How to Start your Own Podcast

Without a doubt, building trust in your audience is one of the keys to a successful business and with visual content slowing, becoming saturated and harder to reach the audience you want an audio strategy is something to consider seriously. Audio content is personal. When someone hears you speak, they understand your personality and your authenticity. They can listen to the excitement in your voice and feel your passion for what you do. When we consider the process of knowing, liking and trusting, this becomes invaluable as a business.

In the UK 24% of UK adults ages 15 and older said they had listened to a podcast at least once. In the US 44% (124 million). ^1,2

Podcasts are convenient to consume, and listeners can absorb them when other mediums are inaccessible. They are also great as a means to increase your reach and audience. A published podcast is exposed to thousands of potential listeners and privy to some tremendous organic exposure.

Recording a Podcast

A podcast is quick and easy to produce provided you have a little technical knowledge, suitable software and a decent microphone. All of which we\’ll help you with here.

Podcasts are generally pretty easy to put together, but the challenge lies in your commitment to them. Regular podcasts undoubtedly gain the most traction and develop better ongoing listener bases. To begin with, make sure you have the scope and time to commit to producing regular episodes.

Without this, your podcast will quite literally fall on deaf ears.

Step One.

Make sure there\’s an audience there for what you intend talking about. There are thousands of podcasts out there and creating one that stands out is the tricky part.

Narrow down your topic.

Add a spin to it. Maybe you do it from a particular place or while drinking coffee or give it an angle.

Decide if you\’re going solo, going to have a regular co-host or create an interview style format.

Plan the episodes. Make sure there\’s a logical order to what you\’re talking about if it\’s done solo, if not make sure you plan your guests ahead and schedule them in. Creating a \’wish list\’ of who you\’d like to get on it would also be good. Some people are inundated with podcast requests so don\’t be offended if someone says no right now, just like any other investment people will want to weigh up their time investment. If you\’re only just starting out with very few listeners, it\’s just not worth it for some people until you\’ve got some listeners.

Step Two.

Get set up for recording.

Microphone

One of the first things you\’ll need is a decent microphone. Microphones vary hugely in price and quality so the budget will determine a lot of this. With such a massive amount of podcasts out there, audio quality matters. Check out some of my earlier podcasts for an example of poor audio.

Connectivity

There are two main types of connection you\’ll come across. USB and XLR (Analog). Analog create the best sound but require a bit more technical knowledge and some extra hardware to get the sound into your actual computer. USB convert analog sound into digital so tend to be a little cheaper and easier to use, sound quality still being pretty damn good. I personally use a USB microphone.

So what options have you got?

Here are three microphone options for you. I\’ve avoided those at the real budget end as the sound quality isn\’t much better than what you\’d achieve through a set of earphones with a microphone.

My first choice would be the RODE NT USB

This is my current microphone and without going into heavy technical jargon produces excellent sound quality, has some cool features and is beautifully simple. It doesn\’t need a specific driver, so it\’s just a matter of plug and go. Control and connectivity comprise a USB port, a stereo headphone mini-jack for monitoring, overall level control and control to balance the DAW output with the incoming pre-converter mic signal for zero-latency monitoring. It can also be used with an Ipad using a camera connector kit.

The kit includes a long USB cable, a soft storage case, a chunky curved pop shield and a desktop tripod mount.

Audio Technica AT2020USB+

Many of the same features as the Rode mic. The Audio Technica is also a USB mic so needs no additional hardware. It is also a Cardioid microphone and ideally suited for great podcast recordings.

Finally the higher end Shure SM7B

Rumour has it that Michael Jackson used this mic to record Thriller. Needless to say this is a higher end microphone and unlike the previous two needs a separate driver to operate it. A more significant investment and slightly more technical to operate but if you intend taking all this very seriously a great option.

Pop filters

You may want to invest in a pop filter too if the microphone doesn\’t come with one. This gets rid of the popping sound coming from plosive sounds like \’p\’ or \’b\’. This is caused by bursts of air when you speak. Relatively cheap to buy or even make.

A word on echo

If your recordings sound \’echoey\’ there are a few things you can do. Sit closer to your mic and turn down the microphone’s gain, get a pop filter and talk across (not into) the microphone. Also, if you can find a room with carpet, less glass and more in it to absorb the sound it\’s advisable.

Audio Editing Software

To capture the audio recording, you\’re going to need some software to do so. These are known as Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) There are a whole heap of options out there and professional level DAWs are hugely costly and for most of you, unless you intend recording music these would be a waste of money when starting out.

If you have a Mac, GarageBand is a free DAW and an excellent choice for first-time and even experienced podcasters.

It enables you to create separate tracks, allows you to integrate intros and outros easily and adjust sound levels very easily.

If you want an upgrade from Garageband, Logic Pro is the obvious option. It fully integrates with Garageband and allows you to even open recordings from Garageband on it.

If you\’re a Windows or PC user, the best free option is Audacity. Commonly used for podcasting Audacity has some powerful editing and usable features.

If you want to invest in something more, Adobe Audition that\’s designed for podcast production and editing and has advanced tools just for that. Audition is part of the Creative Cloud suite, so if you already have a subscription to the full suite, you have access. You can also get it for £19.97 per month separately.

Recording

Once you\’ve got your microphone set up and editing software ready to go the next thing is recording.

If you intend having guests, there are a few things you need to consider. I\’ve been a guest on numerous podcasts that after an hour or so of recording the sound quality was poor or some other issue caused the episode to be scrapped. Recording local audio from Skype or such like is risky and often creates an inferior recording. For most of you who intend having guests on your podcast the chances of getting you both in the same room are slim. If you have that luxury your set up needs to be more advanced and you\’ll need two of everything.

Probably the best solution I\’ve seen to this is Zencastr. This has a whole heap of cool features and facilitates partner recording really well. It records remote interviews in studio quality and records each voice locally. That essentially means you have two separate tracks that are layered over each other. This prevents dropouts due to a bad connection and changes in quality during the show.

Super cool for interviews.

At the end of each podcast episode, remember to include a CTA (Call to Action). Give the listener clear direction, and make sure that your landing page, email subscriber list or other tools are ready in advance. Make it easy for your listeners to follow through.

Post Recording

Once you have your audio track the next step is to get it live. There are a whole bunch of solutions to this, but probably one of the simplest and best is Libsyn.com.

Reasonably priced it takes a lot of the hard work away from getting your podcast live.

Step by Step:

Sign up for an account at Libsyn.com.

From your Libsyn Dashboard, click the “Settings” icon and click \”edit show settings.\”

This gives you the opportunity to enter your show details. The show title, description, web address. It also allows you to categorise the show type and input a load of other relevant information.

It also asks you for your artwork. This is super important as it\’s the first thing people see when searching for your podcast. You have your cover artwork and a widescreen image. It\’s important you get these right as it can impact who sees your podcast, particularly on Itunes.

The cover artwork needs to be at least 1400 x 1400 px, square format and in a high-resolution JPEG or PNG file. The widescreen image the same but in a 16:9 aspect ratio and at least 1400 px wide. You can produce these on programs such as or outsource them through Upwork, Fiver or a graphic designer.

Input all your data and hit “Save”.

Your podcast Destinations

Click the “Destinations” Tab and hit \”Add new.\”

This enables you to publish your podcast over multiple channels seamlessly. Add the destinations you want it to appear in and take the time to edit each channel. Much of the information is the same over the destinations but needs to be uploaded to each relevant destination.

Uploading

Click the “Content” Tab and hit \”Add New Episode.\”

This gives you steps 1-5 to get your podcast up and running.

1. Media

Add your media file.

2. Details

Add your title and subtitle. A short description of the episode. In here you may want to include any standard information about you or your business that will be shown in every description.

Give the podcast a category.

Add tags and keywords that are relevant to not only your podcast but the episode in particular.

It also gives you your iTunes optimisation so be sure to work your way through that too.

3. Artwork.

Upload the artwork as previously done.

4. Social

If you\’ve chosen social destinations, you can leave these blank, and it will use a default message alongside your episode. If not add in the text you want.

5. Scheduling

In here you can choose when the episodes are published so you can schedule them in advance. You can also set an expiry date for them if need be.

Note that each destination takes a different time to see your episode so don\’t be worried if it doesn\’t appear immediately.

Once you\’ve double checked everything.

Hit \”Publish\”

Congratulations, you\’re now officially a podcaster.

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REFERENCES,/h2>

1. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/

2. http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Infinite-Dial-2018.pdf
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