subject: Advantages Of Podcasting [print this page] A podcast is digital file or files that are distributed over internet using syndication feeds for playback on media players or computers. The term podcast is derived from words "iPod" and "broadcast". Even though the podcaster's website allows you to download file or steaming of their content, podcast are distributed for other digital media formats through its ability to be syndicated using a feed reader such as RSS or Atom.
In addition to these, podcasting offers many other advantages. They are:
Targeted: the first advantage of podcasting is that the distribution is targeted. The people who wish to listen your podcast must subscribe to your list. People subscribing to your list meaning already have interest in your products and services that you have to offer to them. Having marketed to such target list will give you better results.
More time compared to other advertising modes. Advertising on television or radio allows you for only few seconds each whereas podcasts allows you to advertise as long as you choose, but the common phenomenon is that many people will choose to listen for one to three minutes. Taking your products and services ads for one to three minutes helps you in getting more time to market your message across.
People who like your podcast and have subscribed to your podcast will be waiting to hear from you again. Developing a podcasts that gives enjoyment to people will have greater impact on your marketing efforts.
Tracking results is other advantage of podcasts. With podcast distributed over internet allows you to track how many people listened to your podcasts and for how long people have listened to your podcasts and how many are converted into sales.
Podcasts are available with RSS feeds which allow the listener to select the format of the file they wish to downloaded when they are available.
In addition to advantages that they offer, some disadvantages that comes to you are
Podcast are also used to teach or give out useful information. Many subscribers publish those information or use as a source of learning. In order to use podcast in that way it must be checked and verified. As the podcast files are very large, checking or verifying for it's genuinely takes 30 to 45 minutes to produce 8 minutes show. In such case it consumes most of the publishers time.
It limits audience. As the podcast are distributed to subscribers, the distribution of the podcast is limited to few people.
