How to make a podcast - Part 3: Maintaining
In this section:
- Engage with your audience
- Data storage and archiving
- How to not stop podcasting
- Final words of wisdom
So, you’ve made your first one, five and ten episodes. What’s next?
Engage with your audience
Keep engaging with your audience on social media, put on live events or live-streams and sell merchandise. Do whatever you have to do to make them feel involved and keep them involved.
Data storage and archiving
Audio files are large, and after a while you’ll run out of computer storage space. Get hold of an external hard drive for archiving your audio. You never know when you’ll want to cut some from an old episode in a future episode or advert.
Note: Storing media on the university servers is always preferable as it remains backed up and secure. See this page from IT services for more information on data storage and expanding your personal allowance. If you wanted to use an external hard drive connected to a university managed machine then you would need to seek an exception to use this as they are by default blocked.
How to not stop podcasting
Most podcasts only last a handful of episodes because it takes a lot of time, effort and money to keep them going. So how do you keep your podcast going?
- Don’t be afraid to mix up the format or completely re-brand the podcast into something else. Create fresh artwork, get new music, change up the hosts, add new hosts, even mix up the format.
- Divide the content into series of manageable lengths and give yourself a break in between them.
- Outsource the editing or marketing to someone else if it’s too time-intensive.
- Guest on other people’s podcasts and invite them onto yours.
Final words of wisdom
Most podcasts take at least ten episodes to really find their stride so don’t be disheartened if it takes you a while before you “find your voice”.
Listener stats aren’t everything – a small audience of engaged and specific listeners is infinitely better than a large disparate audience who don’t engage.
It’s okay to stop doing the podcast when you’ve met your aims and/or it comes to its natural end.