Promoting Your Music With Podcasting

According to Siliconrepublic.com there are more Podcasters than radio stations and they reach a global audience.

Podcasting takes the idea of Internet radio and turns it into something easier, and more flexible. A podcast is usually an MP3 file that is distributed from a website (although there are new options for this all of the time, including iTunes, file sharing, podcast websites, and others.) Podcasts are usually targeted at one particular interest area. They are often the length of an average radio show, between one half-hour to two hours.

One of the benefits of podcasting is that listeners can break away from "Appointment Listening." Appointment Listening means listening to a show on the radio at the time when it's being broadcast. This is becoming rarer as people have other options such as TiVO or on DVD. Podcasting allows radio to break out of the Appointment Listening mentality and to give people control of when they hear shows. Many popular radio shows are now putting out podcasts of their own because they realize that it would get their material heard by more people.

Podcasts have an enormous amount of variety. Some are nothing more than audio diaries and others are more traditional music shows. There are many that are talk shows where discussions and interviews occur about very obscure topics that wouldn't otherwise be available on the radio. Music is often a part of podcasts, usually in one of three ways:

1. Podcasts that are regularly released and have a large audience often have a theme song.

2. Many podcasts are about music and are similar to music radio shows. They usually feature a particular style of music.

3. The talk podcasts will sometimes play a song or two to break up the talking, especially if the song is about the topic of discussion.

There are a lot of opportunities for indies in podcasts. There are no barriers to entry into them and it is a medium where people can hear your music. Some are extremely popular and have an audience of thousands, or tens of thousands, of people. Even better, if your song makes it onto a podcast, that podcast will always be available as an older episode. Unlike being played on the radio, where people have a chance to hear your song once, usually all podcasts for a particular show are available as archived episodes forever. Because listeners will often download it to their MP3 player, people will sometimes listen to it multiple times. On top of this, sometimes links to the band website or to the song are placed in a podcast's show notes.

Below are some ideas for getting your music played on podcasts:

1. Submit your music to the podsafe music network so that you can indicate to podcasters that they may use your music.

2. Talk to a podcast that needs a theme song and offer to write one (or offer a song that you have already written or recorded.)

3. If you release free music on your website, write a note on your website telling podcasters that they may use any of your songs royalty-free. (We suggest releasing your songs using a creative commons license, which spells out their rights clearly.)

4. Do your own podcast!

The best information for Promoting Your Music With Podcasting is Dave Jackson's Promoting Your Band With Podcasting which is a Free Report that you can get from http://www.promotingwithpodcasting.com/