A podcast is any type of audio file that can be delivered via your computer, your iPod, or an MP3 player for playback.

Applications:
That said, there are several applications of podcasting in real estate. NAR’s Frederick Heller does a great job of examining podcasting’s impact on real estate and RSSPieces provides good background and great tactical advice but I am going to cover the more practical, near-term “broad stroke” applications as I see them:

• Property Information: This involves recording an audio narration for property listings. (Example)
• Company Information: Similar to property information except focused on providing information your real estate firm.
• Regional Market Updates: A “news summary” of what is going on in your regional real estate marketing. A number of real estate agents are narrating regional market updates and distributing them as podcasts on their blogs and through podcasting directories. (Example)
• Blog Post and Interviews: An obvious and easy way to get started in podcasting is to conduct interviews as podcasts and distributing them through your blog. (Example)
• Marketing and Education: Probably the best example of this is Century 21’s Talk Podcasts. The C21 Talk Podcasts feature a broad range of education (and marketing) material as series of informational podcasts. Every big real estate broker should take a look at it. Coldwell Banker has a similar concept with their Video Feedroom site.

Distribution:
So once you get started in podcasting, what next? Here are a couple of ideas on how you can quickly start utilizing and distributing your podcasts:

• Flyers and Listings: Add your podcast to your vFlyer or listing as an external link. This makes sense for property and company information as well as regional market updates. (Example)
• Blogs and Websites: Add an icon and link on your blog of website. Some podcasting services allow you to place widgets that enable your podcasts to be played directly on your site without a windows player (Example). Having an area of your website dedicated to podcasts makes sense if you choose to make them a core part of your marketing outreach. (Example)
• Podcasting Directories: Several podcasting directories exist that help consumers find podcasts of interest to them – including Apple iTune. (Example)
• Search and RSS: Because podcasts are audio files, it isn’t yet possible for search engines to search or understand their content, so exposing your podcasts as an RSS feed makes a lot of sense. Die hard geeks can visit Podcast411 for a complete podcasting RSS how-to. WordPress plug-ins and other tools also exist to help bloggers expose their podcasts as RSS. (Example)

Tools and Services:
In my next post I will talk about some of the tools, services, and technologies for those interested in podcasting and audio in general. I have played and experiment with a number of free and paid podcasting services as well as audio editors and other tools and will share some of my experiences and advice.

• You can it anywhere and anytime. As long as you have a phone, you can podcast. You don’t even need a computer, a pen or notebook! Dial in, conference in and podcast away!
• You can do it as many times as you want. I found some of the best podcasts to be short 5–10 minute interviews. For my latest post I was able to do 12 interviews in about two days and all in all it took less than an hour!
• You can keep it real. Most podcasts are unrehearsed! I am sure you can spend time editing them but the beautify of this medium is that it gives a glimpse into real people and real conversations – when was the last time you had to rehearse a conversation with a friend – conversations are real, so is podcasting
• You can blog it. I found podcast a great way to supplement my blogging habit! Blogging, and writing in general, is time consuming. Just because you spend 5 minutes trying to write something, doesn’t mean you will generate 5 minutes worth of content! I have found, however, that 5 minutes of podcasting, is approximately 5 minutes worth of podcasting. You can link to it from your blog post, or better still include a small flash-based audio player (Example) or widget and you are ready to go!
• You can take it with you. You can download podcasts to your iPod and take them with you or even submit your podcasts using RSS (spec) and make them available to Apple iTunes users who can then “subscribe” to your channel. (Note: This is a great idea for a follow up “how-to” blog post).
• You can be creative. There are many ways you can use podcasts. Obviously you can use them on your blog! If you don’t have time to blog it, podcast it! You can interview just about anyone. I recently blogged about using podcasts to narrate a property description, you can start your own real estate “talk radio” show or use podcasts for training or communicating other marketing information (Example).
• You can use it for marketing. You can attach podcasts to your real estate flyers (Example), you can submit them to podcast directories (Example), you can make them available on your website, prospects can subscribe to your “talk radio show” or “mini seminars” (Example) using iTunes or through your site, and the list of marketing possibilities goes on.
• You can find out more. There are a lot of resources online on podcasting! RSS Pieces did a good two piece series on RSS and Real Estate. The NAR talks about podcasting as well. Believe me, if you seek, you will find, and the door will be opened to you.

Hopefully I have convinced you to at least consider podcasting! What next? Well here are couple of starters:

• Get a podcasting service. There are a number of inexpensive and free services available that allow you to podcast over the phone using a toll-free 800 number. Find one and get familiar with it. If you need advice, let me know.
• Get comfortable speaking. It takes a little time to get into the swing of podcasting so don’t be afraid to practice. For me, it was just getting used to the sound my own voice (the “I sound like that” moment). Over time you’ll become a natural, I’m sure.
• Get going! You have to start some time and there is no better time than now! Podcast your listing and make it available on your blog or flyer, podcast an interview (if you can’t think of anyone to interview, you can always interview me), podcast a regional market update, podcast anything but just podcast!

Aaron Sperling and I launched vFlyer almost a year ago as horizontal marketing and distribution platform and very quickly found that real estate was one of our “sweet spots”. Since then, I have learned a lot about real estate and share a passion for technology and real estate as do many of my fellow contributors.

Real estate is hard work and technology can definately help! I have found that real estate professionals are much further ahead of the technology learning curve than their counterparts in other small business segements. In fact, I have not seem the same level of Web 2.0 and Internet technology adoption in any other small business category. A good example of this is simply the number of Realtors involved in blogging! Robert Melton of Pittsburgh Homes Daily has indentified and tracks well over 1,000 Real Estate Blogs and I am sure that figure doesn’t take into account the number of real estate bloggers on social networking sites such as ActiveRain.

I have also found most real estate professionals to be hard working, open to new ideas and personable in a way that has made my involvement in the industry a pleasure and has led to many friendships and even more great conversations.

That said, I look forward to being an active contributor to this blog. Those who know me know that although I love getting into the “nitty gritty” of technology, at the end of the day, I am more of a “big picture” guy. You are probably not going to see me writing a lot of step by step how-to’s or in depth analysis of late breaking news pieces – although I think both are great! When I paint, I paint with broad strokes and blog, I generally do the same – I will try and focus on helping real estate professionals understand the meta trends in real estate – how technologies like video, podcasting, syndication, and mobile will change the way they market their listings. Also, I will tend to use a good dose of bold in my posts – you’ll have to forgive me – in real-life I often get accused of speaking too loudly so I guess this is just my way of blogging loudly.