In the past couple of posts I’ve been talking about RSS feeds, what they are and how they can be helpful to the work at home mom’s business.

Well, being the social media and podcasting junkie that I am, I just have to transition from RSS to the subject of podcasting.

I can’t help but to reveal some level of excitement when I talk about podcasting. Just 2 years ago I thought it was the best invention since sliced bread. No, really…for any internet based business, I truly believe in garnering that one-on-one personal relationship with your web reader.

When you engage your readers, you do so much more than sell products or services. You CONNECT with another human being. Your message carries more weight, and crosses all barriers and time zones, and reflects a 3 dimensional REAL human being they are communicating with when you add the dimension of voice and/or video to your website.

So, I’ll have to say, one of my main focuses in my own business is to help other business women see the importance of utilizing voice based marketing/partnering/networking for their online business.

The first step toward this process is creating a digital audio voice file for your web. It could be in the form of a welcome message, or a free audio class for example. See a sample of this here.

The next step toward podcasting is to create an RSS feed to syndicate it. This automatically creates a podcast for you. You can add to this feed as often as you wish, creating new episodes and newly updated material for syndication.

In the next couple of posts I plan to explain more about podcasting and why you may wish to begin including this in your marketing strategy. I’ll also give you a heads up on HOW you can learn to podcast.

I’m currently working on a revision of my INternet Radio Podcast Bootcamp.

In the revised course, you’ll get all the steps you need to begin podcasting in a more refined, streamlined format. You’ll find the new course much easier to digest as the process is simplified by the use of “new media”.

More about the new reveal soon…meanwhile what are your thoughts about podcasting?

If you already own a podcast for your business, drop me comment below to share how your podcast has helped your business.

If you don’t already own a podcast, drop me a comment below if you have any specific questions about podcasting and how it would affect your business. What are your thoughts about podcasting in general? How do you feel about implementing this new technique of connecting with “listeners” at your site? Are you hesitant or ready to jump on board? Why or why not?

I’d love to hear from you!

Sincerely,

Your Web Media Success Coach, Podcast Consultant, & Internet Marketing Strategist

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So a few people have asked me about blogging since my last post.

I’m a little unorthodox when it comes to the blogosphere, as well as podcasting. The way I see it is: blogging (as well as podcasting) can be done daily or on occasion and is all about getting your message across, or simply venting for the sake of it. And for you entrepreneurs, that means a whole lot!

It means you can give us details of your latest business incident, share your advice, or talk about your family (who says you can’t get personal on a business blog?)

For example, I share my personal interests and my life on my personal blog site: www.demetriazinga.com.

Then I have my business blog (this one) where I talk about everything techie and marketing related for the work at home mom… www.wahmuniversity.com/blog.

And of course, there are my podcasts which are also blogs: www.christianladiestalkradio.com and www.christianladiesbusinessaradio.com.

And now– this blog is officially a podcast as well!!! (WAHM University Podcast!!)
Now as for money –I definitely don’t see blogging as a major source of income for most of us entrepreneurs, but you can absolutely make a few bucks by selling ad space or by using Google Adsense.

So why would a business person want to blog?

Since I’m more of a podcasting techie, I can give you the reasons podcasting is definitely the way to go for my business!

1.) First of all, I’m able to showcase my expertise by podcasting and blogging.

2.) As my site grows with information about product or service with each post, Google is busy catching my growing site with its little “spider”, making my site more visible all the time

3.) It’s a cheaper and more functional way of designing and updating a website (rather than hiring out a web design company)

4.) It’s transferable - you can back up your files and shift them around from server to server, especially servers which use cPanel and Wordpress

5.) It’s part of the growing trend of Web 2.0. Static sites are slowly becoming obsolete as this new media rich, social networking, social bookmarking, always connecting society is changing the way we do things.

If you want your business to be on the scene of new trends, keeping up with them is not hard. Your business will only benefit from being in the trenches of new networking trends…

Listen in on today’s podcast, then leave your comments below:

Do you think every online business should consider using a blog?

- Your Web Media Success Coach, Podcast Consultant, & Internet Marketing Strategist

Contact Demetria

 

 Why Should A Business Woman Blog?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Over at Marie Ynami’s Mommy Community, she’s hosting a Toot Your Own Horn Tuesday “or Tuesday Toot”

Sometimes in business we have to relax a bit and just enjoy each other and our accomplishments.

So my accomplishments this week so far…

I finally got in touch with Alyssa Avant and she has graciously agreed to become our new Teen Coach for Christian Ladies Talk Radio. Yeah!

I’m also nearly finished with PinkPods.net, my new site that showcases my podcast production services. This has been in the making for about a year, and I’m so glad to have finally set aside time for this.

And most of all, I’m so happy for the new addition to my family this year, Zoe Saraiah Faith. She’s now 2 months old and quickly growing.

- Your Web Media Success Coach, Podcast Consultant, & Internet Marketing Strategist

Contact Demetria 

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Thirdly, you will need sound editing software. Again, there are a variety of options out there including subscription programs such as Audio Acrobat (which runs about $20 a month), or Hipcast (which runs about $4.95 a month), and Adobe Audition (which is what I use. Actually I use an older version of it called Cool Edit Pro), but this can run you about $300. So each of these options (and believe me, there are SO many more options out there), but each of these cost something. But there is one open source software download available that is absolutely free called Audacity, and it’s the software that I teach from in my coaching sessions. My clients who have used Audacity found it fairly simple to navigate and use after one or two hours of coaching with me and are now able to create their podcasts effectively without my help, which tells me that Audacity is not too difficult to learn. Again, it’s free, and it’s easy to learn, and that’s why I use it in my lesson plans.

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Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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Secondly, you will need a PC microphone. I always suggest the Logitech headset which retails at Walmart, Target, or Sam’s Club for under $20. This is a headset which has both the earphones and microphone piece attached as one unit. This will reduce your expenses of having to go out and purchase high end microphones and headsets which can cost you a couple of hundred dollars. However, if studio quality is what you’re looking for, you may want to check out some of the better equipment such as condenser mics, mixers, and audio input devices found at music stores. But for the purposes of my coaching sessions and because I help small businesses on a budget, I recommend purchasing a headset mic for under $20.

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Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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There are different tools and services available today that I just couldn’t cover in one session with you. With all the many options out there, I’ve decided to settle on tools that are either relatively inexpensive or free, and this is what I require when I coach my clients on producing their own podcasts.

So the first equipment needed is a computer. And I would recommend that you have at leas 256 MB or ram, but your optimal would be 512 MB just b/c there is more random access memory available which allows you to have more programs open at one time and is just more convenient as far as speed as well. However, I’ve produced podcasts on computers with less than 256 mb of ram, and it worked out ok, although I’m not recommending it, but you just do what you have to do and use what you have available to you. More than likely if you purchased your computer in the past 3 or 4 years, you should be okay–just double check the amount of ram you have, and you can kind of tell if your computer is generally slow and gets locked up quite a bit whether or not you need to add more RAM. Adding more RAM is a matter of getting to Circuit City or some eletronics store and having someone there help you locate the type or RAM you need for your PCâ, but I wouldn’t worry about that too much if you’re computer is not too old. Just try recording a few times and you’ll get the picture very quickly about whether or not you need to update your computer system.

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Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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Now for those of you who are business owners and want to begin a podcast for your business, you have many positive outcomes as a result of podcasting as well.

We know, based on observation that there are many people in the world of business who have decided that producing a podcast proves instrumental in their marketing efforts. Again, taking a look at two of the most popular podcasting directories out there: podcastalley.com and podcasting.net, you’l find that there are over 1,000 documented and listed podcasts about business on the web. So, this should give you an idea of how popular podcasting is even in the business world. The subjects range from marketing to management to business start up to investing to networking, and on and on. There are work at home moms, women business owners, black business owners, CEO’s of large corporations, Fortune 500 companies, teenage business owners, leaders of educational institutions, and so forth–all of these different types of people with different backgrounds and different interests, but all in the world of business who have begun podcasts to help them spread their business message and share with the world who they are and what they have to offer.

And need I say more about how this could potentially increase sales!

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Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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I’ll share my passion with you:

I know that I love to teach and train, and when I was a little girl (and I’m talking way before kindergarten) I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. However, even after gaining a bachelors in Child Development and working with young children in that capacity, and even after being offered a part time position as a technology substitute teacher for elementary and high school at a lucrative private school, I still hadn’t found my niche.

When I found out about podcasting, I began to tinker around with the technology side of it until I learned it and then I caught the bug and wanted to teach others about it. When I learned to design websites out of necessity for a crafts business I had begun a few years back, I caught the bug and wanted to teach others how to design websites, and wanted to provide web design services. When I found out about the process of internet marketing, what do you think happened? I caught the bug, and wanted to teach others. Additionally, as I grew in my faith, I wanted to pull others up with me in my spiritual journey, and so I caught the bug and started reaching out to help and, again, teach others faith-related matters.

So, I ultimately became an email coach and teacher, answering questions, tutoring, assisting, creating etraining programs and video tutorials,and then I realized where my strength lies and where my passion is,and it’s ultimately teaching and coaching. And that was how I began each of my podcasts. They all came out of my passions and desires to fulfill a need that I have and that others have. It came out of my purpose and the podcasts help to fulfill my destiny.

So, this is what I mean by spirituality and business technologies connecting together to form a unit. I started podcasting because of my desire to share with the world what was inside of my heart…just bursting to get out!

Internet Marketing Strategist & Web Media Success Coach

Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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Let’s talk about podcasting (or “godcasting”) for a moment.

The great thing about this mode of audio content delivery is that your listeners are subscribed, so they obviously WANT what you have to offer. They are interested in your audios because they enjoy listening to you.

I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting this can be for your business or ministry.

Let’s start with the ministry aspect of things:

Let’s say you are a teacher or pastor within your church and the church often times records messages and distributes them via CD ROM or tape. One way of getting the word out about your church is to pass out these CD’s and tapes and invite a friend to come to church with you. People who have never been to your church before listen to the CD of your pastor’s sermon and appreciate what they hear. They want to hear more. So they come visit your church one Sunday to meet your pastor in person.

Okay, now let’s take this same scenario and apply this to podcasting.

So instead of viewing CD and tape distribution as the ONLY option for delivering sermons, you now have another mechanism by which you can reach a larger audience. And the thing to remember is, you are absolutely taking the message of your church or ministry GLOBAL when you podcast. This is international marketing. Your podcast will be available online for the whole world to view, subscribe to, and download.

If a pastor decides to allow a member of his church staff to help him podcast his messages, the church sermons are now reaching a wider audience and are world wide. Your church could ultimately be reaching people who are planning to relocate to your area, found your podcast and decide to join your church simply because they had been subscribed to your podcast.

Now, this is only an example of what COULD potentially happen as a result of one being a subscriber.

There are plenty of other positive outcomes that could take place, such as your church begins to receive donations from podcast listeners who appreciate the encouragement they receive, your church is able to reach a massive amount of people with the Gospel and also touches many more lives as a result of podcasting.

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Work At Home Moms Start a Home Based Business

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Before I begin this post about podcasting, I thought I’d invite you to subscribe to my podcast on podcasting!

The RSS feed url is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/PublishAPodcast

Subscribe in Itunes or your favorite podcast catching software.

Now…WHAT IS PODCASTING??

Podcasting is a buzz word circulating the web, which is becoming increasingly popular by the minute. Many people are listening to podcasts on a daily basis, and some even go so far as to create their own podcasts for others to listen to.

Podcasts are similar to internet radio shows. A podcast is audio content delivered to portable media players such as Ipods, that can be downloaded automatically at a listener’s convenience.

Before podcasting, blogging had become a popular phenomenon. Blogging delivered textual content to RSS aggregators and news readers on portable devices such as Palm Pilots, at a viewer’s convenience. Soon afterward, the syndication of audio was introduced via the same medium. Adam Curry, who is the former MTV media entrepreneur, created an Apple application script to automate the downloading and syncing of audio files to the Ipod.

Podcasting is based on a backbone of code called RSS, or real simple syndication. Think of RSS as a newsfeed.   RSS is a standardardized way of publishing information on the web and uses XML format. The way RSS works for audio content is that it contains enclosures, which are essentially URL references to web content. When an audio clip is uploaded to one’s server on the world wide web, and this URL is indicated in the RSS code associated for that podcast, the audio clip can now be synced automatically as part of the information which is downloaded to a listener’s portable device or podcast aggregator.

According to PodcastingNews.com, the podcasting process works in 4 easy steps:

1.) Publishers create content and post it to a web server in mp3 format

2.) A publisher will then create and publish the RSS file, which will contain meta information on the audio file such as the name and description, and will also contain the URL enclosure of the audio file location on the web

3.) An end user will then check for new updates on the newsfeed, either manually, or will have their podcast aggregator such as Itunes automatically check for the updates on a schedule. The updates can then be synced to an mp3 player or portable device.

4.) Users can now listen to the podcast at their own convenience.

The technical aspects of podcasting vary, as the number of equipment, mechanisms and tools available for podcasting are numerous. Once a podcast is created, however, it gives back one more piece of creativity to the world of online media, gives online users an opportunity to listen to brand new rich content, and provides the publisher with an undeniable sense of pride and accomplishment for sharing his or her interests with the world!

–Demetria

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