Home > ArticlesHow Much Business Experience Should You Have Before You Start Your Own Internet Marketing Podcast?
If the question in the title of this article seems a bit strange, please think again! You might suppose that anybody wanting to start a free podcast about Internet marketing should first of all have some experience of making money on the Internet, right? Actually, no, not necessarily! And here's why. Of course, it would be a definite asset to your business podcast if you already have a lot of experience as a successful Internet marketer and are planning to use your podcast as part of a training package for your subscribers. However, even if you lack those credentials there is no reason why you cannot make a successful podcast around the theme of Internet marketing. Both the expert and the beginner can present useful information about Internet marketing to an interested audience. Each is able to provide a helpful and enjoyable online business podcast from his or her own perspective. While experienced Internet marketers will be able to use their expertise in their podcasts, inexperienced Internet marketers will be able to use their LACK of experience as the starting point for the themes of their podcasts and use the podcast as a medium of exploration to try and fill in the gaps in their knowledge. The experienced Internet marketing podcaster is like your teacher or coach whereas the inexperienced newbie is like a friend or companion. The Podcaster As Teacher This is the most common format for business podcasting. The podcaster-as-teacher is someone who comes over as having a lot of experience of Internet marketing and who is willing to share that experience with you to help you move forward with your own online business. He is the expert and we draw upon his knowledge to improve our own Internet marketing performance. The podcaster as teacher offers us a lot of free podcast content, but will very likely also offer a paid subscription upgrade where we can access much more detailed information. The Podcaster As Learner The newbie Internet marketing podcaster is more like a fellow-learner, someone who is not afraid to ask the "dumb questions" and who can share with you every mistake, blunder and new discovery and have a lot of fun while learning the ropes. A business podcast hosted by an Internet marketing newbie would ideally adopt a "heuristic" approach to its material - that is, the podcaster would "learn through experience", finding what works and what doesn't by trial and error. Build Your Reputation As An Internet Business Podcaster For the newbie, it is probably too early to try and add an upgrade option to the free podcast because you are clearly not in any position to brand yourself as an expert just yet. What you can do, however, is seek out some successful Internet marketers who are experts in their field and try to set up an interview with each of them using Skype. You can lead up to this by joining some online business forums and getting to know the established marketers who use the forums. Then, when you feel you are ready, send them a private message on the forum asking if they would be interested in being interviewed for your podcast. This will add some great content to your podcast, and help to build your own reputation as well. After you have been podcasting for about a year you should have gained enough experience of Internet marketing to move you well beyond the "newbie" stage; you will be well on your way to branding yourself as an expert in the field. Your subscribers are now likely to be a mixture of faithful followers and a new generation of newbies. You will also notice that you are beginning to speak with more authority based on your accumulated experience. Keep podcasting for another year and during that time start developing some detailed training courses that you can launch as special upgrade services as you move into your third year of podcasting. You will now have established yourself as an expert Internet business podcaster. Ignorance Is Bliss So, if you are an Internet marketing newbie and are looking for a good way to start "building your brand", I suggest that you think about setting up a podcast related to your Internet business niche and podcast about all the Internet marketing techniques that you don't know about! You will discover that Internet marketing "ignorance" can be transformed into free podcasting "bliss"!  © David Hurley, All rights reserved.
David Hurley is an Internet marketer who lives in Japan. David hosts a free Internet business podcast at: http://webbusinesspodcast.com Submitted on March 5, 2011. |