Part 1:  What are business podcasts?

Podcasts have become one of the fastest growing media of all time. According to eMarketer.com, February 2009, almost 22 million U.S. Internet users are listening to podcasts. eMarketer.com is forecasting the number of U.S. listeners to nearly double by 2013. For those of you that are new to podcasting let me explain what podcasting is and why it has become so popular.

Podcast Basics
In general, podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. In the recent past, a “mobile” device meant owning an iPod or a laptop computer. Today, almost every “smart” mobile phone being sold is capable of downloading podcasts for future playback.   

So what does this all have to do with business?  In a word:  Everything!  Podcasting gives businesses a new and highly effective way to communicate with their target market. By using podcasts, a business can provide their target market (i.e. the listeners/viewers) the convenience to listen to or view the “show” when they want, where they want, and how they want. Let’s just look at few of the ways businesses can use podcasts.

Sponsorship – First, a business can sponsor a popular podcast, similar to a sponsored ‘old-time’ radio show. For example, this could be a pre-roll commercial (i.e. before the podcast starts), or be mentioned by the podcaster during the podcast (i.e. a testimonial), or a post-roll commercial (i.e. at the end of the podcast). These types of commercials have been the bread-and-butter of terrestrial radio since its inception and easily translate to podcasts, which is often described as “time shifted radio”.

Podfomercial^SM – Another way businesses can use podcasts is by providing content and essentially creating a podfomercial^SM (i.e. podcast infomercial). This is the format used on our weekly podcast Internet radio program, Radiospectives (www.radiospectives.com). Our methodology is a simple one. We interview some of the nation’s top business and community leaders, subject-matter experts, and people in the news who bring you into their circle of expertise and give you the inside scoop on the important topics in business today. This is win-win!  The listener gets valuable business information and insight. The interviewees get valuable exposure. For those of you that haven’t visited Radiospectives, let me invite you to do so. It will not only give you a good feel for this type of business promotion, but I also think you will find the content highly resourceful. The Radiospectives 2009 podcast schedule is currently focusing on businesses surviving and thriving in a tough economy, going green, and using Internet Web 2.0 technologies to get a leg-up on the competition.

Business can also use podcasts to document corporate events, such as a stockholders meeting or a grand opening. In fact, they can be used for any type of business communication, internally or externally.

Now that we’ve covered what podcasts are, their amazing popularity, and some of the ways businesses can use them, let’s address the real question. Will a business get a return on investment using podcasts?   I’ll address this question in our next post, Part 2:  How can businesses monetize podcasts?  Stay tuned!