How to Create Your Own Podcast From Start to Finish

Your Dream Business

English - July 01, 2018 22:03 - 25 minutes - 25.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Next Episode: 4 Social Media Mistakes That Businesses Should Stop Making NOW

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTYour “why” and “who” are fundamental to your podcast. Know these before you go any further.You need a name for your podcast. Consider your audience and your content above all. Your audience should be able to tell what your podcast is about by looking at your name.You should have an intro and an outro for your podcast. You can use services such as Fiverr to find someone who can record one for you!Plan your content ahead of time, so you know exactly what you’re going to talk about. This will help you stay organized and allow you to gather information ahead of time.Once you start recording your podcast, you won’t want to stop to stay on track. It is best to edit at the end of the show, so you don’t lose your train of thought.Transcribing is great for SEO and doesn’t cost much. There are plenty of services online to get a text version of your podcast.When your podcast is ready to go, make sure you share it with your audience. Write blog posts about it and share it on your social media for maximum exposure.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Take a little while to sit down and brainstorm what you want to include in your podcast. What will your podcast be about? What will your audience look like? You will want a vision going into the process to keep you on track! Plus, everything you do from here on out comes down to your “why.”HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSHow Teresa started her podcast – 06:39Ask yourself why you are starting a podcast – 07:22How to name your podcast – 08:40Additional things you need to get started – 09:17The importance of planning your episodes – 14:04What to do when it’s time to record and edit – 15:38Now, launch your podcast – 21:03
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEFiverr Audacity Adobe Auditions Libsyn Rev.com
Transcript below

Hello and a super warm welcome to the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, and I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. When I say warm, I mean literally. For once in the UK it is a super warm day, and do you know what? We really don't cope very well. We beg for nice weather all the time, and when we get it, it's always too hot, there's not enough air, and we really don't manage. It's been a really warm day in the office today, but boy, am I glad to see the sun out, because I love it, and having not long come back from California and Vegas, I should be more acclimatised to it than maybe I actually am.

Today I am recording the podcast in the evening, which I've not done before. I'm just mixing it up to see how I get on. I'm trying to find the quietest spot in the day, and today it's now ... it's 20 to 7:00 in the evening and I'm on my own because my husband, I think I've probably mentioned before, is in the military and he spends time away from home. And my daughter is with her dad and my stepdaughter is currently on holiday in LA and my stepson is at his girlfriend's, so very strangely, from a very busy house, it's very quiet this evening. It's just me and my dog, Charlie, who occasionally keeps walking around on the floor behind me, which is wooden, and making some tip-tapping sounds. So I'm hoping he's now gone to sleep and I will get some peace. Anyway, enough of my ramblings and let's get on with today's...

If you have been listening from the very beginning ... which if you have, wow, thank you so very much. I am so appreciative of anybody listing to the podcast, let alone the people that have been listening from the very beginning, but if you have been listening from the beginning you probably would have heard me tell you at some point, I think fairly early on, that I was starting the podcast because I wanted another way to put content out there in a way that I found easier, because I much prefer to talk than write. I find talking much easier than I do putting together a blog post.

I decided that if I was going to start a podcast, I would be dedicated to that podcast for at least 12 months because I knew it would take some time to get off the ground. Obviously, when you start anything new, no one knows you do it, no one knows it exists, and therefore you're going to need some time to really get it going. The other reason I wanted to give it 12 months is because, again, as I say all the time, consistency is key, so I knew that people would need to know that I was turning up every single Monday without fail with a new podcast.

Now, although I've said I'm doing this test for 12 months, I'm not necessarily going to stop it at 12 months. It was just the case of, if it wasn't working for me, I was going to keep it going that long, and do you know what? I've been loving it. The podcast is great. I really enjoy doing it. It's not the easiest thing to do in the world, and it isn't the cheapest thing I do in my business either, or it isn't the cheapest way I get my content out there. However, as an avid fan — gosh, that was hard to say — of podcasts, I decided that because I love them so much and I got so much from them, and I love multitasking and the ability to learn while I'm putting my makeup on in the morning, is just amazing me. So as I said, because I got so much from them, I thought it would be a great thing to start myself.

Now, up until now all my podcasts have been solo, and this was very intentional. I went to a conference back in February, called Traffic and Conversion, in San Diego, and I got the chance to ask a question to John Lee Dumas, who is a very successful podcaster with several different podcasts, including Entrepreneurs on Fire. I asked him, "How do I get brilliant people on my podcast?" He basically said to me, "You wait. You wait until you A, are very comfortable doing them, and B, have got some followership so that you can go to someone and say, 'Here's my podcast, this is why I want you to be on it, and these are the kind of followers I've got.'" Now, great advice from John Lee Dumas, and I spoke to Pat Flynn, who again, is a very successful podcaster, and he said something similar.

I've been waiting on purpose and doing all these episodes on my own because I quite like the training element of them. However, I have recently just discussed with two people for them to be my first two interviews on the podcast. Now, it's not going to be for a few weeks yet, but I am so excited about this, I can't tell you. I have got some rock stars of my world, social media, digital marketing, online selling, and they are going to be coming on to the podcast, so I am super excited about that.

Anyway, let me get to the content of this episode, but I promise you all this talk of the podcast has been relevant because that's what today's episode is all about. Have you ever thought of setting up your own podcast? Do you listen to them and think, "I could do that"? Well, if you do, then today's episode is going to be great for you because I'm going to talk you through what you need to get started. Now, it's really going to be a whistle-stop tour, but it's certainly going to outline some of the things that you'll need to get started, and then what it takes to record a podcast weekly and get it out.

I'm going to run you through some of the tools I use and some of the systems we go though, and then like I said, a kind of breakdown from starting to record all the way through to actually publishing an episode, what the process is that we go through. Now, because this is an overview, it's obviously just going to give you the highlighted areas, and I'm not going to go into each one in real in depth. However, if you've not started or if you're thinking about starting, it's definitely going to give you a idea of what it takes to put together a podcast and the things that you need to think about.

How Teresa started her podcast

Let's get started with getting set up. What is it that you need to even get organised before you think about recording your episode? Well, I have to say I kind of did it a bit off-the-cuff. Normally I'm one of these people who will go and buy a course and read a bit and watch some webinars and watch some YouTube and do loads of research into it, and for some reason, with podcasting I didn't do that this time. I think in hindsight there are definitely some things that I wish I knew more about, or I wish that I'd spent some time researching because maybe I found out the hard way.

Ask yourself why you are starting a podcast

But at the very basic level, the very first thing that I think you need to think about is why you're having a podcast. What is it you're going to talk about, and who is it you're going to target? Now, it's not to say that this can't move. In fact, I feel like the initial reasons I set up the podcast ... I actually enjoy doing different podcasts around different subjects. I.e., business in general. I really love mindset stuff, so I'd love to do some podcasts around that. So I feel like it's changing even though, when I first set it up, it was initially to teach and train on social media marketing, hence the name Social Media Marketing Made Simple.

That brings me to the next point. Once you know who you're going to be targeting and roughly what you're going to be covering in the actual podcast, then you need to think of a name. Okay, so I know it might seem like I've really skipped over the fact of find out who your podcast is for, know your audience, know your content, and they are obviously massive things. So even though I've given them just a name drop as it were, they are really important, but I know throughout all my podcasts I talk about the importance of knowing your target audience, so even though I went throughout super quick, that is probably a really big bit of this process. Anyway, I'll continue.

How to name your podcast

The next thing you need to think about is a name. What are you going to call your podcast? Now, obviously you need to consider again your audience and consider your content, because you're going to want to make it fairly explicit. Or I wanted to do that and I think it's helpful if you do that, but you're going to have to make it fairly explicit so that people what the podcast is about, because if they're looking in iTunes or Stitcher, at podcasts on certain subjects, then yours comes up and your title is exactly what they've been looking for. Then obviously they're going to be more inclined to click on you.

Additional things you need to get started

And you need some artwork, and your artwork needs to be, again, like an album cover size so it sits in iTunes and Stitcher and various places, and you've got to think about what are you going to put on that artwork. You need the title of the podcast. Are you going to put a picture of you? Are you not going to put a picture of you? So again there's a few small things to think about once you've decided you're actually going to have a podcast.

Then some of the more practical stuff. You need a good mic. I went through a few different mics before I've found one that I particularly liked. I tried a few different setups. I sat here, I think with cushions, I told you once, which I did for a long while, and then I got a ... I'm not even sure what it's called, actually, but I think it's like a pop filter, which I now have over the mic, which helps suck up some of that sound. And you need to think where are you going to record the podcast? Because, as I've talked about many a time, specifically over the last few episodes, you need a good quiet place, and you need to think, when can you get it recorded when no one is going to be disturbing you?

The other thing you need in setup phase, when you're thinking about getting set up, and you've thought of your name and your artwork and your audience, is I like to have an intro and outro. That's the bit of the podcast when it first starts and there's a guy talking and there's music behind him. I have to say I just went on to Fiverr. Some people might get a big cross about that because I know some people aren't fans of Fiverr, but for something like this, when it was a one-off project and I could be very descriptive in terms of, "This is what I want," then do you know what? It was brilliant. Obviously it didn't cost me a fiver. It was more than that, but it wasn't a huge amount of money in order for me to get an intro and outro that makes the whole thing sound a lot more professional.

The next thing you need to think about is what system are you going to record in? Now, I did tell you this is a bit whistle-stop, so I apologise if I'm literally rattling through these, but again, like the mics, I have gone through a few of these. I'm now using Adobe Auditions, and one of the reason I'm using this is because I used the Adobe suite anyway and it was part of the suite. Now, before that I used to use Audacity, which I'm sure I didn't pay for, and if I did pay for it, it wasn't a lot of money, because it doesn't stick in my mind, and Audacity was fine. However, every time I recorded, it made this click sound, and when you got to the editing process, sometimes it was really hard to remove the click sound without ruining what I'd said. So for me Auditions was better, and they say it works better on a Mac, whereas Audacity sometimes works better on a PC, and I work off a Mac.

Then you have to think where are you actually going to put the podcast itself? My podcast is in several different places. One, it's on my website, so we obviously had to create a new page and we had to instal Smart Podcast Player, which is what we used to host it on the site, which is great system. Then we obviously put it on iTunes, we put it on Stitcher, and now the podcast is up and running we're reviewing other places that we think we might put it as well.

Like I said, a little bit of a whistle-stop talk just to give you an idea of some of the things you might want to think about when setting up the podcast. Now, as I've mentioned before, you know that I have a team. I was very lucky that the tech guy in my team was able to do the iTunes setup, the putting the podcast on my website, so I am probably not the best person to tell you about that, but just so you know, I had some help with that. That wasn't something I did myself.

We also use a system called Libsyn, which is to do with uploading the podcast. Look, obviously I'm not that technical, so I apologise. Also, it gives you my stats, so I can see every single day, if I wanted to look, how many downloads I've had at the podcast, and how many listens I've had and things like that.

That kind of gives you an idea of the kind of setup we do before we got started, and because I flew through it like the speed of light, I have put together a list of the things that you need to consider before getting started, with links to the system that we use and a little bit of information about they do, because obviously I didn't give you the best information about it. So if you head over to the show notes, which you can find at teresaheathwareing.com/19 — that's 19 in numbers, not words — then you'll be able to get your free download there.

The importance of planning your episodes

Let's get on to the next part of this episode where I talk you through what goes into making each episode and the kind of list of things that we do between first recording and then promoting it out to you guys.

Obviously the first thing we do is come up with ideas for the podcast, and I have say sometimes this is planned. Sometimes this is literally I sit down to record, I think, "What am I going to talk about?" which I know is really bad and I don't recommend to any of you when you're putting together content. As I've mentioned earlier, I'm going to be having guests speaking on the podcast, so actually I've got to get organised. I'm trying to do that not only for that reason, but also my team are ready to kill me right now because every single week I send them the podcast late, and I apologise. Again, I'm going to publicly apologise to my team members that help me out. I am sorry I've been so rubbish, and I promise I will get better.

Okay, so like I said, you plan your content, you decide what you're going to be talking about, and I do actually have the next sort of four to five minimum episodes planned out, so I know what we're going to be talking about. Unless something comes up — i.e., there's a big change or something in the news or whatever that I need to comment on — then I will pretty much try and stick to that structure. Once you've decided what you're going to talk about, I obviously do some research. I check some stats if I want to use stats. If there are certain things that I need to double check, I make sure I've got all of them in place.

What to do when it’s time to record and edit

Then it comes to actually recording the podcast, and as I've mentioned, this can be a challenge in itself. You've got to find a quiet spot where you can really devote your time because not only do you need no background noise so it doesn't get picked up and become distracting for the listener, but you also need to try and do it in not one whole go, as in, obviously I stop and start, but I couldn't do half a podcast now, go and have lunch, do some work, and then come back to it. I need to know that once I start, I keep going until I finish, so that's the first challenge.

Once you've actually recorded your podcast, it then goes through editing. I started off doing my own editing. In fact, I used to edit as I go along. This isn't great, because it used to take me two hours to record a 15-minute episode because of the fact that, as I said, when your brain is in that flow of talking, to then stop and edit, you're using a different part of your brain, so now I try my utmost not to do any editing. I just record. If I mess it up, I will stop and start again, but I won't edit out the section that I've just messed out. I will just keep talking.

Then when it goes through the editing section, that tends to be now done by one of the team. The sort of things that they're doing is they are taking out errors, and believe me, if you could hear these podcasts without the editing, I don't think you'd last five minutes because I do mess up. I do stumble on my words, and although I try and make it as natural as possible and not edit everything out to be completely perfect, I obviously do need to edit out some mistakes. Also, there are some filler words that I say quite a bit, things like so, and, um, and obviously I want to edit them out of the podcast as well.

The other thing we do in the editing process is we add the intro and outro, which like I said earlier, can help it sound just that bit more professional and really isn't that difficult to do, just to add those extra audio files.

Once the podcast is edited and the final version is approved, we then send it to two different places. It first off goes to a website called Rev, rev.com, and they transcribe it. They are super...