Key Points To Starting Your Podcast Right The First Time Around

You're listening to The Internet Pathfinder.

I'm your host, Steve Phillips. In this podcast,

my goal is to inform, educate, and reminisce

as we find a path through the world of technology,

the internet, and podcasting. This is the second

episode of the podcast. I'm, of course, always

looking for your feedback and thoughts as I fine

-tune this, uh... This nice podcast that we've

been traveling together as a group in the 28

Day Challenge on Podcast Movement. Some of the

feedback I received on the last episode referred

to the fact that I tended to use the words so

as my transition point, which I've come to realize

that that is my verbal tick, aside from the fact

that I use um a lot. I don't know how that meshes

with everyone else, but I think that when recording

a podcast or doing something in the audio format

where you're lightly scripted and you're thinking

about what you're trying to talk about, some

of those verbal tics are something you have to

consciously think about to avoid while you're

doing it. And one of the things that I think

kind of help with that is pre -planning. your

strategy while you're doing your podcast, while

you're going through the variety of methods that

you break down what you're going to talk about.

I find that creating a kind of notes setup is

something that is essential when you're recording

because then you keep all of your thoughts in

one location. Not only that, but I've been known

to use this There was this notes website that

I used at one point, and I decided not to use

that because Notepad was just as easy. And I

tend to go in there, I type in, I break everything

into blocks. So I put my intro block, I put each

little segment that I go into. So I'll have the

tech history lesson next, and then what I tend

to do when I record though... is when I'm kind

of splitting into a different topic, rather than

running on an all -in -one recording and trying

to edit and fix it later, I actually create,

because I record everything in Adobe Audition,

and this is kind of a little bit of a podcast

how -to at the same time while you were listening

to this podcast. One of the things that I like

to do is I create individual audio files inside

Audition. And that's one of the nice things about

using a multi -level, multi -track sound editor

is that you get to have these files in there

without necessarily saving them or overwriting

another. It all shows up. You create a multi

-track and you can place these all in different

places. Use the razor blade tool and chop them

up. So what I'm doing in this is I create each

segment separately. I have what I want to talk

about written down. I pull up the tabs. reference

something from the internet and I record them

all separately and then piece them all together

whether they have a transition point or not so

that it helps me to better edit the process and

not necessarily have to go back and listen to

the entire thing and figure out where the mistake

happened. It allows also for me to go back and

listen to the previous segment to have a natural

progression. into the next topic and so it's

it's something i've i've learned over the years

i used to just kind of fly by the seat of my

pants and and just sit there and stumble through

the the podcast try and figure out where i was

going what i was planning on doing and it it

just it was a mess plus i i had to listen to

it and when you have limited time and you're

recording as many podcasts as i do i've already

got several podcasts in the can for this week

so by the time you're hearing this this comes

out on a Wednesday I've already pre -recorded

a Star Trek podcast which comes out on Tuesday

nights I have a geek general geek podcast that

comes out early Tuesday afternoons I have a Transformers

podcast that comes out Tuesday afternoon and

I also pre -record in advance multiple episodes

of the random geek show that I do, Altered Geek,

so that I can have the content, which isn't necessarily

timely, but it gives me enough wiggle room between

the multiple shows so that I can cohesively put

these together. I can edit them, I can look at

them, I can go back and reference them, and then

at the same time I have them all ready to go

and release for the next week. So I'm essentially

ahead of the game focusing on the next week and

gathering information while I'm editing these

shows. So by the time you hear these shows, I've

already either A, recorded the new episode, or

I've gotten in the process of doing the next

episode. So I just wanted to kind of give a little

bit of the process of how I break down and edit

things when I'm building a podcast. It's something

that I'm very passionate about. I love podcasting.

And so it's something that I'm trying to turn

more into a business model and less of a hobby,

which it's been a hobby for the better part of

a decade. When I decide to do this as a business

instead, it puts a lot more emphasis into my

thought process while I'm doing this. And I just

wanted to give everyone kind of a little bit

into the how -to this works for anybody that's

listening. And I would like to have people ask

me questions and me be able to answer them the

best that I can of what I've experienced anyway

and what my process is or what I've done to manage

multiple shows at the same time not to mention

I also guest on other shows on my podcast network

which I do not host I have the ability to host

them but I choose not to because I have this

show along with three others that are my my primary

concern and i put more of my time and energy

into those and marketing those and i do the rest

of the these shows that i guest on that's for

those hosts to manage uh but some of my podcasts

i i do with co -hosts some of them i do with

just by myself and when you have a co -host it's

definitely easier to riff on one another over

doing The trying to figure out what you're trying

to say and trying to block everything to almost

an exact science, which I found to be very helpful

for me gathering my thoughts because otherwise

I go off in weird directions and there's not

really a pattern to some degree. Topic two can

also cause you to be able to... need a co -host

or not need a co -host so that's that's another

thing that i've kind of discovered over the years

anyhow i'm going to cut over to the tech history

lesson i hope i didn't bore anybody with the

podcasting aspect but the tech history lesson

is something that i'm kind of enthused with because

i enjoy geeky history i enjoy learning and and

reminiscing on things that you may not necessarily

remember And I tried to do this on my other podcast

and it didn't quite fit with the format. Whereas

here, I think it kind of does because it's technology

-based, it's internet -based, it's part of our

history of how do we got to now. And it's something

that if you're any kind of a tech buff, you're

going to kind of enjoy these little tidbits.

So back in February of 2005, There was the discovery

of the first mobile phone virus, Cabir, which

was announced. Specifically, Cabir is a worm

which infects phones running the Symbian OS.

Whenever a phone is infected, is activated, the

message Kirby is displayed. Infected phones also

attempt to spread the virus through Bluetooth

signals, which it shows it on, for example, a

Nokia gauge. I did not know that viruses started

on the dumb phones to that degree. I knew in

the smartphones they were pretty commonplace,

but for them to be on these kind of dumb phones

is astounding that they made this work. In 1999,

we got the taste of our first internet bank of

Indiana, which opened, becoming the first full

-service bank accessible only through the internet,

which it was... Just a couple of dudes that just

started the first internet bank. That's crazy.

I enjoy online banking, actually. It's one of

the things that makes it easier for me. I mean,

I get direct deposit with jobs and whatnot, but

I enjoy online banking because I can pay everything

online or I can get into my account online. I

don't have to actually go to the bank. I can't

even tell you the last time I've been in a bank

for any reason. I really don't. And in 1924,

the first presidential radio address is delivered

by Calvin Coolidge, broadcast from the White

House. He talks and it's carried on five stations

with an estimated five million listeners. So

it's like the precursor to podcasting in a sense

in that we have streaming devices that play our

podcasts. We can listen to them in our car now.

I mean, the connections. are very much like radio,

however much more out there, you could say. Because,

I mean, yeah, you can do internet streaming.

You can do things like that. But I think podcast

streaming has a better long -lasting value. Because

not only do they last forever in their format

and where they're located, but you can stream

them on anything, anywhere. It's not necessarily

relegated to... This one streaming location,

this one key element. But I always find it funny

watching how much radio has transformed over

the years and how much it's at the same time

stayed the same. And yet you look at something

that kind of spawned out of that concept, which

is podcasting. And that's a totally different

medium that has a totally different set of standards.

but it's still essentially the same down to its

core of somebody talking into the ether and hoping

somebody's listening. I'm going to cut it right

here, though, and end the tech history lesson.

Moving on to the podcast highlight of the week.

So here is one that, yes, we hosted on Geekcast

Radio, but... It's a very well -informed podcast

done by a few of our movie buffs who talk about

movies. And I think they do a really good job

at it. And I think that it's kind of, you get

a little bit of the news and a little bit of

conversation on the various films. And they do

a lot of spotlights. And so without further ado,

here's their clip. Because the world needs another

movie podcast. The Geek Cast Radio Network presents

for your listening pleasure, The Cinema Geek.

Hosted by Amanda, Kevin, Matt, and Dan. Each

week we dive head first in the landscape of movies

as we discuss movie news. Play movie games. Go

in -depth on reviews. And even have a top ten

countdown or two. Also, don't miss our director

retrospective series, where we review noted directors'

movies, film by film. Bottom line is, if you

love movies and love podcasts, you need to experience

The Cinema Geeks. You can find us on iTunes,

blog .radio, or geekcastradio .com. And we're

back. So I hope you guys enjoyed that particular

clip and that it may be relevant to you as a

podcaster or as somebody that just loves movies

and wants to stay informed. They release weekly,

just like this show. Call to action time, guys.

Find the podcast on InternetPathfinder .com,

which leads to the Facebook page. Of the podcast.

I should be posting these more often. And unfortunately

have not. These will be also posted on. Alteredgeek

.com. Geekcastradio .com. Where it will be featured.

And I jumped the gun. And had already submitted

it. Last week when I recorded the first episode.

To Google Play. Stitcher and iTunes. You can

find the podcast on there. And you can get a

hold of me. On Twitter at. scp21 or this podcast

at interpathfinder and let me know what you guys

think let me know what you'd like to hear me

talk about as a segmented topic and we will talk

about it on the podcast and since we already

have been talking about podcasting this episode

why don't we keep with that theme and go on with

where you guys have been hosting your podcast

I have been one of those people that used to

host his own podcast on his own server. I used

to manually code the RSS feeds. I used to also

manually do this for multiple podcasts. I think

we had 12 shows going to begin with when we first

started Geekcast Radio. And I did the art. I

did parts of the editing. I had organized the

website and done all that work. I also wrote

all the RSS feeds and did the distribution. So

it was a nightmare to deal with. And then I ended

up using PowerPress at some point and integrating

all of the podcasts in that way, like importing

the RSS feeds and creating posts. And we managed

to link them that method, and then it was still

linking to the server and putting massive issues

on the server. And it started to cost... extra

money that I wasn't accounting for on my shared

hosting. Luckily, around the time it was, I think,

June or May of 2015, we were approached by Blog

Talk Radio, who we've been with ever since. And

honestly, they've been awesome to us. They've

been wonderful. I've not had any regrets on it.

So I think that... With their combined merger

with Spreaker and them becoming VoxNest, I'm

looking forward to what they have coming in the

future. And I think that it's only going to go

up from here. However, that being said, when

they did that, I had put myself into this box

of... I had already been active with my website

for... What was it then? Seven years? Or six

years. Yeah, six years. So I had six years of

content on my WordPress site, which was all linked

to the backend server. And we were still linking

a lot of our stuff even to the server after that

point. We had the website still linking to the

server, but we had our iTunes and all of our

feeds linking to Blog Talk Radio, which, again,

mistake. We also had everything piloted through

FeedBurner. Again, another mistake there. And

what had happened is as our podcast grew, as

our library grew as well, it put us in this pickle

that we had to kind of go back on some of our

retired shows because they were limited runs

of, say, like 20 to 50 episodes. We had to go

into our account and copy the MP3 URL. and replace

them all so that we could get an accurate count

and in reading not only through the website but

on blog talk radio so we could get the the accurate

metrics on on the episodes and not only that

we were monetizing and so we were losing out

on all this monetization and i think that for

anybody starting out i think it's very wise no

matter what host you go with i think it's wise

to have a website for one as well as the social

channels, even if you don't use them. What I

like to do is I like to install Jetpack on WordPress.

And so when you create the post and you copy

the MP3 URL from your podcast hosting provider,

which is a totally separate entity, I'll talk

about that in a second, your web hosting, you

want to have a WordPress site and have Jetpack

installed, which... will allow you to do a social

share so when you publish a post it will automatically

allow you to customize when you post it the description

box you can schedule it for whatever day i like

to like i stated before pre -record all my shows

i schedule them for a certain day certain time

and then i customize that little box so i have

the title a little bit of a description And I

use a specific hashtag. So with Blog Talk Radio,

you use BTR Prime so that it gets flagged and

it gets shared that way. So what I do there is

I make sure I take care of all those little steps.

And when you hit publish on it or it's scheduled,

it automatically posts to your Facebook, which

if you tie your Facebook to your Twitter, you

don't have to do that as well. But I tie it to

the Facebook, which then the Facebook... publishes

to Twitter automatically, and then it publishes

to Google+. So you automatically get that distribution

platform with your website and with social media.

So it takes a lot of steps out that way. I also

do it so that I still use PowerPress on the back

end of WordPress. You don't have to sign up for

Blueberry to use it, although a lot of their

premium features you do. So what I do there is

I use it to build the RSS feed on the website

itself. I don't actually use it for the distribution

platforms. I use my podcast host, which there's

Libsyn, there's Blueberry, there's Podbean, there's

VoxNest, which has Spreaker and BlogTalk Radio.

So, I mean, it's more or less pick which one

you're comfortable with. I would not recommend

SoundCloud, however, because of all the varying

issues that they've had over the past year. Plus,

there's a lot of limiters on them. I've had to

deal with them with my employer, and I've had

to deal with them for my own podcast. And it's

not as user -friendly and as nice as I would

like. And the numbers don't necessarily reflect

where you're getting certain content. Plus, they

have to host the files themselves. So it's a

broken distribution platform. So if your distribution

comes from like Podbean or Libsyn or BlarkTalk

Radio, you have to import the files to SoundCloud.

So those numbers don't count towards your metrics.

So it's not really something that I would recommend

using. Because they're totally different numbers.

When I do metrics for work or my podcast network,

I have to split them based on what locations

they came from instead of having to subtract

the number from the total number on the actual

distribution, the originator of the RSS feed.

So that's something you want to make sure you

look into as well while you're doing it. And

obviously, find something affordable. Find something

that works for you, that you like. that you have

a connection with, something that works for you.

And if anybody's interested in having help or

questions answered on that, please feel free

to reach out to me. I would be more than willing

to help out people on this endeavor. This is

something that it's taken me years to figure

out how to do certain things the right way, just

by trial and error or running into problems.

Like I think three months ago, I had to deal

with... my feeds were stopped updating on iTunes,

on Google Play, on Stitcher. And I was trying

to figure out why my episode count was going

down in the metrics. And I looked, and because

I was still using FeedBurner as the patch through,

which limits your feed at one megabyte. So if

you have, let's say, 240 episodes on your podcast,

it stops counting. certain podcasts like it cuts

off your feed because it overloads it and it

won't pull it from the originator anymore it

just it stops because speed burner is the intermediary

and so what that had caused me to do is i had

to get all of my shows off of it and the reason

i used it was because it was a nice i can keep

the blanket url So when we made the transition

from linking to the RSS feed from our website

to the RSS feed of Blog Talk Radio, I didn't

have to go in any social channels and change

the URL because they were all linked to the feed

burner RSS feed. However, because I didn't do

it the correct way and change all of them, I

had to go through manually and I had to request

a change on every show, which has been insane.

So again, I would definitely recommend doing

it the correct way. If you need help, join the

podcast movement group on Facebook. There's a

lot of talented people in podcasting, a lot of

reputable professionals in the field. And I consider

myself to be a reputable professional, but I

wouldn't say that I've finally made it because...

Even though I've got over a decade's worth of

experience, I have not been able to turn that

into my day job. Which eventually would be the

goal. It's still a hobby. It still makes enough

to pay for itself. But it's not... And you can

always monetize. There's always ways to monetize

your podcast. I've had places come to me for

live reads. I've had... Some that I've turned

down, some of them that I've been okay with.

Some of them, I've had companies approach me

for apps or services to be used on my podcast

as an outreach. For instance, I use this program

called Audiogram. And they approached me last

January, January of 2017. And what it had allowed

you to do... which is some web hosts or podcast

hosts are starting to do this now, you can create

an audiogram. So it's like an audio video of

part of your podcast. You upload your podcast

file and it will take that audio. You can select

up to a two minute, 30 second window. or as small

as you want. I would recommend between the 15

second to one minute mark and not really going

over because then you kind of lock yourself into

that. But if there's a nice spot of your podcast,

you can center around, whether it's you introducing

your topic of your show, you can enter in your

clip. and export this and post it on your social

platforms and what this does is you can allow

yourself to while people are listening to the

new episode and you're waiting for the next episode

to come out about two or three days after like

if you do this weekly about two or three days

after you've published your your episode for

the week post the preview for the next week's

topic if you've pre -recorded it or even if you

haven't if you're teasing it record a small segment

and upload it to the service And they had come

to me last January, and I used it a couple times,

didn't really see the relevance in it at the

time or was just too lazy. I don't really know

which. However, they re -contacted me back in

August of 2017, and I've been using them off

and on ever since. It just depends on what I've

got going on that particular week, whether I've

done them. But I would definitely say it helps

with engagement. In podcasting, plus it puts

a visual spin on it. You get to see the waveform.

You can put in a topic. And now they've got this

thing where it transcribes part of the audio.

And you can even go in and edit it while it's

playing the clip. And it will follow the audio

with the words and turn your audio podcast into

a video podcast. So you can share it on multiple

platforms. And I think that it's very nice to

have. And it's a great marketing tool. I would

recommend you get it if you don't. I can put

in the promo code because it's all referral -based

and you get up to a certain amount of credits.

And you spend credits on it, but it's not a service

where you get to just do all this for free. And

it's not like a monthly payment service. Something

you have to use credits for. Again, it's something

I've been using. I enjoy it. I think that it's

very helpful. Anyhow, I think this is about it

for this episode. I hope you guys are enjoying

this. I hope that you are entertained and informed.

I hope you find some value in my personal issues

of podcasting that you find helpful to prevent

yourselves from having the same problems. This

podcast will be out every Wednesday, and it will

involve finding a path through the world of technology,

the internet, and podcasting. And as always,

I, Steve Phillips, will be your guide into the

coolest news, tech nostalgia, and answering your

questions. Not all in that order or in every

episode, but there will be some nugget of helpful

information in every clip. Until next time, thank

you for joining me. And we'll see you on the

other side.