The Basics of Podcasting for Beginners (Part 1)

This post will focus mainly on the materials that I use. Part 2 of this will delve into more of the how to approach the tasks. Let’s break this down into chunks.

What format do you want your podcast in?

The first question to address when you are starting a podcast is, do you want it to be in both video and audio format or just audio format? For me, I started off hoping to make this part of our YouTube series for Rethink Desi, and so I sought to make it in video format. If this is the case for you, you can definitely set up a DSLR camera and record, as Manu and I did for the first two episodes. However, when you do so, consider doing it in an indoor space. We did it outside and definitely had issues with the background noise created by the wind and folks wandering around. For this, Manu had purchased a Sony A7iii DSLR for her filmmaking projects, so we were able to utilize that with a lavalier microphone.

When she left for India, I began doing recordings on zoom video calls. This quality was not as great of video quality, but the audio was much better. However, it still had issues. This is when I decided to invest in a proper boom arm and microphone set up. Now there are many levels of quality that you can get with this. I already had a and the Fifine Microphone present, but didn’t have a lot of space to use it, so I got a boom arm (plus I thought they looked really cool). I went with a beginner budget option and invested in Puroma Upgraded and Heavy Duty Microphone Arm Stand and put the two together using some screws. However, I wouldn’t recommend this option, the better option in my opinion would be to invest in Fifine Studio Condenser with Boom Arm. This is around the same price as the two of the above options combined and it comes pre-packaged, so you don’t need to fit them together. Those who want more professional  quality might consider investing in the Rode Microphone with Boom Arm which has more film industry level sound quality, but if you are just starting out and don’t necessarily know how long you will be using these products, I would recommend my budget setup.

Now to improve my video quality, I looked at various programs I could use, and after doing research on several different ones, I landed on using Riverside.fm to do my recordings. It has a nice setup which allows you to keep all your recordings in an organized space and easily cut clips from the recordings to use for different social media platforms. This is definitely a feature I have seen others use and one I will be using when I begin focusing more on distribution. It is not free, it is a website you have to pay for, and you can determine how much based on how frequently you think you will use it. I currently pay for $15 per month option because I am trying to record at least three episodes per month.

Then it’s time to edit.

Now the sound quality on this is not always perfect because it requires each individual’s sound to be at the same level. Also, sometimes you may want to edit out some of the content that you recorded. In this instance, I would recommend using a video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro (which you do have to pay for) or a free program like Lightworks (I haven’t personally used this, but it is recommended on various blogs). There are very quick and easy ways to edit sound quality and cut out sections of video using these software. For Mac users, iMovie is a tool from the heavens and makes the process pretty simple and easy (and free).

You may start to notice as you edit that the programs can run super slowly on your computer. That is because many computers don’t have the capacity to run the large video files that are required for editing in programs like Premiere Pro, especially if you have an older computer. I knew this previously from taking filmmaking classes and working on my first projects. So, I used an external hard drive from WD Elements. This has more storage than the version that I got. I would definitely recommend using it. If you are using it between a Mac and PC, definitely read up on formatting details so that it’s set up to work with both.

Now, let’s talk about distribution.

Since I wanted to share the podcast in both video and audio format, I ended up using YouTube to upload the video content and anchor.fm to load the audio. This audio is then distributed onto Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The wonderful thing about anchor.fm is that it is free. You simply need to link it to the Spotify and apple account that you want to distribute. Be aware that the length of your podcast and the quality can actually significantly impact your upload times. So, for me, I would often leave my computer running for a few hours while I completed other tasks because of how long some of the videos would take to upload. This is made easier when your computer has more memory.

Once you have uploaded the podcast, it’s now time to figure out how to grow an audience. I am clearly still working on how to do this, but I do have  few tools that have made it easier. The first is everyone’s favorite design tool Canva. This program makes it very easy to seamlessly design social media posts without needing to know how to use complicated software like Illustrator or Photoshop. Highly recommend checking it out, if you aren’t aware of it already. The second tool that I am currently trying to figure out how to use is Later. It’s similar to Hootsuite and other social media posting websites, but it is free and works with Instagram, which was my main issue. It has been finicky for me and I’m not sure if I would recommend it to be honest – but if you don’t have the capacity to post consistently, it might be worth considering.

There you have it folks, this is a basic breakdown of the materials and software I use to podcast. I hope this has been helpful if you have been considering going down this route. Happy to answer any questions if you have them!