“Not only are bloggers suckers for the remarkable, so are the people who read blogs .” - Seth Godin

5 Points For New Podcasters When Starting Up

Introduction

When it comes to starting your podcast, the gap between having the idea and actually getting your show launched can sometimes feel insurmountable. So today, let’s take a few minutes and share five tips that I think will help you get your podcast started as soon as possible.

We will break these 5 tips done in 5 separate blog posts, starting with this post. That way, you are the reader, and can focus on one tip at a time instead of being overwhelmed by trying to understand and work with 5 different things all at once.

What is a podcast?

Let’s lay out some definitions here in the beginning, and in so doing, let’s understand what we mean by the term “Podcast”. So, what is a podcast, and what do we mean by podcasting? Foremost, “What do we mean by a podcast?” Simply put, a podcast is part of a series of audio files that are downloaded to a user’s computer and then can be listened to on a continuous basis by that individual, anywhere, anytime, on any connected device.

The files are typically about 15 minutes long and are typically released on a weekly or monthly basis. Podcasting is a great way to share your voice with the world and connect with new listeners.

It is an amazing way to get your message in front of the entire world and basically for little or no real cost. With a podcast, you can share your ideas and experiences with your audience, and they can listen to the show whenever they want. That is one of the main benefits of podcasting.

While there’s pretty much an unlimited number of tips and tricks when it comes to starting your podcast, these five things are what just sort of jump out as being the very common pitfalls that people face. Let’s begin here.

Tip #1 – Gear Does Matter

So tip number one is that gear definitely does matter, but it shouldn’t be what stands in the way of you and your show. On the other hand, I know that sometimes it can be a popular thing online to say that your “ gear doesn’t matter, ” and that the “ story is king,” and all that stuff, but I actually disagree to a certain extent with some of that. There has to be a balance here with content and equipment.

Therefore, let me make this definitive statement right here and now, “The gear you use for podcasting definitely does matter.”

Your Gear Does Matter

With that in mind, let’s talk about what is minimal podcast gear, or for that matter, what do we mean by podcast gear? Podcast gear is anything that helps you keep your podcast running smoothly. This could include things like a microphone, recording software, and editing software. It’s also important to have a good podcasting network, which means having a few reliable friends who can help you out when things get tough. Keep your “eyes” and your “ears” open for these people to plug into your network.

So let’s cover this point first as we begin talking about gear or as some say, podcasting equipment. First, podcasting is great for catching attention and building an audience, which is what the “social” aspect of the internet is all about. To get yourself started, you can use social media, email marketing, and other traditional marketing methods to get the word out about your show. This tells us that it can be quite simple. Podcasting is fantastic for getting your message out to a large audience, but it’s not the only tool you can use to do that. And you can do it using social media, email marketing, and other traditional marketing methods to spread the word about your show.

But to get your message out in the podcast arena, so many of you hold back because of this thought in your head, “I don’t have the right equipment.” However, podcasting gear should never be the thing that gets in the way of you actually getting started. If you’re reading this blog post right now, then that means you have what you need to get started with podcasting. Even if that is something like a phone or a tablet or a really basic computer.  You don’t need all the mics, you don’t need the RODECaster, you don’t need any of that stuff.

Whatever equipment you are using to read this blog post on, can be what you start with when it comes to producing your podcast. You can always upgrade and add gear over time, but if you wait to do that, the thing you can never get back is your time.

So, instead of waiting like six months until you have the budget for a RODECaster, get started now and then upgrade later, and then down the line, you’ll be six months into your show, and you’ll have that much more experience. You will have built up an audience over that time.

And what do we mean by a podcast audience? At its heart, a podcast audience is a group of people who are interested in what you have to say. They tune in not just to hear the latest episode, but to see if you have anything new and interesting to share on a regular basis. You need to build this audience, and we will talk more about that in another blog post, because this post is getting a bit too long for most people to read through.

Your Audience Is Important

So again, if you start now, in six months you will have that many episodes in your library and that’s a much better place to be than just waiting for everything to be perfect until you get started.

And obviously, you do want your show to sound as good as possible, but with free and affordable tools, stuff, like GarageBand, like Audacity, which by the way we have an amazing course on in our course library, and then Adobe, and Audition Logic, you can take audio from pretty much any source and play with it and make it sound pretty darn decent. And in the beginning, I hate to say it this way, but it almost doesn’t matter because of tip number two, that we will cover in our next Blog Post.

That’s it for the first tip. Once again, check out our Blog Posting courses and material on the academy site.

Check back often if the tip#2 post is not up. It will be there soon.

Always remember, “You Are One Blog Post Away ……. “