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Podcasters and bloggers love feedback from their audience, but are you providing enough or the right ways for your listeners/readers to share their opinions?

Learn eight options you can add for your community to share their perspective with you.

1. Written email

Have your feedback email address on your site! If you’re concerned about spam, you can use Gmail the right way, which will give great spam protection.

Don’t write your email address like, “feedback [ at ] theaudacity to podcast [ dot ] com.” That’s unfriendly to your visitors! Instead, use the free CryptX plugin for WordPress to encrypt your email address but keep it friendly for humans.

2. Phone voicemails

Picking up a phone and dialing a number is the easiest way for people to send feedback. For podcasts, it’s also great to hear an additional voice.

Check out these services for making a voicemail number:

• Google Voice (free)
• Kall8
• K7
• BroadVoice (what Cliff Ravenscraft from Podcast Answer Man uses)

3. Website comments

Write great shownotes and allow instant comments on your site, and it’s a great way to receive “replies” on specific content from your audience.

This is easier for you and your commenters with a WordPress plugin:

• Disqus
• LiveFyre

4. Contact/feedback form

Sometimes, it’s too inconvenient for someone to open their email program to write an email. Sometimes, hosts are, unfortunately, paranoid of putting their email address on a website. In either case, a contact form is a great solution for your audience to email you through your site.

This form is easy to add to WordPress with a plugin:

• Jetpack (free)
• Contact Form 7 (free)
• Gravity forms ($39 for one site, $99 for three, $199 developer license)

5. Audio messages

Encourage your fans to record themselves to send as feedback! They can use their own podcasting equipment or a voice recorder app on their smartphones to email the audio to you.

Or use the currently free SpeakPipe voice message service to add a tab or link to your site where visitors can click to record a message right from their computers.

6. Social networks

Be on the top social networks—like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube—only if you can do it well.

Wherever you are, encourage conversation among your community. You may need a document or app like Evernote, Springpad, or Workflowy to track these messages for inclusion in future content.

7. Forum posts

When you get some much interaction on your website and through email that it gets hard to manage, it may be time to start a forum. Here are the best forum packages:

• phpBB (free, standalone)
• bbPress (free, WordPress plugin)
• Simple Machines Forum (free, standalone)
• vBulletin ($249, standalone)

8. Website chat

You may even want a way for website visitors to instantly chat with you like an IM through your website. For this, check out:

• Zopim (WordPress plugin used by Dave Jackson from School of Podcasting)
• Woopra (website stats package that includes instant chat, limited free)

Poll: What are your top 2 ways you receive feedback?

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Podcasting tip

Your voice is as valid as everyone else’s. Don’t let inner negative voices keep you from starting. Erik Fisher from Beyond the To Do List

Nick from SPNT.tv certainly didn’t let inner negative voices stop him from launching Start Talking and Recording Today, a podcast about podcasting.

What are you thankful for in podcasting?

For my upcoming Thanksgiving episode, I would like to include your top one or two things you’re thankful for in podcasting. This could be a favorite app, hardware, or other tool; something that podcasting has helped you achieve; or someone you’ve met.

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