The Mid-Life Creative

This was another one of those interviews I looked forward to for weeks. Charlynn, of https://my.captivate.fm/Charwritescode.com (Charwritescode.com) joined me to talk about learning to code (shout out to Netscape Navigator for the headstart, yo) getting started in freelancing, our love of Star Trek, and the similarities (and differences) between Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5.

Char has been a great cheerleader for me and my pursuits, and I am such a fan of hers and cheer her on as well. I wouldn't have done as much as I took on this summer without someone like Char in my corner, and I think that's vital to anyone seeking to take on a new direction. It helps you believe you belong in the space, which is a problem we all have from time to time. Find those people who do that for you.

Follow Charlynn on Twitter https://twitter.com/ohtheprofanity (@ohtheprofanity) and https://twitter.com/charwritescode (@charwritescode.)

In this first episode of the 2nd Season of MLC, I have a conversation with The Darph. He’s a new friend from my growing TikTok Addiction. We talk making music, guitars, film photography, planting seeds, and much more.

This was a really fun talk with a really cool dude, and I hope you enjoy it.

ConclusionCongratulations, you’ve completed this guide to starting your podcast.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little guide to planning, creating, and promoting your podcast as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it for you.

If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn at krisroley, and my website is http://krisroley.com/ (krisroley.com). I strongly encourage you to connect with me, because I’d love to hear and share all the podcasts you’ve created.

Thank you, and Stay Solid, people.

Ratings and ReviewsWhen it comes to ratings and reviews, the bottom line is that they are and have always been the leading way to attract listeners. The more consistently you can get favorable ratings and reviews, the more chance your podcast gets featured on the podcast platforms. It’s a form of social proof. Other listeners vouching for you means new listeners will subscribe.

If you’ve listened to any podcasts at all, you’ve no doubt heard the host ask for a rating and review at some point during the show. That’s perfectly natural, but I have come to believe that it’s the wrong thing to do. So instead, there’s a better and more effective way to ask for ratings and reviews.

By way of full disclosure, I can’t take credit for this idea. However, this method comes from a Guru named John Lee Dumas, and while he’s one of the gurus, I have to give him credit for an idea that works.

What JLD doesn’t do is ask for ratings and reviews during his podcast, and his logic is sound: When people are listening to your show, they’re jogging, driving, doing their Sunday chores, and anything else that doesn’t relate to being in front of a computer where they can give you a meaningful review.

Instead, ask for a rating and review when you reply to them on social media or email. It’s straightforward. After you address the question or comment, thank them for commenting, asking for the review at the end, and giving them links to do so. According to him, this method accounts for 90% of the reviews he has received, and he’s got almost 3600 reviews on Apple Podcasts. I can’t argue with that kind of success.

So take a page out of JLD’s notebook. Don’t ask for ratings and reviews during the show. Instead, ask for them when you’re interacting with a listener directly.

Q and AsConsistent quality content is the key to a loyal audience. That said, human nature being what it is, validating your audience is another great way to grow loyalty, and a great way to do that is to schedule episodes where you answer audience questions.

Here are a few ways to create these episodes:

If you have an episode dedicated to a particular topic, let listeners know that you’d like to have an episode dedicated to answering listener questions on the subject at the end of the show. Ask listeners to respond on Twitter with a hashtag you create. Review the questions as they come in, answer some then (don’t forget to ask for ratings and reviews when you do), and pick the best five to ten questions of the bunch. Remember, when you have the material, you need to go back on Twitter to tell your listeners you have everything you need and stay tuned!

Another method is pretty much the same, but it’s more of an open phones segment or Ask Me Anything show. Tell the listeners that you’re going to have a Q and A episode on a date-specific, create a Twitter hashtag, and follow the exact directions listed above.

Finally, save the Q and A segments for when you have a guest. Let your audience know you have a guest coming on, and ask for questions you can pose to your guest. This time, don’t answer any questions (they’re not for you), and I’d leave this hostage open-ended until just before you interview your guest. Be forewarned: try to pick questions that are interesting to the guest. If the guest is someone who appears on a lot of media, they’ve probably heard a lot of the same questions. The more original you can be, the more engaged the guest is likely to be.

The Benefit of Landing PagesAnother method you can use to stay in contact with your listeners is to create an email list.

Now, some of you may find that one a bit icky, and I don’t blame you. I was like that too. I didn’t have an email list for years, and the reason I didn’t was that the Gurus push having an email list right from the start. Depending on who is driving you towards an email list, it implies opting into a deluge of emails for webinars, services, and products. It means the chances of opening up your email and seeing a great Wave of spam deluge your inbox. You hate spam, I’m not too fond of spam, and the last thing I would want to do is give someone access to my email. So, you might be surprised to hear that I would encourage you to do this.

If you hate selling to people, then you don’t have to. I know several podcasters that send emails to people when they release episodes. Some do a weekly newsletter that covers what they did the past seven days and anything coming up. Others only send an email when they have something to promote.

Building an email list from the start is one of the best ways to directly connect to your listeners and build a longer-lasting relationship with them. Most people know Mailchimp, but there are many alternatives like Constant Contact, AWeber, Sendinblue, and Convertkit.

If you’re serious about growing your podcast, give yourself every opportunity to connect with your audience and get that email list started. A robust list is worth its weight in gold.

There are many guides and posts out there that promise you that if you take specific steps, you can get your first one thousand listeners. I’m not going to promise you that. I’m going to tell you that if you work on growing your audience and spending the time necessary to do that, you will see your listeners and downloads go up over time. It depends on the time you put in and the content you’re putting out. There’s no magic bullet.

Here are some steps you can take to grow your podcast and gain a loyal community of listeners.

Have a home base.Most podcast platforms like the ones I mentioned in Part II offer a website where your podcast is displayed. However, if you’re offering a product or service or wish to grow a community, you’re going to want a home base of your own. In most cases, a blog site like WordPress or Squarespace is just the thing. WordPress is the most used blog software globally and has many podcast-related plug-ins and other customizable options. Squarespace, the platform I use, is for people like me who don’t want to mess around with coding and get ‘under the hood.’

Instead, you could decide to buy space from a web host like Hostgator or Bluehost and create your own space from the ground up. Whatever route you take, this is a place for you to host all the episodes of your podcast, blog posts, downloads, and other resources for your listeners. When you release a new episode of your podcast, you can embed a web player for that episode, append it with show notes and other resources, and post it to your website. Then, you can create assets for social media accounts and link your listeners back to the post on your website.

Don’t forget to post your new content on social media! It’s the one thing most new podcasters forget to do, and it can significantly affect downloads and engagement at the very beginning. Make sure people know what you have going on and where they can find great content from you.

Submitting Your Podcast To DirectoriesOnce you’ve signed up for a podcast host platform and created your show, the next step is to let the many directories know that it’s there. In many cases, the platform will have the ability to auto-submit the show for you or take you through a guided process to make sure the show is submitted. In many cases, submitting to Apple Podcasts takes care of many other platforms because they get their info from Apple. For example, if you use Overcast, a very popular and easy-to-use podcast app for iOS, you can search for my show and add it from within the app.

There are many directories now, and listing them all would take way too much time for the low return you’re likely to get out of the lesser-known ones. So, here are the directories I would suggest you submit your podcast for the best results:

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Spotify

Stitcher

iHeartRadio

TuneIn

The Podcast Index.

If you go the extra mile to make your show available in as many places as you can, that means your listener has a greater chance that they can listen to your show on their preferred platform or app. On the other hand, if the listener has to go to a different place to get your show, they may decide it’s too much of an effort, and they’ll either unsubscribe or never listen in the first place.

Podcast Hosting (Yes, You Need This)Back in the old days, you may have been able to get away with placing your podcast on your website, as long as you could create an RSS feed that listeners could subscribe to. While it’s still possible to do that with sites like WordPress and Squarespace, the resources they have don’t distribute content like a podcast well, especially if you’re getting thousands of downloads a day. For that reason, developers created podcast hosting sites to host and distribute your media. If you’re serious about podcasting, you’ll want to invest in a podcast hosting site for your show. Once you complete an episode, you upload it to their site along with your cover art and your show notes, and it posts just like a blog post. You point listeners to that post and the RSS feed that they create for you, and that’s how people listen to and subscribe to your podcast.

In the past few years, a few new players have entered the game to offer free hosting. I would advise against this because of the adage that if something is free, you are the product. Many hosts in the past have placed their own ads on your feed to monetize them, and these hosts make money from someone else’s work with the podcaster getting nothing out of that arrangement. Other times, Free hosts have posted questionable terms making it sound like they own the rights to anything posted on their platform. The podcasting community has been quick to point these actors out, and those platforms have generally walked those terms back. That said, I would strongly urge you not to host your podcast on any free platform. If you’re serious about podcasting, it’s best to pay for this. Luckily, the cost of these hosts has come down considerably in the last few years. There are three platforms I recommend.

Libsyn is the grand old dad of podcasting, and you can realistically host a weekly podcast on their platform for 20 bucks a month. That allows you 400 MB of space on their server. So, if your podcast file is less than 100 MB in size, you could post four podcasts and schedule them out four weeks in advance. Then, after 30 days, the oldest show gets archived, and you reclaim that space.

Simplecast’s basic plan is 15 dollars a month and has unlimited space and uploads. However, for the additional bells and whistles, like comprehensive analytics, you’ll want to upgrade to their Essential plan, which is 35 dollars a month. If you add a second separate podcast, you’ll be paying that monthly fee for each show.

I use Captivate, which allows me to create an unlimited number of podcasts, unlimited hosting space and downloads, more comprehensive analytics, and access to classes on growing your show and creating a community for 19 dollars a month. Of the three I’ve mentioned, I believe Captivate to be the best value for your money, and I use them because they align with my values. For that reason, I am an affiliate for Captivate, and I can offer a seven day trial of their service. If you’re so inclined, I’ll include the link at the end of this guide.

Cover artCover art is another area that adds up to the first impression a listener will have when looking for your show. Having clean, readable, attractive cover art will help your show stand out. I tend to use Photoshop to create my art, but many new podcasters may not have access to Photoshop, or they may not have the ability to create something by themselves. That’s ok. There are great social media graphic creators like Adobe Spark Post and Canva that have resources you can use, and there are places like Fiverr where you can outsource this to a creative pro.

Some technical specifications for cover art you should adhere to: The minimum size for podcast cover art is 1400 x 1400 pixels, in either JPG or PNG format, and shouldn’t be any larger than 500kb. Apple podcasts would like you to submit something closer to 3000 X 3000 pixels, so the larger you can make the art, the better. Remember to keep it under the 500kb limit, though.

As far as aesthetics, I would tell you that all the best logos are simple and require very little or no text. You know the Apple Logo when you see it, just like you know the Windows logo, Pepsi, or Walmart. They’re simple.

You certainly don’t have to go this route, but I’m a big fan of flat, clean, minimalist design, as you can see by the covers for my most recent shows. I was influenced to some degree by the covers designed by Relay.FM, which has a consistency of design between their shows.

It’s important to remember that listeners will view your art in a smaller format, so it needs to be readable. Don’t put a lot of detail into your art. It may end up just looking messy.