AgWired

What? A post about a comic book show in New York? Why Chuck? I’ll tell you why. Because the show organizers are using new media to not only promote the show but “as a way to build up an online community surrounding the show.” Imagine if we had a Commodity Classic blog and podcast. What kinds of interviews would we have already conducted with people who are featured speakers or with some of the contest and award winners? Do you somehow think that would diminish the event? I don’t.

I highly recommend reading this article on Chief Marketer titled, “Pods and Cons: Podcasting Helps Reed Turn Conventions into Yearlong Events.” You can find the podcast online here. You know the cool thing about this is that we in agriculture have examples in other industries we can follow if we’re not actually leading the way.

Here’s a quote from the article that kind of says it all. “”What’s exciting about podcasts is it creates a way to extend a convention,” he says. “The podcast becomes a way to reach out to not only attendees but the industry who likes to reach those fans with compelling content year round. Think of it as a digital booth or showroom.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

A new article on eMarketer.com talks about the growth in advertising in podcasts. They’re looking at the whole issue from a mass consumer standpoint and make it very clear that this is a niche audience channel. What I’d like to see is research on those of us who are specifically using it as a niche vs. mass audience channel. For example, my weekly ZimmCast is usually downloaded somewhere between 50 and 100 times within the week after I first post a new episode. However, if you look at the downloads for programs over the last year I have some programs that have been downloaded as many as 900 times. I haven’t really tried to find an advertiser for it yet although feel free to be the first one! The key here is who those people are. If they’re the top thought leaders in our niche business then I don’t care about the masses do I? Who do you most want to reach? The leaders right?

Here’s an excerpt from the eMarketer.com article:

As a rule, most widely consumed podcasts still have less than 50,000 downloaders, and most have far fewer, but podcast distribution and viewing mechanisms are proliferating and podcast advertising has marketers buzzing.

Even though podcast advertising spending was a mere $3.1 million in 2005, it rose to $80 million in 2006, and eMarketer forecasts that it will grow fivefold in the next five years.

I have no doubts they’re right. There’s seems to be no stopping iPod sales and with the iPhone coming out soon even more people are going to be looking for content to listen to. Are you in the conversation?