While our readers are a lot more likely to discover humorous pictures of Lolcats over at ICanHasCheezburger.com, we feel that the picture above accurately depicts the exact feeling we’re hoping to prevent our readers from experiencing when publishing audio to their websites, emails, blogs and social networks because of an unforeseen blip, blunder, fault, flounder or folly.
In today’s posting, we aim to take our readers through a short list of common faux pas that we’ve had the fortune (or misfortune) of coming across on the web over the last six years while supporting AudioAcrobat members all over the world. Not only will making a misstep like the ones listed below interrupt an otherwise positive relationship between you and your audience or clientele, but can also turn away new business before they even get the chance to hear your pitch.
Botched Bucket or the Fail Pail?
Most audio faux pas will jump right out at the listener, while others can be more subtle. Nevertheless, stopping any problem at its source will always prove to be the most efficient and direct route to moving forward. Making sure of the following items prior to sending your audio out to the world can make a world of difference when it comes to making a first and lasting impression on our audience.
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- Listen to your audio. Make sure you take advantage of the many opportunities you have to listen to your audio in your AudioAcrobat account prior to publishing to your website, email, blog or social network. It is such a simple step, but very often overlooked.
- Preview the published format. If sending your audio by email, send an example to yourself first. If publishing to the web, preview the code in its published format. If blogging, use the “Preview” button before making your post live. If there’s any complication, at least you will catch it before facing the humiliation of someone else pointing it out to you.
Once the intended audio has been aurally examined for content and quality, visually previewed for functionality and confirmed ready for market, our readers are essentially prepared … except for a couple key publishing points that have a lot to do with the Home Page of our readers’ websites.
- DO NOT publish audio set to “autoplay on load” on the Home Page of your website. Even if it is a landing page, people do not like being surprised by audio when they first visit your site. Audio players set to “autoplay on load” are best reserved for secondary or sales pages.
- DO NOT publish a “Hidden Player” on the Home Page of your website. Hidden players work extremely well on secondary and sales pages of websites where there is no additional real estate to devote to an audio player. Also, if your audience can’t find the player to lower the volume or pause/stop the audio, they are more likely to simply close the tab or navigate away from your site by the fastest means possible.
There you have it, several quick and easy items that will help our readers to avoid making an all too often slip, solecism or faux pas when publishing audio to the web.
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Coming up next … editing conference calls and interviews in Sound Forge!
