I don’t know who needs to hear/read this, but you CAN take breaks from your podcast.
Sometimes you may need to take a break because your personal or professional life is going through a transition and you need to put some of your creative work to the side to focus on something big like a move or health concern. For parents like me, you may find you want to take some time off before school starts to make sure you can focus on getting everyone ready.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou
When it comes to podcast outros, new podcasters often make the mistakes of asking their audience for every single thing possible, like they’re throwing spaghetti against a wall and hoping something sticks. Surely, they think, the audience will find something they’ll want to do!
But let’s think about your podcast like a visit from a friend. Would you want to visit a friend, have a nice conversation, enjoy one another’s company, only to get bombarded at the end with a bunch of requests? Even if they are free, like following on social media or subscribing to a newsletter full of information, it’s not something you may have necessarily had in mind when you were initially invited to your friend’s house.
Whenever podcasters ask me how to become better at interviews, the No. 1 piece of advice I offer is to practice, practice, practice!
If you listen to any interview podcast, most likely you’ll hear a difference in the interviewer’s comfort level when you compare an earlier episode to a more recent one.
But when you’re first starting to podcast and not yet in that interviewing groove, here are some mistakes to be aware of:
Lots of podcasters love Instagram because it adds a visual element to their podcast, plus it gives them an opportunity to connect with their listeners outside of the show. Instagram is also a great platform to get discovered organically, especially if you’re using hashtags related to your show and the topics you cover.
But many folks struggle when it comes to engaging their audience. I’ve seen numerous podcasters sign up for a social media account for their podcast, but all they do is promote new episodes. It doesn’t really give the audience much to interact with, and if you’re familiar with how algorithms work, you already know that engagement on a post can lead to Instagram pushing your post in front of more people, leading to more engagement and more views, etc.
Thinking of starting a podcast in 2022? Here are 3 things I tell new podcasters to consider before pressing that record button:
So many podcasters think podcasting works like this: they get a mic and start talking about everything and anything, and boom! Ka-ching 🤑🤑🤑
Here's the reality: 50% of podcasts stop producing by episode 7. (This is called Podfade 😉) Why? Because they didn't plan topics and ran out of things to talk about. Or they failed to realize how much time and effort it takes to podcast and it's not just about getting on the mic and talking, and they give up.
Imagine going on your podcast app, searching for a new podcast. Let’s say you want to find a Mindfulness podcast since this is what I’m currently taking a course on and it’s on my mind (well, obviously 😉).
You find one you think you might like, but you can’t be sure just from the title and cover art, alone. And maybe the description is even a little vague (which is more common than you’d think).
Most likely, you would go to the list of episodes so you can check out what kind of things they talk about. But what if all you saw was this:
Episode 45
Episode 44
Episode 43
Episode 42
Episode 41 … you get the idea.
You may have seen me on social media or live-streaming and on videos using a different microphone than the one I’ve been using for FIVE YEARS. It took a lot to drag me away from my favorite mic of all time, the Audio-Technica ATR2100.
But, Audio-Technica has discontinued the microphone and created a newer model, the Audio-Technica ATR2100x. While the Audio-Technica ATR2100x seems to function the same and the price point is still below $100 ($99 at the time of this post), I am not sure how well it will work with my voice until I get a chance to test it out.
For the past few weeks, while many businesses are finding themselves going virtual quickly, I have heard from a lot of friends and former colleagues who are looking for tools and resources that are reliable, affordable and easy-to-work-with.
I’m glad to be able to round all of my favorite work-at-home resources into one page and will be adding as I think of more.
While content should be your No. 1 concern when it comes to your podcast, a very close second should be the quality of your sound.
While there are exceptions to this rule, for the most part, this is what separates those with “good enough” podcasts from those with the “wow-you-have-to-listen-to-this” podcasts.
If this is your first time behind a microphone, it can seem intimidating at first, but I promise you’ll be saving yourself hours of headaches if you can get your sound set up so you’re recording great sound (instead of having to fix it later).
