5 Things I Wish I KneW Before Starting A Podcast
#1
This is A Business,
Not a Hobby
You must understand that video podcasting with the goal of monetization must be viewed as a business, not a hobby. In business, we understand that there is an investment for the opportunity of return to be made. Your investment comes in many forms but must be consistent to have a successful podcast. Your consistency in producing great relatable content must come regardless of the timing of your return on your investment. With hobbies, we tend to pick them up and put them down. The worst thing to do is start a podcast and due to inconsistency lose your momentum and audience.
#2
Production Matters
Pre, during, and post-production matters! Video podcasting calls for methodical planning and development. From niching down on what your podcast offers to your audience to post-production calls to actions that turn into a dollar. From beginning to end you want to have a plan. Things to consider during your planning:
What problem does your podcast solve? Who is your avatar?
How do you deliver your information? Example, Interview, Conversation, or are you a solo expert?
How will you find guests? What's the booking process?
Follow-up process?
What do your intro and outro look like?
Are you clipping out socials? How many? When do you drop them?
What time and day is best for your episode to drop based on your projected audience?
A well-planned out show gives your audience a foundational consistency that is reliable as they build a relationship with you as a creator.
#3
Delivering Culture
Your business, your video podcast, must embody a culture. Your podcast culture refers to attitude, values, and the variety of elements your podcast brings to its audience. The culture is the community you build and share with your listeners. One of the most exciting aspects of video podcasting is that there is an opportunity for an extended community because your reach is unlimited.
A vital element of your podcast's culture is its branding. On the outside, your brand may seem like it consists only of elements such as logos and colors, but your brand is the entire identity of your business. Your brand gives your podcast personality.
Branding has always been a vital part of a business but is even more important now than ever before due to the normalcy of social media.
#4
Delivering Audio
Audio is key to making a high-quality podcast. Having a clear, noise-free, audio recording is one of many elements that can play a major role in the success of your podcast. While you might think achieving this requires a four-year education in audio engineering and thousands of dollars in equipment, in recent years the cost of high-quality audio recording has dropped significantly. Devices like the Rodecaster Pro and other tabletop audio recording devices make achieving high-quality audio affordable and easy.
Most of these devices are ready to record straight out of the box. No programming or long setup is required. This makes it easy to simply plug in your microphone via XLR cable, pop in an SD card, and start recording your show. However, this doesn't mean there are never any issues when recording with these devices. That is why it is important to either be wearing headphones or have somebody monitor the audio while recording to check for any issues.
HEADPHONES
Headphones play a key role in podcasting as they serve many functions when recording your show. The first function is being able to monitor your audio in real-time.
Monitoring your audio allows you to check for distant noises that might be getting picked up on your microphone, cable issues that may be causing feedback in your audio recording, monitor levels to make sure guests are as loud as the host, and many more.
A second function is the ability to play external audio clips or videos while recording. It is important to understand that when you are recording a podcast and you want to play an audio clip or video clip that you feed the audio of the desired media through your audio recording device. This can be done typically by plugging in the audio recording device via USB into your computer. Then by setting your computer's audio output to the recording device, you will be able to record the audio straight from the source.
If you were to do this, then play a clip with speakers instead of headphones, what you would find is an echoing effect. This is because not only are you recording the audio through the recording device, but you are also recording the clip through your microphone. Headphones eliminate this issue by only playing the sound to you and not the entire room, thus eliminating the ability for the microphone to echo the sound.
#5
Lighting
Lighting can be argued as the most important thing in anything film or video related. In movies or TV shows, lighting allows a director to communicate not only the time of day or the weather of a scene but also the emotion. Whether it is conditioned or not, humans experience emotion based on the lighting in a certain setting. The emotions associated with a dark, empty, and rainy alleyway versus a crowded sunny beach day would be different. On the most basic analysis, one would communicate sadness and loneliness while the other would communicate happiness and comradery. All of these elements are just as important in video podcasting.
When figuring out your lighting, it is important to identify a theme within your podcast and brand and try to attach emotions and adjectives to that theme. This allows you to set up your lighting to reflect those emotions. For example, a company that sells activewear creating a video podcast might want to communicate a feeling of intensity and pressure, yet they also want to communicate happiness and joy for what is to come through working out and being active.
These complex feelings can be communicated by lighting our subject(s) to be very bright and well-exposed, almost as if they were under a spotlight. The bright lighting in the foreground would be contrasted with a background of low accent lights. This would not only look appealing to the eye but also communicate themes of perseverance and emerging from a life of negative emotions to one with positive emotions. There are endless themes that one could derive from this particular lighting setup. However, what is important is that the correct emotions are communicated, thus aiding the goal of your podcast.
