No doubt, podcasting can be a hectic, tiring endeavor, especially if you do not have the organizational skills and other team members in place to properly handle it.
Having these skills, or at the very least bringing a new team member on board who has, is absolutely vital.
This encompasses everything from ensuring guests are booked, studios are hired, social media posts are mind, and the actual podcast episode is recorded and released on time.
But how exactly can you properly manage podcasting workflow, and what things need to be remembered?
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What Is Podcast Workflow?
The workflow of a podcast is everything that needs to be managed and completed, in the order of which said actions need to be taken.
Having this degree of organization is handy in any business.
Especially 24-hour professions such as podcasting, wherein tasks might need to be handled regularly, and in unconventional hours and timeframes – such as podcast promotion tasks such as social media posts and fan engagement (also see, ‘Best Podcast Promotion Services’).
How To Plan Your Workflow
When organizing your audio or video podcast workflow, it is important to consider what needs to be done, what is expected from potential listeners or viewers, and to create a sense of chronological order between the episode being planned and being completed.
Step One
Firstly, you need to create a list of the tasks you have ahead of you, spanning the whole process from conception, recording, and editing of audio files during post production, to completion.
Depending on the format or the genre, it might look different, but generally speaking, they tend to follow this pattern:
- Come up with a podcast idea
- Search for guests
- Schedule interviews
- Prepare for podcast recording – prepare the proper equipment, recording software
- Conduct the recording
- Podcast editing of the raw audio or video to ensure high audio quality
- Publish the episode to directories such as Apple Podcasts
- Promote the episode using a preferred marketing tool
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Step Two
The next step is to create sub-tasks, wherein you can properly break down what each task will entail.
For example, this could resemble the following:
- Follow potential guests on Twitter and read their recent tweets for talking points
- Read their blog, especially posts relating to the topic of your episode
- Prepare a list of questions
- Create a logical order of podcast questions for interviewing guests
- Send them to the guest ahead of time to give them chance to think
- Ask the guest for anything they would like to discuss
- Confirm that they know the recording time etc
These might not be complex, but there are many stages. This means that properly organizing each sub-task can ensure nothing gets forgotten.
Step Three
The next step involves creating a project management plan.
This is essentially a plan that can break each section down into sub-tasks and individual tasks, and present them to you to be ticked off once completed.
This just makes the whole process easier, and will ensure things don’t get forgotten.
Step Four
The last step involves automating things where possible. This could be in the case of arranging guests, which can be individual-specific and time-consuming.
A way to automate this could be to use intermediary calendar tools, wherein they can highlight their availability, and you can pencil them in.
Other Tips & Tricks
Of course, as well as the above methods, there are several other tips and tricks that can come in handy when managing all the tasks in your own podcast workflow.
Learn To Delegate
When working with other people, such as a sound engineer, particularly on a project that you are in charge of (or is important to you) it can be tempting to do most of the work yourself.
However, there is no quicker way to become burned out – or indeed to make mistakes – than by taking on too much work.
This is where delegation comes in handy, and the quicker you learn how to assign tasks amongst your team, the better you will feel about the whole process.
This happens in any workplace, and ensures that the whole process works smoothly, and that no one has too much to handle at any one time.
Network
Networking is the best way to make podcasting friends – friends who can help you with problems, give you advice, or donate their invaluable skills and time to helping your podcast get off the ground.
There are countless professional events, or online forums where you can meet like minded people with the same desire and goals.
Seasonal Podcasts
If you are finding weekly or monthly podcast production too much stress and work, then why not switch to a seasonal arrangement?
This means that, say, during the summer you take some time off to plan and manage other aspects of the enterprise, and then during the winter months you record and release new multiple episodes.
Alternatively, you could also create show notes and record each monthly episode in one closed period, and then release them as if they were recorded each week.
This only works for certain genres of podcasting, and does not work for podcasts focused on things like current events – which for obvious reasons you wouldn’t have party to when recording ahead of time.
Reconnect With Yourself
Lastly, it is important to remember that you started podcasting for fun and enjoyment.
When stress gets too much and you start feeling burned out during content creation, it is important to reconnect with this feeling, and remind yourself that this was always supposed to be an enjoyable process.
This can be a good way of changing your mindset towards the podcast, and realizing that sometimes the best work isn’t the most accurate, the tightest production process, or the highest level of production – instead coming from a place of enjoyment and spontaneity.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it, everything you need to properly manage your podcast workflow and own business, ensuring you have the skills necessary to have a proper work-life balance in your podcasting career.
Podcasting can be a rewarding and fun experience, but for it to be this way you need to have the right amount of discipline, the right people doing the right jobs, and the right amount of work ethic to make sure everything gets done when it needs to be done.
So if you are struggling with your podcast workflow, then why not try some of these methods?
