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Heidi Miller at her Talk It Up blog shares her Five Golden Rules of Podcasting. I’m going to list them here with a snippet on each point from her post. But she offers some great content with each of the Five Golden Rules of Podcasting, so be sure to click the article link here for that content.
1. Have something to say.
If you can’t shut up about something, that would be the thing you should podcast about.
2. Don’t "fill" time.
If your podcast is usually 20 minutes but you only have seven minutes of material this week, do a fabulous seven-minute podcast.
3. Speak in a real human voice.
Be real, be enthusiastic, be sarcastic, be annoyed, be honest. We’ll like you for who you are. If we don’t, you probably didn’t want us to listen to you, anyway.
4. Audio is as audio does.
If your listeners complain about audio quality, you might want to look into a better mic or figure out how to do some basic noise reduction.
5. Make it social.
So start by listening to other podcasts in your field. Go listen to podcasts not in your field. Call in to the comment lines of your favorite podcasts. Respond on the podcast blogs or forums.
I’d add one thought to her Point 4: Audio is as audio does. The old rule of garbage in, garbage out applies here. If you have a poor connection, using a VOIP service with low bandwidth or slow processing speeds, a cellphone in rush hour traffic with your windows down (true story for one of our customers and their guest)…you’ll create a poor quality listening experience for your customers. We suggest a landline connection. For the best at-home recording experience we suggest sitting in your car inyour garage with the windows rolled up. That’s from Dave Evans at HearThis
Granted, we have a vested interest in this suggestion with our podcast service offering. But we also suggest this based on consistent results over the past 3 years offering the service.
Heidi speaks truth with these points. The power of podcasting is the power of you, your voice, your message, your passion, your business, your company, your employees, your joy…because believe it or not, there are lots of people who share the same joys and there are lots of people who’d love to know they’re not alone or who could benefit from learning from your experience. Hey, some of them could be customers or partners!
Be sure to check out our podcast service when you’re ready to begin.
All of our services have operators standing by to assist in the unlikely event of an unwanted and uninvited guest caller or music-on-hold from one of your caller’s line or dog’s barking in the background or even the occasional, but valid, technical problem. They’re an easy *0 away to help you make your conference call a success.
Theresa and Cindy, aka TCW, our customer service mavens talk about this tip, why it’s important and how easy it is to use in this their first podcast recording on their new podcast channel: A Day in The Life. You can subscribe to the podcast here with an rss reader:
OR
listen to the MP3 version of their recording here.
It’s very easy, really. Many people do it unwittingly.
Here’s how you turn Gold into Garbage. Convert your WAV format conference call recording into a MP3 Format using the slowest bit-rate or processing speed possible.
That’s all you have to do. It’s easy.
Why would you do this?
Convenience. You’re in a hurry, excited about the content, you’ve got a deadline. You have a number of other applications running at the time you convert your WAV file recording. You keep the other applications running while you convert your recording from WAV to MP3 in the hopes you’ll complete 2 tasks at the same time as one.
You’re partly right. You’ll complete both tasks: converting your call recording from WAV to MP3 and the other processes. But the end result is a call recording of far lower quality than the original WAV file provided. That reflects poorly on you, your brand, your message and your respect for your listening audience.
A conference call recording is easily shared with others. Make sure it’s the highest quality recording to communicate the best impression of you and your message.
You’re concerned about the size of the file for your conference call recording. You think that condensing the file-size through using a slow processing speed and shaving the size from 10 megs to 3 megs will make it easier to send and share and download.
You’re partly right. Size does matter in file transfers. Smaller size files transfer faster, download faster, listen to quicker. But again, it’s accomplished at the sacrifice of quality. Why invest so much time sharing a wonderful story, or new product, or mission critical data only to have it lost when bits of data are eliminated by reducing the file size?
You don’t know any better. Surprisingly, most don’t. It’s an esoteric point to the majority of the population who listen to both file formats.
How many of you know about processing speeds, and file sizes in relation to quality, which format is better?, how do I convert a WAV to a MP3? Why?
How many of you think it’s a good use of your time to master these points. Sure, some will and they’ll be right. But most will find their time is better delivering their message and letting a knowledgeable expert handle these details.
Solution? Use the expert. Let us convert your conference call recordings from WAV format to MP3 format with the maximum bit-rate to insure the highest quality recording is delivered for your audience.
Your conference call recordings are gold. You should treat them as such. They are a direct link to your audience. Your voice, your message, shared with your audience and recorded in a format that makes it easy to share with those yet to find your message, those who couldn’t attend live…Make sure it’s a format and a quality you’ll be proud of.
We can do that. Just ask.
Recently I spoke at the Books, Branding and Media seminar in Hollywood, California. It was hosted by John Kremer who’s nationally recognized as one of the experts in self-publishing and how to promote your books. He asked me to talk with him and his audience on Grassroots Marketing Success with Teleseminars, Podcasts and Blog. You can download a PDF here that includes many of the points we covered in that discussion.
Teleseminars are the first step in grassroots marketing. It’s really the foundation for your grassroots marketing effort. It’s that content you’ll record for your MP3 links and your podcast series you’ll want to blog about. Blogs make it easy to promote your latest content, whether it’s in the form of a stand-alone written post or a written post with links to your MP3 recording of your teleseminar or all of that plus a series of podcasts your most loyal audience members can subscribed to in order to stay up-to-date with all your latest broadcasts, programs, efforts, successes.
And remember that your grassroots marketing including including teleseminars, podcasts and blogshave the greatest competitive advantage, an advantage no competitor can touch: you, your passion, your vision, your voice, your writing. Consumers are hungry for authenticity and uniqueness. No one can duplicate you. Your voice with your message, your writing with your message, and now with resources like blogs and podcasts, make for a very compelling brand message.
With the ease of creating, modifying and sharing audio files we see a steady rise in 2 key metrics: 1) requests for audio conference call recordings and 2) grassroots radio show hosts using our podcast services.
Here are some tips that will help any and all customers create the highest quality conference call for any audience, regardless of their comfort with audio technology or their plans to distribute their recordings.
GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT. A quality conference call and recording starts with the live call. If the volume and sound quality on the live call is poor, the volume and sound quality in both the original recording and the output file will be poor as well.
Example: A customer of ours once used our service to record an interview with a prominent blogger. After he listened to the recording, he complained about the
quality of his guest’s portion of the call.
We agreed: it was lousy.
But after listening to it several times we discovered the problem. The guest used his cellphone while driving down the interstate with his windows down…in morning traffic…in a major city.
We were able to remove the traffic noise using editing software. But…it’s much more soothing to ask your speakers, including yourself, to call from a quiet location.
Solution: Dave Evans at HearThis recommends calling from inside your car with the windows rolled up tight while it’s in your garage and not running. Dave should know. His whole business is creating professional and powerful podcasts.
TIP #1: USE THE BEST EQUIPMENT
Landlines. We recommend land-lines. That’s your everyday phone line connected to the wall outlet.
No speaker phones. Speaker phones pick up all ambient background sounds and there is usually an echo from various sources. As a host we encourage you to avoid them. Encourage your guests to avoid using them to join your call.
No VOIP. VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) clips the high and low end of the voice signal. Also, you are extremely susceptible to clicks and pops when the digital signal is converted to analog.
Also, with VOIP, you’ll be unable to use DTMF (tone signals) from your telephone’s touchpad to mute your line or the lines of your callers. Why? VOIP doesn’t transmit DTMF tones as your land-line or cellphone does.
No cell phones. The tiny microphone picks up higher frequency background noises. While you may not hear the noises during the live call, the recording picks up and records every sound coming in. (An example of this is the microphone picking up wind sounds while standing outside or driving in a car with the window open.)
Headsets. We have experimented with some headsets and found them to be acceptable if you keep the microphone away from being directly in front of your mouth. This helps to cut down on the microphone picking up your breath, as well as the hard t’s and p’s in your speech.
TIP #2: CONTROL YOUR ENVIRONMENT.
Don’t put the conference call on hold. Everyone on the call will be forced to listen to your phone system’s hold music/messages. Remind your callers to mute their individual lines or use the host feature to MUTE ALL. Unless you’ve muted your individual line or the host has muted the lines for all callers, you’ll force the other callers to hear your hold music/messages when you put the conference call on hold…just for a minute.
Barking dogs, baby’s crying, check-out line chatter. That’s all heard on a conference call. Mute your line or find a quiet, private place from where you can join the call. The better the sound quality on the live call, the better the sound quality will be in the end product of the call recording.
Mute all lines to start. For a call recording created live from a conference call attended by more than you and a guest speaker (If that’s different), we recommend muting the guests’ lines to start. You can unmute them at the end of the recording if you desire. You want their input. But you want it at the right time.
Deactivate audible tones on entry and exit. Tones are often heard when callers arrive and depart a conference call. Customer Service can change this feature for you. Contact our Customer Service office at 877-227-0611, ext. 3 or email them at customerservice@conferencecallsunlimited.com before the call.
Deactivate this feature before your conference call where you plan to record your presentation live. You can’t control when they arrive; Inevitably people arrive late to a conference call.
You can lock the conference call prior to the start of your presentation. That’s a very effective manner to prevent interruptions from late arrivals. But…you also risk alienating them for suffering under elements not in their control.
Use the operator. Use them in the event a caller’s line remains a distraction or a function isn’t performing as it should. Follow the instructions included with your confirmation note we sent at the initiation of your service. Or call Customer Service at 877-227-0611, ext. 3 or email them at customerservice@conferencecallsunlimited.com.
TIP #3: WHAT YOU, THE HOST, SHOULD DO.
Speak clearly and slowly. When presenting, speak a bit slower than you normally would to ensure that your attendees can hear and understand you and that the call recording is consistently clear and crisp.
Be still when you speak. Your 2nd grade teacher’s maxim remains true: Be still when you’re speaking. Your attendees will hear most every noise you make. That means that noise will be recorded! Rustling papers, opening/shutting drawers, yawning (belching!), swearing…they’ll all be heard. That means they’ll also be recorded.
Wrap up at the end of the call. At the end of the call, make sure you summarize the content of the call, when the recording will be available, how your audience can access it, and when your next conference call is scheduled. Some do this as part of their recording; Some don’t. It’s a personal choice. But regardless, help your audience by reminding them. And remind them on the follow-up email you’ll send them.
Let us know what else we can do. We have the skills and personnel create your recording using the media that allows for the greatest and easiest access and distribution for your audience.
Next month, we’ll share some tips on how to create the highest quality recording with our web conference services.
