I have done several posts in the last couple of weeks that touched on podcasting and got a surprising amount of interest! As I mentioned in some of my early posts on the subject, the term “podcast” comes from the iPod, Apple’s market leading mp3 player:

A podcast is any type of audio file that can be delivered via your computer, your iPod, or an MP3 player for playback.

Applications:
That said, there are several applications of podcasting in real estate. NAR’s Frederick Heller does a great job of examining podcasting’s impact on real estate and RSSPieces provides good background and great tactical advice but I am going to cover the more practical, near-term “broad stroke” applications as I see them:

• Property Information: This involves recording an audio narration for property listings. (Example)
• Company Information: Similar to property information except focused on providing information your real estate firm.
• Regional Market Updates: A “news summary” of what is going on in your regional real estate marketing. A number of real estate agents are narrating regional market updates and distributing them as podcasts on their blogs and through podcasting directories. (Example)
• Blog Post and Interviews: An obvious and easy way to get started in podcasting is to conduct interviews as podcasts and distributing them through your blog. (Example)
• Marketing and Education: Probably the best example of this is Century 21’s Talk Podcasts. The C21 Talk Podcasts feature a broad range of education (and marketing) material as series of informational podcasts. Every big real estate broker should take a look at it. Coldwell Banker has a similar concept with their Video Feedroom site.

Distribution:
So once you get started in podcasting, what next? Here are a couple of ideas on how you can quickly start utilizing and distributing your podcasts:

• Flyers and Listings: Add your podcast to your vFlyer or listing as an external link. This makes sense for property and company information as well as regional market updates. (Example)
• Blogs and Websites: Add an icon and link on your blog of website. Some podcasting services allow you to place widgets that enable your podcasts to be played directly on your site without a windows player (Example). Having an area of your website dedicated to podcasts makes sense if you choose to make them a core part of your marketing outreach. (Example)
• Podcasting Directories: Several podcasting directories exist that help consumers find podcasts of interest to them – including Apple iTune. (Example)
• Search and RSS: Because podcasts are audio files, it isn’t yet possible for search engines to search or understand their content, so exposing your podcasts as an RSS feed makes a lot of sense. Die hard geeks can visit Podcast411 for a complete podcasting RSS how-to. WordPress plug-ins and other tools also exist to help bloggers expose their podcasts as RSS. (Example)

Tools and Services:
In my next post I will talk about some of the tools, services, and technologies for those interested in podcasting and audio in general. I have played and experiment with a number of free and paid podcasting services as well as audio editors and other tools and will share some of my experiences and advice.