Today we get tons of free insights into get publicity for your podcast, getting on radio, and  using Experts to mentor you in your podcast journey.

This week John Overall of wppro.ca came the the rescue when the WP Super Cache plugin went left of center and kept feeding cached pages even though I had deactivated it (very strange). John has two podcasts of his one. One is WordPress Plugins A to Z with Marcus Couch, and the other is WP Medic. Thanks John for your help. If you find your wordpress site has gone weird, John is the man to get you back on track.

One of the things that podcasting does is it keeps your name in front of your customer (or potential podcast). So when my website went weird, I couldn’t remember John’s consulting site, but I knew his podcast (which had a link to his consulting site). I called

If you Google “Free publicity” you will Find Joan Stewart and her Publicy Hound website on the front page. She has over 2000 posts on publicity. She has worked as a reporter, city editor, managing editor and writing coach during her 14 years at The Lake County News-Herald in Willoughby, Ohio. She assigned and edited many award-winning stories and won several writing awards for her own articles. She left the newspaper industry in 1994 to start her own business. As a publicity consultant, speaker and trainer, she works with business owners, nonprofits and organizations that need to use free publicity in traditional and social media to establish their credibility, enhance their reputation, position themselves as experts, sell more products and services, and promote a favorite cause or issue–without an expensive publicist. (If you need a publicist, she can refer one.)

Today Joan comes on the School of Podcasting to give us a “Free publicity 101″ training. She provides tips on getting on the radio, using youtube, press releases and more. Here are the links we mentioned during our conversation

• 
  
• You need to identify your target audience. This will help you decide what content to produce. You can’t be everything to everyone.
  
• Write a press release with your top 10 tips. Politely lure people in with the tips, and mention that you have a podcast.
  
• Submit a press release directly to the local media.
  
• Use Linked In, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter
  
• Tag companies on Facebook that make a product who has your audience
  
• Be seen as an expert using Quora.com and let people know that you have a podcast.
  

Here is a sample article about being a Radio Guest on Publicity Hound: Dazzle as a Radio Guest  (plenty more where that came from).

Free Press Release Sites

prlog.org

free-hyphen-press-release.com

pr.com

quora.com – question and answer site

budurl.com/pitchtemplate – template for pitching your show to the media

publicityhound.com/?p=25337 – Headline Analyzing Tool

You can get tons of great tips and resources over at Joan’s site www.publicityhound.com

There are two lists that you can use to be on a list (to be seen as an expert) as well as you can use to FIND expert.

These are Help a Reporter Out, and Radio Guest List.

Both are free and you can read more about them here.

Scott Fox (the man behind Radio Guest List) also has a four hour audio series on getting on radio. You can order it HERE and be listening immediately. It covers:

1. The Who, What, and Why of Radio and Podcast Interviews, including How to Find Shows Interested in You

2. How to Pitch Radio Shows for Free Interviews

3. How to be a Good Radio Guest, How to Get Booked Again, and Top Mistakes to Avoid

4. Your Radio Publicity Questions Answered

You can pick up these audio files at howtogetonradio.com

I spent 16 hours troubleshooting my website this week. If I made $7.25 an hour I lost $116 (actually more as I make more than minimum wage). So as I tried all the easy stuff to troubleshoot my website I was losing money. It wasn’t until I was frustrated, embarrassed, and ready to cry that I called an expert (John Overall in this case). John fixed my site in about 15 minutes. Let’s say (for an example) that I paid John $18.75 can you see that yes I pad $20 (let’s round up to make things easy) I actually SAVED $116-20 or $96 in the long run (not to mention the benefits of not being stressed out).

Your expert LIVES in your area that you need help in. Their hourly rates may seem expensive but they EARNED  that rate by having the EXPERIENCE to fix things the first time.

Yes, my next group podcast consulting class starts soon at www.howtopodcast.com

With podcasting gathering more steam this year, all of the “snake oil sales people” have come out of the wood work. People that appear to be knowledgeable are not (Corey Deitz the podcast export on About.com does not even have a podcast).  Allan Hunkin (author of the podcast and talk host mastery) states he’s been podcasting for 13 years. This is interesting as podcasting has only been around for 9.

Podcast consultants are coming out of the woodwork. They are like drug stores in the US. You see one about every three blocks.  So here are some things to ponder when choosing a podcast consultant.

1. Do they have a podcast? (how can you consult on something you don’t have?).

2. Do they have contact information (as you’re going to have questions)

3. Have they been podcasting longer than 6 months?

4. Do they know more than one way to podcast? (everything is not one size fits all).

5. Do they recommend Blog Talk Radio (if they do RUN do not walk away from this person).

John Overall WordPress Expert

WordPress Plugins A to Z

WP Medic

Podcast Talent Coach

Allan Hunkin

Blog Talk Radio

Call In Studio

• Growing Your Podcast Audience By Getting on Radio
• Marketing 101 With Allen Stewart of the Marketer’s Podcast
• If Content is King, What is Queen?
• Audio Technica 20/20 – and The iRiver T30 Fooled Me
• Is Content Really King?