How To Create Your Own Podcast

Why Podcast?

Podcasting is a rising trend fuelled by the rapid increase in smartphone usage as consumers can now access iTunes and other podcast libraries around the clock.

Compared to 2008, over twice the number of podcasts will be downloaded by Americans this year, an increase from 17.4 million to 37.6 million in just five years.

What Podcasting Will do For you

Podcasting builds authority – Just like speaking from stage, writing a book or appearing on TV or radio, a podcast show will elevate your position and help establish your authority in your market place.

Voice allows rapid authoring – Audio content is faster to produce than written content. The more content you can put out there to the world the greater opportunity there is to strengthen your connection with your community and reach more people.

Trojan horse method – When you publish a podcast, not only will listeners play that podcast from within their web browser but many will download the mp3 file. This gets your content on to their computer or mobile device (such as an iPad) where it may be played multiple times resulting in increased exposure.

Traffic – Podcasting brings increased traffic. When you create a podcast and publish it to iTunes you access some 37 million people per month who listen
to podcasts.

BEForE you start

Publishing your own podcast is fun and effective, however before you start podcasting there is one thing you must do – commit!

It is easy to get excited about what podcasting can do for you and your brand, but only if you keep at it. You will only start to reap the benefits of podcasting once you have 20 shows or more published.

choosing thE right Format

There are several ways you can structure your ‘show’ and finding the best fit for you will be dependent on your own skill set. Whilst there are many variations, most podcast shows are a variation on one of the following formats:

1. Solo Presenter – You deliver all the content. Episode lengths may be short and if you consider this format like an audio blog post, creating content is quick and easy.

2. Co-Host – When you double up with a co-host you must establish who does what. One person is going to anchor, introduce the show at the start and provide the structure. The other may be primarily responsible for the content. Whatever you decide the roles to be, make sure you choose a co-host who compliments your skill set and you clearly define roles.

3. Interview – This is probably the easiest format. You host and bring in experts on specialist subjects. This gives your audience expert insights on broader topics and exposes you to new audiences.

What EquiPmEnt Will you nEEd?

There is a very low barrier to entry when it comes to podcasting but assembling the right tools at this stage will get you off to the best start.

A recording application, such as Garage Band or Audacity, will export in the required mp3 format while a good quality microphone will record far better sound quality than your in-built computer microphone.

If you have a WordPress website you will require a podcasting plugin to create an inbuilt player on your site.

Finally, you should host your mp3 files on a remote server to reduce bandwidth strain. My choice is Amazon S3.