Podcast Tools - Indispensable Tools For Every Business Podcaster
With every new marketing technology, it seems like there is a new tool or service that is created every day.
Podcasting is no different.
Just look around for a few days and notice how quickly you become overwhelmed with them.
Every podcaster has his or her own preferences about podcast tools.
There is nothing wrong with that.
No single tools that can claim that it is the best.
If there are people who make that claim, chances are they are the author of the tools, or have any interest in promoting the tools.
People have different taste and like different set of tools.
As long as the tools do what the users want them to do, they are better than any other tools.
And any other ones don't matter at all.
Here are categories of software and services every business podcaster should own, at least a version of its kind.
1.
Audio editor This software captures voices and turns them into digital bits on the hard drive.
More sophisticated audio software allows you to edit out noises, amplify signals, cut out unwanted segments and mix music and other special effects into the recording.
A free and cross-platform audio editor is Audacity.
2.
Flash audio player Every podcast episode page should have flash audio player so visitors can sample the episode if they want to.
This is important because not all visitors are already subscribers.
Perhaps they stumble upon your site through search engines or by clicking on an article from another site.
If they can't immediately get a taste about the podcast content, perhaps they don't want to take time to download the entire episode just to check it out.
Flash based audio player is popular because up to 90 percent of browsers have the plug-in so visitors can play the podcast right on the page.
An example of Flash-based audio player is from 1pixelout.
net.
3.
Stats package Metrics are important numbers for any business.
Free stats package such as Google Analytics allows you to see how people interact with your site.
You can set a goal, for example, how people get into the free white paper offer subscription page.
Combine this with referral information, such as from which page the visitors click to come to the offer page, or after which episodes there suddenly are spikes of traffic to the page, you can come up with quite powerful information about how your system works.
4.
RSS reader Whether it is Google Reader or FeedDemon or Bloglines, podcasters are info junkies who consume a lot of information.
This is the tool that you can live without once you know how to use it effectively.
RSS or news reader is also great for tracking brand names so you know what's going on the news and blog-osphere.
You want to respond to people who talk about you to establish conversation and build relationship.
As said earlier, you may have your own choice of tools.
That is fine, but pick your own choices and use them.
Podcasting is no different.
Just look around for a few days and notice how quickly you become overwhelmed with them.
Every podcaster has his or her own preferences about podcast tools.
There is nothing wrong with that.
No single tools that can claim that it is the best.
If there are people who make that claim, chances are they are the author of the tools, or have any interest in promoting the tools.
People have different taste and like different set of tools.
As long as the tools do what the users want them to do, they are better than any other tools.
And any other ones don't matter at all.
Here are categories of software and services every business podcaster should own, at least a version of its kind.
1.
Audio editor This software captures voices and turns them into digital bits on the hard drive.
More sophisticated audio software allows you to edit out noises, amplify signals, cut out unwanted segments and mix music and other special effects into the recording.
A free and cross-platform audio editor is Audacity.
2.
Flash audio player Every podcast episode page should have flash audio player so visitors can sample the episode if they want to.
This is important because not all visitors are already subscribers.
Perhaps they stumble upon your site through search engines or by clicking on an article from another site.
If they can't immediately get a taste about the podcast content, perhaps they don't want to take time to download the entire episode just to check it out.
Flash based audio player is popular because up to 90 percent of browsers have the plug-in so visitors can play the podcast right on the page.
An example of Flash-based audio player is from 1pixelout.
net.
3.
Stats package Metrics are important numbers for any business.
Free stats package such as Google Analytics allows you to see how people interact with your site.
You can set a goal, for example, how people get into the free white paper offer subscription page.
Combine this with referral information, such as from which page the visitors click to come to the offer page, or after which episodes there suddenly are spikes of traffic to the page, you can come up with quite powerful information about how your system works.
4.
RSS reader Whether it is Google Reader or FeedDemon or Bloglines, podcasters are info junkies who consume a lot of information.
This is the tool that you can live without once you know how to use it effectively.
RSS or news reader is also great for tracking brand names so you know what's going on the news and blog-osphere.
You want to respond to people who talk about you to establish conversation and build relationship.
As said earlier, you may have your own choice of tools.
That is fine, but pick your own choices and use them.
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