BandwidthCamp

Tipster Thursdays is a monthly feature covering technology and how you can incorporate it as part of your marketing plan. We’re going to look at different pieces of technology like Twitter, Pingie, Wiki, SmugMug, Facebook and delicious and show you 5 different and unusual uses for the technology. This weeks column is going to look at podcasts.

A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet. Once the podcast is recorded and finalized, you can post it to iTunes, your own website or for playback on iPods, portable media players and PCs. Podcasts are an interesting medium, as they haven’t gone beyond the radio show style format for the most part. Insomniac Games’ podcast Full Moon is taking off and the gaming community is enjoying what they have to say. The podcast isn’t strictly about games they are working on, but about the gaming industry from a developer’s perspective. Here are 5 great ways you can use podcasting as a tactic in your marketing plan.

1. Podcasting a side story from your game would be a great way to show off the story telling ability of your team as well as their imagination.
2. Video podcast how to use your mod kit for your game. The more people who know how to use it, the more people who could potential make a cool mod for your game.
3. Launch a video podcast fan kit competition and have your community remix and reedit a song and video from your game.
4. Podcast part of your ARG for fans to find online or on an MP3 player.
5. Take the novel you already have and podcast it chapter-by-chapter and provide another way for your fans to connect with your product.

As I mentioned in my Gamasutra column last year, Online Public Relations: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Don’t go cheap and be as creative as possible. You have to be willing to invest both finances and time into your content. If you are not going to invest the same effort you put into prepping that advertising page for Game Informer magazine, then don’t even get started. Don’t simply do what your competition is doing. as people are drawn to creative and fun pieces of content. Participation tends to yield inspiration as well. When you get the community involved, they inspire and push your content to another level. Never underestimate the power and creativity of your community when you get them involved because podcasts are a great medium.