Podcasting is becoming more and more popular. Podcasts are a great way to learn something new.
If you are a creator, then making your own podcast allows you to get your content in front of a new audience.
While starting a podcast isn’t too difficult, you’ll need to make sure that you follow a few basic steps to get your podcast launched successfully.
That’s where Udemy’s course “How to Start a Podcast” comes in. The lessons cover the fundamentals of creating a podcast and everything you need.
We take a closer look at this podcasting course for newbies. Here are a few insights on what the course covers and what was missing.
Who Is The Podcasting Made Easy Course For?
Ted speaker and course instructor, Chris Hall put together this podcasting course with the goal to provide some of the basic podcasting knowledge to podcasting beginners.
If you want to launch your own podcast or you already started but want to improve your podcast’s reach, then this is a solid beginner course.
Course Requirements
There is know up-front knowledge needed for this course. Saying this, podcasting does require some technical knowledge, so be prepared to learn a few technical details.
What’s Included In The Course?
The course comes with a 1-hour long video which you can access at anytime on desktop, mobile or your smart TV.
There are also 5 downloadable resources, such as a PowerPoint, which means you can read back on everything you have learned.
After you completed the course, you will receive a certificate of completion. This is great if you are looking to use this course to further your career.
What Does The Podcasting Made Easy Course Cover?
What we (and many other reviewers) of thus Udemy course really liked was how easy it was to follow Chris Hall.
He has a really calm voice explaining even some of the more complex topics. He makes it very engaging and fun to learn about the podcast setup.
Here are all the things he covered in his introductory podcast course.
Recording And Editing Your Video
Chris Hall dives straight into how to record your podcast and what to look out for when you record your episode.
He also mentions a few great tips, such as recording your podcast as a video.
This will allow you to publish your podcast not just as an audio file to the different podcast platforms but you can also upload the podcast video to your youtube channel.
What we particularly liked was the recording day checklist which is really useful to make sure you have everything you need when you record your podcast.
In the section on the recording approach, Chris also dives into a few ways to market each new podcast episodes, including posting on social media.
At the end of the course, you will also learn more about how to edit your video and audio in the right way, including how to cut your recorded podcast and add in some music.
Setting Up Your Equipment
It doesn’t take much equipment or a fancy studio to get you started with creating a professional podcast.
Depending on what you want to achieve with your podcast and your budget, you only need a computer and an interesting topic.
For a professional podcast setup, you will need a laptop or computer, a microphone, headphones and a podcast camera.
There is also some other equipment which you might want to consider, such as a microphone stand, good lighting, a pop filter for your microphone and an audio mixer.
If you want to record your podcast with guests, then you need to make sure that you have enough microphones, headphones and other podcast gear for all your guests.
Chris covers most of the essentials when it comes to setup equipment for your podcast.
However, we would have liked to see a few more recommendations and technical explanations on the equipment.
Inviting Guests
When we had a look around for some podcast etiquette, how to invite guests in the right way is often left out.
But Chris has some practical tips on how to entice guests to your podcast and how to keep track of invitations.
It’s worth keeping in mind that not all guests you ask will also respond, so it’s really important that you keep notes of who you contacted and who may require a follow-up.
It’s great that Chris shows a template for how to invite guests to your podcast, so you can start sending out invitations quickly.
How To Host Your Podcast
The course includes a solid section on how and where to host your podcast.
As podcast recordings are large files, you can’t host them on your website. That’s where podcasting hosting platforms come in.
Platforms, such as Spotify, Libsyn or SoundCloud, provide a space where you can store your audio files and listeners can access them easily.
What The How To Start A Podcast Course Doesn’t Cover
While Chris Hall covers the broad basics of podcasting, there are a few things we would have liked to see as discussion points or even just mentioned.
Planning Your Podcast
When it comes to creating a podcast, the planning stage is the most important preparation for your new content.
You should know exactly why you want to create this podcast and explore some of the motivations behind it.
It’s always a good idea to listen to other podcasts and explore what you should include. But before you can do this, you will need to choose a topic for your podcast.
The course covered this but didn’t go into too much detail how to choose your podcast topic and name.
Finding a topic that interests you is essential because you will need to talk about this on your show.
In addition, your topic will also give you a broad understanding of your target audience and what you can offer to your listeners.
Creating A Podcast Brand
Recording your own podcast isn’t just about making a short video or audio. You need to create an entire brand around the podcast to attract and retain listeners.
That’s where we would have liked to hear much more from Chris Hall as creating a brand for your podcast is an essential part of how to start a podcast.
Consider what your audience might want to hear and what you want to represent.
Once you considered this, you can start creating a logo for your brand, a website and your podcast art cover.
Logos always have a professional feel, so make sure that your logo looks stylish. It should describe what you want to represent with your brand.
Also bear in mind that your logo may look slightly different on different podcast platforms.
Podcast Format
Chris also goes into some detail about podcast formats. The format of your podcast typically depends on your podcast topic.
If you talk about history, then you might want to choose a documentary-style podcast with some interview guests.
The majority of popular podcast feature interview guests regularly, and there are one or more hosts presenting the podcast.
Podcast Length
This was just mentioned on the side but there is much more to say about the possible length of your podcast.
It’s a good idea to choose the podcast length based on the information you want to include in your show.
Many podcasters choose to tailor their episode length to how frequently they publish.
If you publish a podcast each day, then it’s good to keep up around 10 minutes. But if you want to publish once a week, then it’s best to stick to 30-50 minutes.
For any podcasts that are published only once a month or every two weeks, you are fine to record over an hour.
Saying this, these are just general guidelines and there are plenty of exceptions.
You can also start with recording with longer pieces and then record more often when you feel that you built an audience.
Podcast Structure
Chris Hall mentioned a few times the basic elements of a podcast but it would be useful to go through how a podcast should be structured.
You should start out with an introduction that gives your listeners an idea of what they can expect. Introduce yourself, your guests and your brand.
You may also want to include any disclaimers for sensitive content in the beginning.
Then, jump into your main content where you can talk about your podcast topic.
Before you finish off, make sure that you summarize the episode and include any calls to action, outro music and what you’ll be talking about in the next episode.
That is just the bare structure of a podcast and you can be as creative as you like with it.
Final Thoughts
Overall, How To Start A Podcast is a great introduction to creating and publishing your first podcast episodes.
We would recommend it for podcast beginners but it’s a little too basic for more advanced podcasters.
