September 30th is International Podcast Day. I didn't know that until today. Did you? I had been researching how to start a podcast for the past week and noticed how everyone on social media was sharing their favorite podcasts. Excellent! It makes my research all the easier to do.
The first step to figuring out if and how you want to podcast is to listen to them. I remember my first real podcast experience - it was This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass as he dives into fascinating stories about people and ideas, and then there was Serial, a true-crime story told over the course of a season.
The thing I know about podcasts is that there are many levels of proficiency. The quality can be minimalistic, but if the storytelling is interesting then an audience will keep coming back to listen. The number of people listening to podcasts continues to rise, with the average weekly unique users who download NPR podcasts, such as Up First and Fresh Air, rose from 11.3 million in 2019 to 14 million in 2020.
While there are many people listening to podcasts, there are also many start-up shows being produced every day. NPR recently posted a how-to get started podcasting to encourage participation from younger and diverse audiences with interesting perspectives to share.
What should your podcast be about?
This is the killer question. You should really nail down what it is you're going to talk about. Lots of podcast gurus say that it should be something you care about. Podcasts can be about personal journeys and stories or sharing your expertise. Once you've decided on the topic, then you hone in on a format. Podcasts come in different styles - like conversations between two people and others feature many guests, while other podcasts are pieced together narratives and interviews.
Planning out the production.
You don't need to spend a lot of money on fancy microphones, but if you do NPR has corralled a resource guide for how to choose a mic. Once you have the equipment, decided on a platform to record the audio, then you can start writing out an introduction for the show. Thinking out questions for the guests. Do your questions follow a logical arc, with a beginning, middle, and end?
Pulling it all together.
The next step is editing the audio and putting it all together. This is where you might add sound effects, music, or edit out the noise. Lucky for me and other newbies, NPR also created a guide for podcast mixing.
What have we learned?
Podcasts are a lot of work. They take time, dedication, commitment, and coordination to get the project off the ground. There is a lot of podcasts out there, so yours needs to have interesting or niche content. Success might not happen overnight, but industry experts suggest sharing your work and asking for feedback, and sharing with your inner circles.
Alright, let's begin.
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