Speaker 1: What's going on guys? Welcome back to my channel. Hope you're having a great day. My name is John the Video Guy and I wanted to make this video in case anyone wanted to learn about how to make a podcast using Podbean. So believe it or not it's been almost one year since I started my own podcast using Podbean and I kind of wanted to make this video kind of recap what I've learned about using the software and what I learned so far on my journey about creating a podcast. So in this video I'm gonna be going over the steps on how to choose a plan, how to set up your podcast using Podbean, making sure all the links work, how to upload an episode, and how to really get started with a podcast. Then at the end of the video I'm going to be really talking about the benefits of really just podcasting in general. Kind of like why to podcast in the first place. What are the benefits and why are so many people podcasting? So I'm going to get to all these questions later on in the video but first feel free to hit the like button. It really helps my channel out and with that let's get started in talking about the podcast. So the first thing that you have to decide on is which platform and if you're watching this video you're probably already chosen Podbean specifically because that's the one I'm going to be talking about today. Unless you are still deciding I'm going to be going over the pros and cons of about Podbean. So when you look at the plans for Podbean there is a free version and I actually went with the unlimited audio version that's $9 a month and with it you don't have a storage space cap or a bandwidth cap. So you'll notice with the free version you're limited to five hours total and five and a hundred gigabytes monthly bandwidth. And also you get more access to themes and you get access to monetization in case you know your podcast goes you know crazy and a lot of people are you know listening to it you can also add monetization add ads and stuff to your podcast. So that's the reason I went and purchased podcast. Now there are others out there that you probably have researched possibly such as anchor that's completely free but you know at the end of the day you do need to decide where is your podcast gonna kind of live and be hosted on. And Podbean is a pretty solid option out there. It's one of the cheaper ones but it's also a pretty solid one. And let's get started showing you how to set it up. So once you click sign up for free you'll create an account. I'm actually going to go into my own podcast to actually show you what you'll actually be seeing once you create an account. And basically the next step after you create an account is come up with the podcast title, write a brief description, choose a podcast category. So you know there's a lot to choose from whether your business, education, you're talking about health and fitness, kids, any type of you know podcast is pretty much in there for me since mine is about video and design I chose arts and visual arts. So and then there's a podcast logo so you're more than welcome to make a logo upload it. And this is important because this is what people will be seeing as the podcast logo. So when they're on Spotify, Apple, iTunes or whatnot this is a logo that comes up when they search for it or they're trying to find it. So you want to make sure it's clear, visible, it matches your brand and all that. Under more options you know there's other things to fill in as well. The author since you know my nickname is John the video guy I put that in there. The podcast URL so this is specific to Podbean itself the actual specific link for your Podbean website. And then once you have all of your settings set up, the name, all the good stuff, all the brief description, the logo, you'll want to start designing your actual website. So this is the actual landing page of the host website. So under distribution you'll want to go to podcast website and you know with the pro the you know the paid version you get pro themes. So you got a few different options that you can choose from. You can click activate and then edit it. So for example on mine I can go to customize and then there's a header image the favicon, five con, favicon. I don't know how you say it but that's basically the little thing in the top right. If I go to my own podcast website that's a little guy up there. You know the different colors that you can choose from. Basically the different structure of how you can lay out your actual page. And going back to this is actually my own podcast so this is what it would look like using this theme. Alright so once you start and create your podcast and you got your website down you'll want to start distributing it to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and all the different places that people listen to podcasts. So there's a section in here under distribution called podcast apps and they all kind of work the same. And for example here you can see mine the green check marks are the ones that it's actually connected to. But there is one that I'm going to do today which is Alexa. So I'm going to click on this so for example here they all kind of work similarly where you basically have to go to the specific website log in and then copy your podcast feed into this into that website or that host. So for example here I'll just go here and then for the RSS feed where you're going to do is copy this guy and then go back over here and paste it and just fill in the rest of the information. You know what language it is. Podcast website which I'll just link the post shows website right there. Podcast genre I'll do arts and culture and so on and so forth. Once you're done you'll hit send email and then you'll get email confirmation pretty much for each one of these. And back in here once it is activated you'll paste your tune in website address here and then you'll hit save tune in podcast URL and then that saves it to the feed. That way once you upload a new episode into Podbean it will then push it to Alexa Spotify and all the different distribution platforms. So that's how it works that's how you distribute your podcast episodes to all the services. So you'll want to do this for as many as possible. I only did it didn't do it for two of these so far but pretty much almost everybody all the major ones at least I've done it for. And the other thing that you can do if you have your own personal website or a different place that you want to host it on you can actually copy the RSS feed and to do that you'll go into settings feed and then over here you can copy this and then this would go into for example on your WordPress website. If you have a podcast player feed you would paste it in here and then that is what would be on your website. So on my website here under the podcast page my podcast is linked here with all the episodes. So that is how you would externally copy and paste RSS feed to like your own blog or your own website. Alright so once you have all your distribution platforms and you published your feed in all the places that you want it you'll have to start uploading your episodes. So to do that here is you go to under episodes, episode list and you'll create a new episode and then you'll choose file to upload and then what you'll see next is you'll actually go into it and then you can fill in the title, the name, an important note when you upload it has to be an mp3 file. That's the only format that they accept. They don't accept WAV or other you know lossy audio types. Feel free to add any links in the description and then if you are if you activate add time slots that will show up as well and under more settings you can include the season number, the episode number, you can choose episode type and the content if it's clean or explicit. You can also add the duration which is important for people to know and probably most importantly the permanent the permalink which is really important for SEO so you know putting something that people are searching for in here is a good idea such as creating YouTube titles thumbnails that get clicks and then under here what you'll see is schedule or publish so you can either schedule the episode out in the future, select a specific date and time or you can publish it right away if you just want to publish it. So yeah that is how you do an episode upload. That is what it will look like and the different options that you have there. Alright so you uploaded your first episode, maybe you uploaded a few, how do you see how they've done? So the next part I'm going to talk about is stats. So to get to the stats section you'll want to go under statistics overview and then here you can see different stats from different date ranges. You can select different ranges so you can do last three months, you can do specific months and it will show you the percentage, how many downloads and you know all the good stuff, all the different geographies that people are listening to your podcast from, the different sources which is nice so you know for example in this time specific region 51% listen on Apple podcasts, 3% on Firefox so that's a good benchmark to see you know where people are listening to your episodes the most. I do have to say I am a little disappointed with Podbean's stats. I wish there was this place in here that kind of went over watch time. I guess it's not watch time but like listening time like how much of an episode the average viewer listens to it. It's really hard to gauge feedback using Podbean. I'm not sure if others are better but that is one of the downsides that I've noticed. This is pretty much what you get here when it comes to stats. It's not that in-depth so that would be something to consider if you're thinking about purchasing Podbean. You might want to research other ones if they do have a little bit better statistics and if that's important to you that's definitely something to keep in mind. Alright so that's basically the overview of Podbean how to you know go from start to finish basically on uploading and doing your podcast. So what are the things that I've learned? I think one of the first things I learned is and really any type of content creation is you want to make sure you're copyright compliant with all the stuff you know whether it's having permission to use a guest's face, name, likeness, making sure you're using royalty-free music and the graphics and everything associated with your podcast is royalty-free. You want to make sure that you're solid in that department. If you have guests on your podcast for my episode for my podcast specifically season one I had a bunch of guests on I had them sign a basically a guest release form just saying I can use your likeness and reproduce it and it's just a nice safety to have in your back pocket just in case an issue comes up down the line you know where they're like hey can you remove it or you know you have full rights to the ownership of the episode. So you want to make sure that you have those documents and things secured. So what are the benefits of actually having a podcast? Why have one in the first place? You know a lot of people you know have them but what is the actual benefits of having a podcast? I think the first and foremost is especially if your podcast is guest centric is it gives you a nice opportunity to reconnect and engage with your network. So for example for me I talked to a lot of people in the video production industry that I haven't talked to in a long time and it was a really nice opportunity to get to connect with them and really touch base see how they're doing ask them questions and really connect with people that you might have not have talked to in a long time. So that is definitely one benefit especially if you have guests on your podcast. The second thing when it comes to content creation is it really establishes thought leadership in your industry. So if you start a podcast or you're just creating stuff in general whether it's a blog or YouTube videos you're kind of establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry. So you know people come to my podcast and listen you know that people that are interested in YouTube video production creativity and you know entrepreneurship and they listen to me and my episodes and the people that are on my podcast for inspiration. So it kind of puts me in an authority as an authority figure. I don't know if that's a good thing but you know it establishes yourself as a person that people look to as an industry expert or a expert or a leader you know that they can listen to and interact with. So that's always a good thing is to build your personal brand and kind of become a thought leader in your specific industry. I think lastly is just being more comfortable you know in different situations. I feel more comfortable just talking to the camera here you know and just being myself on camera whether it's on camera behind the microphone and really also talking to people making short conversations you know at the bus stop or just different areas where you would normally not talk to people and be kind of timid you know. I'm kind of an introvert and I don't know if you could tell based on these videos but you know I think my personality has really developed ever since starting a podcast and even this YouTube channel just being more comfortable just talking and being myself. And I would really recommend this to anyone just start a podcast or just a YouTube channel and I think it just really helps you develop as a person. I'm sorry I bumped the microphone. Develop as a person personally and professionally. I think personally from my experience I've learned so much just talking to people, listening. I think podcasts are just a good opportunity to just listen and learn from other people especially if you have guests on the show or it's a good opportunity to just document your journey. So such an example is season two of my podcast I've been just going over my YouTube journey and the things I've learned there. So really at the end of the day podcasts are really valuable in a lot of different ways. I hope you found something from this episode of whether you're starting a podbean episode or you're thinking or wondering about why people start podcasts some of the benefits in doing so. If you want to take a listen to my own podcast I'll link it down in the video description. Feel free to go check it out. You can see definitely from when I started to the last and most recent episode you can see the difference in my voice from how kind of timid I was at the start to kind of how I've developed over time. I think it's it's just a really interesting experience and I would recommend it to anyone. So thank you guys so much for watching. Feel free to go check my podcast out and best of luck to you if you're starting your own podcast. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time.