Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Plus, if you haven’t got the time to read articles or watch videos during your busy day, podcasts are extremely accessible – listen during your commute, or even on the treadmill. And get this: according to Edison Research, people who listen to audio listen to podcasts almost as much as they listen to the radio.

But why is podcasting important to PR and marketing professionals? Besides the wealth of knowledge it can provide us on a daily basis, its a piece of content marketing we can use to reach our audiences: 67 percent of podcast listeners don’t mind sponsorship messages and occasionally find them useful, compare to 6 percent of TV or radio listeners.

So, if you’re looking to get a daily dose of valuable info from the experts or get inspiration for starting a podcast of your own, here’s our top 50, ranked in order of Twitter followers...

Here at Convince & Convert Media, we produce three podcasts. Most frequent is my nearly-daily video showJay Today (read this post to see how we make 8 pieces of content out of each episode).

We also produce Social Pros, the podcast for real people doing real work in social media. This show is in its fourth year, and new episodes are launched weekly.

Our newest addition is Content Pros, where the tips and tricks of the world’s best content marketers are revealed. That show releases two new episodes per month.

All of these shows (and 550 more) are rated and reviewed at our MarketingPodcasts.com site, the first search engine for marketing podcasts.

We’ve been producing podcasts for quite a while, so I wanted to provide this checklist of some of the steps we take that might help make your podcast better and easier to get on the air....

The podcasting space is wide open right now for online entrepreneurs. When you start a podcast now you have a better chance of getting your message heard.

... podcasting is taking off like a rocket ship!

As an online entrepreneur, you have a tremendous opportunity to leverage this platform to get your content, your brand and your marketing message out to a wider audience.

There are four primary reasons podcasting is making such a huge resurgence, but before I get to those, let’s take a quick look at how podcasting stands up to a couple of the largest tried and true platforms....

As our world has grown more mobile and related technology has evolved, podcasting has become a mainstream form of continuing education—including for marketers.

"Podcasts are a new form of continuing education, making it possible to 'audit a class' in any subject just by listening on the go," states the following Marketing Podcasts infographic.

And unlike in the early days of podcasting, today's podcasts are easier to download and listen to on smartphones and mobile devices.

For example, iTunes now has 250,000 podcasts, up from 200,000 in 2010, and Apple has more than one billion subscriptions to podcasts via its iTunes app.

Want to learn more about the benefits of podcasts and the technologies that have improved podcasting? Then check out the infographic:

My Complete, Step-By-Step Podcasting Tutorial to help you Learn How to Start a Podcast like a Pro. 6 High-Quality Videos and Everything Else You Need!

Starting a podcast has been one of the best decisions I have ever made for my brand. Ever.

Since starting The Smart Passive Income Podcast in July of 2010:

*  The show has surpassed 2,000,000 total downloads. (Sept. 24, 2012 – see graph)
*  The podcast has become the #1 way people who read my blog found out about me – that’s above search, social media and links from other websites. (See survey results)
*  I was contacted by a Hollywood producer who listened to my show to consult as the social media director for a $10M independent film (See IMDB)
*  Fox News reached out to me to feature my story on the evening news.
*  I led a panel at Blog World Expo in New York this past June about the power of podcasting. It was cool to see the room filled beyond capacity. (See image)
*  Several other big-name bloggers have started their own podcasts, including Michael Hyatt, Michael Stelzner and Derek Halpern - and even more recently Seth Godin.
*  I’ve become more confident as a person and better skilled as a speaker. It was the perfect stepping stone to conquering my fear of public speaking. Next year, I’ve already been booked to speak at 4 different events around the United States, and have been asked to speak at even more events around the world....

[Pat Flynn is an Internet marketer but don't let that throw you off from this excellent how-to podcast tutorial and resources. he's got a very approachable style and practical advice to blogging and podcasting. From this post you can get access to six videos for free as well as a list of other resources. Highly recommended.~ Jeff]