Ron Passfield – Page 15 – Small Business Odyssey

November 8, 2011November 8, 2011

Advanced Podcasting with Audacity

I use Audacity for recording many of my podcasts – it’s free, easy to use and you can add music to your podcast. You simply save your podcast as an MP3 and then you can upload it to your website, blog, Squidoo lens or other social media site. Here’s the link for downloading Audacity:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is used by music professionals for mixing and re-mixing music – it has a sophisticated range of options. However, you can use it for basic audio recording. A similar analogy is your own computer which often has lots of bells and whistles that you don’t ever use.

The above image is a screen shot of an audio capture with Audacity. You can see the simple buttons for rewind, forward, record, pause, stop and fast forward (just like any video player/recorder).

To edit, you just highlight the piece you want to delete (for example, a cough or a silence) and it is removed from the recording.

Audacity comes with full tutorial support to show you how to do any task related to recording and editing your podcast (so there is no excuse!!):

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/

The secret as in a lot of social media marketing is to start slowly and then expand your learning edge. Try out some short recordings first and have a go at editing. Once you are comfortable with that you can extend the recordings and/or add music.

Adding music to your Audacity podcast

You can add music to the beginning and/or end of your podcast if you want. Alternatively, you can play music in the background of your podcast.

One source of music loops that I use and recommend highly is Ginny Culp productions. Ginny also provides free access to her Instant Audio Player through the following URL:Preview

Instant Audio Player

Here’s a sample of an early podcast I produced. Here I have used Ginny Culp’s free audio player to display and play the podcast.
Instant Audio Player

In a recent post, I highlighted the value of podcasts in providing you with another channel for communicating to customers, building your relationships and marketing your small business. Audacity makes this easy by providing you with a tool to create a professional podcast at no cost.

November 5, 2011November 8, 2011

Audioboo: An Easy Introduction to Podcasting for Small Businesses

Audioboo is a very easy, free podcasting platform that lets you create up to 5 minute podcasts either online or via mobile phone. It creates the podcast, provides the MP3 player online and supports distribution.

Audioboo has a Google Page Rank of 7/10 and is ranked by Alexa in the top 30,000 sites in the world (in terms of traffic). The dominant audience demographic is women between the ages of 35 and 54 who have postgraduate education. The over 65 age group is poorly represented in the Audiboo’s audience.

Audioboo – online recording

Let’s check out the online version first. The process is very simple. Once you register you can record an audio online or upload an existing audio – Audiboo takes most formats. You can tag (keyword) your podcast to assist the search engines to find your audio. Audioboo will also give the location (city) of your recording (if you agree to this).

Better still, you can tell Audioboo in advance what sites should receive your podcasts automatically after each recording/upload – Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Tumblr and/or FriendFeed. Visitors to your site can also promote your podcast via Twitter or Facebook. Both you and your visitors can embed the podcast on a blog or website.

Audioboo is a great place to start if you are new to podcasting. You can start small (maximum 5 minutes) and have the system produce your audio for easy play and distribution.

One way to start if you are nervous about speaking is to read something as a recording (e.g. an article, blog post, short chapter of an ebook). Get used to the sound of your voice first even though reading may make you sound a little stilted. Then you can progress to having a few notes or headings to talk to. You can always start again and re-record – practice makes perfect.

You might even discover that you love this form of content creation and that others love your voice. Just be yourself and genuine – it’s all part of the transparency of social media marketing. Remember too that audio/podcasting is a very forgiving medium – people will overlook the odd stutter or break or “um” because they themselves have not been willing to give it a go. Just do it – you will be so glad you did.

Using Audioboo with your iPhone

The Audioboo application for the iPhone is free and is a superb tool. You can download it through iTunes or directly through the Audioboo site.

Picture this – you are with someone you want to interview. You take a photo with your iPhone, call up the Audioboo app and start recording an interview. When finished, touch a button to add the photo, insert tags (keywords) and touch another to upload your podcast to Audioboo. If you set it up right, the audio will be automatically distributed to other sites such as Facebook.

Alternatively, you might be reading an ebook or listening to a webinar and you get an idea for a brief podcast. You could just pick up your iPhone and record something via the Audioboo app.

Here’s my Audioboo site (refer to the Widget at the start of this blog post for the feed):

http://audioboo.fm/ronpass

You will notice that I have not used Audioboo much yet as I have been using the more sophisticated program, Audacity, which enables you to (1) record a lot longer audio (some of my recordings are an hour) and (2) edit extensively (something you need for longer audio recordings).

Audioboo also has some restrictions on commercial use and may charge a fee if you are overly commercial in your use of the site and its services. As with social networking sites, overt marketing is frowned upon.

However, Audioboo has recently introduced an upgrade service, Audioboo Plus, which includes the following features:

30 minutes recording time
enhanced iTunes settings
posting to Facebook fan pages

Audioboo is a great place to start podcasting for small business owners. You can practice and build up confidence with short podcasts and then upgrade to the new Audioboo advanced service.

Thumbnail Photo Credit: Audioboo Podcasting – by pixelsebi

November 5, 2011November 8, 2011

Podcast to Promote Your Small Business and Build Your Profile

A podcast provides another channel, your voice, to extend your message and your reach. Through podcasts, you can increase exposure to your small business and build your personal profile and business brand. They are increasingly an essential element in small business marketing.

What is Podcasting?

The term “Podcast” originated in 2004 by combining two ideas, “iPod” (audio/video player) and “broadcast” (wide transmission of information). The original concept was that you would create a series of audios/videos (episodes) and broadcast them via the iPod.

Now the term podcast has come to mean, in common language, an audio file (usually MP3) that is made available via the web, iTunes, the iPod or any MP3 player. It can be a single audio or series (such as a training course or a regular radio broadcast such as Blog Talk Radio).

Podcasts have a four-fold appeal:

personalizes information exchange by adding the sound of your voice
enables people who prefer auditory learning to connect with you
provides flexibility and mobility for your message/information (the ubiquitous iPod or MP3 player, including smart mobile phones)
generates great search engine rankings.

A podcast builds trust and relationships because it is personal – people hear your voice which can convey a lot more than the written word. If you set up a series of podcasts, you will strengthen these relationships over time. Melanie Kissell makes the point:

Use a powerful free marketing tool that’s at your disposal twenty-four hours a day – Your Voice! …Having the opportunity to hear your voice makes a REMARKABLE difference in the minds and hearts of your target audience!

Podcasts are popular because they are easy to create and easy to listen to (online or offline via mp3 players). All you need is some free software and a headset with an inbuilt microphone (usually under $30).

Well, if the discussion so far is not enough to motivate you to have a go or do more podcasting than you are currently doing, just keep in mind that there are currently 5 Million searches per month for ‘podcast’ on Google (as well as 3.3 Million for “podcasting”). The recent focus of Google has been very much “universal search” – Google likes to have multi-media results on page 1 for any search term (blog, video, podcast, image, Squidoo lens). So podcasts can improve the ranking of your website or blog.

In the final analysis. a podcast will bring extra traffic to your blog and increase your conversions.

November 2, 2011November 8, 2011

Social Media for Small Business Marketing

You have to search really hard to find someone who relates social media to small business marketing and does so in an easy-to-understand way. However, Social Media Today has achieved this sharing by assembling a panel of experts who can guide you through the social media maze.

The YouTube video presented above gives great insights into how to use social media to advance the marketing of your small business. They effectively cover Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and relate these to small business marketing. The information is really well grounded and focused on “how to” information – it does not go into the technicalities of each of the social media sites.

The video covers the practicalities of social media marketing:

How to use social media to build your small business
What social media to use for small business marketing
How to avoid the risks associated with social media
How to connect with your customers (current and future) through social media
Ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Without this kind of guidnace, you can easily waste time, money and resources on social media and inhibit the success of your small business.

Core messages for small business marketing using social media

After watching the video and related Slideshare presentation, I distilled eight (8) key messages that relate to the use of social media for small business marketing:

Social media are designed to build community, not to offer a platform for direct marketing (overt marketing can result in account deletion)
Social media marketing is a form of indirect marketing (unless you use paid advertising on social media sites)
Your goals should be to build connections and relationships with current and potential customers
Unless you have a specific strategy when you visit social media sites, you will waste a lot of time for no productive outcome
The essence of social media is conversation with others and sharing – about yourself, your small business, your interests and information relevant to your niche
Effective marketing on social media requires content creation on your part – blogging, podcasts, e-books and videos
It’s important to personalise your business and your staff – profiles and videos help greatly here (you have to present as a real person, with real interests and real staff)
Profiles are critical – make sure they are relevant to your business, up-to-date and keyword rich (for SEO purposes).

Small business owners can use social media effectively if they follow some basic principles and develop a marketing strategy. The potential of social media is enormous but the realization of this potential requires focus, targeting and discipline.

November 2, 2011

7 Benefits of Focus in Small Business Marketing

Focus is a key component for small business success. When we write about focus in the context of small business, we are talking about your focus on a target market, on specific offerings for that market (products and services) and on specific marketing strategies.

Without focus, you are attempting to be all things to everybody, and that is a recipe for failure.

This article is not about how to decide your focus, that’s another issue. What I am exploring here are seven (7) benefits of focus in the hope of assisting you to build and maintain your own focus.

1. Focus builds commitment

When you decide your focus, you are immediately inspired to action. You suddenly see a way ahead and your goal is seen as achievable. The act of choice – deciding what to do and what not to do – frees up your creative capacity and enables you to move forward. The experience of progress builds commitment to your chosen course of action.

2. Focus saves time

Focus stops you from trying to be everything to everybody. Trying to fulfil everyone’s needs is both time consuming and exhausting. Focus saves you time because it enables you to let go of a lot of things and concentrate on the things that are important.

3. Focus overcomes information overload

In this era of endless information, your focus helps you to decide what to look at and what to avoid. It becomes a benchmark for deciding relevance. For example, I used to focus on affiliate marketing and I would read everything I saw about the subject (a massive area). Now that I have re-focused onto small business marketing, I can let all the affiliate marketing information pass me by.

4. Focus attracts others

When you are focused you demonstrate commitment, enthusiasm and energy – all personal qualities that attract others. Think of someone who is really focused and recall the energy they emit and how much easier it is to be attracted to them and their business In contrast, think of someone who is “all over the place” in their activity. This lack of focus makes it really hard to get on board and get energised by what they do. In fact, this kind of person can actually repel you because they tend to “suck up” your own energy because their energy is so dissipated.

5. Focus develops disciplined energy and enhances productivity

You have to have discipline to focus your energy in the first place. Then, as you grow and maintain your focus, you strengthen your discipline and you begin to develop productive habits. Your deepening focus enables you to ward off distractions, to set priorities and to choose activities that will lead more directly to your small business goals. Focus brings into play the power of concentration.

6. Focus develops expertise and Trusted Authority status

Through your focus, you are better able to increase your knowledge and understanding of your target market and their needs. You feel more committed to use your expertise and core competence to help your customers solve their real, everyday problems. Through this assistance with problem resolution you are able to build your status as a Trusted Authority – one who is not just an expert but who has demonstrated the capacity to use their expertise to help customers solve their problems. So you become the Trusted Authority in your marketplace.

7. Focus creates wealth

Focus enables you to direct your energy and creativity to identifying and meeting your customers’ needs – the foundation for real small business growth and personal wealth. As a friend of mine, Jennifer Ledbetter, often states in the context of small business marketing:

If you are willing to do for a year what others won’t, you can spend a lifetime doing what others CAN’T.

Focus brings multiple rewards. It builds your commitment and develops your Trusted Authority status. Through focusing you save time, overcome information overload and attract others. Focus helps you to develop disciplined energy, to improve your productivity and, in the final analysis, to create wealth.