What Is a Podcast?

Introduction to Podcasting for Business

A podcast is defined as a "Personal, On-Demand broad cast". That means a podcast is able to be played when and how the listener chooses, and can be in audio or video formats. Despite its name, a podcast does not require an Apple iPod device. Podcasts can be watched or listened to on a computer, or mobile device (such as an iPod or a smartphone); however, the owner of the podcast can also set limitations on a podcast's mobility and distributability for security purposes.

The term "podcast" is a general term used to describes any of these types of digital media:
  • Streaming or Pre-Recorded Audio
  • Live-Action Video or Presentation Video, such as a SlideCast™
  • Interactive Video, for e-Learning and training purposes

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Why Businesses Should Be Podcasting

Branding and Lead Generation: How and why businesses of all sizes should be tapping into podcasting.

Example informational SlideCast™:

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Presentation Highlights

  • Learning behavior studies show that a significant portion of the population doesn’t retain or enjoy information they receive in a text-only format. Offering content via audio or video appeals to the other senses of your audience
  • Podcasts are great for: employee training, internal communications, marketing and branding, press releases, sales materials, newsletters, and corporate blogs.
  • It's worth it to your brand image to justify the expense of a professional podcast producer.

How Companies Use Podcasts

Businesses are discovering new and innovative ways of leveraging audio on demand to address many areas, such as:
  • Marketing
  • Communications
  • Training

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For example, a podcast could be used to:
  • Provide on-demand training and development
  • Distribute new product or service information to customers
  • Educate customers and partners on domain-specific information
  • Provide financial performance and earnings data to investors

As you can see, podcasting has the ability to touch many aspects of a business.

Podcast Distribution

A podcaster can distribute, or "syndicate", a podcast in many different ways. For instance, a company may choose to keep a proprietary podcast private, or it might be appropriate to syndicate a non-proprietary podcast to a wide public audience.

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A listener can usually choose to hear a podcast (or view, in the case of a video podcast) via their web browser by simply visiting a podcaster's website and clicking on the appropriate button. However, it might be more convenient to listen to the podcast on a device other than his or her computer — in which case the listener can download the podcast file to a device, such as an iPod, and listen to it whenever and wherever they choose.

To make the process of staying current on multiple podcasts simple, there is a subscription mechanism called RSS (Really Simple Syndication), that allows listeners (subscribers) to receive podcast episodes through a central application on their computer, such as Apple's iTunes. With RSS, instead of visiting each show's host website individually, the listener simply subscribes once to a podcaster, and then each episode is downloaded automatically for them by the software application.

The Growth of Podcasting

Feedburner, one of the industry's largest trackers of podcast feeds, has grown from 85,000 podcast feeds under management in 2007 (Feedburner statistics - January, 2007) to over 240,000 feeds under management in 2008 (Feedburner statistics - September, 2008), a growth of more than 280%. Those numbers represent both consumer and business related podcasts.

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Another promising indicator of the success of podcasting is its comparison to another media technology shift that received a lot of hype in its early days: The DVD. Back in 2000, the DVD format, just 3 years old at the time, was declared the most successful product launch in consumer electronics history, outselling the VCR five to one. Using these statistics as a benchmark, in less than two years, the number of podcasts available online is tenfold that of DVD titles in nearly half the time. In fact, at the 18-month mark for DVDs, there were fewer than 3,000 DVD titles available, and an install base of under 1.5M. (Feedburner statistics - April 8, 2006).

Businesses are also beginning to see the importance of leveraging this new medium to reach their target customer segments. Brands like Volvo, Toyota, Honda, Georgia Pacific, Cisco Systems, Disney and Universal Studios are currently sponsoring podcasts.