Audio podcasting is about syndicating content to end-users when they like via RSS. It is elegant. But still, the number one mistake I find many podcasters make is not leveraging what they have for the benefit of podcast promotion.

What am I talking about?

A simple web-based audio flash player.

It has the potential beyond what many podcasters have thought. Yet it is very simple to implement.

This is just another reason why I always recommend that podcasters use a blog to podcast. Not only that they can publish audio content easily, but also the complementary text content for the benefit of being found by conventional and blog specific search engines.

Although podcasting delivers audio content in an elegant way, people are still reading and consuming content through their web browser. It is the same case with RSS. Although it makes consumption of content — including blog — easily, some are still reading blogs on their web browsers.

So how do you cater to this specific visitors?

1. You want to promote your podcast feed.
Tell them how easy it is to subscribe to a podcast. Sell the advantages of being able to subscribe and get updated without the hassles. How they could have audio content on their favorite media player device, or desktop media player playlist.

2. Add flash audio player.
Embed on your web page a flash audio player which plays your podcast if the visitor choose this as his/her content consumption preference.

Why limit your content distribution to podcast RSS feed when you can extend it beyond RSS to include other content distribution channel? Afterall, you already have the content.

Some podcast directories have done exactly this. It is very simple so there is no reason not to do so. If your visitor like what they found, they could be your next podcast feed subscriber, which in turn might be your next client/ customer.

Another benefit: let visitors sample your podcast before deciding if they want to subscribe.

I am going to review some flash based audio player applications in the future.

Meanwhile, keep promoting your podcast!

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