Doing it Wrong: “I can just record and release.”

 Do you just want to record your episode and release it without editing? not so fast .

Welcome to Podcast Workflows where you get daily tips to improve your process, grow your show, and maybe even make some money. Each week, I also do a daily dive into the process of the world’s most successful podcasters and reveal their tools, processes, and systems to help you simplify the production of your own show and reclaim hours in your day. You can improve your own podcast production process by seeing how the pros do it. I’m your host, Joe Casabona, and today we’re going to talk about why you need to edit your podcast. 

I know it’s tempting. You fire up Zoom, you hit record, and you just released the combined audio into your podcast feed. That’s called recording and releasing, or it used to be called record to tape. Lots of podcasters do it. Joe Rogan does it and it works for him, people say, but it won’t work for you. Here’s why: 

First of all it’s unclear whether or not Joe Rogan has his podcast edited. I’ll remind you that some of the best edited things don’t appear to be edited at all. But second of all, podcasters who have a big show who are just recording and releasing have likely, already accumulated a big audience back when the best way to record a podcast was with Skype and eComm call recorder. This even predates Zoom. Back when it was a lot harder to launch a podcast.

So just the act of publishing one at all showed that you were putting in the effort. But two things have changed since then. In fact they’ve changed since I started my flagship podcast, How I Built It in 2016. Those two things are that the tools got better. It’s a lot easier to just record and publish a podcast today. So, just doing that doesn’t show that you’re really caring about the craft. 

And number two is the audience is getting savvier. As a result, their expectations are higher. In early critically acclaimed movie, Grand Hotel, came out in 1932, it basically takes place in a couple of rooms in a hotel. It’s still considered a culturally significant movie, but it would bomb at the box office today. Yes, it’s still a very well-written movie that has some really important kind of human instinct tropes. But movies have come so much further than what we were able to accomplish in 1932. Special effects, storytelling, multithreaded plots, color, twists, extended universes, nearly everything has changed since 1932. So,m moviegoers have a higher bar than they did in 1932. 

The same thing is true for podcasting. Just publishing an episode Isn’t enough. You need to do more than just talk into a microphone. You need to plan your show. You need to outline or script it. You need to tell a good story. And you need to add some post-production to make it sound better.  Maybe even add some music. Give the listener something besides halfway decent audio, and you will see more downloads. 

That’s it for this episode of Podcast Workflows. I’d love to hear what you think. You can find me on X formerly Twitter and other Twitter like social networks @jcasabona. And you can find me on Linkedin, I’m Joe Casabona.

Thanks so much for listening. And until next time. I’ll see you out there.