How To Start A Podcast: Goals, Topics and Motivation

Despite the enormous boom in podcasting over the last few years, there appears to be a lot more room for new podcasts to emerge and successfully draw an audience. So the question of how to start your own podcast is still very relevant and full of potential.

We’re talking here about content decisions. Previously I wrote about technical approaches to recording, both in-room and remotely in the article “How To Start A Podcast: The Tech and the Tools”

Listen along as I illustrate and expand upon the points in this post in the companion episode of our in-house podcast, Metapod. Find out more about the podcast and subscribe, follow and everything here

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Love Your Topic

Before even getting into any technical areas about how to record, produce and distribute and grow your podcast, we need to identify the core content.

There’s a lot of advice from internet experts about researching niche’s and approaching your topic from a strategic position. There’s nothing wrong with researching audiences, but the advice we have for any prospective podcaster is to prioritise authenticity.

Through research, you may discover a niche that has less competition or a problem that needs to be solved, or a commonly searched topic. But unless that result lies within a field that you have genuine passion and expertise in, this should not lead your choice.

The strength of podcasting, as opposed to mainstream media, is that it is produced by people who may not be trained broadcasters. But they have their finger on the pulse of a community, are an authority on their topic or enthusiasts in a subject matter.

It’s not a space where people who have used Google Trends to discover the most popular SEO-juice topic of the day are guaranteed to thrive.

Why ? Because podcasters have authenticity in their bones, they love their topics, are curious to speak with others who intersect with their specialism. This comes across in the choice of material, of guests, the tone of voice of the hosts and breadth of their conversation.

Do what you love and listeners will hear it in your voice and identify with your shared passion.

If we were to condense it down it would be:

• Choose a topic you love
• Ask yourself how can you be useful to the listeners who share your interest.

Audience

This second point of “be useful to your listener” is key. Keeping the listening audience in mind in all of your decisions will be a valuable guide as you build your show. Knowing what it is that you’re offering them will guide your choice of topics, choice of guests, your line of questions and the general vibe of your podcast.

Find Your Why

I break down goals for my clients into: reputation-building, engagement, promotion, or more broadly content marketing.

Producing a podcast is not a small undertaking. The relentless promotion that is needed to grow an audience should not be under-estimated.

So, why are you doing it ? If you don’t know; the time, effort and workload will overwhelm you pretty quickly and your podcast, like 80% of all podcasts started in the last 12 months, will never see Episode 7.

Here are a few motivations from some helpful people in the Australian Podcasters Facebook group responding to my question

“What’s your why ? What is the goal of producing your podcast, for you?

And these, with a more US-centric selection of motivations, from the kind souls in the Podcast Guest Collaborative Facebook group

Punk Rock DIY

Podcast producers, like me have a real passion for great content that is beautifully recorded and produced. Audio quality is the signature of your ambition – but not all audiences can hear the difference.

So, do aim as high as you can. I hate myself for admitting it, but it’s not a disaster if at first that is an online interview recorded through a cheap laptop microphone or directly into a mobile phone. It’s the content that is important.

What is a top priority is that the final output aligns with the expectations of your audience. The content should inform, enlighten or entertain them (or fulfill whatever expectation they had when they followed your podcast).

But doing it, trumps not doing it every time.

When you have built an audience, you can always improve your technology along with the model that you’re using to justify the whole enterprise.

I’ll run through some of that in my next article

Here’s three chords, now form a band.