This is supposed to be a motivational post about podcasting, but I can’t help but find these very demotivational posters absurdly hilarious.

This month, I traveled to Europe through the UW Global Business Study Tour Program.  The night before my flight (more like 4 hours before my 7am flight), I was frantically gathering books and music playlists to keep me entertained for the 23 hour journey.  After downloading as much songs as I could, I stumbled across video podcasts on iTunes.  I found a plethora of free podcast subscriptions to news shows I already watch and others I haven’t heard of.  I ended up downloading 4 podcasts for my trip, including my latest favorite, The Rachel Maddow Show Podcast. So, what is a podcast you ask and why should you care?

podcast [pod-kahst] A digital media file (in audio or video format) that is distributed via RSS feeds or other web syndication.

The nice thing about a podcast is the ability to listen or view content when you are on the go.  Think about your daily commute.  How much time do you waste listening to annoying radio commercials?  Or chatting on your phone (I’m totally guilty of this sometimes), which is putting yourself at risk for an accident or making the dude next to you on the bus wishing he was sitting as far away from you as he could?  If you had a podcast, you could keep yourself entertained with content you will spend on the Internet or watching TV anyway.

What’s in it for me (or my business)? The value of a podcast is underestimated.  The benefits power over the cost and time it takes to set it up, and I’ve taken the time to list the important ones below.

• Low Barrier to Entry With the latest advances in technology, it is easier than ever to publish a podcast.  It is highly cost effective compared to traditional broadcasting productions and low risk.

• Marketing Supplement The portability factor of podcasts help reinforce content that is already being distributed online and offline.  It is a form of social media as a communication tool.  Due to the niche nature of the content, it helps to help begin conversations with a targeted audience.  You can reach any audience on the go, whether you are trying to create a B2B or B2C relationship.

• Cultural Shift Forms of media, including podcasts, are becoming more than just a fad.  Society and culture are shifting in the way they seek and receive information.  So many digital resources have entered the world in the past decade, and people are beginning to rely on their preferences to choose the way they gather content.  Without podcasts, you could fail to reach a significant chunk of your audience.

Data to Prove I’m Not Making This Stuff Up

• Podcasting will see significant growth by 2010, reaching 12.3 million households as portable digital audio player adoption climbs and broadband Internet reaches 62 percent of households. [Forrester Research]*
• As of 2005, more than 22 million adults own iPods or MP3 players, and 29 percent of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web to listen at their discretion. [Pew Internet and American Life Project]*
• Over 10 million people downloaded podcasts in 2006 alone, and continues to grow rapidly with nearly 60 million people by 2010. [eMarketer]**
• Over 800 million mobile phones, many with large storage space for video and audio content were sold worldwide in 2005. This was two years before the savvy iPhone entered the market. [Nielson/NetRatings/Forrester Research]*
• Employees of Fortune 500 companies rank podcasts ahead of wikis and equal to email when rating each communications channel with regards to culture change. [Edelman]*

So, what are you waiting for?

Find a Podcast Today!

iTunes
Podcast Alley
The Podcast Network

* Holtz, Shel, and Neville Hobson. How to Do Everything with Podcasting. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007. ** Geoghegan, Michael W. and Cangialosi, Greg. The Business Podcasting Book. Burlington: Focal Press, 2008.