Beware of Podfakers

You know what gets my hair in knots? When I come across those who want to help people to podcast and they're not even ingrained in the industry themselves. I mean, just because you can record audio doesn't mean you can podcast. Geez!

I call these people podfakers. Definition?

"n: an inauthentic podcaster"

Jon would call these people and their products Snake Oil. He even has a nice category on his blog for these said folks.

If you want to learn how to podcast from someone else, make sure they meet all the criteria below:

• Make sure the person has their own podcast and not just one or two episodes. I'm talking about 15 or more. Why? Because this person would've gone through all the mistakes and lessons learned so they can teach you what to avoid in your podcasting journey. I can't tell you how many mics I've gone through before I got the right one, or the strategies I used to combat podfading, or the various editing tools I went through before I found the one that really works for me. Here's a link to my podcast. And another.
  
  
• Make sure they have a track record of some sort in the podcasting field. For example, do they have a ton of subscribers? Did they develop a technique that's helping them to make money off their podcast? Here my track record that will be featured in Paul Colligan's book.
  
  
• Make sure others at least reference that this person is a podcasting expert. There are clues online. Google the person's name. Use Technorati and see if the person is being tagged and why they're being tagged. Social media is way more honest in its portrayal of individuals simply because unlike newspapers, very little is filtered. So, trust it as you gather information about your podcasting instructor. Here I am on Google and here's my blog on Technorati. Judge for yourself.
  

Anything else I missed?

Technorati Tags: podcasting, social media