Easy Podcasting for Bloggers with a Mac
written by MrGaryLee
If you haven’t bought a Mac yet just because you’re not quite convinced as to how all the features of a Mac can help you achieve your internet goals, then let me bring you one step closer by showing you how easy it is to create a great marketing tool called podcasts. For those of you who don’t know, podcasting is much like a RSS feed except that instead of syndicating text throughout the internet, you are syndicating an audio file to your users who have subscribed to your feed.
Personally, I subscribe to a handful of podcasts such as Nightly News with Brian Williams to catch up on world affairs and This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte to listen to the grumpy tech humor we know as Devorak. Much like my RSS Feeds, the latest episodes of all my shows are uploaded and synced automatically to my iPhone, so that I can listen to these shows when I want and where I want like when I used to ride the train or when I commute. I’ve always tried to maximize every minute of my day by educating myself when I can and this is a great way to fill in the usual empty pockets of time that we some times can have.
So, what’s this have to do with you? And how will it make me any kind of money? Basically, podcasts are great marketing tools. They can help compliment the content you already have on your blogs by offering a personal touch to your commentary and giving your readers another way to carry your content with them during their daily routines.
Creating a Podcast
Required for these instructions to work:
- Apple Computer - preferably a iMac or Macbook that has a built in mic.
- iLife 08 specifically the Garageband program
- Wordpress Blog
- Open the Garageband program and you will be prompted with this window:
- Select “Create a New Podcast Episode”
- Save as “My First Podcast’ - The Garageband interface should now pop up for you to start using.
- Get your show notes ready and press the record button to start saving your show. When finished, press the record button again to stop recording.
- Edit your recording with Garageband effects
- Add Photos
- Segment your show into Chapters
- Add Intro and Ending Music
- Save as an mp3 file on your computer.
- Publishing - Using wordpress to generate the XML Feed
- Create a New Category in your blog called “Podcasts”
- Create a Post with the appropriate title
- Upload your podcast mp3 file and create a link within your post.
- Your XML feed for your podcast is now - “http://www.yourdomain.com/category/podcast/feed“
- Now that you have your feed nice and ready, you will want to start telling everyone about your new podcast. Here are some tips:
- Submit your Feed URL to all the major Podcast directories, such as PodcastPickle.com and of course iTunes.
- You also will want to create a link to your iTunes podcast so people can easily subscribe to it by copy and pasting the url iTunes has generated for you in iTunes.
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awesome! How about a video podcast? Does that exist?
So, that’s how cool mac should be. awesome indeed.
Sounds like a good marketing. I’ll never buy a MAC though. I can’t stand not having right click.
You do have a right click. Just use any two button (or more) mouse and the right click will work. On the Macbook, put two fingers on the trackpad to engage right click.
he’s right!
Cool, the earth is in balance again and I just might buy a MAC someday since I know this now.
True that you can configure a series of touches to creatl a right click, but it’s definitely not as convenient just having it readily available. Every time I use my friends Macbook Pro, I always try to right click and it’s never there! However, with the Macbook Air, I may end up trying a Mac out, right after I declare my m1210 to slow for my daily use
Mac is more expensive then other brand.
As random as this is, this site has inspired me to write a SEO tutorial. Thank you John.
Can’t you also generate quality podcasts on a PC, using Audacity (great free audio program), and a $15 mic?
This article neither informed me about any real benefits of a Mac, nor persuaded me to purchase one anytime soon.
That’s good to know. I didn’t think having a PC instead of a Mac (for purposes of a podcase) created any discernible disadvantage.
Thanks for the information.
Mac just rocks
Eversince i bought it, i just try to use new apps and widgets etc. But never tried podcasting till now with Mac as i never thought of any reason for that.
Will now have to try the program iLife as i have the latest version of it.
Don’t own a mac : (. Though at one time I was considering the macbookpro. I probably wouldn’t be to good at the podcast thing haha.
Although Mac is expensive, I went to a shop and saw it, it looks cool.
everything that shines is not always good.
That is my opinion of Mac
And it would look cool when you really have it in your hand. I am just mad about my Mac
If you do not care for safety, you can pick up your shiny Macbook Air. It got hacked in two minutes on a hackers competition. Even Windows Vista stood much longer. The winner was Ubuntu Linux. It did not get hacked at all over the 3 days competition:
http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/27/day-two-of-cansecwest-pwn-to-own—we-have-our-first-official-winner-with-picture
And of course you can podcast with Ubuntu too: http://www.linux.com/articles/43055
Ok, I thought I wanted a Mac as my next machine. My business laptop requires me to stay with a PC, but my other avenues are more than adequately filled by the use of a Mac. One of my more substantial reasons for a Mac was to access its security features. I can’t stand having to pay McAfee, Norton, etc. a fee each year for updates that bog my machines down. So in your opinion, what’s the true security threat level on a Mac?
I guess this comes back down to the PC vs. Mac debate.
I can not answer that and I think no one can. The code of Apple is a secret, same as with Windows. That is why I use Linux. The code is open for everyone to see. It is in no one´s interest to hide vulnerabilities; on the contrary, it is in the interest of everyone to show them, so that is what happens and that is how they get fixed.
I use Ubuntu Linux now for over two years and without the McAfee´s or the Norton´s. But in the past that worked for me too on a Mac. Still I put more trust in Linux and also I like there license policy much better.
Using PC is probably a good idea cause changing it and need to pay for the charges of security updates does cost some.
[...] finally, MrGaryLee taught John Chow dot Com’s readers just how easy it is to produce and syndicate Podcasts using a Mac (now I really can’t wait to get my hands on a MacBook [...]
Thanks for the article - I have bookmarked this as I hope to introduce podcasts and video articles when my redesigned blog launches.
- Martin Reed
Nice tutorial, Gary. As someone said above, though, couldn’t you achieve the same using Audacity for the PC? I’d imagine the process would be the same for video podcasts as well, but you might want to keep the file size small.
The one thing that I learned from this post, which I surprisingly did not know before, was that Wordpress automatically generates a feed for each category on your blog. That’s pretty nifty (and handy if you only want to subscribe to one category on someone’s blog).
Oh, a couple of questions that I forgot to ask:
1. “Upload your podcast mp3 file and create a link within your post.”
So, all I do is a simple link to the mp3 file? As in <a href=”http://www.example.com/mp3.com”>podcast1</a> and that’s it? Wouldn’t regular readers be a little confused with that? I’d imagine that there is a simple podcast-friendly plug-in for Wordpress that would satisfy the iTunes side of things, but would also embed an audio player in your post too?
2. How does one go about submitting a podcast to iTunes? It’d probably be handy to submit to the Zune Marketplace too, eh?
What a big money! That’s not for a newbie like me.
Then Ubuntu might be good for you. You can do all things with it you need and more and it is totally free.
John stop reading my mind! Here I was chilling after an hour of bootcamp exercise pondering how I’m gonna do my one on one wednesday interviews using podcasts and video clips. I just finished installing the All in one seo pack on my tech blog siliconcaribe.com and moseyed on over your site for podcast hints and BAM! there it was. You’re making this too easy man!
And by the way, welcome to my world. Mac World. I’ve been born, bred and Mac fed since 1994.
[...] proud owner of a new iMac, I will soon attempt my first podcast. Gary Lee posted a great article on John Chow dot com about how easy it is to create a Podcast using the iMac, iLife, and Garage Band. This is my weekend [...]
There are a lot of blogs that do this, and I must say that it’s a great complement to good written content.
thanmk you good web site and web masters
[...] For those of you who don’t know, podcasting is much like a RSS feed except that instead of syndicating text throughout the internet, you are syndicating an audio file to your users who have subscribed to your feed. - JohnChow [...]
I just my new mac…thanks for the tips.