If you work with Innovative Publishing, you already have a beautiful, informative tool to communicate with your members via your publication. You have the visual component covered, so what about an audio component? A podcast can help you reach members and industry colleagues in a new way, one that rivals the timeliness of a blog or social media account and the depth of long-form content or in-person seminars.
Podcasts are everywhere. According to Edison Research’s Podcast Consumer 2024 report, podcasts reach a diverse audience that spans every generation, with 55 percent of monthly listeners in the 35-54 age bracket, and 27 percent in the 55-and-up bracket. And listeners spend a lot of time with podcasts, with 23 percent of weekly listeners spending 10 hours or more each week on the medium.
That’s a lot of hours that your members and partners spend commuting, cooking or working on home projects with a podcast in the background. Give them something new to listen to while furthering your association’s mission. Here’s how to get started.
Let Your Description Be Your Guide
What is your podcast about? Come up with a two-sentence description that potential listeners will read, and use it to focus in on your goals, brand and tone. What topics within your industry will you discuss? What is the unique perspective you bring to the topic? How frequently will you publish new episodes? Will you host alone, or have co-hosts? What type of guests will you invite? All these questions can factor into your description. Then, let the description be your compass.
Here are a few ideas:
- A recap of industry news and how it will affect members
- An interview series with prominent people in your industry
- A historical deep dive into an event related to your members’ niche
- A scripted narrative-style show about milestone moments in your industry
- An educational podcast with discussions similar to seminars or workshops
For every episode, you’ll want to write an outline and have your research notes readily available. That will help you organize your thoughts. Plus, an outline sent in advance will put any guests at ease.
Choose a Title that Sticks
You’ll want a title that’s memorable and suggests the tone of your show. Browse other podcasts from people in your field to make sure you don’t choose something too similar. Also consider whether the title is a phrase that’s too common and will make it less likely to come up in searches. And don’t be afraid of some wordplay, especially if it uses jargon your colleagues would pick up on. It’s a lot like naming a magazine!
Remember to think of how your title will look on a square podcast logo. Need help designing your podcast branding? Let Innovative know!
Press Record
So you’ve figured out your title and focus. You’ve got your hosts and first couple of topics and guests lined up. Now … how do you actually make a podcast?
There are a few ways, ranging in complexity and cost. Here are some guidelines for an easy, low-cost setup that won’t require an audio engineering degree.
Use That Zoom Account
You probably have a Zoom subscription already, which means you have the perfect podcast recording platform. Recording remotely is the easiest and cheapest way to produce a podcast. Simply record a meeting with your co-host and guests, making sure to select the Zoom setting that records each speaker on a separate track. That will simplify editing later.
Many podcast hosting platforms have their own recording software you could use as well. We’ll touch on hosting later in this post.
Get Your Audio Sounding Crisp
It’s easier to get quality audio than you might think, with no professional sound booth required. Do keep a few things in mind. First, AirPods aren’t great for capturing clear audio, though Apple’s wired headphones can work. In general, if you’re using a headset to record yourself, wired is preferable.
You can also buy an inexpensive USB microphone. If you want to record in person with someone only sometimes, an omnidirectional microphone — one that catches sound from all sides — or one with an omnidirectional mode is a helpful low-cost option. The sound won’t be as crisp as two microphones, and you’ll only have one track — meaning it’ll be harder to edit out overlapping speakers or sneezes — but it’s a decent option when you’re just trying stuff out.
If you do decide to record in person regularly, you’ll want to invest in multiple USB/XLR microphones, and an audio interface into which to connect them. That way, you get clearer audio than from sharing an omnidirectional microphone, plus the editing flexibility that comes from multiple tracks.
Whether in person or remotely, tell each guest on the recording to avoid muting their audio. It seems like the right thing to do intuitively, but when you mute the audio, you change the length of your individual audio track, which makes editing difficult later. If you cough or flub your words, simply pause and start your thought over. The pause makes it easier to find where the unwanted sound was when you go back to cut it out later.
You can buy inexpensive foam tiles to help absorb sound, preventing echo/reverberation from hard surfaces.
Be mindful of the location of air vents where you’re recording and avoid running the A/C or heat on full blast during a session.
You should also avoid tapping on surfaces, fidgeting or rolling your chair around. This will become easier with practice!
Edit the Audio Like A Pro
Your podcast hosting service might have its own native editing software, but a podcaster go-to that’s completely free to use is Audacity. Audacity is open-source audio editing software. There are guides on how to use it readily available on YouTube. You can get super technical with your editing choices, but a simple workflow might look like this:
- Import audio tracks
- Use the Truncate Silence feature to remove lulls in conversation
- Delete unwanted clips (make sure to select the same section on all tracks, so tracks stay the same length)
- Select and silence an individual speaker’s audio where needed, like for a throat clearing or tapping on a table
- Truncate Silence once more before exporting MP3 file
Find a Hosting Service to Distribute Your Show
How do you actually get your podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other listening apps? You use a podcast hosting platform. Your podcast is essentially an RSS feed that gets pushed to multiple podcast directories, and that’s what your host does. You upload your MP3 file to the service, and it does the rest.
There are tons of hosting services out there with different features to meet your needs, such as in-app editing, video integrations, monetization options and transcription.
Popular hosting services include Spotify for Podcasters, Podbean and Acast. Many services have both free and paid plan options, and there are ways to migrate your show to another service if you need something different or more feature-rich in the future.
Master All Mediums with Cross Promotion
A podcast is a fantastic cross-promotion tool for calls to action, events and your Innovative publications. Here are a few ideas:
- Remind listeners of upcoming event registration deadlines
- Discuss a recent event for which you’ve published photos, encouraging people to browse through your digital publication
- Give people a teaser of what articles are in your upcoming issue
- Read an article excerpt to drum up excitement for the magazine
- Encourage listeners who are association members to submit content for consideration in future editions
- Invite writers to be guests on your podcast, and link their contributed articles in the show notes
- Record and transcribe interviews from the podcast, then publish the Q&A in the magazine
- Ask your Innovative team about embedding audio clips in the digital edition or including QR codes to specific podcast episodes in the print edition
The possibilities are endless! Innovative is always available to talk about best practices for promoting your magazine, so let us know if a podcast is part of your communications strategy so we can brainstorm with you.
Now you know the basics of podcast creation. Are you ready to press record?
Liz Herrera Lauer is managing editor and marketing strategist at Innovative Publishing. She can be reached at liz@innovativepublishing.com.
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Read More
https://eqacoustics.com/pages/acoustic-foam-treatment-guide
https://amplify.matchmaker.fm/podcast-rss-feed
https://www.descript.com/blog/article/the-10-best-podcast-hosting-platforms
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