How to Make a Podcast

1. Introduction: Why Make a Podcast?: Hi everybody. My name is Caroline Leland and I am a content specialist based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is my third sculpture class. Today I'm excited to share with you how to make a podcast. As I mentioned, I am a content specialist and I currently work at the Morehead-Cain Foundation at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. In this role, I have successfully designed, pitched and produced the foundation's first ever podcast. That project was not only fun and rewarding on a personal level, but it's also hugely important for my employer's brand. So if you're not familiar, the Morehead-Cain Foundation is basically a non-profit that sponsors and runs a scholarship program at UNC. It's an undergraduate scholarship program. So in the podcast that I've produced there, I interview alumni of the program about their lives and work, which has multiple benefits for a lot of people involved. So first, it helps those alumni who are interviewed, helps them feel more connected to the program and appreciated by the program. Secondly, it helps other alumni learn about their fellow Morehead-Cain by listening to the podcast, learning from those people they hear who were interviewed on the podcast. Then thirdly, it helps our general public or the general public learn about the Morehead-Cain Foundation and what we stand for in general. So it's good for our direct immediate audience as well as the audience beyond the people who normally communicate with them. This multifaceted benefit is something that you can replicate with your own organization by launching your own podcasts. Podcasts are just a great way to build brand awareness, to deepen brand loyalty and to strengthen relationships with all constituents There's an easy format you can follow or you can take lots of room for creativity. Just so you know, these days, more people listen to podcasts, than use Twitter. It's a marketing opportunity you don't want to miss. In the following lessons, I will cover every step of producing a podcast. This class is meant to be very practical and hands-on, so it's probably worthwhile taking notes throughout. Remember, you can always refer back to each lesson after you've listened all the way through. In my first lesson, I'll describe how to come up with the basic idea for your podcast. I'll give you some tips and structure for that. In Lesson 2, I'll explain what equipment you need and where you can find it, what to splurge on, what to save on that kind of thing. In lesson 3, I'll go over the importance of theme music and how you can find that. Less than four jumps into the practical steps of what you need to do to launch your very first episode. Then in less than five, I'll explain how to publish online through something magical called the RSS feed. Less than six, I'll walk you through how to get onto the major podcast platforms like the Apple podcast app on your phone. Finally, in lesson 7, I'll give you some marketing tips. How to make sure people listen to this project that you've worked so hard to put together. The recap all briefly review on the lessons and then explain the class project. After that, the only limit is your creativity. Let's get started. 2. Lesson One: The Idea: Welcome to Lesson 1, The Idea. Clearly, the first thing you need if you're going to make a podcast is an idea for what your podcasts is going to be about. What it'll sound like, what it would look like. How would you describe it to a stranger? Some things to think about are structure, theme, name, the cover art, and your timeline. I'll go through each of these in this lesson and then I'll give you some real-world examples. Before I get to those though, I do want to say that a very fundamental consideration for your podcast is that the idea needs to be something that is well suited to audio. If you have a few ideas in mind, you can choose based on what will actually sound the best. Think about special effects, or the flow event, or just how it will strike the listener in audio form, instead of in written form. Now let's talk about structure. The most basic podcast structure is just for one person to simply talk about their ideas and record a monologue. That can be a good way to convey information especially for people in your audience who you want to convey something to they. They could have just read to themselves, but maybe your audiences doesn't like reading. Or if you don't have time for video production or the skills for video production, or if your audience doesn't have time to watch a video, that could be a way for you to convey that information. But at the same time, someone just talking and recording themselves, talking about themselves can be boring. Step up from that would be two people talking. That is the classic radio talk show format. Then similar to that, you could have one host who interviews guests on each episode. That's probably the most common podcast format. That's what I'm going to focus on in my examples. In addition to a consistent structure, your podcast should also have a cohesive theme, it's very important. Needs to be something that is connected to your brand and it doesn't have to be a super obvious or blatant or direct connection, but it doesn't need to be something that moves your brand forward in the world. Something that makes people feel more connected to your brand or helps them understand it better. Ideally, the theme would be something that could be conveyed by a short, catchy podcast name. When it comes to the name, brevity is probably the most important factor. Something that's tweetable, hashtagable , something people will remember. The stickiness or memorability of the name is more important than it being clever. It's better to be direct than to be obscure. After you've figured out your structure, your theme, and your name, the next step is to design your cover art. Again, simple is good. If you don't have Photoshop skills or a budget to hire someone to design something for you, you could have something as simple as the podcast name, just the text on a blank background. But you still keep in mind factors like the font, the colors, and the layout. Those things all convey different feelings and so figure out what feeling or vibe you're going for, and try to make sure your design elements reflect that. Finally, the timeline. You need to plan out how often you want to produce episodes and how many episodes you want to produce. You could do one weekly episode, you could do two times a week, you could do every other week. But really the most important thing is consistency so that your listeners know what to expect and when and can get excited and look forward to that day that it's going to come out. Also, your ability to stick to a timeline is it really comes down to your capacity. So do you have enough time to complete it in the allotted schedule that you've committed yourself to, and how much lead time do you need to contact people you want to interview? Things like that will influence your decision of exactly how to schedule out the timeline. If you're sitting here at this point and still wondering, how do I even come up with an original idea? It's hard to give advice to someone without knowing the exact situation. But some pointers can include to focus on what you're knowledgeable about. If you're the one producing the podcast, think about what your company organization has expertise in and how you could share it. Think about experts that you might have connections with. But not even experts, but just interesting people in your network, that you might be able to invite on and that might help you come up with the theme which can lead to the idea and so fourth. Now, I'm going to go through some examples of big companies that have recently launched podcasts to help with their brand-building and marketing needs. Sephora the makeup company has recently connected with a company called Girlboss, to launch a podcast called hashtag lip stories. This is a way that Sephora is promoting their lipsticks by connecting each color with a personal story. In those stories, these women are sharing their personal stories of entrepreneurship and connecting it back to this lipstick by Sephora. ZipRecruiter has come up with a podcast called Rise and Grind, where the host Daymond John interviews entrepreneurs, musicians, and athletes. This is an interesting way for ZipRecruiter which is a recruitment company to connect with their audiences and get their name out there because if someone is a successful athlete, musician, or entrepreneur, then that's the person that your company might want to recruit. So ZipRecruiter is showing that they know how to make those connections and they know what makes them unsuccessful. Tinder has a new podcast called DTR. Each episode dives deep into the weird, wonderful, and hilarious aspects of dating in an Internet obsessed world. That's a really clever way for Tinder, which is a dating app company to show that they're in touch with what people want and need in their dating lives, in a modern dating world. Anytime you can be funny, that's a definite plus. Spotify has a new podcast called Unpacked. This is in partnership with a conference called South by Southwest. Each episode helps the listener get to know the artists, filmmakers, musicians, and chefs who make these South by Southwest gatherings come alive. All of these are major companies with major audiences and they have all found it, fit and appropriate to launch podcasts to help them connect with their audiences better and reach new audiences. This is a tool and a method that any organization from just a one person freelance operation to a small business team, to a large corporation. Anyone can benefit from having a podcast that provides you a new platform through which to reach your target audiences. All you need to get started is an idea and of course some technical tools. In the next lesson, I'll talk about the equipment you need. 3. Lesson Two: The Equipment: Lesson 2. Now it's time to talk about equipment. This is a pretty thorny question because there are just lots of directions you could go when it comes to equipment. Your budget could be anywhere from a few $100 to several $1000 depending on how much you can afford to spend and what quality you are looking for. When it comes to making those decisions based on your own personal needs, I recommend Transom's Good, Better, Best guide. That will help you out with deciding what's worth splurging on and what's worth saving on. But your basic equipment will be a microphone, a recorder or you could maybe use your laptop depending on what kind of software you have and some pro headphones. Those are really important because you're going to want to be able to hear subtle using in the sound before you publish. In general, I would say you could go reasonable on the recorder or the recording software on your laptop, but definitely don't skimp on the external microphones you use. Those are your most important pieces of equipment for a really high quality audio. Depending on what you plan to do with the podcast, your microphone needs will be different. There's a lot of variety when it comes to microphones, but you can pretty easily find online what kind of microphone works best in what kind of situation. This will give you a couple of examples. When you're in a quiet room interviewing someone else at their house maybe or at their office, you could use a shotgun microphone. If you want to catch someone's invoice in a noisy atmosphere, you're going to want an omnidirectional microphone. If you want to capture ambiance in a setting, capturing the background noise basically on purpose for a scene setting sound, then you're going to want just a built-in general microphone on your quarter would work fine. Then in your studio when you're recording, you're going to want a fairly one directional microphone but omni-directional works there as well too. Now let's jump into the basic list of equipment that I've prepared for you. As I mentioned, you need the microphone, you need a pop filter, which is something fuzzy or soft that you put in front of or around the microphone to make sure that the Ps in your talking don't sound harsh to the listener. You need nice headphones. You need computer with audio editing, audio recording software, or a recorder. If you do have a recorder, you will need batteries and a memory card. Whether you're recording interviews or just recording yourself, you're going to want a sound screen to help soften the sound and prevent echoes. You might go to the links of creating a makeshift studio with padding on the walls or recording under a blanket, which actually makes things sound really good. But that would have to be, of course, if you're recording just by yourself. Now I can only give you some examples of equipment that I have used. This is the Audio-Technica. It's an Omni-Directional Instrument Condenser Microphone, which means that it's not just one direction. If I talked to the microphone from the side, it will still capture my voice decently well. That one comes with a pop filter to help with the P pops as I mentioned. I use Sony headphones. These were about $80 and they work incredibly well. This is probably the most affordable professional level headphones that you'll find. I use the Zoom H5 Recorder. This one allows me to do up to four tracks and that works well for the kind of interviews that I'm doing. But you'll have to just do the research and find out if you need a recorder and if so, what kind. Finally, I have this microphone isolation shield. It creates a mini sound booth effect when I'm interviewing people at their offices. That helps with echoes and sound interference. Those are the basics. You are going to end up spending some money, but keep in mind that typically the more you spend, the better your audio quality will be. 4. Lesson Three: Sound Design: Welcome to lesson three, all about sound design. Some of you might not even know what that phrase means, sound design but it's exactly what it sounds like. It is designing the sound of your podcast. This is stuff besides the vocal tracks. It's things like your theme music and your B-roll, which is basically another word for background sounds or sounds that give context. You might have some special effects. Here's a list of things I'm going to go over in this lesson. I'm going to explain theme music, why it matters and where you can find it. I'm going to explain special effects, B-roll and then give you some examples. Theme music is really important. It's probably more important than most people realize. It really sets the tone of your podcast. You want it to be something that reflects the vibe, the feeling of your podcasts. You want it to be something that is ideally the same. It goes at the beginning and end of every podcast and it helps cue the listener into what they're about to hear and it reminds them, I'm about to hear the XYZ podcasts because that's the XYZ music and then accuse the listener to realize that you're about to wrap up at the end. When you're thinking about what kind of music to choose, first think about what kind of feeling you want the listener to have when they listen to your podcast and then try to find music that matches that. Later on I'll show you a few examples of that. Another element of sound design, as I mentioned, is special effects. This is something where, if you say in your podcast, I slammed the door, you might want a slamming door sound or so forth. The phone rang, you might want a phone ringing. Those things can come across as cheesy. Sometimes they're fun, sometime they add texture and depth to what you're describing but just be careful that you don't overuse that kind of thing. Another element of sound design is B-roll, which means sounds that give context. If you're going to narrate an interview you did with someone and you want the listener to feel like they're there in the room, what you might do is record the sounds of you driving to the interview, of you getting out of your car, shutting the car door, walking in, ringing the doorbell, that kind of thing. That helps the listener feel like they are actually there. B-roll is not necessary in every podcast but it can be really fun. It can add a lot if you have the time and capacity for it. All right. Now for some examples. I'm going to do a little screen share, where I go onto pond5.com, which is a platform for free music and I'm going to show you a few examples of different kinds of theme music that you could use and what type of feelings they convey. All right. Here I am on the website pond5.com. It's P-O-N-D and the numeral 5.com. This is a place where you can buy music but you can also find some for free. But just to show you how it works. I'm going to click over here on the music. Then I can search. But down below, here are some examples of different types of mood I might find in music. Let's say my podcast is something about self-motivation, maybe it's about getting fit or starting a new type of lifestyle. I'm going to try uplifting tracks. Here are some examples, I'm going to try this one, it is called live life to the fullest. It cost $99. That sounds uplifting and that deep voice you heard right before I hit "Pause", that was just a voice about to say pond five, which prevents me from stealing the music. That won't happen once you buy the track. Then I want to try something else. Let's say my podcast is something that's a little bit not so upbeat, maybe it's something more serious. It's about meditation. Let's try calm. Here's a happy and calm acoustic background. I would say that's less unique and may not distinguish my podcast as something on its own but that could be something that would be worth buying if I needed background music. But you can just click around, tryout different sounds. This one looks interesting. That's definitely peaceful, some piano music there. Those are just a couple of examples. You can click around and find all kinds of music that fits all kinds of vibes. Here's some more words that might help you in your search. Just think about what kind of mood or feeling you want to convey and then what kind of music might do that for you. That's just one example. There are other platforms you can find music on but this is a quick preview of pond5. Quick recap. You've got your theme music, you've got potential special sound effects, you've got B-roll and from there, it's up to you of how you use each of these things. I would say theme music is essential the rest are bonus. Don't worry too much about some sound effects and B-roll if you don't feel like you can handle that, if you don't feel like it fits into your podcast. But definitely spend some time coming up with the perfect theme music. If you can't afford to buy theme music and if you don't like the free music that you find online, you could actually commission a friend to make music for you, if you have a connection with someone who is musically talented. It doesn't have to be something professionally produced as long as it sounds professional. That's something you can have a lot of fun with. 5. Lesson Four: The First Episode: Welcome to lesson 4, episode 1. It is time to record your first episode. You have your idea, you have your equipment, you've got all of the pieces that you need, now it's time to put them together and turn this idea into reality. So in this lesson, I'm going to go over the basics of recording and editing your first episode. Your first episode is super important, and that's because first impressions really matter. You want your first episode to be something that will really impress your listeners, something that will make them want to listen to more. It doesn't necessarily have to be an episode just like in the same format as your following episodes, it could just be as simple as you talking about what people can expect from your podcast. But regardless of what it is, it needs to make your listeners want more, it needs to incentivize them to subscribe, to become devoted followers, and to be excited about what's coming next. That said, it does not need to be longer complex, in fact, brevity is almost always best. You want it to be something that people can fit into, say their commute to work. Longer podcasts often do well, but they typically are made by people with a lot of experience, a lot of background and audio producing, because it takes a lot of skill to keep people engaged for a long time. So when you're just getting started, it's best to keep your episodes short. I would recommend between 15 and 30 minutes or even 10 minutes, honestly. Especially when it comes to your first episode. The most important thing to keep in mind is that it needs to be something that makes your listeners want more. After you've recorded the core of your episode, it's time to drop in the theme music. You're going to want music at the beginning and at the end to introduce and close out the episode, and you want it to be louder when it's playing by itself and softer when it goes underneath someone's voice. So you're going to want a few seconds of music at the beginning by itself at a normal volume, and then you'll have it fade to be a lower volume when your voice or whoever is hosting when the host voice comes in. You never want to cut music off abruptly. Always fade it out with at least three to five seconds of fade. Another consideration is post-production editing. That might sound intimidating if you have no audio editing experience. But basically it just means listening back through the track and cutting out things that you think will be distracting to the listener. So if someone coughs or sneezes, if someone's stutters or says um a lot, those are the things that you can cut out and just make sure that you're not leaving any gaps in the audio because that will sound like holes in the track when people are listening back to it. But this is really up to you. Some podcasts producers prefer to leave things sounding as natural as possible. I personally like things to sound smooth, so I'll go back and cut out ums and stutters in the conversation that I have with other people. If someone repeats themselves or takes a long time to get to what they're really trying to say, that's another opportunity of a place where you could cut. So really it's just up to you in terms of what you think will make your podcast sound best. Just be careful that you're doing it with precision. You don't want people to be able to hear that you've cut things out. You can also soften the sound of breaths in the recording. So sometimes if someone's too close to the microphone or if their microphone is just super sensitive, you can hear the sound of their breath whenever they take a breath in before they talk or between phrases, and if that sounds really loud, it can also be distracting to the listener. So sometimes I will go through and lower the volume on the breaths in the track. Again, it's not a requirement, but if it's makes your audio sound better. It's probably worth doing. Just don't drop the audio all the way down because, again, it will sound like a gap in the recording. Just soften the noise. That's basically all you need to do. This sculpture class is not a tutorial and how to do audio editing, that is a skill that you can teach yourself. You can find other tutorials online for it. This class is more about the big picture steps and how to produce a podcast. Depending on your situation, it may be worth hiring an audio engineer if you want it to sound super polished. It's not always necessary depending on your gear and your skill level in collecting the audio, but really the most important thing is to listen with your professional grade headphones so that you can catch any subtleties that you might not hear through your computer speakers and just to listen back very carefully and make sure that everything sounds smooth. In the next couple of lessons, we'll go over how to get this perfect first track published online. 6. Lesson Five: RSS: Welcome to lesson 5. The RSS feed. The way you publish a podcast online is by setting up an RSS feed. What is an RSS feed? I'm here to explain. RSS stands for really simple syndication. It's basically a text file that lives online and hold information that can be updated. That information is then plugged into what is called a feed reader or an interface that quickly and automatically converts the RSS text files into a stream of the latest updates. People often use RSS feeds to get updates from collection of their favorite websites. They don't have to check each website for updates whenever they want to know what's new, instead, they can build an RSS feed that tells them what's new from the designated websites all in one place. When it comes to podcasts, you will upload your audio file into your RSS feed and then the more common podcast platforms will pull your episode. They'll pull that file, that data, onto their platforms automatically. You put your file in one place and then your platforms will pull it and publish it in many places simultaneously. An RSS feed is mandatory for hosting for publishing a podcast really. Fun fact, podcast is actually a label for a particular distribution. It's not the type of audio or the style of show but if you say radio show or TV or magazine, those are formats for distribution. Podcast is technically defined as downloadable multimedia that's structured as episodes and syndicated through RSS. The word syndicate, if you don't already know, means just to publish in multiple places simultaneously. How do you create an RSS feed? It sounds highly technical. It might be intimidating but it's really not that hard. You can create an RSS feed from scratch by writing the code by hand but I recommend using a content management platform like WordPress or Libsyn. If you already have a WordPress account, all you have to do is add slash feed to the end of your domain and you'll get your default site wide RSS feed. You might need to set up one specifically for podcasts if you're running a blog as well. That's something that I'm not going to go into detail about here but you can find detailed instructions about that online. Libsyn is a content management system that you pay for and they provide central management tools like analytics that are pulled together from each platform you're publishing on. It's specifically designed to host audio. That could be a good option if you're not already a WordPress user. I recommend doing online research about your options. If you are already a WordPress user, you should look into how you can take advantage of the features that that platform already offers you. Otherwise, Libsyn is a decently price option that provides a lot of great experience for a lot of people. I personally have used it before and have found it very user-friendly. That's another thing to keep in mind but there are more. Just do a little bit of research online to find out what's the best platform before you, but what you're doing is creating an RSS feed, so that you can submit that feed to the podcast platforms you want to be published on. I promise none of these is as complicated as it might seem at first. It's not the thing that you need to fully understand in order to use the internet. In the next lesson, I'll explain how you use the RSS feed to get published on the platforms you want people to find you on. 7. Lesson Six: Podcast Platforms: To get onto the major podcast platforms, all you have to do is submit your RSS feed and some basic information about your podcast to the platform that you want to be published on. The application process looks a little bit different for each platform, but it's basically the same steps. As an example, I'll show you the steps for getting onto Apple Podcasts, which is the purple podcast app on an iPhone. It used to be lumped in with iTunes, but now it has its own special name. If your podcast is on Apple Podcasts, it will also show up on iTunes. I am on help.apple.com on a page that's specific to help with podcasts that are being uploaded to Apple and under "Submit a Podcast", the first recommended step is testing your podcasts. You create the first episode like we talked about, which, of course, includes recording it, writing any necessary descriptions, creating the artwork, and posting the RSS feed online. Then you can test it through this series of steps that Apple has described here for you, where you go to iTunes files, subscribed podcast. Into your RSS feed URL click "Okay". For able to download and play the episode that your podcast was working and you can submit it to Apple Podcasts. That's a easier way to make sure that your feed works. Then you'll need to validate your podcast before submitting. The steps are outlined here. Some of the terminology might be unfamiliar, but everything is outlined very clearly for you in terms of what you need to do. This, you can do it manually. There's instructions for doing it through a, what's called a pass-through URL. Then finally, you get to submit. You do need an Apple ID, those are free to set up. Once you've tested and validated your podcast, all you have to do is, there is a new podcast page, and then you just click "Submit" for the podcasts that you've already validated, and that's it. Then, it can take up 3-14 business days for Apple to process. But you'll get an email that your podcast is under review, and then they'll get another email when your submission review is complete. There's a series of steps, but it's all outlined for you. This is just one example, this is Apple and other podcast platforms will outline the steps for you as well. It just takes a little bit of Googling little bit or reading, a little bit of following instructions, but anyone could figure it out. I have confidence that anyone watching this sculpture class can figure it out. There you have it. That's one of the most exciting steps in your process of creating the podcast. Other common podcast platforms include Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn, Pocket Casts. They all have very similar steps. Spotify is more selective than the others, so I actually haven't tried to get any of my work on to Spotify. But if you're legit and if you're making the podcasts that you say you are, then you'll probably get approved for most, if not all of these platforms. They all have instructions online for how to submit your podcast. Doing all the steps multiple times might seem tedious, but keep in mind that the more platforms you're on, the more people you'll reach with your great content, and speaking of reaching more people, let's move on to lesson 7, marketing. 8. Lesson Seven: Marketing: We are finally at less than seven marketing. Hurrah! You are published. But people still need to know about you. Very few people will just randomly stumble across your great new podcast. You have to market it. The best way to do this is to sit down and create a marketing plan. Think about all the different ways that you could spread the word, whether it's through e-mail campaigns, social media campaigns and encouraging simple word of mouth through your family and friends. Maybe you have social media influencers in your network that you could ask to help you promote. I recommend trying as many different methods as you can come up with. Another idea is to maintain or link your podcast in your e-mail signature and on all of your personal and professional social media accounts. Basically, everywhere you go online, you should be promoting your work. When it comes to email campaigns, it could be as simple as an announcement to people you know personally. Or it could be a very carefully designed ad that you bust out to a listserv. Social media promotion can get really creative, but strong visuals are the most important thing there. If you have photos of any guests that you've interviewed that's really helpful or anything relevant to what you discuss in the podcast topic. But you can also just share your artwork if that's something that you feel like as compelling as well, keep in mind that it's totally kosher to ask your podcast guests to help promote the episodes they are featured on. They should be glad to do so since it will help build their personal brand as well. The Internet can provide you with all kinds of ideas. Do a little bit of Googling, ask friends, where experts in marketing make sure you're doing as much as you can to help as many people as possible learn about this great new podcasts that you've just launched. I will now go through a screen share where I will show you some of the ways that I've marketed the podcast I created through my current position as a contest specialist at the warhead Cain Foundation. All right, I am here on the more head cane Instagram account. I want to let you know that before I posted a podcast announcement, I shared this promotional video to get people intrigued, interested and excited. So here's the 10 second video. So there you have it. It is a stop-motion video made of the boxes being unpacked without the equipment in there that we ordered to produce the podcasts and the caption here is, "We've got some new equipment in the office and we've made something amazing with it. Stay tuned for a special announcement tomorrow." This so far has 700 views which in our audiences is quite a lot. Then the next day we posted this, which is our cover art and the caption is introducing them. I had cane podcast and then there's a couple of two sentences describing what the podcasts entails, and then instructions for how to find it with a few relevant hashtags. So the foundation that I worked for them or had Cain is based at UNC. So a hashtag you would see in Chapel Hill and Hash.new podcasts that can help people find this and guide for a promotional posts on an account that is typically put photos of people. This did really well compared to other posts. It was about the same number of likes as we normally get. Which the people really liked it because often a promotional posts will get fewer likes and something that people are typically more used to seeing. So just, those are a couple of sessions on Instagram. I followed some very similar strategies on Twitter and Facebook as well. So that's how I've done it. You can do it however you best see fit. But make sure you don't forget this really important step of marketing. You want people to find out about the great work that you've done. So do as many things as you can think of to help spread the word. Coming up as a recap of what I've covered in this class and a description of the class project. Stay tuned. 9. Conclusion: Looking Back and Looking Forward: That's it, I've given you all the building blocks for creating your own podcast. From here, the only limits are that of your own determination and creativity. A quick review, first, clarify your idea. This includes theme, the name, the structure, the cover art, and the timeline. Next, buy your equipment. Don't skimp on the microphones. After that, decide on your music. What feeling or tone do you want your music to convey? Then record your first episode, publish online through an RSS feed, and then submit your feed to whichever platforms you want to be published on, develop and execute a marketing plan and then watch your audience grow. It's a lot of work, but it's highly creative work and remember that podcasts are highly effective tool for marketing and brand building. To help you get started, I've designed a class project that takes you through some of the initial brainstorming, an idea clarification steps, attached is a worksheet that you can use to outline your first podcast season. You'll jot down your initial thoughts on the general scope of the podcasts, the type of music you want, any ideas you might have for cover art, the rough plan for each episode, list of platforms might want to publish on and ways you plan to market your show. I've included helpful hints and leading questions to guide you with each of these points. After you fill out the worksheet, read my groovy or ideas. Do you already have a name in mind for your podcast? If not, are there any phrases that you see in your notes that jump out to you? Try writing a one paragraph basic description for your show. Do you have a tagline? Read back over that description for name inspiration, if you don't already have one by now. You can use all these materials for effectively marketing your show on all the major podcast platforms and for marketing among your own network, of course too. What you're going to post on the class forum is your podcast name, if you have one, tagline if you have one and a one paragraph description for feedback from classmates, just post whatever you have ready and you can get more ideas and feedback from the people who are in the class with you, and please everyone stick to constructive feedback only. I can't wait to see what you come up with. Oh, and one more thing, if you've gotten something out of this class, you might also learn something from my other Skillshare classes. I have one called how to make a personal website and one called how to pitch an idea. These are both based on my years of experience as a full time freelance writer, but they're applicable to many different disciplines and industries. You can find those by clicking on my Skillshare profile. I really hope you've enjoyed this class and I hope you check those out to you. Feel free to reach out anytime and if you liked the class, please leave a review and share with your friends. Thanks for following along.