Posted by It was a goal of mine to get a digital marketing podcast published on the iTunes and Android store. The issue was that I didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating an XML feed to host the podcast on my site.
Related: The 10 Technology Items You’ll Need to Start a Podcast
Like many entrepreneurs and business owners, the XML feed deterred me from my ambition of creating my own podcast. I know I could have figured this out or asked one of the developers at our marketing agency to help. At the end of the day though, the XML feed was a hurdle and because of this, I didn’t pursue my podcasting ambition.
I know that there are a lot of entrepreneurs like me who have yet to record a podcast due to the hoops that you’d have to jump through with this XML feed. That’s about to change!
You are my Anchor.
I was recently introduced to Anchor, an app that allows you to broadcast your voice, music and conversations, all for free. Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the most popular marketers in the world right now, had Anchor’s CEO on one of his podcasts. When I heard that Anchor allows you to get your podcasts pushed to Apple and Google, I immediately downloaded the app.
According to The Verge, the app can now publish recordings to podcast platforms, sending them to both Apple and Google’s collection of shows for even more people to find. While podcasting has always been open to anyone, Anchor is trying to remove the last few hoops that people had to jump through, like setup, hosting and distributing an RSS feed so that listeners can subscribe to the podcast. “Unfamiliar with RSS?” Anchor wrote in a blog post. “Cool, let’s keep it that way.”
BOOM. I finally had a place to record my podcasts and easily distribute them to Apple and Google. And 99.6 percent of new smartphones run Android or iOS. If you want to easily get your podcast distributed, Anchor is your go-to audio source.
(P.S. If you want to learn more about digital marketing, follow me on Anchor and check out my podcast.)
Related: 8 Ways Podcasters Can Profit From Their Shows
You can create content that disappears.
An additional perk about Anchor is its functionality that is similar to Snapchat or Instagram Stories. Not all audio recordings are going to be podcast material. If you want to give a daily sports update in two minutes, like Sports Rundown, the audio recordings will disappear after 24 hours. The podcasts that get published to Apple and Google stay live, so that other people can continue to find and listen to them.
What if you already have a podcast and want to merge?
Ironically, I found a plugin via WordPress a week before I was introduced to Anchor called Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin for WordPress. I had already recorded my first podcast and obtained some reviews. I didn’t want to have to start from scratch with Anchor.
Fortunately, it is super simple to switch your existing podcast to Anchor and there are numerous benefits:
- Anchor is 100 percent free. Yup. Including hosting costs.
- You can create your podcast episodes right from your phone. That means no more expensive hardware, fuddling with RSS feeds or hours of editing audio.
- You get full access to all of Anchor’s unique, innovative features — like remote interviews and call-ins from your listeners.
Related: The Rise (and Rise) of Branded Podcasts
There is a downside.
This trendy audio recording app doesn’t come without flaws. For me, the biggest is that you can only record audio for five minutes at a time. While you can easily merge audio clips together, when you are recording a podcast and have to stop your train of thought when you are approaching the five-minute mark, it is frustrating.
For the digital marketing podcast that my sister and I created, we record it on Quicktime and then upload the audio from our desktop using Anchor’s Clipper. Even when we upload this onto Anchor, it splits our audio recording into a bunch of different clips rather than keeping it as one 30-minute clip. This can be frustrating, especially when you aren’t familiar with the app. I learned, however, that when you take the clip and upload it as an episode (which will send it to the iTunes and Android store) it will then keep the entire recording together.
Start a smooth sailing podcast.
Every morning, I record a quick digital marketing tidbit on Anchor, which is like Instagram Stories and Snapchat and disappears after 24 hours. Once a week, my sister and I record our weekly podcast about a different digital marketing topic, directly from Anchor’s app, which gets distributed onto the iTunes and Android store.
I’m now able to easily share my podcast to both Android and iPhone users with Anchor’s customized URL. I’m also able to see analytics on how many people have listened to my podcasts.
It’s been a long time coming but thanks to this great new app, I have a podcasting and audio recording strategy.
Now it’s time for you to get started!