Thinking about starting a podcast?

You’ve probably got stacks of questions! If I don’t answer them all here then be sure to fire any additional ones to me on the comments form at the bottom of this article!

So, let’s start with the whole “why.”  Is it actually a good idea to add a podcast into your content mix.  Well, a podcast is a super easy way for you to re-use & recycle content you already have together with being able to use the platform to create original content for the podcast and creating a more intimate and enhanced relationship with your audience whilst staying top of mind, enhancing your credibity and supporting you to make more money! What’s not to love about that! 

Want to know more?  Well, I’ve dedicated a full article to this stuff…

I know you’ve probably already had thoughts about whether it’s too techie, a beast that’s too hungry for content or whether you’d actually be able to make it work.  Let me assure you that it’s much easier than that story you’ve sold yourself thus far.

OK so let’s have a little lowdown of what you might need to be thinking about; 

A podcast is often made to appear hugely complicated and syphistocated by people who wanna charge you A LOT of money for their podcasting mastermind or high level programme BUT podcasting doesn’t need to be hugely difficult to set up.  

What do you need to start a podcast?  

Recording & Editing Your Podcasts 

A means of recording your episodes.  Audacity is an absolute favourite and is compatible with both Mac and Windows systems users.  

You can download the system, press record, chat away and then export your audio file.  

You can also use Audacity for editing your podcast episodes where necessary.  You’ll Find Audacity Here >>click for deets<<

You can also use the inbuilt app “Garage Band” if you’re a Mac User.  

If I’m recording interviews then I like to use belive which is recording website that allows you to stream your recordings into places like Facebook & YouTube live but also to recover offline.  The great thing with belive is that it gives you the function to download the file as a video file or an audio file meaning that you can have 2 types of content out of the one file without any faffing about to make the audio into a video or a video into an audio.  I love anything that saves a faff about.  You can find out more here >>click here for the deets<<

Hosting Your Podcast 

In the same way as your website needs a host in order to serve it out onto the worldwide web, your podcast needs a host in order for it to be sent through to places like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Alexa etc.  Yup, you don’t need to manually upload it to all these places.  Your host will deal with distribution of your podcast episode for you. 

I use Buzzsprout to host my podcast episodes as it’s intuitive as a platform and ridiculously easy to use.  You can find out more about Buzzsprout >>by clicking here<<

Channel Art

Yes, you can get your channel art (the thumb nail used on your podcast) created professionally or you can do it yourself in Canva.  Canva is a free to use design tool that makes bring together your business graphics an absolute doddle.  

Fancy Dan Extras 

There are some fancy dan extras that you can include in your podcast but in the main they aren’t wholly necessary and in most cases they are a nice to have rather than an absolute must; 

A mic – I do open a mic (for true transparency) BUT I never plug it in or use it. If your computer audio input and output are ok then you’re going to be doing ok.  If your computer/laptop etc are shite then you might want to consider adding a mic.  You can get mics at all sorts of price points – I own a Yeti Blue >>you can find one here<<

A professional intro/outro – yes it’s a nice to have but not necessary.  You can introduce your own podcast, you could ask a friend or peer to record an introduction for you or you could have a scripted thing that you say at the beginning of each episode for continuity.  If you do want a professional recording done then Music Creative are the business I’ve used for all my intros/outros/jingles >>you can find them here <<