 Well, welcome back to the theater. I'm happy to introduce Catherine Lang. She lives in Gunnersville, which is a little bit to the north and a little bit to the east of Birmingham and she drove in this morning. She's also one of our organizers for Word Camp Birmingham. But she loves to blog and she loves to use social media. Every now and again, I'll see her, like she'll mention, like at WP all, which you should hashtag and we have at WP all and hashtag WP all, which all should use. But I get all the notifications and every now and again, I'll see her answering like a question of the day or something like answered the question number five and she'll tag, you know, Word Camp Birmingham and it's like awesome and it's just like routine for her. But today, she's gonna actually talk, not talking about blogging, she's not talking about so much social media, but podcasting, so welcome Catherine Lang. Thank you. The good news is my husband and I are supposed to co-present this and he woke me up with him being sick at 10 in the morning. So we are free-willing it today, which would drive Javacia absolutely crazy. So we're gonna talk about podcasting. Who in here has a podcast? Starting, yes, starting one on Monday Counts. Who in here wants to have a podcast? Who in here is interested in podcasting? Who in here knows what podcasting is? Yay, okay, there we go. All right, so a little bit about me. See, that's how you knew, because he didn't get to see that. My husband and I both do podcasting, live streaming and social media broadcasting. So podcasting is simply audio. It's radio on the internet. Radio requires a lot of rules and regulations. So if you try to get on terrestrial radio, you are limited in what you can say, how you can say it, how you can do advertising, all of that. That's why so many people have moved to podcasting, because on the internet, you're free. You're not under those regulations. All podcasting is audio. So if you're doing a live stream on your Facebook, or if you're doing recorded shows, you can turn those into podcasts. All you have to do is capture the audio. I am a wordsmith, I love to talk. That's why I do podcasting, because my husband told me to shut up and go away. I am a hopesmith, I believe in the strength, the power of words, the power of positive thinking, and I'm a dream igniter. My husband is all about, love God, love others. That's his broadcast. And together we do, he said, she said, which is what we're supposed to be doing today. But we're not. So if you have any questions, jump in, ask me. But mainly what I'm gonna do is tell you how you can podcast. You can do your podcast. The technical aspects of podcasting, you don't have to make it complicated. As Jovacea was saying earlier, I know you probably mentioned this, if you're gonna write a book, you have to write. Well, if you're gonna podcast, you're gonna have to record something. So what is podcasting? Kinda covered this, basically it's just audio. It's audio that you're going to put out over the internet. There are a thousand different ways to share your podcast now. Mine is on iHeartRadio, it's on Spotify, Amazon Music, pretty much anywhere that you can listen to music online, you can find podcasts now online. Once you have been podcasting for a little bit, you can get your podcast and submit it to the different places so that you can get on there. You'll wanna host it somewhere, but we can get to that. What scares you about podcasting? Commitment, yeah, commitment. The what? Oh, editing. I didn't know you could edit your podcast. That's a new thing for me. For me, it was microphones. I used to be afraid of microphones. I didn't want to public speak because I was afraid of microphones. So I had to get over that fear. Once I got over that fear, I was able to do it anywhere. If you're worried about editing, don't edit. Who said you had to edit? Podcasting, when you're listening to the radio, especially talk radio, you get most engaged when it's somebody having a conversation with you. And if you're editing out all your stumbles, you become less human. So be okay with messing up. Be okay with laughing at your husband. I knocked him flat on the ground during, and now he deserved it. But in the middle of the show, I knocked him on the, he prat-falled. He'll lie to you until you something else, but that's what happened. Whatever scares you about podcasting, try it. You don't even have to publish it. Just record yourself, see how you do. Listen to yourself, see how you sound, and then keep doing it until you feel comfortable with it. What do you need to podcast? Microphone, a computer. Did you know you carry a podcasting instrument with you in your pocket? Cell phone will work. You can get as fancy as you want. You can get as simple as you want. So this is our, he said, she said, setup. It's really fancy. That's a clothes rack, and a piece of material that hangs over it. Our spotlights, just for those who do broadcasting, live streaming, are construction lights that we put parchment paper over to soften it. $5 at lows. So instead of spending a fortune on lights, that whole setup is probably $10. I use a fancy mic for, he said, she said, and we use a webcam. That's my husband's setup. All he uses is his computer. He records directly onto his computer. He does all his uploading from his computer. I use software, but that's cause I'm special. This is my hidey-hole. We are currently in a rental, so I'm in a closet to do a growing hope, but this is one of my growing hope setups, and I've got a little bitty mic down there, and then I got my webcam. And I record onto Reaper, which I'll share that link with y'all. And then this is my double camera setup, so I have two cameras, so I can do two different angles if I want to, and another mic. So we have multiple setups. It's whatever you wanna do. My favorite mic is the MXL990. Runs about $100, but you have to have a power source to use it. My second favorite mic is my Samson Abroadim. That's it, right there. He folds up, he goes with you. He does a really good sound. Y'all are welcome to look at him, but he plugs right into your, don't need a power source for him. My husband just uses the webcam on his computer. He's not fancy or special. Okay, so Reaper is my favorite software. You can try it out for free for 60 days, and once you do, the discounted rate is $60 for a life use of it. And it's really cool. You can put in different tracks when you start getting fancy, so you can do your intro and your outro. And what I like to do with my podcast, I've been doing this since 2013, is set up my tracks. So now every podcast I do is 20 minutes long, every single time. So when somebody comes to growing hope, they know it's gonna be 20 minutes long because I have broken down my template and I just pop out that middle one and I start recording that middle one. So now I know when to stop talking and I need all the help I can get. My favorite broadcasting software, if you wanna use broadcasting software, is open broadcast software. Open source is always great because it's free. And again, you can put in different scenes. So you can see right here, I have face shot, desk facing and scene two. So the face shot is one camera, desk shot is the other camera, that's that last one I showed y'all. And I can just switch scenes. So as I'm doing a broadcast, I can just switch the scene and it'll go to look at the notebook that I'm going through or whatever. I know it sounds, it sounds like it's a lot, but it really is easy. The more you do it, the easier it gets. How many of you can get on the internet? How many of you have gotten on the internet before? Okay, how many of you have used this software? Well, show off. It's always gotta be one. But the more you use it, the easier it's going to get. My dad could not get on the internet. We don't want him on the internet. All right, so what else do you need to podcast? This is the important stuff. Yeah, what do you want to talk about? What zings your heart? Cosplay. Zings your heart? Cosplay, okay. That would be a good, if it zings your heart, it's going to zing somebody else's heart. And you'll be able to talk about it a lot. Now you can expand around that thought. Mine is growing hope. Love talking about hope, encouragement, that kind of stuff. So any topic around that is something that I will utilize. Keeping your life simple is a series I just recently did. Being an encouragement is a series I did. And then playing off Javacia, take your podcast material and turn it into a book. Now you've multipurpose. And I'll stop talking about multipurpose because that's the next session. A voice, not speaking voice, but an attitude. What's your attitude gonna be? What are people gonna get when they get there? When I was introducing myself at an event, I explained that I love encouragement, but I love sarcasm. And the gentleman sitting across the table from me said, I just, I can't do this. I can't imagine encouragement and snarky at the same time. It's like trying to imagine a snarky rainbow. I went, oh, that's me. I'm a snarky rainbow. So you're gonna get some humor in what I'm doing. Doesn't matter if it's growing hope. I'm the one that laughed when Ryan was talking about Javacia. And Javacia having, say look, I hear it ate my mic again. And then it stole my earring. Now you can hear me. Nope, still can't hear me. Ugh, this is the mic guy telling me how to do this. Say they don't plan for people with as much hair. I give up. Okay, so a voice, an idea, and an ideal listener. Who are you speaking to? When I first started, I was working with a guy that was in radio. And he said, take a picture of someone that you wanna talk to and put it above your mic. And have a conversation with that one person, right? Then you become, it becomes a coffee talk. Instead of having to fight with it and say, y'all, y'all. When you say y'all, anybody from the South understands. Y'all is how many people? Yep, what if it's one? All y'all is not one person. Okay, your ideal listener. I like to put a mirror in front of me when I'm talking because I get tickled at my own expressions. So I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna smile more. I'm going to, and you can hear a smile on a podcast. You can tell when somebody's really enjoying themselves and it makes you laugh. I've taken to listening to my podcasts and my husband's and I, or he said, she said, when I'm at the gym on the treadmill, I'm gonna have to stop doing it though because I get so tickled, you know, especially when you get to punch him and lay him out on the floor. So you need an idea and it can be anything that zings your heart. You need to use your voice. It is your voice. The only thing different between you and every other podcaster out there and there are a bunch of them is your uniqueness. So let your uniqueness come through. Somebody out there needs to hear your voice even if it's only you. And sometimes that's the most important person that needs to hear it. And then your ideal listener. Also, think about this. Are you trying to entertain people? Are you trying to educate people? I mean, both are important but there's a big difference in how you're going to present your material. I am first and foremost an entertainer. If you're not laughing, if you're not enjoying yourself, I'm doing something wrong. Unless you're my kids, then I'm doing it right. And then entertaining, I mean, educating. If you're trying to teach somebody about cosplay, you know, the etiquette of it, the rules behind it, you know, what you can and can't do, how old you should be before you go to a cosplay. Because there's some cosplays that my son won't show me the pictures of. All right, now, some more technical. Where do you get your intro music? Yeah, there's many different places you can get free. But do you need intro music? Yeah, you want it to be nice, you want it to be, but it has to reflect your voice. And you want to make sure that it's covered by copyright. So what we did, and hopefully it'll play, and it didn't. Oh well. That's he said, she said. And for the record, we didn't make these for the camera. That's the faces we make during the show. But the music that plays during that was a friend of mine, a guitar riff that he played. And we just took it and did repeat for the seconds that we have these showing. I can use that for my podcast or I can use it for our live stream. My growing hope, the intro that you hear is music that someone else did for me. They did a minute's worth, all you need is a minute, and then you can cut it as short as you want. But I fade my intro music in. And I had my son record my intro and my outro. So he was seven at the time. So he says, he says, you are extraordinary. And it makes me laugh every time he does it. So your intro and your outro is totally up to you, but make sure it reflects your voice. Make sure it reflects the attitude of the podcast that you wanna do. And most importantly, make sure you have the copyright or you will not be able to put your podcast on all of the different services that are available. So if it's not on, if you don't have the copyright, then you won't be able to get on Spotify. You won't be able to get on iHeartRadio. And that's where you're gonna really pick up your numbers. Should you record and then edit? Or should you go live? Or should you record live? Who has ever watched Saturday Night Live? Okay, you know that they're not live. They record live. And that's because Saturday Night Live and they need to be able to push the edit button or the quiet button. So record and then edit is where you go in. You do your, this is probably best if you're gonna have guests. You're probably gonna wanna edit out some of the material if you're gonna have guests. One, the guest wants to look good. So you wanna be able to help the guest look as good as possible. So you may need to edit that. The ums, the mess ups, the flubs, I don't edit those. I mean, we all know that we all mess up, right? I mean, except me. That's why my husband's not here. Should you go live? Now, that is a bigger challenge because if you go live, you have to go live consistently. Live consistently is a huge challenge. So think about that before you decide to go live. And if you mess up, you've messed up. I mean, you can't do as bad as I did. Livestream on YouTube. A full week, an hour long program. Day four, someone messaged me and went, I don't think your mic is on. What was really sad is people were watching it. So, there you go. Well, record live and then share later. This is probably the easiest way to do because that way you can bank your podcasts and then release them after you get a nice bank. That's all that I have because my partner is not here. But I can answer any questions. And I know there's a lot of technical questions, but I can try to answer those as best I can. And so I have a microphone and dropping it off here. Hey, I'd love to just hear about how you design those spaces, like what inspires you to get like your backdrop and all that stuff. And then my second question is, how do you keep the ideas flowing? Have you met me? I have no lack of ideas that is not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is I have too many. Now, this is my favorite backdrop. This is my growing hope backdrop. My mom built this, made this for me. It's a quilt top. And she passed away before she was able to finish it. So it inspires me to inspire you to live your dreams because she died with her creative spirit in a box. And I never want to say that happened to anybody else. This is my husband, you know, it's fancy. It's an extra sheet he found in a drawer and he draped it over. So that's nothing inspired him. He just wanted something back there. And this one is polka dots. It is our peculiar productions. Being normal is overrated. So we went up to the fabric store and looked at the large tapestry fabric so that we would know it would hang wide enough and long enough. And we found some in there clearance bin for 4.99 a yard. A follow-up, do you end up leaving those backdrops up for long periods of time? Do you take them down and put up the other one? Do you trade them out? We trade them out. This is the same as this. This is the same room. So yeah, it's our bedroom. So, oh, I thought you were asking that question. But you can see we have the sea clamps holding them in place. But he doesn't have to do that with a sheet because it just fits over the... So you're talking about all this. I'm assuming you're releasing YouTube videos too. So it's more than just a podcast. And I'm curious how much extra reach you get off the videos. And you know, if you could share some thoughts about why you decided to do that in addition to just having an audio podcast. Well, it started because someone told me to. And now all of our stuff starts. Somebody said you have to do that. But then I realized it's not any more difficult. And I'm a huge fan of repurposing. So if I can do the YouTube video and then just capture the audio and have it on multiple platforms, that's what I want to do. The he said, she said is live stream because y'all need to see us. I mean, y'all saw the faces that we make. And that's just like a drop in the bucket of how we react to each other. As far as reach, I'm sorry I didn't answer that. I don't know. I mean, I really don't. I don't pay attention to who's listening. Just, I just get in on there and have a good time. So I apologize, I missed the first couple of minutes. I had no idea you had this many podcasts for one thing. So I'll be listening to some of those. But how do you monetize this? Why am I doing a podcast? I'm doing a podcast because my husband gets tired of hearing me. So I have to have my words go somewhere. Anybody had something happen to them in 2020? So we had a tornado fall on our house after a month of quarantine. Easter Sunday, we had a tornado land on our house. Our own EF-1. And if you ever get offered an EF-1 tornado, turn it down. So we are still not in a home. And we decided at the beginning of the year, we are not going to focus on monetizing anything. Our goal is to do what we were uniquely designed to do and do it boldly and intentionally and let everything else work itself out. So that we really have not even thought about how it can monetize itself. We are just throwing it out there and doing what we feel we're supposed to be doing. And we both believe, I mean, if somebody came to me today and said, you can do a three hour talk show on encouragement, I would be all over it. It just fires me up. So it is something that we really enjoy doing. And that's been our focus. I just wanted to say that I podcast and then I use YouTube, but I'm not on camera. I use YouTube because I talk to people from different parts of the country and accents can be very hard to understand online. So usually after I finish my podcast and I released it, I send the podcast to be transcripted out and I use transcript on YouTube. And I feel like that is for people who may be hard of hearing but will like to experience my podcast. And it's for people who may be listening to the podcast. Maybe they're in discussion. Maybe they're having an argument and they need some receipts. Then go back into the podcast and do screenshots. It works really well. And then, well, I have a compelling picture, but my podcast is really juicy and usually I get about 8,000 views on that YouTube with no video because of the way that it's done. And then just for monetizing, you can sell ads. You can get sponsors or you can do paid content. Yeah, there are ways to monetize it. It's just not something I have really been invested in. One of the things that I do, I use Blueberry, BL, UB, RRY. And that's because it is related, it relates to WordPress really well. I load my podcast directly into my website. So when you're on my website, you can find my podcast there and play it on my podcast on my website. And I will take my content and create a blog post of my content, either transcribed materials so that someone who comes can read it or listen to it. Same reason. Hey, so I have a two-part question. I'm in maybe a little bit of a unique position because I work in marketing for the business college of a large university and we already have a podcast that's run by an MBA student, but I'm sort of coming alongside, guiding, possibly helping produce some episodes for that. One question I have, I guess the most important question is, right now the way we've got it set up is the student's very charismatic, he's a good interviewer, but he's basically interviewing VIPs and we have these long three and four episode things where he's just sort of spitballing with VIPs and I don't feel like it's getting a lot of thought leadership out of there. So one thing that the director and I are interested in doing is making it more thematic. Like, here's 10 leadership lessons from this CEO or something like that. What are your thoughts about that? Oh, I think that's great because you catch them. You've got a hook, we all need a hook, right? That's the only way you catch fish is if you have a hook on your line. You don't have a hook on your line, you can't catch fish. So having, I love to do series because then you can turn around and put it on your websites and you've got something you can draw people to multiple directions. It also makes it easier to produce questions for your guests if you have a theme. Anybody in here create content for your blog, for your website. Anybody in here have an editorial calendar? Same thing for your podcast. Have an editorial calendar. What are we gonna talk about this week? What are we gonna talk about this month? Look at even what holidays are this month. Especially if you're going to be going live, look at the calendar. You wanna watch Thursdays because you've got multiple holidays that fall on Thursdays. Mondays are horrible because every holiday, on Monday, everybody's off. You're gonna wanna be off. You're not gonna be live on your, and you don't wanna keep putting people off. But yes, I love the idea of having it streamlined like that because it will help the interview process. Okay, that's great. Yeah, the other question is, so I'm basically a writer. I interview people all the time. I'm very comfortable with that. I don't necessarily think I have a great radio voice, though. And so I guess one question I have is like, how much does that matter in your experience? Yeah, I think you have a great voice, but here's the thing. Everybody has a different voice. So your voice will appeal to somebody. And my husband has a, it's on video. He said, not he said, you can hear him on that, but he is very professional. He sounds like a broadcaster, and he sounds like you think a broadcaster is supposed to sound. I do not. And I don't want to. I want it to be more me, and he is more him. And it's probably best that way, right? So your voice is good. It is what it's supposed to be. You don't need your voice to sound like somebody else's. This whole idea of it's a radio voice, you know, I just think we all have value, use your value to touch the people that you need to touch. Thank you. Unless they have a red sticker on there. Hello, as someone who does podcasts too, I find it very important that if somebody leaves a review, like an Apple podcast or Spotify or Google to appreciate that review and maybe respond back. Oh yeah. Look, I don't care what you're doing. I don't care if you're here to podcast. I don't care if you're here to content. I don't care your business, developer. It is all about relationships. If you are not invested in relationship, you are doing it wrong. And another thing is when you sync your podcasts, when you start one, Apple's kind of the gold standard with podcasts is that you sync up to all your podcast players. But also don't forget Google, Spotify and Amazon. Yes, yes. What's great about Blueberry and a lot of your other hosting places is that they are connected. So I can go through Blueberry and line up all of those. That's how I got on Amazon. That's how I got on iHeartRadio, Spotify, whatever else there is, Pandora. There's a free program called AudisCity for audio editing and recording if you don't want to pay for anything to get started. Down the road, you'll probably want to get better software but that's just the basic way to just get going. Yeah, that's why I like the Reaper. Did I, where is that hiding? See, just for the record, I'm always right. It's on the show and everything. I have a little, it's proof. Where is it? Reaper, there it is. Reaper, that's a lifetime license. That's not a yearly license. So if it's just you doing it, it is a $60 lifetime license and it's very easy software. You can do multiple tracks. You can do guests in different mics. So it works out. I like it. But yeah, free is always better. That's why I like the OBS because that's free, that software is free. Which one performs better? For me, both of them work really well. For what's great about is the OBS is that you can do it live. You can go to Facebook or you can go to YouTube from this camera. It does not do just audio. You'll have to transcribe that in but there's several easy, any video converter will change it out into just audio if you need just audio. But those are my two favorite. And I am by no means a huge tech person. Daniel from known hosts can confirm that because he's my host and I'm online with him about once a week. Do you have any opinions about the online like Riverside or those kinds of things where you can do recordings with multiple people in different places? Well, considering I have no idea what that is, I'm all about it. I do think having a... So like right now, my partners and I have been doing recording podcast episodes and for now we've been zooming with each other so we can see each other but recording locally on our own computer is the audio and then editing it together. But we've been wondering if it's worth paying for like Riverside.fm is one where you can go and it records all the tracks separately and you see but it's like, you know, a sass. So another thing to pay for. Yeah, yeah. And that's the big thing is if you're not monetizing, you better have a budget. So you know how much you're spending because it's gonna cost you money. We use StreamYard to do, he said, she said which is right there. And I'll, it'll start in just a second and then I'll stop it. I don't know if I can do that. That's too much technical stuff. So he tells you all what technical. The StreamYard is a new broadcast, live stream broadcast, but what's great about it is if you get, if you pay for that service, you can do two people and you can go across mediums. So you can be on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook all at the same time, one stream. So it's easy to control. But anytime you can avoid editing together is a good thing. Because think about that. You're prepping for your podcast. Let's say it takes you two hours to prep, then you spend another two hours editing it together. It's a nightmare. That's a lot of time and time is the only resource you cannot get more of. So be thinking about that. But yeah, if you can use something that's not going to require editing, I'd jump on that. Hey, I just wanted to add some value. I've seen some podcasters online and what they do is they'll run a banner across the bottom of the podcast. They'll have a cash app, Venmo. So if they're saying something that the audience likes, they'll just send them something live. Yes. That's a contribution. Yes. So that's how they- That is a good way to monetize. And if you're doing video, that's one of the things I really liked about the StreamYard is that I can change out the banner real easy and I can have a banner like that on there and I can also put on there, she's right and he's wrong. It's the most important reason right there. So one of your questions was, what are you scared of? And I said commitment because it's just one more thing to add to the pile of things that I need to do. But at the same time, it's something I'm interested in. You have a family, yes. I do. You have lots of other commitments in addition to these gazillion podcasts that you do. How do you structure your time or deal with the commitment? So you're supposed to record your podcast or you're gonna do something live and one of your kids gets sick. I mean, they're probably too old, that doesn't matter to you. But you get my point, right? So how do you deal with the commitment aspect of it and making yourself, you don't have to make yourself do it because you love it so much. For those of us who might be approaching it for the first time and are like thinking of it as a business tool and I have to do this thing, how do I deal with the commitment issue? Okay, so what I would recommend for everybody is don't go live. Live is a huge commitment and it is easier if you have multiple hosts because then if somebody does get sick, one of the other hosts can step in or can solo. Record. And I would bank at least a couple of weeks depending on how often you're gonna go live. I mean, release, you're gonna publish your material. I would bank six to eight weeks before you release your first because that gives you some wiggle room. That gives you some vacation time and I would plan in your vacation time let people know ahead of time we will not be having an episode or we're gonna do reruns. Talk shows do it all the time. On the radio, they'll do replays, reruns of their shows. Bank it. So I just wanna tell you about one of my failures. I'm not good at doing anything consistent and one of my mentors taught me something very valuable. For some reason, when we start something new, we think, oh, I need a weekly episode. You ain't never had a monthly episode. You ain't never had a quarter episode. You ain't ever had a Biden episode. So for me, I don't do anything weekly because that is a full-time job and I left my full-time job to be an entrepreneur. So what I do, I have a podcast, a very sensitive podcast. So I put out one to two episodes a year. It gives me 12 months or six months to market that particular episode. So this idea that you need a weekly podcast in my opinion is for the birds because your podcast is only probably an extension of what your business is, how you make your money. So it's better to say, I'm gonna put out four of these a year, eight of these a year, 10 of these a year. And then in three years, you have 30. You get what I'm saying? So you have a new one for every month. So that's just my advice. I learned that. I never hear anybody else give it, so I just wanna share it. Yeah, the key is to find out what it is that you're gonna do, what it is you want to do. That's the most important. There is always gonna be somebody that wants the audio, but do they want the audio of what you're gonna teach? Right, I mean, you know, project management, or they're gonna be walking on the treadmill dancing along to project management. So think about that and also how you're gonna use the podcast that you're gonna release. I want y'all to know my husband who does a five minutes, the Love, God, Love, Other, which I was telling you about, spends five hours for each one. Five hours. My five minute show is not five hours, it's probably five minutes because I don't edit it. I'm just gonna go on there, I'm gonna do, but I have that template and I know it's gonna be five minutes, same with the 20 minutes. I rarely re-record, rarely. And, you know, unless the phone rings or the husband walks in, that's why I'm in a hidey hole now, so they can't find me. But find what works for you. Any other questions? I'll be here all week. Thank you so much, Catherine, for your presentation.