National Park Service

All across the country, park rangers are turning into podcasters. Hundreds of brief audio and video programs are up on park websites and on iTunes giving visitors a new national park experience. People can learn about park resources, take a guided tour, get help planning trips, and, best of all, meet actual rangers.

“While nothing can replace a personal experience in a national park, we think our podcasts will enhance people’s trips or give them the opportunity to learn about a park that they can’t visit,” said Mary A. Bomar, Director of the National Park Service. “Whether people download them to portable devices or watch them on their computers, these free electronic presentations give us another way to serve park enthusiasts of all ages.

Sample Audio Tour of The Everglades

Learn About Parks Many parks offer interpretive podcasts about wildlife, history, and topical issues like climate change and fire management. The most extensive collection of park podcasts is from Yellowstone National Park where they are reaching out to new and nontraditional audiences to spark an interest in visiting the park. The Inside Yellowstone series has more than 50 episodes, which are one to two minutes in length. More episodes are on the way.

“Our podcasts give people from every corner of the earth the chance to fall in love with Yellowstone and become its stewards for the future,” said George Heinz, one of the writers and on-screen personalities for the podcast series. The park has another online series called Yellowstone InDepth that presents mini-documentaries on subjects like volcanoes, invasive species, bears, and wolves.

Yosemite National Park launched a new monthly podcast called Yosemite Nature Notes. A printed publication of the same name began in the 1920s and existed for five decades. “Just like the earlier version of Nature Notes, our podcasts tell Yosemite’s stories from the perspective of the people who work here,” said Steve Bumgardner, videographer and producer at Yosemite National Park. “I like the idea that we’ve brought this institution back to life and that we use new media to put a personal face on the National Park Service.”

“My favorite podcast about Canyonlands National Park is the one on potholes,” said Carter, an 8-year-old visitor who watched all of the park’s podcasts before his trip. “It was so interesting to learn that tiny creatures are living in a bunch of dirt.” Carter’s sister Brooke, 11, appreciated knowing how to recognize cryptobiotic soils so she didn’t walk on the delicate crust. Their mother, Tiffani, thought the podcasts empowered her kids and said, “they loved being the experts and teaching us (their parents) what they learned while we walked around the park.”

Take a Guided Tour In addition to general information, podcasts are a great way to offer ranger-led tours of specific areas that people can enjoy on their own schedule. More and more people download guided tours onto their iPods or mp3 players prior to their national park trip. When they arrive, they literally have a ranger in the palm of their hand to guide them on a walking or driving tour.

At Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, people stop at overlooks along the South Rim Road and watch podcasts about geology, history, life, and recreation at those exact spots. Everglades National Park also has a car tour (audio only) that leads listeners on a guided exploration down the main park road. Four civil war battlefields – Gettysburg, Antietam, Petersburg, and Richmond – offer podcasts that allow you to walk or drive along as you listen to an NPS historian talk about decisive and dramatic battles.

Urban parks use podcast tours to reach local residents who may not know much about the parks they pass every day. For example, residents in Minneapolis and St. Paul can listen to information about Mississippi National River and Recreation Area while walking a four-mile loop near the river. Residents of Washington D.C. can download walking tours for Rock Creek Park and people in St. Louis can do the same for Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Plan a Trip Visitors already use the internet to research park trips, but now podcasts make it more personal. “It’s a blast when visitors hear my voice and recognize me from the podcast,” said Elysha Iversen, Wilderness Visitor Use Assistant at Grand Canyon National Park. “It tells me that we actually reach people and help them plan their hikes before they get here.” Iversen and others record podcasts with important safety information about trail conditions. The park also offers hiking and river running orientation videos as podcasts and will soon, launch new podcasts about Leave No Trace to help people reduce their recreational impacts.

Glacier National Park offers videos online about hiking, and rangers say the programs speed up the backcountry permit process. “Rather than having to watch the video at the permit station which is required, more and more visitors have watched it online ahead of time,” said Bill Hayden, Interpretive Specialist.

Other parks help people plan trips with podcasts, too. Visitors can learn about recreational activities at Curecanti National Recreation Area, like fishing, hiking, and camping. Katmai National Park and Preserve has an audio podcast weaving together music, stories, and tips for reaching that remote wilderness area.

Take a Virtual Tour While not available for download like podcasts, virtual tours give people a park experience right on their home computer. For example, Clara Barton National Historic Site offers a virtual tour of Barton’s home, a building that served as the national headquarters for the American Red Cross. The tour allows visitors to navigate through all three levels of the house and gives access to images, text, and audio clips.

Acadia National Park has an eCruise along the rocky shores of Mount Desert Island and Glacier National Park offers eHikes that take visitors through stunning wilderness areas among glaciers, wildflowers, and bears. The experiences really have visitors buzzing. One man wrote, “I am a fighter pilot in Iraq…and it makes my day when I can take a hike in Glacier even if it’s from behind my computer.” A teacher from Michigan said, “the virtual hikes are awesome for a classroom project I am doing with my 5th graders.” And, another visitor remarked, “they are perhaps the next best thing to actually being there.”

New virtual tours are coming soon: Zion National Park will release an eHike for Angel’s Landing; Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks will launch eHikes that go through the Sierra Nevada foothills or among the giant sequoias; and the Statue of Liberty will provide an eTour covering Liberty Island, the inside of Lady Liberty, and a 360-degree view from her crown.

Some worry that creating podcasts and virtual tours about national parks may keep people, especially children, disconnected from the actual places. “Personally, I don’t think that people are going to give up on the real thing,” said Todd Edgar, Media Specialist at Acadia National Park. “After learning about parks from our online resources, people want to get outside and explore on their own.”

For many other national park podcasts and virtual tours, go to www.nps.gov. If a park unit offers online programs, you will find them by clicking on “Photos and Multimedia” in the left navigation bar of their homepage.

Matthew

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More and more communities are now publishing podcasts to promote and seek economic growth. Two great examples are the cities of Virginia Beach and Denver.

Virginia Beach’s Department of Economic Development began podcasting in March. Interviews have included a city councilman, the editor of Men’s Fitness magazine and retired NFL icon Emmitt Smith.

“We’re trying to show we’re really in tune with what’s happening,” said Cynthia Whitbred-Spanoulis, the department’s strategy and performance coordinator.

City of Virginia Beach Podcast

Matthew

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Podcasting is becoming more and more mainstream every day, and for good reason as marketers find it an effective and efficient marketing tool. Here are some of the reasons why you may want to consider Podcasting in your marketing strategy:

Power of the voice: One thing that sets podcasts apart from the written word is the production factors and emotions that can be present in the audio. This makes the intensity and degree of communication much more pronounced than simply reading text from a brochure or webpage. Consumers can listen to a podcast at any time, and often intergrate the audio into their daily activities, of walking, gardening, or commuting.

Market for podcasts: The market for podcast consumption is growing rapidly. The listener market is currently estimated at over 6 million. The podcast listener base in the US is forecast to grow to close to 60 million by 2010.

Podcast advertising: Advertising in podcasts or production of podcasting content is being utilized by savvy marketers. Podcasting advertising will witness a compound annual growth rate of 154% from 2006 to 2010 compared to $3.1 million revenue in 2005 according to a recent report by the Economic Times.

The future: Many experts report that podcasts represent the next evolution in the new digital media domain. According to a Forrester research report by 2010, 12 million people will be listening to podcasts as a part of their media diet. This figure was announced even before iTunes popularised podcasts.

Taking this all into account, podcasts provide a great opportunity to market your product or service to unique niche audiences. At InvisibleIdea we help you create distribution of your content by creating your own distribution channels.

Matthew

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Nobody explains it better than a Ninja.

Matthew

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There is amazing research out of Edision Media / Arbitron as they have released their third annual study on podcast listening.  Get this, nearly one in ten Americans listened to a podcast this month.  One in five have listened to a podcast ever.  The audience is growing rapidly.  Audio podcasting is up from 13 percent to 18 percent this year, and video podcasting from 11 percent to 16 percent. This is fantastic news for our clients who we are helping to podcast.  Think about how effective and affordable podcasting is.  What a great way to communicate to people who want to hear what you have to say.  Wow!

Matthew

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A lot of our clients have either published books or are in the development process of releasing a book.  Here’s an idea, what about releasing a couple of the chapters as a podcast?  That’s exactly what Seth Harwood did, he writes crime stories.  Seth started out the podcast route, eventually released his novel through Amazon with a small publisher, and how has been picked up by Random House.  It may seem strange to give away part of something you are creating and hoping to sell but it has several advantages.

I know feedback is a critical component to getting a book project off the ground, or I wouldn’t get so many manuscripts.  How about distributing that first chapter through your podcast feed to get feedback from listeners who are already supporters?  If you get  enought feedback then create an online forum for fans to participate, give you ideas and suggestions on what they are looking for.  This type of market research has an added value in building up an audience that is ready to go out and  support the book sales once it is released.  It obviously works for a crime story writer, can it work for you?

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I recently listened to a great podcast episode by one of the premier podcasting experts, about showing up in search results within iTunes. I’ll link to that episode at the end of this post, but its worth distilling the message here first.

Results whether they be in Google or iTunes are based on Relevancy and Authority. Within iTunes, relevancy works much the same way as in other search engines - how relevant is your content to the searched keyword. Using your keywords in your title, name, summary, and keyword tags make you relevant. All of these are indexed and searchable by iTunes.

Authority is based on how popular a podcast is. This is measured primarily by how many daily new subscribers a podcast has. That is, how many new people click the subscribe button on a daily basis for a podcast. This is how iTunes “ranks” a podcast. It is not based on how many total subscribers or how many unique downloads a podcast has and certainly doesn’t include how much of any of this occurs outside of the iTunes directory.

The other component to authority is ratings and reviews. The amount of positive “star” ratings, is an easy and great way to increase authority and search results when keyword searching within iTunes

Thanks Jason for that great bit!

iTunes SEO Podcast

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One of the greatest perks of my job is that I get to work with some really wonderful content creators.  I have gotten to learn about real estate, finance, health and legal issues from some really bright minds.  These radio and podcast show hosts do a fantastic job of communicating their knowledge and educating people on how to improve their lives.

But it seems obvious to me that focusing on simply creating great content is only part of the equation.  When Stephen Covey set out his 7 Rules for Highly Effective People, he offered this advice: Begin with the end in mind. In other words, work backwards from where you want to end up and make choices that will lead you there.

I think it’s great to focus on the content, to have compelling interviews, to educate listeners about your passion, but the next question is how do you want the listeners to respond?  All of the radio shows and podcasts that I distribute and syndicate have a goal of growing their customer  base as a result of these efforts, but often times they forget to regularly invite the listener to get involved.

One of my favorite ways to engage with the listener is to offer something of value to them, a free report, an article that you reference on the program, some way for them to get in touch with you.

One of my financial clients has started doing this every week and seen fantastic results.  He generates over 100 calls per episode by offering a free report.  The listener has two opportunities for getting in touch, they can go to his website and enter their email address or call a voice mail number and leave a message.  The report is then emailed to them.  It’s easy to find the free report button on his website and using a voice mail box is also very effective as the majority of people listening are away from their computer, in the car, at the gym or whatever.

Of course, these are rich email addresses to build the all important data base and new content can be feed to these listeners on a regular basis.  My encouragement to you is keep producing great content, but also think about how do you invite your listeners to be in touch.

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