Podcasting is a growing trend for all to participate

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Imagine being able to say anything you want, whenever you want. Welcome to the world of podcasting where anything goes, as long as the audience loves you.

Some call it a community, while others say it's a movement. But there's no doubt about it, podcasting has arrived. Currently there are over 660,000 podcasts across the U.S. but veteran podcasters, Glenn Heber and Jaime Legagneur, from the popular podcast Finding Florida say it wasn't always this way.

"It's exploding now. Right now it's exploding. I started 11 years ago when nobody listened," Glenn explained.

"The biggest response was, 'What's a podcast?'" Jaime added.

There's one for just about anything. Think of a topic, any topic, and there is mostly likely a podcast for it.

Everyday people like Shondrea Smith have also been driving the podcast movement. She is a young African American woman who travelled from Philadelphia to the Podfest Multi-Media Expo in Orlando.

"This is what I've been looking for, this is where I belong," Shondrea explained. "I'm an introvert so it sort of allows me to create the terms of how I want to rely my message. I think Podcasting is the purest form of expression." 

And a good podcast can bring in up to $50,000 a month, with top shows earning six figures. But veteran podcaster and mentor Shawn Smith said you've got to build an audience.

"Once they build a listenership that's large enough -- two to five-thousand downloads per episode -- that's when sponsors start getting interested," smith said.

LINKS: To learn more about podcasting, head over to the websitse for the Florida Podcast Network and The Mobile Pro