5 Ways To Improve Your Podcast Please.
What is it about me and podcasts? I get infuriated, leave them alone for a while and return only to get infuriated again while picking up some interesting insights along the way. But the return on my time investment is really questionable.
There's lots of talk about how these new media are just that - new and evolving - but I'm not sure that I can accept the common analogy of early radio and TV. Those had the advantage of being the only media in town, but today we are far more easily distracted and far less likely to make an effort for less than perfect broadcasts. I'm clearly less tolerant than my forefathers who were bewitched by the cathode ray or the throbbing transistor and I don't like it when basic common sense is neglected.
You're capturing good stuff but you want me to listen to a podcast about business issues and yet you don't produce your podcast in a business-like way. The following are no-brainers which too many for my liking seem to neglect.
1) Pre-prepare your opening and make it short! Really short.
2) Highlights - it's fine by me to put a brief written blurb which I can read before I click "play" but I don't appreciate the misleading false-start of edited audio highlights at the front of your cast.
3) Lose the end gush - just say thankyou and stop the tape - I neither need nor want to hear your gushing.
4) Tag - if you insist on producing a long show (over 5 minutes) then make it easy for me to browse and dip into areas which really interest me.
5) Less is more - edit, edit, edit.
posted by john dodds @ 3:11 AM
4 Comments:
John,
news radio is the best example podcasters should use to construct their work. i love NPR in the US, a great nationally funded radio show featuring world news, great editorial, interviews, and longer segments on unique topics.
The format is always very concise, and objective in a multiple viewpoint manner. Listening to it makes me appreciate the art of broadcasting, that amateurs just can't easily replicate without firm discipline and extensive practice.
I'm a great fan of NPR and sometimes listen online - and the various sections within their programmes are time-tagged on their website.
"You want me to listen to a podcast about business issues and yet you don't produce your podcast in a business-like way."
I so agree with you on this point. I'm not a Podcast junkie, but most of what I hear is less than professional and I'll usually stop listening. The reason why I'm holding off on producing my own business Podcasts is that I know I don't have the tools or the funds to publish something professional and "business-like."
Thanks for these reminders and tips. I'll have to keep point #3 in mind when I get to doing my own Podcasts!!
I had no specific source of podcasts in mind Christina and I think your point about tools is an interesting one - but I'd stress I'm not talking about production values - just content. I think the crucial element is time expended in pre and post production.
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