5 Easy Steps to Get Started Podcasting This Year

Welcome to maximize your social actionable advice on how your business can maximize your social media presence. Now, the host of maximize your social, social media author, speaker, consultant, and founder of maximize social business, Neal Schaffer. Hey, this is Neal Schaffer, welcome to another episode of maximize your social excuse the background noise. I'm actually in my local Irvine, California at a Japanese supermarket called mitsuwa. Specifically in the food court enjoying a bowl of ramen with two of my friends from social media, both Californians, Albert Chen, say, hi, Albert. Hey, everyone, you don't need to speak in a loud voice over just one, my first point of podcasts and advice. There's gonna be some distortion on that, but no big deal. And I am also here with Debbie Miller, who you should know because you're an avid reader and maximize social business, as you know, our social hospitality contributor and founder of social hospitality.com. Debbie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Awesome. That was the proper sound, proper volume. So the reason I'm doing this podcast and the theme for today is about podcasting. Every year, you read these prediction posts for the new year, this is going to be the new year of mobile, that's going to be the video and there's always people that say this is going to be the year of podcasting. Now, those of you who have fallen maximize your social, I think this is gonna be like the 43rd episode, believe it or not know that I started this podcast in 2013. And as I reflect on my New Media Expo panel at BlogWorld, this weekend in Las Vegas audiobooks and audio recording, I wanted to give you all some advice on podcasting. Why would you want a podcast? How would you get started and how to become an effective podcaster. So with that in mind, I was gonna have Albert and Debbie who we were having lunch conversation, and they said, Hey, tell us more about podcasting. So I'm like, You know what, I'm gonna record it just to show you how easy it is to become a podcaster. And to share doing a podcast about podcasting, that's right over today, and just sharing what you know the world, which is what content creation really is about. So I'm gonna start with each of you, and I'm gonna have each you introduce yourselves as well, I sort of introduced Debbie I didn't give Alberta's fair introduction. But I'm going to start with please talk about yourself for 30 seconds. And by the way these podcasts are normally I keep mine on like 10 or 11 minutes, I try to keep it really short and sweet and powerful. So a brief introduction about you, promote yourself, and then tell me about your feelings about why you want to start podcasting.

So my name is Albert, I am a social media marketer based out of Silicon Valley. I am the author of a book called The social media ecosystem. And I've been working in social media for about the last, I would say this is your five. So you know, I'm interested in podcasting, because I think it's another great avenue to reach my audience and you know, build more content. And a lot of people don't like to read these days, they'd rather listen. And so I want to give my future audiences here and the ability to consume what I have to say in a different way.

Awesome, Albert, thank His last name is Chen, by the way Q I am, if you're looking for him on the internet, and Albert, just to clarify, you currently are a blogger yourself how often I won't say how often do you blog every week? Because not all of us blog weekly, but how many posts Did you publish in 2013?

You know, I can't really say I have an extra actual number on that.

Because there were 1020. Let's go with

30. Yeah, let's go with 30.

Okay, so here you have someone who this would average one blog post every two weeks, who wants to get into podcasting to reach a new audience? Debbie, I'm gonna hand it over to you now.

3133, I'm kind of in a very similar boat to Albert, I also blogged probably on average about once a week on my social hospitality blog. And basically what I was said, I want to reach a new audience, I want to kind of, I think it's a different experience listening to someone speak versus reading what they write on paper. So I think reaching an audience in that way kind of adds a more intimate connection. There's also like, we're seeing ways to reach new audiences on youth on iTunes and the various other audible platforms that have a different audience than necessarily just people who read the blogs.

Okay, so social media is about being where your audience is. And there's some audience that a blog post just doesn't reach which an audio format can reach right. But what about video video is another way of reaching a new audience and being intimate. Why are you deciding to podcast rather than video blog, Albert?

Well, I would say because I don't have to dress myself up to look as good. It's just my voice. As long as I'm not having a sore throat. I think things are good. At least that's one of the reasons.

Yeah, it's why I'm actually dressed in a T shirt, jeans and sandals, and very rarely will you see any public photos of me in this sort of outfit unless I'm wearing swag, of course, which I am today with from Marketo. But anyway, that's another story. Debbie?

Very, very similar to answer to Albert, again, I think it's doing a video takes much more planning and preparation and much more time. Whereas podcasting even was today's an example. You just whipped out your little recorder and we were able to start podcasting right away. So very little preparation, very easy to do very easy to put on the computer and take care of.

Now the funny thing is a lot of like really professional video bloggers will say hey, it's the same thing with video. You don't need to have a lot of preparation. There's probably a Zen of video blogging that once you know it, it's very, very easy, but there's still the fact that you are on camera. And so you need to have a certain type of camera a certain type of environment certain type of lighting. Oh number 33 is ready. Okay. I Really hope you don't hear a lot of this background noise. But if you do, Hey, I like to keep my podcast down and dirty. And this is another example. Okay, so we have an interest in podcasts, it's about reaching a new audience, and maybe your company should start to. I guess the next question. Let me ask you, we met today for a lot of reasons. One of them is you want to know more about podcasting, the question that came out of today's conversation, tell me what your biggest podcasting question is. And I'll respond to it. And we'll continue the conversation. I'm going to go in reverse now just to mix it up and start with Debbie.

So I've been doing a lot of research online about different podcasting equipment and the types of things that you need to do podcasts. And I've been looking on Amazon. And I noticed there's like podcasting bundles that sell like a microphone and various components, do you recommend getting something like that? Or do you recommend something a little more small and easy to maneuver?

Okay, that's great question from Debbie. I'm gonna ask Albert for his question, then I'm gonna respond to both of them. Because Albert may have the same question. Although I think it may be different, by the way, he's looking at me.

So I would say I already have the equipment. And my question is, where do you put your podcast once you've recorded it? And where would you put it online? And what is the process of creating a podcast in your terms from beginning to end to distribution?

Okay, so two great questions. And this, answering these two questions was probably in all essence, the podcast, but it'll answer the two key questions. So first of all, how do you get started equipment rise, and I think a lot of people overdo it. When it comes to podcasting. I literally started my podcast, I am a busy person, like everybody else in social media is and I do a lot of traveling. And I just cannot, it's the reason why I can't post a weekly Twitter chat. Although I'd love to have an MSP chat, maybe we'll have that MSP chat, I'd love to do a weekly Google Plus Hangout. And there are ways of doing that. But you need to be, you need to have a set time and place each day each week to do that. And I can't do that. On the other hand, I'm a speaker, I love to speak. And I often have ideas in my head that I don't have time to blog about. So for me, podcasting, at least recording my voice into a microphone is a lot quicker. So I started looking at equipment that go you know what, my mother in law who's Japanese, everyone knows, you should know that my wife is Japanese. She wanted me to translate. She studied English at like a senior citizens University. She wanted me to translate this story. But not she didn't want me to trust you wanted me to pronunciate what correct English pronunciation would be for the story for a event? She was doing something like how am I going to do that. And then I thought, You know what, there's something in an iPhone kind of Voice app, I recorded basically a recording of my voice for each chapter. And then I would stop it. And I had literally all 16 chapters were 16 different files. And then I realized that I filmed the Voice app, I could then forward that overturn directly via email. So I did that, right. And I also realized that iPhone has a limitation of eight minutes, as maximum amount of audio that you can actually forward over via email. So that got me thinking, wow, I want to do a podcast, I'm gonna start doing it on my iPhone. It's a device that's always with me right now, those you know me know that I moved on to a Samsung Galaxy S four, you don't have the eight minute limitation anymore, which is awesome. So I've been doing that. But then I realized that any smartphone has a battery issue, I want to have a separate device, which is why I have a separate device. So the answer to your question, Debbie is you don't need some high powered device to do it. Now. There's a lot of podcasters who invest money, they have their own, you know, environment and, and that's all awesome, but I think that intimidates a lot of people. And to get started, I'd say you can even use your iPhone, you don't even need to invest in anything more right. Now what I did do though, and I'm going to get onto in right now, I should say, if you've listened to the podcast in episode one, I'd say episodes one to 10, where my iPhone episodes 10 to 30, were my Galaxy S four episodes 30 to 40 were a different Sony device that I bought a really cheapo like a 30 or $40, one that I had issues with, because I had to like wire it or get an MD card, it just added more complexity. And then when I was in Japan recently, I found the Sony device which I've put a picture on my Facebook, if you're following me there, which has a USB extender like the Flip cameras did. So it just makes it easy. There's no excuses for not recording and immediately uploading right now. The challenge I had though was I wanted my we all have our own branding and social I wanted my podcast to sound professional. And I wanted my idea of a professional find, like analyzed a few different podcasts out there. They have an intro jingle, they have an outro jingle, they usually have music in the background, and then they have yourself speaking. So I wanted someone who could help me with an intro and outro and I have my own music. So I was in a band in Japan, we recorded two CDs. And the intro and outro music that you hear here is actually from my band, I'm playing drums if you didn't know that, but what I did was I reached out to a few people that were in podcasting. And I said, Hey, you know, I'm looking for someone that I can send my audio to on a weekly basis. And they can record an intro and outro because they probably have a better voice than I do. And they can mix it down and then just upload it and then I don't have to worry about it and actually found people I'm actually on my second person. And those are interesting. Contact me who actually every week and I'm gonna do the same with this. When I get home. I'm gonna send him this podcast. And literally the next day, you'll have a draft ready for me. And once I approve it, he'll upload it to various sites. He's actually the last guy I worked with was an FM radio DJ, current guy is actually an audio engineer who's also a musician in his own right and we started adjust with iTunes. He's like, Hey, have you heard of stitcher you should ask Beyond SoundCloud, and that's now at SoundCloud. I reach another audience and it's integrated with Facebook stitcher I reach and other audiences really interesting. And it goes from there. So I think having someone like that it requires a monthly expenses, not a lot of money, but it requires someone's time. That's the approach it I don't have the time, I just want to concentrate on the content. If you have a little bit more time, Debbie, you may want to do what you're doing, you may want to work with a GarageBand type of application and iTunes, or one of those, you know, or free app and mix it down. I didn't want to handle that. It's not my forte, right? So really, all you need is a recorder. And it could be as cheap as your smartphone or it could be a, you know, 50 to $100 device in all honesty. So what do I do after I record it? Well, that's my process. But I work with a professional. When I worked in China, my best sales guy when I had a sales office in Shanghai, he goes Neil, smart people, surround themselves and hire people that are smarter and smarter than them. Fantastic. They don't know, it's so true. So when, when there's a test that I have, that for a little bit of money can save me a lot of stress. And let me strategically concentrate on my own forte, I will do that big fan of that, right. And that's what I did with this person. So basically, I record the podcast, I skip to a weekly schedule a little bit crazy. At the end of the year, I wanted to get a lot in number 39. And what I do is I basically on my Google calendar every Friday, I say podcast, and literally 39. on that Friday, I think about what were the events I had over the week, what speaking events I did, what sort of conversations that I have in social What am I passionate about. And then I will say okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna podcast about that. And they just happen organically. I don't have a script. They just happen organically, like this conversation did. And I finish it, I go home, I put my USB on my computer, I upload it, it's a great application for the Mac called min box. It's a free app mi n VO X that allows you to send big files for free, I was using yousendit.com They were brought up by hightail they're not as good anymore. My inbox is awesome. Only available on Mac, not Windows people. So I use that. And then the next day basically when he's not busy, I get a draft and then I approve the draft in he'll sort of edit out the odds and us and, and the weird gaps in between. And then I give him the title, the description. And then within 24 hours, it's on iTunes. It's uploaded to a site called PodOmatic. So you can do it on your own WordPress blog using like Berber. There's a few different podcasts plugins, I went straight with a podcasting site called PodOmatic. There's a few ones out there. It's like a monthly or an annual fee. But it's made just for podcasters. And they have their own ways of you know, their own SEO and their own community there. So for me, PodOmatic seemed like the easiest one to do. And I did that. So he'll upload it to PodOmatic. And from PodOmatic, it creates the RSS feed, which then feeds into the iTunes into the Stitcher. And if you do it on your own website using Berber or the other podcast plugins, it's the same thing. you're uploading it to your web host. And then it generates an RSS feed, which is picked up by everybody else. And that's it. And then the hardest part for me is actually promoting the podcast, which I forget to do, because I have so much going on every day. But now with my people who've heard my last podcast in 2013, this is Go big or go home approach. When I have not published a blog post for the day, I'll go back into one of my podcasts and say, Hey, in case you missed it, here's my podcast. It's embeddable now. So and I just wrote a blog post on the power of audio based social media marketing, which you should all read on maximize social business, if you haven't, it becomes an embeddable thing, then, so I posted on all my social networks, I tried to embed it now in other social networks. And I also realized that if I'm going to have people subscribe to my podcast, I need something exclusive that my other networks don't have. So I always tell businesses, you need to have something that's Facebook is this Twitter exclusive Google Plus exclusive. The exclusivity for this podcast is I record these podcasts before I blog about the content. So if you listen to my podcasts, you get my content for a blog about it, because I create my blog posts after I record my podcast, because I do the art of podcast and speaking it helps me organize my own thoughts. And that's the way that I think. So we're, we're probably at like 15 minutes, here is my estimation. One of the downsides of the Sony IC recorder is it goes in order to save battery because it can go on like batteries for 100 hours, it actually turns off the screen. So you can't see how much you've recorded until you stopped it. I don't mind that. I'm used to it. But just and there's probably a button I can press I haven't read the user's manual. But hopefully that answered both of your questions as to how to get started. And once you do it, what's the process and then after that, this is the science, you're the artists, right? It comes down to your content, how you want to promote it, how you want to embed it, there are some people who write a blog post with each podcast, since maximize social business is my main blogging platform. But I also have a new blog, I maximize your Social, I'm trying to maybe blog about my podcast and maximize your social, but really stick to the podcast content. But then when I went broader thought leadership type of content, that's where I blog on maximize social business. And then I can bed the audio podcast for maybe a tangent of what I'm talking about. So there are different ways of using it. But yeah, it becomes a great resource. And I've had people connect with me on LinkedIn. Hey, I heard your podcast was really awesome. Will you connect with me here on LinkedIn? They're like, director of marketing for like a public utility in San Diego or, you know, really relevant people that have reached out to me just like when you start a blog, or when you video blog or on Google Plus or you have a book or an ebook People find you in various ways. And audio definitely is one of them. So I'm going to ask you to if you had any other and maybe if you have a follow up question, I'm more than happy to keep talking. And I'll go back and reverse. Now, Albert, you have any follow up? Does that make sense? It's actually really, really easy. The hardest part is just making time and figuring out what you're going to talk about. But if you meet a lot of people, and you do work in social, and you read a lot of blog posts, there's tons of stuff out there to talk about that, you know, to generate your own interest. Albert, I'm gonna any last thoughts here?

I guess I'm kind of overwhelmed by the amount of information you just laid down on me there. That was pretty good.

Albert, you know me, I'm all about overwhelming rather than underwhelming and everything I did. So I appreciate that comment. Debbie. Same here. I'm good. Thanks, Jason. That's it. That is the zen of podcasting. And none of you. All the excuses you had for not podcast in 2014 are done finished. Vinny. Wallah? GSU LA. Okay, I'm gonna stop there. Albert speaks Chinese so I get to practice my Chinese wisdom. That's it for today. Folks, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. As always, I appreciate your ratings and comments in iTunes. They mean a lot to me. If there's anything you want covered on the podcast, please let me know or anyone you want interviewed. And once again, please continue to subscribe to this podcast as well as check out all the great content and maximize social business. That's it wherever you're on the world. Make it a great day. Bye. Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to maximize your social. We appreciate your iTunes subscriptions, ratings and comments. If you would like to appear on the show or recommend content, please contact Neal Schaffer at Neal at maximize your social.com Thanks for listening and have a great day.