Hi! I’m Chase Taake, and you are currently reading a weekly update for an even larger project “How I Made the Podcast ‘Gamification Station’ in 30 Days.” If you want to see this entire project, click here! Otherwise continue reading to see what I did this week!
The Plan
The plan for this week is as follows:
Create the page for this week's progress (here we are)
Create a process for the podcast
Set up accounts on Anchor and Zencastr
Finalize my topic ideas
Record a commercial for the podcast
Edit the commercial for the podcast
Have the logo completed
Create some blogs over what I learned and why it’s useful
Update this landing page for this weeks progress
The Results
After this week, I feel totally accomplished. I feel like I scheduled myself perfectly, as it was just enough time to get everything done that needed to be done, while feeling satisfied with the work done.
I ended up creating a pretty good SOP for my podcast, which you can see how it looks and how I did it here. I created an account on Anchor, as well as Zencastr. Both of these will absolutely be talked about in the what I learned section, as these tools are amazing for any podcasters. Meanwhile I finished brainstorming ideas for topics for the podcast, and scheduled in two topics for the podcasts I will be creating this week.
I also created the commercial for the podcast, which I think describes the podcast well but will be redone when I have some clips from the podcast to use instead of stock footage. The logo unfortunately is undergoing some change from the freelancer, but should be done by tomorrow night.
Throughout this week, I also documented the tools I learned which I hyperlinked above. In addition to that, I blogged about some information that I learned about podcasting which you can find in the following section.
What I Learned
This week was a massive opportunity for me to not only learn how to set up my podcast, but also all the benefits podcasting produces. I wrote about some of the benefits and reasons people would start podcasts in a blog, and you can find that here.
I also learned how helpful creating a process was for the podcast. You think that you'd just be able to go through the actions of podcasting. Think of a topic, record it, edit it, and post it. But there are so so many steps involved in each and every phase of podcasting, it is so easy to skip steps which can result in inconsistency, a bad podcast, a late podcast, and so much more. Having a process to follow, with all the steps laid out, makes it nearly impossible for anything to go wrong. In addition, if someone else were to take over the operations of running the podcast, the SOP would make the transfer of the job super simple, and keep things consistent.
Zencastr and Anchor are phenomenal tools for podcasters. Zencastr is such a fantastic and easy way to record your podcast, and invite guests without having them physically be there. In my opinion, it is the best app for recording podcasts with guests. And Anchor blew my mind with it's capabilities. The simplicity it provides for allowing you to post your podcast and so many different platforms is amazing. Simply upload your podcast, title and describe it, then boom, your podcast is on the most popular platforms. It makes things so easy!
Creating ideas ahead of time, and then scheduling those ideas is important. Having a topic ready before recording allows time for research, accurate information, and a podcast without a whole bunch of "ums." Sporadic improved podcasts can absolutely be great, but for a podcast trying to inform rather than gossip, appropriate time to research and think about the topic is much needed.
I usually hit record and go with the flow when creating videos. Not for the trailer of my podcast though. I needed to create a scrip to make sure that I was accurately hitting all the points of my podcast, all the while keeping it interesting so the viewers did not click off. I learned a lot about creating a script for a podcast trailer, and I wrote a blog about it. You can see that here.
Also, having this week planned out ahead of time instead of doing tasks randomly as I thought of them was an absolute help. Having my week planned out, with deadlines for tasks, on Trello was a hero. I couldn't miss anything, I didn't do anything that was a waste of my time. The roadmap is laid out, and I know that if I do what is assigned, I am making progress and the right kind of progress. I highly recommend laying out a roadmap for your projects beginning to end before diving in. It makes everything more efficient!
Click here to continue to week two!
Click here to view the preparation week!