You like listening to podcasts. You follow a bunch on them on a regular basis. And one fine day, it happily dawns on you that you, too, maybe start a podcast of your own.
You pause for a moment and take some time to think. And what do you know, you discover that there are things you’re interested in—more, you’re passionately engaged to them. Not only that, but you already have a good knowledge base and your own ideas and opinions concerning those topics and subjects.
And, you want to share it to the world.
Planning Your Podcast
Now, that’s all fine. But the very fact that you want to start a podcast means you want it to be successful, too. That is to say, you want to create a reasonably broad fan base. You want to have engaged fans tuning in to your pod regularly (otherwise, why start a podcast? If you’re happy with just 4-5 people listening to you, there is no point starting a podcast and taking all the trouble that goes into creating one, right? You could very well have shared your ideas with your close friends, etc. and that will be it!)
Now, this is where planning your podcast becomes of paramount importance.
And in this article, we’ll talk about some basic things around starting a podcast but things that are crucial when it comes to creating a quality and a potentially successful pod.
We won’t go into the technical details here, such as getting all the necessary equipment, creating a studio, choosing the right editing software and so on. Each of these are hugely important topics in themselves and merit separate and dedicated discussions and articles devoted to them.
Podcast format
Now, when you’re at the planning stage, the first thing to determine is to what kind of format you want for your podcast. Is it going to be a solo pod? Two-people conversation? A round-table podcast?
Or, if you have a journalistic bent of mind, you can very well plan a predominantly interview-based podcast. This means that you may often have to go out in the open and on the streets. Of course, you can arrange to have interviews at your own (typically home-based) studio. However, for interviews, more often than not, you’ll yourself have to go and meet people (at their office, home, etc.) than having people coming to your place. Take NOTE, too, that you may need a slightly different set of equipment (especially when it comes to audio capturing devices, but also perhaps a more advanced editing software) if you’re planning to start a interview-based pod.
This brings us to another important point, which is to taking stock of your resources. For example, you may feel that a round-table podcast will be ideal for your chosen topic. However, think ahead whether it is feasible to arrange round-tables on a regular basis (after all, there is a reason why a majority of podcasts are either solo or consist of two-way conversations!).
Choosing your topic
We’ll touch shortly upon this point. The fact that you want to start a podcast often means you already have one or two topics or themes in mind. That’s all fine.
However, think about the following things:
Whether you’ve something unique or original to say that will be edifying to your target audience.
And also, whether or not the topic is already well-covered (that is, there are already a bunch of guys running their own podcasts on the same topic). If yes, it is usually best to stay away from such topics, unless of course you feel like you have an entirely different spin to offer on the subject in question.
Also, when choosing a topic or subject, try not to make it too broad. For example, you don’t want to start a podcast on the subject of ‘staring your own blog’. That is too broad. Instead, you can make it something like ‘how to create a successful blog without having to depend on organic seo’.
This is just an example. The point is that when you choose or niche down to something specific, you’ll run a much greater chance of creating a loyal and engaged fan base/regular listeners. And it’ll also be easier to plan your episodes when you focus on some specific aspects of a given subject.
