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How to Start a Video Podcast in 2024
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May 6, 2024
"Interested in creating a video podcast in 2024? This step-by-step guide will walk you through everything you need to get started. Learn how to set up a recording space, choose the right equipment, and use video software to record and edit your podcast. We'll also cover key elements like lighting, sound quality, and camera positioning to ensure your video podcast looks and sounds great. Discover tips on how to engage with your audience, distribute your podcast across platforms, and build your brand. Whether you're new to podcasting or adding video to an existing show, this tutorial has all the essentials to help you launch a successful video podcast."
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0:00
If there was ever a time to launch a video podcast, it's now
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According to Cumulus Media and Signal Hills Fall Report, YouTube is the most popular platform to watch or listen to podcasts
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They also found that 65% of podcast listeners prefer watching video podcasts instead of just listening to audio
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and 37% are actively watching the video while listening. In this video, I'll walk you through everything from planning your podcast to publishing your first episodes
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and help you decide on the gear and software you need as well. Before you just jump right in and record your first episode
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episode, let's figure out a few things first. What will your podcast be about? What will you name your
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podcast? If you're struggling with this, we have a video all about choosing a name. You'll find it down
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below. Decide on a format. Solo episodes. Will you have a co-host? Will you interview guests? Will it be
0:45
in person or remote? I do remote interviews. I'm currently in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and my guests
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aren't here. So to record high quality audio and video, I record all of the episodes using riverside.fm
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to sponsor today's video. More on why we like using Riverside instead of Zoom, Skype
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or Google Meet later on in the video. Write a brief description of your podcast. Think of it as
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an elevator pitch. If you had 30 seconds to explain the idea to someone while on an elevator
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what would you say to them? You'll need this in a later step when you're publishing your first episodes. It's important that you think about it before you start recording your podcast
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Make a list of at least a dozen episode ideas or guest you could interview. I don't want you to
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start recording and when you sit down to record the fifth episode, you realize you don't
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have any more ideas on the topic and you quit. If it's easy to come up with episode ideas
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it'll also be easy to keep recording episode after episode. This is a marathon, not a sprint
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What equipment do you need for your podcast? You could record the audio and video using your
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cell phone, but if you're taking this seriously, I'd at least make a small investment in a microphone
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Even with a video podcast, the audio is more important than the video. A good podcast microphone
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enhances your audio quality and captures less background noise and echo. My favorite beginner
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podcast mic is the Samsung Q2U. This is a dynamic microphone that can be connected using either
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USB connected to your computer or phone or XLR connected to a recording device and currently
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costs around $70 on Amazon and elsewhere. For a list of popular microphones, I'll include a video
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down below. If it's just you or your interviewing remote guest, a USB mic could be ideal because
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it plugs directly into your computer or phone so there's no need for a separate recording device
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You could record the audio and video using Riverside. For you alone, or you with your remote guests
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With Riverside's free plan, you can record up to two hours per month. If you have multiple host or guests in the same space
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you'll want to record it like this one from Zoom. This one allows you to connect up to four microphones
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and records each one on a separate audio track. You can use any headphones you have to monitor the audio
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but it's better not to use wireless or Bluetooth headphones because there can be a slight delay
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or the battery could die in the middle of a recording. The Audio Technica, M20X is a popular option costing around $50
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For a more premium option, check out the road N-TH-100 for around $150
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For the video you can record great videos with your phone as long as you have good lighting I travel with this aperture light and reflect the light off of a white wall so I have a large light source to light my videos You can also record in front of a large window but not in direct sunlight
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If you're recording remote interviews, you might be able to use the webcam of your laptop
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Many new laptops, like the new MacBook Pros or MacBook Ares, have pretty decent webcams
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I'd recommend testing the video of your webcam and then compare it to your phone's camera
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In most cases, your cell phone is going to record a better video. You could also invest around $60 to buy a webcast
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webcam like this one from Logitech to improve your video quality. I record my video podcast episodes
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and YouTube videos with my Sony A74. There are lots of great cameras out there. The best one is the one
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you already own. I recorded the first YouTube videos for this channel with my iPhone 6S. Use what you
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have for your first episodes and upgrade after you're sure you want to invest your time
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money, and energy into a video podcast. We have a free guide to launch in your video podcast. You can sign up
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to get it in the description below. Before you record your first episode, make sure to do it
4:03
test recording. Check the audio levels. Most recorders and software will tell you the decibel level
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You'll want your normal speaking voice to be between minus 18 and minus 12 decibels. While speaking
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normally, the level should show up high in the green. If it's yellow or red, it's too loud
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If it's too high when you speak loudly, the audio could be distorted. And if it's too low
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it won't sound good either. The space you record in is also important. Try to record where there's
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little background noise. You don't want to hear a refrigerator running, air conditioner, or
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traffic noise coming from a nearby window. Also, you don't want to record in a room with too much
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echo. This is usually caused because there are too many flat, hard surfaces. You can check the echo
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in a room by clapping and listening for the echo. The more soft things there are in a space
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the better. Carpet, a bed, couch, rugs, etc. If you're worried about the echo in a room
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try spreading out pillows, blankets, towels, anything you can use to cover some of the hard surfaces
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If you're not satisfied with how the audio sounds in the space you'd like to record in
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You can use magic audio from Riverside, where with the click of a button, you can remove a lot of the
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background noise and improve the quality of your audio. Make sure you're also doing a test video
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Is the lighting good? Maybe the light is reflecting off your glasses, like if I look over here, is it too dark
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Did you forget to remove something from the background? Write an outline for the episode. This could be a bullet point list of what you want to talk about and go through each of the
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points one by one as you're recorded. If you're doing interviews, you can make a list of potential questions to ask your guests
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Some podcasters will even write a word-for-word script and read. read it from a teleprompter like I am right now. I'd say most podcasts are a bit more freeform
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so this option is less common. This step is important because if you just start recording
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without a plan, you'll ramble, which means more work to edit out the unimportant parts
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or if you leave all of it in, then the listener could get bored, leave and not return to listen
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to future episodes. Another tip here, if it's possible, try to frontload the more important
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interesting parts of the episode. For all types of content, audio, video, etc., the retention is
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important. If everything interesting is at the end of the episode, many of your listeners aren't
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going to make it that far. You've got to hook them in the beginning and keep them listening all
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the way to the end If you want to know how experts think about this watch this interview with the Diary of CEO marketing manager talking about all the work they put into planning and testing Recording your episodes Now the fun part If you recording with guests make sure you arrive early Test all the equipment before they arrive so you got everything ready to go as soon as they get there
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One great thing with podcasts, they're not live. If you mess up, don't worry. Just redo that part
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You can edit out the mistakes later on. Go through your intro to hook the viewer into listening to the entire episode, then go through the main content and then close
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A tip here at the end of each episode. an episode for the viewer to watch next. If someone finishes one episode and then you're
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recommending something related to watch next, there's a really good chance after watching or
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listening to a couple of your podcast episodes, they're going to subscribe and watch future
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content. If you're doing interviews, usually I like to get right into the interview and record the
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intro after the interview because I know everything discussed during the episode and I can create
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a more interesting hook to get people excited about the episode. Here's what it looks like when I record
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an episode with Riverside. The guest joins. We chat for a minute so they know
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what to expect, then I hit record. When we finish the interview, I stopped the recording
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and if necessary, chat with the guests for a couple of minutes while we wait for the high-quality
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audio and video to finish uploading to the cloud. It's being recorded on each person's computer
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so regardless of the quality of the internet during the interview, there are no interruptions
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in the final recording. There are a lot of options for editing your video podcast, Capcut
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DaVinci Resolve, Imovie, Riverside, etc. Riverside has a great editor with a handful of useful
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editing tools to quickly edit your video podcast, improving the audio, and to help you create short
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video clips for social media. You can edit based on the transcript, making it much easier to find
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repetitive parts of the podcast. You can trim out sections just by highlighting and deleting
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the text you want removed. In the next few days, I'll be releasing a Riverside editing tutorial
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As soon as it's ready, you'll find it in the description below. Editing can be as complex or simple
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as you want to make it. I'd edit out all the pauses, mistakes, or anything else you want removed. I'd
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normalize the audio, which means that if your guest audio is lower than yours, you'd
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increase theirs or lower yours so the audio sounds similar as you jump back and forth from one
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person or another talking. When you're done editing, export a video file and an audio-only file
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from the editing software. A few notes about your episodes. Here's some interesting data from
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BuzzProbb. The most common podcast length is 20 to 40 minutes with 31%. But as you can see
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there are plenty of podcasts with episodes of less than 10 minutes, 16% and 15% of episodes are over an hour
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Also, the most common publishing frequency is every 8 to 14 days with 40% of podcasts
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31% of podcasts publish every 3 to 7 days. Speaking of BuzzSpout, the next step in the process is signing up for a podcast hosting service
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We chose BuzzSpout because of the ytics they provide. They have a free plan if you're publishing less than two hours per month
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and here are the other pricing tiers. Another popular option that's always free is Spotify for podcasters, formerly known as Anchor
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I'm a little wary of using one of the podcast players as my hosting provider, so I pay for Buzzsprout
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but plenty of podcasters use Spotify without any issues. Create your account fill in your podcast name add the description from the earlier step in this video and upload your podcast artwork You can easily create this for free using Canva Your design should be 3 pixels by 3 pixels
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Choose the category you want your podcast to show up under on Apple Podcasts
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Find a full list of categories in the description below. Upload your first episode or episodes and schedule when you want them to go live
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Add episode show notes. These notes are anything you want to share with your listeners about the episode
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Also, the show notes can help someone find your podcast. and or episodes when searching
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Riverside can also automatically create your show notes using AI. After at least your first episode is uploaded
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get listed on the major podcast directories. Here's a list of the top 10 directories according to Buzzsprout
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The two most important are Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It can take several days to get accepted by Apple Podcasts
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so make sure to submit your show to Apple a handful of days
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before you want to officially launch your podcast. It's one of the most used podcast players
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so it's important that you get listed there before going and telling anyone
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to go listen to your podcast. Create a YouTube channel. You'll need a profile picture or logo, banner
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and add your podcast description to the channel description. We have a video walking you through
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step by step how to create your channel down below. We recommend publishing three episodes for your launch
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If someone finds an episode they like, it's important to have more content for them to listen to or watch
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If there's only one episode, they won't know if you'll be publishing anything else
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With multiple episodes, they'll have a better idea what your podcast is about, making it more likely they'll subscribe to be notified about future episodes
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If you really want to be an overachiever, I'd have five episodes recorded before your launch
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You can publish three for the launch and then have the next two weeks, if you're publishing weekly, ready to go, allowing you to take a week off from recording to focus on your launch and then get back into the rhythm of consistently recording after that
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To publish video episodes on Spotify, you'll need to log into your Spotify account and replace the audio with the video
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You'll find detailed instructions down below. To make sure you properly upload the video to YouTube, watch this video down below
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You'll also want to create a podcast playlist so the episodes will also show up on YouTube music and other places where YouTube promotes podcasts on the platform
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The most difficult part of podcasting is being found. Audio podcasts are great for building trust
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you're in someone's ear for maybe an hour at a time, accompanying them on their daily commute, at the gym
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or while they're doing chores around the house. The best way for people to find you
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is with short form vertical video clips for Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube shorts
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These types of videos are shown primarily to people who don't follow you. These videos are a great way for someone
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to find a short clip from one of your episodes, maybe watch several more after visiting your social media profile
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then searching for the full episode on YouTube, or their favorite podcast player
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Riverside with the help of AI can help you create clips for social media
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If you want to give Riverside a try, you can use the link in the description below and use the code the FigCo at checkout
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to get 15% off your first purchase. Now if you want to learn how to record
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or edit your video podcast with Riverside, watch either of the videos along the side right here
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and I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye
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