In this episode, I talk about my latest adventures in podcasting and share what you need to think about when preparing your episodes.
Gastronostalgia is going well, we’ve recorded our weekly episodes until mid January 2022, which is such a great (and unusual) feeling!
We also released our first episode with a “full menu”. We’ve incorporated an “apperitif”, as listeners (mainly our friends) were requesting more content!
When we listen to a podcast, if we don’t know the hosts, it helps us feel like we know them; and if we know they hosts, it helps us feel like we’re with them.
Putting this together made me realise how unorganised I’ve been with the labelling of audio files and folders. Even if you’re at the beginning of your podcasting adventure and don’t have much material yet, it pays off to get organised for when the show continues to grow.
Gastronostalgia has helped me capture the joy of podcasting; having a conversation with friends, that you share with others. Even if your show is for your business, it’s worth capturing that joy, the joy of creating your own show where you can share what you are up to with the world.
As the Gastro podcast is hosted on Anchor, where you can include polls and questions for the audience, but do listeners know that feature is there? Another thing to look out for with Anchor is that you can’t have more than one show per account, and you can’t grab the embed code for each episode when you schedule it, you have to wait until it’s published.
10.51
If you are in love with podcasts and podcasting, you must listen to this episode from Buzzcast, 6 Aug 2021 The Life-Changing Power of Podcasts with Elsie Escobar. Elise is a podcast veteran and a very strong advocate for the medium – she’s been doing it for ages!
She talks about how listening to podcasts made her feel like she was connecting with people who were nothing like herself.
Adventures in Podcasting is changing the schedule!
I will publish an episode every two weeks, while I pay some attention to the business side. I now have help to build the social media, and the website.
I’m also in danger of overpodcasting, I have a lot of recording waiting for editing, and the audio is just piling up!Plus, the bad posture when using the mouse or writing by hand means that I’ve hurt my right shoulder – although the pain went during recording with a friend.
16.20 Preparing for your recording
Preparation starts right at the beginning of your idea generation phase. Some podcasters love to plan everything in advance, others start working on the individual episodes, one by one.
It’s best to have a plan for the whole show, but leave the episodes quite loose so that you can “flex” the content.
But it’s worth thinking about whether the episode you’re going to work on is very similar to your other ones, or whether it’s deliberately different, and how it fits in the schedule.
If you’re recording with someone else, you might want to use:
Calendly – share a link to your calendar for guests to book their slot. Quite decent free account
OnceHub – as above, the one I use
Doodle – when you need to organise a meeting with a group
For more resources, check out the Resources page.
20.10
Creating guidelines for your guests. Don’t spend too much time on making these pretty, as Pilar has seen some new podcasters create amazing PDF for their guests… but the show never gets off the ground.
You might want to include things like wear headphones, switch off notifications, etc.
If you are sharing the questions with guests, beware that sometimes they might hijack the leading of the conversation if they have the list of questions or points of conversation in front of them.
Some guests would like the questions/themes sent through in advance, so always send them through, so they can be comfortable.
How much should you script your podcast content?
Up to you – depends how good you are at sight-reading, and how much spontaneity you can take. I used to script the segues between guest questions for Spain Uncovered, because I was really nervous.
Am I missing anything here? Would love to hear from you!
If you are thinking of signing up to Buzzsprout to host your podcast, or use Bluehost for your website, you can support Adventures in Podcasting by using these affiliate links. Thank you!