We have a podcast. It’s here -:
and here -:
This is the first, that we know of, Chinglish podcast where we speak in mixed English and Chinese throughout. We learn new words, discuss culture, current events, family and have a laugh.
How do you make one?
Things you will need…
- A microphone (we use Blue Yeti & Blue Yeti Snowball about $120USD 80-100GBP)
- A computer with sufficient memory (we use video editing workstation)
- Software to record the sound into. We use Adobe Audition & Or Premier Pro ($50 per month for all Adobe apps).
- Something to talk about (I say this but some podcasters just waffle on their own for an hour or so. Take Bill Burr and Chris D’elia for example)
- Some headphones (To hear your levels, try and stay at the -12db range)
- An audio hosting package (we use Soundcloud Pro $14.99 per month) to store your podcasts and give you the all important RSS feed.
- Your mouth. For speaking out of.
Our Experience
After watching a few videos and reading a few articles we managed to set it all up. The expense on a monthly basis is negligible. The most expensive purchase was that of the Adobe products but there are some free audio softwares you can use if you want to keep the cost down.
Submitting your feed to iTunes was also straight forward after following the online guidelines. It took about three working days to vet and check our podcast submission and to release on the platform. TunedIn was almost instant. I believe we are also on Spotify which we had to submit separately.
we record every week, sometimes twice a week, and we convert most of our videos into audio format and upload them as well.
The podcast records directly to your software as you speak so no worries there, you might have to keep an eye on the levels as you smash your way through your discussion points or whatever you have planned. After this you simply adjust and disturbance (sound experience required), fix any issues, cut any bit, stick an intro and outro if you want and export to AIFF or MP3 or whichever format you are happy with and upload to (in our case) Soundcloud.
Sustaining a podcast is great fun but also a grind, you have to keep conversation fresh and new and upload as regularly as possible. People burn through podcast episodes easily. 2 a week is a good starting point.
Exporting to Everywhere
We don’t know how many places that Soundcloud has exported this to. We only added it to iTunes and TunedIn. But supporters have found it through searching for ‘Chinese podcast’ in various other players. This is all awesome because the more places they put the podcast the more people can learn Mandarin Chinese and the more people we help. BUT the less we can see the number of listens that podcast gets. We can only report on iTunes and Soundcloud.
So far as we know our podcast (as of writing this) has been listened to 9000+ times, on iTunes and Soundcloud. But we cannot account for the other platforms. Perhaps more research is needed on this front.
Guests
The format of our podcast is set up like a chat, and although we have discussion points mapped out we tend to go off the rails and the time seems to get away from us.
Recently we have decided to get guests on the show and our first ever guest was our Jiuma (aunty in law) who is from China and provided some interesting perspectives on Mandarin language and different uses of words. Very interesting in our arena.
Sponsorship
So, we are still a little in the dark about sponsorship. Have heard that you need to get 10k downloads, 10k listens to be considered by some companies. This morning I read about 100k downloads. Each company, if they actively use podcasts as an advertising medium will have their own standard. But they obviously want to reach as many people as possible.
Monetary compensation for advertising on your podcast depends on many factors, including, when you do the advert (up front, mid or back end), how long the advert is, how much air time you give it, your audience and topic etc etc. Can be as low as $20 per ad to $20,000 per ad.
We will not approach companies for sponsorship for some time. Until we believe our numbers are better and will add value to the company. And if we need to.
Just Start It
Starting a podcast is a very worthwhile investment of time for any business. You are providing your brand further recognition and establishing yourself further as an expert in your field but also reach more people.
Brand building + new skills + value Adding + potential income source.
P.s – if you cannot commit an hour or so into podcasting every week or more, or you give up (or think you will) after a few months. don’t do this. it’s a long play. You have to be in it for the long term gains. You won’t get a quick return on this. You are investing in the audience by building your brand.
Ai Nimen!