.FLYINGHEAD FUN WITH PODCASTING
.TITLE Podcasting tips from a (semi) pro
.AUTHOR Jorge Sosa
.SUMMARY Earlier this year, Jorge Sosa decided to gingerly dip his toes into the podcasting pool. Several months into this experiment, he feels he can safely tell anyone who’s podcast-curious to come on in — the water’s fine. If you need a little help getting started, read on and he’ll share what’s worked and what hasn’t.
.OTHER
Jon Stewart once said that the Internet is "a magnificent new technology combining the credibility of anonymous hearsay with the excitement of typing." Podcasting adds a new wrinkle to the mix, freeing you from typing altogether!
All kidding aside, podcasting is a fun way to express yourself to a worldwide audience. It can offer a greater sense of intimacy than blogging, because your audience can hear your voice.
For some of us, that can be a scary notion. As a reporter for a small-town newspaper, I like to think I’ve cultivated a respectable image of myself. In print, I think I come off as a somewhat intelligent, erudite and literate guy. If people could actually hear me talk, they’d realize I pepper my speech with a slew of "ums" and "you knows."
And yet, earlier this year, a co-worker and I decided to gingerly dip our toes into the podcasting pool. Several months into this experiment, I feel I can safely tell anyone who’s podcast-curious to come on in — the water’s fine. If you need a little help getting started, read on and I’ll share what’s worked for us and what hasn’t.
.H1 Narrow your focus
Unless you’re Britney Spears, most people could care less what you had for breakfast or how you like your bath towels folded. That’s why it’s good to focus your podcast on a defined topic, preferably something you know, love and can get excited about.
For my co-worker Kay and I, finding a topic was easy. We’re both movie buffs and we both love to get out and have a good time. So we decided to focus our podcast on weekend events and new movie openings.
If inspiration hasn’t hit you yet, consider what you talk about when you have lunch with your friends or co-workers. How about parties? When you’re chatting with someone you just met, do you find yourself steering the conversation toward something you know and love? I bet you do.
Maybe it’s sports, music or politics. Whatever it is, if you feel passionate about it, your energy will shine through in your podcast and make for a fun listening experience.
.H1 Keep it short
Once you have a topic, timing is the next consideration. How long should you yammer on? A good rule of thumb is no longer than 10 minutes, and that’s probably at the extreme end. Kay and I arbitrarily settled on six minutes. Why? Because it’s roughly twice the length of a pop song. Just long enough for us to explore a topic and just short enough to not bore our listeners to death.
Keeping the podcast short also has the benefit it making it a faster download. While many people have broadband or a high-speed Internet connection, there’s still a fair amount of slowpokes out there (like your humble author), who are living at 56 kilobits-per-second.
Six minutes of audio translates into roughly 6 megabytes of file size, so even a short podcast like that won’t exactly download in flash. If you want your podcast to reach as many listeners as possible, keep your file size small.
You might want to try setting a timer for yourself. We use a digital kitchen timer and actually incorporate its insistent beeping into each podcast. It’s an auditory cue or sound effect that signals the end of our podcast is nigh.
.H1 Prepare an outline
Whether you’re podcasting solo or with a friend, it always helps to have an outline. Before recording your podcast, decide what talking points you want to hit.
You don’t have to sit down and write out your podcast speech word-for-word, unless that makes you feel more comfortable. If you’re a confident speaker, you can work from a loose outline to help your podcast sound more spontaneous and lively.
Kay and I find that just agreeing on certain bullet points before we hit the record button helps keep the conversation going smoothly. We know, for instance, what particular events and movies we want to cover, then we ad-lib and riff on those subjects.
If you’re amazingly good at improvisation, you can try winging it without any sort of outline. But, I’d recommend against it.
In my next article, I’ll tell you what equipment we use to record our podcast. Kay and I discovered that not all audio recorders are created equal. If you learn from our mistakes, you might save yourself some money and hassles.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
Listen to [[http://www.hutchinsonleader.com/news/audio-podcast|Jorge’s podcast]].
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.BIO
