What is Podcast?
If you are wondering about what is podcast or what if you want to start up your career without investing any money as a freelancer and don’t know the exact area to work then podcast may refer as the best choice for you. It’s worth making a decision to be a podcaster. From the past few years this field is becoming popular around the world providing better earning opportunities to those who wants to work in the regarding field. The good aspect about starting your business with podcast is that you will have loyal, well-educated and affluent customers.
Let’s know about what the term podcasting actually means. If it is describes in the simplest words one may say that “podcast” is individual or series of digital audio files which are available for the user, so that he/she may download the file to listen. The audio files uploaded by a podcaster are available on the internet so the user may download it to his computer or mobile phone for the offline use. The files are in the form of series so the new audio files are automatically received by subscribers. Sometimes the podcast files are in other formats than the audio files and they may be PDF or EPUB. If a podcast model shares some video then it is called as video podcast, vlog or vodcast.
How much investment is required to start a podcast?
To take a start with the podcast in 2020 you don’t have to make any investment. You can be a good podcaster if you have a laptop (working device), reliable internet connection, microphone or earphone, audio editing software or app. If you want to spend some money to start your own online business then you may buy a good quality microphone as podcast is all about the audio. Rest you can earn good amount by giving your time and add your efforts skillfully.
How to Start a Podcast?
Once you have decided to work with the podcast then you need a clear and step-by-step guide to excel better in this field. In this article I will provide you all the basic information required to be a successful podcaster.
Identify the reason to make a podcast
First of all you have to ask yourself that why do you want to make a podcast either for a business, marketing purpose or for freelancing? After getting the answer to this you may be able to provide the useful and relevant content for entertaining your audience in the best possible way.
Identify your worthy audience and set your targeted field.
Next to identifying the reason to be podcast is describing your audience, that for whom you are making this podcast. Defining your audience can help you in producing more relevant and useful content and grab the huge crowd of people towards your podcast. While creating the content you should focus on what your audience will like or what they are most interested in. Try to give engaging content to listeners so that they may desire to listen more from you. More relevant is your content to the audience requirements, more happy they are by your work. You should give your audience reason to come back to you.
Give your podcast a name
A business with a good and unique name helps in catches the customers. It is important to give a suitable name which depicts the nature of your podcast and sounds good to customers. While naming your show you must keep it in mind that people must find the name of podcast when they search for the information regarding your show. Try to make it more relatable to the content of your show and describes what your podcast is actually about. Avoid using your own name as the title of your podcast and also don’t get too long or wordy title. Make a clear and descriptive choice of your business name.
Planning Podcast Episodes
After making the right decisions about your online business with podcast, it is the time to work with the content of your audio files. At first you should consider how long will be the length of episode. The short episodes are under the length of 15 minutes where long episodes are over an hour. The lengths of your episodes should be defined by your content or your audience. If you have a relevant content of 30 min in an episode then it is totally fine. From the survey you may get the idea if your audience likes listening to the short episodes or long episodes then you may decide the length of your each episode. You should stick to release a new episode on regular basis and it can be in the best case once in a week or fortnightly. Try to give a good and descriptive title to your episode. Define the format of podcast whether it will be solo show, the co-hosted show or the interview show.
Recording of podcast Episodes
You can simply use the mic of your earphone at the start instead of making heavy investment to buy a new good quality microphone. Now use your laptop to make recording. Use the audio editing software which is available on the internet like Audacity and many more. Before making a recording instead of having a well written speech on a paper, write the points in bullets which you have to cover in your show. The way of communication should be conversational like you are talking to each of your listener. In case you have remote guest or co-host you don’t have to meet them physically, this all can be done through skype. After recording edit your audio file for better quality and omit the mistakes and errors. In order to make your podcast entertaining add some background music, use the cover art to make it look more attractive.
Publishing the Podcast
After doing all this effort the main work is publishing your podcast. For this select some good podcast hosting website, have your account there and place your audio files at the provided platform. Now your Podcast is readily available to your audience and you can make money through it.
It is noted that if you are skillful and have the ability to speak in the mic and deliver useful content to the audience then you may earn money online in 2020 without making any initial investment.