Podcasts are not what one usually thinks about when people talk about inbound marketing or social media. Yet, people are listening to audio more than ever, grabbing audio books and podcasts and listening to them in the car during their commute, or running on the treadmill.
A podcast can be as simple or elaborate as you like. On the simple end, plugging a microphone into your laptop and recording onto free audio software can be good enough. More elaborate equipment can yield better sounding results, and the most important piece of equipment to invest in would be microphone.
Any podcaster has their favorite. The microphones by Blue are popular, and the snowball model has a strong following. I personally use Shure mics, the SM58 being the standard vocal mic. (I also own the SM57 model, which is an instrument microphone.)
I also use another non-standard piece of equipment. Because I do some music recording, I record into a 16-track digital recorder. This allows me to record my voice into one channel, and any guest into another channel.
I export the recordings into a PC and edit the audio on a piece of free software called Audacity. It does a great job, and you can then export the recording in mp3 format for posting to the web.
Frequency of posting is a major decision. Some podcasters will post daily, but before you decide to do the same, make sure you know what you’re getting into. Podcasting does take time. In my opinion, it’s better to start slow, perhaps once a week. It’s better to increase your frequency than it is to decrease.
If you’re looking for a new say to reach people, podcasting might be for you.