Why You Need A Podcast Host For Your Media

I totally got you. You’ve got your business running and have decided to add podcasting to your plan to take over the world. You know how important it is to be ubiquitous, and heck this podcasting thing can only help you along your way.

And of course, you are so crazy smart that you recognize how powerful podcasting is.

The thing is, why in the world would you need to have a podcast host if you already have your own killer website and you have your own storage?

Basically for three very big and important reasons.

1. Having your site shut down for possible violation of their Terms of Service
2. Avoiding large fees from your provider.
3. Delivering your content efficiently and fast.

Media files are big!

I’m sure that you own some sort of smartphone, iOS device or computer. You think you have plenty of room/storage/memory right? But before you know it, all those gigabytes of storage slowly disappear forcing you to delete or move your movies, audio and pictures from one device to the next.

Your website host does give you storage as part of your plan, in fact a lot of website hosting sites offer “unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.” But alas that doesn’t mean that storing your podcast files on you website host is by any means your best choice.

Most podcasts are either audio or video, and depending on the length of your podcast, your publishing frequency and how your media is encoded, you could very easily be looking at a substantial amount of files to have to take care of.

Your website host is prepared to host a lot of graphic type files, tons of text files, pictures, and a few audio and video clips. When you decide to podcast, you will be producing audio and/or video content regularly for a sustained period of time (or one would hope that’s what happens!).

Website hosts are not looking to be a large depository, in fact a key violation to HostGator’s TOS is using your account as offsite back-up aka uploading all your pictures, music and videos up to your site just because you can.

Host your podcast on your web-host and be prepared for unexpected #fail

Part of podcasting is that you deliver or serve up your media files via RSS feed. What this means is that when someone subscribes to your podcast, as they would subscribe to your blog, they would receive your podcast (your audio or video files) automatically to them into their media consumption device of choice, just like getting your latest blog post via any RSS reader ie. Google Reader.

Every time your audio/video file is delivered it has to be sent from your website host. In other words, every time someone downloads your podcast episode file data is being transferred from your web-host to them.

This data transferred is often referred to as bandwidth.

Podcasting has the potential to grow exponentially. There is a possibility that your media files could be downloaded thousands of times a day.

All that data transfer coming from your account would make your website host very unhappy, so unhappy perhaps that they might just shut down your account.

Nice.

All that data transfer can be very expensive

What if they don’t shut you down?

You might get hit with some pretty large bills, charging you for that data transfer.

I know when I went to visit my home country El Salvador right after I had just gotten my first old school smartphone, I had no idea about data transfer. I found out about it pretty darn fast when I soon received a $550+ bill.

Not cool.

Yes, there are some web-hosts that market unlimited bandwidth, but there are a ton that do not offer that option at all. Be prepared to have to fork out some serious cashola to continue podcasting.

Slow delivery of your media can kill your podcast

What if your web-host does stand by their unlimited bandwidth?

What you save in money, you will loose in subscribers.

More likely than not, you will have your data transfer throttled.

When a server using bandwidth throttling reaches the specified limit, it will offload new requests and not respond to them. Sometimes they may be added to a queue to be processed once the bandwidth use reaches an acceptable level, but at peak times the request rate can even exceed the capacities of such queues and requests have to be thrown away.- Wikipedia

It’s like this: have you ever been trying to stream and audio or video file on your computer and it was taking forever to load and you just simply gave up. It just wasn’t worth your time?

Having your data throttled is just like that. It’s as if anyone that subscribes to your podcast or decides to stream your content will have a heck of a time actually receiving your content, if they get it at all. Most folks would unsubscribe or give up trying to access your content.

Get it? You need a podcast host!

A podcast host aka a media company that specialized in hosting your podcast will help you avoid all kinds of unexpected issues that could potentially cost you tons of money and time. They are well equipped to provide you with the amount of storage that you need as well as to deliver your content in a fast and reliable way.

Bonus: some of the top podcast hosts out there provide killer analytics, so you can see how many downloads your are getting as well as from what parts of the world! Very cool.

Just do it right the first time.

Yes, there are some free podcasting solutions, but I say you can fork out a few extra dollars a month and invest in your world domination. Plans for most podcast hosts are very reasonable, and some plans are as low as you would pay for a fancy coffee drink.

So who’s the best podcast host?

Well, you’re just gonna have to come on back and visit as I’ll be breaking down the exact criteria that you need to make the best choice for you.

Please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments about any of this podcast host thing, or if you have something to add! Always happy to hear from you :)

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Image credit via CC <--- Deliveries by Tal Bright

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App Love: Due App Supports My Mushy Brain To Remember

I use this app every day.

Being a mother of 2 young girls very close in age and the lack of sleep that it has caused has made my memory into absolute mush.

I often have things that I need to do that are totally mundane…like remembering to brush my 3 year olds teeth (yes, it’s that bad) that I need to be reminded of daily.

This task does not merit me adding some kind of calendar reminder/task AND the Reminders app for iOS is too slow to input the info. I need fast input.

The more info I have to input the less apt I am to use it.

With the Due App it’s a total breeze.

Totally Easy Reminders

I quickly add reminders with time and date like:

1. Remembering to take a document with me before I leave the house.
2. Making sure that I return a very important phone call within 15 min once they’ve left a message.
3. Put chargers in the bag.
4. Meeting in 5 minutes

I also love the repeating feature that is again, really easily added to add things like:

1. Trash day! Take out the trash! (weekly)
2. Utilities bills need to be paid TODAY. (monthly)

This repeating feature is also great if you happen to have gotten some sort of prescription to take. I used this when I got my wisdom tooth taken out, and it kept me clean and pain free pretty darn easily.

Timers!

I don’t use Timers as much as the reminders but I love the functionality.

There are three main ways that I use them:

1. In the kitchen: you know the usual, setting the timer for rice, or for cookies :)
2. With my clients: I set a timer to make sure that I stay on schedule depending on what kind of consulting session they have purchased with me.
3. When I practice yoga: I often like to do a timings practice, where I hold poses for 1-3 minutes and love the functionality of making sure that I’m staying on task!

I love Due App! It's my little anti-mushy brain helper from Elsie Escobar on Vimeo.

Sharing

One of the coolest features of Due is that you can sync your reminders via Dropbox and in doing so to all of your iOS devices.

This is great because if you happen to be working on your iPad you’ll still be reminded. i love that functionality especially in the rare and sad time that I’m away from my iPhone ;)

Although I did end up turning that feature off because you do have to make that the app opens up to sync up, and there were too many times when my 3 year old was playing with the iPad and getting frustrated at the constant reminder prompts :)

You also have the option of:

• Emailing a reminder
• Messaging a reminder
• Tweeting a reminder

I can find reasons for all of the above…except for the tweeting feature. I’m not sure how to apply that as of yet. What do you guys think?

I’d love some ideas for why I would want to tweet out my reminders!

If the recipient happens to also have the Due App, then when they open the email or message it, and they click on the link, the app launches automatically and they have the option to add that reminder.

NEATO!

There is also a Mac Desktop version, which I do not own. I might consider giving it a go, just for the syncing functionality. It looks pretty cool.

LOVE this little app. $4.99 well spent.

Do you use this app? Let me know how you use it!

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Should Your Business Get a Smartphone App?

I originally wrote this post for the fabulous Anastasia Valentine a while ago. I gave it a little bit of an update! I love me some App talk! 

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With the immense growth of the general population’s acceptance of smartphones, and a drastic increase of usage of smartphone apps even beyond internet and web browsing in the past 12 months, as an entrepreneur one would think having a smartphone app is a must.

The increasing popularity of iOS devices and Android devices necessitates action on the part of businesses to see how and if stepping into this new ecosystem is beneficial to the profitability and scalability of the business.

Every week there are articles published on smartphones, apps, and statistics of usage. From an outsider perspective, especially from the entrepreneur perspective it may feel like you have to jump right in and get a piece of the pie.

Before you do, consider the points below.

Why does your business want an app?

I’m going to assume that those reading this are not entrepreneurs or businesses that will be build solely on developing smartphone apps. That sort of business merits a completely different blog post. This post is for those that would like to supplement their existing business with an app offering.

As of this writing, there are currently over 650,000 apps in the iTunes app store and over 500,000 in the Android Marketplace. If you are planning on simply creating an app for your business and expecting easy discoverability and success you have another thing coming. Apps like anything else in your business require focused and clear development based on why: why does your business need or want an app?

• Do you want to generate passive income?
• Will this app be another way to market your existing business?
• Will this app offer a service that specifically addresses a pain point to your customers?
• Do you plan on selling your products directly from your app?
• Will the app offer supplementary or complementary material to your already existing content or programs?

The more you refine the questions regarding the why behind your app development, the clearer your path to success within the app smartphone-sphere.

Embrace The Boundaries

After getting clear as to why you want an app for your business, your first step in the process of developing your app is to find out if what you are choosing to do with your app is compatible with the terms of service of the various app stores.

What will be your users main interaction with your app?

• Is it content consumption? Where is the content coming from?
• Is it purchasing products?
• Is it managing accounts or systems?
• Is it simple static information ie: a business card app?

Here are the App Store Review Guidelines for iOS apps and Android Application Fundamentals so that you can search them to see if you are violating any existing TOS based on your idea BEFORE you spend precious time and resources in development.

This is something that you can do alone or you can consult with a developer. In this way you can iterate your idea according to the existing boundaries.

Consider Algorithms and Discoverability

Every app store has their own algorithm for showcasing and featuring apps. In the beginning it seemed that all algorithms were based purely on the amount of downloads for each app, but as time has gone on there have been some mysterious changes to what truly drives an app to be featured.

• iTunes App Store algorithm changes- If you want to be featured within the app store, it seems that in addition to download numbers and positive ratings, usage had become pretty important. The more app owners interact with the apps the more the apps will rise up the ranks. This means that apps that people use a lot, such as the Facebook app, will be featured more than those that are beautifully designed but only used occasionally, such as a Resume app or a Christmas Shopping List app that you may only use once in a while.

• Android marketplace algorithm- There really isn’t much consensus regarding the Android Marketplace and being featured. These are factors that have been mentioned in terms of being seen: positive ratings, having a major publisher, being a new app, installation and usage. Android also has a team of editors and category managers that are always on the lookout for apps with some serious potential. What that potential could be...not quite sure.

You can see from the above that there is a lot of mystery to being featured as well as inconsistencies. Although a spotlight in the app stores would absolutely drive downloads and discoverability, to count on that as your sole means of discovery or promotion would be less than optimal.

For some businesses pushing for a feature in the app store may be counterproductive, especially, if the app’s purpose isn’t about making money off the app. If you have a highly targeted audience and you know your consumer/client inside and out, the approach to market your app aligns with your existing marketing strategy, so your level of success goes back to the very first question I asked at the beginning of the post: to app or not to app for your business.

If you spent the time figuring out what best works for you, your business as well as serving your customers the best, algorithms in the app stores will be important, but they won’t impede your level of success.

Free or Paid

Statistics at this moment show that iOS device users downloaded about 83 apps each in 2011 and are paying higher prices. At the same time Flurry has found that Freemium beats Premium in revenue earned, and consumers spend an average of $14 per transaction in iOS and Android fremium games.

Although this data is important to keep in mind, you as an entrepreneur must look again at the why behind your app. If you are creating an app that will solve an important pain point for your customer in an elegant and beautifully designed manner, then premium pricing will be the best choice.

If your app is all about enhancing your reach and strengthening your brand then perhaps offering a free app with the potential for paid upgrades will serve your business best. This is also a great opportunity for feedback and perhaps renewed ideas of refining your app offering.

A Bright Future For Apps and Your Business

As entrepreneurs being involved in some way in the smartphone-sphere is very important. This level of engagement with your customers and potential customers will only be more crucial in the future.

If you are not ready to step into developing and app for your business at the very least choose to stay informed regarding the goings on in that marketplace. One of the best places to start is to subscribe to the Flurry Blog, they do a great job at offering data, and providing insight regarding the mobile population.

Have you already started developing a smartphone app?

Do you have an app for your business? In what ways has it empowered your business?

Are there any app questions or concerns that you’d like to address?

Please share in the comments! Would love to hear from you!

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Thoughts On Podcast Marketing and Cross-posting to Wordpress via libsyn

Me? Market My Podcasts?

I think we as podcasters have been pretty darn lazy.

I venture to say that us podcasters that have been doing this for longer than 5 years are the laziest of the bunch, due to two things:

1. Getting stuck in the old school podcasting paradigm.
2. Easy entry and quick discovery back in the day.

When podcasting was first introduced in iTunes, there were only a handful of people that decided to do this podcasting thing.

Because the barrier of entry was so low, and there weren't very many people doing it, us early podcasters were able to get a lot of visibility via the iTunes store.

For those of us in the less than popular categories such as Health and Wellness, we got even more exposure.

I lucked out getting featured a lot during the first year of my podcast which continues to impact my iTunes visibility as well as popularity up to now.

Because of this I got lazy.

I have honestly only recently realized how lucky I've been AND what a horrible marketer of my own podcast I've been.

If iTunes wasn't around I would not have the incredible reach that my podcast has had in the past 6 years. (As of today my yoga podcast classes have been downloaded over 3 million times!)

Time to get innovative and stand by my work

I have a wealth of very good content in my podcast. I have over 100 hours of audio yoga instruction that you can download for free.

I'm sure if any of you creative and passionate entrepreneurs with marketing savvy had a hold of what I have, you'd go crazy with what you could do with it.

I'm just barely getting my feet wet!

The funny thing is that I have helped other podcasters get their marketing mojo on but am so tentative doing it myself to my own work!

That's what I call, being stuck in the old model and being lazy.

I took one of the first steps toward getting serious about getting my content out to a whole new set of listeners

I posted this on Elsie's Yoga Kula (my yoga blog) letting folks know about the new Apple Podcasts App, and I created a very cool screencast video of the app at work! I used this sweet iOS app called Display Recorder that has since been removed by Apple.

You have to check it out.

Podcast promotion via Wordpress

As a bonus post of the day, I also wrote this blog post showcasing libsyn's newest way to cross-post podcast episodes directly from their dashboard to a self-hosted wordpress site.

Very cool stuff.

And of course, more ways to promote your podcast!

Full Disclosure: I do work for libsyn :D

Podcasters: how have you been marketing your podcast beyond iTunes?

Non Podcasters: if you had the platform that I do and the wealth of content available how would you market it? I'm talking to you fabulous creative-preneurs!

I would love to know your thoughts :)

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Boosting Content and Sharing With You!

Hello!

How are you?

I've been busy...hence the lack of posts.

I've decided to share with you exactly what I do, and what I've been up to in an attempt to let you in to the production side of my life :)

So why not do it with a whole slew of other folks by doing it through the Ultimate Blog Challenge?

I'll be doing my very very very best to blog daily for these next 31 days. I won't be blogging in this specific blog daily, but I will be posting any of my other blog posts here for accountability sake as well as to share the work I do in other places.

The main blogs that material will be coming from are:

1. This one :)
2. Elsie's Yoga Kula
3. The libsyn Blog

I look forward to sharing with you and hello fellow Ultimate Blog Challenge people!

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