Should you do a podcast on a topic that is covered by others?

“Yes!” If 2021 is going to be your year of launching a new podcast do not let it stop you if someone else shares on the same topic you want to discuss. My recommendation is every single one of us has our own unique take and perspective, thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Your audience is out there (and waiting to hear from you). Hosts bring a variety of different inflections to their show and your listeners will naturally gravitate to you.

What you bring to a show will be as unique as you are…and your show should be uniquely you. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to copy specific podcasters or what they are doing. Always strive to:

Be unique.

Be you.

Embrace and explore your curiosities, your creativity, and do this with authenticity.

I promise, your listeners will find you and stick with you for the long haul. Never be afraid to be who you are or concerned about others accepting you.

So, my wish for you is to go create that podcast, explore your creative side, and not to be afraid to ask for help if you need it.

It’s time! Share your message with the world with voice and vigor.

The Best Length for Your Podcast Episodes

One of the most common questions I’m asked is…

“How long should my episode be?”

And as much as you want me to answer with a specific time amount, the truth is there is no gold standard for how long the length should be. I understand, you may be scratching your head and thinking, “Darlene, that’s no answer. What should I really do?”

I do have some thoughts and considerations to share. Use these insights to guide you towards choosing what’s right for your show.

Monologue Episodes

If you’re recording an episode where you’re the only person speaking these are known as monologues or solo episodes. These episodes generally range from 5-30 minutes.

The key to making monologues work for listeners is to talk to a specific topic and stay on topic. Take as much time as is needed to cover your topic. Keep it concise. Make all of your points.

You may be able to cover everything in 8 minutes or you could need 27 minutes. The time needed will vary by the topic. Don’t feel you need to stretch the episode out to meet a pre-determined length of time. Just tackle the topic. When you’re done, you are done.

Interview Episodes

While talking long enough to cover a topic as a solo episode works, there are different considerations when interviewing guests. How should you handle a guest who is long-winded with their answers or the guest who gives brief—sometimes single word—responses? No worries, I have some tips:

• Determine how long you would like allotted for interviewing a guest. For purposes of this example, let’s say you decided to conduct interviews up to 45 minutes.
  

• Inform the guest up front that this will be a 45-minute interview and explain you’ll cover as much as time permits.
  

• Always create some extra questions in case you get short answers and have cruised through the 5-7 questions you prepared in 18 minutes but had planned for a 45-minute interview.
  

• Alternately, this is your show so if you feel like the interview covered the topic well in 18 minutes, then conclude the interview. It’s fine to have a shorter episode. You could always add some solo commentary after the interview during editing production, if you feel the episode needs it.
  

• And, if you’re deep in conversation at the 45-minute mark, don’t hesitate to keep the conversation going a bit longer. Your listeners will appreciate the content and will stick with you.

Bottom line: Don’t feel constrained by whatever time markers you make for yourself. Take as much time as is needed to cover your topic.

One More Consideration

An important piece to consider is related to the editing. Editing is affected whether you are a DIY editor or working with a podcast producer to edit your episodes.

If you are editing this yourself and know you only have X amount of time to dedicate to editing then you should keep your episode in a certain time range.

In my experience, if the raw audio is 30 minutes long, it typically takes an hour to edit. My formula is: double the audio time to determine the needed editing time.

✨There’s also magic in editing.✨ Remember that long-winded guest with repetitive answers? These responses can be trimmed and tightened up in editing—apply this to both the audio and the accompanying transcript.

TIP: Use the episode transcript to help you determine where to make audio edits. You can spot redundant sections of the conversation quickly by using word searches.

Pros and Cons of Interview-Based Podcasts + Best Practices for Recording Interviews

In addition to talking, teaching, and writing about podcasting....I actually get behind the mic and do some podcasting of my own, every now and again. How about that, right? 👀

Back in November, I took on the challenge of releasing a brand new podcast episode every single day. Spoiler alert: I was not successful in the challenge. Whomp, whomp. 

But, after putting down the mic for almost 1.5 years, the content I was able to produce from taking part in the challenge was extremely cathartic. Podcasting fills a spot in my soul that is somewhat empty when I am not behind the mic. 

During the series, I answered questions relating to my personal and professional life. And of course, many of the questions that were submitted to me were podcast-related. Today I want to share an episode where I answered these questions:

"Is there a best time to evolve your podcast to include guest interviews?"

"How do I ensure a quality recording for guest interviews? Are there platforms you'd recommend? For example, I use Zoom for client sessions but I'm not sure how the quality would be for a podcast."

If you've been wondering the same thing, first, I see you! Second, I have some answers. 
In the episode, you'll hear me:

• Share the pros and cons of having guests on your podcast

• Introduce the double-ender (this always sounds risque to me, but it's not, honest) for best audio quality

• Offer best practices for conducting remote podcast interviews

Placing Audio Podcast Episodes on YouTube

The last time you heard from me I was sharing my thoughts on automating transcription of your podcast episodes using YouTube. Well, I received comments and inquiries from several people following that email - all asking the same thing, "Hey, Darlene. Should I be placing my audio podcast episodes on YouTube?"

Let's be real here. Not too many people are going to YouTube to consume podcast episodes. But, there may still be some benefits to posting your podcast to YouTube. For starters, if you have an existing YouTube Channel with several hundred subscribers or more, adding your podcast episodes to your channel is giving your followers bonus content. 

But more importantly, posting your episodes to YouTube might be good for SEO. Yep, Search Engine Optimization. It was bound to come up at some point! 

YouTube is Google's answer to video search. If you've searched for anything on Google lately, you'll see that in addition to web page results, videos are being returned in those results too. You might want to consider posting your audio podcast to YouTube for discoverability.  Of course, it is not necessary and I personally haven't seen an increase in downloads because my episodes are on YouTube. Just some food for thought. 

By the way, when it comes to videos and SEO: I am not an SEO expert. But if you are choosing to post a video with a two-line video description versus one with a full paragraph and directly-related keywords and web links, I believe the second option will help your videos rank that much better. 

Automate the Transcription of Podcast Episodes (Hack!)

I occasionally read and respond to questions on various podcasting subreddits over at Reddit. I try to be a helpful human, when I can. 😃 I recently came upon a question that asked, "How can I automate the transcription of my podcast episodes by using IFTTT or Zapier?"

There were the obvious responses like, you can use Descript, Otter.ai, or Temi. Mainly folks mentioned the various transcription services one can use. But nobody directly addressed the automation part of the question (at least not at the time I read the post). 

However, someone did mention the idea of converting your audio podcast into a video to upload to YouTube. Then by using YouTube's video transcription service, you can create the transcript for your podcast episode. Which made me ponder this question a little bit more.  

What if you could automate the upload of your podcast episodes to YouTube? Then, a few hours after your podcast episode (now video) is live, you can grab the YouTube generated transcript. That would be a pretty close resolution to the redditor's problem. So, what if? Can it be done?

Wellllll, as a user of Libsyn (a podcast host) you can set up your podcast so that whenever you publish a new episode, it uploads as a video to your own YouTube channel - automatically! If you aren't a Libsyn user, you can do something similar using Repurpose.io, whereby you can hook up your podcast feed and have episodes upload automatically to YouTube.  Once your video is up on the platform for a few hours, you can head over to watch the video and open the transcript. 

So, yes, you can automate the transcription of your podcast episodes in this way. Sure, it's not going to be perfect or pretty, but my theory proved to be true. 

Good-bye five clicks to get a transcript for your podcast episodes and hello efficiency!  

In summary - the hack: 

Step 1: Setup your Libsyn account to have a YouTube Destination OR set up a service like Repurpose.io so that your podcast episodes can be converted into a video and uploaded to YouTube whenever you publish a new podcast episode. 

Step 2: Visit your YouTube account a few hours after the video has published, open the transcript (select the 3 ellipses to the right of the Save button), and copy/paste the transcript into a document.  Check out this quick video showing you where and how to 'download' YouTube video transcripts. 

Step 3: Pat yourself on the back for becoming an efficient and more productive podcaster. 

Are You Ready to Learn Something New?

Ready to learn something new in 2020, Padawan? If so, I am ready to be your Jedi Master. 

Did you know I've had a YouTube channel since 2008? It's true. In fact, here is the first video I ever posted. I created it to promote my then virtual assistant business. You'll find somewhat of a mixed bag of content on my channel. If you dig around, you'll find some REALLY corny stop motion videos and a video of me making snow ice cream. Yes, there are some quirky videos, but most of my channel is made up of How-To videos. 

In fact, my most viewed video (with over 100k views) is how to add background music using Audacity. I also have videos about WordPress, Squarespace, and how to use some other online web tools. Here's the thing, a lot of my YouTube videos are old, outdated, or sooo 2008.

I am gearing up to produce new How-To videos and content for you - but I want to know what you actually want to learn! So, I created a super short feedback form in order to find out.

You can complete the feedback form here.

As my way of saying thank you, I created a special Episode Journaling Sheet download just for you.

Once you have completed the form successfully, the link to grab your Episode Journaling Sheet will appear.  You can use the journaling sheet to jot down notes about episodes, guests, sponsors, and more 

Hop on over here to fill out my feedback form and to grab you download. 

Thank you, and I hope to bring new content to my YouTube channel soon!

Cool Tool for Instagram Users

If the Infinite Dial 2019 report encouraged you to head over to the ‘Gram, or you are already posting like the superstar you are, this tool is for you!

LinkTree:  If you are on Instagram, then you know that you can have only one link on your profile. But if you are like me, then you might have multiple items you want to share with your followers. LinkTree makes it super easy for you to do so! Check out my Instagram profile to see LinkTree in action.