Steve Smith, host of your Technology Questions Answered, talks about generating supplemental income in podcasts.
Episode #2-09 released on November 13, 2011
Hello, my name is Steve Smith, aka Zed Axis. Do you have a podcast, or are you planning on starting one? Do you want to potentially monetize it? Do you want any guidance to ease into this new world of marketing? If you answered yes to all three, then listen to what I'll be talking about, today, on Technology Questions Answered.
Let's start off today with a few notes of good news! I've recently bought TQAWEEKLY.COM for this podcast, and in the coming month, I will move my podcast to TQAWEEKLY.COM instead. It will be easier to understand, and very easy to navigate. I am keeping the other domain for production and business purposes only. Next, I am going to give the podcast a brand new, cooler looking logo to go with the new web-site launch. And lastly, I'm going to teach you how to monetize your podcasts.
For ease of comprehension, I'm going to just assume none of you have started the process of finalizing your podcasts. This is because your not required or forced into locking contracts with any of these places I'll be naming.
Making money from your podcast does require a minimum amount of unique downloads and subscribers in nearly every case. So, please keep in mind that it may take some time before you get enough subscribers to listen, unless you plan correctly and advertise heavily.
First, you need to consider the podcast feed as being the most important part of your podcast, everything in this feed needs to be set correctly in order to calculate the number of unique downloads. You should focus on one unique feed address, per media type, for your podcast.
Second, content is important, and so what is in it. If your podcast contains explicit language, sexuality or nudity, chances are you can't monetize your podcast in these services. If your content is clean, well researched, and attractive to enough subscribers you will be able to invoke some income.
Third, visibility is important. Post your podcast in as many places as possible. Capitalize on places like iTunes, Podcast.com, Podcast.tv, Blip.tv, etc... where many users go to listen and watch many podcasts in one sitting. Make friends with other podcasters, and share each others podcast info in each others shows. Post you episodes in more than one medium like Youtube and Blip.tv.
Services you can use to aid you in monetizing your show are Youtube.com, Podtrac.com, Blubrry.com and Blip.tv. All these places make it easy to track your viewership, subscriber base and allow for income generation, pending reviews of shows. All include pages on setup that allow you to easily modify you feeds or channel pages for the best possible chance of being viewed and subscribed to.
Youtube.com does require a minimum of 2000 subscribers as part of the regulations to becoming a partner. Places like Podtrac, require 20000 unique downloads per episodes before being invited to monetize your show. However, Blip.tv, is a special case, if your content is good, you can start monetizing almost immediately. And, it also allows for automatic distribution of your content to many platforms, as well. And includes the ability to list in iTunes, Youtube, etc...
If you seeking an easy way to monetize your show, I do suggest the way of Blip.tv. And, let's not forget the cool ability of creating your own branded players, which you will see in our new web-site soon. If you start off with Blip.tv, you don't need to use Podtrac.com. It will already load to Youtube, and blubrry.com becomes irrelevant, just like Podtrac.
So, for any one has not started creating any feeds for iTunes, or any other place. Start with Blip.tv. Otherwise, You can use either Podtrac or Blubrry, plus Blip.tv, and Youtube if you already set that up before Blip.tv. Podtrac and Blubrry are used to track unique downloads of each episode. And, you can generate income from both these services if you have sufficient viewership.
Next week, I'll be covering the process of monetizing your mobile applications and I'll be presenting to you the new logo for this show. If you wish to submit your questions, comments, suggestions or stories, please visit ask.zedaxis.net. To do our weekly survey, go to survey.zedaxis.net. Don't forget to subscribe, share and like this episode, thank you for listening. Stay safe and online.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions