At what stage should your business begin using iTunes and/or a podcast? It seems nearly everyone has one these days, is it even worth it?

(Got your own questions for the show? Ask ‘em here!)

A question from David:

Hi Michelle. Dave Castle here. I absolutely love what you do. It’s a very good example of the new marketing and how well it works. I’m a real big fan!

My question is regarding iTunes. I guess I’m wondering how you look at iTunes. Is iTunes a place to repurpose content like webinars and videos and interviews and so on? And therefore, is it a place that the information is readily consumed by fans or is iTunes something that is absolutely necessary in the marketing of products and services for those of us who do the webinars and answer questions and basically want to generate traffic?

Is it a good traffic source? I guess that’s part of my question.

And do you feel that in this day and age that it’s absolutely imperative to be making your content available on iTunes just as you would on Google+ and Facebook and LinkedIn, et cetera? So is it something else to keep on our toolbox? I guess that’s my question. So thank you. Have a great day!

Hey thanks, David. So I wanted to address one thing that I heard that made me go, “Eek!” You said that this kind of video production, using iTunes, and all that kind of stuff is a good example of “the new marketing strategies.”

I will agree that it is a good example of what is being touted as a new marketing strategy or what is being branded as ‘content marketing’, but it’s really what good brands have been doing all along. Original content marketing has been around for 80-100 years. And so I don’t want to take any credit and I don’t think that other folks should, for inventing this ‘new’ way of marketing that really is just about putting good stuff out there so that your audience realizes that you know what you’re talking about, that you’ve got some good stuff to say and that they might want to engage with you further. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what I hope you’re doing with your audience too.

Now for the actual question that you were asking about iTunes.

It’s difficult to track, “Am I getting traffic from iTunes?” If people are finding me in iTunes, they’re most often listening on their phone and they aren’t necessarily clicking through anything to my website. They’re listening to a podcast, right? So I’m not seeing the kind of referral traffic that one typically looks for when we’re saying, “Hey, is that a source of traffic?”

I am seeing and hearing a lot of people who, like you, are listening to the show and then they respond by asking their own question. And I’ve got a lot of people who tell me, “Oh, I listened to this episode of Marketing Con Queso or this episode of the Michelle MacPhearson Show and really benefited from this piece of advice.” So it is creating chatter in the marketplace, which is good for any kind of content that you’re putting out.

I use Blubrry’s Wordpress plugin to manage my podcast and iTunes integration. With Blubrry, I am able to see how many downloads I’m getting, but you’ve got to keep in mind that the download figure is really one slice of the syndication pie. So when I do a podcast, I have my audio download that goes out to iTunes and is measured by Blubrry, I also have a video that goes to YouTube and then the transcript will be placed on my website and then syndicated elsewhere.

So I’m creating one piece of content. I’m syndicating it to a ton of different places. In that way, is iTunes valuable? Yes, because it is part of a larger strategy. Would I do a podcast and only have it on iTunes? No. I don’t think that that would be a good strategy.

I mean, why? If you’ve got the content, then go! Put it out everywhere. That’s the smart thing to do and that’s what I hope that everybody listening to this picks up. If you’re creating content, get it out to as many places as possible. You might not find that any one changes your life, but it’s about creating that snowball that I’ve talked about in the consistency and momentum video. It’s about doing small things that over time will build up and make big differences in your business.

iTunes right now is becoming more and more part of the general public’s vernacular and podcasts are as well. So for that reason too, I would not overlook it.

So create your content in video or audio if you can and then you will be able to distribute it to the video and audio platforms like iTunes and YouTube. And then from there, you can create that transcript and get textual content distributed.

Those are my tips on iTunes and overall on content syndication. Thanks for the question, David. Those of you listening in or watching or reading since we are syndicating this, head on over to MichelleMacPhearson.com and ask your own questions. We appreciate it. Bye.

(Get my free, premium 6 part course on content creation and syndication at Always Be Shipping).

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