Audio Sharing

For my blog on the audio sharing chapter of the Social Media Bible, I decided to review the site, PodBean.com. It’s a site that is for both podcast producers and podcast audience...for those who like to make podcasts and those who just want to listen.

It’s a site with a lot of different features and services. For example, if you’re someone enjoys listening to podcasts, this is a site that makes it very easy organize all of your subscriptions. You can even tag different podcasts and then use cross-referencing to help you organize different feeds.

One of the unique things about Podbean is that it serves as somewhat of a social media network as well actually set up a profile and then find other users who have similar interests as yours. And you can browse all of the different podcasts and select the ones you want to listen to or subscribe to.

If you produce your Podcast, it really looked pretty simple to upload your audio or video to the site. You can even choose themes to customize your site. And you can integrate your podcast into your web site or your Facebook Page or Youtube channel easily as well.

Podbean is free but you can upgrade your account and pay different levels of membership that come with more bandwidth or even unlimited bandwidth. Those upgraded accounts also help you arrange to charge for your podcast or even allow advertising on it. And the site provides some analytics...a way to chart how many hits on different episodes of your podcast. One of the features of Podbean also sets up a way to charge for a mobile App so that audiences can move podcasts to their mobile device.

Podbean is clearly a very sophisticated and useful site for those who are into the podcasting trend.


I also took a look at the BlogTalkRadio site. It’s a more complex site and certainly more expensive. If you just want to listen to the blogs, you can just register and browse. But you can also become a talk radio host. Broadcasting your own show can require a monthly fee, especially if you want to interact with live callers, have a toll-free number or stream live.

It’s an amazing world out there. We can all be radio talk show hosts with just a laptop and a microphone.

But is it worth it? In the category of “What’s In It For Me”, we need to look seriously at the return on investment. In a blog written by public relations expert Gina Dietrich (How to Use Blogs to Market Your Business, http://socialmediatoday.com/content/how-use-podcasts-market-your-business), Dietrich said her own blog traffic quadrupled after she posted video blogs. Dietrich said in 2008, more than 17-million people downloaded blogs on a monthly basis, a number that is expected to grow to more than 37-million by 2013.
People learn in different ways,” writes Dietrich. “Some people (like me) like to read. Some are visual and want to watch videos. But we all like to listen, which is why podcasts are becoming so popular. I mean, how cool is it that you can exercise, drive to work, or whatever else you want to do and learn while you listen to a podcast?”