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Podcasting Sermons
Create Podcast Sermons
The Internet has made spreading faith significantly
easier. In the past, community residents were limited
to the churches, temples and houses of worships that
were available within driving distances. Coordinating
schedules with sermons could be challenging for busy
families.
The Internet has opened the doors to a
diverse congregation that exists beyond the traditional
borders that communities have become accustom to. Using
technology as a communication medium has not been lost
on spiritual leaders and many have embraced the Internet
as a medium to spread their faith. It is rare to find
a house of worship that does not have a website or Internet
presense. Expanding upon this theme, parishes looked
to podcasting to further expanded the reach of their
spiritual counselors and ministers. Many preachers record
homilies, hymns, services, sermons or gospel teachings,
for parishioners and interested listeners.
Podcasting allows followers to listen
to mass or sermons on their way to work or at a time
and place of their choosing. Integrating technology
into spiritual messages has become a modern solution
to chaotic schedules in an online world.
Audio Recording
The first step to creating a religious or spiritual
podcasts is to record the sermon or material. There
are a number of both hardware and software solutions
that facilitate the recording of audio content. Many
Churches and Ministries already record many of their
sermons. If that is the case, its just a matter of properly
formatting the file for podcast distribution. In order
to maximize the sermons compatibility, the recorded
file should be saved as an MP3 file and transferred
to the Internet.
Create Podcast
A podcast feed is an RSS feed that contains audio enclosures
in the feed's items. To create a podcast, the URL of
the audio files must be placed in the enclosure field
of the RSS feed. RSS feeds can be constructed manually
by using a text editor.
A step by step guide is available at http://www.make-rss-feeds.com
. If you are not comfortable hand coding an RSS feed
you may opt to use desktop software to create the podcast
feed. An easy tutorial for creating a podcast can be
found at http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tutorial.htm
.
Most desktop podcast solutions provide free evaluation
versions that can be used for 30 days. This allows users
to determine if the software meets their needs prior
to making a purchase decision. In other words, you can
create an entire podcast using a free download, if you
wish to continue to update the podcast with the software
each week or month you will need to purchase the software.
Once you have constructed a podcast, you
will need to transfer the RSS feed to your server. This
can be done using a standard FTP client (FTP clients
are often integrated into desktop podcast creation applications).
The feed is usually placed in the domain's root directory
like this: http://www.mydomain.com/nameoffeed.xml or
a sub directory like this http://www.mydomain.com/rss/nameoffeed.xml
.
Promoting Podcast
Now that a new communication medium is available for
followers, it is important that you properly promote
the podcast as a communication channel. Be sure to share
information related to the podcast with parishioners,
placing notices in the congregations weekly bulletins
or monthly newsletters. Add a mention of the podcast
on your community website.
In order to increase exposure of a religious
podcast, religious organizations can submit their podcasts
to podcasting directories and RSS search engines. This
can be done manually. Just as you would submit the URL
of a website or web page to a search engine, or you
can use software to automate the process. There is even
a portal specifically designed for religious and spiritual
podcasts.
Religious Podcasts - http://www.religious-podcasts.net
A List of podcast search engines. http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm
There is a large list of RSS directories at http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
that you can submit your feed to.
If you prefer to automate the submission
process, consider evaluating RSS Submit available from:
http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html.
There is an add-on module for submitting
specifically to podcast directories, that can be purchased
for an additional fee. In order to signal to website
visitors that a podcast containing content related to
the website is available, include a colorful graphic
on the website. Religious feed buttons can be customized
by selecting the text on the button and the color scheme
of the button. Once the color and text is entered, a
custom graphic is instantly created. Webmasters can
easily match the style of the RSS button to a website's
theme.
Custom Podcast Graphics - http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm
or locate ready made podcast graphics here: http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-graphics.htm
Many website visitors who have RSS readers/aggregators
installed will automatically detect an RSS feed on the
website if you add a small portion of text to the header
field of your HTML web page. Use the following format
to assist RSS readers in auto-detecting the location
of the RSS feed. [link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"
title="Insert Title" href=http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml]
Replace the brackets [] with less than and greater then
symbols <> and replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml
with the URL to the RSS feed. Also change the information
contained in the quotes following the title= to a descriptive
name that relates to your podcast or faith.
Update the Podcast.
Add new items to your podcast daily, weekly or monthly.
Simply add a new feed item and link to the audio enclosure
as new sermons or teachings are made available. As the
feed is updated and posted on your website, subscribers
will automatically receive the new content in their
aggregator or podcast receiver.
Podcast Tips.
In order to maximize the benefit of podcasting be sure
to archive older podcast sermons so that listeners can
optionally download older sermons. Because podcasting
is a new phenomenon, you may have to educate your audience
about how they can listen to a podcast. Include a simple
webpage on your site that walks them through the process
of subscribing. There is a sample web page that you
can add to your website and edit at http://www.podcasting-tools.com/podcast-subscription.htm
.
Additional tips to promote podcasts can
be found at http://www.feedforall.com/tips-promoting-podcasts.htm
and http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tips.htm
.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds
and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for
NotePage http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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be greatly appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
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