Table of Contents
What are podcasts and do they have a market?
I consider a podcast to be any content in which audio plays a major role. It is important that such materials can be listened to at any time. This is how they differ from the radio: you can choose an interesting show and turn it on when it’s convenient. Podcasts are different.
There are entertainment, news, narrative, educational, and investigative podcasts. Podcasts are listened to on public transport while driving, or walking the dog, or washing dishes. This is called parallel consumption – listening to a podcast can be combined with another task. In this, they differ, for example, from video blogs, which are difficult to watch at the same time as some other activities.
Podcasts with conversations with animals and objects that are happening with podcasts in the world’s largest podcast marketplace in the US. According to Edison Research, more than half of Americans listen to podcasts. The audience of podcasts in the USA is 104 million people. Some podcast writers in the US are real stars. They are listened to by millions, they earn serious money from their activities, and they have great influence and trust of the audience.
Why do a podcast
You can create a podcast for business or for yourself. Here are the tasks you can solve with it:
Business Podcast
- It will provide an opportunity to gather a community around the brand.
- It will help to develop an HR brand if you make a podcast for specific professionals.
- It will become additional content for brand media.
- It will help to unite the team for the production of a podcast – a kind of team building.
Podcasts can be used as an advertising platform, especially if you need a narrow audience. For example, if you make or rent photography equipment, look up the podcast for photographers.
Personal podcast
- It will help you improve your speech and conversational skills.
- It will help you expand your network of acquaintances and communicate with interesting people.
- It will help to gather a community around you, people with whom you have common views and interests.
Pick up Podcast Goals
First, decide what you are doing the podcast for. The goal will help you stay motivated and understand whether you are getting what you intended, whether you are achieving the desired effect. Also, understand how to promote a podcast.
For example, you decide to do a podcast about front-end development. You are interested in this topic, you consider yourself an expert, and you want to share your experience with others. What is the purpose of a podcast?
Develop a personal brand. Let’s say you want to be known in the developer community and invited to a conference as a speaker. A podcast will help convey your expertise to others and show that you have a good speech.
Looking for people to join the team. It would be nice if you could catch the attention of juniors with a podcast. Show listeners may be interested in working with you.
Ride like a speaker. Let’s say you’ve been seeing this point of growth for a long time, but didn’t get around to doing the technique of speech and learning how to speak convincingly. A podcast is a great opportunity to get to that.
How to choose a podcast format
The choice of format can be approached in many ways, I recommend doing this. Divide the search for an idea into two stages: assault and analytical. First, you brainstorm on your own or with colleagues. Come up with the most daring and crazy ideas, do not criticize each other. Come up with any formats that suit your purpose, and fix them on a board or piece of paper. In the second stage, you analyze each idea: how it meets the goals, whether it will be interesting to the audience, and whether it is difficult to implement it. I also recommend evaluating how this idea drives you. Podcasts are a sincere format, and if you are interested in recording your podcast, the audience will feel it, and it will be easier to move forward.
Podcast Equipment
You can start a podcast with a minimum set of equipment. One device is enough to record the voice: a microphone, a voice recorder, or a smartphone.
Microphones
If you’re serious, invest in a microphone. Good USB options for beginners are:
In this podcast, I use RODE NT-USB and Rode M3 with Scarlett sound card.
The microphone should be placed so that it is not affected by knocking on the table and does not interfere if you are looking at a screen in front of you (when recording remotely). You might also consider investing in a studio arm, which will make recording long episodes much more enjoyable.
Dynamic microphones
Their main feature is low sensitivity. Due to this, they better record sound in rooms where there is an echo and excess noise. Microphones of this type are used on radio, and television and performers sing in them at concerts. Dynamic microphones are great for podcasts. If you are just starting out, this is a perfect choice. An additional plus of dynamic microphones is that they are quite durable. You can carry them in your bag, take them on a trip and not be afraid that you will break them. Of the minuses, it can be noted that dynamic microphones are not very beautiful. And if you are going to make a video podcast, then such a microphone will not look very pretty in the frame.
Condenser microphones
These microphones, on the other hand, are very sensitive. Due to this, they reveal their voice better. But in an unprepared room, where there is noise and echo, such a microphone will capture too much, and the recording will be worse than that of a dynamic one. I do not recommend buying condenser microphones unless you have a suitable room – they must be soundproofed and free from noise, otherwise, the voice will be recorded dirty.
Microphone connection type
Pay attention to how the microphone connects to your computer. There are two suitable connection types – USB and XLR.
USB microphones are connected directly to the computer, they already have a sound card built in. No other devices are required for recording. This type is suitable for cases when you are alone in the podcast or your guests are recording remotely – it will be easy for everyone to connect their own microphone.
XLR microphones cannot be connected directly to a computer. Therefore, if you choose such a microphone, you will need to buy additional equipment for it. And vice versa: if you are using a sound card or recorder, you will need just such a microphone.
There are microphones that have both XLR and USB inputs. There are few such models on the market, but this is the best option for a podcaster. If at some point you want to buy an audio card or a recorder, you won’t have to change microphones.
Headphones
For headphones, it is important that they are tight (in-ear or studio) so that sound does not leak from them back into the microphone. Make sure you don’t have creaking chairs, air conditioners running, animals running around, or other sources of noise.
Sound cards
The sound card converts the sound from the microphone into a digital signal. By itself, it does not record sound, for this it needs to be connected to a computer.
Recorders
A little about the acoustics – try to be in a room as quiet as possible, doors closed and do not “look” directly at a wall, so that there is no echo. Avoid being near bare walls.
The ideal location is to be in the middle of the room, away from any walls. Rooms with high ceilings are a problem because they echo. One of the main sources of noise is the streets, so look for a room that doesn’t face a busy street or boulevard.
Be sure to do a few tests and listen to them before you record anything – there’s nothing more frustrating than recording an episode (with guests) and seeing that it doesn’t work. If one participant doesn’t sound good, it ruins the whole record.
Depending on whether you are alone or have a few guests, the podcast can be recorded remotely (over the Internet) or together in a room or studio.
Additional Gadgets
Microphone holders
Such a holder will be useful to install the microphone in front of you and not hold it in your hand. Holders come in different designs – desktop, floor, and pantographs. I recommend using pantographs and table stands.
Pop filter
Needed to extinguish explosive consonants “P” and “B”. The pop filter is attached to a microphone or stand and catches the sharp bursts of air when you pronounce such consonants.
Recording place
Remote recording
Remote recording is two or more people having a conversation over the Internet, with software recording each person’s voice on a separate track and usually uploading it to the “cloud.”
With it, each participant in the conversation opens a link in the browser, where he gets into a virtual recording studio. Everyone’s voice is on a separate track (track), which helps to adjust the volume if someone is quiet, the microphone is bad, or to make adjustments according to the timbre or noise around them.
Apart from Cast, you can also try alternative similar options like RINGR or Zencastr.
In a room or studio
If you’re recording life, try to be in as big a room as possible, 3-4 meters away from each other.
To record life, you need microphones, a recorder or a computer with a multi-channel sound card and recording software. We’ve tried recording with Garageband for Mac, and a 4-channel card, but it’s complicated and difficult to follow. For live recording, we recommend you buy a Zoom H6 recorder (because it has a built-in mixer and can use up to 6 microphones) or a Zoom H4 with XLR “analog” microphones.
The microphones we use for live recordings (Rode M3) can be powered by their own batteries or draw energy from the recorder (so-called phantom mode). We use phantom mode, because that way there are no batteries in the microphones and they are much lighter and pleasant to hold, and you don’t have to take care of their batteries either. It is important to know that if the recorder is feeding 4 microphones and draws power from its built-in battery, there is a risk that its battery will run out during recording, so we connect the recorder to the mains and thus eliminate this problem.
Mandatory when recording lives, one presenter must have monitor headphones plugged into the recorder to monitor how the recording sounds and whether each of the guests can be heard.
For starters, I recommend signing up at home. The main thing is to choose the right room for recording:
- We need a quiet room: there should be a minimum echo in it. This is easy to check by clapping your hands: if after clapping you do not hear a ringing in the corners of the room, the room is suitable.
- It is better if it is a small room with upholstered furniture and bookshelves – the covers absorb sound well. A walk-in closet is also a good idea, as it has a lot of clothes that will absorb sound reflections.
- If you plan to record in the kitchen, it is better to turn off the refrigerator – it creates noises. Don’t forget to turn it on after recording
- Make sure there are no unwanted sounds: no dog running, no children screaming. Be sure to close the window before recording to prevent street noise from picking up the microphone.
Recording studios
If you don’t want to invest in equipment right away, then a recording studio is a great option, usually, everything is already ready in them. The most important thing in such studios, in addition to equipment and prepared premises, is comfort and atmosphere. You and your guests need to feel relaxed in order to have a lively and sincere conversation.
Remotely
If the guest is in another city or you do not want to meet in person, you can sign up remotely. The principle is this: you communicate in any convenient messenger and everyone records their track on their own. I recommend using Zoom: you can make a backup in it in case something goes wrong. At the same time, you should not just take a record from Zoom or another messenger. They compress the sound to save Internet traffic, the recording quality is poor. It is better not to record on the built-in microphone from a laptop, they pick up echo and noise. The recording will turn out to be of poor quality, it will be difficult for you to mount it.
How to edit a podcast
After making the recording, you need to remove the excess at the beginning and the end, put jingles, and songs and fix the levels (boost the quiet parts and cut the pops, coughs, etc. The easiest way is to find a sound engineer friend, but if you don’t have one, you can use Audacity, the software is old and slow, but it works on all platforms and is free.
If you use a Macintosh, we again recommend Audacity for corrections or Fission for linear editing of the files. Forecast will help you compress the file and put “chapters” or chapters. For PC we use Podreel.
Here are a few programs to look out for:
Audacity. Windows, Mac, free
Installation in this program is not the most convenient.
Pros: free, available on all platforms, has cool built-in plugins, such as noise reduction.
Cons: outdated design and poorly thought-out interface.
Garage band. Mac, free
Native Apple app, free to install through the AppStore.
Pros: convenient editor, there are many built-in plugins. Nice interface.
Cons: the program is designed for writing music, so working with a speech in it is inconvenient.
Adobe Audition Mac Win
A good program for working with sound from Adobe.
Pros: there are many tools for work, a convenient interface for working with markers and notes, there is everything you need.
Cons: paid.
Reaper. Windows, Mac. Conditionally free. Lifetime license $60.
This editor has everything, and everything can be customized.
Pros: convenient work with speech, you can set up hotkeys so that it is convenient to mount podcasts, a lot of plugins.
Cons: not the most pleasant design, excessive overload of settings.
Ableton Live. Windows, Mac. From $100, there’s a 90-day free trial.
Initially, this is a program for writing music. We use it in the studio.
Pros: easy to work with speech, beautiful design, and thoughtful interface.
Cons: at first glance, it looks complicated, high cost, and heavily tuned to the music.
How to edit content
Do I need to clean up the curse in the podcast is likely that during the recording someone will swear – on emotions or quoting something. It is not necessary to remove the mat, especially if the podcast format allows it. But if you leave a mat, then when publishing, you will have to mark Explicit Content. By default, the playback of adult content is prohibited on Apple devices; this restriction must be removed separately in the settings. Not all listeners may know how to do this, so you may lose some audience.
Speech
There are those who love live speech, with all the reservations and problems. There are those who believe that speech should be cleaned as much as possible from any “uh” and “aah”. It’s a matter of taste. I believe that speech should be left alive, but the moments that do not carry a semantic load and that can be carefully cut out should be removed.
Sounds
To make the podcast sound more interesting, more emotional, more rhythmic and better remembered by the listener, they use music and sound design. Music and sounds are optional, but it’s good to have them.
Usually, the main theme music plays at the beginning of the podcast, it is called the jingle. This is the audio logo for your show. He sets the mood and prepares the listener for what he will hear, adjusting in the right way. The jingle is what distinguishes your podcast from others.
Between the semantic blocks of the podcast, in places where the topic changes, it is worth adding interruptions. Usually, this is a musical fragment that is made from the main musical theme or at least is friends with it in terms of mood.
Background music
Some podcasts feature background music. It works great for long podcasts – longer than an hour and a half – and helps the conversation to be more cheerful, and sets an additional rhythm. If your recording quality is not very good, background music will help mask this.
To enhance the narrative, and to immerse the listener in the atmosphere of the story, sound design is often used. For example, the sounds of the sea, if you are talking about sea trips; the clink of glasses and the unintelligible speech of people at other tables in the restaurant if the hero went to dinner; the croaking of frogs and the champing of rubber boots in the mud, if the character of the story decides to take a walk in the swamp. In a word, sounds that will help the listener feel the story.
Sound design is most often used in narrative podcasts, where the atmosphere and emotions are very important. I liken sound design to a very bright spice that, in the right amount and in the right place, will help the story unfold. But if you overdo it, it will be very tasteless and intrusive.
Sound design can also be used in conversational podcasts, but I urge you not to get carried away and always ask yourself the question: “Is this sound really needed here, or do I just want there to be sound for the sake of sound?”
Compression (encoding) of the file to mp3 or mp4
We recommend that you use WAV or AIFF files for editing that do not have compression and the quality is the best that can be achieved. Once you have the episode finalized as content, you need to compress it to a smaller file. We recommend 192 kbps and stereo, variable bit rate, regardless of format (mp3 or aac). If it’s just speech, the file may be at a lower bitrate and mono.
How to come up with a title, description, cover, and trailer
I advise you to pay attention to the design of the show: title, description, and cover. It is for these three things, in addition to direct recommendations from friends and the media, that the listener decides whether to turn on the program or not.
Podcast Name
It’s great when the name is easy to remember and has multiple meanings. Catchphrases, memes, references to some events – all this can make a sonorous name.
Description
In the description, it is important to briefly and interestingly tell potential listeners what your podcast is about. This is necessary to hook and encourage the inclusion of the first episode. Imagine this is a pitch to a potential investor in an elevator: you have a few seconds to explain the essence of the podcast while the elevator travels to the desired floor.
Cover
A podcast needs a cover image – a header image. But remember that most people will see it in a very small size.
Therefore, it is worth checking your future cover for readability in a small size. Here are some recommendations:
- It’s good when the cover has one important element that the eye can catch on – something bright, eye-catching.
- If you want to add a title to the cover, write large so that it can be read in small size.
- If you want to stand out, use the contrast rule. See what the covers of other shows look like and try to make something crazy different from the others.
Publishing the content
Here you have the transmission file. But the podcast is an RSS feed (XML feed) with attached links to a file, as well as several additional fields: author, site, length of episodes, whether is it suitable for children, etc. To generate this feed, you can approach it in 2 ways.
- If you don’t care about technical details, we recommend choosing an all-in-one platform like Podbean. With them, the advantages are that you are not bothered by technical details – you just throw them a file + data about it and they publish it on the platforms as well. The cons are that you don’t own your feed, you pay $10-50 a month in fees, and there aren’t many options for settings.
- If you are serious, we advise you to make a site (this one is made on WordPress) and use the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin to generate your feed. The advantages are that you have full control over your feed and you have no monthly costs.
When creating your feed, make sure you enter accurate meta information because it will rank you in the right category in the aggregators and show you to the world:
- Author/s
- Title
- Subtitle
- Description
- Language
- Image (square, minimum 1440px side)
- Categories
- Subcategories
- Site
- Email for contacts
Podcast Publishing Networks
Once you have a file and a generated feed, you should be ready to publish it to the networks:
- Spotify
- Apple iTunes Store
- Google Podcasts
We have noticed that after they appear there, a little later the podcasts also appear in other aggregators or apps like Overcast or Pocket casts .
Spotify
To sign in to Spotify, create an account for your podcast (not your personal one) and publish it by entering the feed at podcasters.spotify.com. In addition to people listening to you with Spotify, they will give you listener statistics such as gender and age in your dashboard.
Apple iTunes Store
To post to the iTunes Store you need an Apple ID (we recommend that it’s not your personal one), then you need to post your feed to: itunesconnect.apple.com. Apple will also give you statistics on how many people remain until the end of each episode.
Google Podcasts
To post it there, follow the instructions on their site. One of the requirements is that your site has an XML sitemap for easier indexing.
Usually, new podcasts get into Google Podcasts automatically, a week and a half after the appearance of the podcast in Apple Podcasts. But lately, it can be delayed, so you can add a podcast to the site yourself:
- Go to the Google Podcast Manager.
- Sign up with your Google account.
- Add a link to your RSS feed in the field provided.
- Confirm authorship following the instructions.
To do this, Google will send a code to the mail specified during hosting registration. After that, the podcast will be added to the catalog, but at first, it will not be possible to find it through the search – you will have to wait until the settings are updated. If you want to give listeners a link to Google Podcasts before the podcast appears in the search, follow the link, copy your RSS feed into the line and click Generate – Google will show the link to your podcast on their platform.
Soundcloud
According to my observations, many listen to podcasts about technology and IT on Soundcloud, it happened historically. For most podcasts, publishing on this platform will most likely not bring a significant increase in audience. In addition, you cannot automatically upload a podcast there, you will have to pay for an extended account.
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