There is a tectonic shift taking place in the music industry. For years, those of us who love indie music have complained about problems getting radio airtime. Now, podcasting has emerged as a disruptive technology that is changing the ways that people listen to and discover music. However, while many recognize the reality of this shift, a lot of us still need to understand how and why this is happening.

The Internet in general has helped to level the playing field with Indie oriented web sites, online message boards, music blogs and social networks. Articles in the NY Times have noted how the Internet is shifting the balance of power in the music industry. While the four dominant music conglomerates are losing sales, indie labels are gaining market share. A particularly noteworthy quote in the Times article is from John Janick, co-founder of independent label, Fueled by Ramen: “It’s not as easy to shove something down people’s throats anymore and make them buy it.”

The Long Tail

In a 2004 Wired Magazine article, Chris Anderson wrote: “Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.” Even Business Week has talked about the end of the mass market. In the book market, a Barnes and Nobles physical store is capable of storing 130,000 titles, yet Amazon the majority of Amazon’s sales are not in the top 130,000 titles.

Podcasting is a tool of great value for doing business in The Long Tail. Unlike radio, there is no limit to the number of programs in podcasting. The key of course is how to create efficiencies in reaching your audience and not getting lost in the thousands of music podcasts that are getting launched on a regular basis. This is where branding and knowing how to connect with your audience comes into play. You also need to understand the various approaches to music discovery that have launched on the web such as Last.FM and Pandora.

Pull vs. Push

In the old business model, radio stations could push songs and create hits, simply by playing a song over and over again. But, now people are able to select what they want and listen to it when they want it by subscribing to podcasts. Newspapers, TV and radio are push media. A podcast is pull media, because users select what they want and subscribe to it.

The act of subscribing is significant because users who choose to subscribe are implicitly gving you permission to keep providing them with new episodes, which then arrive automatically, without additional effort on the part of the subscriber. There is great power in this, as these people are likely to be real fans and building a community around these fans is more likely to increase concert attendance and even lead to things like merchandise sales. Getting to know your fans better by providing them ways to interact means you would be less likely to offer them something they do no want, and it makes it easier to keep things real. Thus, what might be advertising in a push medium, can really be considered a service people want in a pull medium.

What should you put into a Podcast?

Include interviews, so it not just a monologue and let people find out about the artist. Some people may be concerned about giving away their music in a podcast and loosing sales. This should not really be a concern. First, don’t put all of your tracks into podcasts. And, since we’re recommending interviews, consider samples, rather than entire tracks. If the interview is truly interesting, then you would not want entire tracks anyway. Each podcast episode is one MP3, so people who want to steal music from a podcast would have to edit it before being able to listen to or share the song by itself to avoid a purchase.

Include enough for a fan to get the feel of the music and focus on delivering the message you want. This, of course takes time and effort, but as music artists, this is what you already do when recording your music. Just make sure to find someone who is good at talking. Be sure to talk about your history and let your personality show through.

Many podcasters use a music only format and if you don’t have time for interviews this is something to consider. By mapping podcast episodes to blog postings, you can provide the additional info listeners would like to have in the text of the post.

Syndication

Done properly a Podcast can be like a syndicated newspaper column that appears in different newspapers all over the world. A Podcast is a media file (audio or video) inside an RSS enclosure. RSS stands for really simple syndication. The most popular way people currently get a Podcast is by using iTunes to subscribe to an RSS feed, but RSS is a standard and the future (or even the present for some) may hold all sorts of interesting alternatives to iTunes. In addition, iTunes itself will continue to evolve.

Podcasting Best Practices

• Use what you already know about your fans to influence your podcast productions.
• Commit to a doable schedule (e.g. weekly, monthly) and keep to it. Don’t release a bunch of episodes all together and then stop for a couple of months.
• Provide easy ways for fans to give you feedback about your podcasts and communicate back to them directly.
• When you perform, let people know you have a podcast. Put links to your podcast on your primary web site and in any print material you distribute.
• Audio podcasts that work well currently are about 20 minutes in length. Successful video podcasts are only a few miniutes long. If people want more, they’ll tune into a couple at a time.
• While you don’t need MTV quality, think about what your audience will expect.
• Deliver information to your fans about your history, where you’re heading and make sure your personality shows through.
• Write good descriptions for each episode and ideally have these appear in a blog post that is associated with the audio or video content.
• Follow web standards, so your content will be found and also syndicated more easily.
• Have a web site dedicated to your podcast, but list your podcast in all the popular directories. Ping these directories to ensure your podcasts get updated.
• Get experienced people to help you who understand both marketing and the technology necessary to support your marketing efforts.