UPDATE: Beginning January 2018, Dave has been employed by Blubrry and has included an affiliate link to their services.
In the past, International Podcast Day episodes were a list of my favorite podcasts. This year I wanted to take a different approach and talk about what podcasting is and how you can start your own.
What Is A Podcast?

Let’s start with the literal definition of “podcast”. According to Google, a podcast is:

“a digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.”

That’s a pretty good overview. There are more technical details, such as RSS feeds, that I’m going to skip over for time’s sake.

 

Blubrry, one of the “big two” in podcast media hosting points out a big qualifier:

“In order to make posted audio and video files a true podcast, the proper technology needs to be in place to allow automated content downloading and syndication.”

Enough of the technical stuff, right? Let’s get into making your podcast because it does take a little bit of work.

How To Start

There are three important components when it comes to starting your podcast:


Topic

Audience

Schedule

Topic

Knowing what you’re going to talk about is 90% of your show. When I started Geek This, I knew it would be my opinion on comics and movies. That was the bare-bones outline. If I would have done it right, I would have asked myself, "How will I stand out while talking about my topic?" That’s what you should do, too.

Audience

The next step, after figuring out what you want to talk about is figuring out who you want to talk to. This is something that I skimmed over. It was too easy for me to say, “geeks and nerds and people that like this kind of stuff.” If I’m completely honest with myself, that was a cop-out.

 

You should look at demographics when you’re determining your audience. What age groups do you want to talk to? For me, that’s difficult because I know a lot of the ages of people that have interacted with the show over the years. Right now, at this point, I would say my age range would be between males, aged 15 to 45. I get this number because I have people in mind that are roughly around these ages. Also, I’m not excluding women, but I have a good feeling that the majority of my audience is male. If you’re a woman listening to this episode, leave a comment in the shownotes or on Facebook. I’d love to know for sure!

Schedule

Now, you’ve figured out what you’re talking about and who you’re talking to. It’s time to nail down a schedule. The most successful podcasts have a regular schedule. When I started this show in 2012, I didn’t have a definite course of action here. I tried to record episodes when I knew no one would be home and the house would be quiet. The fact that I’m impatient, I would upload the episode right after editing. Look through the episode archives and you'll see that inconsistency was the name of the game for a long time.