I’m preparing to create my first ever podcast this week. To be completely honest, I am super nervous and confused. My first podcast experience was so frustrating. I’ve been an iPhone user for a few years now and I tried to subscribe to an HG TV podcast, but that didn’t work out very well. I couldn’t understand how to receive weekly podcasts.

Apparently, podcasts have become really popular since they started several years back. I recently skimmed The New York Minute Show, a tour of New York City through audio. That was really neat! It helped me envision what I could do with audio.

I normally record lectures so I can study from them, so I’m kind of looking forward to creating a podcast for creative work. On a Wise-Women podcast tutorial, I read about the basics. To create a podcast, you need compelling content that attracts people to listen/subscribe to you. In order for that to happen, a fair amount of knowledge and preparation is required. I will need to determine content and gather the appropriate tools. Specifically, it would be helpful to pick a topic that is interesting and then get my hands on a professional recording device with a headset/mic.

A more interesting resource for podcast tips is located on the blog of Frog Body. There are 20 ideas for a great podcast. The most intriguing for me was #3 be whimsical, #5 don’t ramble, be organized, and #17 use music. Be whimsical is interesting because it reminds me that I should be entertaining aka HAVE FUN. I was originally just going to wing my first podcast and talk about what I saw, but then I thought it probably would not make any sense to someone who has never encountered what I’m taking about. I think I’m gonna write up a brief script/outline of the points I want to say. This is gonna be especially important because when you edit your audio, you don’t want to have to edit out a ridiculous amount of “umm”‘s. Then lastly, using music will probably help keep my podcast light and interesting. If your podcast isn’t interesting, you probably shouldn’t have created it. Haha, just kidding!

Well not really. Have you ever seen those Video-Blogs (vLog) channels on youtube? I suppose you can consider those “podcasts” since they’re frequent video/audio productions. My friend, Joaquin, has one. He’s interesting on most days, but I remember in the very beginning (when we were in high school), his vLogs seemed like more of a diary entry. In the past few years, he’s definitely made his pseudo-podcast interesting by using fun topics, music, and themes. Notably, his trip to Hawaii was documented in a video.  It definitely took me back to the time I got to spend there a couple years ago.

So to make a thoroughly interesting podcast, I’ll probably incorporate Joaquin’s work, the tips from Frog body, and The New York Minute. In a podcast, I want to be informative, entertaining, and be able to take my listener to a place they’ve never been before.