Top Ten Best Practices in Podcasting
The following 10 "rules of thumb" list of best practices is a great guide to creating content. This list, while neither exhaustive nor prescriptive, should provide a useful checklist when you’re creating your first podcast.
To create effective podcasts:
1. Be Clear
2. Be Prepared
3. Less is More
4. Get up Close and Personal
5. Find your ‘Sweet Spot’
6. Practice, Practice, Practice
7. Get Technical
8. Review and Edit
9. Learn from Others
10. Have Fun!
1. Be Clear
What is the purpose of your podcast and your intended audience? Are you preparing a short “gloss” on a previous lecture for your students? Are you doing a narrated presentation for students to review? Or, are you creating a general-interest podcast for the public? Each of these endeavors will require different approaches and a different vocabulary. As with any type of communication, podcasts that are created with a sense of purpose and an audience in mind are more effective.
2. Be Prepared
Follow the Boy Scout motto and have a script, an outline or some talking points close to hand. This will help you keep your podcast focused and won't allow you to ramble.
3. Less is More
Start by making audio podcasts rather than videos. Audio is quicker and easier to do well (plus, many people like to multitask while listening). Once you’re comfortable creating good-quality sound files, you can tackle videos. Also consider that simple lecture capture leads to podcasts that are up to an hour long. Experienced podcasters recommend keeping podcasts to a maximum of 10-20 minutes long, or about the length of your listeners’ commute.
4. Get Up Close and Personal
Your enthusiasm for your subject matter will be communicated to your listeners. Just as with lecturing, if you sound bored, your listeners will be bored as well. So keep your audience in mind when creating your podcasts and speak directly to them. Use a conversational tone of voice to avoid sounding like you’re reading a script. And, even with audio recordings, remember to smile while talking and make your voice sound more attractive. All these strategies will help to engage your listeners.
5. Find your ‘Sweet Spot’
Find a quiet place where you can concentrate and feel comfortable creating your podcasts. This will minimize background noise and help you to concentrate. Your on-campus office, with phones ringing, colleagues stopping by and students knocking on the door, may not be the best place to use.
6. Practice, Practice, Practice
Just as the answer to the question about ‘how do you get to Carnegie Hall’ is ‘practice, man, practice’, the way to produce high quality podcasts is to practice. Dry runs help you improve your pacing and iron out problems, so you become comfortable with the technology and this new delivery method.
7. Get Technical
Technical considerations are important. Select and learn to effectively use a good quality – not necessarily expensive – microphone and camera. This ensures that the audio and video elements of your podcasts are high quality, and allows your audience to concentrate on your content.
8. Review and Edit
Even if you followed all the best practices above, you’ll probably still need to edit your podcast to eliminate ‘ummms’, awkward pauses or unexpected noises. And, you’ll need to review your edited podcast before posting. Unlike lecturing to a real class, podcasts are frequently replayed and can benefit from judicious editing.
9. Learn from Others
You don’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel. Learn how others have created successful podcasts by listening to the popular ones on iTunes U, Podcast.com and other podcast sites. You’ll quickly see approaches that appeal to you and ones that don’t. Tips you pick up in this way can easily be applied to your own podcasts.
10. Have Fun
Podcasting is still a new field with lots of room to experiment. So relax and have fun!