How to Create Your Own Podcast From Start to Finish

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTYour “why” and “who” are fundamental to your podcast. Know these before you go any further.You need a name for your podcast. Consider your audience and your content above all. Your audience should be able to tell what your podcast is about by looking at your name.You should have an intro and an outro for your podcast. You can use services such as Fiverr to find someone who can record one for you!Plan your content ahead of time, so you know exactly what you’re going to talk about. This will help you stay organized and allow you to gather information ahead of time.Once you start recording your podcast, you won’t want to stop to stay on track. It is best to edit at the end of the show, so you don’t lose your train of thought.Transcribing is great for SEO and doesn’t cost much. There are plenty of services online to get a text version of your podcast.When your podcast is ready to go, make sure you share it with your audience. Write blog posts about it and share it on your social media for maximum exposure.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Take a little while to sit down and brainstorm what you want to include in your podcast. What will your podcast be about? What will your audience look like? You will want a vision going into the process to keep you on track! Plus, everything you do from here on out comes down to your “why.”HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSHow Teresa started her podcast – 06:39Ask yourself why you are starting a podcast – 07:22How to name your podcast – 08:40Additional things you need to get started – 09:17The importance of planning your episodes – 14:04What to do when it’s time to record and edit – 15:38Now, launch your podcast – 21:03LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEFiverrAudacityAdobe AuditionsLibsynRev.comTranscript below Hello and a super warm welcome to the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, and I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. When I say warm, I mean literally. For once in the UK it is a super warm day, and do you know what? We really don't cope very well. We beg for nice weather all the time, and when we get it, it's always too hot, there's not enough air, and we really don't manage. It's been a really warm day in the office today, but boy, am I glad to see the sun out, because I love it, and having not long come back from California and Vegas, I should be more acclimatised to it than maybe I actually am.Today I am recording the podcast in the evening, which I've not done before. I'm just mixing it up to see how I get on. I'm trying to find the quietest spot in the day, and today it's now ... it's 20 to 7:00 in the evening and I'm on my own because my husband, I think I've probably mentioned before, is in the military and he spends time away from home. And my daughter is with her dad and my stepdaughter is currently on holiday in LA and my stepson is at his girlfriend's, so very strangely, from a very busy house, it's very quiet this evening. It's just me and my dog, Charlie, who occasionally keeps walking around on the floor behind me, which is wooden, and making some tip-tapping sounds. So I'm hoping he's now gone to sleep and I will get some peace. Anyway, enough of my ramblings and let's get on with today's podcast.If you have been listening from the very beginning ... which if you have, wow, thank you so very much. I am so appreciative of anybody listing to the podcast, let alone the people that have been listening from the very beginning, but if you have been listening from the beginning you probably would have heard me tell you at some point, I think fairly early on, that I was starting the podcast because I wanted another way to put content out there in a way that I found easier, because I much prefer to talk than write. I find talking much easier than I do putting together a blog post.I decided that if I was going to start a podcast, I would be dedicated to that podcast for at least 12 months because I knew it would take some time to get off the ground. Obviously, when you start anything new, no one knows you do it, no one knows it exists, and therefore you're going to need some time to really get it going. The other reason I wanted to give it 12 months is because, again, as I say all the time, consistency is key, so I knew that people would need to know that I was turning up every single Monday without fail with a new podcast.Now, although I've said I'm doing this test for 12 months, I'm not necessarily going to stop it at 12 months. It was just the case of, if it wasn't working for me, I was going to keep it going that long, and do you know what? I've been loving it. The podcast is great. I really enjoy doing it. It's not the easiest thing to do in the world, and it isn't the cheapest thing I do in my business either, or it isn't the cheapest way I get my content out there. However, as an avid fan — gosh, that was hard to say — of podcasts, I decided that because I love them so much and I got so much from them, and I love multitasking and the ability to learn while I'm putting my makeup on in the morning, is just amazing me. So as I said, because I got so much from them, I thought it would be a great thing to start myself.Now, up until now all my podcasts have been solo, and this was very intentional. I went to a conference back in February, called Traffic and Conversion, in San Diego, and I got the chance to ask a question to John Lee Dumas, who is a very successful podcaster with several different podcasts, including Entrepreneurs on Fire. I asked him, "How do I get brilliant people on my podcast?" He basically said to me, "You wait. You wait until you A, are very comfortable doing them, and B, have got some followership so that you can go to someone and say, 'Here's my podcast, this is why I want you to be on it, and these are the kind of followers I've got.'" Now, great advice from John Lee Dumas, and I spoke to Pat Flynn, who again, is a very successful podcaster, and he said something similar.I've been waiting on purpose and doing all these episodes on my own because I quite like the training element of them. However, I have recently just discussed with two people for them to be my first two interviews on the podcast. Now, it's not going to be for a few weeks yet, but I am so excited about this, I can't tell you. I have got some rock stars of my world, social media, digital marketing, online selling, and they are going to be coming on to the podcast, so I am super excited about that.Anyway, let me get to the content of this episode, but I promise you all this talk of the podcast has been relevant because that's what today's episode is all about. Have you ever thought of setting up your own podcast? Do you listen to them and think, "I could do that"? Well, if you do, then today's episode is going to be great for you because I'm going to talk you through what you need to get started. Now, it's really going to be a whistle-stop tour, but it's certainly going to outline some of the things that you'll need to get started, and then what it takes to record a podcast weekly and get it out.I'm going to run you through some of the tools I use and some of the systems we go though, and then like I said, a kind of breakdown from starting to record all the way through to actually publishing an episode, what the process is that we go through. Now, because this is an overview, it's obviously just going to give you the highlighted areas, and I'm not going to go into each one in real in depth. However, if you've not started or if you're thinking about starting, it's definitely going to give you a idea of what it takes to put together a podcast and the things that you need to think about. How Teresa started her podcast Let's get started with getting set up. What is it that you need to even get organised before you think about recording your episode? Well, I have to say I kind of did it a bit off-the-cuff. Normally I'm one of these people who will go and buy a course and read a bit and watch some webinars and watch some YouTube and do loads of research into it, and for some reason, with podcasting I didn't do that this time. I think in hindsight there are definitely some things that I wish I knew more about, or I wish that I'd spent some time researching because maybe I found out the hard way. Ask yourself why you are starting a podcast But at the very basic level, the very first thing that I think you need to think about is why you're having a podcast. What is it you're going to talk about, and who is it you're going to target? Now, it's not to say that this can't move. In fact, I feel like the initial reasons I set up the podcast ... I actually enjoy doing different podcasts around different subjects. I.e., business in general. I really love mindset stuff, so I'd love to do some podcasts around that. So I feel like it's changing even though, when I first set it up, it was initially to teach and train on social media marketing, hence the name Social Media Marketing Made Simple.That brings me to the next point. Once you know who you're going to be targeting and roughly...