Publicly held companies are beginning to post investor relations podcasts on their web sites. A good example of this approach is IBM, which has created a lengthy web page (click here to see it) containing hundreds of podcasts, with the investor relations-specific podcasts shown at the bottom. Another podcast provider is Cisco Systems (click here to see Cisco's web page). Of the two, I think IBM has really nailed the concept.
The basic approach is for investors or analysts to access these web pages just once to sign up for an automatic feed, so that subsequent postings are pushed out to them for subsequent downloading to their iPods or similar MP3 devices. This approach is especially useful for recipients, who can listen whenever they have time, pause broadcasts, fast forward, and so on.
Here are the basic steps for creating an investor relations podcast:
- Hook a condenser microphone to a preamp, and from there to a sound card in a PC.
- Download a free copy of Audacity software to record the podcast, which you can download from this link.
- Record the podcast in Audacity.
- Convert the file to an MP3 file, using a free copy of the LAME project's software, which you can download from this link.
- Convert your recording to MP3 format, and post it on your web site.