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The Tricks To Recording Podcasts Remotely

2020 has been a year of working from home. Ok, it’s been a year of a lot of things, most of them not great. But one of those things has been working from home, and that’s come in for mixed reviews.

As someone who’s worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve watched people’s reactions to this change with interest, bemusement, and a bit of embarrassment. If something this natural to me has thrown off so many other people, what does that say about my taste?

Working from home also means recording podcasts from home. As with the other aspects of working from home, podcasting is doable but requires adjustments. Podcasters have to master their home studio, but also the variable of having a conversation with someone who is not in the room with them – no body language to cue in to, no recording console to manage everyone’s volume levels.

Having worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve also been recording podcasts from home for the past few years. While I don’t have everything perfect or on par with live radio studio, I have learned a few tricks to the process that are key to success.

The Importance of Getting Your Sound Right

When I started podcasting, someone with more experience in the field gave me a great piece of advice: “As long as the host sounds clear and solid, listeners will be able to adjust to a guest’s sound more easily.” We’ll talk about maintaining good sound with your guests, but it’s of utmost importance that you control your own sound. That means having the right equipment, making sure there’s not too much noise in your surroundings, having a good internet connection, and more. I covered potential recording errors more in detail in this post, so refresh on the topic there.

Find the right recording software

Recording a conversation with someone who is not in the same physical location is not an easy task, but fortunately there are many programs that simplify it. I have used several over the years trying to get the right sound. The challenges and variables to watch out for include:

  • Audio drift – the possibility that your guest’s recording will get out of sync with your recording due to varying computer speeds
  • Glitchy connections – if the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) aspect of the software isn’t good, the call can get robotic or the line can just drop
  • Storage – Most software programs allow you to record on the cloud, but you want to make sure you have secure access to the recording
  • File type – Different programs record different types of files. While it’s relatively easy to convert files from one type to the other online, the more conversions you make the more you run the risk of the audio deteriorating. Ideally, you can record in mp3, m4a, or wav for easy conversion or editing.
  • Video – I’ll discuss the value or challenge of having video for recording, but it’s certainly a variable that affects both the internet connection quality and the connection you have with your guest or co-host.

As I mentioned, I’ve used several programs over the year. For a free service, I recommend Zencaster. It allows you to record your guest or co-host on a separate track, there is separate back-up recording, and it’s a good audio quality. There is some risk of audio drift, and I found the VOIP quality to be lacking to the point where I would prepare guests to refresh the screen if things cut off. But it was a mostly effective recording platform. I am curious to see what their video recording feature is like (currently in beta), and with the onset of the pandemic, the company has removed any restrictions on number of guests you can have or recording volume in a month.

I currently use Zoom, which you’re likely familiar with. While the videoconferencing software has had some security concerns – many of them since resolved – I ultimately find the call quality to be the most consistent of any of the alternatives I’ve tried, and the audio quality to be more than satisfactory. There are a few tricks to maximize the quality, including recording on your computer to get separate tracks and turning on original sound. The cost is $15/month on the PRO plan, and there’s a possibility of upgrading to also get transcripts. The ability to see my co-host or guest is also a plus, as it makes it easier to go back and forth, and it makes it possible to easily produce videos of the conversation too, if that’s of interest.

(One small thing about Zoom – try to avoid muting anybody, including yourself, from the program. I believe this leads to Zoom not recording that person while they’re muted, which means their track gets out of sync with the others. We’ll mention the importance of recording on separate tracks which mitigates most of the need for muting anyway, but if you need to mute, try to do so by muting your microphone hardware itself, rather than doing so in Zoom).

Prepare for your podcast beforehand

It’s always a good idea to prepare for a podcast before you start recording, but this especially is the case before recording remotely. With a co-host, this could mean working out an outline and a plan of attack for a given episode. With a guest, sending questions or talking points in advance is a great idea.

Even once the call starts but before you start recording, it’s good to check in with the guest or co-host. That allows you to make sure everyone sounds good. You can also refresh on what you plan to discuss, check if your guest has any time limits to their availability, and prep them for how you end the podcast – usually, I will sign off with my guest or co-host, stop the recording, but continue the call so we can debrief.

Give Your Guests/Co-Hosts Space To Talk

One of the biggest differences between online recording and in-person recording is that lack of body language I mentioned above. Video helps to a degree, but it’s still harder to read a person through a screen than it is across the room.

This matters for the flow of a conversation, where you may not know when a person has finished their piece and when they want to keep going. So as a rule of thumb, give the person space to finish their thought – wait a couple seconds before following up with your next comment or idea. And prepare your guest or co-host for this possibility.

The nice thing about recording podcasts is that you can always go back and edit to remove unnatural pauses. But building these spaces into the conversation gives you more margin for error to make those edits, and also allows your interlocutors time to develop their arguments or ideas fully.

We record The Razor’s Edge without video. Our most recent guest was Rahul Vohra, the founder/CEO of Superhuman, and he’s been on several podcasts before. That experience showed, as he adapted without question to the no video format and had no trouble pausing and flowing in our conversation.

There was a bit of interruption on all parts, and it is both ok and natural to interrupt other speakers on your podcast if you have a point to make or want to interject from time to time. Which is what makes the next point especially important…

Record On Separate Tracks

Whether using Zencaster, Zoom, or a software program that does not begin with a Z, make sure you are recording each speaker on a separate track. In Zoom you want to go to your settings and then recording, and make sure to record a separate audio file for each participant who speaks.

Source: My desktop – that second checkbox is the key one.

You also need to record to your computer rather than to the cloud – the cloud won’t enable multi-track recording, at least last I checked.

Why is this so important? First, it allows you to edit in post-production and control for the ambient noise on each person’s end, without unduly affecting someone else’s track. It also allows you to take out, say, a phone ringing on your track while your guest is speaking (much harder to do if it happens while you’re speaking, but that’s why we had the recording rules at the beginning). And as far as interrupting goes, some interruptions don’t actually need to stay on the final version. So again, multi-track recording enables a much finer final product.

As a sub-item here, it can be a good idea to record your track separately on a desktop software (Audacity or GarageBand, for example), and to ask your guests to do the same. While I prefer to edit off the Zoom versions because those are locked in place with one another, and Zoom provides as good latency as any call service, there will be the occasional robotic moment where your guest or co-host’s voice sounds unnatural. If they are recording on their end and backing up the audio, you can use that back-up audio to smooth out the conversation.

Don’t Be Shy To Produce While On The Call

One last bit of advice is to be proactive during the recording. If your guest or co-host doesn’t sound clear at the beginning of the podcast, tell them. If their volume suddenly drops, interrupt to ask them to repeat themselves after they fix the sound. If they make a point poorly or you want them to flesh something out, jump in.

With post-production editing, you can remove the ‘first attempts’ as much as needed. And while sometimes asking someone to explain what they mean is naturally part of a conversation, there are other times where the second version is just better. The same goes for audio – as ‘natural’ as I like conversational podcasts to sound, for example, the listener won’t necessarily know or need to know if you had to take two tries at something because a dog started barking, and all things being equal they’d rather not hear the dog anyway.

***

These tips reflect things I’ve learned over the past few years, and I am sure there are many more techniques left to learn. Some of these items are common sense, and some apply to in-person recording as well (which, hopefully, will become a regular thing again before too long!). And there are things that can be corrected after the fact in the editing process, or by re-recording bits.

A common theme in my posts, though, is that while you can do a lot to dress up a conversation after recording through the editing process – or you can turn to a service like ours for help – it’s really important to get the recording itself right. As you bring on guests you respect and admire in your field, you want to make sure you respect their time, which means getting the recording right and avoiding the need to repeat. That’s why getting the techniques of remote recording down are so important. And fortunately, they’re not that hard to do with a little practice and, hopefully, learning from people who have already made their own mistakes for you.

Anything I missed? Let me know below or get in touch here.

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Introducing A Positive Jam

We’re excited to introduce our second Shortman Studios podcast, and our first newly launched podcast: A Positive Jam. Here is the description as well as our first two preview episodes – an introduction and a playlist for those looking to get into the Hold Steady.

A Positive Jam is a podcast dedicated to breaking down great albums track by track. Our first season focuses on The Hold Steady’s classic debut album, Almost Killed Me.

The Hold Steady emerged in 2004 with Almost Killed Me, a record that took a throwback 70s’ rock sound and made it wholly new. In a time of 80s knock-offs, dance-punk bands, and the last gasps of nu-grunge and boy bands, The Hold Steady kicked the doors down with a bag of one-liners and guitar solos. They reminded the sniffling indie kids and critics of the early ‘00s that this was supposed to be a party. And, they changed our lives.

Hosted by Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman, two Hold Steady fans and music lovers, A Positive Jam breaks down The Hold Steady’s debut track by track to explore why it matters and why the Hold Steady has had staying power with diehards around the world for the past two decades. Hosted by Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman, and featuring guests like the Washington Post’s Matt Brooks, The Unified Scene Theater’s Shawn Westfall, 30music’s Kyle Undem and Brian Holm, and Fiasco’s Leon Neyfakh, this season looks into the lyrics, the music, and the cultural climate to understand why killer parties still almost kill us. The common thread – passion for a band that embodies staying positive.

A Positive Jam debuts on August 5th 2020. Subscribe to A Positive Jam on:

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The Razor’s Edge #20: Captain Twilio on Netflix’s Dominant Position And The Streaming Wars

We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. Here’s our latest episode of The Razor’s Edge.

We’re joined by friend of The Razor’s Edge and professional investor Captain Twilio, as he’s known. As someone who has only owned two stocks in his portfolio since 2012 – Netflix from 2012-2017 and Twilio in the three years since – he has a laser focused approach to growth investing, and it’s worked.

In the wake of Netflix’s most recent, pandemic-fueled earnings report, we brought him on to see where he thinks the company sits, and what we all make of the report and Netflix’s positioning. We also cover Captain’s Twilio position at length, though that will be part two of this episode, coming out around Twilio’s earnings. 

Topics Covered  

  • 3:30 – Background on the Captain’s positioning  
  • 7:30 – Understanding the old Netflix long case and the growth investor mindset 
  • 12:30 – Why swap out? 
  • 14:30 – Attention span issue and the new threat of Tiktok 
  • 21:00 – The competitive landscape 
  • 27:00 – The old distribution vs. content question 
  • 30:00 – The streaming wars and what attrition looks like 
  • 34:30 – The most recent earnings call, and what lands are left for Netflix to conquer? 
  • 43:00 – Peak Hollywood and our changing viewing habits 

Relevant Links:

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What Types Of Podcasts Are There?

Think about the word podcast. What associations come to mind? What sort of words or sounds are playing in your head?

It might be a familiar voice, talking week after week to a new guest. Or it might be two voices, the same two each week, going back and forth about the news or sports or whatever else. Or it could be one person talking you through current events or history, or their own lives. Or…well, there are a ton of different formats for a podcast, as with any media or art form.

‘Podcast’ by definition is just a means for sounds to get to people’s devices. Broadcasting goes out via an antenna, and podcasting goes out via our phones, and iPods before then, hence the name. It’s most common for podcasts to be distributed via RSS feeds that plug into podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or others.

Apple Podcasts on the App Store
Source: Apple – the ubiquitous sign of podcasting

Which is to say that what a podcast can be varies widely. In the mid ’00s, a music website I wrote for released a monthly podcast which was essentially a mixtape that people could download as an mp3. Spotify playlists and similar have replaced that format, but plenty of other podcast formats have blossomed.

If you want to start a podcast, you need to know what the common formats for a podcast are. The medium is still new and open to experimentation, but it’s worth knowing what the existing standards are so you can set out on the path. Here are seven of the most common podcast formats, including examples of successful podcasts in each area and personal examples I was involved with during my time at Seeking Alpha:

The Conversational Podcast

I’d put my money on this being the most familiar podcast to most listeners. In it, two or more hosts talk each episode about a given theme or topic. Their charisma and chemistry is what catches the listeners’ attention. Having two people going back and forth allows room for hosts to complement (and compliment) one another, and to shed more light on their views and on who they are than a solo podcast would. That, along with the intimacy that comes from podcasting, allows the listeners to feel like they’re hanging out with friends.

One of the first podcasts I listened to regularly was Men in Blazers, which focuses on soccer around the world though especially in England. But the soccer is sort of a sideshow. The two hosts – Roger Bennett and Michael Davies – will often take 10-15 minutes just to get to their recap of the week that was in the English Premier League, and they will digress over and over again. Because of their chemistry and how they work listener input into their shows, though, it totally works and their profile has skyrocketed over the past 6 or so years.

Men in Blazers podcast: USMNT meltdown & NWSL final - ProSoccerTalk | NBC Sports
Men in Blazers deep in conversation. Source: NBCSports

Another example of this is the podcast Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast “for long distance besties everywhere.” The show is explicitly built around the idea of two friends – Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman – talking, which then allows other people into both their friendship and into the broader topic of friendship. As Friedman said in a recent article, when they launched the podcast, “we would just call each other and talk.”

In my time at Seeking Alpha, we launched two podcasts that I’d place in the conversational category – Behind the Idea and The Razor’s Edge, the latter of which is now a Shortman Studios podcast. While the content itself is very important, the dynamic between the hosts was a key component of listeners’ feedback, and by exploring investing ideas as a duo, we were able to get further into them than we would have otherwise.

Interview Podcasts

Following on conversational podcasts in popularity are interview podcasts. This may be the format you are thinking of for your own podcast. It lends itself to the networking benefits we talked about here, and it’s a great way to explore a topic by bringing on other practitioners or experts as guests. A host can focus on a given theme over a series of episodes, while still keeping it fresh with the new guests.

For example, Guy Raz hosts the popular How I Built This series, where he interviews entrepreneurs, business people, and other builders about their back story. Stay in the NPR universe and we can of course cite Terry Gross’s Fresh Air, which while being a radio show provides a great template for interview podcasts (and has influenced many of them).

It’s worth pointing out here that these categories are not mutually exclusive, and indeed interview podcasts work when they drift towards the conversational, when they are back and forths rather than just one person talking. To cite another obvious example, the Joe Rogan Experience uses interviews as a starting point, but they are very conversational interviews.

At Seeking Alpha we had three interview oriented podcasts – The Cannabis Investing Podcast, Let’s Talk ETFs, and Marketplace Roundtable Podcast – as well as one that straddles the line between interview and conversational, Alpha Trader. Interviewing guests, especially remotely, brings some variables into the process for good – they can increase your audience, bring new insights, and introduce you to new people – and for bad – less control over recording quality, need to spend more time booking them. But they are all manageable.

News Podcasts

News podcasts are fairly straightforward to understand, and are similar to their radio antecedents. The point of the podcast – often daily though they can also be weekly – is to deliver information rather than share a discussion. It’s no surprise that the most popular news podcasts come from major publications – the New York Times’ The Daily is the most obvious example. Bloomberg has converted a ton of its radio shows into podcasts, and the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Vox, and other major outlets have gotten into the daily podcast game.

These are also good examples to point out that again, the news podcasts can have range. The Daily features interviews with other NYT reporters as well as some reporting on specific episodes. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway have a conversational podcast about the news, Pivot, that only comes out twice a week but also falls into this category. At Seeking Alpha, we had Wall Street Breakfast, a 7-days a week podcast, with the company recently turning the Saturday edition into a conversational one – that podcast has over 1M downloads a month, as the daily habit is really easy to build.

The news podcast would seem least relevant to individuals looking to start their own podcast, but it’s worth keeping in mind for a couple quick reasons: using news topics as a peg to explore your passions is a way to join wider conversations; and if you really care about a field, reporting or sharing the news on a regular basis is a way to establish yourself as a source of information, even if you’re just aggregating to start. This of course works better the less crowded your field is.

Essay Podcasts (or, less controlled, Rants)

Conversational and interview podcasts by definition are a two or more person affair. News podcasts can either be one person reading the news or something more dynamic.

Essay podcasts are more explicitly focused on one person’s perspective. They may work in guests, or even quasi-regular co-hosts. But the podcast is defined by the host’s starting point and usually their voice.

To draw on a last Seeking Alpha example, we had a podcast called SA for FAs, that focused on the needs of financial advisors. It is hosted by my former colleague Gil Weinreich, and the standard episodes are 5-7 minute pieces that he writes and records, giving his take on key themes in the financial advisor space. It is very polished and clean, and the focused approach makes sure to not waste the listener’s time.

In researching this category a little bit, I came across Bill Burr’s podcast, which many people like for its rambling nature. I can believe that he pulls it off well, but I also point it out for a note of caution. The Essay podcast can veer into a rant, and while this podcast format may be the easiest to do, it’s among the harder to do well. If you want to explore podcasting and starting with your own essays is your approach, you’ll want to think about how to focus that so that it hooks listeners, or how to open up the approach to incorporate other people.

Reporting or Documentary Podcasts

The last three categories have some overlap to them as well. I’d argue they display the best of podcasting’s strengths, but are also the hardest to pull off.

Start off with a deeply reported podcast, or as Apple categorizes them, documentary podcasts. These are podcasts that feature a host or two but also a multitude of voices to give primary insight on a given story.

Some of my favorite podcasts from the last year or so have been in this genre. It can be a shorter series like the 3-parter from The Stakes on Miami’s gentrification, or a longer one like Pineapple Street Studios/Crooked Media/Spotify’s Wind of Change. Slow Burn is of course great. I’m currently listening to Boomtown by Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment and really enjoying it.

To be frank, you’re probably not interested in making this sort of podcast if you’re reading this blog post. This is not where beginners would go, I mean. But, there’s a lot to learn from the story-telling, the pacing, and the ways that these shows keep the listener hooked and listening for more.

Story Telling Podcasts

I mentioned story telling above, and good story telling is part of just about any podcast format, one way or another. But some podcasts are explicitly devoted to telling a story. They could be the popular true crime podcast formats, or oral histories like the 30 for 30 series, or fiction podcasts, with Welcome to Night Vale being the most popular.

Again, I would expect this to be less of interest to readers of this blog. But the audio format gives stories an added dimension, and podcasts as a field are more open to newcomers than traditional publishing industries, at least as far as I can tell. And perhaps of more relevance, these story telling podcasts can offer a lot of insight on how to convey your story, even if it is more focused on your business, hobby, or passion.

Deep Dive Podcasts

I broke out a last category to cover podcasts that are deeply researched, but that are still generally from one or two hosts. They can be conversational in approach or essayistic. They may or may not tell a story, and the reporting that happens is more off mic.

On the lighter end of this is something like the Ringer’s Rewatchables podcasts, which are really conversational podcasts, but do a deep dive into a given movie or show week after week. You Must Remember This is a weightier version of this, with Karina Longworth diving into lost stories of Hollywood. The show features guests, but it’s mostly her telling the stories and sharing her research. You’re Wrong About features two hosts – Sarah Marshall and Mike Hobbes – diving into specific historical events. Hardcore History sees Dan Carlin going at length – this could slot into the essay/rant podcast format as well – about history.

What I like about this format is that the podcasts are tailored to people who share the host’s/hosts’ passion, or at least who are curious about it. The oral format is perfect for getting into this passion. And weirdly enough, this is more ‘accessible’ if you’re looking into diving into a topic, since you can decide how far you want to go in your research and in what you want to share.

***

These categories are not all inclusive by any means. And as I mentioned above, they’re not rigid or mutually exclusive – many great podcasts bounce between two, three, or even more categories listed above. In presenting them to you, I wanted to share a few formats that will help you think through what you might want to do with your podcast.

At Shortman Studios, we’ve had experience working with the first four formats, and are looking into the other formats as well. Of our current podcasts, The Razor’s Edge is a conversational podcast that features some interviews, while A Positive Jam will be a conversational deep dive podcast.

If you’re interested in working with us on your own podcast in any of these formats, you can get in touch here. And if you think there are categories I’ve missed, feel free to comment below or contact us above, I’m sure there’s more that could be touched upon. I hope, for those of you newer to this world, this post will help you narrow down your focus and give you a better understanding of what podcasts sound like, so you can figure out how you want to deliver your podcast.

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The Razor’s Edge #19: Superhuman Founder/CEO Rahul Vohra On Email’s Enduring Role In Modern Workplace Collaboration

Photo of Rahul Vohra, Superhuman Founder/CEO

We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. First up: our newest episode of The Razor’s Edge.

Subscribe to The Razor’s Edge on:

We’ve gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business’s rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in?

We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor – Hey, from Basecamp – portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up.  

Topics Covered:

  • 2:30 minute mark – The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead?
  • 7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID
  • 10:30 – Superhuman user experience
  • 16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics
  • 23:30 – The niche question
  • 29:30 – Competition, Hey’s entrance into the market
  • 42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling
  • 46:30 – Demographic questions
  • 52:30 – Among the giants
  • 54:30 – App Store controversy
  • 57:30 – Gamification
  • 1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups

Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation:

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So You Want To Start a Podcast…

It’s 2020, and a podcast is the new blog: everyone you know or follow seems to have one. It sounds easy enough to do. The category is growing. You’d like to get on board.

That’s great! We’re a believer in podcasts and think that anybody who applies themselves to the category can succeed. But jumping into it without a plan is like showing up at a potluck with no dish – it’s nice that you made it, but you’re going to raise some eyebrows fast.

Here are a few questions you want to answer to decide if this is the right path for you, and how to go about things:

What’s the goal of your podcast? Why do you want to produce a podcast?

Podcasting can do a number of things for hosts. They can be a way to network, or to meet people in a field of interest. They can be a way to practice public speaking and interviewing skills in a relatively safe environment. They can be an outlet for a passion or a creative project. They can tell a story. And podcasts can make money if they are successful enough to attract a sponsor or feed into a subscription model, though that takes a lot of work and dedication.

Your goals may change over time, but you want to have a sense from the beginning of why you’re getting into it. Only you can determine the right answer to this question, and it should be one that keeps you going in terms of recording and producing the podcast over time. This helps answer the next question as well.

What sort of investment do you want to make in this podcast (time & money)?

Our most precious resource is time, and money doesn’t come cheap either. When thinking through what you want out of your podcast, you should think about how much of these key resources you want to put into the podcast.

For example, it is possible to host a podcast for free. Buzzsprout offers a free plan with 2 hours of audio a month but the podcasts get erased after 90 days; Podbean offers a free plan with 5 total hours of audio. Soundcloud is also a free platform to start. All of these are acceptable if you want to experiment, but if you’re planning to produce an ongoing podcast, you’re probably going to have to upgrade (and many plans are around $15/month, so it’s not a huge expense).

The same goes for things like recording equipment and editing quality. The better your recording equipment – microphone, mic stand, pop filter, software for recording remote calls, etc. – is, the better your podcast will sound. And a good sounding podcast will matter to listeners. We’ll cover equipment more in detail below.

For editing too, you can just record and post with a very basic mix to sweeten and balance the sound and filter out noise. But if you want to structure a conversation or recording, to remove mistakes and repetitions, and to cut down on the podcast time – so as to respect your listeners’ time – you’ll need to spend more time or money on editing. A good rule of thumb is one hour of recorded audio takes two hours to edit fully. Another option is to go with a service like ours.

Again, only you can determine the right answer to this question (and the others on this list), but it’s worth keeping in mind the potential costs from the beginning, so you don’t spend time on a project you don’t want to pursue. You can’t get that time back.

What do you want the podcast to be about?

Once assessing your commitment, this is the most important question. What is the topic or theme that ties your podcast together? What will be the hook that gets listeners to subscribe and share the podcast with friends?

One doesn’t have to be too prescriptive or self-restricting in their selection of a theme, but the more focused you can make the podcast, the easier a time it will be finding an audience. Joe Rogan or Terry Gross might be able to run a general interview podcast that focuses on their personality or interviewing style, but they are special. You may be special too, but think about what your goal is and who you want to reach. The old elevator pitch model – the ability to explain why someone should listen to your podcast in the time it takes to go up in an elevator – is worth keeping in mind here.

What format do you want to have?

Once you have a topic, you want to think about your format. Podcasting is an open medium, and there are a number of different common formats you can apply, as well as new ones you might be able to discover. For example, the podcast could be conversational, where you and a co-host or two go back and forth, with guided topics but room to improvise and build chemistry with one another and with your listeners. Or the podcast could be an interview podcast, where you have a different guest each week and ask them questions, so the conversation is more focused on what they say rather than you. To the contrary, it could be an essay podcast, where you are sharing your own opinions on a given topic, whether already written out to the word or more improvised (you can even veer towards a ranting podcast). And of course, some of the most famous podcasts tell a story, whether a fictional one or a deeply reported non-fiction story. This is not an easy format to just wade into, but it may appeal to you nevertheless.

There are great podcasts in each of those formats, and that list isn’t all-inclusive. Podcasts can also switch between styles – I’ve had success in the past running a conversational podcast but one where we interview guests on alternative episodes, to flesh out the conversations we had between the co-hosts. The Razor’s Edge is an example of this, while A Positive Jam is more of a cross between conversational and story telling.

A sub-question to this is do you want a co-host or two? Is there someone you have a good rapport with who wants to join you on this project? Are you close enough in common interests that you can work together on a regular basis, but apart enough that the collaboration will push you further than you would go on your own? Do you think it would be more fun to just have someone you can talk to each time? These are things you want to think about. Like with every collaboration, having a co-host involves some compromise, but it can also advance your efforts in a way that is tough to do alone.

What equipment and tools do you need?

We touched on this briefly, and the answer depends in part on earlier questions, especially your goals and how much time you want to spend. Built-in laptop or phone mics, for example, capture a decent enough sound quality if you just want to share your podcast with friends or colleagues. At the same time, a base level of investment can go a long way. Here are the items you want to consider:

  1. A high quality microphone. A Blue Yeti mic is around $120, for example, and captures a full and clean sound.
  2. Headphones – you don’t need to get fancy, but it’s a good idea to have a set of headphones on hand for recording and editing purposes.
  3. A mic stand – this allows you to avoid common recording mistakes because you can set your mic in front of you without risking touching it. A shock mount and a pop filter are two other items you can buy to protect the sonic fidelity.
  4. Recording software – if you are recording physically, Audacity is free software that captures audio well. GarageBand on Apple computers is also a good option.
    If you are recording remotely with a guest or a co-host, options range from free ones like Zencaster to specialized paid options like Cleanfeed to recording Skype calls or recording via Zoom.
  5. Editing software – If you plan to edit this on your own, you’ll need something that you can cut audio, splice in music if you want it, add intros/outros as relevant, and clean up the sound. Again, Audacity or GarageBand (for Apple) are free options that do just about everything you need. Adobe Audition is a paid software if you want to upgrade. And of course, there are companies out there that can edit for you.
  6. Hosting service – To get your podcast out to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, the two main platforms for listening to podcasts, you need to host the podcast with a company that will push out the podcast via an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The best platforms will automatically ‘apply’ to list your podcast on those two main channels, Apple and Spotify, though you will also want to set up accounts with each platform to monitor stats. That said, the hosting company – Podbean, Blubrry, Libsyn, AudioBoom, Megaphone, BuzzSprout are among the options – will also provide cohesive stats on your podcast.

These are the bare bones for recording and releasing your podcast. For added promotion or distribution, for example, you want to consider your social media options. But you should expect to at the least address each of these items if you want to succeed.

How do you get feedback and how do you measure success?

That last point feeds into this last question – you have a goal, you have a podcast set up, you’re putting time and money into it, so how do you determine if it’s worth it?

Podcasting offers raw stats like listeners, downloads, listen to end %, devices, and so forth. The Apple app includes reviews, which allow you to get more qualitative feedback. The best podcasts evolve with their listeners, so think about how you want to incorporate them – it could be a request for them to leave a review or to email you, it could be that you build a strong social media presence and get responses that way, it could be that you find a test audience to share episodes with.

The openness of podcasting is the source of its strength, in this case because you can solicit and gain feedback, and then iterate to improve what you’re doing and engage with more listeners. This can help you re-answer the questions above as far as your goals, your investment, and how you want to execute your podcast.

There are plenty of resources out there as far as a checklist of tips for getting started running a podcast. We will write one soon as well. But this post is aimed to help you think through the whole process and what you’re getting into. We believe in the power of podcasting, and believe it is a great format for tons of people. But it’s better to go into something like this with eyes wide open, and to learn from others’ experience rather than making all the same mistakes on your own. And if you need help, you can get in touch with us.

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The Mistakes You Can Make Podcasting – Recording Errors

Podcasting can be broken down into three stages.

  • What you have to say
  • How you say it
  • How you present that to audiences

Each of those stages require practice, thought, and care to get right. Each stage entails multiple aspects as well. What you have to say includes the type of podcast you want to host, topic, length, guests, format, and more. How you present your podcast includes promotion, the introductions/outros, video, whether you have music, among other things.  

How you say what you want to say is a matter of technique. That entails interviewing technique if you have guests, or conversational techniques if you are speaking alone or with a co-host or two. It also entails recording technique, which is what we’re focused on here.

The great thing about podcasting is it’s open, and it’s accessible to many more people than traditional radio or audio broadcasting. But, listeners are still used to clear, high quality audio. It’s easy to lose someone’s attention or to have them stop listening because the sound is distracting or uneven. If the sound obscures what you’re trying to say, in other words, you’re going to lose your audience. And while there are things that can be done after the fact to clean up the sound, your recording technique is going to make the biggest difference in the quality of your recording.

Here are a few common recording mistakes I’ve heard or made over the years, and ways to fix them.

Touching the mic or nearby surfaces while talking: I use a Blue Yeti mic for podcasting, and I recommend it to others. It produces a high-quality sound. It is, however, very sensitive. That means touching your desk or the mic or even the mic cord will show up on the recording as a little rumbling sound. And if you do so while talking, it’s very difficult to take that out of the podcast.

The first thing you can do to prevent this is be very conscious of your hands and position, especially when you’re talking. Focus on speaking without your hands, and also make sure you don’t speak so close to the mic that you touch it!

I also bought a mic arm, which means the mic now sits in front of my face and not on the desk, so if I forget to stay away and touch the desk, the reverberations don’t bleed onto the recording. And as a last piece, not pictured below, I bought a shock mount, which further blocks the reverberations from getting on the recording.

Hanging the mic can prevent mic touches, just keep the cat away. Source: my wife

Bad connection: This is relevant if you’re recording remotely. As much as having the right mic, the right software, and the right techniques in the room matter, your internet connection is going to make or break a remote recording with someone else. And their connection will too!

Before recording, make sure you have a good connection – use a speedtest for example to check that you’re at normal capacity. If you can record closer to your router, do so. If you have a lot of internet usage in your house or office to the point where it eats at bandwidth, see if you can schedule your recording for a time when usage is low (or ask others to tone down their usage while you record).

It’s more important that the host sounds good, as they set the baseline for the podcast, but you should check with your guest or co-host to make sure they have a similarly clear recording set-up.

This is also where selecting the right recording software counts, which we’ll address in a separate post.

Noisy background: You may not be trying to produce a professional podcast. You could argue the authenticity of the recording even helps. And in 2020, we’ve all gotten used to family members, pets, or other ambient disruptions to our work meetings as home and work meld together.

It is still distracting, though, to listen to a podcast and hear a background conversation or noise when someone is talking. And if that’s happening on your end while you are talking, it’s very difficult to edit it out of the sound.

A lot of people record in closets or small closed spaces where they can block out external noise. That’s fine if you have it available. Beyond that, take steps to talk to your household or to otherwise create a recording space that is quiet and as pristine as possible. For example, consider drawing the blinds or the shutters on your windows, or putting pillows up, to block out external noise.

Inconsistent Mic Distance: The microphones we recommend are stationary. You set them on your desk or recording space and leave them alone, especially to avoid the issues I mentioned above with touching the mic.

That also means that you should try to be consistent in your recording stance and posture. A consistent position will ensure that the recording volume is also consistent, with fluctuations only when you naturally change your volume level.

Experiment before recording to see how you sound, by reading or speaking for 10-15 seconds, long enough for you to have to take a breath. If you’re too close to the mic, your breathing will register loudly – and some podcasts leave these in, but it’s something of an aesthetic choice. If you’re too far away, you’ll find that your normal volume is weak. And you need to be comfortable where you are sitting, because you’ll need to stay in or around that position while recording. Otherwise, the editing process becomes much more difficult as you have to balance out the different levels that come from your own end, let alone balancing with your guest.

Mouse Clicks: This is an obvious issue, but still a regular one. If you are recording on a computer via an online call, you may have reason to click around. And if you’re having an interesting conversation, you may want to look things up while recording.

All that’s fine, but do try to be conscientious about when you click with your mouse, because it can be super distracting to listeners. I try to only click when my co-host or guest is talking, so that I can edit it out of my track later, or to hold the mouse down and away from my body, so that the click at least is quieter.

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The way things should work is that your podcast covers an interesting topic, and you have a great guest or co-host, and your listeners judge you only by the quality of your conversation. But that’s not how things actually work – in my experience, a vast majority of negative podcast reviews revolve around the sound quality.

Some of those can be attributed to other issues, whether with the voices themselves or the editing, but a lot of them start with how you record your podcast. And while someone like Shortman Studios can help you with the editing or your vocal techniques, you need to make sure you avoid these mistakes to get the most pristine sound available to you.

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Why Podcasts

Why should you care about podcasting? One can imagine that 30 years ago (or even 100 years ago), the average person wasn’t thinking about entering radio just because it was a popular way to find news, music, and entertainment. And podcasting is still smaller than radio. Even if it feels like everybody you know already has their own podcast…is anyone listening?

It’s true that starting a podcast now can feel like you’re showing up late for the party. But, there are also a number of reasons for the growth in podcasting, and reasons for why there’s a lot of fun still to be had.

Let’s start with the numbers themselves. According to Edison Research’s 2020 The Infinite Dial report, 75% of Americans older than 12 are familiar with podcasting. 55% have listened to a podcast, which amounts to 155 million Americans. That’s 8% growth year over year, and a double in listenership since 2013. Spotify, which we’ll get to in a second, is the fastest growing platform to listen to audio in general, and they’re making a big push in podcasts. 24% of Americans, or 68 million Americans, listen to podcasts weekly, and on average, those listeners listen to 6 podcasts.

This growth is happening on the production side too, of course. According to Podcast Insights, there are currently over one million active podcasts out there, which is nearly double the number less than two years ago. Streaming audio is projected to be the fastest growing sector for advertising, and some industry experts expect podcast advertising to approach $1B this year.

The numbers are one thing, but the steps that major companies are taking in the industry are also a reminder of its potential. Spotify has made the biggest splash; the Swedish streaming company has made a number of acquisitions and deals in the space, most recently signing a deal with Joe Rogan said to pay him more than $100M. Which has Apple ramping up its podcast efforts. And it’s not a real competition unless Amazon gets involved, which is happening.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘that’s all great, but I’m not planning to be the next Joe Rogan, so what do I care?’ It’s a fair point – the path to fame that goes through daring people to eat disgusting sheep parts and then talking to fighters with bloody faces and cauliflower ears after they finish a match is a truly singular one. Podcasts can still help you achieve your goals in a number of ways, however.

  • Podcasting is a great way to reach your audience.

    We live our lives through a screen, now more than ever. As it becomes harder to reach people in the real world, and harder to stand out on the web, a podcast gives you a new way to connect. By talking to your current and potential customers, you can reach them directly. Audio is a more intimate way to do that. As leading business professor and podcaster Scott Galloway said on a recent episode of his podcast with Kara Swisher, Pivot, “When you’re in people’s ears, you create a pretty strong relationship.”
NYU Stern professor and Pivot co-host Scott Galloway.
Professor Scott Galloway creating that relationship. Source: Vox.com

  • Podcasting allows you to show more of yourself.

    Whatever line of business you’re in, or whatever story you want to tell, you are competing with a lot of other people for attention, interest, and trust. You can grab that attention via advertising, or gain someone’s interest through writing or explaining your business. Building trust is more of a personal thing, something that you can really only do through a long-running relationship.

    Podcasting, though, is a way to start that relationship, as Professor Galloway pointed out above. By speaking either directly to a listener or in conversation with a guest or a co-host, you are showing more of who you are. How you think on your feet, what your voice sounds like, what excites you or makes you laugh – this provides a fuller picture of who you are. Giving this fuller picture will lead you to closer relationships with current or future customers, or listeners, or whatever you’re looking for.
  • Podcasting allows you to connect with other people in your industry.

    A podcast is something like the modern business card – it allows you to show you are to others, but it also allows you to network. Meeting someone – in person or online – and being able to say, ‘hey, check out my podcast to get a sense of what I think and who I am,’ it makes it easy for whomever you’re connecting with to know who you are. That doesn’t mean you should expect them to listen to every episode – but even a quick glance of your recent episode titles and summaries goes a long way, and maybe one of your recent episodes will catch their eye, or ear.

    This goes even further if you invite someone to join your podcast as a guest. A secret in this world is that people love talking about themselves and about their passions, and they’re very generous with their time when doing so. Inviting someone to speak on your podcast is an excuse to pick their brain about their craft, and a way to forge a connection. If you do a good job with the interview, guests will often feel that they get as much out of the conversation as you did, which is the best sort of connection to create.

    You don’t have to only take our word for it. Legendary marketing expert and teacher Seth Godin has talked about why you should podcast and has called podcasting the new blogging. He wrote that ‘You’ll meet some amazing people’ with your podcast.

  • Podcasting is accessible and easy to get started with.

    To go on the radio, you need an antenna to broadcast from or access to a modern studio.
    To do video, you need to understand video editing, how to get your lighting right, how to engage both your viewers’ eyes and their ears, and how to get the technology right.

    Podcasting, good podcasting, isn’t effortless. But, it’s a lot easier to get started with than these other mediums. If you have a good microphone, a working internet connection, curiosity, and the ability to hold a conversation or to speak well yourself, you’re able to get started.

    There’s more to it, including getting the sound to be professional, structuring the podcast content in a compelling way, and having a vision. A production and editing service like Shortman Studios can help you with some of that, of course. But either way, the hurdle to making a good podcast is a lot lower than many other means of reaching an audience, including (for some) even just setting up a blog or building a website.

The things that may make podcasting relevant to you, whatever your aims are, are the most fundamental aspects about it: podcasting is a way of talking to more people in a direct, familiar fashion. It’s storytelling for the modern age, but with the entire internet instead of a campfire. If you have a story to tell, and it’s one you care about and are excited to share, there’s an audience out there for you to hear it. We can help you tell it in the best way possible.