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Through audio podcasts, you can repurpose content to inform your demographic about your products and services while giving your brand a personality. This makes it easier to build a relationship with your target market and invite potential new clients into your fold.
If you haven’t added podcasting into your online marketing campaign, now is a good time as any. As a beginner, we won’t be jumping right into the professional broadcasting equipment. Instead, here are the essential hardware you may already have in your home or office to get you started.
Computer
Perhaps the most important piece of hardware in your armory, the computer will be shouldering most of the podcasting creation process—from planning, recording, post production editing, and online publishing. Internally, the computer must of course have a soundcard with the accompanying audio in and out ports, internal storage of at least 20GB, a gigabyte or more of memory and a decent enough connection to the Internet.
Microphone
Though most laptops today come embedded with microphones pin-holes, it’s best to get an external mic you can hook up to your computer’s audio in or USB ports. Built-in mics may be adequate for VoIP calls but they prove unsatisfactory for voice recordings as they usually produce inconsistent audios and even pick up the laptop’s internal noises like the hard drive or the system fan’s humming.
External mics offer a far better audio quality and can be placed on any surface for convenience. But you need to make sure your chosen mic is of good enough quality for your needs so it’s always best to test it out first.  Mics apt for podcasting must be able to handle and record voice clearly and of balanced audio levels. This means the resulting playback voices should be neither tinny nor too bass-heavy without any unexpected noises. Audio this clear makes it easier and more flexible for you to add addition audios like background music.
Headphones
Any pair of headphones would be sufficient for podcasting as long as they offer decent sound reproduction with clean audios at balanced levels. Sound quality may be subjective, but audio clarity can be gauged. So it’s crucial for you to test the pair you intend on using with a professionally produced podcast, an audiobook or maybe a recording of your voice. Over-the-ear headphones usually offer good audios as they cover the ears and prevent distracting external noises though you can probably find nice quality earbuds with noise-cancelling features that do the same.
Digital Audio Recorder
While it’s not exactly a part of the basic podcasting toolset, a digital audio recorder can definitely be a valuable addition. Since it is lightweight, it’ll offer you a lot of mobility for when you need to record your podcasts on the road, or for when you need to interview certain people, or get soundbites you can insert during editing. That said, you can also use a handheld multimedia player or a mobile phone that can record with good audio recording qualities. All these you can do without having to lug around a laptop, which can be rather painfully annoying during events.
Tags: Audio, content creation, Hardware, online marketing, podcast, podcasting, Social Media
