Contents
What is Podcasting?
How to Listen to Podcasts
How to Build a Podcasting Studio
How to Plan a Podcast
How to Record a Podcast
How to Edit Your Podcast
How to Publish Your Podcast
How to Promote Your Podcast
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How to Publish Your Podcast
Once you have a completed mp3 file, you’re ready to publish your podcast to the internet. Publishing a podcast involves four basic steps:
- Host your podcast: Your podcast episodes must be stored on a remote server in order for listeners to subscribe to and download it.
- Start a blog for your podcast: Like podcasts, blogs use RSS technology. For that reason, blogs are the best way to provide a feed for your podcast audio files. Because they allow readers to comment on each posting, blogs also allow you to interact with and get feedback from your audience about your show.
- Establish an RSS feed for your podcast: An RSS feed is a text document that allows RSS readers to recognize each of your podcast episodes. Without an RSS feed, people won’t be able to subscribe to your podcasts. Instead, they’ll have to visit your blog to check for new shows and download them manually.
- Post episodes: Once your RSS feed is established, you can post new episodes for your podcast. Each new episode will automatically download to your subscribers.
How to Publish Your Podcast
There are a variety of ways to move through the five steps of publishing your podcast.
Experienced and tech-savvy podcasters may prefer to do all the work of publishing a podcast manually (writing their own RSS code, for instance). But it’s far easier and less time-consuming to start podcasting by using a podcast hosting company.
How to Publish a Podcast Using Liberated Syndication®
The easiest way to start podcasting is by using a podcast hosting company called Liberated Syndication (www.libsyn.com). For a fee, this company handles nearly every aspect of publishing podcasts for you, including:
- Hosting your podcast files
- Making it easy to upload your files to the Liberated Syndication servers
- Setting you up with an easy-to-manage customizable blog
- Creating an RSS feed for you that updates each time you upload a new podcast
To get started using Liberated Syndication, all you have to do is create an account and upload your podcast episodes whenever they’re ready. Liberated Syndication’s fee ranges from $5–30, depending on the storage space you need. For instance, if you record daily, hour-long podcasts, you’ll probably need to get the $30 package, whereas if you record weekly, 20-minute podcasts, the $5 package will probably suffice. Liberated Syndication does not charge for bandwidth, so even if your podcast gets popular and you have lots of downloads, you won’t have to pay more.
How to Publish a Podcast for Free
If you want to publish podcasts without paying anything, you can. However, the process is a little more complicated than using Liberated Syndication:
- Upload your podcasts to OurMedia (www.ourmedia.org), a website that offers free hosting for media files. You’ll have to register in order to upload them.
- Establish a blog (or use a blog you already have) with Blogger®, a free blogging service. Blogger will create a blog for you at the URL: http://your-blog-name.blogspot.com. You can host a blog on your own website, but you’ll have to use a blogging service such as WordPress® or TypePad®. (For more info on these services and blogging in general, see the Quamut guide to Blogging , available in Barnes & Noble bookstores and online at www.quamut.com.)
- Blogger currently uses an RSS feed that does not support audio, but you can solve that problem by using a free service from Feedburner (www.feedburner.com). When you sign up with Feedburner, you type in the URL of your blog, and Feedburner’s SmartCast™ software then converts your RSS feed into one that supports audio. In addition, Feedburner provides you with free tools that allow you to analyze your podcast statistics, such as how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed. For a fee, you can upgrade to more sophisticated analysis tools.
Exactly how you integrate Feedburner with your RSS feed depends in part on the type of blogging service you use. If you’d like to use Feedburner, your best bet is to read the tutorials on its website that explain how it works with each blogging service.
Posting Episodes of Your Podcast
Once your blog and RSS feed are up and running, all you need to do to publish a podcast is upload the file to your hosting service and add a post to your blog that includes:
- The title and episode number of the podcast
- A description of the podcast (called show notes, explained below)
- A link directly to the MP3 file that contains the podcast
If you use Liberated Syndication, each time you upload a new podcast episode, you’ll fill out some forms that will automatically produce a blog entry with these features. If you’re using Blogger or other blogging software, you’ll have to include these features manually in each post. The link to your podcast will point to the URL where the podcast is being hosted.
Show Notes
Show notes—a detailed outline of your show that can even include links to all the URLs a podcaster may mention during a podcast—are generally appreciated by listeners. Writing show notes isn’t mandatory, however, and many successful podcasters provide only a few sentences or a paragraph in their show notes.
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