Three Time-Saving Systems For Busy Podcasters

We answer a listener's question from a busy mom creating a podcast during nap time. We share simple ways to optimize production and help your existing episodes reach more listeners through SEO and repurposing.

Resources Mentioned:

• Cohost AI
• How Do I Repurpose My Episodes Into Promotional Content?

If you have questions about your podcast workflow, reach out to us on the Podcaster Success team by emailing support@buzzsprout.com

Keep podcasting!

Transcript

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Welcome to Podcasting Q&A

Cara Pacetti 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, brought to you by the people at Buzz Sprout. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. We recently made some changes to our fan mail feature that will now allow you to drop questions for us by leaving a voicemail. Now, it's been a while since we've played a listener question live on a Podcasting Q&A episode. So this could be your time to shine. Send in your question and we will not only answer it, but also play it back on an upcoming episode. Just click the send us fan mail link in the show notes to record your question. Today we're answering Lucy's question. How can we optimize our show? We're busy moms producing this podcast while our kids sleep. So first I want to say, Lucy, hats off to you. That is hard work and trying to fit that into an unpredictable short amount of time. Kudos for producing and launching your podcast. That's great work. And so I'd love to help answer this question. This question is fun because it's practical. And while this question is specific to a mom squeezing in a podcast while her kids nap, the tips I'm offering today are really for anyone who's trying to fit their podcast into a busy schedule and who are limited on time. I want to offer three recommendations for optimizing the time you have to work on your podcast.

Plan content with deep focus

Cara Pacetti 1:29

First, you'll want to make sure that you are setting time aside to plan out your podcast content. This planning time is best used for scripting, episode planning, and prep. So this includes things like outlining your episode topics, researching guests that you want to bring onto the show, maybe scripting out your actual episode outlines, or even finalizing segues that get you from one point to the next. In order to make the most of your time here, I want you to consider some things when you are working in this planning session. First, I want to point out that when you're planning out your content, this is a creative process. And whenever you're creating something, you really need to be focused. It's so easy to be distracted when you're trying to use that muscle of creativity. You almost need the quiet to really minimize distractions. So if you can, I would silence your notifications. I would only open the tabs on your computer that you need open for this prep in this planning work. So you can really dial in and get as much mapped out as you can during that one to two hours that you have time to work. The goal of this planning time is to lay it all out in advance. So whether you're planning just for your next podcasting season, or maybe you are going the full distance and you're planning for the entire year, remember, you've already identified your message that you want to communicate to your listeners. And you hopefully by now already know your audience or your hope-to-be audience if you're just getting started. So that part is done. You don't need to worry about that. What your focus on is how am I logistically going to communicate this message in a way that I can sustain in my short pockets of work. And what is my plan? So you just need to find out what is it that you are focusing on the next upcoming weeks or months when it comes to producing your podcast. And laying that plan out in advance with dates on a calendar is really going to help so that you aren't having to make those creative decisions every single time you get to work. So if you can have a good uninterrupted one to two hours in this just planning session to get all of those creative ideas out there on paper in a way that is actionable, that's really gonna help set you up and give you a nice baseline to work from. One tip I want to throw out there is that if you haven't used AI, that is a really helpful tool. You can use AI to help get your wheels turning, to help get that creativity flowing, and you can feed it prompts. So if you type in what you want to communicate in your episode and how you want it to be communicated, and maybe even how long you want the episode to be. And then it will offer some ideas for you. I don't recommend using those verbatim because you don't want the voice of AI to be for your podcast. You are the host and you are the reason why your listeners keep coming back. But to use AI to help you might help optimize this time so that you aren't left with a blank piece of paper after spending two hours in this planning session. So come in with a creative mindset and stay laser focused. Lay out your content and don't be afraid to use AI to help you a little bit with this process.

Batch record episodes for future release

Cara Pacetti 4:53

The next recommendation I have is to go ahead and batch record your content. Batch recording optimizes your time by allowing you to create multiple podcast episodes in one focused session. So I recommend determining which days are gonna be your recording days. The reason I say that is because you're gonna wanna make sure that you are heading into those precious working hours with the right mindset. You will want to make sure that you're hydrated. You wanna make sure that your voice is rested. And if you're doing a video, you'll wanna make sure that you're camera ready. And I know that if you're a mom working during nap time, this might be the hardest challenge of all. So you wanna make sure you are recording multiple episodes on those days that you decided to get camera ready. Maybe that's just me, but I think some other moms can relate to this. I also recommend choosing a day when your energy is high. So if you're waiting to record on a Friday afternoon after a long week, that might not be the best option for getting that focused, high energy recording. So I recommend choosing a day when your energy is high, you've gotten a lot of rest, and you've kind of anticipated this and prepared for it. Recording multiple episodes at once can really help streamline your process. This really helps if you don't have a designated studio for your podcast and you've just created a studio within your home. There are logistics that can take time. And so having all of your recording done on one day helps to reduce the time spent, maybe setting up your equipment, maybe setting up your microphone and your roadcaster and making sure that the house is quiet, making sure that there's no delivery scheduled for that day. All of those are hard to do when you're trying to record every time you have a chance to work on your podcast. So your planning days, you don't have to worry about all that setup. You don't have to worry about getting ready. You just have to have your mind ready. Then when it comes to recording, go ahead and record multiple episodes so that you're not having to walk through those logistics every time. An added benefit of recording multiple episodes at once is that you can stay ahead, which will allow you to stay calm. When you record those episodes and then you take a day to edit all of those episodes, now you have multiple episodes that you can go ahead and upload to BuzzSprout and they are there waiting to be published. It allows you to remain ahead of your release date. So if you have an episode that's gonna release this week, but then you have two more that are already recorded, edited, and uploaded, that is such a calm workplace. And especially if you are fitting your work into a busy schedule, this is gonna help out tremendously when all of a sudden that schedule becomes unpredictable and you lose that time slot that you would otherwise be working on this podcast. So staying ahead will keep your production process calm. It will keep it sustainable. And most of all, it will keep it enjoyable. If you are hosted here with us at BuzzSprout, we even offer a way to go ahead and schedule those episodes inside of your BuzzSprout account. So you can set those and forget it. Those are taken care of. And now the next week, when you get back to work and you have those time slots, you are already set and you can start working on the next weeks ahead. So this makes podcasting enjoyable and fun. And so I recommend trying to stay ahead and batch recording your episodes. So for Lucy who asked this question, I hope that points one and two are things that you've already implemented. And if not, I hope there are small takeaways that you can add to your production process that will help you in making the most of the time that you're working on your podcast. But this

Optimize your existing content to grow your show

Cara Pacetti 8:28

last point I think is really gonna help if you already have an existing podcast, but you're ready to take it to the next level. And the time that you have to work on it is limited. So we're gonna optimize your existing podcast content. Optimizing your existing content means improving the parts of your show that will help grow your audience, increase engagement, and create a better listener experience without necessarily creating more work. This is possible. I want to share how to do this. So first, I want you to go through your existing content and I want you to look for ways to enhance that content that's going to make it more SEO friendly. SEO stands for search engine optimization. So optimizing your content this way allows you to harness the power of search results so they work in your favor. When you're going through your content, I want you to think of keywords. So keywords are words that listeners might be using to search for content related to your episode topics. And while you don't want to stuff your titles and your descriptions full of keywords, you want to make sure that they are using words that accurately summarize your podcast and episodes. That way, when someone searches those terms, your episodes are included in those results. This is why transcripts are so beneficial, that written content on the web becomes searchable when listeners are typing in related content into the search engine. One way of thinking about it when you're trying to come up with titles and descriptions that would be best for search engine optimization is to think about the questions your listeners would be asking that your podcast answers. For example, podcasting QA is all about podcasting and we're answering common questions that podcasters are asking us. And so when I title my episodes or I'm writing my descriptions, I'm trying to think of what is it that somebody would be asking about podcasting. While my titles don't always have to be in the form of a question, I want the content to answer that question. So I'm thinking of words that would be included in search results when my listeners are trying to find answers. So this takes intentionality and time. When you are short on time, which is what we're talking about in this episode, AI can come in handy when it comes to finding these keywords and these titles for your podcast episodes. You can even type in a prompt to AI, and that can help you find a title that offers the best SEO results. If you're hosted here on BuzzSprout, we actually have a feature called Co-host AI. And that will allow you to run your audio episodes through Co-host AI and it will produce five title options, two episode description options. It'll give you chapter markers. So all of this written content based on your audio episodes. It's giving you that written content that can be found when listeners are searching for topics related to your podcast on the web. So I recommend checking that out. Another way of optimizing your existing content is to repurpose your episodes. So the best part about creating amazing episodes is that they automatically result in amazing content that can be repurposed to promote your podcast. I recently did a podcasting QA episode on repurposing your existing content. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes if you want to check that out. But basically, you can use some of your existing content to share and promote your podcast, either on social media sites or maybe even by creating a blog post or a newsletter. There are many ways that you can use that existing content to help promote your show. And the last point I want to make is to use this time that you've built in to schedule out your promo content. So while BuzzRout allows you to schedule your episodes, you do also want to schedule your promo around those episode release days. So depending on your work schedule and depending on when you're able to fit this work in between life and nap time and work or whatever it is that you're trying to fit your podcast into, you want to have tools that will help you push these posts out and get these things done so that you don't have to worry about that. I know some apps like Facebook will allow you to schedule posts, but you can also use a service like Buffer to schedule out all of your promotion. This is a great tool to promote your episode leading up to launch day so that your listeners are seeing it. They know that it's coming, the anticipation is building. And then when you do publish that episode, they will see that and you're not having to rush off to your computer or your phone to go ahead and promote that episode. So buffer is a great tool. I know there's many more out there, but I recommend being intentional during this time to schedule out your podcast promotion. I love that this question came in and that podcasters are looking for ways to still offer amazing content to their audience, even when life throws curveballs and busy schedules their way. If you have a question about your podcast, feel free to send it to us by emailing the podcaster success team at support@ buzzsprout.com. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.