How to Record CONSISTENTLY

Amber Beels 0:02
Having a weekly podcast is great and all but sometimes it just gets overwhelming. How do I avoid that? Let's talk about that.

You're listening Practical Podcast Tips. My name is Amber Beels. And today I'm going to cover tip number 30. How to Record consistently, having a podcast can quickly get overwhelming when you think about it, especially when you're doing a weekly podcast. And you're thinking, Okay, I have to do 50 ish episodes in a year. Yeah, that gets a little overwhelming. So what can we do to kind of help with this problem? So as you know, there are 52 weeks in a year. So if you're doing a weekly podcast, just assuming that you don't want to record the week of Christmas, or you know, a holiday and you want to take a week off, every once in a while, you're gonna have to record around 50 episodes for the year. And at first thought that's like, Okay, how do I have that much to talk about? How am I going to come up with that much content? Are people going to want to listen to me for that often, or that much, and I totally get the seeds of doubt that are slowly going in your head right now. But just don't listen to them. It's okay.

So, one thing that I would like to maybe recommend, if you're thinking of having a weekly podcast, is have seasons, you know, shows have seasons, season one, season two, or you know, there's Volume One, or Volume Two, whatever you want to call it, it's a chunk of time, where people can expect to hear content from you or to see an episode come from you, or they expect to see an episode get released from you. So if you have seasons, you kind of set those expectations of like, Yeah, this is season two, and you decide how many episodes that you want to release in a season. Some people, they will do it for the summer, or they'll even take the summer off. So they'll go for fall, take off, maybe a month for Christmas, go back for spring, and then take off the entire summer. So whatever it is that you feel like, fits well with you and your schedule, then do that. And it's okay, if it changes, people are pretty flexible, and they understand, you know, life happens. So sometimes things can change. And that's okay, if you have seasons, then you don't have to have the expectation of releasing around 50 episodes a year, you have that flexibility to release as much content as you see fit for your podcast. Now, some people may be like, Okay, well, I know, you really don't want to have seasons, I kind of want to be a little more consistent, and that's okay, too. But some people because of that, they think, Okay, well, I'm gonna have a biweekly podcast. So instead of releasing one episode a week, they decide, I'm going to release one episode every other week. So two podcasts a month. Now, you can do this, and we have a couple clients that do. But I would highly, highly recommend that you stick to having a weekly podcast. And the reason for that is one, you're a little more committed to your podcast, if you know that you have to release an episode every single week. If you have a biweekly podcast, sometimes it's set in your head that Oh, I could skip this week. That's fine. So if you skip one episode, you're basically skipping half your month's content, because you're only releasing two episodes for that month. So I would highly recommend doing a weekly podcast one, it's more commitment to your audience knows what to expect in terms of release dates, they can look forward to it every week. I know there's a podcaster that I listened to and she's supposed to release once a week. But a lot of the time she takes breaks and it makes me mad. Like I know people have lives. And they need to, you know, take breaks, but I just feel like she takes a lot of breaks. And I'm like, come on, where's my podcast I just penned on this every Wednesday or every Tuesday or whatever it is, whatever your releases. So if you have a weekly podcast, it can just set that expectation that you're committed. And that you know when your next one is coming out, people can expect it and they look forward to it because like for all the podcasts that I listen to I look, I really look forward to them. And I really love that they come out once a week and I don't have to wait a whole other week before we get content. So I would definitely recommend that even though having a weekly podcast seems a little bit more overwhelming than having a biweekly one. I would definitely recommend having a weekly one, maybe just implementing the seasons that I had mentioned. Another thing is if you

have a guest oriented show. So a show that you or podcasts that you interview a lot of other people, it can be overwhelming to be like, Okay, I have to find how many people, especially if you do a weekly podcast and you are going in, you're not going to do seasons, and you're going to have around 50 ish guests like, like, do I know that many people to interview for my show, I would recommend if you're going to have a guest oriented podcast, those are amazing. There's a lot of benefits to having those kinds of podcasts. But maybe consider having a hybrid type show. And when I say hybrid, I mean having episodes where you do interview guests, but then you have episodes, where they're just you, they're monologue episodes, that does two things. One, it makes your list of guests stretch a little further because not every episode has a guest. And too, it allows your audience to know you a little better. Because you have episodes that you're just talking about you and your experiences, you really are able to establish yourself as the expert in your podcast, if you have episodes that are just about you, or just about your knowledge, and the value that you bring in your experiences. That way, when you have guests come onto your podcast, your audience knows who you are, they know your background. And now they see you bringing on guests that are adding more value to them. And they can see the questions that you ask are intentional, and are focused on whatever your topic is, or whatever your show is about. So I would really stress maybe considering just having that hybrid option. That way your guests also get a variety of content in from your podcast show. And everyone likes variety. Not everyone likes to always just know what to expect on the next show. The number one tip that I can give you to not get overwhelmed on your podcast is batch recording. Batch recording is selecting one day a month or maybe one day a week where you just sit down and you record the episodes for that month, or maybe even record all the episodes for a couple of months. Get ahead of schedule. This does so many things for you, one to relieve stress, because you know that you're good for the month to you kind of kind of look forward to your record day, like pick a Saturday and just sit there for a couple hours and knock out a bunch of episodes, then you won't be stressing about what am I going to talk about this month like you have some time to sit down and think about it. It also allows you to kind of schedule out if you have guests, just schedule them out and have a set time, record that interview and then schedule it out in advance. And you can even tell them like hey, this episode is going to be released on this day. I'm just recording it now because it's relevant or because this is the time when both of our schedules align, because you know, people's lives get hectic, and sometimes their schedules get hectic. So being able to find a time that you can pre record some of this stuff is really, really, really helpful. When you have a weekly podcast or when you're trying to release so much content in a short amount of time. It just really helps to batch record, I can't stress enough batch recording is like the key to having a successful podcast. I am preaching to myself right now, because I have not best record of these episodes. I am recording this episode the day before it's supposed to go out. And you know, it's a little stressful, but it's okay because I love this podcast. And I love being able to record it. And I'm again just preaching to myself. See, not everyone is perfect. I know that I need to start batch recording. And we were so good in the beginning. But you know life happens. But if you can try to batch record because it really is going to make your life easy. And it also allows for emergencies. So say like you are batch recorded for your good for a month, and God forbid something happens. And you wouldn't have been able to record for like a couple of weeks. Well, you're good. Your podcast is not going to be affected by this emergency, whatever it is. So batch recording is just it's less stressful. And it just allows for uncertain things to happen in your life. And you can still have that consistent podcast. And if you've missed an episode, it's okay. Your audience is going to understand like we're all human. We all have lives and things happen. So maybe just communicate that with your audience. Just be like, Hey, I'm sorry, I missed my episode last week. X, Y and Z happened but I'm back. People really appreciate that.

Amber Beels 10:00
I know Eric and I, we missed a week. And for us, we released two episodes a week because we're just you know overachievers. So I remember we missed two episodes, because we didn't record that week. And you know what I felt okay about it, Eric was sick, I was taking care of him and trying to run the business. So, you know, life happens. So it's okay. And people understand. I know that it may seem like a good idea to go live. I know some of our clients, they go live with a recording. So say they interview guests, and they go live on Facebook, like those things are awesome, it's a really great way to gain an audience to have people engage in your episode, and to be able to interact with your guests. Going Live is awesome. But the only thing is, it's a little more stressful. So my answer to that is to save the live recordings for those really special guests. Or if you don't have guests on your podcast, save those live recordings for a special topic that you really want your audience to engage in, during your recording. And that's totally cool, you'll actually be able to kind of gain an audience with that, because they'll tune in like hype up that live recording and let them know like, hey, I want you to engage with this episode. I'm going live at this time. And if you don't go live, often people are going to notice that and they're going to make note of when you actually are going live, and be sure to make it to that live recording. You also want to kind of save your lives, I think for when you have a bigger audience. So when you have a bigger listener, audience, then you can start going live and have that engagement and be able to really engage with your audience and allow them to be a part of that recording experience. So save the lives do them. But wait till you have a big enough audience. In the meantime, make your life easy and batch record your episodes. I hope this helps. I hope that you can take some of this stuff and implement it into your own show. And again, just that number one thing, batch recording is your friend. All right. That's it for me. I'll see you guys in the next episode.

Amber Beels 12:15
Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please feel free to leave us a review. It really helps out the show. And I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know someone else that could benefit from it, go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and I'll see you in the next episode.