Recording a podcast in Skype

Podcasts can be very beneficial in business for both internal and external communications.  As with any marketing piece, the content is king with podcasts – people can smell BS a mile away and it’s more hurtful than helpful to do a podcast (or other marketing piece) just to have something on the site.

Here are some tips for creating content – pretty basic stuff:

• Know your audience – if you or your colleagues aren’t the target audience, ask people who are
• Have compelling speakers – it’s great when you can get “experts” on topics to present (such as authors of books on whatever topic you’re presenting on, creators of product, etc.)
• Make sure the content is timely – podcasts are all about what’s new and giving quick updates
• Don’t make things up/don’t BS – podcasts should be short and don’t need to be filled with fluff
• Open with what you’re going to talk about in one sentence or less, and then begin the conversation
• Close with a compelling message – either a call to action (e.g. download software, register for event, sell sell sell! (for internal podcasts) or a request for feedback (e.g. email amber@taylor.com with feedback around what you heard today).

Here are some tips on format:

• Have engaging speakers – this is almost more important than a compelling speaker – no-one wants to listen to a monotone or bored (boring) speaker
• Have two or more speakers – podcasts are like mini talk radio segments (and are often mini talk radio segments as podcasts are a medium – it’s more interesting to listen to a conversation than to listen to a monologue

Lightweight recording and editing:
You can record and edit podcasts in many ways.  My personal favorite is recording via Skype and then editing in Soundforge.  Why Skype?  When I’m pulling in the most compelling speakers I’m typically working with developers whose travel schedules are tight and who could be anywhere in the world.  Skype allows me to easily record from anywhere and have guests who are in various locations.  Skype is also free (vs. recording over the phone) and is easy to use.

Three easy steps to create a podcast using Skype:

• Con-call my presenters over Skype
• I make sure they’re on good Skype headsets (if the recording were over the phone I’d do landline only vs. headset or speaker). 
• Record
• I use a free tool called Extralabs – there are others
• Edit
• I save the file as a WAV, import into Soundforge and edit
• I cut out all the “ums,” “ahs,” any cuss words, long pauses, and any repeats

To post a podcast:

• Upload the audio to a server
• Add an RSS feed to your podcast
• Submit podcast
• I submit our podcasts to iTunes to syndicate through iTunes, there are also 3rd party sites like Podfeed that maintain libraries of podcasts for listeners to go through