Do You Make This Podcast Publishing Mistake?

Written by Scott Whitney

Still more reports on the continuing growth of podcasting.  Podcasting News reported on another bit of research that indicates. . .

• The audience for audio podcasts grew 38% in the last year;
• The audience for video podcasts grew 45% in the last year;
• About 30% of regular Internet users have downloaded a podcast;
• Awareness of podcasting has leveled off at about 37;
• People listen to or watch podcasts primarily on their computers (about 75%).

It’s the last bullet that interests me today. . .and it has to do with the publishing stage of the Four P’s of Podcasting®. 

When publishing your podcast, it’s important to remember that your job is to increase the probability of listenership, reduce the risk of incompatibility. In other words, while you don’t know who’s listening, it’s your job to make it easy for them to do so.

This is why all of our corporate podcast customers have an embedded flash player associated with every podcast episode.  Why?  Because we want everybody to be able to listen to our shows, even if they don’t know what a podcast is.  You see, some people don’t know how to listen to an MP3 file.  And (many) others aren’t familiar with RSS feeds.  But EVERYBODY who visits a website can click on a little triangle that says "PLAY NOW" and hear the show.

And if 75% of your listeners are visiting your website instead of subscribing to your RSS feed, you can’t afford not to make it easy.

(By the way, if only 10% of your podcast listeners are visiting your website, you STILL want to make it easy by adding a Flash player.  Remember, we want to increase the probability of listenership.  It also makes it easy to quickly preview your show.)

As part of our Podcast Audit service, this is one of the things we check.  Does your podcast include a Flash player for each episode?   If not, is it because you think it’s too complicated? 

Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment