Welcome to TBD with Sam Stoner. In this podcast, we talk about all things Tech, Business, and Design. Along the way, we attempt to innovate indeterminacy and reduce the stress of the unknown. Come join us!
Why am I doing a podcast? What will the content be? Why is podcasting the best media for me. A helpful way to answer these questions is to analyze what content you consume and that will help inform you what content you should produce. Here’s my list: 1) YouTube videos, 2) Podcasts, 3) Blogs (written text).
My attention span is too short for long-form text editing and my personal time doesn’t allow me to edit videos every time I want to add a blog. That left me with podcast. It has much less moving parts than videos and I can edit the content much easier than text.
Do this for yourself and see where you end up.
Once you determine the purpose of your podcast, do some research on your content. Are there other podcasts or shows out there about this content. If there are, don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you can’t do your idea, it just means you have to make it even more specific to you.
Understand how your audience will interact with you by interacting with others on the same platform, using the same media. This will help you know how information is communicated on this platform or through this medium and that will only increase your knowledge and chances that your audience will resonate with your material better.
SMART goals are important. Think ahead of time what goals you want to accomplish and make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-oriented. How long do you want each episode to be? How many episodes do you want to produce in the next two months? How many listeners are you trying to get by the end of the year?
All of these questions are important to think about ahead of time and will help you set your expectations and give you metrics to analyze your success. Make sure you are setting your goals, acting on them, and then reevaluating your goals to determine the progress you’ve made. This is an essential part of learning a skill and becoming a better at podcasting.
Give your audience a reason to come back. It will be very difficult to build and maintain an audience if you are not providing them value. Value can be determined in many different ways (helpful tips, experience, entertainment, advice, etc.). Ask yourself how it is you can provide value to an audience and why do they need your content?
Get your equipment and use it. Practice with a test run of your podcast to make sure there are no background noises and everything sounds crisp. Understand how you edit. Are you more of a long-form conversationalist or are you an intricate editor? I make a lot of tiny cuts with my audio and it is better if I am directly in front of my computer.
Don’t discount comfort when it comes to recording your podcast. Make sure you are comfortable so that your voice can sound the best it can be. I just recently switched up the location of my mic and it makes me feel way more comfortable and allows for a more fluid workflow. This all takes practice, so get out there and try things!