Welcome to Digital Podcaster, I'm your host Dylan Schmitt.We're going to talk about priorities today.We're all pressed for time and there are a lot of tasks that take up a lot of time to get a podcast out into the world,let alone grow one.So let's talk about it.The idea for this episode was from a DM I received on Instagram from Joe Road. Joe has a podcast he hosts called Power Boat Talk. Thank you for the DM Joe. So for solo podcasters,myself included, when you're doing everything yourself, it could really seem like a lot.It can also become a struggle to get out episodes consistently every week. And typically there's a lot we know we could be doing, but it's confusing on how to prioritize your show's tasks for growth.Knowing the different tasks and then doing them are two separate functions.That's why it's helpful to prioritize what you need to do.What I thought I'd do is break down at a high level the different tasks that take place after recording and then we'll work through them.Real quick, some things we're not talking about in this show that I've covered in past episodes though.We're not talking about goals.So all of what I'm about to say is coming from an assumption, an assumption that you You have clear goals with your show and you're now on your way to executing them.We're not talking about scripting, reaching out to guests, recording, anything like that.Those are all things that I would call pre-production and production related podcasting tasks.We're talking about everything that happens after the episode is recorded or post-production.My goal for you by the end of this episode is you have either taken some things off your plate and/or you have something added but it moves the needle in a big way for your podcast.At a high level, here are some tasks that solo podcasters have to do after an episode is recorded.Edit the audio, title the episode, write show notes, add a transcript, write an accompanying blog post or email newsletter, create any promotional assets, schedule the episode,schedule any posts.And that's really just scratching the surface because within each of those things I just mentioned, there's multiple tasks.It's no wonder why so many podcasts start and then stop.Also each of these tasks I've either covered in a previous episode or will be covering in an upcoming episode, so if there's something you're not sure about, make sure to check out the episode library.Let's go through each of these at a bit of a closer view and then talk about what you really need to do or know when it comes to these tasks.So first you have to edit your podcast audio.At a bare minimum you have to edit out the beginning and the end of the episode.Next you might want to edit out any ums and ahs, pauses, stutters, and unnecessary tangents.These choices when it comes to editing are all going to depend on your podcast style.When it comes to editing particularly unnecessary tangents this is especially helpful if you're a new podcaster who is in the building stage of their podcast.That little editing part cutting out chunks of your episode any unnecessary tangents that you don't feel improves or makes the show what it is that can make a huge difference in how people perceive your podcast and if they stick around to keep listening. Editing is also one of the first things people will hear so it's important to make sure that you're giving a really good first impression.After the audio is edited is typically when you'll add a title if you haven't already before anyone even listens to your podcast episode before they even notice you're editing. They're reading your title. Even the biggest podcasts in the world we read the title before we press play. Titles are one of the most important things when it comes to driving people to your podcast. So you got to make sure it's catchy and interesting so that people want to click on it. Next up is your episode description. So sometimes the episode description will also act as your show notes. This is what I do. I just put everything in the show notes but I structure it in a way where at the top it focuses on capturing the attention of whoever comes across it and then summarizes what they'll learn inside the episode. If you look at my episode descriptions you'll see that there's only one dynamic part and that is at the top and then the other parts are more static except for the timestamps. This helps me save time and it really helps me be consistent with the type of information that I'm wanting to provide. Before we go any further let's just recap really quick before we get too far ahead because it's easy to get too far ahead with what we're talking about.So after you've recorded you've got to edit your audio and you can think of this as tightening up your episode.How much you edit depends on how much time you have to invest in what your podcast style is.Then you're giving your episode a title.The title is arguably the most important part of the episode because it's the first thing that people are going to notice besides your show art.And then you're writing your episode description.You can use a format for your description that has a dynamic and static part to it.What's important though is that the first few sentences really capture the listener's attention and make them want to hear the full episode.Some additional things that you might do here are add a transcript.So if you used a script you can easily export an episode transcript and then you can attach that to your episode when you go to schedule it. In terms of SEO, I can't say that I've seen or heard of anyone having a dramatic difference attaching a transcript, but it's one of those things that takes just a minute or two and it helps with accessibility. So why not do it and then create custom episode art. So some podcasters will create unique art to go along with every episode. Some podcasters just use the main show art and don't change it. You can see here on digital podcaster I have a template and kind of tell it's a template that I customize for each episode. It doesn't take me a lot of extra work but I like the added touch. Whichever route you go when it comes to your art really any of the choices that you're making it's all part of your podcast branding so choose what makes the most sense for you. And then finally you publish your episode once you got this going. As far as workflow goes I like to prep all of this stuff outside of my hosting service which is Buzzsprout.So I'll use Notion to write out the title and the episode description.I'll get the transcripts I'll create the episode art so virtually everything is ready to go before I even open Buzzsprout to schedule the episode to be published.Once I open Buzzsprout I'm copying and pasting everything over from my Notion library.The reason I do it this way is because I want all of my episode assets organized.I'm not using Buzzsprout to organize my podcast.Buzzsprout wasn't built to be my podcast library.I'm using Buzzsprout simply as a distribution tool for my show.So storing links and text in Notion, it gives me the flexibility mainly for repurposing content in the future, but really just for quick reference, I can reference anything from past episodes in virtually seconds.Now, before we go any further, if we just pause right here, we're pretty solid.Like if I didn't do anything else, my podcast would be published and the world could hear it. I haven't promoted the episode or let anyone know about it, but the episode would still go live after I uploaded it to buzzsprout. Right. So I see this first section that I just highlighted and spoke about as the core fundamentals of publishing. Everything else after this is a bonus. Yes, it's like a necessary bonus to grow your show, but a bonus nonetheless. It's not your podcast getting out into the world. It's not dependent on that. But let's take a look at what I consider necessary bonuses.Now that we have the core fundamentals down.So necessary bonuses are things like creating clips for social media images for social media promotion adding the episode to my website creating blog posts for the episode creating and sending out an email newsletter for the episode.Let's go through each of these real quick because there's quite a bit in here.And also let's consider who else is involved in the podcast because in a perfect world, you're getting these assets together well before the episode's going live. And if you need to share any of these assets, you have enough time to do so. So, all right.Creating clips for your podcast for social media. So depending on your podcast type for every hour, your podcast will yield around seven clips for social media. It doesn't mean you have to make seven clips but make as many as you can and you need. You can always cut clips down the road but you really can't have too many clips. For images when you use them for social media promotion this could be a template where you just fill in the light details and that image gets posted to Instagram. It doesn't have to be fancy it just needs to be effective right.And then adding your podcast to your website. So if your podcast hosting service doesn't already give you a website or you're using your own for SEO purposes you might have to manually go in and set up your podcast.Typically if you're doing it on your own Web site you're also going to craft a blog post to go along with it.This would help increase SEO.You'll probably have to copy and paste a podcast player to your blog post.Sometimes you have to do this manually but there's a lot of different options out there when it comes to this and then sending out an email newsletter for your episode.So next to content clips email newsletters are my favorite way to grow podcasts.They give you the ability to get the link for your episode right in front of your viewer in a way that's less intrusive than a tweet or an Instagram post. And then you can also include images.You could have different sections within the newsletter.You could include stories for why you created your episode and why the person should listen. Quick recap.When it comes to making content clips from your podcast episode to post on social media,this is a great way to market your podcast and get people interested in listening. You can't have too many clips.You can only have too many boring ones.So it's really important that these are engaging and shareable.Don't waste your time making bad clips.Images can be helpful for promoting your podcast on platforms particularly like Facebook Instagram and LinkedIn.But I'd suggest measuring how it works for you.If you're short on time you might be able to get away with just posting clips.If you're seeing success with images then use them.Also, you can repurpose a content clip into an image just by getting the transcript of the clip and then designing a carousel type post in Canva.If you have a website and you're blogging, be sure that you include the podcast player and any links out to any other platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of those, and then make sure to really include any additional text.When it comes to email newsletters, it's seriously a powerful marketing tool and it's overlooked by a lot of podcast creators.I would recommend that you include stories about why you created your episode in the first place and why it's important and or why listeners should listen and make sure to include all of the links you want to provide to make it easy to find easy to listen to.Whether that's including in the email all of the links to Spotify,YouTube, Apple podcast, all that stuff, or just linking to your blog post page that just has all the links there.But one way or another, you need to make the links super clear.One thing you haven't heard me mention yet, but it's a necessary bonus to all of this is if you have a guest that was on your podcast episode, get them the assets they need to promote ahead of time.Your guest won't remember when the episode is coming out.They won't know where to send people and they won't promote it if it takes too much work.You'll consistently get your guests to promote the episode more frequently to their audience when you give them everything they need beforehand.Ideally at least a few days before and then also tag them in the posts when it goes live.That's a lot, right?It could be a lot to stick with this all consistently over a long period of time.I think that's why we see a lot of podcasts fade away.Before we go just a few more tips that will help you stay consistent with your podcast.Number one,break it down.So if you're running your whole show from your mind,it's going to be overwhelming.Get it out of your head and onto a document or inside something like notion.Number two,plan ahead.So think of your podcast in three stages,pre-production,production and post-production.Pre-production is everything you do before you press record.Production is everything that happens on the mic and then post production is virtually everything we covered in this episode.When you think of it in these three stages, you can go to your calendar and then you can plan out the entire thing way easier.And number three, get help.There's no awards given to podcasters who do everything by themselves.Your audience really only cares about the quality of your content.If it's engaging to them and how they can benefit from listening to your episode.If you're doing everything yourself, just set a goal to outsource one part of the podcasting process like editing.That's going to help you free up time so that you can focus on other essential aspects.Last thing, if you're going through all of this and it's starting to feel overwhelming, just breathe.Prioritizing your podcast tasks is not easy at first.There's a lot to do.It's a process and it does take time to get used to and refine.All of this is how you get better and how you get better consistently.You don't have to do everything at once and it all doesn't need to be perfect right away. It's not about making big changes.It's just about making adjustments along the way.Take your time, prioritize wisely,and you'll be well on your way to fueling your podcast growth consistently.I'll see you in the next episode.