Podcasting Power Tools

These tips came from “Principles of Creating Powerful Radio”, but they most definitely apply to audio podcasting:

1.  Speak visually, in terms your listener can "picture."
2.  Start with, your best material.
3.  Tell the truth.
4.  Never be boring.
5.  Listen to your station.  (or your podcast)
6.  Make it matter.
7.  Address an individual, use "You," – talk to ONE listener at a time!  
8.  Do engaging transitions & handoffs
9.  Promote, brag about your stuff
10. Brag about other people’s stuff
11. Be who you are on the radio
12. Take risks. Dare to be great

Read the PDF Here

Looking for an absolutely free way to host your podcast media files?  One option is OurMedia.  This tutorial shows you how to get set up, upload a file, and get the URL to use in your podcast feed.

 

To host your podcast for free with OurMedia, you will first need to register with Internet Archive.

Head over to:

http://www.archive.org/index.php

 

In the top right corner, click the tiny link that says “join us”:

 

Enter your email address, choose a screen name, set a password, and answer the Captcha:

 

When you are finished, if you agree with the Terms of Service, click “Get Library Card”:

 

If successful, you should see the following:

 

Now head over to:

http://www.ourmedia.org/

 

Click “Upload” on the bar across the top:

 

Start out by entering the email and password we just registered with on internet archive:

 

Now enter a title and description for your podcast audio file.

 

It’s time to select the audio file you want to store online.  Click on “Choose File”:

 

Find the file on your computer and select it:

 

Now click “Open”:

 

Now click “Begin Upload”:

 

Wait for the progress bar to indicate that the file has been uploaded:

 

When the upload is complete, you will receive a confirmation email:

 

And you will be taken to a detail page.  Click on “Download Original File”:

 

You will be taken to the Internet Archive page:

Find the correct audio file and right click on the MP3 link to the right:

 

Select Copy Link Address:

 

Congratulations, the copied link address is the URL of your hosted audio file.

In this case:

http://www.archive.org/download/PersonalArmamentPodcast/personal_armament_podcast_058_08062010.mp3

You can use this URL in your podcast feed to share your audio.

To submit your podcast to the Spoken Word directory, visit:

http://www.spokenword.org/

 

You have to login or register to submit a podcast, so click “Register”:

 

Insert your info and click “Register”:

 

Press “Continue”:

 

Check your email and click on the link:

 

You should get this confirmation:

 

Hover over “Feeds” and select “Submit a Feed”:

 

Insert your podcast feed and click “Submit”:

 

Check the box for “Submit Feed” and click “Submit”:

 

Congratulations, your podcast feed has been submitted:

To submit your podcast for inclusion in the CastRoller podcast database first head to:

http://www.castroller.com/

On the home page click on the “Register” link in the upper right corner:

 

On the sign in screen, you can login if you already have an account, or click the ”Sign up” link:

 

Now enter the information to create an account:

 

When you are finished, click “Create Account”:

 

Now click on the down arrow beside “Podcasts”:

 

And select “Add Podcast”:

 

Insert the podcast URL or URLs in the text box on the right:

 

And hit “Add Podcast(s)”:

 

Congratulations, you have successfully submitted your podcast to CastRoller.  You should see the following screen:

Do you want to email someone a link to a video, but don’t want them to have to watch the first 5 minutes.  You can edit the link to make the video start at a certain point.

Here is the URL of a YouTube video:

Here is the HTML we will add to the end:

#t=5m08s

The code above would start the video 5 minutes and 8 seconds in.  The “m” is for minutes and the “s” is for seconds.  If you want the video to start less than a minute into it, put a zero before the “m” and the appropriate amount of seconds before the “s”. 

To begin a video 30 seconds into it, use the following code:

#t=0m30s

After you edit the code, add it to the end of the original YouTube URL:

Here is the link.  Check it out!

You want to embed a video in your podcast show notes, but you don’t want to make viewers watch everything that leads up to the clip that makes your point.  You can set your embedded YouTube video to begin playing at a given time.

You see this video on YouTube and you decide to embed it:

Click the embed button:

 

Copy the embed code:

 

Paste it in your text editor and you should have:

 

How far into the video do you want it to start playing? 

Calculate how many seconds that is.  Less than a minute is easy, but if you want to start 2:10 into the video, that would be 130 seconds (2 minutes x 60 seconds + 10 seconds = 130 seconds) 

 

In the following code, replace “SECONDS” with the number you just calculated:

&start=SECONDS

the example would be “&start=130”

 

Now you get to edit the embed code.  Add the above code to the end of each URL in the embed code

The embed code should now look like this:(but with your seconds value)

(First change is highlighted and the second one is under the pointer.)

Now, use this code to embed the video.  It looks the same as any other embed, but when you press play, the video will skip to the point that you selected.  Try it below: