Ep. 1: Turning Your Podcast into a Passion: What to Consider First
Hosted by Ian Levitt, The Studio Podcast will provide insights into the world of podcasting and audiobooks. Together we'll learn something in each episode through conversations with people working in this exciting space.
First episode at The Reserve:
How long should an episode be? What kind of a time commitment am I making? How will I measure success?
In this first episode of a podcast about podcasts, Ian Levitt of Studio Americana and Jenna Redfield of Twin Cities Collective discuss some of the first things to think about when starting a podcast.
Future episodes will discuss workflows, editing, equipment, and marketing with an emphasis on your questions. Email info@studioamericana.com if you'd like your question answered on the podcast.
Ian Levitt 0:00
Hi, I'm Ian Levitt, and this is the studio podcast.
Today we are very excited to start our brand new podcast after almost four years since we started the idea of this podcast studio. We are now putting together our first podcast about podcasting. I'm Ian Levitt, the owner studio Americana, spent about 20 years in the broadcast industry before starting this studio up in 2017. To help other people do podcasts, I had so many different aspects that I learned through those years that I thought we should bring to other people who have a passion to do their own podcast, but maybe don't know all the technical things or just don't want to deal with half of the technical things that go into it. We opened up may of 2017. We unfortunately had to close our physical doors in April of 2020 admits the pandemic, but now have gone 100% remote and with me today is our marketing director, Jenna Redfield, also with the Twin Cities Collective, Jenna, talk a little bit about your background in history.
Jenna Redfield 1:15
So Ian and I actually met in about 2017. When I started my job, actually at the place where sudamericano was kind of long story short, he ended up starting to produce my podcast, I already had one going for my business Twin Cities Collective. And then about a year and a half ago, I ended up starting to work for Ian doing some marketing for him. I love podcasting. That's what drew me to that original job because they had a podcast studio there. So I've been along for the ride, and just seeing how he's grown with all of the amazing clients, and just really making podcasting. legit. I made mine more legit, because I learned so much about, you know, the idea of sound quality and helped me figure out what equipment I needed for my own podcast. So I think making podcasting, not just this amateur thing, but actually making it more of a business
Ian Levitt 2:07
podcast. And I think there's so much potential with now everyone working from home, a lot of people have so many questions and hears it all the time. And we want to cover a lot of those topics. Absolutely. And as we mentioned, we are doing these first four, with our friends at the reserve co working space in the Twin Cities, who we have started to partner with so that people can have high quality podcasts, they can have their own separate room and kit to record a good podcast, and then you have a producer along the way the whole time to make that happen. So we're really happy about that partnership as well. And these first four, we're going to be talking about, you know how you get started in podcasts. And a few of the future ones will be about marketing. We'll talk about, you know, some of the technical nuts and bolts and future ones as well. But today, we really wanted to focus on turning your passion into a podcast and what to think about on that first day when you say you know what, I think we are going to do a podcast. I didn't ask you this question in advance, Jenna, but do you remember what the first thing you wondered about was when you started podcasting?
Jenna Redfield 3:09
I think for me, it was is this going to be something I'm going to stick with because I you know, it's a lot of work. And so for me, I was like, you know, I have my YouTube channel, I had all these other things. For me, it was like, this is just a test to see if this is something I like doing. I like to talk. So for me, it was like, you know, this is a natural fit for me. But for me, it was you know, are people going to listen? What topics Am I going to talk about? Am I going to do solo? Am I gonna have interviews? It was kind of a lot of the What do I want my podcasts to look like? Because I know I wanted to do one, it was just kind of a lot of questions of how do I want this podcast to be?
Ian Levitt 3:45
Right, right. And that's, I mean, that's just it kind of formulating the idea of what is this look like. And I think it's important to not as best as possible not feel too rigid about it. Because it evolves, as you saw over the years of doing your podcast, you can have an idea. And it might generally stay that way the whole way through. But there are going to be some things that you fine tune. And and I think when people come to me and start talking about you know, I've been thinking about a podcast, I found your company. But you know, where do I even really start with this? I think one of the first questions we get is, how long should the episode be? And and it's always asked kind of in that definitive way, like, tell me how long my episode should be. And I don't think there is a set length of time that your episode has to be and I think Jen and I might have different thoughts on what this is. I personally am a big fan of 20 to 30 minutes of final episode and often that is you may record for 4045 minutes, but cut it down to something closer to 30 minutes. That is just a personal opinion of mine and I base that on something that's a little less relevant frankly today, which is the commute, right and that was the idea that let someone get an entire episode in front to back On their way to work or their way back from work well, things are changing a little bit with the commute right now. But I think the second reason I say that 20 to 30 minutes is I, you can really capture people's attention span in that time, if you're on an engaging topic. That's not to say that you can't capture people's attention for an hour or an hour and a half, I think content is king, everywhere where you're doing any kind of content creation, and that that's no different for podcasting. But when people ask me that question, my general thought is 20 to 30 minutes, make sure you're providing something that that is going to be valuable during that time, or that at least connects with the audience you're looking to connect with. And then, you know, maybe even make it a two parter. You can make one interview or one you know, session, we'll call it into two separate episodes, no problem. But that's kind of my general thinking. And I want to stress again, more opinion, what's your thoughts on how long an episode should be Jenna,
Jenna Redfield 5:58
one thing you could do is you can look at the metrics and just test and see, I know that Apple podcast allows you to see the average listen time. And sometimes I can tell which episodes are going to be listened to longer just because they're more interesting. I think it really depends on the guest. It depends on the topic, it depends on how well the conversation flowed. So I think it really just depends on the episode. And again, like I've had episodes that are 20 minutes, and I've had ones that are over an hour. I think for me, it's just I have to kind of be in tune with how the conversation flowed. So I mean, and that's the thing about podcasting is there's a lot of things like YouTube and short clips on tik tok, that are very short. And I think this is kind of one of those mediums where you can play with it a little bit. You know, Joe Rogan has three hour podcast every day, some people can last and listen to it every day. So most people can't. So I think it's something of interest how much time you have, I'll be honest, I rarely finished podcast episodes these days, just because it's like I started listening. I think it's interesting, but I don't always finish the episode. So I think it's interesting, depending on a ton of different types of podcasts, different things that you deal with.
Ian Levitt 7:04
And I think the first thing you brought up is incredibly important, and a great way to measure your listenership is, if you are doing a podcast, and we'll talk about this in a later episode, you definitely want to be on Apple, we publish all of our clients on Apple, Spotify and Google and a lot of them on Stitcher as well. Those are really the more dominant platforms. And publishing it through your own Apple account means you have access to those stats that will tell you how long are people listening to each episode? And if you really go back and look at those, and you you kind of see where the trends are, that might tell you how long your episode should be. If people if you're doing a 45 minute episode, everyone's dropping out at about 35. Well, maybe, you know, maybe just consider that I don't think you have to immediately react to every metric you see. But it can certainly help inform how you look at it going forward. You know, one of the other questions I get a lot is music. What do I do about music. And I want to start with something you and I were just talking about before we started this podcast, which is you are doing some YouTube videos, with I assume some copyright music involved. And you said it took you eight hours to get this video edited. I'll just preface this by saying I usually recommend no copyright music because a lot of platforms are going to boot you out just like that. But there are exceptions. So tell us a little bit about your experience.
Jenna Redfield 8:23
Well, it was actually audio clips from a show. So it was actually not music, which they also YouTube has more of an algorithm with basically the rule of thumb image I have to be under 30 seconds for any copyrighted anything including music. But you know, sometimes things trigger. But when it comes to podcasting, I think it's really important to have royalty free, copyright free in terms of you have the rights and I know Ian will share in a second all of the resources that he knows for places to find music, but really for me, I actually found mine on SoundCloud. Basically, in order to use it, I had to credit the artist so if you listen to my podcast every single outro I say thank you for the music by Nicolay high left who provided the music So for me, I didn't have to pay for the music, but every single episode I credit him so that's how I got around having to pay for music. I've used the exact same song for over three and a half years I have not changed it. So from the very first episode, I use the same exact song. I had someone actually send me a video one time where they heard the song from the podcast, and they're like, it's your podcast song. And I was like, Yeah, like I got it from SoundCloud. I'm sure other people have used it too. But that's just you know, I think Ian has some great resources on what a lot of his clients use for music and you don't have to have music at all, if you don't want. I think most people have it in at least an intro and outro and maybe for some ad breaks. That's usually when I use it.
Ian Levitt 9:43
Right. Right. And I think two things that you mentioned in there are very important one is I know Spotify, specifically and maybe some of the other platforms. They say when you sign up that you cannot even have one second of copyright music that you do not have own the copyright to so that's, again why I kind of put a blanket as Jenna said, Get yourself some royalty free music, make sure that either you have the rights to it or that it's fully open source. And there are free options out there. I think the first one I recommend to people, if you have a friend who's a musician, and can create something for you, I mean, I'm all about local commerce, right? If you can, if you can get someone to create something original for you, if you have that access, that's a great first start. But there are some really quick turnover options. epidemic sound is one that a lot of people use, there's one called premium beat that has very high quality music, you're paying I think in both of these, you're either paying a monthly 15 to $25 fee to use as much music as you want, or you can pay per song. And that's the other point you brought up is just like you most of the clients we work with have one song that we use the beginning for the intro, we use the end for the outro we use the middle parts for interstitial music. And really it helps brand the show, we have a few shows that use a bunch of different music with them if they want to. But I think having just one song that you own that you have those rights to and using all the parts of it is a really good strategy for podcasting. And you're really looking at not much more than $60 final cost, right? If you're just buying a track, and you need to have the ownership of that that's, that's where I'd go. But again, epidemic sound premium beat, audio jungle, that was a good
Jenna Redfield 11:29
audio jungle.
Ian Levitt 11:31
And we're talking about YouTube, YouTube actually has a free library of music. So I mean, there are places you can find, and but just don't play your favorite YouTube song or you're going to get booted out. So you might even get sued, you don't want that either. A big one that people ask about is, should I do this alone, or should I have a co host. And that really does kind of depend on on what you're most comfortable with, I think some of the advantages of having a co host is you can quickly establish the personality of your show, which isn't necessarily just your personality, it's the combination of the people that are hosting the program. And I think that can happen a little quicker with multiple people than it can with one, certainly not not a be all end all. But that that's a great advantage. It also takes some of the pressure off, you can bounce ideas off of each other, you can have a little fun, without needing to have just you in that guest interaction or holding the show by yourself which, you know, it can take a little bit to feel comfortable with that. And you're bringing in multiple perspectives. So almost no matter what it is that you're talking about, you've got a few voices and a few thoughts that I think can create a more robust conversation. What are your thoughts on co host Jana?
Jenna Redfield 12:42
I actually was in a Facebook group the other day about podcasting. And somebody asked about this, and they said, you know, I'm probably going to do a lot of the work. How does that work? In terms of, you know, figuring out how much it does become a business, I think you have to think about all this ahead of time before you start a podcast is how much work is each person going to be doing? What parts whether it's editing or marketing, also making sure that you know, kind of just the long term plan. So because it's not just you, it's somebody else, I think it depends on if it's your podcast, and you're just bringing someone on to host and that's all they're doing. Or if it's a shared podcast, I think that's really the biggest thing I know, he has some podcasts that have co hosts. So it's interesting, you know, they have to figure out what time they can both meet, as well as maybe guests, I think that's a huge factor is timing. And figuring out you know, topics, I do think that there is a lot more variables when you have a co host than if it's just you and you bring on a guest. And sometimes I just do episodes by myself, because I don't have a co host. But I think it just depends on what your goals are for your podcast, I do think that if you have a co host, you're right, there is more sharing of responsibilities. So if you don't maybe have as much time, you can definitely, you know, at times pull from each other. I think it really just depends on what your podcast is for. And if you are maybe have a business with somebody else, it might make a lot of sense to, to just co host with them. But I think it really just depends on
Ian Levitt 14:05
I agree. And I think, you know, if I were to talk about the disadvantages, the number one I would say is what you kind of bring it up is scheduling. Because as you mentioned, you're not just scheduling for yourself, you're scheduling for your co host, and you're probably scheduling for your guests if that's a part of what your podcast is. So and the other one I would say that you kind of touched on a little bit too is defining those roles. Now that's not necessarily going to be a difficult thing to do. But with some it might you know, am I the Am I going to be talking to most are you going to be talking to most Howard, how are we going to do this? And these are things that you can flesh out after a few episodes, but they're certainly something you want to discuss before you go into the show. So I you know, I think that's that's some good insight on that. One of the other questions that I guess I don't always get asked, but I tend to discuss with people which is how much time should I prepare for when doing my podcast and, you know, my rule of thumb is, especially if you're going to do an interview I think you should prepare for twice, take about twice as long the time as the interview is going to be to prep, right. So if you're planning on doing a 30 minute interview, take at least 60 minutes before that, to prepare for that interview. And that time could go down a little bit as you get further into it. And you kind of have a flow of how you do things. And we'll talk about metrics in a moment here and downloads, especially if you if you're trying to get influencers on your show, to spread the word about its existence and and get those downloads going more, you want to make sure that the person you're bringing on feels like their time has been valued, because you're asking that person and the audience to give their time to you, which is one of the one of the tenants I remember from radio, that I think that goes into this medium as well is how much you know, people are giving me this time, what am I giving them. So as we talk about all these different aspects of it, I think that's something to always keep in mind. So um, so again, I say about, you know, about twice as much time as the actual interview, when you're getting started. When you prepare for your show. Jeno talk a little bit about your process.
Jenna Redfield 16:08
So I think for me, I maybe don't do that. I gotta be honest, I don't prepare that much in advance. But I do do some research and have some ideas of questions, kind of where I want to steer the conversation, because I do think having that plan in advance is important. I can't just go into an interview being like, I'm like, I got to think of another question like I have to at least, and also listen while you're talking. Because one thing that they say might trigger a new question. So I've never honed in on like, Oh, I have to now switch over to this topic in this question. I've been interviewed like that. And I'm like, Oh, this is seems very, like robotic. So I think really, for me, it's all about going with the flow of where the conversation goes. And then if you can like steer back to the questions you originally wanted to ask, also, what do you talked about preparing, I also think you should spend as much time marketing your podcast as you do making it because I think a lot of the times, it's like, oh, it's done, it's out now. And then you're just like, that's it like, I think you really need to focus on the back end as well. That's actually where I spend more of my time is actually promoting, like you mentioned, getting influencers or getting people on making sure it's clear to them, if they should share it, how they should share it, sending them graphics, sending them videos that they can share on their social, that's something I take a lot of time doing. Because really I want them on because they're hopefully going to share it with their audience and get me hopefully, some new listeners. That's why, you know, people invite bigger people on and so I think there's a ton of work that goes into podcasting. But if you do it and you I have a lot of systems now that's really what I found saves me a ton of time is having systems having the same thing every week, having a booking scheduler for my guests having a form they fill out, I've just really, really figured out I have like a whole list, I could send everyone if they want to see like all the steps it takes from production, to editing, to preparing and then sending it to Apple and all that there's a ton of things to know. And that's why I'm really excited about this podcast. So we're going to cover a ton of that stuff. Because a lot of people don't know all the things that they have to think about. So that's probably a really long answer to your question in but i think you know, there's a ton to think about when you think about your podcast.
Ian Levitt 18:16
Yeah, absolutely. And for people getting excited hearing what Jen was talking about, right now, you're really gonna want to join our October 27 episode, which will be Episode Four of this podcast, because Jen is going to go very much in depth on the marketing side of this, you know, I've spent my life on the technical and content creation side of this. And, and so I appreciate so much that Jenna's on board with with us because she's, as you can hear in her own podcast, just has a great brain for marketing. So I know we only have a few minutes left in this particular one. And I want to thank everyone, again, for joining us on this podcast. If you want to get your question in on a future podcast, just send an email to info at Studio america.com. And we'll address those in some future episodes. But I wanted to get this one in today, because I think it's really important is what is your metric for success? I think some people don't necessarily have that at top of mind when they jump into this. Some people definitely do. And I think when you go to a lot of people, they say, well, it's downloads, I want to get as many downloads of this podcast as I can. And that, I think, is a good goal to have. I as I think more about downloads and as we've worked with a number of clients over these years, I think I almost now I'm starting to see them as a measurement of how well you're connecting with the audience. Right and, and that takes time, you can have a fantastic out of the gate podcast, and you might not have a lot of listeners right at the beginning. Now that doesn't mean that episode isn't gonna get traction because as your show continues to go on, and you build that audience, people start going back to those earlier episodes and, and those downloads rise and that's what I like to see more than any particular number per episode is I like to see that too. steady growth, from episode to episode from week to week, which we didn't even get into. But I mean, if you can publish once a week, that is definitely a good goal to have. But as you look at those metrics, which is a great part of podcasting is you can really see, when people are listening, what episodes they're listening to, you can even see what zip code they're listening from, more than seeing, hey, I want to hit 200. By next Tuesday, I think seeing that steady growth is, for me, an even more important part of the download side. But if you're looking for downloads, if that's the goal that you have, I think, you know, marketing, marketing marketing is how you're going to, is how you're going to start doing that, I think a volume campaign where people start to even understand that your podcast exists. And then when they go to that podcast, again, getting back to providing value, make sure that what you're putting out there is connecting with that audience that you want to connect with, because you can tell 10,000 people about your podcast, but if they get there and say, yeah, it's not really for me, it doesn't do you a whole lot of good. So and you're not going to see that steady growth, you might see some spikes based on promotion. But if that growth doesn't continue, it probably means you need to kind of regroup and figure out what to do. What are your thoughts on downloads? Jenna?
Jenna Redfield 21:16
Yeah, I agree. I mean, for me, sometimes it's also the metrics of how are my social media doing with the episodes like when I promote something on Instagram are people looking at that too, because that, to me, is just awareness to me, my podcast is all about just providing value and awareness about my brand. So if I'm using it as another piece of content for myself, I think just looking at those views, as well, in addition to downloads are important. I personally actually advertise for my own services. That's how I use my podcast is, instead of having an advertiser come in, I actually just promote what I offer, so that it's a direct sale for me. But there's a ton of different ways to do that. I do think that downloads are important, and it is good to track those. But I think there are other metrics to to look at.
Ian Levitt 22:05
Yeah, and I think after you're established, the downloads mean more, after time, when you're getting started to what you're talking about right now is like, for a lot of people, a lot of our clients, it's lead generation, like you said, you promote your own business on this. If you get, you know, three clients out of it, you're not paying any attention to the down, I shouldn't say no attention. But you're want to make sure that you're connecting with the people that are going to be interested in your services. And this is one we'll we'll talk about in the future as well. But I think providing your insight for free, and becoming a trusted source for people. There is no better medium than podcasting for doing that. Because they feel like they know you. And they hear you and they, you know many of them are interacting with you. Like you said, even if it's not directly through the podcast, it's via social media, it's sending you emails, and I think that's another one that I really like to say, if you want to metric for success, those external interactions are a really big one. And obviously, lead generation is huge as well. And we have a good number of them of our clients who get all these public speaking gigs, because they have kind of established again, their presence, their thought leadership, for lack of a better term, and now are starting to get noticed and saying Okay, I know this person style, I know what they're good at. And this would be a great person to speak to our audience. I didn't know that one going into podcasting. And I've been very surprised, pleasantly surprised by how many of our our clients have said, you know, I'm getting all these speaking invites now because they listened to the podcast. So I think when you talk about what are the metrics for success, those four the downloads, the leads, the external interactions, and things like becoming a speaker, even if that wasn't what you intended to do one space, I would say that we've really seen that last one is where people are kind of a unique voice within their industry. We have a client who owns a dental company, and has done over 100 episodes now. And because he's kind of established himself in that way, and, and his angle is bringing the dental industry into the modern era. I think that aspect of his approach has been a really big part of his success. Another one we have is the horse first, which is a veterinary podcast, specifically for sport horses, right. So very specific niche has 10s of thousands of downloads, because she connected so deeply with her audience and was kind of almost a revolutionary voice within it saying our industry needs to change. It needs to be different. Here's how I see it. And that just resonated with a lot of people. So I think if you're doing this within your industry, what is your unique voice within that is a really crucial thing to think about. As you get started. I do really appreciate everybody joining us for this first episode of the podcast. Thank you, Jenna, and thanks to our friends over at the reserve as well. So next week, join us again as we get into more the nuts and bolts of podcasting. We'll do a little bit on the technical. And we'll also answer any of the questions that come in during the week. So join us for that.
Thanks for joining us on the studio podcast. If you'd like to learn more about how our team helps with podcasting, just go to Studio americana.com. And if you like this content, please take a few moments to review us wherever you listen to podcast. Thanks again and we'll talk to you next time.