elements is called The Podcasting Production Tool Kit (find it on the right side of my site). This CD comes with thousands of sound effects and music specifically put together to help you create a great podcast.
Your podcast, at minimum, needs to have an intro with music and an exit with music. Your intro should fade out with you talking over it and the exit should fade in with you talking over it. You can get a good audio example of what I mean by listening to my podcast “The Shout” on my site or even look for it on iTunes.
To step beyond that you will want to get a professional intro from a voiceover professional like the ones at Studio 3 Productions.
Your show elements along with your content are what will make your podcast stand out from the rest. You can get more great information by downloading my free eBook from my site. This brings us to a whole new subject. Your equipment!
In next weeks blog we will discuss your equipment or as I like to call it, your gear. What do I really need to look and sound like a pro online is the topic for next week, see you then?
Click Here To Check Out Earl's Previous Guest Blog On Internet Broadcasting
