Righting 5 Podcast Wrongs
There are about as many podcasting styles as there are Podcasts. No one thing will work for everyone, and it’s important when you’re trying to find your footing to develop the style that works for you. But over time, there are certain trends that continue to pop up; things most Podcast producers would say are just bad ideas, even though they don’t feel like it at the time. These are just a few of those things.
Take note: there are all sorts of reasons to do a Podcast, one of them being because it’s a lot of fun! By no means should you think you’re “doing it wrong” because you might check off a few items on this list. These are, however, things to consider when looking to grow an audience beyond friends and family.
1. Podcasting while Drunk/High
You have fun when you’re under the influence, right? Why not capture that and let EVERYONE have fun? In all my time as a producer, this has to be the one I’ve seen most often. Let me dispel two things for you right now. One, it doesn’t work as well as you think it will. Two, you’re not the first to try it and you won’t be the last.
Think back to any time you’ve been the designated driver or just the only sober one at a party. How much fun was it to listen to the other people that were there? Sure, maybe for a few minutes. A half hour, though? An hour?
Every podcaster that gets this in their head has to do it once and then listen back. Each time, I’ve heard the same thing: “Well that was terrible.” You rarely make as much sense as you think you are, and it’s hard to maintain a workable level of inebriation throughout a recording. Thoughts will trail off, your speech will be slurred, lots of general nonsense. Have a drink to “loosen up” is ok if you’re feeling anxious, but try to keep your wits about you.
2. Recording with Your Friends (For Your Friends)
By no means am I suggesting that starting a show with your friends is inherently a bad idea. Chemistry in a podcasting team is VERY important. Never lose sight of one key thing, though - the listeners are not your friends.
Friends have slang that only they understand. Friends have inside jokes. Friends have entire life experiences that they can reference or sum up with a quote. My friend and I burst into giggles when we say “TAXI!” and there’s no amount of explaining worth trying to make that funny to you. Be careful with how much of that you intentionally, or unintentionally, bring into your show.
All of that can come in time. Audiences develop personalities of their own. They’ll reference things from past episodes and have a big chuckle about it. But they have to get there on their own.
3. Spending a Bunch of Money Getting Started
There is no lack of websites that will list out the most expensive equipment you can get to capture your voice. There are thousand-dollar microphones. There are preamps and tube compressors. There’s sound-proofing like you wouldn’t believe. I once worked with a client that insisted on buying equipment like you would see if you were recording a Metallica album.
YOU DON’T NEED IT.
When it comes to podcasting, content is king. A modern smartphone is capable of capturing very high quality audio. Spend a little more money and get a decent USB mic and you’ve got a set of equipment that can last the entire life of your Podcast if you’d like. The biggest thing you want to worry about are “annoyances” to your audience. Try to be in a quiet room with not too much echo (You can achieve that by throwing a blanket over your head. Seriously.) Try to have clear audio without any garbled words or hiss. Those are the things that people will notice. Don’t worry about the <1% that might notice you’re cording on a Neumann microphone.
4. Worrying About the Length
Remember how I said content is what matters most? That applies to all sorts of things. One of the most common questions I get when consulting someone is “How long should my Podcast be?” It’s a reasonable question to ask and it seems like something you should be very concerned with. My typical response is the potentially flippant “How long is a piece of string?”
However long you need it to be.
The time should match the content and not the other way around. I can’t tell you what the perfect time is because I listen to Podcasts that range from 20 minutes to six hours. I enjoy them all equally. The most important thing is making good use of that time and not feeling like you’re trying to artificially stretch to reach some arbitrary length.
That being said, people have found success by benchmarking to some common unit of time based on how they would like their show to fit into a listener’s life. Think about things people do on a daily basis when they might want to listen to your show. Are you giving a news roundup? Maybe think about breakfast time or a typical commute. Business advice? Could be nice listening during a lunch break. You can think about these things and plan for them, but don’t feel you’re beholden to them unless you’ve told your audience that you are sticking to certain parameters.
5. Winging It
You’ve got it all in your head, right? People love hearing you speak and tell stories, so what’s the big deal in just opening up the mic and letting it rip.
Well, I’ve seen it work. And I’ve seen it fail miserably. No one has ever been burned by planning some things out. This applies to both the short and the long term. Go into your episode with a plan for the topics you want to cover. Bullet points can be enough. Also, look down the road and try to figure out just how much ground you can really cover. Only have enough for a few episodes? You might want to hold off getting started until you can see a few months down the road. Speaking extemporaneously can give you that casual feel you’re striving for, but the pressure of trying to come up with a topic on the fly can lead you to forgetting something important until it’s too late.
