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Wondering how to create a flash briefing? Whether you want to promote your business, share your hobby, or raise awareness for your non-profit, now is the time to create a flash briefing. In this episode, Teri reveals the step by step instructions on how to create a flash briefing for Amazon Alexa… with no coding required!
Flash briefings are the new podcasts… as least as far as I am concerned! If you are interested in getting your message out to the world, in my opinion there is simply no better way than to create a flash briefing. In my experience, good quality flash briefings are being consumed at a rate equal to or greater than that of podcasts. For example, 4 months after launching the Alexa in Canada Podcast, I was getting approximately 200 people listening to each episode on the day it was released (and less on the other days of the week). Compare that to the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing: after only 2 weeks, I was already getting 300 listeners every single day!
When it comes to audio content, flash briefings are the new frontier. This is the next big thing in audio, so my suggestion is don’t wait any longer – go create a flash briefing now!
Whether you want to promote your business, share your passion for a hobby, or raise awareness for your non-profit organization, now is the time to create a flash briefing. Below I outline the simple steps on how to create a flash briefing that anyone can follow. And there is no coding required!!
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but before you begin to create a flash briefing it is really important to think carefully about your topic, and what you will be talking about. The most successful flash briefings are the ones that consistently put out great content. You have to be willing to commit to create a flash briefing episode on a daily basis. So, make sure that you have enough to say about your topic to make a daily show that is engaging, exciting, and valuable for your audience.
Can you imagine yourself doing this 365 days from now and still going strong with fresh ideas? Think about your general topic and then brainstorm (and write down!) at least 30 individual episode topics for your show. To help you out, here are a couple of subtopics to get the creative juices flowing: news, reviews, tips, tricks, deals, scores, updates, seasonal items…. the list really goes on and on, limited only by your imagination.
Are you cut out for this? Well, before you dive into setting up your Flash Briefing hosting service and your Amazon Developer account (don’t worry, both are really easy to setup!), try recording an episode for your first Flash Briefing and see how you like it. You could just use your mobile phone and get going, but keep in mind that the higher quality the audio, the more polished and professional your show will be!
Here is the audio equipment that I recommend. It’s relatively inexpensive and works great! It is excellent value for the money and this is what I used (and still use!) to create my top-rated Flash Briefing:
So, consider using some good audio equipment and a program such at GarageBand or Audacity for the recordings. Once you decide how you will record the episodes, go ahead, push record, and create your first flash briefing episode! Even better, get ahead of schedule and pre-record a week’s worth of episodes.
Also, keep in mind a few key points:
So you got your first recording under your belt! Awesome job. That’s the first big step to create a flash briefing. Now what? Well, we need a place to upload those audio files so that when listeners ask Alexa for your flash briefing, she has a reliable, simple place to find them.
There are lots of ways to host your audio files, some more complicated than others, but I promised that this would be simple and coding-free, didn’t I?! Over the years, I have tried a number of audio hosting services and I now highly recommend Pippa.io. This is because they have made it extremely easy to setup a flash briefing, particularly because there is no coding or programming required. Simon Marcus, the CEO of Pippa.io, joined me on my podcast to discuss Pippa.io and how he, his team, and I developed the flash briefing feature in consultation with each other.
Note that in the spirit of full transparency, I am an affiliate for Pippa.io because I believe they offer such an incredible service. If you choose to use them, make sure to use the coupon code “alexaincanada” (without the quotes) to get a free month of service. Click here to go to Pippa.io
Regardless of who you choose to host your audio, make sure that the host can provide a publicly-accessible RSS or JSON feed, secured with an https URL. Pippa does this all automatically!
Once you have setup your audio host, follow their instructions to create a flash briefing show and upload your audio files.
The next step to create a flash briefing is to signup for an Amazon Developer account. This is completely free, but it is absolutely required. This is where you will submit your flash briefing to Amazon so Alexa knows that your show exists. Go to https://developer.amazon.com/login.html and create a free account.
Once you have your developer account setup, it’s time to create a flash briefing skill. Go to the Alexa Skills Kit Developer Console at https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask and then follow along with these instructions:
Enter a Custom Error Message. Alexa says this message to the user if there are any problems retrieving the flash briefing for some reason. Hopefully, your audience will never hear this! Just type something like, for example, “Voice in Canada is not available at the moment.” There is a 100 character maximum for this phrase. Make sure this message is in the language you chose for your skill. This means if you are creating an English Flash Briefing, your error message should be in English.
When you create a flash briefing skill, you have the option to setup multiple feeds of text or audio content. Typically each feed focuses on a specific genre of content such as sports or local news. Alexa will read a text feed, called text-to-speech (TTS) or play recorded audio files. One feed must serve as the default feed, which is always turned on for the skill. The remainder of the feeds for a flash briefing can be turned on by the user that enables your skill. Most flash briefings only have 1 feed, but you technically could have multiple feeds covering different sub-topics all under one umbrella flash briefing skill.
Here are the instruction on how to add a feed. For most flash briefings you would only have to do this once (i.e there would just be the single default feed). If you have multiple feeds, repeat the following steps or each feed.
The next step in skill creation is to test the Flash Briefing skill on your Alexa-enabled device. You must have this device registered to the same account as your developer account for your skill to display.
The descriptions and images you provide on the Launch Information page provide the content that displays in the Alexa App. Users can scroll through a list of skills, and select a skill to see more detailed information. The interaction model is already defined so the most important information you provide is a short and long description of your skill, and the images that identify your flash briefing.
The Privacy and Compliance page lists questions that are required for every skill, including flash briefings. Note that a Flash Briefing skill should NOT enable users to make purchases or ask customers for personal information.
You’re done! Awesome job! Now sit back, relax, and wait for Amazon to email you back to tell you that the flash briefing is live. Amazon says that this can take up to 5 business days, but in my experience this usually happens within 24 hours. There is a chance that Amazon may reject it for various reasons, but they will always provide feedback if this is the case. It’s usually not a big deal – just fix the issue they identified and then resubmit it! Before you know it, you will have your flash briefing live and your message will be available to the world! Congrats!
If you follow along with the steps outlined above, you should have all the info and settings that you need to get your flash briefing up and running.
However, if you would like some personalized help with the recording, marketing, technology, or any other aspects of your particular flash briefing, I am pleased to be able to offer some limited time for flash briefing consultations. Please feel free to contact me here, tell me a little about your flash briefing ideas, and I will get back to you with the rates and some scheduling information as soon as I can.
Good luck with your flash briefing!!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Wondering how to create a flash briefing? Whether you want to promote your business, share your hobby, or raise awareness for your non-profit, now is the time to create a flash briefing. In this episode, Teri reveals the step by step instructions on how to create a flash briefing for Amazon Alexa… with no coding required!
Flash briefings are the new podcasts… as least as far as I am concerned! If you are interested in getting your message out to the world, in my opinion there is simply no better way than to create a flash briefing. In my experience, good quality flash briefings are being consumed at a rate equal to or greater than that of podcasts. For example, 4 months after launching the Alexa in Canada Podcast, I was getting approximately 200 people listening to each episode on the day it was released (and less on the other days of the week). Compare that to the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing: after only 2 weeks, I was already getting 300 listeners every single day!
When it comes to audio content, flash briefings are the new frontier. This is the next big thing in audio, so my suggestion is don’t wait any longer – go create a flash briefing now!
Whether you want to promote your business, share your passion for a hobby, or raise awareness for your non-profit organization, now is the time to create a flash briefing. Below I outline the simple steps on how to create a flash briefing that anyone can follow. And there is no coding required!!
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but before you begin to create a flash briefing it is really important to think carefully about your topic, and what you will be talking about. The most successful flash briefings are the ones that consistently put out great content. You have to be willing to commit to create a flash briefing episode on a daily basis. So, make sure that you have enough to say about your topic to make a daily show that is engaging, exciting, and valuable for your audience.
Can you imagine yourself doing this 365 days from now and still going strong with fresh ideas? Think about your general topic and then brainstorm (and write down!) at least 30 individual episode topics for your show. To help you out, here are a couple of subtopics to get the creative juices flowing: news, reviews, tips, tricks, deals, scores, updates, seasonal items…. the list really goes on and on, limited only by your imagination.
Are you cut out for this? Well, before you dive into setting up your Flash Briefing hosting service and your Amazon Developer account (don’t worry, both are really easy to setup!), try recording an episode for your first Flash Briefing and see how you like it. You could just use your mobile phone and get going, but keep in mind that the higher quality the audio, the more polished and professional your show will be!
Here is the audio equipment that I recommend. It’s relatively inexpensive and works great! It is excellent value for the money and this is what I used (and still use!) to create my top-rated Flash Briefing:
So, consider using some good audio equipment and a program such at GarageBand or Audacity for the recordings. Once you decide how you will record the episodes, go ahead, push record, and create your first flash briefing episode! Even better, get ahead of schedule and pre-record a week’s worth of episodes.
Also, keep in mind a few key points:
So you got your first recording under your belt! Awesome job. That’s the first big step to create a flash briefing. Now what? Well, we need a place to upload those audio files so that when listeners ask Alexa for your flash briefing, she has a reliable, simple place to find them.
There are lots of ways to host your audio files, some more complicated than others, but I promised that this would be simple and coding-free, didn’t I?! Over the years, I have tried a number of audio hosting services and I now highly recommend Pippa.io. This is because they have made it extremely easy to setup a flash briefing, particularly because there is no coding or programming required. Simon Marcus, the CEO of Pippa.io, joined me on my podcast to discuss Pippa.io and how he, his team, and I developed the flash briefing feature in consultation with each other.
Note that in the spirit of full transparency, I am an affiliate for Pippa.io because I believe they offer such an incredible service. If you choose to use them, make sure to use the coupon code “alexaincanada” (without the quotes) to get a free month of service. Click here to go to Pippa.io
Regardless of who you choose to host your audio, make sure that the host can provide a publicly-accessible RSS or JSON feed, secured with an https URL. Pippa does this all automatically!
Once you have setup your audio host, follow their instructions to create a flash briefing show and upload your audio files.
The next step to create a flash briefing is to signup for an Amazon Developer account. This is completely free, but it is absolutely required. This is where you will submit your flash briefing to Amazon so Alexa knows that your show exists. Go to https://developer.amazon.com/login.html and create a free account.
Once you have your developer account setup, it’s time to create a flash briefing skill. Go to the Alexa Skills Kit Developer Console at https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask and then follow along with these instructions:
Enter a Custom Error Message. Alexa says this message to the user if there are any problems retrieving the flash briefing for some reason. Hopefully, your audience will never hear this! Just type something like, for example, “Voice in Canada is not available at the moment.” There is a 100 character maximum for this phrase. Make sure this message is in the language you chose for your skill. This means if you are creating an English Flash Briefing, your error message should be in English.
When you create a flash briefing skill, you have the option to setup multiple feeds of text or audio content. Typically each feed focuses on a specific genre of content such as sports or local news. Alexa will read a text feed, called text-to-speech (TTS) or play recorded audio files. One feed must serve as the default feed, which is always turned on for the skill. The remainder of the feeds for a flash briefing can be turned on by the user that enables your skill. Most flash briefings only have 1 feed, but you technically could have multiple feeds covering different sub-topics all under one umbrella flash briefing skill.
Here are the instruction on how to add a feed. For most flash briefings you would only have to do this once (i.e there would just be the single default feed). If you have multiple feeds, repeat the following steps or each feed.
The next step in skill creation is to test the Flash Briefing skill on your Alexa-enabled device. You must have this device registered to the same account as your developer account for your skill to display.
The descriptions and images you provide on the Launch Information page provide the content that displays in the Alexa App. Users can scroll through a list of skills, and select a skill to see more detailed information. The interaction model is already defined so the most important information you provide is a short and long description of your skill, and the images that identify your flash briefing.
The Privacy and Compliance page lists questions that are required for every skill, including flash briefings. Note that a Flash Briefing skill should NOT enable users to make purchases or ask customers for personal information.
You’re done! Awesome job! Now sit back, relax, and wait for Amazon to email you back to tell you that the flash briefing is live. Amazon says that this can take up to 5 business days, but in my experience this usually happens within 24 hours. There is a chance that Amazon may reject it for various reasons, but they will always provide feedback if this is the case. It’s usually not a big deal – just fix the issue they identified and then resubmit it! Before you know it, you will have your flash briefing live and your message will be available to the world! Congrats!
If you follow along with the steps outlined above, you should have all the info and settings that you need to get your flash briefing up and running.
However, if you would like some personalized help with the recording, marketing, technology, or any other aspects of your particular flash briefing, I am pleased to be able to offer some limited time for flash briefing consultations. Please feel free to contact me here, tell me a little about your flash briefing ideas, and I will get back to you with the rates and some scheduling information as soon as I can.
Good luck with your flash briefing!!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.