I  have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately between my 2 and half hours of commuting per day and any other times during the day that I am doing something that doesn’t require my concentration so I can pay attention to the podcast such as exercising and cleaning up.  Most podcast that I listen to have at least one thing if not many things that can piss off and lose listeners.  I don’t have a podcast of my own so I am a good candidate to give these tips since I am on the outside looking in and can see what some people with podcasts are blind to.
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Sound Quality:  Obviously the best quality of sound is preferred but even with mediocre quality microphones; there are things to pay attention to.

1)    Adjust the sound – Many podcasts have guests call in for an interview or for their expert opinion.  This is a great way to provide great content and value to your listeners so make sure that their volume is at the same level as yours.  There is nothing worse than listening to a podcast and having to turn your volume all the way up and strain to hear what the caller has to say and then getting an ear drum shattering boom from you as you give your take on the conversation.  If you don’t want to go through the hassle of readjusting the volume for short comments, just repeat or summarize what the caller had to say before commenting back.

2)    Same goes for music – If you play a music intro or some music to end off the show, make sure it is at the same volume level so that listeners don’t have to keep adjusting the volume.  Don’t add to the hearing aid boom of 2020 which will be caused by the increase of portable mp3 players.

3)    Start off at a low volume – this works great with music intros.  Start off very low and start raising the volume until it is at your normal volume level.  This gives time to your listener to readjust their volume without bursting their ear drums since the last podcaster that they listened to didn’t read these tips yet.

Advertising: Give us enough value to make the advertising worth listening to.

4)    Don’t spend half the time advertising – Advertising is fine on a podcast, we understand that you have to monetize somehow but don’t go overboard.  If you have a 10 minute podcast, there should not be more than 1 minute of advertising and even that should be broken down.  Plugs are a lot better for the listener and much more effective.  Personally, I usually look up most of the plugs after the show and ignore the advertising.

Personality: Even if you don’t have great content, people may fall in love with your personality.

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5)    Have a personality – There are some podcasts that I hate because the entire thing sounds like a commercial.  It is either monotone or some super energetic guy reading a pitch from a paper.  My favorite podcasts are done by people who just speak.  They have something to say and just say it as if it were a one on one conversation with the listener.

6)    Be passionate – Passion is contagious.  If you are passionate about your subject, you will create passionate fans that will listen to you no matter what you have to say.  People want to be part of that passion.  There is one podcast that I pushed off listening to for a long time because he had no passion about his topic.  I ended up listening to it and it had great content but his podcast will always be at the bottom of my listening list for when I have nothing else to listen to.  It is the passion that gets people involved and encourages them to call in comments and continue the conversation.

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Frequency and Length:
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7)    Podcast often, but not too often – Your listeners depend on you for what you have to say but if you don’t podcast for a while, they will forget about you and possibly unsubscribe when cleaning up their subscriptions.  Don’t podcast too often because, no matter how good you are, listeners don’t have enough time in their day to listen to everything and if they fall behind, you may lose them.
If you have tons of great content and just need to keep podcasting, here are 2 solutions:
a)    Start a second podcast – split your content into 2 or more categories and give them each their own podcast.  People that love you will subscribe to your other podcasts and you won’t lose the first group of people who may get scared off because of too much content.

b)    Edit your shows down – Edit your podcasts and only give 100% value instead of a whole bunch of filler.

8)    Choose the best length for you and stick to it – It’s ok to be off by a few minutes because that is part of what podcasting is all about but don’t jump from 10 minute shows to hour long shows.  Your listeners learn what to expect from you and will budget their time appropriately based on how much time they have at the moment.  It’s a piss off when you have saved a 1 hour show for a long trip and end up with 10 minutes or have a short commute and your 10 minute show ends up being an hour.  I won’t even go into the 3 hour long podcasts.

The Jazz: Make your podcast something special.

9)    Jazz up the podcast – create regular features in your podcasts that keep people coming back or give listeners something to wait for.  Joseph Jaffe has his “Winners and Losers” and Mitch Joel has his “6 Pixels of Separation”.

10)    Create a catchy theme song – this can be for your entire podcast or even just for one of your mini features (as in tip 9).  The catchy song will energize your listeners the second it comes on and it will have them humming or singing the song all day which can lead to some good word of mouth for your podcast.  It keeps a subconscious hold on your fans.

If you have your own podcast (or if you are a listener like me), let me know what you think of these tips in the comment section.Similar Posts:

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Joseph Jaffe from Jaffe Juice has a podcast that I have been listening to over the last week and a bit.  I found him on ITunes while looking for good marketing podcasts (and it is good) to listen to while I commute.  I downloaded his last 11 episodes, starting from his 100^th episode and have enjoyed every second of it.  His shows average at above an hour so if you do the math, I listened to about 11 or so hours of this guy speak over the last week.  Joseph, if you’re reading, you are that good and “thank you”.

On his podcast I fell in love with one of the segments called “Winners and Losers” where he mentions major companies that either did a great job marketing or made a major marketing screw-up.  One example he’s been ranting about is a really bad experience with Delta Airlines where they treated him, a business class platinum member frequent flyer like garbage and they refused to really do anything about it.  The amount of bad publicity that caused for delta made them a huge “loser”.

Since I like the segment so much, I wanted to give a winner and loser of my own:

Winner – K-Mart

My wife has been really busy running errands all week with my 2 kids (ages 3 and 1) which is not an easy job.  One of her stops was at K-Mart where to her delight they had shopping carts for kids.  These were not the typical mini carts for kids to push or cars for kids to sit in, they were trucks with little TVs in the front so kids can sit inside and watch while their parents shop and dump the articles they are buying in the back of the truck.  The TVs had all the shows that kids love and keep them busy.

Any kid with that experience will beg their parents to shop at K-Mart on a regular basis and any parent will gladly go back to have a calm shopping experience without kids driving them crazy.

Loser – Best Buy 

A bit over 2 years ago I bought a laptop computer at Best Buy.  While I was buying it, they convinced me to buy the 3 year complete warranty for close to $400.  I decided to buy it when the salesman told me that if anything happens to the computer, they will replace it.  He even went as far to say that after 2 ½ years, I could throw it down the stairs and smash the computer and get a brand new one.  It sounded like a great deal and well worth the money so I went for it.

It was a great computer but there was a little flaw in the screen that they gave me.  After about a year, lines started appearing on the screen.  Happy that I had a warranty, I took it back to the store to be fixed or replaced.  There were also some other small issues with the computer so I asked them to fix them as well.  They took my computer and sent it off to their service center.  After 2 weeks, they called me up and told me to come pick it up.  I rushed over to the store only to find out that it was still at the service center and they made a mistake.

I finally got the computer back a few days later and the screen was fixed but the other issues were not fixed.  They asked me if I wanted to send it back for another 2 weeks but I opted not to since I needed my laptop for work.  When I got home, I realized that my battery which used to hold a 4 hour charge, now only held a 10 minute charge.  I don’t know if they killed my battery or replaced it with a dead battery but the fact was that my computer wouldn’t work unless it was attached to a wall. 

They took my computer back for another 2 weeks and when I got it back, the power cord was loose.  Another 2 weeks go by, I get the computer back and it doesn’t charge at all.  I kept sending it back and each time, they call me up 2 weeks later to pick it up but when I get there, I realize that they haven’t fixed anything and even made it worse at times.

I spoke to the Geek Squad, customer service, the managers and even some of their managers about the situation and I asked if I can have a new computer because it has now been about 7 months that I have been without my laptop and they are not fixing it.   I got the same answer from every one of them, “all we can do is send it to the service center and they decide what to do”. 

According to the warranty, if the computer needs to be repaired more than 3 times, it’s considered a “lemon” and qualifies for a replacement.  My computer doesn’t qualify because they never do anything to fix it when it’s sent back.  They just waste a lot of postage.

To make a long story short, they still have my computer and have refused to give me a replacement or even a $10 gift card for my troubles and inconvenience.

I have had several other bad experiences with Best Buy and if you do a Google search for “I hate best buy”, you’ll see that many other people feel the same way I do.

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I love my IPod.  I have Itunes set up to download Podcasts every day and I sync them while I am at the office.  I do most of my listening and watching while commuting while I am nowhere near a computer.  Yesterday I was watching a podcast from Andrew Lock of “Help! My Business Sucks!” and in the podcast, he asked his viewers, if they liked what they saw, to share his video through any social media such as dig, facebook, stumble, etc.

I listen to so many different podcasts that it is sometime hard to remember where everything is coming from.  I carry around a notepad to jot down any ideas or interesting information as well as ideas that I come up with based on what I am hearing.  When listening to a good podcast, I can fill up a couple pages in my notepad with things to try out, things to post about or things to research.  Each of these podcasts help me get lucky by keeping a continuous stream of great information and ideas coming my way. 

I realize that the people who create the podcasts do not do it for me alone, but they do it to create value and share it with the world.  If I was the only one listening, I am 100% positive that most, and probably all of them would stop podcasting.  If I want to make sure that the information and ideas keep coming, I have to make sure to do my part in sharing the information.  To do this, I post articles to “pay it forward” and I use social bookmarking to spread the original content to more people, even if I have to spend time searching all over the internet to find their actual site to submit.

I thank all of the blog authors and podcast creators who have helped me get to where I am and I ask you, my readers to “pay it forward” as well by stumbling or social bookmarking my posts that you like, joining the community by leaving comments and spreading the word.

Thanks.

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Last week I finally bought myself the 80 gig video ipod and my only regret is that I didn’t get it sooner.  I have about an hour and change of a commute to work each way which sometimes turns into 2 ½ hours or more each day traveling back and forth to work.  I always thought that I was taking full advantage of my commute by reading books, magazines, blogs and anything else related to my current goals but this past week I found out that I have been missing out.

Store as Many Books as you can Handle

The beauty of the ipod is that you can store as many audio books, podcasts and notes as you need at any given time.  Instead of carrying around a bag full of books and magazines, all you need is a pocket sized mp3 player.  That way, if you get bored or tired of one book or subject, you can just switch over to something else.  Many times at the end of the day I am too tired to focus on heavy material so I listen to something lighter.

Learn While you Walk, Drive or even Rest

Another advantage that audio books and podcasts have over written materials is that you can continue listening even while walking or driving.  When I’m really wiped from a long day, I can sit back, relax, put my feet up, close my eyes and just listen.

Let ITunes do the Hard Work for you

BI – Before ipod, I would spent quite a bit of time just finding the right books and blogs and either getting them from the library, store, Amazon.com or online and then some more time if I had to print it out.  With itunes, I can just subscribe to podcasts and have them uploaded automatically to my ipod and also  browse through books and audio clips right in itunes.

I would highly suggest to anyone looking to get lucky, to get themselves an ipod.

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