Lessons

Lesson Info

Q&A Basics of Podcasting Startup

We've got some questions, okay? Let's, do it let's do some some q and a here and we actually had a couple of people who are wondering if you could go a little bit more in depth on writing descriptions. Ok, now maybe you could just review and clarify like one of the most important things for people think about when they're writing descriptions for their podcast. Yeah, I mean, this is a description of the podcast again, I think it's important tio really tell people what they're going to gain from your episode. So what is your what was the podcast? You said again? So the name of it is results may vary. Okay, so what's the description so it's a thoughtful experiment to see just what happens when you set out to intentionally design your life. So it's about designing your life with intention results may vary designing your life with attention. What else might get from it? That's curious. You got me curious, but what am I gonna learn from it? Simply like some actionable things. Yeah, so you'r...

e going when I listen to this episode right now, what will I learn? Well, depends on the guest, okay, so the last guest we had was a neuroscientist who is interested in behavior change, so she talks about how the brain works and, you know why you have a gap between what you want to do and what you actually do in your life so in that episode you would get those tips so strategies understanding about the brain and then you can think about experiments that you would do based on that design experiments okay, so what else in the overall description from the podcast the general description could you say to get me to want to listen that you you're very broad which I like but then give me three to five things that I'm gonna learn in general you gotta learn how to do this this and this you're going to learn how teo develop your own experiments like design experiments for your life does that mean it means that you set out to do something and usually we jump right to a solution but instead the design thinking process is one of exploration so you go out and get inspired by people so we bring people on the show who are inspirational we bring on people who are experts so you're getting exposed to something that's beyond the world that you're accustomed to on and then you can take those learnings and apply them to your own life what's another point um you know take away you'll have fun because it's ah really fun show with good fun questions and banter between my co host and I talking about our own life experiences and doing the work that we do okay? And we'll give him one more thing. Okay, um now, before you even go there, yeah, let me ask you guys based on the description, do you would you want to listen? Do you feel inspired? Isn't clear enough for you to be like, okay, I want to listen to this, or is it not clear for you? Go ahead and raise your hand if it's clear for you and you'd want to listen based on that description, and you're not going to hurt my feelings, so I'm trying. I'm trying t trying to set an example like, you know, maybe it's interesting. Yeah. Okay. It's curious. Here. Maybe I'll check it out, but I think this hold total school results may vary. I think. It's a cool title. Yeah. Um, go ahead and serve, you say yeah. I mean, I was in the titles good. I just when I see the title and they wanted when you say the description, I think just two different things pop into my head. But when you say the title definite grabs mind, then the description will have me question the title of that makes sense, you know? But I think the title is great, and I think where your intentions of the podcast are awesome and ah, you know I'm definitely list right now but yeah, of course but you know that the intentions and the vision you have I think it's perfect I just think maybe like this description can you know, be more intentional for what the listeners gonna listen to you know? So I just want you to think about this from the listeners point of view or for someone is coming who doesn't know anything about you um you know, a brand new persons discovered you they see it are they gonna be inspired to wanna click and listen yeah, I mean that's something that I struggle with even describing what I do for a living which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do the podcast to see if I could figure out a different way to talk about it, right? I mean, the title is great results may vary is great but also what does it mean like results may vary in what your business, your life yeah for me it's it's very it's sort of an answer to the question that comes before which is like what happens when you set out to intentionally design your life? I don't know I like it like that yeah, but I'm just saying as a new person coming, the description needs to tell me what am I gonna learn as opposed to experiments like I want you to think about it I'm saying I'm not saying it's right or wrong I'm just saying what's to think about and explore if I'm a new person why would they want to click to listen to the first episode because once they got to get them to click first and then it's gonna be interesting the first thirty to sixty seconds and then you got to keep their attention there's another four hundred thousand podcast out there so why click yours? You wanna get seven billion people something people don't wanna listen a podcast first off if you want to get them to make it easy for them to start listening right so you want to share it? I like the idea of results may vary though I think it's cool I just had an idea for maybe a suggestion that uh oh just had an idea for maybe a suggestion that you could pop you know, probably use for your podcast and what was the question you just said oh, it was what happens when you set out to intentionally design your life so what if the descriptions started with that and they say results may vary get inspired by world class experts neuroscientists, archers, artists, writers you know, whoever you're interviewing on how to lead an intentional life that sounded informations that sounds great how many of you guys think that sounds pretty good right there you go and maybe you can even tweak it amore and you know make it how you want but I think that's great so it's about being very clear about your description and listen I'm probably not you know, my descriptions pointing out perfect things like that um I'm using more now the credibility of the podcast to grow it I haven't checked my description in like a year until I put it up there so for me it's like well people are still finding its working enough that I'm like I'm a little lazy with some of these things but when you're starting out you got to be very intentional and clear because otherwise no one's gonna listen to you unless you have a huge audience already yes david you know I mean like tim farriss launched his podcast a year and a half or two years ago and he was able to grow it huge because he had a million readers a month his blog's gretchen rubin the same thing but you know, it probably wasn't his intention als of the way they wanted it to be for the very beginning so that's that's what we got to work with is there a danger though when you change your description that you're sort of messing with your branding in any sense or is that kind of ok to tweak it yeah it's okay tweak you don't think it's gonna mess with anything I mean you can evolve your podcast you can change the description you can change the title of it you can change the image I'll probably update my new image because that's almost three years old so I want to come and give it a facelift you know, bring a little spark to it um I think that's okay I want to do it every week well every six months or maybe you can like reevaluate where you at where we going? Write something about grass I mean, I know like like corporations spend millions of just keeping their branding so tight specific and then you know for what you're doing it's you've got your branding all those aspects and like, you know, it sounds like you have a little more leeway let our freedom do that more flexible and freedom for sure that's cool yeah yeah um any other questions about yes, nathan I have a question about the description also falling upon these this online question that we had do you have any thoughts or recommendations on find finding the right key words and adding keywords in the description? You know what? If it were me starting out, I would hear in the brewery business, right? So I do like alcohol drinking beer, wine, I would do nightlife lifestyle and I'll look at the other top five competitors you haven't seen what keepers they have not add those you know, do the ones you're already currently doing and then yes, see what? What is the top one what's the category you know, thie category of struggling because I think it is this or is it? I think the main one is like the food and beverage number. I'm like it's mainly for business because I'm trying to educate people on how to start a berry, so I've struggled with, um ah, picking the right category, and I'm wondering if I changed that is that really? I've been I've been afraid to experiment because I changed, I've changed the number time, so I was in the business for a while and then I was, you know, on the top five, ten rankings consistently consistently, and I was like, let me go to the health, so now I've been in hell for a while, and I find that the health is less competitive, more more business shows popping up, so I'm like, I want to be in the health and stay at the top of the rankings there for people that find it, they're going to see me at the top for his business, the rankings go up and down every single day, so you may be number one and then on our lady might before just depends on what you know trans does, but I think switch it up you can change it in the back end and switch it up in in time so I think it's your go to gain a new audience by being somewhere else for another month or two if you jump in there so changes every month and we have the every few months I want to do every month okay every company every few months so you're talking about just changing the order of your top three categories or totally changing from the food and beverage to business trying that it'll put you in a subcategory once you go into business will put you into a subcategory in that category but the main category business, food and beverage change from that but don't change it up too crazy like throw it in the sports can't come now I wouldn't because it's not authentic keep it where it's authentic yeah okay, thanks did you ever question more questions that came in from our online audience want to get your take on just some clarifications? When we talked about in this segment, eso just mooney had a question and we had a couple of boats on this one. Could you just remind people how long you think that the bumper clip should be? I mean, I don't think I should be more than a minute but I think fifteen thirty seconds is a good way to go because a lot of people they want to get into the content pretty fast and we'll talk about monetization and sponsorship reads later in the workshop because sometimes people will do five, ten minutes a sponsorship reason the beginning and it's too long for people and they get annoyed so you want to make sure you do it in an authentic way that respects the audience but also respects the brand of the partner of sponsorships that you can monetize it and make everyone happy. So there's a kind of a happy medium there if that makes sense all right and I know that you mentioned you know, getting your music and keys are had a question and they wanted to know could you just say one more time? Some of the sources where people could get music audio jungle dot com is a great place and you can also just type in and google royalty free music you know, you could go to soundcloud there's some creative common royalty free music on soundcloud that I grab some time uh, I would recommend for your intro bumper buying spending twenty bucks to get that music though, because then you can use it over and over. Okay, great and let's see, here is a question when you're interviewing someone uh over skype do you use another piece of software to do the actual were great question yeah, I use something called uh call recorder for skype its twenty bucks its e cam the letter e c a m m call recorder it's part one of the best twenty dollars I ever spent and then I use a new software that I really like and I think it's in the guide uh but I'm gonna say it wrong it's I think it's a physio to the presidio or pizzi oh but I think it's in the guide I think that's a free software might be a ten dollar software it's really nice recording software for skype as well p I ease d o I think it is yes. Pamela yes that's right for pc here in san francisco though I didn't know people use pc here I know I'm sorry so universally sorry yes um any other questions about this here in the audience yes got a mic on you? Yes, I do recall as faras categories um I picked personal journal and I'm still struggling if that's like the right thing but is literal is there an itunes descriptor of what each thing is? Because I just kind of went in and started looking at what else was there and thought oh there's a match like I'm similar to that content I mean, what is personal journal mean um to me it means I'm telling part of my own story in the way that I'm in the way that I'm choosing to interview people like I'm not shy about then sharing it's not just a question it's more of a banter and I think it's a good fit or society and culture I think is another one I could fit in there right? Yeah that's cool so just kind of go with it yeah I mean again my mind is very broad it's like interview athletes and business people and spiritually leaders and you know different things so for me it was like ok health I guess you know I have some business interviews I have some health I have some spiritually I have personal journals so it's kind of like what's the majority of it what's like the best and that's why I play with it and I'll mix it up and switch it around see where people connect with the most in which category maybe try society and culture next time maybe try health even see how if the if the rankings go up if you're getting more traffic things like that thank you yeah your questions here I've got one more here from the the online audiences from michelle who says if you didn't do interviews would you be more likely to have a co host or a guest host? I guess this is the general just this question is you know, a lot of times podcast our interviews but if they're not is it okay to just be by yourself or should you have the other voice I mean, I do some solo by myself. Well, I'll just do like a thirty minute by myself, and people really like those it's just more work. It's, more work for me, it's, more time and energy. If I don't have a business that was running, if I wasn't like, you know, chasing my dreams, doing everything else, then maybe I would do, like, once a week just by myself, right it out really crafted because I think those actually do the best for me when I do take the time to do those, um, I think if I had a business partner, that was, like had this personality that I could banter with, and we were together every single day and we started the show together and it was specifically for the business. Then I would have a co host, um, but since I started my podcast by myself, like, I wantto give someone ownership of it when I put all the work in, so it kind of depends on where I'm at.