How I Podcast

How I Podcast

Her Process first went live in January, 2016. In the couple of months prior to that I was prepping and researching like crazy.

There are a ton of different ways to go about podcasting, but the thing is that anyone can do it. I had zero experience when I started.

Equipment

The equipment I chose is perfect for podcasting at home or podcasting on the go.

Zoom H6  six track portable recorder– 4 mics - $350

(Great for up to four people! It’s easier to edit/get good sound if each person has her/his own mic)

Zoom H4N - $199 (This works if it’s just you and one other guest or host.)

Audio Technica lavlier mics - $30    If you are co-hosting, or interviewing, it’s easier to edit if each person has her own mic, rather than all vocals on one feed. And lavs are easy if you plan to podcast on the go.

Headphones – decent Sony headphones around $20

Vic Firth Drummer’s Headphones - $25

Vic Firth Isolation Headphones - $50

Getting your show out there

Libsyn Advanced 400 - $20/month (I upload my show here and select who I want them to send it to. That way I only have to do the description, upload, etc. once per show.

-       You can see your stats here (can’t on itunes)

-       I upload to iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio (all of which are free)

When uploading ,make sure to mark category and whether it’s clean or explicit! Just one four letter word makes the episode explicit, even if your show is clean.

Also, I recommend uploading and selecting a date to air in the future. And, I set my episodes to air at 3:00 am PST, because Libsyn is on east coast time. iTunes, as of now, gets the largest audience, and sometimes iTunes glitches, and it takes several hours for them to get an episode online. I like to make sure my episodes are live on Thursday mornings when people are starting their days, hence the 3:00 am post time.  ;)

Website

Squarespace – If you’re doing a web site to go along with your show for show    notes, photos, etc. I highly recommend doing an accompanying website. 

-       very podcast friendly

Editing

Originally I took an online course through Lynda.com to learn Adobe

Audition – part of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite of applications

Ultimately, due to time constraints, I did a lot of research on editing companies and went with Podcast Remix – $199/month (could be different at this point, but they offer different packages. They have since closed their doors. But don’t despair! If you go on Facebook, you can find many experienced editors who edit podcasts as a side gig, and for a good rate. My editor charges $20 per hour, and aside from the initial episode set up for the first episode she edited for me, she has never gone over an hour and a half. And that’s even with about 15 cuts that I requested!

Time Commitment

Communication with guests, researching them, writing questions, recording day, listening for specific edits and to write show notes, recording the into and outro and uploading to Dropbox for Podcast Remix, uploading to Libsyn, doing my Squarespace website, social media – 6 to 7 hours for a full episode, less for my micro pods.

When to go live

Is there a best day of the week to air? I researched this –  there are good reasons for each day of the week. Ultimately, consistency is key.

New and Noteworthy

It’s worth it to make it to iTunes New and Noteworthy.  It’s a great way for people to discover your show. Many podcasters recommend starting with several shows a week for the first three weeks. I didn’t do that, and I still made it to New and Noteworthy. I did this by having a teaser episode (Ep. 0), telling what the show was going to be about – this was only a couple of minutes long. I basically did a social media blast with this. Then, within that week, on it’s regular air day, I aired my first show. After that, I aired one show a week on the same day every week. That’s key!

Social Media

I recently started using bit.ly for all of my links so I could see where all of my traffic to my web site and to the episodes was coming from. Twitter beats out FaceBook by three times the amount of clicks! Twitter is very podcast friendly. Ultimately, I do get some listeners from FB, and if you have a podcast page on FB, they let you have a business Instagram page, which is great because you can see all of your IG stats right on the app. And by the way, Instagram also beats out Facebook for clicks!

Breaks

Eventually, you’ll want one. I find it’s better to stay consistent, airing weekly rather than bi-weekly (I tried both), and split your show into seasons. That way you can take several weeks off in a row and get a real break.

Okay, so this is all just my secret sauce, what works for me. You can do it more expensively or less expensively. The thing is to just do it! And, have fun!!