Podcasting Basics

So by now you have probably heard about podcasts or podcasting and you may even listen to a few podcasts yourself. Podcasts are a great inexpensive way to generate traffic to your business. The only costs associated with podcasting is the initial equipment cost which can be minimal depending on the level of quality desired. In this article we will discuss the basics of recording a podcast and getting it up on the iTunes and Zune stores.

Overview:

A podcast as defined by Wikipedia is “a series of digital media files, either audio or video, that is released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.”. So basically it’s an audio or video file that gets downloaded automatically to your computer every time a new one is released. As the definition mentions you can have both audio and video podcasts however for this article we will focus on audio podcasts as they are easier for the average person to produce.

Getting Started:

The first step in producing a great podcast is to have great content. No amount of technical gadgetry will make up for poor content. If you are looking to use the podcast as a marketing tool then you will want to pick a topic based on your industry. For example if you are in the health & fitness industry you may want to start a podcast on healthy eating or tips for the gym. If you’re in the automotive industry maybe you can do a podcast on DIYs for your car. Make sure it is something you are knowledgeable of and passionate for as this will help you stick with it. Once you have decided on a theme for your podcast you can develop a show schedule. Will your podcast come out weekly? monthly? Will your podcast be an hour long? 30 minutes? 5 minutes? Having your theme will help you narrow down your schedule.

Once all the above has been set you can work on the outline for your first episode. I like to layout several bullet points for each topic I want to cover. This will help you stay on track when recording and not go over the same thing twice. Your outline can be as long or as short as you feel comfortable with. Keep in mind that you do not want to come off as if you are reading the entire podcast. This can make for a very boring podcast so make sure you inject some of yourself into the show and really have some fun with it.

Recording:

Ok, so you have a theme and an outline for your first episode and you are ready to roll! To record your show all you really need is a microphone and some audio editing software. You can use any microphone you like that will connect to your computer. However if you don’t mind spending a few bucks and want to get some good quality audio I recommend buying a relatively inexpensive condenser microphone. The one I use and recommend is the Samson C01 USB condenser mic which can be bought for under $100 online. I would also recommend buying or building a pop filter to go along with it. You can find pop filters online for under $20 or you can also find several sites that show you how to make your own for even less.

The next part of the equation is software. What I recommend to anyone starting out in podcasting is a program called Audacity. It is a free piece of software available for both Macs and PCs that will do pretty much everything you need… and did I mention it’s free? Audacity is not the most beautiful program or the most robust but for basic podcasting it will get the job done. Some other non free recommendations would be Adobe Audition on the PC (my personal favorite) and Logic Studio on the Mac. You can probably also use Garage Band on the Mac.

I will not go into details on using Audacity or any of the other audio software in this article. You can find plenty of tutorials online for any of these programs. Once you have you’re microphone hooked up to your computer and have your software running it’s time to have some fun! Before you start try recording a few seconds of silence. See if you can detect any background noise. If you do try to pin point what’s causing it (ac, fan, outside noise etc) and try to stop it or dampen it. While recording your podcast don’t worry about messing up since you can always edit it later. If you find that you have messed up simply pause for a couple of seconds and start again. Pausing for a few seconds will make it easier to edit your podcast later on. Watch your “uhs”, “umms” and other crutch words and monitor your levels to make sure you are not spiking or are to low.

Once you have recorded your entire show you can go in and edit out any mistakes and even take out excessive crutch words. This is a bit time consuming so it’s always better to try to avoid using them to start with. At this point you can add some intro music if you like just make sure to keep it short. You can find inexpensive stock music on sites such as istockaudio.com. Once it’s all edited the way you want, export the final master file as an MP3.

Your podcast feed:

Now that you have your first episode in MP3 format it’s time to get people to listen. What makes a podcast a podcast is the feed that lets users subscribe and automatically get your podcast every time a new one comes out. To do this we use RSS feeds. You can then send your RSS feed to services such as iTunes and the Zune store to get your podcast listed in their directories. Since this is a basic tutorial to get you up and running I’m not going to go into the technical details of RSS feeds, XML and what not. Instead we are going to use some simple free tools to get our podcast to the masses.

I recommend using WordPress as your podcast host/feed. You can setup a WordPress account for free (they also offer more storage and other features on paid accounts). Once you have your WordPress account you can setup each post or entry as an episode. Here is an example of what your WordPress site may look like after you release a few episodes: velocitytech.wordpress.com. Make sure to title your episode and link your MP3 file for that episode in the description. Easy enough right? Now that you have your site setup WordPress will automatically generate an RSS feed for your podcast. To access your RSS feed just go to yoursite.wordpress.com/feed/.

There is one final step before submitting your podcast to iTunes and other services. You want to be able to track how many people are downloading and subscribing to your podcast. You also want to make sure your RSS feed is properly formatted for the various podcast clients out there. We do this by using an intermediary called Feedburner. This free service will properly format your RSS feed and add tracking capabilities so you can see download and subscription statistics.

In Feedburner make sure to select the podcasting feature option when creating your feed. Then just fill out a few details such as artist, description etc (all things iTunes requires) then put in your WordPress RSS feed URL and Feedburner will take care of the rest. Once you setup your feed you will get a different URL to use which would look something like this http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourpodcast this is what we will use to submit your podcast to iTunes.

Reaching an audience:

The final step is to get your podcast in-front of as many people as possible. The best way to do this is using services like iTunes and the Zune store which already have millions of users looking for podcasts. To submit your podcast to the iTunes store simple launch iTunes and go to the iTunes Store then click on the Podcast link. In the center of the podcast page you will see a link to “Submit a podcast”. Just click this link enter your Feedburner URL and follow the on screen instructions. Your podcast should be live in the iTunes store within a week or two depending on how long they take to approve it. To get into the Zune store is the same process. Download the Zune application, go to the podcast section and click the submit a podcast link.

So there you go! You are now an official podcaster! Once your podcasts go live on the iTunes and Zune stores check back on your Feedburner page and see how many people are listening! Make sure to update your podcasts on a regular basis to keep your listeners coming back for more!

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