 Welcome to The Journey. Today, we're going to talk about podcasting tips for beginners. Years, in case you've been living under a rock, podcasts have taken a huge surge in interest. I take offense to that. But 165 million people have listened to a podcast at least once. Yeah, and around like 32% of Americans are actually tuned into a monthly podcast. So Nelly, are you like one of those 165 million people listening to podcasts? I'm actually listening to some right now. That's ridiculous. Anyways, Nelly, what podcast are you stoked on, tuned into currently? Right there. I listened to it a ton, but probably the most recent is Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn. Talks about all things just business and smart passive income. All right, you are such a nerd. So I'm listening to a pretty cool podcast. It's called Ain't That Swell? It's a surfing podcast. Get it? I hate it. It's great. They talk to surfers that are professionals. They're competing. They also just have self deprecating jokes. They also talk about just all things surf. So it's great for me when I'm not in the water and in between work or community. Also, another thing that comes to mind, access to new audiences. That's actually one of the main motivations for why I want to do a podcast with Nelly. It's like the YouTube thing. Doing well. Let's take it off. But think about the audience we could reach, the new audience. She's been asking me for months. With a podcast. With a podcast. But it could also help you just read or understand your target audience. And we all like businesses. We all make money, right? This can actually help you make money. So maybe you're thinking about starting a podcast or if you already have one, maybe it's time to start monetizing it, right? Because the competition out there for ears is getting fierce. So you're going to need some best practices. So let's go over them right now. So the first step that you want to take is actually make a plan and define your goals. So for example, I mentioned I listen to Ain't That Swell. The reason why I listen to that is because I want to learn more about surfing. You know, get in on the end, get barreled on the facts. But also if you're thinking about starting a podcast, what is your expertise? What could you share and define that goal? What are you going to give the people? Give the people what they want, right? And following up with your expertise. You got to pick a topic and you have to stick with it. People listen to podcasts for a specific reason. It's a really good point. Right. So whatever your expertise is, keep it along that niche. Keep it focused. Yeah. So there's a theme. Yeah. Absolutely. People want that. They want to tune in maybe that monthly podcast that they're always listening to because they want to get scared with a spooky murder story. So also when thinking about making a plan, it's really critical to think about, okay, what format do you want this to be in? And there's a few different ways you could do this. Think about the podcast you listen to. One that comes to mind right away, obvious one, a monologue. Got to have the right personality for it. But it's just you sharing your expertise, taking away the stage. Yeah. Sometimes it's easier to do right because it's just you with your topic. Yeah. And your time. So there's also interviews. Those are great. I find those to be super engaging more so than the monologues. Like for example, love Howard Stern. I think his interview capabilities are awesome. He got even a little credit to the guests as well. I mean, he has on the most fascinating, interesting people that he interviews. But you haven't been on there yet. Oh, nearly. There's also a third form narrative. Love a good story. It does take a lot more work, but there's some really great stories out there that people are tuning into. I know we were talking about one recently. Yeah. One of my favorites is Welcome to Night Vale. It's just an incredible podcast that follows that narrative style. So next up, we're going to talk about branding your podcast. Well, first, got to come up with a name. So important. I was thinking about doing one for our business, coffee and kickflips. Got the perfect one. Are you ready? Sort of. Let's go. Drop in with Emma. Okay. Not bad. I like it. I like it. A little drop in. So it's like the skating reference. I was kind of, do I go with the coffee reference or both, but you don't want to keep it too long? Yeah. It works. You know, I used to have a podcast in the past. Seriously? Seriously. What was the name? Craft thinking. We basically drank it from beer every episode and talked about business. That's so cool. I get it. That's cool. They're mine. Okay. Cool. So does that mean you had a website then for your podcast? I did. I went the hard way out and had a WordPress site. It was a little bit more difficult. So those of you that aren't tech savvy, you just don't want to spend time managing it. There are tons of podcasts, hosts out there that are pretty inexpensive that make it easy just to upload your audio and it's live for the world. So next up, think about your equipment, right? And what goes into choosing the recording equipment? Ask yourself a few questions. Number one, where are you going to record? Yeah. Two, how many people are actually going to be on your podcast? And then three, what's your budget, right? These things can get costly or it could be pretty inexpensive. Now you're also going to want to think about the mic you want to use. The two most popular, especially for beginners, are the Blue Yeti mic and the Rode mics. Make it super easy to get started and almost anyone can use them. All right. So when it comes to actually producing your podcasts, there's some great tips. First off, just know, first time's going to be awkward, right? But don't read a script. You don't want to sound like a robot. Right. It does help to have bullet points of what you're going to talk about. But use those as conversation, guys. Not as exactly what you're going to say. Totally. And also, I do this on my webinars. Like no one can actually see me doing my webinar. I don't do video, but I imagine that my audience can see me and that actually helps me to be more animated and bring my voice to life and really add extra, like, enunciation, et cetera. And I move my hands a lot. So another thing when thinking about producing a podcast, running an interview, and my favorite interviews, they're the ones you can tell, the hosts did their research. Like the questions are quality. You can always tell when someone has it. And those are the most engaging for me to watch. So when you do an interview, prep ahead, trust your gut, and do your research so you're asking very quality questions are going to be engaging for your audience to listen to. So you've got your podcast all recorded. Now you have to edit it. There are two thought processes you can do here. You can either leave it as is and just give the people everything, or you can edit. And now if you're going to be editing, you can use software like Audacity. It's a free open source platform, or GarageBand is a native platform for Macs. So what most beginners start to use when they're creating their first podcast. So when it comes to actually publishing your podcast, you'll want to submit your podcast feed over to iTunes for Apple users, and Stitcher for Android. Yeah, and Spotify has also been one of the more recent ones to let a lot of people onto the platform because they're really trying to promote podcasts too. Yeah, I just started to dabble with that. I noticed it recently. I was like, oh, there's podcasts on here too? Right. I love Spotify. Now each of those platforms will have their own requirements and things that you need to do when you're submitting, such as your image size for your podcast art and then the audio quality itself. Also fun fact, you can upload it to YouTube. Yeah, it's just another source to distribute your content for someone that likes to really just watch versus listen. Now your success with your podcast is totally up to you. Yeah, podcasting does take some time and effort, but it is totally worth it. If you think podcasting would be a good move for you, go for it. Comment below. Let us know. Like this video. Be sure to share it. Subscribe to our channel and ring that bell to see these episodes first. This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.