How Podcasts Can Take Your Brand Around The World

I’ve been speaking at events a lot about podcasts and it has me thinking more and more about the advantages. I mean I have always know the amazing benefits a podcast can do for your business or brand, I have been involved in producing podcasts for 4 or 5 years now, but even with the changing landscape, it still makes a lot of sense. Much of this has to do with iTunes, which is a huge content delivery system (over 150,000 free audio and video podcasts available) that goes out to over 20 countries, meaning that the show you produce hits other territories almost immediately.

It’s definitely worth thinking about a global audience.

I did a podcast about two girls from Maine (Rumor Girls) and people in the US were very interested. People in the UK? Fascinated. I did one of the first enhanced podcasts (Podmodel) back in 2005, it was one of my very first shows, which featured a series of stills of my fashion photography along with audio. Italy and France went wild for the model pictures, stats went through the roof. Who knew? Tracking the analytics, it’s fascinating and surprising to see which shows become bigger hits in which countries. Sometimes I can predict, sometimes I cannot. But what happened 4 years ago is I started thinking about the global audience for my productions. I always produced shows and thought about my city seeing it, then my state. Then around the country. Then I started thinking, what foreign country would be most interested?

If you’ve ever uploaded a video to a site like YouTube, got a few hundred hits, then leveled off, I encourage you to investigate podcasting. Being in the podcast business for several years I have been fortunate enough to produce many shows with downloads in the millions (you can check out some slides from my podcast speeches). But you know what? Someone starting tomorrow could have the exact same results. I am still convinced it is one of the easiest and best ways to get your brand out there.

I think some of the advantages are that podcasts are portable shows, they are downloaded to devices like iPods, so the convenience of watching when and where you want is compelling. Also the subscription model is much more advanced, although you can subscribe to channels on YouTube, there is nothing quite like syncing your iPod and automatically getting the latest episode downloaded of your favorite show.

Podcasts need to be marketed like anything else, and if you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know a lot of the marketing skills and techniques you can put in place. The best way to learn about podcasting is to go to iTunes and start downloading some. There are thousands and you can be sure you’ll find at least a few on a topic you are interested in.

And you can turn a podcast into a commercial venture, with sponsors and income. Be careful though, if you drop in a traditional ad and only convey to the sponsor the download stats you could be setting yourself up for failure. Advertising in new media has advanced in the last 5 years, podcasts can be positioned with sponsors embedded into the fun and flow of the show, and it needs to be conveyed to advertisers that you have a very targeted market you are reaching. As well as a captive, engaged audience. Value that goes way beyond just hits or downloads. Podcasts are a new technology and ads on them are handled very differently than traditional media. If you think in new ways, you’ll generate income in new ways. Companies trying to reach customers the exact way they did 5 years ago are often struggling, so it’s up to you to offer them new solutions.

Podcasts have gone from a buzzword to now something like electricity. It may be a topic you don’t think about on a regular basis but it does keep a lot of businesses and individuals charged up and able to get their brand out to the masses.

If you are taping your fingers waiting for your “viral video” to take off on YouTube, give the podcasting industry a try. It’s a whole new world to explore.

But I am curious what you think. Do you have a podcast now? Are you planning one? Any podcast questions, let me know. In case you could not tell, I love podcasting!

http://www.franklinmcmahon.com
http://www.fmstudio.com
frank@fmstudio.com