Marketing with New Media is more than business blogging. Much more! But what’s a busy business person like you supposed to do if you aren’t ready to start Podcasting. Or what if you just don’t have the time to create Podcasts as a New Media marketing channel. Well, there are ways for you to stop missing out on exposure to tens of millions of people.

Have you seen pictures of the Parthenon in Greece? Built 400 years before Christ, it still stands today. Have you ever thought how that’s possible? How a structure can stand for over 2400 years? It’s a testament to the wise combination of engineering, materials, and strategy.

Like the Parthenon, your New Media Marketing strategy has major and minor pillars. (or it should! )

Four New Media Marketing Pillars

The four main pillars are; blogs, Podcasts, social networks, and online video. And each of these has numerous supporting pillars as well.

The point is, if you fell for the hype that you can throw up a blog for your business and you’re going to gather a Tribe of raving fans who are hungry for your products or services — you probably already realize that you’re in for major disappointment.

When you create a New Media Marketing strategy using multiple pillars you’ve got stability. And you’ve got multiple channels to gather a Tribe on your front lawn.

Audio Podcasting — essentially creating your own online radio station — is a main pillar for two reasons.

The practical; people don’t want to sit in front of their computer all day.

The psychological; a large percentage of people prefer to listen instead of reading or watching. Fail to provide them the channel they prefer and you’ll fail to keep them around.

Podcasting made easy

Now, if you want to succeed in maximizing the reach of your message without creating a persona and shtick for your Podcast — you can auto-Podcast. It’s simple and completely painless.

All you need is the RSS feed from your business blog and one of the growing number of auto-Podcast services available on the web. text-to-speech technology instantly turns your blog into an audio Podcast.

The top three auto-Podcasting sites

OK, these are in order of both my preference (which after all matters immensely ), practical use, and page rank (popularity.) All three have an ample options, without making things overwhelming. And all three have surprisingly good computer generated voices.

1.

2.

3.

Honorable mention for making auto-Podcasting easy for MySpace blogs

Some tips on effective auto-Podcasting

Making your auto-Podcasts as user friendly as possible does require a few simple tactics. Here are some pointers:

- Set your RSS feed to display full text. The auto-Podcast services will only convert the content that is in your RSS feed. If you only publish summaries in your feed, that’s all that will be converted for your listeners.

- Make sure all your images have alternate text. If not, the text-to-speech voice will just say “image” instead of “Susie after the surgery”, which if your blog is on cosmetic surgery, has a much better chance of drawing the listener back to your site. (* note: not all services convert images into text, check with the service provider you choose for details.)

- Include that all important Author’s Tag. That should at least include who you are, what you can do for the listener, and how they can get a special gift that you have for them. (This is for list-building for those in New Media la-la land.)

Podcasts created with live interaction, the ones built on persona and shtick, will always be more persuasive. But when that’s not practical — auto-Podcasting is the next best thing. It at least gives you another pillar for a rock-solid New Media Marketing success story.

John Paul Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. He and his partner Deborah are authors of the hit book Secrets Of Online Persuasion and creators of BLOG i360™; the pushbutton easy system for small business owners, marketers, and sales professionals who want to get more customers and cash online using New Media. You can reach J.P. at [krazycapitalist@gmail.com]