[00:00:00] Before we get started with today's podcast. I want to take this opportunity to ask you when the last time it was that you changed out the air filter in your home. And would you believe that most people don't change out their air filters monthly, or even know that they have to change them out monthly or until they realize that something is actually wrong with their HPAC system.
[00:00:16] That's why I want to introduce to you second nature, air filters. Now what's so special about them. Not only are the effect of capturing the dust, pollens, the molds the bacteria, but they also help reduce the energy usage of your HVAC system up to 15% and avoid costly repairs whenever it matters the most, but let's be real.
[00:00:34] The real reason you're not changing your air filters. It's because you forget half the time. You're like how I used to be. That's why I went with second nature. Air filters. Second nature has created a subscription plan to send your home's air filters each month, right to your door, which forces you to change out your old air filters before the new one arrives, keeping your air clean and your HVAC system in working condition.
[00:00:56] I've certainly noticed that regular replacement of my home's air filters has reduced the amount of dust flying around in my place, but has also reduced how much I've been sneezing in my place before I was cheating on my air filter every three months. And I was sneezing constantly. Now that I change out my filter monthly, I hardly ever sneeze.
[00:01:11] This is all. Thanks to second. Nature's a filter subscription plan and it's the one delivery that I actually look forward to every month. Get started with second nature air filters today with my referral [email protected] slash second nature
[00:01:27] makes down media production. Today's episode of The Podcast Therapist is brought to you by the Adobe Creative Cloud. Creativity is everywhere and all you need are the right tools to turn those creative ideas into reality. Whether it's building stunning new artwork to promote your podcast, editing simple videos for your video podcast or stepping up your audio production game.
[00:01:48] The Adobe creative cloud gives you access to Adobe's entire suite of software products that will enhance your content creation across all digital platforms. Go to the podcast, therapist.com/adobe to learn more and get started. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the apps that you can use to record your podcast and why I use a specific app to record and edit my own podcast.
[00:02:13] Also what you need to do to budget out for probably the most important thing for your podcast. If you want to take this thing, seriously, unbalanced audio
[00:02:29] podcast,
[00:02:33] you might be in the situation where you aren't even. What you're going to do when it comes down to recording and editing your podcast. In last episode, I gave you some ideas of what you could use as far as equipment is concerned. When it comes down to you're recording your podcast and the equipment is going to be a kind of an important thing.
[00:02:51] If you want to make it sound a little more legit, sounds a little more professional. The equipment is going to be that thing that you need to have. But what about the recording software? And this is what trips a lot of people up and today I want to explore and talk about that audio equipment. I'm sorry.
[00:03:06] Excuse me. I want to talk about. Audio editing software. I might refer to them as Dawes digital audio workstations, and there are a number of Daws out there that you can use to edit your podcast and even record your [00:03:20] podcast and make the process more simple for yourself. So we're going to explore that also in today's episode, I want to seed into your brain right now about the most important thing that is going to matter when it comes down to your podcast and that is going to be your website.
[00:03:39] So what I want to share with you today is I want to share with you. What website platforms you can use, what are going to be the most effective, whether you need to jump into a cheaper website, or if you just want to jump into something that is going to be a little more user-friendly and have more flexibility for you and your podcast, because that's where podcasts like to go.
[00:04:00] Is they like to have a little more flexibility with their website. And of course, flexibility makes all the difference in the world. Now, before we get started, I want to invite you to jump on over to The Podcast Therapist.com/Rocketbook. If you've ever heard me talk about Rocketbooks, raga books are amazing.
[00:04:17] They are reusable notebooks that you can write all of your ideas down. And of course save those. Into the cloud. And then of course, once you're done with all of your ideas within the Rocketbook itself, you can use some water and a rag that they give you with the Rocketbook and erase all the notes in your notebook.
[00:04:34] While they're already being saved into the cloud, you can share those notes with other people. They work great for meetings. They work great for implementing different ideas. In fact, this podcast and all my YouTube videos are all powered by Rocketbooks. I have a planner and I also have a smaller notebook that I can write down my basic questions for my podcast guests, or maybe my notes or my bullet points that I want to talk about in my podcast.
[00:04:59] If you want to learn more about Rocketbooks, check out the podcast, therapist.com/Rocketbook and see which one works best for you. So today I want to go ahead and get started with the apps that you're going to be using to record your podcast. And there are a number of apps out there. I'm sure you have done your research on this, and it's really going to depend on you, what your workflow is going to be.
[00:05:22] How you want to execute the recording and the editing of your podcast. I will say this, a lot of them do a lot of the same things, but with different functions, different keyboard functions, different mouse functions. So it's really going to depend on your workflow and how you want to make that workflow play.
[00:05:39] Now, when I talk about workflows today I'm always trying to give you the best and most efficient workflow. And I think the most efficient workflow comes with training and it comes also with time. And once you get involved in one piece of app, one application, or maybe another application, it works best for you, but sometimes you need to take the next step further in order to save yourself time.
[00:06:04] That is what's the most important thing when it comes to your podcast is saving yourself time. Whether that be time with editing, whether that be time saving time with recording, or maybe that's if time with research and development with your podcast, I want to share with. The most effective and efficient ways.
[00:06:22] Now, before we jump into those apps today, I want to go back and I want to talk to you about what I mentioned in episode one of this particular podcast, not this episode, but last episode in episode one, and I talked about, or I guess I was giving up this vibe to you guys that you could [00:06:40] get certain pieces of equipment, but if you don't have the money, then you can get this other piece of equipment.
[00:06:44] What I was trying to convey in that podcast episode was that I don't want you going into debt if I don't want you putting things on a credit card in order to have a podcast, if you are not sure about whether or not you think this podcast thing is going to work, but if you have the money or maybe you are implementing strategies into your own life to pay for podcasting equipment and that you know that you can pay it off later on down the line, then I would say yes, do that.
[00:07:15] But I would never encourage you to go into. To get this equipment now, should I take my own advice? I don't know. Maybe these days I don't charge things on my credit card anymore. I pay everything by cash. Actually I have a whole secret behind how I pay him for my things these days, especially my equipment.
[00:07:32] And maybe I'll share that in another podcast episode, but I don't recommend that you charge anything to a credit card. I would recommend that you pay things in cash and make sure you have the money for that. So with that being said, I also mentioned that, you could get a specific piece of equipment.
[00:07:48] It might cost a certain amount of money. Maybe it costs $400. If you have the money to spend for a $400 microphone, I say, get it, go ahead and get it. But if you don't, then don't get it. Just get something that is a little more affordable because you can always upgrade later down the line. But I want to come back to this theme and I want to come back to this idea.
[00:08:11] To share with you that what I'm sharing with you in these episodes are what I have learned over the years and the steps that I wish I would have taken in the very beginning. In fact, I've made this decision excuse me, I've made this decision once within the past four years to step up my game and make my whole workflow.
[00:08:36] As far as my side, hustle is concerned much easier, and it was a very scary step and it really jumps into today's topic about websites as we will jump into that here very shortly. So bottom line. Do not go into debt. I would not recommend charging it unless, you have money. I would pay in cash for all of this stuff.
[00:08:57] All right. And this is going to apply to applications and software as well. As long as you know that you were creating it, there are going to be some benefits behind it. There might be some tax benefits down there down the line of of using it. So you might be able to write it off if you decide that you want to turn your podcast into a business.
[00:09:16] All right. But we're going to talk about that way later down the line. So let's talk first about a recording software. This is probably my favorite part of podcasting is the recording software for some people. It's the equipment. It's the idea of having a microphone in front of you? It's the idea of wearing the headphones?
[00:09:31] It's the idea of having guests in the studio. They love that part of podcasting for me. It's the editing portion. It's using the digital audio workstations because those are the things. That make your podcast sound even more amazing. In fact, when you use Daws or digital audio workstations, you use them and you can create programs that sound like they came directly off the radio.
[00:09:58] And these [00:10:00] Dawes initially were being used for creating music. You would hear a lot of musicians and artists using these Dawes to create music, but then podcast has got involved in the game and then these applications started seeing that. And so they started developing and upgrading their software to make the software.
[00:10:20] More applicable to people. Who've not only create music, people who do voiceovers, but people who now podcast, that is a cool thing. So let's start first with the very first a piece of software that you can get. There's going to be three that I'm going to be talking about in this particular episode. And the first one is going to be a free piece of software called Audacity.
[00:10:40] Likely you've done the research on this. You have gone into Google, you have saw you've looked up. Audio editing software for podcasters. You've probably looked that up on YouTube and found multiple videos, multiple entries in Google, and you probably have come across Audacity. Audacity is available for PC and Mac, and this is an open source free software.
[00:11:02] What does that mean? Open source free software. It means the software basically is free. It's created by some developers who were just looking for some software to put out in the marketplace to help other creators. And many years ago, when Audacity came out, it was very primitive. We're talking God.
[00:11:19] It was like 10 years ago. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's been a bit longer, but all I remember is when I downloaded Audacity for the very first time it worked. Let's put it that way. It worked. It did it, it did what it needed to do. It recorded. It allowed you to edit, but it had limitations with it now since.
[00:11:34] The developers of this free open source software have upgraded that software because you have to upgrade the software as operating systems upgrade. So you're looking at windows and Mac, those operating systems upgrade all the time. I don't even know what if there's like windows 20. Now these days I've been on Mac for a few years now, and now I believe we're on like Catalina or something like that.
[00:11:58] So the operating systems really are going to be the thing that change these pieces of software, like Audacity open source software, there's open source software for audio there's open source software for video, for graphic design for programs that are like Photoshop for, editing things like that.
[00:12:16] Photo editing. It's really going to be up to you as to whether you want to use those pieces of software. But what I will say with open source free software is that it is. Limited. So open source software is limited in functionality. It's limited in what you can do if you're trying to take your creation to the next level.
[00:12:40] And when you're trying to take that creation to the next level, you might find yourself stymied by the limitations of what the program can do. And then you might have to jump in and go into a different program. So let's continue real quick with Audacity. So Audacity is free, open free, open source software.
[00:13:00] It requires a paid software for MP3 tagging. Do you need MP3 tagging? Now this is a thing that podcasters in the past used to miss out on. So just a little history lesson about what MP3 tagging was or is, and how it now applies to podcasts these days. So back in the day, when [00:13:20] you were posting podcasts up onto the.
[00:13:23] Podcast files would just show up as the file name itself. That's how it would show up in apple podcasts before it was just called iTunes. But that's how it show up on apple podcasts. And that's how it may be showed up on a Zune. And it was just a file format. It was just say like The Podcast Therapist dash episode one dash first version dash V one dash two.
[00:13:46] It could have had all these characters that were in that. And that's what actually showed up on your podcast player. Then as we started to see podcasting and become, start growing out from its infant stage, people were saying like you need to do MP3 tagging and all these things. And what MP3 tagging turned into was that you were able to add metadata to that audio file, to where it now had a title.
[00:14:08] You could create a title for your podcast. So instead of it saying episode one podcast therapist, it could have been a title. Which websites you should be using to create your podcasts and we'll talk and apps for podcast editing. So the title of your podcast would actually show up and it would show the author by Shannon Hernandez or by The Podcast Therapist, things like that.
[00:14:34] So MP3 tagging back in the day was it w it didn't it didn't exist. It only existed to me because I was already using software that MP3 tagged. And I knew what to do when I was working, while working at the radio station. So those were the things that I already knew about if you're using Audacity.
[00:14:52] You might need some software to do MP3 tagging. I know there's different pieces of software that you can use for MP3 tagging, but I'll tell you this, you don't need it any more these days. If you get a solid hosting service, a hosting provider, like Buzzsprout simple cast Libsyn, they handled the MP3 tagging for you.
[00:15:10] The difference between MP3 tagging now for me is that I am it in my own workflow. I ahead of time before it even goes to hosting, because it just makes the process simple. I don't have to do any typing. I just like to cut little corners if, and I'm not saying cutting corners in a bad way, I liked. Prepare for what is to be expected later on down the line in my workflow when it comes down to publishing my podcast.
[00:15:35] So do you need MP3 tagging? Not necessarily when it comes down to Audacity, your hosting provider is going to be the one that will be able to handle that. Also with Audacity, let's talk about getting audio from a video. Now there's a lot of podcasters out there. A lot of content creators, I should say that want to turn their podcasts, that they've done on Facebook, that they've done on YouTube.
[00:15:55] And there are these video podcasts and they want to make those into audio podcasts because they have heard that, you got to put your podcast in audio format in order to get a whole different audience. That's on iTunes. That's an apple podcast, Spotify, wherever, and yes, this is very true.
[00:16:10] Getting that audio from video and putting it into, those platforms could get you a different audience and that's going to be important for you. All right. So if you're someone who is doing Facebook lives, someone who is doing. You YouTube lives, you can take those videos down and supposedly, and I think you can now these days, but I can't be for sure you can put them into Audacity and you'll be, you can be able to rip the audio away from the video.
[00:16:35] And all you're stuck with is a piece of audio. And you can turn that into [00:16:40] an out an audio podcast. I don't know. I can't remember if there paid software the last time I checked there was, that might be something for you to explore for yourself. The next thing about Audacity is that it requires you to set up your own presets for sound equals that equalization.
[00:16:56] This is probably the single most important thing for me when it comes down to my podcast. When you listened to any of my podcasts, whether that'd be The Podcast Therapist episodes, or you're listening to my YouTube videos, you are hearing the audio. At the same decibel level for my voice across the entire board, whether it be, so let's say for example, we're using The Podcast Therapists.
[00:17:20] Like when you listen to this podcast, you hear the sweepers, you hear the little a, which you probably might call the bumpers, all of those things, and you are going to hear them. May, they might sound maybe a tad bit louder, but not completely loud. You might hear my voice as the same decibel level, across the entire podcast, incorporate a guest into the podcast.
[00:17:44] And you're going to hear the guests at the same decibel level that my voices. So when it comes down to having the presets for your podcasts, I do not believe Audacity allows you to do that. You can call it normalization. You can call it equalization. You can call it anything you want that is listed inside of Audacity.
[00:18:05] But at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, it is more difficult to do in Audacity. Than it is in other programs. And that's why I recommend that you're using other programs. You don't have to, like I said, at the beginning of this podcast, you don't have to, if you want to upgrade later on down the line, great.
[00:18:24] You can start with Audacity first and then upgrade later. But you're going to find that the process might be a little more easy when it comes down to using other. Now Audacity does receive software updates, but they are not regular and not always reliable. I think I mentioned this, maybe I didn't, but they are not always as reliable depending on the operating system.
[00:18:44] This is not a section where I want to bag on Audacity. Like I said, I think it's a wonderful piece of software for someone who is just dipping their toes in. But if you're looking to create a full on podcast, then I would say you might want to just jump into something a little bit different. That is more software as a service.
[00:19:03] You're going to hear me call them SAS products softwares as service. So that's really what it's going to be. Okay. Now let's talk about those Mac users out there, and I'm just going to try and go over this as fast as I can, because it's very similar to using audacity. Although when you're getting a product that is coming on onto a Mac and you've heard of garage band.
[00:19:23] Yeah. Great. You can do quite a bit actually in garage band. And I think the intention behind garage band back in the day when it was released was to create music really. And then as podcasts, he started to become more of a thing. Apple started incorporating more of those changes in their software. And you were able to do more as far as a podcast or was concerned.
[00:19:43] So what you're going to see with garage band on a Mac is that it's going to be coming with your Mac or it is available for download. You can record a podcast in garage band and you can edit your podcast into garage. You get this ability to rip [00:20:00] audio from video without purchasing any extra software.
[00:20:02] So that's a really cool thing. When it comes down to a Mac you could pull from the Facebook lives, the YouTube, even zoom. I forgot to mention that you can do this with zoom recordings but zoom gives you the audio anyway. But if you really absolutely needed to do this, you could rip that audio from a zoom video and it would come out just this just the same.
[00:20:20] All right. All right. Okay. The cell equalization situation is that you get basic sound equalization presets within garage band. And that makes a little bit of a difference. You can get all those things like normalization. You can get to equalization, you can go in push levers, move things up and down and make your podcast audio sound a little bit better.
[00:20:39] Does it have advanced settings? Not really. I'm sure if you go into garage band, you could do that, but it's just not, it's a free software. It comes with your Mac. You're not talking about creating avatar or guardians of the galaxy sound. You're talking about something that is very basic, although you can do some pretty cool things as far as sound design inside of garage band, but it's not going to be something that is really in depth.
[00:21:01] Okay. Now it does not include MP3 tagging or a tagging interface. Do you really need that? No, not really. You can just use your hosting provider whenever you go to upload your podcasts. So that is going to be something that that you need to be aware of. Now, the third piece of software that I talk about, and I know you're going to, you're like, okay.
[00:21:20] Yeah, we know Shannon. We know you're going to talk about Adobe Audition. Yes. Audition is going to be the software that I recommend that you use right now from the start. When it comes down to editing your podcast and recording your podcasts, I should have said that the other way around recording your podcast and editing your podcast, it's going to make a world of difference.
[00:21:41] It's going to make your job so much easier. Now I know you're asking yourself the question, how do I even get into Adobe Audition and opera? Because it seems so complicated jumping into that here in a second. What I've do want to make you aware of the first is that Adobe Audition is a part of the creative cloud.
[00:22:02] So it is part of a SAS product software as a service, the creative cloud, anything that has to deal with Adobe Audition, Adobe products, Adobe, premier, Adobe, Photoshop, illustrator, all of those. Those are all part of the creative cloud. If you weren't aware, there are some of you out there that are very aware of this.
[00:22:21] And I get that. I totally get that, but Adobe Audition, this is what you need to be using because it's got all the shortcuts in there for you as a single app purchase with Adobe Audition, excuse me, as a single app purchase, it's going to be, I believe 20 bucks a month. And I would say that when you're ready to start recording your podcast and you got to make it worth your while, if you're going to be spending that money $20 a month to use Adobe.
[00:22:50] Got to know how to use that Adobe Audition. I'll give you some of the benefits here in a second, but I will tell you this right now. I have a whole training on how to design your own podcast on my [email protected], which will lead you directly to my main site, the Shan man.com. And if you reach out to me and say, you want to take this training course, and [00:23:20] you heard this training course on this particular podcast episode, you got to mention that.
[00:23:26] Say, I heard that you were giving out a chance to get a discount on this training. I will give you 50% off the list price on my website by mentioning this podcast. So you got to go to the podcast, therapist.com/podcast. Go scrolling down, contact me on the contact page, right? And tell me that you heard, I was giving away a 50% discount on that particular training.
[00:23:59] So let's talk about Adobe Audition and why I think you should be using it. And what is all included in that training? Okay. So Adobe Audition is a single app purchase. Like I said, $20, but it can't be part of the creative cloud, but it does have this multi-track sound mixing for cleaner and more professional podcasts sound.
[00:24:16] Now what do when I talk about that, you're going to see a lot of podcasts. There's a lot of videos out there. A lot of podcast episodes where people are talking about, Hey, I should be recording my guest on one track and then myself on another track. And that's how I record my podcast. Yes, you can do your podcast.
[00:24:34] Just like that. That's what some podcasts just do. I actually don't recommend doing it that way, but if you find yourself in a pinch where you're recording multiple pieces of audio in this multi-track section, it can come in here. Maybe you use a piece of software like Zencastr, and it will separate out the tracks.
[00:24:51] You can mix the tracks into a multi-track session and make it sound better. You can do all the fixings and trimmings to that particular episode using the multi-track editor. This is why I love Adobe Audition. It gives you so much freedom within the actual software itself. You're getting a more professional sound and there are all kinds of presets that you can use without actually altering the original piece of audio.
[00:25:20] I want to get into that a little bit later, but this is what excites me about podcasting. This is what excites me about sound design is that you can create pieces of audio and put them into Adobe Audition and apply all kinds of effects on them. Those pieces of audio without actually altering the original.
[00:25:42] This can be key sometimes down the line, when it comes down to sound design, creating bumpers, all these things. That's what I love about Adobe Audition. Audition also gives you the ability to rip audio from video, just like the other ones, it's free with your purchase. So you can pull those YouTubes and those videos from Facebook down.
[00:26:02] But here's the one thing that I love and I've mentioned a little bit about is the professional sound equalization presets they're immediately available upon subscription. So when you jump into my design of podcast training, course, I walk in, I walk you through the entire process of not only just starting a podcast, but I walk you through the steps of what the entire interface of Adobe Audition looks like and how you can operate it and create a podcast much faster than what you're doing.
[00:26:34] An Audacity or a garage band. You're going to see that I will create presets for [00:26:40] you. You're going to see that I will help you build out those templates within the actual software itself. You're going to see how long it actually takes me to create a podcast. This podcast who knows how long it's going to be.
[00:26:51] We're probably like what 30 minutes in right now, this probably took me about 15 minutes to edit that's about it. No, there's some other things that go in to recording the podcast itself, but it didn't take long for me to edit this particular podcast. That's going to include the sound equalization. It's also going to include the multi-track template that you're going to be creating for your podcast to make it sound with flow.
[00:27:20] I guess that's the word that I'm looking for is flow podcasters. These days, they don't have a very good flow. With their podcast and that's all based in philosophy of workflow. And that's what I teach with you in design a podcast. There's so many features within Adobe Audition that I cannot possibly just go one by one inside of today's podcast about that.
[00:27:46] So I encourage you to jump on over and check out that training. You get 50% off. All you gotta do is go to the podcast. therapist.com/podcast. Go to the contact me section, leave me either a voicemail or send me an email. Tell me that you heard this training, or I'm sorry, you heard about this training on episode two of The Podcast Therapist, and we'll get you a code to get that download, to get that training course.
[00:28:14] Okay. So those are the softwares that you can use to edit your podcast. The one that I'm just most excited about is Adobe Audition because it makes the process simple. It makes the process. When you're getting these other pieces of software, you're having to struggle and fumble through them. In fact, we're going to be talking with my friend Mack Watson in a future episode, he happens to use garage band, and that's just what works for him.
[00:28:43] But I will share with you in my training about the philosophy behind editing podcasts, especially when you're using Adobe audition. So if you have questions about the software, I encourage you to reach out to me. Go to the podcast, therapist.com/podcast. And contact me. If you have a question, leave a voicemail, we'll try to answer in a future episode so that I can help you out.
[00:29:12] So we're going to leave it right there. Coming back after the break, I want to talk to you about the single most important thing that is about your podcast and the elements that are probably more necessary than you think that will help you grow your podcast. You're listening to The Podcast Therapist.
[00:29:28] I'll be right back.
[00:29:39] To a lot of you, coffee is the nectar of the morning, wake up. God's right. I totally love that feeling. Just like you, of being awake. Especially as I get older, adulting tends to get a little bit harder. It wasn't until I made a visit to the doctor a few years back and I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and I had to give up all of the caffeine in my life, including coffee.
[00:29:59] [00:30:00] Even though caffeine can wake you up and make you feel alive for some part of the morning, it also has side effects like the jitters anxiety, and you'll get terrible sleep. All of the things that I was experiencing that's when I discovered mud water is a coffee replacement with one seventh, the caffeine of coffee that actually gives me energy focus and immunity without.
[00:30:19] Crashes or a downside. So what's in it. Mud water is a mixture of herbs, spices, and magic mushrooms that dial in on your immunity, boost your clarity, creativity, and your mood. I can't tell you how much of a difference it has made in my life in the last few months. So lose the jitters and find more focus with mud water.
[00:30:39] Get your mud water starter kit today at the podcast. therapist.com/. That's The Podcast Therapist.com/ to learn more and get your first can and froth her today. It's time for the mixed podcast therapists. Welcome back. And thank you so much for joining once again, or maybe you're continuing to join as you're listening to this podcast in full it's time for the mixdown.
[00:31:10] This is where we really break things down and hopefully give it to you in some chunks of information that will really help you perfect the area which you might be struggling in. So this just isn't for the startup process of a podcast. You might be in the middle of podcasting, but you're having trouble with certain areas, whether that be promotion and marketing, whether that be maybe advanced editing skills, who knows what it may be, but the mixdown is intended to really help you out.
[00:31:35] Now I have a lot of this stuff up on my YouTube channel in smaller. Pieces and bite-sized pieces, I would say anywhere between five to seven minutes. So if you want to head on over to my YouTube channel, subscribe to that channel, you can go ahead and do by going to the podcast, therapist.com/youtube, and you can subscribe to my YouTube.
[00:31:53] Right there. So in today's, mixdown, let's talk about your website because I think this is the area, which a lot of podcasts just don't take into consideration when it comes down to having a podcast, especially when it's something that they want to take very seriously. And I wish I would've known these steps in the very beginning.
[00:32:11] When it came down to creating a podcast, I wish I actually would have had my website built out first, before I even started publishing anything. It doesn't mean that I couldn't record ahead of time, but I just wish I would've had a website ready to go and have the ability to capture people and keep them sticky.
[00:32:29] And I will describe what sticky means here in a little bit. All right. So today let's jump into the different and various websites w website platforms that you could be using to you have for your podcast. There's going to be so many that are out there, and it's just a really, it's really gonna depend on what you feel is going to be.
[00:32:50] The most optimal or maximize on the best opportunities to keeping someone engaged with your podcast. Now, will it exist? Will you always have someone engaged all the time? No, not all the time. Will you have someone engaged, but it's going to be your duty as the podcast host as the content creator, to try to keep them engaged with the content.
[00:33:11] And it can be difficult. I even find myself having difficulties with keeping people engaged at times. All right. Sometimes I take breaks from YouTube. Other times I don't [00:33:20] video is a lot different than audio. And audio should be a little bit more simple for you. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to harvest a bunch of people to come in and really remain sticky or.
[00:33:33] Stick with you as far as a fan is concerned. So that's what I'm really trying to do for you here. So first let's talk about the websites and the website platforms. Now, if you're new to this, then this is all going to be brand new information for you. But if you are seasoned at this, which I'm assuming a lot of you podcasters out there who may be listening to this, and maybe you've already got a podcast out there, but you haven't built out a website, but you've heard of some of these website platforms.
[00:33:55] This is not going to be terribly new to you, but I do want to share from the very beginning of where we should be starting. Okay. So the website platforms that we're starting with can be a WordPress, which is the one that is the most popular one that you've heard of. You might've heard of Squarespace, you might've heard of Wix.
[00:34:11] And then we start jumping into more advanced website platforms, there's platforms like podcast websites. And then of course, if you get hosting with certain hosting providers say Buzzsprout, they will allow you and provide you with a website with the hosting. And it just all depends on the plan that you have.
[00:34:30] The websites might range anywhere between $15 to $24 per month. And then of course you get website hosting along with that. So that's another area in which you could focus on getting a website. What I would say to you, the podcast is that if you are now creating episodes about your podcast is probably more important to develop and build out a website that you can drive people to whenever you are creating or recording a podcast.
[00:34:59] So this didn't make sense to me in the very beginning, when I started a podcast, I just wanted to start a podcast, but I wanted a treat podcasting, very similar to radio. And what we were already doing in radio was that we had promotions where we could mention things on the air to people and say, Hey, Brett is going to be hanging out over at this fitness center coming up on Saturday, make sure that you check out our website, 98 K upd.com and go to the events page and you can get the exact directions of where bread is going to be.
[00:35:30] Also see what freebies he's going to have. Earn or maybe win for free by going to that website page. That's what I was trying to accomplish. When I first started, I started a podcast, but I did not have the website set up. And to me. It just didn't make sense to have a podcast ready to go when I couldn't promote or push anything or anyone to anything that I was creating instead I was creating just content and that's not a bad thing.
[00:35:58] Really? Whenever you're creating content, you're creating maybe a story. Maybe you're conducting an interview. That is great. But I like to think that if you are a podcaster, that you are trying to push someone to go somewhere else, to deepen the relationship with the listener. That is what my hope is after all, if you're podcasting, there's no point in podcasting.
[00:36:20] If you're not trying to deepen the relationship with the listener, this is where a website comes in very handy. So you've heard of websites like WordPress Squarespace, Wix podcast websites. And then of course, the website that I use is called Kajabi. And that's a little more, I wouldn't say it's more high-end but I know what the intention is with [00:36:40] what I'm trying to do with you, the listener, because I'm looking to serve, I'm looking to help and we'll jump into Kajabi here very shortly.
[00:36:47] Okay. So first let's start with podcasts. Let's start with WordPress. WordPress is probably going to be the industry standard of what you hear most people are using now is WordPress easy to set up. Now, I haven't had a WordPress site in probably four to five years since I switched over to Kajabi, but I started, I was using WordPress left and right.
[00:37:10] And the one cool thing about WordPress when I had the WordPress website was that there was a lot of functionality. I was able to customize a lot, whether that be how my website looked from the outside, what the skin looked like, what the interface was going to look like whenever someone encountered my website and that was going to be very customizable to what I wanted to create for my podcast website.
[00:37:34] So I started thinking about the areas of my website that I wanted to promote on my podcast. So if I had things that I wanted to give away for free, I would make sure that I had a page where it was free stuff, or maybe it was more. Blogs and I was creating blogs and referencing those blogs to the listeners.
[00:37:53] So they could go check out the blog and read more about it. The idea about driving people from a podcast to a website is twofold. It gives you the double up on the traffic itself. It not only deepens the relationship, but it allows people to maintain top of mind for you and your podcast.
[00:38:11] That's why you're trying to push people from your podcast to your website. That's why I think it's very important. So when it came down to WordPress, the customer, the customization was very. It was very free for me because I could do just about anything that I wanted. I could add any images that I wanted.
[00:38:25] I could add any type of whatever it may have been. It could have been forms for email marketing, anything like that. And so WordPress was the area in which, or was the website platform that I love to use. Now, when it comes down to starting up a WordPress website, let's start with the very basics of what it takes to start up a WordPress website.
[00:38:44] Now, when I was starting WordPress websites, it always started in this order. It started with me purchasing a domain name. So the first step would be purchasing a domain name from either GoDaddy. It could have been from blue host, whatever domain service that was out there. I was utilizing through possibly.
[00:39:02] It was either just through GoDaddy or maybe go daddy resellers. Resellers, meaning. There's people who are earning commissions off of selling domain names. A friend of mine was doing that for a while. And so I was really just going through GoDaddy. Okay. So you get your domain name through GoDaddy HostGator, whoever it may be.
[00:39:17] There are many websites that will allow you to do this, then the next. With that was that okay. You wanted to go through GoDaddy now you need to actually set up the content management system. And this is where it got a little complicated and I don't want to get too far into the complication process of setting up a WordPress site because it does take time.
[00:39:37] It takes time to build out that beginning stage of a WordPress website. And there are a number of steps that you have to take you have, I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure from what I can remember, that there were a lot of entries and you had to change texts, entries and you had to point.
[00:39:55] Point domains to different servers and things like that. And that got a little complicated. [00:40:00] It got a little rough. And so I I don't remember completely, exactly. I'm sure there's a video somewhere up on YouTube that will show you how to set up a GoDaddy website with WordPress as the main content management system.
[00:40:11] So WordPress is probably going to be the. Functional, but it's going to probably be the most difficult to set up, at least from what I can remember. I don't like setting up WordPress websites. I just think it's, it just takes way too much time. So that's just something to think about. Now, a couple of other things that I want to mention about WordPress does with the customization and the ability to do so much with WordPress.
[00:40:35] WordPress allows you to use these things called plugins within the website itself. So what plugins are basically like features that you can implement onto the website in order to meet. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe the plugin might be to show social icons at the footer of the webpage. If your theme does not support that.
[00:40:53] Okay. You can have many different plugins. There were plugins for email marketing software. There were plugins for social. Icons, there may be plugins for a slide shows, but then there's a lot of little plugins that you can use that will work behind the scenes. They just aren't something that would be showing up at face value on the front of the website.
[00:41:13] They might be things that are showing up on the back end of the website. One of those plugins being the blueberry. Plugin for podcasting. Now what the blueberry plug-in for podcasting would be is that you're getting hosting service through bud through a blueberry, and you're using their plugin to basically upload your audio directly into a blog post on WordPress.
[00:41:35] And it basically submits it as a podcast. And so you're killing two birds with one stone. The idea here is that you don't have to go into a hosting provider like Libsyn or Buzzsprout or anything like that. You can just have hosting, which you have to pay for with blueberry, but you can upload everything directly into your WordPress website.
[00:41:55] Now that is something that I thought was really cool, but the end of the day, it didn't really seem as practical as I thought it was going to be. There's people at blue, a blueberry that will tell you a little bit more about the features that. Particular hosting service. It's not the hosting service that I prefer.
[00:42:12] I've used it in the past and I don't have a problem with it. I've used it with clients, but it's the one that I don't prefer. Now, these days, my hosting preferences have changed, but just know that you have that ability to have a plugin on your website for WordPress that will connect directly to audio hosting.
[00:42:29] And that's something that I think is really cool and something that you might want to consider down the line when it comes down to getting a WordPress website. But one thing that you have to keep note of in the back of your mind, and this is just as a forewarning, whenever it comes down to you, starting a WordPress website, is that the more plugins that you use, the more, the slower that your website will run.
[00:42:52] So GoDaddy and their hosting can only handle so much payload of what you're trying to run on the WordPress website. And there may be times when your WordPress website may be running slow, This can be a big problem at times. So just know that the more plugins you're running on your website, the slower that your podcast, or I'm sorry, the slower that your website is going to be running.
[00:43:14] It's like anything else, the more payload you put on something, say the more load you put on a car when you're trying to [00:43:20] haul something, the harder it is to haul that stuff from point a to point B. So we're really trying to use only the necessary plugins. Now, if you have questions about any of this and you ask, have questions about any plugins, you're always welcome to reach out to [email protected] slash podcasts, and go down and leave me a voicemail, or send me a message.
[00:43:41] Ask me that question about plugins. And maybe I'll be able to give you an answer because I've used so many plugins and I still remember them. And a lot of them were still being used to this day. A lot of them are very, are implemented to these, to this very day. So I might be able to help you out with that.
[00:43:55] Now, one other thing that I do want to mention when it comes down to. To your WordPress website, our themes. Now, when it comes down to themes, how, what kind of theme do you want to give now a resource that you can use when it comes down to going and getting a theme for your website? So it can look pretty, it can look presentable would be going to invertible elements actually back in the day, I believe it was called theme forest.
[00:44:20] And you can go on to theme, forest and find all kinds of different themes for your WordPress website, whether you want it to have I don't know, a very sporty look to it, or maybe you want it to have a more professional look. There are many different themes that you can use, but when it comes down to getting these themes, you have to learn how to upload those themes directly into the WordPress website.
[00:44:41] And that can be very. Burdensome, and you can get really lost in the weeds when it comes down to WordPress websites. So just as a note, when you go into theme forest, and you're looking for your themes, you can spend hours and hours looking for different themes. You can spend lots of money.
[00:44:55] Themes can range anywhere between $20 to $200. It really is going to depend on the theme and the functionality. So just make sure that whenever you're going in and you're looking for a theme that you're finding a theme that is going to match what you want, and you can implement it directly into your WordPress website.
[00:45:13] Now, as far as getting it onto the WordPress website and uploading all of that, from what I remember, it was just a big pain in the ass. So just know that it can take some time, that's why I moved from WordPress. I don't have to deal with those issues. I want my PO, my website to have more functionality to where I know that I'm getting these people who are listening to my podcast to maintain and be sticky.
[00:45:33] Okay. So WordPress is the very first content management system that you are going to be used for. So let's now move over into the next content management system, which would be a Squarespace. That's the one that you hear a lot of people using these days. A lot of people use Squarespace because of the ease of usability.
[00:45:51] You're not talking about using a WordPress site. You're not really, you don't have a whole lot of hands on with Squarespace sites because a lot of it is done for you, but it doesn't mean that you're completely not hands-on with the website, anything that has to deal with website development and graphics and anything that you want to create for your podcast or your podcast website, is going to require you to actually have some hands-on experience within the platform itself.
[00:46:22] So I would say that Squarespace is very similar to. In the sense that you can have a lot of functionalities. You can add, a features to your themes. You can add, say email forms. You can add social icons, you could do a lot of things in the background. One of the things that Squarespace [00:46:40] likes to tell is that they, they say, oh, we, we do podcast hosting.
[00:46:43] And I would say that if you're starting a podcast, I would recommend against you getting podcast hosting or hosting your podcast on a Squarespace website is just not going to give you the metadata, allow you to have the metadata show up correctly inside of the syndication platforms that we are using to view our podcast.
[00:47:04] So stay away from using. Squarespace's ability to have a podcast hosting is just not going to be enough for you. I will always recommend to you that you use one of these services, either Buzzsprout Libsyn, blueberry, or a simple cast. Those are the four that really, that I have used either for myself or a client.
[00:47:25] So don't think that you're getting some great deal by using Squarespace. I recently had someone reach out to me and say that they were using Squarespace. They came back to me and said, oh yeah, it doesn't have the functionalities. As far as entering in the metadata and having more control or switching out the episodes was not as easy as I thought it was going to be.
[00:47:44] That's why there's dedicated hosting services for podcasts. Okay. So just stay away from the Squarespace hosting for your podcast. But other than that, when it comes down to Squarespace, you're going to be able to customize. Theme with whichever way that you like. I was building out a website for a yoga instructor about a year ago and the website functionality and actually being able to build a website was actually pretty easy.
[00:48:07] You could implement video, you can make it look really cool. It just depends on these principles of how you are going to set up your website. So when we jump into the principles area of what I think your website should have, then you'll know exactly maybe what to be looking for when it comes down to your website and what functionalities that you need to have.
[00:48:26] So that's going to be coming up hopefully in today's episode, if not, it will be in the next episode itself, but again, I don't want to spend too much time on Squarespace. It's something that I haven't used a whole lot. I have built websites on it, but I have found that it just doesn't have the functionality that I'm looking for when it comes down to what I look for in a website.
[00:48:45] The next website that you might be thinking about getting would be a Wix website. I know there's all these other websites out there. That's very simple Wix, a God. There's another one that my sister told me about the other day that she wanted to get my Nissan. I would just say, stay away from Wix or anything that is very cheap.
[00:49:01] They have these awesome plans, but w I, from what I remember Wix websites, they were littered with ads and, it's just, it was not a functional it did not give the customization that I was hoping that. Wix would really jump into. And so I would just stay away from Wix, anything like that.
[00:49:18] Now there is another platform called podcast websites and this podcast hosting provider, I guess you could say for websites, they focus specifically on podcasts for, or sorry. They focus specifically on websites that are just doing. Podcasts now it's really gonna depend on you. They provide the themes, they provide the players for you.
[00:49:39] It's going to be all up to you on what you like with that theme. I can't remember if it was a subscription service or not. You're going to have to check out with podcast websites, but that is one option that you could use if you're. Not too tech savvy and you don't want to jump into the weeds of trying to figure out all this stuff.
[00:49:55] The people at podcast websites may have set this up for you. Again, these are [00:50:00] people that I do not work with. I'm just mentioning them because I have seen them at podcast movement. I've seen them promoting over the course of the years. And if I was not someone who knew how. To build websites and did not know how to do graphic design.
[00:50:13] I probably would go with podcasts websites, but it does come at a higher premium cost. So just know what you're getting into when it comes down to going to podcast websites. Then the next platform that I use is called Kajabi. Now I know you're thinking, you're probably thinking of yeah, this is just nothing but a big ad for a Kajabi.
[00:50:32] It really isn't in a sense, but just because what I'm sharing with you about Kajabi is really going to boil down to the necessary tools that you're going to need. So when we look at things like WordPress and look at all the things that you need to implement onto your WordPress website, maybe it's even your Squarespace website or maybe a Wix website.
[00:50:52] There are elements that you absolutely need to have implemented immediately whenever you start your podcast website. And that's what I want to go over with you today. So just know that when I'm talking to you about Kajabi and I'm talking to you about a specific tool that I use in Kajabi or a specific feature that I like to use in Kajabi, just know that feature that I use in Kajabi can be used as a third party application that will tie into your WordPress site, or may be able to tie into your Squarespace website, but you run a lot of headaches.
[00:51:26] You're going to get a lot of headaches when it comes down to whether or not the plugin is going to fail on you. And you have to re enable the plugin, whether or not you're actually collecting email addresses, just certain things that you need to have in your website. If you're trying to take your podcast into turning it, ah, let's say turning it into maybe a like a business itself.
[00:51:46] All right. You want to get serious with this? And that's why I chose Kajabi saw, like I said, I was using WordPress for many years until I came up with Kajabi and I've seen Kajabi grow. Over the years. In fact, in the past five years, they have done this exponential growth and built out their platform massively.
[00:52:03] They're just helping out so many people who have turned their podcast, or even maybe their business, maybe they sell, I don't know, maybe they're selling yoga trainings. And Kajabi is just the site for you. So I want to break some of that down for you. And what could Jobie is all about? Okay. So again, Kajabi is a content management system, but it is also a system where you can host your own training courses on their platform.
[00:52:31] Now, I know what you're saying to yourself. You're saying to yourself yeah, there are different platforms that you can use, like teachable, where you can host training courses. If that's an area that you want to go into, there's also, I believe Skillshare also you to me and I have nothing wrong with those different platforms.
[00:52:48] But what I do know is that, with you, to me, there are going to be. Rules that you have to follow if you're creating a course within their platform. And I just don't like having those rules, there's sometimes where you need to be more unconventional in creating your training courses. And that's why I like Kajabi.
[00:53:03] So you could do these things within Kajabi. So Kajabi has the ability to create training courses. I think you get up to three products to use. They also have a built in process where you can build out landing pages. All right. So landing pages are going to be huge for you when it comes down to you wanting to sell something with your [00:53:20] podcast.
[00:53:20] All right. Whether that be a digital training course, whether it be maybe one-on-one trainings or maybe it's more along the lines of a membership like Patrion, that might be something that you're looking forward to doing. So Kajabi gives you all of that ability of. And it's going to give you the ability to customize how your website is going to look.
[00:53:39] So that's something that you can look forward to now, when it comes down to the sales process and having the landing pages, Kajabi has these built-in landing pages within the platform itself. Now, if you were to go out and buy these individual landing pages or get a subscription to these landing pages, you're going to spend about the same amount of money per year, just on a platform that handles just landing pages itself.
[00:54:02] All right. And that PR that's not going to be very. Cost effective for you. So for you, it might be better to have something with Kajabi. If you're looking to get into some landing pages area and looking to perfect, or have more of a sales process that is already set up for you within Kajabi, and it's all ready set there for you, you can have unlimited landing pages within Kajabi.
[00:54:26] Now, one of the cool things about the sales process with landing pages is that Kajabi has already set up these pipelines for you. When it comes down to the sales process, all you have to do is plug in the information and you can start the sales process of getting someone to buy your product. So Kajabi has done a lot of the work for you.
[00:54:45] Whereas these other platforms don't have that set up for you. And of course, it's already included in the price of what you're paying for with Kajabi. Now, as a Kajabi also has email marketing. You can have email marketing with different platforms. Okay. Email marketing can go like MailChimp. You can have MailChimp.
[00:55:02] You can have constant contact. There is a Weber. There's God, there's a whole bunch of them that are out there where you can utilize email marketing. Email marketing is probably going to be the most important thing that you need to have for your podcast, because that is where we keep our listeners sticky.
[00:55:18] That's how we get them to come back. Maybe they are someone who is not as engaged or was not engaged in recent times and you've emailed them. And you now have reengage them. That is where the beauty is of email marketing. Now, like I said, you can use MailChimp. You could use constant contact, but Kajabi has already built that into their system.
[00:55:41] If you were to go out and buy, or I would say subscribe to MailChimp, constant contact, whatever email marketing system would be, you're going to spend probably the same amount of money, if not more using just an individual. Marketing system, as opposed to using it in Kajabi. Now the next question might be how reliable is this email marketing system on Kajabi?
[00:56:03] It's actually very reliable and they're making a heavy focus on improving it every single month, not just every day, every month because they're working on the problems and then they listen to their customers and then they go and they implement what the customers are looking for. So email marketing is going to be a huge thing that you need to be able to implement on your website.
[00:56:23] Now, when it comes down to email marketing, you're going to want to have areas on the front of your website, where people can opt in to your. Email marketing list so that you can promote your podcast to people. So there are other services [00:56:40] that are like this that will allow you to put boxes on your website and maybe in the sidebar or maybe on the front of the page.
[00:56:47] So if you go to my website the Shan man.com, you can see on the front page, I have all kinds of things. I have calls to action buttons. I call to action buttons. I have boxes to where people can fill out to jump onto my email marketing list. All of that is built into Kajabi already. When you're going with a third party company, you are struggling with code and I wouldn't say it's a major struggle, but sometimes the code that allows you to put those boxes on your website.
[00:57:15] I can break. And you will never know when those boxes are broken, unless someone tells you someone to email you and say, Hey, did you know that your opt-in box is not working on the front page of your website? Or maybe you've changed something with that opt in box. It's really going to depend. So you can go with a third party, use them on a WordPress.
[00:57:34] You use them on Squarespace, wherever else, but it can't be, it's not as reliable. And that's why I'm saying I, this is why I use Kajabi. What I had experienced using WordPress were more headaches and fixing everything else, fixing the plugins, fixing the boxes, opt-in boxes, fixing it, formatting issues.
[00:57:52] And that was just a big pain in my ass. And that's when I decided to move over into Kajabi. Now, if you're looking for pop-up. Kajabi has that there allow you to have pop-ups on your website, but if you're using a WordPress website with a theme that has and where you're trying to sell, and you're trying to get people to opt in on something, you have to go with another service, say like opt-in monster, and you have to subscribe to their service at the end of the day, when you have subscribed to all of these third party services and implemented them into your WordPress site, you're spending probably the same amount that you would be spending with Kajabi, if not more.
[00:58:29] Okay. So that is just something that you have to think about now. Now let's think about where you want to be with your podcast. What do you, how do you want to see that podcast? What do you envision with your podcast? Do you want people to come in? Do you want them to listen? Do you want them to stay sticky?
[00:58:49] Do you want them to be a part of your uterus? Do you want to be able to sell to them? Whether that be a membership site, like a Patriot site, or maybe you want to sell them some products, maybe that's something that you want to do. Envision what your website is going to look like and envision how you are going to push people from your podcast back to your website.
[00:59:16] What are the tools that you are going to need? Are you going to need opt-in boxes right away? Are you going to need some form of email marketing? Which actually I would say yes. That is probably the most important thing that you do need to have, but just let's say for, let's just say for instance, that you don't want that right away.
[00:59:39] Okay. That's. Maybe you just need something that is a little more simple. Maybe you go with a WordPress site, maybe you're going with a Squarespace site, but I want you to have to imagine of making your podcast not only sonically, amazing, but visually intriguing[01:00:00]
[01:00:03] the visual intrigue. Of course, being with your podcast website. You want that to be visually intriguing and you want people to go there and be a part of your universe. I always talk about this on my YouTube channel, but this is where I think it's very important. This is where a lot of podcasters miss the mark.
[01:00:22] They do not focus on their website. There are many things that you're going to have to learn when you become a podcaster. There's already the audio editing portion of. Becoming a podcast or knowing how to edit audio, knowing how to sound design. And then you got to record, especially if you're someone who's new at this, but add this extra element of building out a website.
[01:00:45] Maybe you just pay someone to implement all this for you. That's a possibility, but again, that's money that maybe you don't have. So where are you going to start now? Certainly tell you that you don't need to have all of these things implemented. I didn't even mention half the things that Kajabi does, but I will tell you this right now, just because I have a Kajabi site does not mean you need to have one immediately.
[01:01:10] If it's something that you think is going to benefit you down the line, then I would say, yes, go get it. Because I've found nothing but value with Kajabi, not only with our customer support, but with the functionality and the customization with their content management. So you have to envision what your website's going to look like and how it is going to partner and pair well with your podcast.
[01:01:36] What are you going to promote with your podcast? That's the most important question here. So do you know what your podcast wants to look like? I would be very interested in hearing what that podcast website is going to look like. I want to encourage you to go on over to my website, The Podcast Therapist.com/podcast, and leave me a voicemail or a message.
[01:02:02] You can message me and I will possibly read your comment or play your voicemail on this podcast and maybe give you some answers. Okay, make sure that whenever you do leave a voicemail or you're leaving me a, maybe a message via Facebook or email or whatever it may be, make sure that you do reference this particular episode so that whenever I do go back and try to answer that question, I can reference what we're talking about whenever I do answer that question.
[01:02:30] So again, I want to invite you to go on over there and leave me a voicemail or leave me a message. So that's really what my thoughts and my initial thoughts are basically on websites. Got to find the website that is going to match for you. Most people are using WordPress, right? That might be the one that you're going through right now.
[01:02:49] That might be the one that you might use. Okay. But, it's gonna really depend figure out what's going to work for you. Okay. So we're going to come back with some unnecessary explanations here in a little bit. So I got to get my voice arrest and we'll be talking to here a very short.[01:03:20]
[01:03:20] Right now you might be in the middle of the research phase of launching your podcast. Maybe you've gotten some equipment signed up for a zoom account and recorded a few podcast episodes, but what steps do you need to take when it comes to a successful podcast launch? Would you believe the biggest mistake podcasters make is the launch.
[01:03:37] Seriously, just like a space shuttle has a sequence to put astronauts into space. Podcasts, have sequences to put a podcast in the marketplace successfully. That's why I created the podcast launch checklist. After helping numerous clients build their podcasts, I developed a step-by-step guide to help podcast creators, just like you have a clean launch sequence without wasting time.
[01:03:58] The podcast launch checklist is a 12 step sequence that walks you through the prelaunch mid-launch and post-launch process with specific steps and instructions that will save you time. If you're tired of walking around in the dark. Everything that comes with a podcast launch. You can grab the podcast launch checklist today.
[01:04:15] Visit The Podcast Therapist.com/plc and use the code pod therapist, all one word to get twenty-five percent off this checklist today.
[01:04:31] Explanations. All right, so I want to transition over from the technical aspects of podcasting because I do realize it can be very overwhelming. I can re I realized that when I share this stuff with you, you can get that glazed eye. Look, I get it. But these are all things that I think that are very important that podcasters should be focusing on.
[01:04:51] They should be looking at. So that's why I encourage you to go back and listen to these episodes. And of course, check out the time codes. There should be some time codes, hopefully for this particular podcast. And then you can go ahead and skip around and see what I had to say there. But again, if there are ever any questions, you can always reach out to [email protected] slash podcast, to contact me on that section down in that page.
[01:05:13] And I'll hopefully get back to you. But like I said, let's transition from that technical aspect and move into more of the social aspect. Now, as I'm recording this, it is December 2nd, 2020. We have been what, eight, nine months into this pandemic. So there have not been a whole lot of activities that you could do, no concerts, no networking opportunities for you to go out to no conference.
[01:05:36] Really that's one of the things that I know a lot of people love to do, especially when it comes down to people who are in a specific podcasting niche, maybe they're in some type of business niche, or maybe they are in some type of fitness niche. There are, possible conferences that you can go to.
[01:05:50] So you can network with different people and collaborate with other people. All right. So if you are new to this, or maybe you're just someone who has never experienced a conference before in their life, then this is going to be the section for. As far as my unnecessary explanation, we are probably going to be spitballing more than anything else on this particular section.
[01:06:09] I haven't written anything down, so I'm just spit balling based off of my own experience. So first let's go ahead and start start with networking opportunities. Now you might be a podcaster. Who's looking to get the podcast out more and more to different more to different people. So when you go out to networking opportunities, the networking opportunities can be.
[01:06:27] From meetups to actual networking events themselves. And you could probably find them in your very own city. Now, maybe you are a podcast that lives in a smaller rural [01:06:40] community. This might be a little bit more difficult. This doesn't mean that you still can't attend events, because I would imagine that now we have been in the pandemic that more and more online events have been happening.
[01:06:52] There are still going to have those online and they do happen. They still happen online communicating and getting together with like-minded. People still happens to this day, back in the day when I was doing it it was all on Google plus and Google plus had Hangouts, Google Hangouts, and Google had a really cool.
[01:07:10] Ecosystem of like-minded people that you could communicate with, but then the platform of course folded, and we were all stuck with Facebook, but that was when Facebook came out with a groups. And then of course you could go into groups and you could communicate via text, but now we're doing more of that via live stream.
[01:07:27] So if you're looking for networking opportunities of like-minded people keep your eye out, go do searches inside of Facebook for different groups of like-minded people. Now, your podcast may be in the area of money. Maybe it's in the area of psychology. I don't know if you're trying to communicate and collaborate or maybe even get some ears onto your podcast.
[01:07:51] It's best to communicate and collaborate with people who are of the same thread or of the, birds of a feather flock together. So go into those areas. Share your thoughts and communicate. But what I don't recommend is go in and spam on these groups within Facebook, because then people see right through your bullshit.
[01:08:11] You don't want people to see right through that. You want to help people. You want to be able to educate or entertain one way or the other. So let's take it to the other extreme. Maybe you are someone who's in a comedy niche. You want to go where other comedians are hanging out or where people are looking to be entertained.
[01:08:27] Going in and collaborating is a great opportunity for you to not only. Partner with someone, but it's a great opportunity for you to bring someone who might have a potentially large audience that you can interview on your own podcast. That's one way that you can do that. Now, those are real small individual online events.
[01:08:46] Now you can go to these in-person events. It just something that you should be expecting when you go to these events, these networking events, I've experienced so many of them. And quite honestly, I could just take them or leave them. You gotta make, you gotta make the most of the networking events that are going to be happening in person.
[01:09:02] I'm not someone who really likes to be in person at a networking event. Doesn't mean that I can't I consider myself an ambivert, basically, an outgoing. Introvert is what it is. But you got to know that when you're going to these networking events, and if there are people who were there for there, they're probably looking for some type of lead in some sense they're going to ask what you do, and then they're probably going to ask you how they can help you.
[01:09:24] They're always at least in my experience, I've always gone to these networking events where there's always an end game with that person. It's not really about building the relationship with the other person. So what I recommend that you do, if you go to local networking events, build the relationship because your first point of contact with the relationship that you build with someone isn't going to be your first sale is likely going to come down to the second, third, maybe even fourth person that they can refer back to you.
[01:09:53] So if you have a podcast that focuses specifically on, let's say, I don't know. [01:10:00] 18th century literature. That person is probably not going to be interested. The first point of context, probably not going to be interested. So it might be the fourth or fifth person that maybe someone else knows that can refer you back to your podcast.
[01:10:12] So consider these events as being great opportunities to build relationships. All right, I've built plenty of relationships. I still have plenty to build to this day, but you have to be careful of knowing which ones are just trying to take advantage of you. And then of course, the ones that are really interested in just knowing a little bit more about you and there might be a budding friendship right there.
[01:10:33] So local networking events can be worth it. I would just say that. I would limit it to doing maybe one every couple of months, because you can really get tied up in these networking events. And you're focusing more time on the networking and less time trying to do your podcast. So just be aware of that.
[01:10:52] The next area I want to go into are conferences. Conferences are really great opportunities for networking, but they are great opportunities for you to go and learn something brand new. So I have been to so many conferences. I've been to sales and marketing conferences. I've been to podcasting conferences.
[01:11:10] I have been to wellness concert conferences. I've been to so many different conferences and I have learned something different along the way. The one that I would recommend for you, if you're someone who is into podcasting, you're looking to become a better podcaster is podcast and movement that happens every year in a different location this next year.
[01:11:30] I believe it's going to be held in Nash. Barring that there's no virus that there's nothing that is going to hinder us from meeting up with each other in person. So I would recommend that you check out podcast movement. I've met a lot of amazing pod-casters there and a lot of amazing people who are doing podcasts for as a business.
[01:11:50] So that's just something that you have to think about. You go there. You learn not only about audio, but you learn about social marketing. You learn about digital marketing. You're going to learn about equipment. You're going to meet people from all different walks of life who are of the same thread. And you're going to be able to share ideas of what you can implement on your own podcasts on your own website, in your own guide.
[01:12:13] Owned paid group. You're going to see people that are at those conferences, like podcast movement that have implemented a membership model for their podcast that is like Patrion. That's something that I think that you should consider if you're thinking, if you've already got an audience, I would say, if you haven't started one start one right now.
[01:12:32] In fact, I want to talk to my friend, Mack Watson. He started a a Patrion for himself and and it's a little extra money that does get to help him out. Isn't making him millions. No, but it is extra money that is helping them out. Just like I have started my own membership website. I took the idea from someone at a conference.
[01:12:51] It wasn't even a podcast conference. I took the idea from a Kajabi conference and I saw someone doing a membership idea and I thought, oh, that's amazing. That's pretty amazing. Whereas people on Patrion were already doing that. Does it mean the people on Patrion were already doing it? Yes. And no, there's some that are doing it really great, but there's others who just aren't really all that good at it.
[01:13:11] Am I really great at it? I would say that I'm mediocre at it. I still have lots of room for improvement and to grow and build out. My membership site is [01:13:20] for my radio station fans. That is all done through Facebook and there are mistakes that I made. That I wish I would have been able to implement in the very beginning.
[01:13:27] This is why I always tell you in the beginning, build out these things in the first parts of your podcast, experience and journey, you're going to need to build out the podcast itself, but you need to build out the website itself to get yourself and set yourself up first, because then you're later on down the line.
[01:13:41] If you're doing it later down the line, it just becomes a big headache. All right. But I digress. Let's just I want to go back to the conferences aspect and I don't have a whole lot more to tell you, but I will say that conferences really do enhance and open your eyes to different things that you can do with your podcast.
[01:13:58] They open up opportunities for relationships and collaborations that you can do with your podcast. So I really encourage you to jump on over, start looking into Facebook groups and likely there are groups that have. Conferences that you can attend, it's really going to help you out. In fact, who was it?
[01:14:16] Recently whose podcast I listened to, I can't remember, but I know they had someone who was collaborating with them, but they hadn't met at a conference. So this is a great opportunity for you to also build out brand new content with fresh new people, instead of just going with the same people over and over.
[01:14:33] It doesn't mean that you can't do that. You could build out fresh new content if you're going to some of these conferences. That's really what I have to say about networking opportunities. Let's just hope that we can go into 2021 with a vaccine that is going to work. We look at this point, it looks like it's going to work.
[01:14:49] And there's not gonna be a whole lot of side effects. I am not a medical professional. You could call me The Podcast Therapist, but not actually a therapist, but again it looks like things are looking up. For 2021. And hopefully I will be able to go out to podcast movement this year in Nashville, and maybe see some of you who are out there as well.
[01:15:07] So that is where I'm going to leave it today with the podcast, a therapist. I want to thank you so much for tuning in this week. It means a lot to me, a lot of this information, I would encourage you to go back and listen, to make sure that you are writing down notes. A lot of this stuff can be found on my YouTube channel as well.
[01:15:26] If you're looking for shortened versions, but the reason why I created this podcast was to give the extended and expanded explanations of why I use these methods for my podcast. So I know I emphasize that a lot right there, but that is why that's why I do this. Okay. So YouTube, you can find me my website just The Podcast Therapist.com/podcast, which will basically lead you to my main website.
[01:15:49] And don't forget, leave me some feedback. Of course, reach out to me. If you have questions on that particular page, I look forward to always hearing from you. I'm here to serve you to help you become a better podcaster and become a great, I don't know, a great human being for the duration. I ha I wanted to say something else, but I forgot what it was.
[01:16:10] So let's leave it at that. You guys have a great rest of your week. I will talk to you next time. Take care.
