Crafting Evergreen Content: A Guide to Successful Podcasting (Episode 184)

[00:00:00] Welcome to the DIY video for professionals podcast. I'm your host Chris Schwager. And on this episode, we're talking about podcasts. That's right. It's talking about podcasts on a podcast. I commonly get asked, how do I start a podcast? Podcast. And I usually end with saying, well, why do you start a podcast?

[00:00:17] Why do you want to start a podcast? It's very trendy, of course, very trendy. Indeed. Lots of people doing it. Let's be wanting to do it. And a lots of people that do a couple of episodes and then give it up now. What's interesting about this is I've also had discussion with people that say, well, I did my six episodes, but that's all I wanted to do.

[00:00:34] And because it's evergreen content, it stays online. It stays up as a podcast for people to search. And at least people or businesses get a presence in the world of podcasts, I guess, notoriously used as a audio. However, if you're recording audio these days, you're usually recording video as well, which is what I'm doing right now.

[00:00:54] So in this episode, what I really want to do is just give you a bit of an insights as to how we started over four years ago. I think it was early 2020 in the middle of COVID. We decided to kick off and it's been a really great journey. We've loved Doing it. It's really great from a business development perspective.

[00:01:11] And it's also good to see the longevity of those episodes in an evergreen manner. So things that may have been two or three years old still get indexed and listened to. And as a result, some people still come through as inquiries because of it. So let's just quickly show you step by step how we started using an application called Buzzsprout.

[00:01:35] So if you go to buzzsprout. com, this is a platform that will enable you to upload your audio file, and then it will syndicate to all the major platforms like iTunes and Spotify are the two big ones, right? I think iTunes is still main player. In terms of the volume of people that are listening to the to episodes.

[00:01:58] However, Spotify is fastly approaching. And also I think Spotify has opened up to video. So you can actually go to Spotify, open up a podcast and actually watch the video in situ of listening to the audio, which is a great feature, but I don't know if Buzzsprout will actually allow you to upload video and be able to listen to it.

[00:02:18] Have it play as video on, on Spotify. That's kind of where my knowledge ends. I would say that you're probably going to have to find a way to Get it uploaded directly to Spotify. So Buzzsprout syndication platform, it doesn't just go to iTunes and Spotify. It goes to many, many others. So you can go and check those out and look, I'm just going to take you through a screen share of this.

[00:02:38] If you're in our learning portal on the Ridge Films website, you'll see how I'm just giving you a bit of an overview on how Buzzsprout works. Back in the day, our podcast was called Video Marketing Legend. That now that's not. The case anymore, we've gone and changed it, but you can see it's pretty straightforward.

[00:02:55] The interface is pretty straightforward. Now you've got to set this up, this initial channel listing. So you're the title of the channel and a description of the channel. And that would be fairly straightforward. Once you log in. And I believe this is a really affordable platform as well. I think back in the day it was probably like 12 bucks a month.

[00:03:14] So really not that expensive at all. And I think what's really good is when we looked at, when we started using Buzzsprout, it was such a great solution because prior to that, and I think like literally only a year before really the only way that you could do a podcast is to actually You know, upload it directly to iTunes.

[00:03:34] And so you had to go to every individual platform and upload it. And it was just fully taxing. It just sort of turned us off podcasting for a long time, but then Buzzsprout just made it a hell of a lot easier. So look under your episodes, you go to your. Here it is, right? Drag a new episode and drag your audio straight into here, right?

[00:03:53] And then it'll just upload. Now, as it's doing that, you can go and have a look at other things within the podcast platform, such as embedding the widgets like I've got here directly into, say, a website. I'm using the code. That's really cool. That's really wise. I would recommend you do that. So once you've actually, you know, submitted your podcast, you want to go and grab that code and go and re publish it into your blog and, and other areas of your site.

[00:04:22] For instance, if we have a look at website, these are the links that are generated that again, help you share and embed these. You can select your your color scheme and whatnot artwork that you'll need as well so that it. comes up. I mean, let me just show you sort of roughly how it comes up as well.

[00:04:38] This is on iTunes. This is our current podcast here at the moment, our artwork on the left and also the you know, the title of each podcast and the description of each podcast, which I would say is not to be underestimated. You know, it's a lot of work that goes into That this is how it presents itself on Spotify.

[00:04:56] I mean, I really only focus on these two platforms because they are really the [00:05:00] main ones. I mean, I listened to all of my music on Spotify except I've been kind of dragging along on iTunes for a long time, still subscribed to many episodes and many different podcasts on iTunes, but I've really just, I'm really kind of on a mission now to, to migrate that over to Spotify.

[00:05:18] So Spotify becomes just really my one stop shop for all my music and podcasts as well. And look, most good podcasts are at least on those main platforms. There are a whole bunch of podcast platforms out there. However, It's not really worth worrying about that. They have such low volume of plays that, you know, these are the two big hero ones.

[00:05:43] And we know this from the data as well. Like one good thing with, you know, buzzsprout and, and any other sort of syndication style platform is it just, it does give you all the data of like, who's watching from what device, from where in the world, you know, I know that like half of our audience. On the DIY video for professionals podcast is in the US, you know and so that's really great Intel and it helps us, you know, tailor the content as we see fit.

[00:06:09] You can see these are all the platforms that syndicates. You can monetize, which, you know, I don't know of any podcast that's actually monetizing, but you can go ahead and do that. And then this is where you'd put in your general information, podcast info, stats, gives you stats, episodes, and And all of your, yeah, this is where you'd find all your data as well.

[00:06:30] So it's really straightforward. And the reason why I'm not kind of taking you through bit by bit here, let me just go to this one here and see what happens. Oh yeah. Okay. So this gives you kind of a bit of a look at what the, what the episode might be titled your episode. It's so straightforward. I really, you know, I probably would say that This is not where your engineering will go and I think this is worth also making note of is lots of people that start a podcast think it's just about recording an episode and getting it up and our evolution really was started with.

[00:07:04] Us just on the DIY desktop studio, just with the overhead microphone for the first year. And we're doing all of our podcasts virtually from a platform called StreamYard and recording it all in StreamYard. And that was fine. And then once we recorded it in StreamYard, then we were going. Move it across and take it into Buzzsprout.

[00:07:23] And then Buzzsprout would then publish, host, host the web the podcast and off it goes, right. But it's just all of the other details I think is worth really mentioning here. Like if you want to edit your show, then you've got to think about, all right, music, you've got to think about your mid rolls and your intros and your outros, how they look, how you format the actual podcast itself.

[00:07:45] Is it just you talking or is it. a group of you, or are you interviewing people? These are all the considerations that need to be made as you, as you develop the show. How do you get a finished? How do you even start? I mean, that's the thing, right? So the reason you're hearing this podcast so clearly is because we've incorporated this.

[00:08:05] If you're on our YouTube channel, go and have a look at the quality that comes out of what we call the desktop video studio and allows professionals, just like an ability to have. camera, sound, lights, teleprompter, all at a single switch of a button and all at the convenience of your desk. Let's have a listen to a couple of happy clients who are using this system.

[00:08:27] Get people that come to my masterclasses and the first thing they do is they go, wow, and they know I'm here to get good value. It has saved me a day, a month. I now use video more because it's just easier to do. The equipment, It's just incredible. It's easy. You're ready to go. Being able to come in here, turn it on and look down the barrel.

[00:08:45] It's just so good. I can take a little bit more time with the delivery because there is no setup. Coming across more professionally. Gotta have a look at it. You are getting massive value. Oh my God, I'm like wishing that all these years I would have saved myself time. It's just so much better. It was such a great investment.

[00:08:59] I can shoot videos like that. You can switch it on, do a really fast message within two minutes. Having the best tools has taken my business to the next level. If you want more information on how And how you can do this for yourself, go to ridgefilms. com. au slash DIY. If you're interviewing someone, how do you actually start that process of grabbing an interviewee?

[00:09:20] What is the, say, the email correspondence that you need to generate? So these are all the things that I didn't really know. I didn't really care about it. I just wanted to kind of get a show up. But then as I Time evolved. I know that it needed really a lot of process building around these other areas for it to run streamline and for me to be able to step away and just really focus on the podcast recording itself.

[00:09:46] The. Interview for instance, and then just been able to shut it down and walk away. If you can get your podcast to that level, I think that's a really great goal to have. So what people in your team are going to support you through this [00:10:00] process? Are they going to be able to appoint the right person to interview?

[00:10:04] Do they have a whole sequence of say email correspondence and whatnot to be able to facilitate that booking in the show? Briefing them on the tech requirements, perhaps even a pre production meeting to make sure that they are equipped for the show. And they know that they're going to, they're there to turn on time, turn up on time and what the genre or the questions that are going to be asked throughout the episode.

[00:10:28] So that's kind of one element, right? When you think of it as not even the show, that's like the preamble to it, right? It's getting prepared. Then once the, say two parties get involved in the episode and start recording the episode, then it's. About structure of that episode as well like what is the interviewer or the podcast host know about structure of content now I've gone full circle with structure of content I started with you know pretty much no structure you know start middle and end pretty basic stuff and then I over engineered it where our.

[00:11:00] Script writer Christine at the time was formulating all the questions and getting everything very sterile. I suppose I realized throughout that journey that it was very sterile. It was like question, answer, question, answer. Now it's like F bombs all the way through. I'm having a great time. I'm enjoying it myself.

[00:11:19] It's very relaxed and I. Kind of look forward to basically putting these shows together because I know it's an opportunity just to just converse with these people. And if they're the right person, they're in the right, you know, they're in the right you know, demographic of who we're looking for. It's a really interesting chat because you do legitimately get to know their business and they get to know yours.

[00:11:39] And then the downstream cross marketing of these episodes as well as really, really valuable because your, you know, you both end up on a show, which is really. Really, really exciting. So that aside, so structuring the episode itself, then after that, it's rudder, well, what do we do with the episode? So the edit, as I said, the mid rolls, the, all of the, I guess the editing of the content, not to be underestimated, but the amount of podcasts that I listened to that are like got this really hot, nice sounding sting at the start, introducing, you know, 30 seconds, 60 seconds introducing the podcast.

[00:12:18] And it's nice and loud. It's very audible. It's very clean. And then it cuts to the podcast itself. And the host is like, you can't hear him. It's like the amount of shows that are just so poorly produced. It's phenomenal actually. And in one regard, it's highly economical, that somebody can literally just record their show and then just dump it to an editor and go, there you go, you figure it out.

[00:12:44] On the other hand, there's some basics that any post production or edit podcast producer should know. And that is, you know, just get those levels, much like a radio thing. Like just get the levels up, get them all normalized so that it's nice and loud and audible for somebody. Sitting in their car. They've got to be able to hear that.

[00:13:04] They can't be hearing a really hot, nice intro and then cut to the show. And then all of a sudden it's so quiet that they've got to crank up their car stereo or, you know, I've heard so many situations where the host is nice and loud, the interviewee, you can barely hear, you know, it's just such a simple thing to, to get right.

[00:13:23] A lot of people probably don't understand the world of audio. Therefore they, then they don't understand that there is actually a solution for all that. That's something that if you have one on one coaching with me, I'll straighten it out for you. I'll give you the process and it's done. You know, it's a couple of knobs, you know, a couple of filters it's done, you know, it's, and it makes such a massive difference.

[00:13:42] And this is what you're hearing from me at the moment as well. This normalization of the audio. It's nice and loud. It's really punchy and loud. And. It means that no matter where you're listening to this, whether it's on your car stereo or headphones while you're working out at the park or whatever, it should all be really clean and really audible and, you know, noise free as well.

[00:14:06] I think that's the other thing to consider. You know, when you've got noise or it's poorly recorded audio, there's a lot of distractions that can get in the way. You know, you might've heard one just earlier. Well actually my wife came in and out of the studio and I kind of ignored it at the time, but you might hear a little door open and slow.

[00:14:22] I mean, you know, you got to kind of roll with those. If it's overly important that everything is pristine and clean, then yeah, you got to edit it out or you got to stop and wait for those things to happen. A plane goes over, stop and wait for the plane to go over. So anyway, I'm kind of digressing there.

[00:14:38] You've got the, you've, you've got the, the show produced, right? The editor's done their job. Looks good. It's all approved, right? That means you've got pretty much an MP3 file that you're ready to upload to Buzzsprout, right? Now the, that's the fast part, right? It's having the actual file itself and uploading, right?

[00:14:56] But when you get there, you, It's really going to require you [00:15:00] to fill in the episode artwork. This is the thing, the episode artwork, the title and description. Now you can be kind of carefree about that and put whatever you want up there. Of course you can do that, right? But what you're really looking for is You need that title to be click baitable, right?

[00:15:17] It needs to be interesting. It needs to beg curiosity. You want to entice people to listen. Right? So the more engineering, and I say this is one of the most difficult things to get right, not just podcast titles, but titles in general. Oh man, it is a lot of hard work. To, to get something that's really, really interesting, short, sharp, to the point.

[00:15:38] And it's just like, you can't ignore it. You know what I mean? That is, that is tricky. You know, I would suggest ChatGPT to support you through it. And I would also suggest that when you have created your audio file, that you upload it to something like Descript. Now Descript will transcode that file for you.

[00:15:57] And it will allow a full transcript of the of the episode. And then once you've got the transcript, so the text base of the file, then you can upload that to ChatGPT and ask for it to simplify or summarize the content of the transcript. And then that way you can kind of work your way down to a nice description and a really catchy title for your episode.

[00:16:21] And then really, once you've done that, then you can input that into Buzzsprout as your title and description, and then publish, and you can publish to all of the episodes, or sorry, all the hosting platform, not hosting platform, syndication platforms, Spotify, iTunes, et cetera, that you have selected. And that's it.

[00:16:41] Walk away, go check out Spotify and there you'll be appearing on those platforms. There may be a startup period where it might require some sort of approval at the start. I don't know, but be prepared for that. Otherwise from memory, it's quite quick. You know, it's, it's up and syndicated really, really quickly.

[00:17:00] That's it, baby, you're on your way. You've just generated a podcast, right? And now it's a time to repeat that process. And I think it is a process, right? As I mentioned, you want to try and keep going, repeat, repeat, repeat, right? So the more frequent you can do this initially, the more you'll be able to commit it to muscle memory.

[00:17:21] I would say document this process just to make it easier. If there's multiple parties involved in this process, you definitely want. Everybody to share the load, you know, so you're gonna have people looking for interviewees, you know, people formulating scripts, you know, people editing the podcast and people publishing that and promoting the podcast.

[00:17:42] And that's another thing, like a lot of people think that once the pub. The podcast is public and it's live and it's on iTunes that immediately people are going to flock to it. Right. And like all marketing needs to be marketed. Right. So you need to be able to get this out to the world and let them know that you've created this kick ass episode and this new podcast.

[00:18:04] You have to keep. Your finger on the pulse. You have to keep promoting it. Okay. So with those embed codes, I was showing you earlier, they perhaps might be where you might be able to put those into your blog posts and then promote the blog post. You might be able to promote the link. The audio directly from Spotify or iTunes on across your favorite social media platforms.

[00:18:30] And because you've recorded your audio on a, on a desktop studio and you record your video as well, then you can take those clips and those snippets and you can also Turn those into little audiograms or video recordings so that you can cross promote to your social media channels with little snippets of gold that entice people to subscribe to your channel.

[00:18:52] Now, I've got to say, I'm a massive fan of audio. I was converted probably four or five years ago when I heard Gary Vaynerchuk talking about just this concept of consuming in such a different way. People are so reliant on video and I believe in video a hundred percent, but it still takes you. away from doing other things.

[00:19:10] You need to be visually watching a video to, to consume it in most cases, right? Whereas audio is audio. You, it requires you just to listen. You don't need to pay attention to your iPhone or to, to the computer at all. And for that reason, I think there's a lot of leverage that audio only can give your audience.

[00:19:29] Now I would say again, back to my point, recording video and audio is the best way to go. You're going to have those, Raw video and audio files that you can also share with recipients on your show. I think that's a really great basics, sort of like, thank you almost for coming on the show. Hey, here's the raw footage, please go and send it to your editors and, and snip it up how you see fit and promote us as we're promoting you.

[00:19:57] And I think that's a really great tactic. I [00:20:00] also heard years ago that. Podcast being a really good opportunity to invite people that you're trying to attract on your show. So inviting CEOs and people of larger companies to come on the show for the purposes of, you know, providing valuable information for the audience, but also an opportunity for you to do a bit of a meet and greet with yourself and, and promote your own offering.

[00:20:21] Just be there, just a foot in the door, again, is a great tactic. As mentioned, we do it with a lot of our DIY clients. We invite them on the show, not only just to talk about the, to convey the, the benefits, features, and value of the product. The DIY video program and the premium desktop studio, but also to talk about other things.

[00:20:42] Like I've talked about all sorts of stuff. I've been quite broad in the way that we communicate our, our podcasts. I talk about parenting. I talk about bloody near death experiences. You get a, Ask yourself, are you satisfied with the way that you're presenting yourself and your personal brand to your market?

[00:21:02] And for four years now, people have been really struggling to clarify the way they look and sound on camera when it comes to doing video calls and recording their own personalized videos. And there is a solution. The DIY Video Program helps you personalize sales video and emails, record professional marketing videos, Look and sound amazing in every video meeting without the tech hassles and you also get professional video editing practical training so that you can present like a pro you don't have to do anything in that initial setup because the studio is installed for you you get your coaching and training so that you can then go on and be a video professional and wipe out poor quality videos forever.

[00:21:43] Why don't you go to ridgefilms. com. au slash diy and check it out for yourself. That's been a bit of a journey for me. As understanding, well, if it's DIY video for professionals, what is the, you know, the premise of the show? I think people do want to hook into a particular show with a central theme. And I think that's important also just to recognize, is your show Directed at a particular target market with a particular topic.

[00:22:14] And if so, I think you're on the right track. I do believe that it's hard to sometimes niche down and stick to one particular topic week on week. But I think that can also be broken up with different ways that you can deliver those episodes. So for instance, I. Often go from interviewing say clients and then pretty much, pretty much like an ad, they just talk about the test of studio and how amazing it is.

[00:22:46] There's other times where I'll interview people outside. So I'll interview experts in their own field. just because I think it's interesting and it is relevant to, to the show. You know, for instance, I was talking with Heather Marano several months ago, who's an award submission client. And she was talking about awards and she's an awards agent, effectively submitting a business awards for, for her clients on their behalf and role video plays in that process.

[00:23:17] So I do try and kind of keep it video centric, but Often, I'll just get on and have a good old yarn and I'm happy with that as well. I'm just keeping in mind that I do believe that if An audience really wants to get on there and consume you and the show because of that centralized theme. And in this case it is video, it is video related stuff.

[00:23:44] So breaking up those episodes from interviews with others, from maybe a group chat that you might be having with, with several professionals. It might be just a five minute snip. Of good quality information. It might be an update, you know, it might be an offer, you know, there's different ways you can scan it.

[00:24:03] And I do believe in diversifying your information. So giving, you know, on one episode, you might go for an hour, on another episode, you might go for five minutes, just talking about, Hey, here's some frequently asked questions that might be useful for you. And I think that's interesting because even this morning when I was listening to.

[00:24:21] Lloyd Ross one of my mentors around investing and, I'd finished one episode while I was at the park and really I just wanted to fill in the gap between running from the from the park to home and I needed about 13 minutes to fill and of course I found an episode it was 12 minutes long and I listened to that and it got me from the park to home right but if every episode was an hour long I Probably wouldn't be consuming in the way, in the same way.

[00:24:52] Now that's a pretty eccentric approach. I mean, podcasts are great because you do get to pick up from where you left off, you know, so if you stop one, [00:25:00] one morning, you take your headphones off and you know, and, and finish the, the podcast. Stop the air, stop the episode, then you're likely just to pick it up from where you left off the next day, which is really, really handy.

[00:25:12] It's not really many platforms that allow you to do that easily. So that is one of the key benefits, you know, or you stop after you come back from listening from your exercise and you jump in the car and you pick it up in your car. So I do think that there's so many pros to it. And I will say as I wrap up this episode, and I know this has been overly long, but that's me, man.

[00:25:36] I love talking. That's why I love coming on this show. It's skin in the game. I think the longer you do it, the more you'll learn about the process, the more you'll be comfortable with speaking and presenting yourself. And I think that's really, really important for, particularly for our DIY video professional clients.

[00:25:59] And. It will pay off in the long run. I think it's always disconcerting in any marketing activity to know if it's working or not and. If you have the passion and the drive to do these podcasts, no matter whether you get busy or not, I think that's one of the key things. If you really, really love it and you really, really enjoy it, don't worry about whether it's working or not.

[00:26:25] Just do it because you love it, because you're getting experience from it and you are growing as a result. And because of that, it will be fun. It'll be interesting for your audience and People will consume you and love you and share and like and comment and do all those wonderful things that you want downstream.

[00:26:44] So if this podcast has been interesting for you, go ahead, like, share and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. It would mean the absolute world to me to know that this podcast is working for you. And of course DM me on any of the major social media channels, particularly LinkedIn, where I'll be able to answer any further questions for you around podcasting or DIY video for professionals.

[00:27:12] I look forward to seeing on the next episode and bye for now.