Ever think of podcasting? 
Some people call podcasting blogging out loud. But podcasting is more than that. It’s a fairly easy and fairly inexpensive way of presenting your ideas and opinions. And it has the potential to open a few career doors.
What is podcasting, anyway?
At its most basic, podcasting is the act of recording some kind of program ? whether it’s music, news, opinion, or a lecture ? and making it available for download. Your listeners can then download the audio file to a digital device ? like an iPod (from which podcasting got its name), a smartphone, or even their computer ? to listen to at their leisure. You can even play podcasts right off the Web.
It doesn’t take much to do a podcast, just a microphone or Internet headset and some software (which you can get for free). If you’re interested in some of the details of podcasting, check out the multi-part series that Dustin Wax has posted at The Writer’s Technology Companion and my thoughts on the subject.
How can podcasting help me professionally?
Most podcasters work from a script. Writing an engaging, tight script can be tough. On top of that, you want to make the script as loose and natural as possible. Just think about how that can improve your writing. On top of that, more and more companies are starting to use podcasts. If you can gain some measurable expertise, you might be able to offer your services to companies that are thinking of adding podcasting to their customer communications.
On top of that, podcasting can help you hone your interviewing skills. Yes, a podcast doesn’t have to be just you. You can talk to your peers, to well-known writers (if you can convince them), and more. And to make those chats interesting, you definitely need strong interviewing skills. I recently wrote a post for another blog that offers a few interviewing tips for podcasters that you might want to check out.
As you may or may not know, I do a regular podcast on technical communications with my business partner. Thanks to that podcast, we’ve had opportunities to give presentations and to take part in panels. Not only does that help market our business, but also enables us to do more than just a bit of networking.
It’s not for everyone, though
Podcasting can be tough. Not only do you have to come up with topics and write a script, but you also have to record and edit each episode. Taken together, that could be a significant amount of time each week. Time that you might not have. Sure, you can put out an occasional podcast, perhaps as an adjunct to your blog, but some people will argue that (as with blogs) posting infrequently is almost as bad as never posting.
Still, podcasting can be a great way to hone your writing skills and to promote yourself or your business. It takes time, and there might not be an immediate return, but you never know what will happen.
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