8 Steps to Create a Successful Podcast
I recently had the opportunity to create and brand a podcast for one of my clients. It was an interesting experience, and not as easy as one might think. Creating a successful podcast goes way beyond recording your voice and your thoughts on a subject. There are a number of things that you can do in addition to recording your voice that can help it get approved and noticed by Itunes. Below are the steps one needs to take to create a podcast that will not only be good, but be noticed by Itunes and put in their “new and notable” podcast list.
Step I: Record audio/video.
You can record your podcast using whatever recording software your prefer. I have come to use Mac’s Garage Band, but PC users can use software such a Camtasia Studio or even GotoMeeting/GotoWebinar’s recording option. Just note that to submit your podcast, it needs to be in an .m4a, .mp3, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, or .pdf. format. (I am still unsure who would post a podcast in PDF?). Audio and Video formats are the most common types of podcast.
Make sure you pay careful attention to what you record for your podcast. Avoid expletive and sexual or crude comments. Your episodes need to be politically correct and ready for the mainstream world. Itunes will more than likely reject anything that is inappropriate.
Make sure what you are recording is valuable to your target market. Make your podcast a lesson, give back to your audience by sharing something that is both interesting and useful. Otherwise, why would anyone want to listen?
Also, keep the length of your podcast in mind. A seasoned speaker and friend, Don Farrell, gave me the golden rule for presentation length. Whatever the average age is of the audience, is the gauge for how long you should speak (i.e. an audience of 30 somethings should have a presentation of about 30 minutes). Anything longer, you risk losing their attention.
Step II: Create an interesting opener and close.
I have listened to many podcasts and find one common trait in all of them. They all have an interesting opener or jingle. No, the jingle is not what keeps me coming back. What keeps me coming back is that the producer of that podcast takes the time to give attention to details. Their intro is the first thing you hear when you open a podcast. It sets the tone. If it starts with a witty comment or a bit of humor, I know that I am in for a light and interesting podcast. I am not sure about others, but that is something that attracts me. Plain and monotone don’t ring my bell.
And don’t neglect the closing. There is nothing worse than listening to a podcast and not getting some form of closure. Continue with your original jingle, a preview of the next episode topic, or provide information on where someone could get more information: a website, email, phone number, etc.
Step III: Gather needed podcast information.
Before you submit your podcast for review, you must gather podcast related information. You start with an image for your podcast that will act as the thumbnail in any Itunes searches. This image needs to be 600×600, attractive to the eye, and distinctly visible when in a thumbnail form. That means, no small tag lines. They will get lost. It is best to just focus on one large logo. Search existing podcasts to get a feel for what I am talking about.
You will also need to gather basic information such as Podcast title, author, website link, contact email address, and summary of what this podcast will showcase (topics, frequency of podcast, etc.). In addition, some not-so-basic information will be needed such as key tags to help index your podcast for searching. These tags should be key words related to podcast. For example, if your podcast is about internet marketing, some key tags could include marketing, social media, webinars, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Don’t forget to include the author’s name in the key tags and any common misspellings. BUT…don’t also go overboard. Itunes only looks at the first 12 key tags given.
Step IV: Upload your podcast file, create an RSS feed/XML file.
Ok, this is where I got confused and had to enlist the help of an web expert (my hubby). This is also probably the stopping point to most people interested in creating a podcast because it requires a little extra knowledge of the web (could be a good thing or else every yahoo would have a podcast). But no fear, here is my dumbed-down solution. Note: Yahoos, don’t read any further.
Itunes does not host your podcast file. Think of Itunes as Google. You tell Itunes you have a podcast available. If someone searches for your podcast or a key tag of your podcast, Itunes acts as an information provider and provides them your podcast link so they can listen/view it. Because of this, you must host the media file yourself. You can choose to host it on your website server or use an outside provider. I recommend Amazon Simple Server. Cheap and has tons of room for storage.
Once you have uploaded the podcast audio/video file to your server, you need to create an RSS Feed/XML file for the podcast and upload that file to your server as well. Itunes actually provides some sample code for you to work with:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<rss xmlns:itunes=”http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd” version=”2.0″>
<channel>
<title>All About Everything</title>
<link>http://www.example.com/podcasts/everything/index.html</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>℗ & © 2005 John Doe & Family</copyright>
<itunes:subtitle>A show about everything</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:author>John Doe</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>All About Everything is a show about everything. Each week we dive into any subject known to man and talk about it as much as we can. Look for our Podcast in the iTunes Store</itunes:summary>
<description>All About Everything is a show about everything. Each week we dive into any subject known to man and talk about it as much as we can. Look for our Podcast in the iTunes Store</description>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>John Doe</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>john.doe@example.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:image href=”http://example.com/podcasts/everything/AllAboutEverything.jpg” />
<itunes:category text=”Technology”>
<itunes:category text=”Gadgets”/>
</itunes:category>
<itunes:category text=”TV & Film”/>
This RSS Feed/XML file does not contain the audio/video file. Its sole purpose is to tell Itunes where the file is on your server and any additional information about it.
I also recommend testing this RSS/XML link after it has been set-up. If it fails, Itunes will automatically reject it.
Step V: Keep track of your subscribers.
Itunes does not allow you to view how many subscribers or unsubscribers you have to your podcast. However, you can monitor your RSS/XML feed by using a monitoring service such as Feedburner or Google Analytics. Simply submit the RSS/XML URL to Feedburner and they will provide you a new link that you can use to keep track of how many people download your podcast.
It is key to monitor your podcast subscriptions. It will not only help you see if your topics are on key with your target market, but give you quantifiable feedback of your podcast as a whole.
Step VI: Submit Podcast to Itunes.
Once you have a URL (from Feedburner) for your RSS/XML file you simply submit it to Itunes for review. It may take a few days for you to hear back, but they will email you once they have reviewed it and approved it. After it is approved, you still have to wait a few days for them to index the podcast for search, so don’t expect to go to Itunes right away, do a search and locate it. Try back in three days or so. Note: You have to have an Itunes account to submit and associate your podcast with.
Step VII: Submit more episodes and keep updated.
Don’t expect to have your podcast listed in the Itunes “new and notable” list after you have submitted your first podcast. Itunes actually closely monitors episodes and keeps an eye on interesting and innovative podcasts. Until you have about three quality episodes, Itunes really doesn’t promote your podcast much. They key is to continuously and regularly submit interesting podcast episodes. If your content is good and you do all the RSS/XML work correctly, you are on your way to being spotlighted by Itunes.
To submit an additional episode, simply upload the new podcast file to your server and add an item to you XML file with all the episode specific information like you did when you created your original XML file. Itunes reads all the XML files every 24 hours so there may be some delay in getting the new episode on Itunes.
Step VIII: Promote your podcast.
Once your podcast is up and running, promote the heck out of it! You want as many subscribers as possible. Having a number of subscribers also adds to your podcasts’ popularity which will create a snowball effect, increasing the probability that others doing related podcast searches will also subscribe to yours.
For more detailed information on setting up a Podcast, visit Apple’s Itunes page on podcasts. Hope to hear you all (not the Yahoos) soon on Itunes!
