How to start a podcast

“It’s a PR Podcast.” This is the answer Kelsey and I give when asked one of two questions:

  • What are you recording?
  • What are you calling your podcast?

We’ve been super excited about this podcast for months now. From Slack side conversations to recording with microphones, the day finally arrived, and we’ve already released a few episodes in our first “season.”

For anyone interested in starting a podcast, we’ve boiled down our process and a couple of lessons learned into a few steps to help get you going.

Step One: Come up with a concept.

We both listen to podcasts. Kelsey listens to a mix of professional and more personal podcasts, while I’m all about the latter. For our podcast, we wanted to talk about our industry in a format that was digestible within a morning commute. The topic of public relations was broad but still focused enough for us to use as a starting point.

Step Two: Map out your concept to test out its strength.

Before we got too excited, we drafted out what the first six episodes could look like. This allowed us to work through who our audience was, what they wanted to hear and how they wanted to hear it. We brainstormed interviewees and episode topics, making sure we had a representation across the industry.

Step Three: Get the right equipment.

For our first season, we decided to go with basic microphone and recording equipment – some of which Hodges already had on hand (like an audio mixer). And we went with these for our recording needs, Pyle-Pro Professional Moving Coil Dynamic Cardioid Unidirectional Vocal Handheld Microphones and these pop filters to help eliminate the popping Ps.

Step Four: Plan the details.

This was the hardest step for us. What were we going to name the podcast? How would we describe it? How were we going to transition between segments? Did we need to script ourselves out? We had a bunch of questions to work through before we actually started recording.

Step Five: Test, test again and record.

Before we recorded the first episode, we trained with Hodges’ Director of Creative Services Tony Scida. He sat with us to help us determine our baseline sound levels. From there, we had another test session where we practiced recording an episode. Once we felt comfortable, we invited our first guest to record – luckily for us, we didn’t have to go too far to find him (listen to our first episode to find out who we talked to).

Step Six: The Three P’s (post-production and promotion).

Once we recorded a couple of episodes, we tossed the recording over to Tony to be edited and finalized. When we were happy with the episodes, we went through the process of launching and submitting a podcast on iTunes. Once that was live, we linked to the episode from our very simple website we created just for the podcast.

And just like that…a podcast was born. You can listen to It’s A PR Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Casey Prentice

A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.

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