What is a Podcast?

A podcast is something that you can download and listen to in the form of a series. It could be about anything like sharing a piece of information, spreading some knowledge, teaching lifestyle or anything, etc. In simple words, if you want to create a podcast you need to have some idea in your mind and start talking about it. It is like sharing a word about something you know.

People love to listen to their favorite podcasts on the go when they are traveling, working, or maybe trying to sleep. It may be an episodic series that has some sort of continuation so that people can keep a track of it. Some people even entertain others on a regular basis with their sense of humor.

So, all in all, a podcast is nothing but an audio file that can be listened to and downloaded. It is better than listening to some repeated music again and again. If you are listening to a podcast you are enhancing your knowledge because podcasting is mostly referred to as knowledge sharing. Nowadays, news podcasts are also getting very popular.

You can build an audience base with your podcasts and then you can use that audience to endorse anything. And, the best thing is that you don’t even have to show your face as the only thing they know is your voice. It’s like listening to a Radio channel but you can choose the content you want to con

How to Start a Podcast?

#1. Choose a Niche/Topic

A niche is the core topic of your content. Before you start doing anything you should know what exactly are you doing and that is what choosing a niche is. You should know the topic about which you are going to talk on your podcast. It could be anything like wrestling, lifestyle, Hollywood, tv-series, politics, comedy, etc. You can choose your favorite niche something that you would love to talk about.

Let’s suppose you choose wrestling as your niche then you are going to talk about what is going on in wrestling. It shall include wrestling news, reviews, predictions, etc. And, now since you are about to talk about the world of wrestling you will have to acquire some knowledge too but what if you choose a niche that you already know. This will make your job easy as you already know about the topic.

One thing that is obvious with the niche is that you should be continuously putting content on it. A lot of people end up leaving their niche just because they have imitated others. You should do proper research and make sure that you are passionate about your niche. Because this is what will make you successful in your podcast.

#2. Write a few Headlines

After choosing a niche a lot of people struggle in finding some topics relevant to their niche and here we are to help you how to start a podcast that will be successful. To make a podcast successful you should make proper research and plans well in advance. So, before you think of starting a podcast make sure that you have a few ideas in your mind.

Let’s say you have chosen a niche now comes the important part of selecting the topics. So, first, you have in mind a few topics and write down their titles or headings. Write about 15-20 headings so that you don’t have to struggle later about the topics and you have a free mind of working. And, this will make you focus more on the work rather than on finding a topic to talk about.

While writing headings you should consider a few things which will make your title appealing. You should take the help of some popular magazines to write the titles. It should be such that listeners get attracted and listen to the whole podcast. It doesn’t matter how exciting your podcast is if you don’t have an interesting title. Because people don’t know about your podcast until they see the title and open it.

#3. Make Bullet points

Now, you have your niche and you also have a few topics on your mind but the problem is how to start talking about them. There is a topic in your mind and you just started with it. But, when you are there in from of the mic, you are totally blank. You don’t know what to talk about and this is a genuine problem. It doesn’t matter if you have done proper research and made everything very clear in your mind. But, when it comes to the live audience a lot of people just tend to forget their topics.

So, the better way is to write down everything on a piece of paper while doing the research. And, to keep it in front of you when you are recording a podcast. Not only, this will give you a clear flow of information but also remind you of your research work. So, why not follow this simple rule and make your life very easy instead of pausing your recording again and again and finding information.

These bullet points will keep you up to the date with everything you have recorded and everything you are about to record. Sometimes people talk about the same thing again and again which becomes boring for the listeners. So, why not make it short, informative, and to the point. It matters when you are sharing knowledge and taking too much time to explain a simple concept.

#4. Get yourself a Mic to Record your Podcast

Now you have everything done and here comes the action part. You have a niche and you also have a topic to discuss with bullet points on your hand but to make it into an actual podcast you will have to record. And, to record your podcast you need a microphone. So, you will have to get yourself a decent mic using which you can record your podcasts.

There are plenty of microphones available in the market but you will have to check your budget first. And, even if you don’t have a budget you can start recording podcasts using your smartphone only. And, if you have an earphone with mic that is well and good.

But, if you can spend a few bucks then you can grab some collar microphones for very cheap which will enhance the audio quality tremendously. There are cheaper lavalier mics too but you should get decent from brands like Boya or Ahuja which will give you a better output. 

But, if you are ready to spend some money on your microphone then you should get a USB Mic that will give you the ideal output for the podcast. The Blue Yeti is a very popular Mic used by most podcasters and if you don’t have that much budget then Blue Snowball is another popular microphone. The whole point is that you should have decent audio quality because that is what your product is.

#5 Record and Edit the Audio or Video

So, if you have a mic or you decided to record with your phone only, now comes the actual recording part. Until now, everything was just a part of the pre-production part but here is the actual production now. Before you start recording you will need software to record and edit the audio. But, even before that, you should take care of a few points.

Nobody wants to listen to some noisy audio, so you will have to take care of the noise in the audio. We are not asking you to hire a studio for the recording purpose but you should get a quiet place where you can easily record your podcast. It is advised to record inside a room because if you record outside you will have some disturbances.

And, make sure that you have switched off any fan and closed all the windows and doors before starting the recording. Have a comfortable sitting too so that you can sit for a long time and record the whole podcast in just one take.

And, to record anything you need software too which will give you a digital output to edit and upload. If you are doing it on your phone then you can use the inbuilt audio recorder or there is the Parrot Audio Recorder which gives fantastic output. And, for the computers, Audacity is the best that you will get to record and edit and that’s too for free.

#6 Create some Infographics

So, now you have your audio file ready and you just want to upload it but nothing works without the infographics. So, you will have to create some infographics first so that your podcast performs well on the Internet. Infographics are Graphic designs that have information about your podcast and are easy to grasp. It is said that a picture says more than what a thousand words would speak.

Even if you haven’t recorded your first podcast yet but you will need to create some infographics to let people know about your podcast. You will have to create a logo and banner for your podcast first. And, if you have a social media page then there has to be some information about your podcast there too. And, for the podcast, you will have to create a thumbnail and social infographics which will bring traffic to your podcast.

There are plenty of Software that you can use to create infographics and Adobe Photoshop is the best but if you have no knowledge of graphic designing then Canva is the best. There are thousands of templates that you can customize as per your needs and create an infographic. So, instead of hiring a graphic designer, you can create a graphic with Canva only.

#7. Upload your Podcast

Everything is ready now with the audio file and graphics but the main part is to upload the podcast. And, another question is where to upload the podcast? But if we are telling you how to start a podcast we will also tell you where to start a podcast. And, it is very easy to set up your podcast and start uploading.

First things first, if you are also recording your podcast in video format then Youtube is the best place to upload it. It is completely free and has a large number of users and visibility. But, if you are solely working on the audio then also you can create a visual slideshow and upload it on Youtube. But, Youtube is not for podcasts, right?

So, you have iTunes, Google Podcast, and Anchor.FM etc where you can upload your podcasts. And, we would suggest you start using Anchor.fm which uploads your podcasts to all the popular platforms automatically. So, why not use these popular platforms and get the maximum reach?

#8. Spread a Word about your Podcast

So, let’s say everything is just perfect but still, you don’t have listeners to your podcast. And, it happens with everyone. This is because you haven’t done any marketing yet and you will have to market your podcast in order to get any results. Marketing is the main aspect of your podcast here or of any digital product.

We are not asking you to spend huge money on advertising but you can spend a few bucks on social media campaigns. And, we are not even asking you to do that because there is so much potential in social media without even spending a single penny.

In the beginning, you just need to promote it on your social media pages, and ask your friends and family to listen to your podcast. And, if anybody shares it on their page it will multiply the growth of your podcast.

And, it works so tremendously that you will get all your traffic from social media itself. But, you will have to let everyone know first. Use e-mail marketing to notify people about any new podcast being published. It will definitely give you positive results.