How to Start a Podcast in 2024

you're thinking of starting a podcast I imagine if you're watching this video you may already have an idea for your podcast that's the very first step but before you go and record the first episode there's a few things that we should work on to just confirm and refine your idea what will your podcast be about what will you name your podcast I like to name podcasts YouTube channels courses something related to the results you want the listener to a pain that's where the name great that enough came from for our personal finance Channel I'd like to help help them create a more Abundant Life through our podcast interviews I have a YouTube video all about choosing a name I'll link to that video down below you'll also find a bunch of other resources down in the description we're going to go through a lot in this video just know there's more information basically about all of it down there decide in a format will you have solo episodes will you have a co-host will you interview guests will it be in person or remote I do remote interviews I'm currently in Buenos arees Argentina and my guests aren't here here and so to record highquality audio and video I record all the episodes using riverside. FM the sponsor of today's video more on why we like using Riverside instead of Zoom Skype or Google meet later on in this video WR a brief description of your podcast think of it as an elevator pitch if you had 30 seconds to explain the idea to someone while on an elevator what would you say to them you'll need this in a later step when you're publishing your first episode but it's important that you think about it before you start recording your podcast make a list of at least a dozen episode ideas or guests you could interview I don't want you to jump ahead start recording when you sit down to record the fifth episode you realize you don't have any more ideas on this topic and you quit really before you even get started if it's easy to come up with the episode ideas you know it'll be easier to keep recording episode after episode this is a marathon not a Sprint what equipment do you need for your podcast you don't need to invest much to get started you could just record using the microphone of your cell phone and call good but if you're taking this seriously and at least make a small investment in a microphone the rest of what I'll mention are nice to have a good podcast microphone enhances your audio quality and captures less background noise and echo my favorite beginner microphone is the Samsung q2u this is a dynamic microphone that can be connected using either USB to your computer or phone or XLR to a recording device and currently costs around $70 on Amazon and Elsewhere for a list of popular microphones I'll include a video Below in the description if it's just you or you are interviewing a remote guest a USB mic could be ideal because it plugs directly into your computer or phone so there's no need for a separate recording device in this case you could record the audio with audacity a free software for Mac or PC you could also record the audio and video using Riverside for you alone or for you and your remote guest with Riverside's free plan you could record up to 2 hours per month if you have multiple hosts or guests in the same place you'll want a recorder like this one for from Zoom this will allow you to connect up to four microphones and record each one on a separate audio track you can use any headphones you have to monit the audio but it's better not to use wireless or Bluetooth headphones because there can be a little bit of a delay or the battery could die in the middle of your recording the Audio Technica m20x is a popular option costing around $50 or for a more premium option check out the road and th100 for around $150 for video you can record great videos with your phone as long as you have decent lighting I record my podcast episodes and YouTube videos with my Sony a74 there are tons of options for recording video at all price points one important thing to make sure of is that the camera doesn't have a record limit some cameras can only record 30 minutes at a time and your podcast episode could be much longer than that find out more about recording a video podcast in the video in the description below we also have a free guide to launching your video podcast you can get it by signing up also down below getting ready to record before you record your first episode be sure to do a test recording you want to check the audio levels most recorders and software will tell you the decibel levels that you're recording at your normal speaking voice should be between -8 and -2 DB while speaking the level should show up high in the green area if it's in the yellow or red it's too loud if it's too high when you're speaking loudly the audio could be distorted and if it's recorded too low it's not going to sound great either the space you're in is also important so try to record where there isn't a lot of background noise a refrigerator running air conditioner or traffic noise from a nearby window you don't want any of that picked up in your recording also you don't want to record in a room with too much Echo this is usually caused if there are too many hard flat Services you can clap in a room and listen to see if you hear an echo the more soft things there are in the space the better think of carpet bed couch rugs things like that if you're worried about the echo in a room try spreading out pillows blankets to towels anything you have to cover some of the hard surfaces if you're recording audio and not video you could even record your podcast from within a closet all the clothes are going to absorb all the sound so there won't be any Echo wrate an outline for your episode this can be a bullet point list of what you want to talk about and you can go through it Point by Point as you're recording you can also make a list of potential questions for the guests that you'll be interviewing some podcasters will record a word for word script that they'll read throughout the episode I'd say that most podcasts are a bit more free form so it's less common to have a word for word script this step is important for the success of your podcast because if you just start recording with no plan you're going to ramble which means it'll take a lot of work to edit out all the unimportant parts or if you leave in all the rambling The Listener will have a less enjoyable experience because your episode will be much longer than it needs to be they may get bored in the middle of the episode leave and never return to listen to another episode a tip here if it's possible tried to frontload the more interesting parts of the episode for all types of content audio video anything really retention is important if everything interesting is at the end of the episode many of your listeners aren't going to make it that far you've got to hook them in the beginning and keep them listening all the way to the end recording your episodes now the fun part if you're recording with guests I'd make sure to arrive early test all the equipment before they arrive so you've got everything ready to go as soon as they're there one great thing with podcast they aren't live well in most cases if you mess up don't worry just redo that part you can edit out the mistakes later on while recording go through the introduction to hook the listener in to actually listen to the episode then go through the main content close the episode maybe you'll recommend another related episode for them to listen to next if you're doing interviews usually what I like to do is get right into the interview and then I record the intro afterwards because I've already had the discussion with a guest and I can create a better intro knowing everything that we talked about here's what it looks like when I record an episode using riversite I'll log into the studio the guest joins we probably chat for a minute so they know what to expect then I hit record when we finish the interview I stop the recording and if necessary chat with the guest for a couple minutes while we wait for the highquality audio and video to finish uploading to the cloud it's being recorded on each person's computer so regardless of the quality of the internet during the interview there is no interruptions in the final recording now that I've of the interview and I know everything that I talked about the guest I could then go and record the introduction after that's done I have everything I need then move on to the next step which is editing the podcast episode there are lots of tools to edit your podcast you could use audacity that I mentioned earlier for free garage band for Mac Riverside has a handful of editing tools to help you quickly edit your podcast episodes you can edit based on the transcript it's much easier to find repetitive parts of the podcast you can trim out sections just by highlighting and deleting the text that you want removed if there's a software you'd like me to teach you how to edit your podcast write for example Riverside editing in the comments below and I'd gladly create that video editing can be as simple or complex as you want to make it I'd edit out the paes mistakes or anything else you want to remove i' normalize the audio which means that if your guest's audio is lower than yours you'd want to increase theirs or lower yours so it sounds similar as you jump back and forth between you and your guest the levels can also change between parts of the episode maybe the second half of the episode you were further away from the microphone so it's a little quieter than the first half you can adjust all of that when you're happy with the edit export the audio file from the editor a few other notes that'll help you as you're thinking about your episodes here's some amazing data I found from Buzz Prout the most common podcast length is from 20 to 40 minutes that's 31% of the podcast on that platform you can see there are plenty of podcasts though with episodes of less than 10 10 minutes 177% and 16% of episodes are over an hour you might be curious also how frequently most podcasts publish their episodes 40% publish every 8 to 14 days and 35% publish every 3 to 7 days and speaking of Buzz Sprout the next step in the process is signing up for podcast hosting we chose Buzz Sprout because it's easy to use and we like their analytics they have a free plan if you're publishing in less than 2 hours per month and here are their other pricing tears another popular option that's always free is Spotify for podcasters formerly known as ankor I'm a little wary of using one of the podcast players as my hosting provider so I pay for Buzz Sprout but plenty of podcasters use Spotify without any issues create your account fill in your podcast name add the description from the earlier step and upload your podcast artwork you can easily create this for free using one of cana's many free templates choose the category you want your podcast to show up under an apple podcast find a full list of categories in the description below upload your first episode or episodes and schedule when you want them to go live add episode show notes these notes are anything you want to share with your listeners about the episode also the show notes can help someone find your podcast or the episode when searching on their favorite podcast player or even searching on Google after you've uploaded at least the first episode get listed on the major podcast directories here's a list of the top 10 directories according to buzz rout also it's important to know that it can take several days to get accepted by Apple podcast so make sure to submit your show to Apple a handful of days before you want to officially launch your podcast it's the most used podcast player so it's important that you're listed there before you go and tell anyone to go and listen to your podcast publishing episodes we recommend publishing three episodes for your launch if someone finds an episode they'd like it's important to have more content for them to listen to if there's only one episode there they won't know if you'll be publishing any any further content with multiple episodes I have a better idea what your podcast is about making it more likely that they'll subscribe and then be notified when future episodes are released if you really want to be an overachiever I'd actually have five episodes recorded before you launch your podcast you can publish three for your launch and then you have the next two weeks if you're publishing weekly ready to go allowing you to take a week off from recording to focus on the launch of your podcast before getting back into the rhythm of consistently recording promoting your podcast fortunately the most difficult part of having a successful podcast is being found podcasts are amazing for building trust you're in someone's ear for maybe an hour at a time accompanying them on their daily commute at the gym or while doing chores around the house the best way for people to find you is with short form vertical video clips for Instagram reals Tik Tok and YouTube shorts these videos can be shown to thousands of people that don't follow you they're a great way for somebody to find a sound bite from one of your episodes Maybe maybe watch several more short clips after visiting your Instagram profile for example and then finding the full episode on their favorite podcast player or on YouTube if you're creating a video podcast Riverside with the help of AI can help you quickly create these clips if you want to give Riverside a try you can use the link in the description below if you use the code the figco at checkout you'll get 15% off your first purchase honestly if I can convince you of anything in this video record video not just audio you can come back here and thank me after your podcast takes off if you want to learn more about video podcast I'll show you how to create a video podcast in this video right here and I hope to see you in another video bye-bye

Channel: TheFigCo

Views: 976

Keywords: podcast, podcasting, how to start a podcast, how to create a podcast, how to launch a podcast, podcast for beginners, podcasting for beginners

Id: LUwD6pieJhk

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2024