6 Steps to Making Podcasting Easy

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MYP fam what's going on.

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My name is Hector Santiesteban and I'm your host.

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And I get way too geeked up about creating amazing podcasts that can

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fuel your lifestyle and your business.

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And I've been producing podcasts for almost a half decade now.

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And this show is to help you learn the things that do and do not

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work when it comes to marketing and monetizing your podcast.

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And on today's episode, we're gonna talk about the six and a half steps

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to make podcasting easy, because lots of people like to complicate it.

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But if you know the steps that are involved, then you can really

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start to simplify the process.

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So really quickly let's talk about the necessary steps.

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And so the obvious one is that you've gotta record it.

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And the one that a lot of people miss, which I think is a really important

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one, is getting your recording into storage and we use Google drive.

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A lot of people use Dropbox.

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But I think that's such an important step in order to get to the next parts.

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And the third step is what we call content editing.

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And this is really important for interview shows and we'll get into what

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this actually entails in a little bit.

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Then we go through and actually process and edit the audio and do

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all the processing and audio editing to make it sound really good.

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Step five and a half is making sure that you have the things like your

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graphics and your show notes and your episode title, ready to go.

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And then step six, which is maybe the most important is actually

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hitting the publish button.

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Now I think that this is important because the chances are, you're either doing all

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of these yourself, or you're gonna have to have someone do all of these and when

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you're outsourcing or when you're having someone do it, it's a lot more cost

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effective or it's a lot less expensive if you know, the small individual pieces

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of the process that need to get done.

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We charge a lot more if we have to do everything in the process, but if you're

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able to know the specific steps and the specific tasks, and you're really able

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to kind of be the air traffic controller, well, you can actually go out and find

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people that are a lot less expensive,

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so you knowing these steps can either help you to save a lot of money or it can

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also help you to be a lot more efficient when you're getting your episodes out.

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And so here's an example here.

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We have a client that is in the political space and it's kind

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of a rant and interview show.

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And frankly, the client is really busy.

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And he has his own consulting company

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, he doesn't have the time to be doing

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be able to have a successful podcast.

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But this show gets around 5,000 downloads every month, which of course is not

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going to knock down Spotify's doors.

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But what's nice is that he's able to sustain it with his Patreon.

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He makes a little money on his ads and the show obviously has a community

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of people that are interested in it.

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And so for him, the real value comes from him being able to get out his knowledge

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from him being able to share some of the things that he's learning in his

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research and throughout his consulting.

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And so the show is a really great platform for him to be able to share

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his expertise, to build his brand,

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but also he's created a really cool community of listeners that

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are really engaged in the type of content that he's creating.

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He just doesn't have the time to be able to do all of the things every single time.

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And so I kind of wanna walk you through the process of how we get

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his audio out from the time that he finishes recording, to the time

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that we end up hitting published.

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And so the reason that I'm doing this is just last night, we got an episode

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in from him . And so as soon as we get the episode in, our first thing that

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we wanna do is we want to get that file into some sort of storage that we can use

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because we have different people that are doing different parts of the process.

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It's really important for us to have a central file storage system.

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And so we really like Google drive just because it's easy,

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everybody can access it.

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And it's really easy to share with different people, but you can use whatever

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it is that you want, but by getting that file into the storage system.

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What we do is we'll have someone on our team grab that

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file, put it into Google drive.

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So that way, when we go in and content edit it, we can just go in, grab

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the file, drop it into our content editor, and we're ready to go.

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It saves our content editor a ton of time from having to go download

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the link, put it into the storage system and then get that file and

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then upload it into our content.

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so that leads us to our next step, which is to actually do the content editing.

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And this is something that you may or may not be doing.

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But one thing that we really try and do is to make our shows easy to listen to.

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There are plenty of podcast that I've listened to, where people are rambling,

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the guest, or the host have a ton of ums or have a ton of stutters, or they are

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constantly going in different directions.

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And so we really try and make sure that our interviews and our shows are crisp,

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that they are dialed in and that a listener is able to follow everything.

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And so that includes removing all of the filler words, the ums, a lot of

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times guests will use certain filler words over and over again, things like,

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like, or right, or, you know, and.

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We'll try and remove as many of those things as possible to keep

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the conversation sounding natural.

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And it also reduces a significant amount of time for the episode so

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that your listener is able to get the same amount of value, get the

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same amount of content in less time.

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Now one other part of content editing might also include moving certain

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parts of the interview around.

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It might make sense for a certain question to be asked later or earlier

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in the interview, or it might make sense to cut part of an interview or

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with our hosts, we really allow them to be relaxed, to make mistakes.

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And so if they make a mistake, they can just make a vocal note that

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they're gonna start over or that they messed up or whatever it is.

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And because our editors are going through in content editing, we're able to make

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the conversation really sound seamless, but the hosts and the guests are able to

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record it in a much more relaxed fashion.

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so our favorite program to do this is script.

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And in fact, I don't know that we could actually do this step

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without a tool like script.

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And it makes it really, really easy to do.

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I've done other episodes and devoted entire videos to this tool, but

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it's something that has really, really optimized our workflow

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and really added another layer of value to the shows that we're putting out,

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because they're not having to listen to the rambles or the ums or the U.

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And so it really creates what we think is a unique listening experience.

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And eventually all the shows are gonna be doing it.

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But right now it's one way that we can really set ourselves apart.

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Now the next part of our system is where we process and edit the audio

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like a normal audio engineer might.

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And this is where we're adding the compression or we're, using

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an equalizer, we're reducing the gains, we're adjusting the volumes.

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And so there are some things that we do and script makes it really easy to do

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we've liked the Adobe suite of tools.

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I know studio one is another one that our team really enjoys.

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And so processing the audio is the next step to just make sure that the sound

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sounds as good and as crisp as it can.

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The content of the audio and of the interview is obviously important, but

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so are the actual acoustics of it.

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And so paying attention to how it sounds and how it's coming through in headphones,

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how it's coming through on speakers, how it's coming through in different types of

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environments is really, really important.

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Now one often missed note here is.

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Once your episode is ready.

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There are some things outside of the audio that you're gonna need to get ready.

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And this is a challenge for some people and for others, it's not, but there are

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two things that we've found have become real sticky points in our processes.

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And if we can make sure that these are ready to go, our workflow.

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Really go smoothly.

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And if we don't have these nailed down, if we don't have these dialed in,

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then it really holds up our processes.

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And that is the episode artwork and the show notes.

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And that's just because for me, editing audio is easy.

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Putting out an episode, doing music, all the stuff that we've talked

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about so far, all that stuff is easy.

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But all of a sudden, when you start talking about making pictures you start

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talking about writing stuff, well, now all of a sudden it just takes me so

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much longer to have to do those things.

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And so for us having either different people.

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To do it has been really, really helpful where I'm not the actual one, making

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the graphics or writing the show notes.

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That's a really helpful part of our process, but I'll tell you that if

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you are the one that has to do it, if you're not hiring people, you're

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the one that's doing everything.

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Just knowing that you're gonna have to create the graphics and write

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the show notes and having it built into your process is so important.

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Cuz there were times where I'd get to the end and I'd be so excited about

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the episode and I'd be like, oh.

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Crap.

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I forgot about the graphic and the show notes.

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And that almost took just as much time as I'd put into the entire editing,

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because the show notes I had to go back and, rego through and figure out what

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were the timestamps I had to go and research , the person, in the guest.

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I, all the things that come along with putting together the good show notes,

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graphics, it's a little bit easier if you have the template set up, but

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the point is, is that because I wasn't expecting it kind of blindsided me,

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but when I know that I'm gonna have to do it and I make time and I'm ready

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and it's on my list of to things to do.

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Well, things run so much more smoothly.

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And so just knowing that it's going to be a part of your process.

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And once again, your show notes do not have to be elaborate.

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Right?

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You can have a couple of sentences, some.

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And you're good to go.

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Do you need a new episode artwork for each show?

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No, you don't need one.

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We've actually done really well with one of our shows without ever creating

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individual artwork for the episodes.

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But I don't know that I would recommend it.

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So if you can do it, I would suggest it, right.

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It is the best practice because it can be something that can be helpful

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if you do it, so would definitely.

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Encourage you to build that into your process.

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And the last part is just hitting publish, right?

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And it's, it's an important part of the step because you can

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have all of those things done.

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And if you don't go through all of the steps that you need to actually get it

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out the door and publishing might mean some different things for different

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people, for some shows, all it means is dragging your audio on the thing.

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Putting your show, title and copying and pasting a couple of things

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and hitting the publish button.

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But for other shows, you might have to add some ads or you might

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have to add some timestamps or you might need specific links involved,

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or maybe the title is something that you pay particular attention.

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I, there are certain aspects to the publishing, right?

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A title, a show notes, episode numbers, artwork timestamps for your ads.

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All of those things are things that you might.

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Have to think about if your show utilizes those things.

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And so just thinking through that, building it into your process so that

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either you as the host, if you're the one, doing everything that boom,

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it's really easy, it's clear cut.

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You've got your checklist of things to do, and you can just walk through

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'em boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

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Or if you wanna start handing it off and you wanna.

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Delegating things you wanna start freeing up some of your time, the more granular

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that you can get with these tasks, the less expensive it's going to be for you.

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When you just tell somebody, I need you to make my podcast.

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Well, all of a sudden there's a lot more things that are involved

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in there, and that person needs to be a lot more skilled because they

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need to know all of those steps.

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If you're just asking someone to do one step, you're just saying, Hey, I just need

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you to upload these and put them here.

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Right.

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There are even softwares and automations that can do it for you.

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We'll talk about some of those things in ways that you can automate

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it, coming up on future episodes.

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But if you're just asking someone to go through and content, edit your show,

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that's gonna be a lot less expensive than asking them to content, edit it

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and then process the audio and edit the audio and then go through and create

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your episode artwork, and then write your show notes and then publish it.

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Right.

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So there's gonna be a lot less expensive than if you're just paying

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them to do one of those tasks.

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And so that's another reason why breaking it down can not only make

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podcasting easy, but it can also make it less expensive as well.

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And then obviously another problem is that if you don't have

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those things well articulated, then things can get forgotten.

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They can get delayed, they cannot happen.

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I mean, we've had times where shows are ready to get published, but then we

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don't have the show notes written and it's like, we have to hit published

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because we're on our, deadline.

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We wanna stay on schedule and we end up publishing and updating

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and editing the notes afterwards.

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Is it perfect?

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No.

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Is it ideal?

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No.

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It's one thing.

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That's and it's why I find that these conversations in an episode

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like this is so important.

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So we'd love to know what you guys thought about these things.

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Obviously there's some parts that you guys are doing because you wouldn't be

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able to get a show out if you didn't, but I'd love to know what is standing out?

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what surprised you about these things?

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What made the most sense?

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What made the least amount of sense?

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I'd really love to know what you took away or what got you

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thinking from today's episode.

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So find me on Twitter at Hector underscore podcast.

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You can send me an email hector amplify media.com and would

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love to know what you thought.

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The last thing I'd ask is if you know, someone who has a podcast or

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is starting a podcast of their own, please share this with them and

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let's build the Y P fan together.

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I can't wait to hear your success story and maybe interview you on

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a future episode of the YP show.

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Thanks again for sticking around.