A podcast is a series of audio or video files released episodically. People who are interested in your topic will download these files to listen to using an mp3 player or watch the video files in their media player. What can you do with podcasting? To give you a few examples, using podcasting, you can do product reviews, interviews with your peers, express your ideas and trends on a topic, give your opinion, promote a cause, and more. What you can do with podcasting is limited to your imagination only. Nobody is looking over your shoulder and telling you what to say and not to say. You have the ultimate control of your podcasting contents.

With the falling price of electronics gadgets, you can buy all the basic equipment, like a good microphone and software, needed to start podcasting for under a few hundred dollars assuming you already have a laptop or desktop. You can also use excellent open source software for free. How do you make money with podcasting? Here are five ways you generate some dough using your podcasting talent. You can build sponsorships just like radio advertising. There are sponsors for all kinds of topics. Check out companies involved in radio advertising related to your topic and approach them for sponsorship of your podcast.

Charge a fee for your podcast. If you’re creating premium contents with lots of value for the target audience, you can charge a fee to listen to or watch your podcast. Take some premium, teaser contents and give them away for free. When your audience finds the value of your contents, they will be willing to pay a fee for the full content. Join a network that pays for your podcasting. There are companies that will put your podcast in front of a large audience and these companies will pay for your contents. Some of the networks are PodTrac, Mevio, Wizard Media. These companies will find matches for your content to targeted audience and they will share advertising fees with you.