Blogging is a term which can cover many forms of posting content on the internet, from a straight blog-post like this, to sound, video, pictures and interactive content.
As a community radio volunteer I’ve used many different forms of blogging to communicate with the audience of my show, At the Local.
In my last post on Blogging and Community Radio I spoke about the need for individual show blogs to be connected to station websites.
This also applies if you decide you are going to pop the audio of your show online as either a podcast or a webstream. Remember the station owns the copyright of the broadcasted content, so you need to seek station permission to put anything online that has been broadcast 0ver the airwaves!
Podcasting your show
There are plenty of free and easy ways to get podcast your show online. The advantages of podcasting is anyone who missed your show can tune in online, people can download it and listen at their leisure and you have one more way of capturing an international audience!
The At the Local Podcast started out by using Podbean, a simple podcast hosting and distribution service used by people from all over the world.
A bunch of communityy radio stations are now using C-POD to host and distribute their show, this is a service especially set up for hosting and distributing programs on community radio.
Step-by-step podcasting
1. Source a recording of your show: you can use a copy from the station logger, or do a DIY recording
2. Edit the recording down to just include spoken word: chances are your community station doesn’t have a podcasting licence to podcast music, so you can ONLY podcast spoken content. You can use Audacity, a freeware program to edit your podcast at home.
3. Sign up to a free podcast hosting and distribution service, like Podbean or C-Pod. Create your own podcast channel
4. Upload your edited show your podcast channel and include a descriptive post.
5. Link the podcast to your station’s website, or your show page.
6. Promo you podcast on social networking sites and get people to subscribe!
Podcasting is great because people can subscribe to your show through iTunes, meaning the latest episode downloads automatically to their iPod or MP3 player whenever they login!
Next post we look at the whole podcasting vs streaming argument and ways you can stream online.
Some awesome community radio podcasts: