Cesar Abeid

If you know me personally, you are probably sick of the word “podcast.”  I’m an avid consumer and since August of 2011, also a producer of podcasts. I listen to podcasts on my commute to work, when I work out, when I’m doing the dishes, and when I can’t fall asleep at night.  On Thursday mornings I produce and record my own show.  Obviously I’m really passionate about this type of media.

There are many reasons why, and I’ll tell you today why I think your company should start thinking about starting your own podcast.

Podcasts are a great way for you to create content

If you have been around the world of marketing in the last few years and not lived under a rock, you have heard of the word “content.”  Content is king, they say.  Create content, they say.  The problem is, creating content takes work.  Sometimes it could be painful.

While most people mean blogging when they say we should create content, writing engaging and compelling posts might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Podcasting gives you a great alternative or complement to your blogging efforts.  In my case, keeping up a weekly blog posting schedule was a chore.  Podcasting, however, is a blast.

If you or your company is struggling with creating written content, consider podcasting as an alternative.

Podcasting is a fantastic way to engage an audience today (your target market)

I don’t know about you, but I find it harder and harder to concentrate while reading stuff on the internet.  I think it might be a combination of information overload, the millions of blogs that are available out there, and just overall being distracted.

An article published by the BBC suggests that online browsing can leave us with the attention span of only 9 seconds. The scary part is that this article is from 2002, before the distractions posed by social media even existed.  This was also before we had little smartphones in our pockets constantly buzzing and beeping for our attention.

A simple blog usually requires that the reader be in front of a computer/tablet/smartphone, when all these distractions are there to take your reader away from your content.

So, if you were having a hard time producing written content on a regular basis, now you need to create epic, compelling, can’t-live-without, better-than-facebook-and-lolcatz written content that blows your readers minds.  Weekly.  Perhaps 2 or 3 times a week.

 

Enter podcasts.

Podcasts are usually consumed when people are driving, working out, or performing some activity when they can’t read.  Now, consider that the average commute time around the world is typically 30 minutes or more, and that the average workout can last between 40 minutes to an hour.

This is a great opportunity to have your audience’s undivided attention (except for dealing with traffic and sweaty brows) for a good half-hour.  When people can’t focus for more than 9 seconds on written content, I’m sure you can understand why this is a golden opportunity.

Besides the chance to have people’s attention, podcasts let people hear your voice, and this makes it a lot easier to create relationships with your audience.  When someone listens to your voice, to the passionate way with which you talk about a topic, your humanity comes across to your audience.  This makes it easier for them to relate to you, and a lot harder for them to turn you off.

Also, there are WAY less podcasts out there than there are blogs.  That is why I was able to get away with calling my show THE Construction Industry Podcast.  The name wasn’t even taken.

A good podcast will create solid relationships between you, your company, and your audience, all the while having their full attention on what it is you are saying.  Bingo.

What are your thoughts on podcasting?

If you believe that starting a podcast might be a good move for you and/or your company, you’re in good company. Many companies and entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the fact that a good podcast can create loyal audiences and a successful platform for your brand and business.

Many people want to start a show but don’t know where to start.

In my opinion, if you are considering starting a podcast, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is:

What in the world will I talk about?

To try and answer this question, I will walk you through my thought process as I decided to launch my award-winning Construction Industry Podcast back in August of 2011.

The first thing to consider is to have a podcast on a topic in which you have some knowledge. In other words, why not start a podcast talking about something you know deeply about?

That approach works for a wide variety of circumstances – perhaps even in most cases.  For example, my friend Dustin Harzler has a great podcast in which he shares his knowledge on the blogging platform WordPress.  He has thousands of attentive listeners who want to learn more about WordPress.  Another example is my other friend Cliff Ravenscraft, who is an authority when it comes to podcasting.  Cliff has a ridiculously popular podcast about podcasting.

In my case, this approach didn’t really work.

In my company, in my 9-5 job, I am responsible for the design and installation of monitoring systems for construction projects.  We are experts in construction cameras, time-lapse video creation, and all the equipment that goes along with it.

The problem is, if I had created a show around that topic, the only people interested in learning more about that would be my competitors.  I would not be reaching my target market with a show about construction cameras.  Dustin and Cliff, on the other hand, want to reach people who are interested in WordPress and podcasting, so talking about their expertise works really well for them.

So my thought was: whose eyes did I want on my brand?  What is my target market interested in?

The answer to that question almost automatically tells you what kind of show you should produce.

Remontech (my company) serves the construction owner, the entity that is sponsoring the project.  Our clients are usually in the construction sector, but not are not necessarily construction professionals.  They are project managers, directors, business people who are dealing with construction and trying to learn more about the industry.  Sometimes these individuals may feel a little inadequate, because the are constantly dealing with contractors, architects, subcontractors, who have their own jargon.  It’s easy to feel like an outsider sometimes.

So I decided to create a show for them.  In the Construction Industry Podcast, I interview experts in the construction sector and cover topics which are construction-related.  But as I do that, I keep it accessible for those who are trying to learn more about the construction sector.

In short, you have two approaches when starting a podcast for your business:

1. If your knowledge is what your target market is interested in, have a show about that.  You will be able to shine as an expert and create confidence in your audience that you are the man/woman for the job.
2. If it is NOT your knowledge that will reach your target market, think about what it is they are interested in and provide that content to them.

Do you have a podcast?  What is it about and how did you come up with the idea?  I’d love to know.

I’m absolutely thrilled to let you know that I’ll be a speaker at the upcoming New Media Expo (NMX) conference in Las Vegas.

NMX is the largest, most prestigious conference and trade show for the blogging, podcasting, and WebTV industry.  Attendees from around to world will flock to Las Vegas this January to learn, share, and network with the best that the new media world has to offer.

Because of my success with the Construction Industry Podcast, I will be sharing my experience and tips on how to be a podcaster in a podcast-less niche.  The title of my session is

“The benefits of being the first to podcast within your niche.”

Click here for my bio at the NMX website.

Speaking at NMX is a great privilege and I cannot wait to share my perspective and what has worked for me as a podcaster.

If you are in Las Vegas or coming to the conference, let me know!

 

Hello all! I’ve recently decided to spend some more time blogging.

In order to create more inspiration, I decided to play around with the design of the site.

I’d love your feedback as I move forward.  What do you think so far?

I’m about to go to bed here in my hotel room in Baie-Comeau, Quebec.  It was a long day driving from London, Ontario, but I had to share this cool little story before going to sleep.

We all want to engage our friends, our audience, our clients, our tribes.

Much like a cocktail party, we want to talk to people, make new friends, network, share useful information so interaction with you is seen as beneficial and people will come back for more.

Twitter is a great tool for achieving this engagement.  It is everywhere, millions of people are on it, including a lot of the people you want to interact with.  Besides being a tool for carrying conversations, I find it is a great way to provide information I come across during the day.  I get email messages that are worth sharing, I have insights that I want to convey to other people, and I subscribe to a myriad of RSS feeds that provide me with lots of information worth sharing.  Twitter provides a great way to easily share all of this with my relationships.

I find, however, that it is a bit hard to take full advantage of Twitter based on my daily workflow and schedule.  That’s where today’s tip, Buffer, comes in handy.

I was never a cat person.

Cats seemed distant, arrogant, egocentric, aloof.  They get sick on your carpet, eat your unattended food, and protest when their bathrooms are not cleaned on a regular basis. Differently than bratty human guests, we can’t ask cats to help with the chores, pay rent, pay for damages, or kick them out. Cats were all demand and no delivery. I always thought I’d never bring such a jerk into my house.

Life had other plans for me, however.  When I married Amy, I inherited Casey, her 9-year-old tabby.  Being slightly allergic to cats and slightly annoyed for having to attend to one, I immediately proceeded to impose new rules for him in my household. There would be no Casey in my bedroom, no Casey on the couch.  Casey would not eat from the dinner table, and behaviours such as pawing on doors, scratching the furniture, and howling outside my door at 4 in the morning were to be strongly discouraged.

Last night I fulfilled a childhood dream.  I drove 120 miles to the Motor City to watch Sir Paul McCartney in Concert.