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Podcasting 101 Live Blog

Posted in computers, entrepreneurs, events, nonprofits, social media on February 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

12 PM – We’re about to get started!

12:02 – Intros. Glad to see some familiar faces and some new folks here today.

12:05 – We’re starting. If you couldn’t make it today, take a look at the slides on his website.

12:10 – thesocialmediamonster.com – Take a look at some different podcasts he’s done on his site.

12:15 – Podcasts are basically free to produce, and you can make them available for free to cheap.

- Topics? Decisions to make – hardware to use – recording & editing basics – software options – web publishing – itunes – Podcasting is a great fit for nonprofits, cause it doesn’t cost a lot of money.

Things to Consider

- Before you get started, decide on format & type of topics you’ll cover on your subject. Will guests be in person, or on phone/in Skype. (Skype is easiest to capture the audio for the computer.)

- Frequency: be realistic! Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. What’s the optimum podcast length? 22-25 minutes, which is the average commute time in the US. (Keep in mind people are listening to podcasts while driving or working out.)

- Live, or edited?

- Podcast artwork – helps distinguish you as a pro.

12:20 – Where to submit the podcast? iTunes, Podcast Alley, etc. Put it on your site & make it easy to listen to & to subscribe to on your site.

-Are you going to be free, ad-supported? You’ll want to do it differently depending on whether you want to attract advertisers.

The Flow : Plan the Episode

-plan the episode & write it down, outlines are best

-brief idea of times per topic

-write down your name, website name, phone numbers – the pressure of being recorded will make you forget

- this is all the basics of the show notes.

Arrange your Environment

-minimize echoes & external sounds (squeaks, pets, people, phone ringers, keyboard clicks, chair squeaks, etc.)

Recording

-Talk normally. Be real. Start before you start, so you can get into the talking mode before beginning – Think about what it’s like to be on TV. If you’ve ever done a spot on a show, they will talk to you during the commercials & while they’re putting the mic on you to help you get comfortable & be yourself.

- Multiple takes are fine.

-Consider both looking at a Google Doc or a chat window when you’re on Skype to help you both communicate silently.

12:30 – BACK. IT. UP……then begin to edit.

Adjust the Audio

- After editing, back it up again. (Yes, Michael says, he is fanatical about backups.)

-Now add the bumper music, a little music between the segments

-Levelator – adjusts the audio to make it all the same volume. Find a podcast you like & use it as a “model” – did you have to turn yours up after listening to theirs? Is everyone talking at the same volume in your podcast?

-Export to an MP3 file, the defacto podcast standard because it’s easily playable on many many devices.

-Tag it (author, title, artwork, year, etc. attached to the file via tags)

Post it!

-upload to your host

-add your blog post that will trigger the RSS feed to make it show up in people’s subscriptions

-Test the feed as a subscriber yourself, to make sure it works.

Questions:

RSS feed? RSS syndicates the podcast so that it appears automatically on subscribers’ devices or feedreaders.

Hardware:

-Microphone: dynamic versus condenser. Condensers are more expensive & cut down on ambient noise.

- Can use a digital recorder or digital recording software on a phone or iPod if you can’t record onto a PC

-Skype: Make everyone wear headphones. If they don’t it will create a feedback loop because their mic will pick up their speaker sounds.

Software:

12:40 -Free options: Audacity – GarageBand (Mac standard) – Levelator

-Paid software: ID3 editor (adds your tags), ProTools, LogicExpress, Adobe Audition = the big boys that studios use. Not cheap.

Publishing:

-Make sure your webhost supports podcasts. (Check your Terms of Agreement – if you have unlimited and you have a big bump in traffic, you may still get a bill. Know this ahead of time.)

-WordPress! Free software that will let you put blog online. PowerPress by Blubrry an add-in to make your file a podcast.

Books:

-Podcasting for Dummies – Tee Morris

-Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies

-Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Audio & Video Podcasting

-These are good! CCPL carries them! Test them out before you buy them.

Website Resources:

Cliff Ravenscraft’s The Podcast Answer Man

Audacity to Podcast

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Developing a Social Media Strategy Live Blog

Posted in events, social media on August 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

11:40 – already a great crowd here!

11:50 – Intros!

The foundation of social media…have a stragegy! Have a plan!

#modernmavens is the hashtag for their presentations.

Social media: a new channel to share the message.

Foundation is relationships! Build a connection. Build trust.

Social media is the outpost from the base camp of your website.

Big businesses drive their traffic to the FB page, but not so much to get you to their website. They want to get you to buy their brand. Make a decision for your specific business.

Case in point: Toyota: has some hard brand repair to do, and their engagement on FB is a good place to do that. They’re trying to rebuild a relationship.

Demographics – more affluent, educated folks are using social media. (There’s a great book that covers this topic Get Connected by Starr Hall)

You must Set Objectives for social media presence:

SMART

specific, measureable,

Examples:

Bring in 10 new customers a week
Sell 25 more widgets every month
Increase site hits by 20%
Reach 3000 unique visitors per week
Get 1000 fans on FB fan page

Research

if you understand your goal/objective, you need to find the people most likely to connect with you
“environmental scan” – look around your environment & see who’s doing what where when & how. Ask your sales ppl to ask customers about what blogs, websites, etc. they use. Who do they follow & listen to = these are their leaders.
Strategic: “i just want to get my msg out there” <- not necessarily! What are the wants & needs that my customers have? Understand what to say to them. Vendors are often left out…connect with them. They can be staunch advocates for you.
Why are people there?

Create Buyer personas

a persona for each segment of your market/audience in Social Media
Test these personas….ask sales ppl & customers. ”Do you think this is typical of most of my customers”
Go beyond the web survey. Actually talk on the phone…human communications

You must use different languages on different networks

your words affect your message
match your lingo with the specific network
examples: hashtags go on Twitter. Personal FB = casual you talk. FB page = personable, but to people who don’t necessarily know you personally. LinkedIn = professionals
There are things that link stuff together, like PingFM or just linking stuff together. Ashley recommends you don’t do it too much. Some don’t like automation, so if your message is short & to the point enough so you don’t have to abbreviate it, it’s ok to do.
She feels everything can go on Twitter & FriendFeed. Twitter prolly shouldn’t go out to anything else save FriendFeed & Google Buzz. FB to Twitter is OK. If there’s a website involved, you can wait like an hour & do another post just to twitter direct to web page

Etiquette

Don’t misspell
NO ALL CAPS!!1!
Be polite
don’t auto DM or autofollow
Everything you put out there on the net is out there forever & you cannot get it back ever ever ever.
Thank people!

Define Tactics

listen-monitor conversations about your brand/industry/you
talk-this is done on social networks & blogs
energize! – promos, word of mouth. This is
support – forums to support something you do that’s very technical or needs detailed response.
embrace – crowdsourcing. Most advanced tactic & scariest. Let your customers control the message. That’s what Old Spice guy did a couple weeks ago. Dell’s done it: if you would change something about the Dell computer, what would it be. Example: If you’re a nonprofit, you have to figure out what to do as a fundraiser. Heck…ask your people what THEY’d like to do….and do it.

*Own your content on your website FIRST. – absolutely 100% agree with this for SEO and ownership reasons*

FB pages are 100% public & they own all that content. - there was a big gasp in the room. They can use your pics in advertising. They can use your words.

How to deal with negativity – Respond professionally & respectfully. If it’s trolling, harassing, endangering, delete it & you can report it on FB or spam on Twitter. Good ways to handle it? Look at TripAdvisor. They have a lot of properties with negative comments. They respond & do it well, apologizing & offering a remedy, even in public, or off the screen sometimes if need be. Show the diversity of opinion. You can wait a few hours to cool off if you’re going to be upset when you respond.

Fun Promotions

Power Hour by local biz Cupcake. You come in during this hour, speak the codeword & get a cupcake. Sweet!
Old Spice guy
Levi – local girl with a video
to promo on FB, you need to pay $5g to participate. Be careful…read the terms of agreement. You can have a 10th caller on FB. You can point from FB to a promo on your page. You just can’t point ppl to FB to enter (on FB).

(and it’s 12:35)

Linking FB to website

hyperlink
FB has moved to “liking” pages. You “like this” not fan it. You use Facebook Connect to link page to FB. Go to help on Facebook & search for Get API key.
Like button

Implementing your Strategy

This needs to be a team approach, not just one person’s
EX: the leader with the plan, then also Have a tech person, and a sales person, and customer service person for other points of view
Make deadlines. Make it a routine activity you do on your marketing calendar
Team tools: hootsuite and cotweet. Co tweet allows you to assign a response to a specific post to a team member. Hootsuite lets you control who has what control over mutiple networks. Hootsuite is coming out with a commercial, paid version in a month or so.
Integrate this will all your other marketing communications.
Ping.fm lets you go to one place to control multiple things

Monitor & Measure – how else do you know if you’ve acheived success?

measure
- know what you are measuring
- must fit your goals
- estab baselines before you start; monitor as you go along
  - google analytics
  - hootsuite will overlay your tweetstream with your analytics so you can see what created a response
  - link shortners that let you get the analytics – tinyurl doesn’t
  - FB interaction analytics
  - share of conversation
Monitor
- social mention
- google alerts
- nielsen blogpulse

Analyze:

review goals
what worked
what didn’t

Questions?

Should you repurpose from blog to FB, to twitter, etc?

Get things in front of people multiple times if it works for you. You have a different audience on each channel. Maybe the same content can go everywhere. Maybe you can use different content directed at different segments on different networks.