How To Podcast? - All About Podcasting

04 juli 2014

Your own radio station that plays the songs that you like, interviews with cool people, your own stories, songs, poems, thoughts shared with the world. The craziest idea… Or not?

By podcasting this all became possible, your own radio show or audiobooks.

In this post I will explain to you what podcasting is, how you can subscribe to podcasts and how to create and market your own podcasts.

Contents of this article:

What Is Podcasting?

A podcast is like a kind of radio show, not broadcasted through the ether but distributed through the internet.

With a computer, tablet or a smartphone, each podcast can be downloaded and listened to anywhere in the world.

The term podcasting originates from the two words: i-Pod and Broadcasting.

Podcasts have a lot of advantages:

  • You can listen to them whenever and wherever you want.
  • You can listen to them as many times as you want.
  • You can subscribe to podcasts so they will be downloaded automatically to your computer, i-pod or smartphone
  • They can be distributed all over the world and reach an enormous audience.

How To Subscribe To Podcasts?

On your pc:

To subscribe to podcasts on your pc, you will need special podcast software.

These programs are free to download from the internet.

The best and most commonly used programs for subscribing to podcasts are

Juice

Gpodder

But there are plenty of other ones to be found on the internet.

Ones you installed the podcasting software on your pc, you can go to the web address of your favorite podcaster and click on the podcast Icon.

A new page will open.

Copy the url of this new page in your podcasting software, here in Juice by clicking first on the green +

A window will open where you can paste the URL

And then click on Add.

This is all you need to do to subscribe to a podcast. New podcasts will be automatically added to your list.

You can listen to these podcasts from your pc or transfer them to your mp3 player.

Thanks to podcasting you can listen to your favorite shows, audio books and mp3 courses where you want and whenever you want.

When Can You Listen To Podcasts?

-during fitness or sports

-during domestic or routine chores

-when driving or commuting

-when waiting at the doctor’s or hairdresser’s

Do a Google search on: “best podcasts” to find some interesting podcasts you can listen to.

Ideas For Making Your Own Podcast:

  • Your own radio show
  • Music show
  • Educational, courses, training program
  • Audiobook
  • Meditation, sport coaching
  • Interviews

How To Create A Podcast?

Creating a podcast involves 3 steps:

  1. Record
  2. Edit
  3. Publish

Preparation

Before starting to record you will need a good idea of what it is you are going to make.

You will need a written out script that you can read into the microphone, as well as collecting some music and the necessary equipment.

Equipment:

To create a podcast you will need the following equipment:

  1. A computer
  2. A microphone or a voice recorder
  3. Audio recording software as Audacity
  4. An internet connection

The audio recording needs to be of very good quality. It has to be pleasant to listen to and other people should be able to hear the podcast loud and clear. That’s why it is important to record with good equipment.

How To Record Voice?

Who is going to read the text?

I would suggest you! If you are not happy with the way your voice sounds on a computer, you can ask somebody else to read the text.

It is desirable to do a test recording first to hear how your voice sounds or somebody else’s.

How to speak?

You will have to keep in mind that every word you say will only be heard once. People will not rewind to understand what was being said actually.

So it is essential to be loud and very clear!

Consider the following steps before reading the text:

  1. Take your time
  2. Find a quite environment, preferably with a lot of fabric in the room to avoid echos (carpet, draperies, sofas,.. can all add to an improved recording)
  3. Keep the voice recorder 20 to 30 cm away from your mouth (preferably put the voice recorder on a table or something solid so the distance will remain the same through the whole recording.)
  4. Speek just a little slower as you are used to.
  5. Breath calmly
  6. Articulate clearly but don’t overdo it.
  7. Bring variations into your voice so it won’t become monotone.
  8. Don’t try to “read”, but try to “tell”
  9. If you make a mistake, press stop on the recorder and start recording again with the last sentence.
  10. Don’t be afraid to record every line 10 times, things often go wrong first before they go right.

Click here for more information on how to do a professional voice recording.

Audio Software

With the free software Audacity, you can record your voice and also edit the recordings. If you are willing to pay for some really good, but affordable audio recording software, I would suggest choosing Adobe Audition. (You can try it for free for one month)

When you are finished editing your podcast you will need to export the file. Your Audacity file cannot be published as a podcast because people who don’t have Audacity wouldn’t be able to open the file.

There are 3 options to export your file to: WAV, MP3 or OGG Vorbis. We will choose MP3 because it is most commonly used file format for podcasts.

Now the podcast has to be placed on the internet.

Uploading Your Podcast To The Internet

First, get an account with these 2 internet sites:

  1. Podomatic – this is where your audio files (eg. mp3) will live
  2. Feedburner – don’t ask yet!

Second, record a podcast and upload it to your podomatic page. Podomatic automatically creates an enclosure of your podcast.

Third, create a post in your blog about the fact that you’ve created a podcast. Insert a link somewhere in this post. Get this link from your podomatic page. Right click on the “download” link of the podcast you made, copy the shortcut and then paste this link in the blog post.

Fourth, go to your feedburner page, sign in. Where the page says “Burn a feed right this instant” type your blog address and tick the “I am a podcaster” box. Feedburner will give you a “feed” address. When someone puts this address into their podcast catcher (like iTunes), your podcasts will be downloaded to their computer.

Fifth, publish this feed address on your blog somewhere. For a graphic, go to the “publicize” section of your feedburner page, then to the “chicklet chooser” section for some options.

Sixth, visit podcast directory sites and submit your feed to their directory. This means when people search the web for podcasts on your topic, they may find yours.

Seventh, make sure you create new content fairly regularly.

Podcast Marketing

  1. If you have your own website, you can distribute them from there.
  2. Write to other bloggers asking them to include a link to your podcast on their website.
  3. You can submit your feed to iTunes and other podcast directories.
  4. Share your podcast feed link on social media.
  5. Put your podcast’s web site on your business cards, letter heading, e-mail signature and in your Facebook or Twitter description. Tell people you meet about it.
  6. If you have a mailing list, and it’s relevant news to share, tell everyone on the list.

Get the word out in a polite way, and you’ll vastly increase the likelihood that listeners will check you out.