50 Podcast Tips That Actually Work (In 22 Minutes)

[00:01] podcast, these 50 tips will save you months of trying to figure things out on your own. And the first tip is this, do not let perfectionism stop you from launching your show. Remember that your artwork and your title of your podcast

[00:14] and your show format, it's all going to evolve over time. You can always change to have the courage to hit record and start your podcast. The second tip is to make your podcast artwork really clear and readable on mobile devices because

[00:29] are going to discover your show just on their smartphone as they're scrolling Spotify or Apple podcast. So you want your album artwork to be nice and clear. An easy starting point for creating your album artwork is on a site like Canva.

[00:42] There's a lot of great templates and Canva is even free to start and there's that are really helpful to start you want it to be readable for mobile devices. Next, as you're trying to

[00:55] for for your episodes, like what should that optimal length be? Really, it just needs to be as long as it needs to be to deliver value to your listener. So these in length or all the way up to like three or four hours. Some of the most

[01:09] length, but it's a little bit harder to do at the beginning. So just ask yourself, how long does this episode need to be to deliver quality value to somewhere between 20 minutes and 30 minutes. That's totally a fine starting

[01:23] invest in a good microphone at the beginning of your show because audio comes to podcasting. But the good news is you don't have to break the bank to get a good microphone. One of my favorite options that I've ever used is

[01:37] the FIFINE AM8 and this is like a $50 or $60 microphone that even comes with a mic stand. So this is a great starter option. And also, I've actually tested 22 different podcast microphones. I'll link a video in the description where

[01:49] you can check out all of these different mics at different price points to figure you you want to invest in a decent microphone. Now this next tip also has don't want to be too far away from the microphone. So, a good rule of thumb is

[02:03] to be about one fist length away from your mouth to the microphone. So, the distance should be about one fist length. And if you have a guest who really loud and powerful, you could be about two fist lengths away, but you

[02:16] don't want to go much further than that. But also, you don't want to be like an sounding like a little bit crazy and a little like mouthy, like you can hear don't do that. Be about a fist length away, and that'll be a good distance.

[02:29] microphone to a different surface rather than the table that you're working from because that can sometimes increase like like you're touching the table or you're using your keyboard. Those can bleed

[02:42] kind of moving the table around. So, consider mounting your mic stand to a different surface like a side table. those vibrations. You also want to have a basic outline for your episode,

[02:55] especially outlining the hook or the first like 30 seconds or minute of your make the viewer or listener interested in what you actually have to say and should actually listen to the rest of this podcast. So, outlining your hook is

[03:11] really important. But our next tip is kind of the inverse of that. You also don't want to over script your episodes because podcasting is supposed to be conversational in nature. Don't have like a full-fledged script unless you're

[03:24] storytelling or artistic format that requires a script, then great. You can do that. But for most conversational podcasts where you're interviewing guests or delivering informational value, you don't want to over script

[03:36] mistakes throughout this whole process. Like even informationally, if you like like it's actually not the most true thing I've ever said, you can correct those things later episodes. So, don't be afraid to like just speak confidently

[03:50] if you can and do good research, but just know you're not always going to get mistakes. And the 10th tip as you're getting the foundation of your podcast going is to consider leveraging video podcasting, not just audio podcasting,

[04:03] because when you turn on a camera and record video, this turns your one recording session that you just did into multiple distribution opportunities. full-length YouTube video, as well as short-form social media clips that you

[04:16] can use for marketing your podcast rather than just the audio, which can only live on those audio platforms. That video footage can be leveraged in so many ways. So, if you've never done this before, our favorite and easiest way to

[04:28] get started with video podcasting is using Riverside, which is a great remote podcasting tool that we use here at Think Media to podcast between our team location. Now, our next set of tips have to do with like the tech of your

[04:41] technical aspect figured out if you've never done it before? Well, we're going to use Riverside to demo this because Riverside makes it really easy. So, tip number 11 is this. You want to record, if possible, separate audio and video

[04:54] tracks for better editing control because when you merge your audio and video files, sometimes it can be hard to like separate those and export them in hosting your podcast, you need your audio separated from your video when it

[05:07] different locations. So, what's great about Riverside is you don't even have inside of Riverside. If you're doing a video podcast, it's going to separate automatically for you to make distribution way easier. The next tip is

[05:21] to use headphones as often as you can when you're recording podcast, whether when you're recording podcast, whether you're solo or you have guests remotely or in person, because when you do this, you're able to catch issues in real time

[05:33] instead of discovering them in the editing phase of like, "Oh, no, my audio was way too loud or too quiet or all there's all this like hiss going on in you'll be able to catch those things a lot quicker. And what's great about

[05:45] Riverside is you can actually pair headphones right into your studio dashboard and listen to the conversation and hear everything in real time. Tip 13 is you do want to avoid compressed recording tools like Zoom. So when you

[05:58] record an episode in Zoom, the audio and video quality gets super compressed. And podcast, I see this all the time, the generic like Zoom screen window where it doesn't even fill the frame and the

[06:13] want to avoid these tools if at all possible because the quality, especially the audio experience of your podcast, is so important and even tools like Zoom really do compress audio. You also want to record in the highest quality that

[06:26] you possibly can. So you can record in 4K quality either internally to your camera or even Riverside allows you to record in up to 4K quality. And for audio, if you can record in the wave format, that's going to be a way more

[06:39] uncompressed audio file type than something like an MP3 file. So record in wave when you're able to and highest video resolution like 4K or at least 1080p. The next technical tip would be to actually edit your podcast because

[06:53] inevitably when you're podcasting or even right now recording this video, I'm space, there's words you say that are incorrect. But if you can edit your podcast, you can tighten it down a whole lot and remove some of those mistakes.

[07:06] So editing is great. Even within side Riverside, they have a built-in editor immediately bring it into post-production to start trimming things around, reordering the content or removing mistakes, which is really nice.

[07:19] Now you also want to clean up your audio a little bit and there's three main tools that I'd encourage you to look into if you've never edited audio before to try to clean it up and make it sound nicer. These three tools are EQ, which

[07:31] equalizes some of the frequencies and sort of removes the sounds that don't sound too pleasing. There's also compression, which is going to normalize really loud, it's going to bring those down a little bit, and where you talked

[07:45] really quiet, it's going to equalize and normalize those audio levels. And then finally, is noise reduction. So, inevitably, all of us have like noisy environments or like hiss or like a fan kicks on in the background that you want

[07:57] to remove, and you can add a subtle level of noise reduction to remove some of those unwanted sounds. So, for every podcast episode, you do want to apply and you can do all of this right there inside of Riverside or different

[08:10] softwares. Also, when editing, it can be helpful to use transcripts to edit even faster. And like inside of Riverside, it automatically generates really accurate captions for your episode that you can then use as a Word doc and edit like

[08:25] fascinating if you've never done this before, but you can like create new sentences and new structures by just like deleting words, and you edit more cool. If you've never edited before, it can be kind of confusing, but all of us

[08:38] know how to edit Word documents and outlines, and you can edit just like this using a transcript feature. You also should absolutely clip your podcast into short-form content because marketing your podcast via short-form

[08:51] best ways to grow your podcast. So, you can repurpose the long-form episodes that you shot horizontally for vertical formats. And what's cool about Riverside this right there for you. It automatically finds some of the best

[09:05] short-form moments for your episodes and turns them into vertical clips that you can then publish to social media, or you can even edit those clips even further to dial them in to your preference. Tip number 19 is to just remember to keep

[09:17] your setup as simple as possible. You don't want to overcomplicate your tech about Riverside is you just plug in a microphone and maybe a camera if you recording. There's not a whole lot more to it, and the simplicity of using a

[09:30] software like Riverside to record your first episodes really is so helpful. And our last tech and workflow sort of tip is to use the one recording that you just created to also create multiple assets, not just like social clips, but

[09:44] even further from that would be like emails where you could use your episode Riverside can create those descriptions for you. You could use those as lead magnets to blast out to your email list to then drive traffic to the long-form

[09:59] other tools where it can summarize episodes into social media captions or that tech at the beginning can be overwhelming and confusing, which is why we like a simple software like Riverside, which really consolidates

[10:14] really cool. So, if you want to try it out, you can click the link in the description below and use code Think Media when you sign up to get one month free of their pro plan. Okay, let's shift gears to content a little bit. How

[10:26] do we make episodes that people actually enjoy? Well, tip 21 is this. You want to So, for every episode, you want to do good research. You want to come up with questions. And, as we said earlier, a rough outline and structure. And these

[10:39] between a halfway decent episode and a great episode that is story-driven and phrase we often say here at Think Media is if you fail to plan, you will plan to

[10:51] you can for your episodes at the beginning. Tip 22 is to just lean into your personality and your uniqueness. This is going to be your competitive advantage and your unique selling point of your specific podcast. So, don't try

[11:04] to just make yourself feel like podcast. Lean into your personality and that's going to help a ton. Tip 23 is to create strong hooks. And I mentioned this a again, hooks are what are going to cause your viewer to want to stick around for

[11:17] the entirety of the episode. So, hooks are so vitally important, not just for you've heard about hooks before, but also in podcast episodes. You want to seconds of your episode. It's also awesome to use pattern interrupts to

[11:31] help just change the pace or the tone or the format of your episode mid-episode or at different checkpoints rather than just like having the same exact format and tone for 71 minutes. It's like it can get a little bit exhausting. So, as

[11:45] asking questions, kind of vary your cadence or tone or do like a super fun question and then a little bit more serious or intimate question can help Tip 25 is if you're hosting a podcast and you have a guest come on, don't be

[12:00] afraid to go deeper and ask follow-up questions. If your guest is like giving really passionate about, you can always dig into that further with follow-up interested is yourself as like the host, your audience will probably be

[12:14] interested as well. So, don't be afraid. Podcasting is the space where you can go deeper. Tip 26 is to make your guest feel as comfortable as you can before send them your questions in advance to just help pre-vet them and help them get

[12:27] you'll ask. But once it comes to actually recording your episode, whether you're remote or in person, the time before the podcast actually is recording your guest, get to know them a little bit better if you don't know them

[12:40] little more comfortable before you start recording because comfortable guests give the best answers. So, make your guest as comfortable as possible. Our next tip in terms of content is you don't want to over-edit every small

[12:53] imperfection because some people want to get so tight with their editing and remove every single mistake, but at that point it feels kind of unnatural. And natural conversation is taking place. So, there will be some odd moments or

[13:07] ums or dead space and sometimes that is okay. So, you don't want to edit out everything or it feels a little stale. Tip 28 is a lot of us actually make like listicle style videos and even this video is like 50 podcasting tips. And if

[13:19] you have a concept for an episode that's like listicle, like five tips for creating better sounding podcast, you can actually try to wrap those listicles in a narrative. So, like for that episode, I could create like five

[13:32] mistakes that almost made me quit podcasting. And that's a way more same list and same content, but now there's a story around that episode and can make it feel more epic. So, ask yourself, how can I add like a narrative

[13:46] element to my podcast episodes, a story element to make them more engaging? Tip 29 is maybe my favorite one on this list. It's okay not to release an episode if it did not go well. Whether you had a guest on or it was a solo

[13:58] well, if the episode just isn't worth can always try again. And the last content tip here, tip 30, is to study this is where you're going to really understand your audience. They're

[14:12] telling you here, based on their viewing and listening behavior, what they want more of. We often say here at Think Media, success leaves clues, make part twos. So, if you have an episode that actually took off, that's an indicator

[14:24] two to be created, and you can use the information and analytics there to make let's talk about growth. Like, how do we actually get more listeners to our podcast? So, tip number 31 is to distribute your podcast on every

[14:39] platform. And what's great about Riverside is that they're not only a like a recording and editing tool, but also a distribution platform. So, what distribution is is you host your podcast with a platform like Riverside, and then

[14:52] Riverside can direct your podcast to different listening platforms, like Spotify and Apple Podcast and YouTube Music. So, you don't have to manually upload to all of these different locations. So, get yourself a good

[15:04] hosting platform like Riverside to distribute your podcast, so it can live in more places. Also, when you can, be a guest on other people's podcast, absolutely say yes, because that's one of the fastest ways to grow your podcast

[15:16] is to just let other people know on already existing audiences of podcast listeners that you also, hey, I also have a podcast. Listen to me." Like your own podcast. Now, you can also just invite guests to be on your podcast, and

[15:30] these don't even have to be super well-known or popular guests or authors or celebrities. Someone even like Theo Von has done some interesting podcast episodes with just like regular, ordinary people that he like found on

[15:43] studio for podcast interviews, and these episodes do really well because they're just interesting conversations. And you add guests into your podcast, it just conversational experience. So, you can try that out. Now, you can also try to

[15:57] interview anyone who is on a book tour. So, if somebody just launched a new book of more people, they will go on to different podcasts. Even if your podcast is super small, these authors want to get as many eyeballs as they can on the

[16:11] who's just starting a book tour is a great person to interview. Now, while you're recording your podcast episodes, it can actually be helpful to mention other podcasts in your show to show up in the related shows section of Spotify

[16:25] do take notice when shows are recommending different shows or or having keywords inside of the episode that actually make different audiences might be like related to each other. So, this is sort of a way you can hack the

[16:39] different related sections by mentioning other podcasts on your show. Tip 36 is to study related podcasts in Apple or anybody who's already a competitor in this space, you can look at their

[16:53] top-performing episodes to come up with ideas for your own podcast. The next tip is to use what's called a burst strategy, which is to release multiple episodes in a short timeframe to give a listener multiple videos to binge listen

[17:06] to at the beginning of maybe a season of your podcast or maybe if you're just starting out at the very beginning, you could release like seven or 10 episodes right at the beginning to give people a bunch of content to listen to. This is

[17:18] the burst strategy. Tip 38 is to get reviews on your podcast. So, you can always ask your audience to leave a five-star rating wherever they listen. in search results and even recommendations. Tip 39 is to send

[17:32] traffic to your website because you actually own your audience of your website if you're building an email list or different ways you can contact your audience directly. But, you don't own Spotify. You don't own your Spotify

[17:44] Actually, Spotify and YouTube own those and they can actually delete them at any time if they want. So, anytime you can include calls to action for people to go can contact your listeners directly rather than always relying on Spotify or

[17:59] Apple Podcasts or YouTube. And the final growth tip is to re-emphasize the need for repurposing clips from your long-form episode. So, again, tools like this where you can just repurpose content for social media clips. Because,

[18:13] your podcast if they don't know how to listen to it? Social media is a great algorithms inside of a platform like Instagram or TikTok or YouTube Shorts.

[18:25] They're able to pair eyeballs with the right content. So, this is a great content seen by more people. Okay, we're almost there. Our last 10 tips have to do with systems and audience. So, how do we stay consistent and build great

[18:38] community? Well, tip number 41 is this. You want to batch record multiple episodes at once if you're able to. So, you can shoot like two to four episodes on a recording day. I think that's great, but any more than that can be a

[18:50] little bit taxing and time-consuming. So, what we'll do personally is we'll hop on a call, me and Nate, we'll get into a podcast studio inside of Riverside, and we'll both come prepared with like one or two episodes each, and

[19:03] two or three-hour period. And now we have a great batch of content that we can release over the next few weeks to serve our podcast listeners. This saves on multiple days. We can just consolidate that time frame into a few

[19:17] hours and record a ton of content. Tip 42 is to set a consistent release day. who can just know when to expect that you're going to drop more episodes. So, having maybe like one day a week that you post consistently, Mondays at 9:00

[19:31] could be a good time frame. Or maybe you're somebody who posts every single day or multiple times a week at the same time though can give more predictability to your audience. Tip 43 is to create a simple content calendar. This is going

[19:45] accountable if you see on paper like, "Hey, I'm supposed to be posting four episodes next month on these exact days." It can help you reverse engineer the content back from what your schedule already is and just keep you on track.

[19:58] And if you use Riverside, they actually now have a content planner feature that plan different sessions and release dates and social media posts right there inside of your Riverside dashboard. Tip

[20:10] 44 is to do recap or highlight episodes from past content that performed well. So, sometimes you'll have like these surges in viewership where you all of a sudden have like a hundred new viewers or a thousand new listeners. And what

[20:23] sometimes reintroduce them to content in your library that already performed well listened to very often. And this is a low effort way where you can publish a new episode by republishing content that's already existed in your past

[20:37] catalog. Tip 45 is do not apologize for taking breaks. It's okay to take breaks tiring to record lots of podcast you need a break, just take a break. But then just return with value for your

[20:51] back in three or four weeks. Just taking a little vacation." And let them know, "I'll be back on this exact day with some great episodes." Tip 46, give yourself permission to pivot your podcast direction. Remember, your

[21:04] forever. Some of the best shows find their identity like after 20 or 30 episodes or multiple seasons. They find a new niche and pivot their direction. So, this is totally fine to do. Give yourself permission to pivot if you want

[21:18] to. Tip 47 is to track your analytics like downloads and retention over time working in your podcast. And you can actually do this inside of whatever hosting platform you already have. Something like Riverside, if you host

[21:32] with Riverside, gives you robust analytics about listeners, where they're is about your episodes, and all these kinds of things. You can do this right there inside of your Riverside dashboard. Tip number 48 is a fun one is

[21:45] traveling because you never know when inspiration might spark if you're away from your studio space or your home office where you regularly record episodes. You can actually travel on the go and actually still record content.

[21:59] Riverside, we actually do this all the time. We'll have team members on the go, but we can still record content because the dashboard, our studio is actually a remote studio. And wherever our laptop is, we can actually record podcast

[22:11] episodes. But you just want to make sure you bring a high-quality microphone to capture that good audio. Tip 49 is to build an email list and community around mentioned this earlier, but email is one of the best ways to have a direct

[22:23] connection between you and your viewers. So, start building an email list as soon number 50 is you got to remember to have fun while you're podcasting. All 49 other tips are strategic and analytical and all these things. It can get

[22:37] things, but at the end of the day, remember podcasts are supposed to be fun audience or with guests. So, don't take yourself too seriously and remember to start a podcast and don't have a microphone yet, you can check out the

[22:51] best podcast microphones for beginners right here at every budget level. So, click or tap the screen right here to watch that video, and we'll see you in watch that video, and we'll see you in the next one.