Producing a Podcast Quickly
10:18 PM
kelvin
, Posted in
Podcasts are a repeating learning content product. They can be very effective for that very reason. After all, the more times a message is heard the more likely it is to be believed.
But that can cause problems for the unwary information product marketer.
The biggest problem from podcasts is that they need to be created at least once a week. Which can become an unwieldy task.
In order to prevent podcasts from overwhelming the learning content product marketer with work, you need to produce a podcast quickly. Fortunately, it can be done without too much effort or specialized knowledge.
Here are seven tips for producing a podcast quickly.
1. Practice, practice, practice.
It might seem counter-intuitive but practice will actually speed up your process. Everyone makes mistakes. Recording your practices helps your editor to replace those mistakes, saving you the need to re-record portions. Practice also helps you to do something that professionals avoid -- winging it.
2. Lose the script.
Professionals use scripts and effectively become readers. However, because you are so involved it really isn't efficient or effective to use a formal script -- unless you make a lot of errors. It is however, a good way to make it easier when you start -- because you'll make a lot of errors. So start off using a formal script but as quickly as you can move to using an outline as your script.
3. Steal a trick from the assembly line.
The theory behind the assembly line is that of the batch. By creating a batch of the same product you become more efficient. With podcasts there are two parts to applying this. First off, you should do all your podcasts together. Doing a month's worth of podcasts at one sitting makes life much easier. Secondly, do all your writing together. Then do all your recording. Then do all your editing. This allows you to create a rhythm to your work.
4. Create series not singles.
When writing scripts it's always easier to create a series of podcast columns rather than one whole podcast. For example, you might have a series of seven tips on how to create a podcast quickly (sound familiar). A summary of the seven (or maybe the introduction) might form one column, and then each tip would be a separate column. If you have four columns in your podcast stagger the solution. Effectively you'll have half the writing to do each month.
5. Keep it short and sweet.
One of the tendencies you'll find is to keep expanding the size of your podcast. Why? Because you have too much to say for each. You need to fight that tendency. Pick a time and keep to it. If a column has too much information then cut it back until it has just the right number of points.
6. Do a column format.
It's always faster and easier to write and record short pieces than it is to do long pieces. A column format allows you to keep each piece below two or three minutes. Let's say that you want to do a 15 minute podcast. To do a single column you'll need about fourteen and half minutes of content. That's roughly fourteen points! But let's say you split that into four columns. Each of the columns needs to be only 3 minutes long. That's roughly two points. Much faster and easier to write.
7. Keep an ideas log.
One of the problems with any repeating product such as a podcast or article marketing is coming up with ideas. One of the techniques to use to help with this is to keep an ideas log. This will prevent you wasting time trying to come up with something to talk about.
Do you want to learn how to create information products (learning content)? Check out my new free eBook "7 Myths and Seven Tricks in Nine Steps": http://www.learningcreators.com/myths.htm
Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/
Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.
