Podcasting Archives - Create If Writing

Pinterest for Podcasters

September 8, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 1 Comment

This post is all about Pinterest for podcasters. Why podcasters? I keep hearing the conversations and questions from podcasters who don’t use or simply dismiss Pinterest. If you aren’t a podcaster, never fear! You’ll still get some great tips and takeaways for how this platform can work for you. But podcasters, I’m writing this with YOU in mind!

Listen to Pinterest for Podcasters

Many people are under the impression that Pinterest is the kind of site where you hang out to learn about DIY, tasty recipes, or home decor. I rarely (if ever) read or hear of people talking about Pinterest for podcasters. Twitter and Facebook tend to be the more favored social platforms.

But those who use Pinterest for promotion know that Pinterest is perhaps THE most powerful platform for promotion.

Why? Unlike both Twitter and Facebook where links have a shelf life of a few minutes to a few hours, Pinterest has legs. Long ones.

I am constantly getting traffic from Pinterest. EVEN FROM THINGS I PINNED A YEAR AGO. Yes, you read that right: Posts I shared one time a year ago bring daily traffic to my blog from Pinterest. LOTS of traffic.

Pinterest is a marathon, not a sprint. It is not really a social network so much as a search engine. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT just for moms hanging out at home wanting to cook great meals and redecorate their homes.

No matter what your podcast niche, there ARE people pinning and sharing that kind of content on Pinterest. With the potential for mad traffic that keeps on going (and going and going), you have the potential to broaden the reach of your podcast.

You ready? Let’s get to it!

Pinterest for Podcasters

Set Up Your Account

This seems pretty basic as you basically need an email and password to set up your Pinterest account. BUT there are a few important parts to setting up an effective account! (I’m moving really quickly through the setup process here, but have a much more in-depth post about Pinterest on Jane Friedman’s blog.)

Set up a business account. Nope, this isn’t scary and it changes NOTHING if you already have a personal account. It looks the same and feels the same with the added bonus of getting all the analytics your heart could desire. Learn to set up your Pinterest Business account.

Get rich pins. You’ll know rich pins when you see them. They look more official with all the info from the site itself right on the pin. People pin these more frequently because they know they are actually validated. Follow this tutorial to set up rich pins with Yoast. On blogger? Try this setup for rich pins.

Write great keyword descriptions. Pinterest is less social and more search. This means that you’ll want to use effective and relevant keywords in your descriptions. This means your profile, your boards, and your pins themselves. This doesn’t mean keyword stuffing (repeating the same words again and again) but rather using the words that people might search for NATURALLY within your descriptions.

Have a board for your site & podcast. Create boards that are for your target audience. If you want to have other, less relevant to your podcast or business boards, you can always make them secret boards or (if you want more to manage) have a separate personal account. I just keep my board secret. Your first board or boards should be YOUR content. This means name one after your podcast or your website, use the correct label for the kind of board it is, and a description with great keywords. Every time you do a new post or episode, pin to that board or boards.

Set Up Your Site

On your site side, you will want to do a few things to be Pinterest-friendly. These things make it more likely that people will share your images on Pinterest.

Have your site verified. This basically means your site fully connects to Pinterest. It will make sure you’re getting the correct analytics. Use this simple tutorial to verify your site in a few minutes.

Install the Save It Button for Pinterest. Most people have social shares on their site, typically at the top or bottom of each post or floating along the side. The Save It (formerly Pin It) button will hover over each image, encouraging your readers to keep the juice going by pinning your images. Learn how to install the hovering button in this post.

Creating Pinnable Images

Create Pinterest-styled images. It takes a few more minutes, but I create several images for each set of show notes. I have my normal thumbnail for the podcast, a horizontal image standard for each episode with my guest for that week, and then an image that is geared toward Pinterest. Take a few minutes to search around Pinterest for keywords related to your podcast topic. What catches your eye? I’m dealing with writing, social media, and online platform, so I tend to grab pictures from Pixabay or use my own stock photos. The typical podcast image may not perform as well on Pinterest as it would on other platforms. It’s worth the time to consider how you might make images that would be more suited. Here you can see a few images that I used for the same set of show notes.

interview with amy amy lynn andrews — This is the image I use to promote the podcast on Twitter and Facebook.

If you want to make an income online and last for the long game, here are some things you need to know NOW. — This is (a smaller version of) the image I created for Pinterest for the same post.

Size images for Pinterest. Social media platforms love to mess with us by having different optimal sizes. On Facebook and Twitter, this is often a horizontal image. On Pinterest, you need a long and lovely image. The optimal sizing is 735 x 1102 pixels. I typically use more like 800 x 1200 because it suits the width of my blog better, and really longer is better. (Once you pass around 1400, Pinterest will clip the image and it won’t all be visible. Play around with the size that goes best with your blog.) I use Picmonkey or Canva (both have free or paid versions) to create my vertical images. Here is a brief Picmonkey tutorial.

Label images with keywords. Every image has metadata that you may not know about. You can find this in blogger or wordpress by clicking on the image. You’ll see the file name (which typically starts as something like IMG3002) and the alt tag field. Those are the two you really need to worry about. Rename the file with keywords, which will help you in Google search and in Pinterest.

Replace IMG 3002 with how-to-grow-your-email-list as the name. Then in the alt tag field, you will want to write out a description that will help you get pinned on Pinterest. When people click to pin an image, the alt tag automatically fills in the description on Pinterest. That may be something like: “This interview with Kirsten Oliphant will teach you how to grow your email list without breaking your budget.” See how the phrase is the same? That’s called a long-tail keyword and will help your image appear in search. Do this with every image on your blog. Starting NOW.

Hide images if you need to. For some people, a giant image disrupts the feel of the post. You can always hide the long images in your post. (Read how to hide vertical Pinterest images in a post!)

Writing Killer Show Notes

This is the place where I feel like podcasters really can learn to shine. Since I was a blogger before I was a podcaster, I write posts that are full of great content, images, and keywords. If you are dialing in your show notes, you will not find much success on Pinterest. Instead, try to beef them up and make the show notes content that will stand on their own rather than a supplemental afterthought.

Don’t rely solely on transcriptions. Transcriptions are great for some people and for enrichening your post with SEO juice from long-form content and keywords, but most people don’t want to read them. Pinterest users especially are not going to be thrilled to click over and find a simple transcript. If you want to use a transcript, consider writing out content before the transcript so that the post has some value in and of itself.

Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. I have a lot of listeners to my podcast who don’t read show notes. I also have a lot of followers who read and almost never listen to the podcast. Why? They just aren’t podcast listeners. I’d love to convert them, each and every one, but some people just don’t get it. So I write out show notes that follow the arc and the details of the show fully.

By creating rich show notes that resemble more of a blog post than traditional show notes, you may be able to reach a new audienc. Maybe you can convert them to listeners and maybe not. You can for SURE work on getting them both kinds of audience members (listeners and readers) on your email list. If they love you, they will follow what you’re doing using the medium they prefer. Don’t turn off non-listeners.

Make listening easy in the post. I love the custom player from Libsyn (which you can see at the top of this post). It’s pretty and effective. Some people listen to my podcast solely in the posts themselves. Libsyn also has the ability to push your podcast to YouTube, where it will be a sort of static video showing your cover art and playing the audio. You could embed this YouTube video in your post for a bigger, more noticeable way to listen. Give people options and make it EASY. Don’t make them leave your site to listen. You are more likely to hook new listeners and maybe even first time podcast newbies this way.

Make subscribing easy in the post. Definitely make listening possible right in the post, but don’t forget to link out where you want people to subscribe or leave a review.

Have a call to action. Want subscribers to the podcast? Reviews? Comments? People who will sign up for your email list? Make sure you have one strong call to action at the end of every post.

Utilizing Video

Pinterest (like most platforms) is pushing video. Video currently looks weird on Pinterest because it doesn’t appear like the other long pins, but because Pinterest is focusing on it and promoting its use, this is a great feature to use. People can view videos right in Pinterest, which means that people have a chance to hear your voice and get hooked right then and there, even if you aren’t doing video podcasts.

If you are using Libsyn, you can make YouTube a destination. This creates a video with a static thumbnail image from your show in YouTube. (As with any video, you could go change the thumbnail image to an image of you and your guest if you have one!) and then pin each video to Pinterest. These could go on your main podcast or blog board, or their own separate board that’s all video.

This is my next step and I’m excited to see how this might impact listens and discovery!

Tools to Simplify Pinterest

Pinterest is the fastest and easiest of the social platforms for me because IT ISN’T SOCIAL. Introverts, get excited! This is your platform! You don’t have to talk! For me, this looks like creating my show notes, creating an image in under 10 minutes (see video above), hitting publish, and clicking Pin. The end.

To achieve the results I talked about earlier, I just used Pinterest itself. No fancy schedules or plan. I recently bumped up my Pinterest game and now schedule repins, so here are a few tools if you want to make this platform even simpler. (Many other schedulers are now offering Pinterest, but I prefer the Pinterest-specific ones.)

Board Booster. The best feature that most people use is the looping feature, where BB will keep repinning the pins you choose to different boards to keep them active and visible. You can try 100 pins for free to get a feel and plans start at $5/month. I’m an affiliate, so this is my affiliate link to try Board Booster!

Tailwind. This is my favorite because of the killer analytics (which blow Pinterest’s out of the water) and the easy scheduling. It’s pretty, drag, and drop, and takes moments to set up pins to multiple boards. Sign up with my affiliate link and get $15 credit. (It runs $9.99 a month.)

Ahalogy. This is a free pin scheduler that plays nice with Pinterest. As in, it is Pinterest approved. Sometimes there is a waiting list, but you can sign up here if you are interested in trying it out! Sign up here to get started.

Hire a Pinner! There are many virtual assistants who know Pinterest well and will happily work for you, pinning and scheduling your content. I work with a friend, Kelley Grant from Pinning Partners, on my board booster and she also has a great free Pinterest email course if you want to learn more!

Relevant Links

She Podcasts
The Feed
Pinterest for Authors (because apparently I like to write about Pinterest for specific groups)

I hope that this posts has helped you consider Pinterest for podcasters. (And if you’re not a podcaster, it should still give you some best practices for the platform!) If you are not using Pinterest, you are missing out on a massive and lasting traffic source.

Questions? Comments? Tips? Leave me a comment! Let’s talk Pinterest. (You can follow me here.)

Biz Planning for the Long Haul

August 29, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck on a plateau? Or the opposite– you are so busy with ideas and tasks that you are completely overwhelmed? Neither of these is a best-case scenario. But when you are biz planning for the long haul, you can move past either of these obstacles.

How? You’ll have to listen to what Bjork Ostrom has to say about it.

Listen to Episode 61 – Biz Planning for the Long Haul!

Connect with Bjork Ostrom

You can find Bjork at Food Blogger Pro. Membership is closed, but you can still get great info on the blog and listen to the podcast. You can also find him on Twitter or over at Pinch of Yum.

Podcasting is a fantastic medium for building connections, trust, & intimacy. (1:18)

While blogging and written media is not going anywhere, audio has some unique properties that may allow you to reach new audiences, or your same audience in a new way. Your audience can listen to your podcast while running at the beach, driving their car, or while washing dishes. Something about audio triggers a deeper connection with your audience that is more intimate that simply reading the written word. It also allows you to form connections with other influencers if you are doing interviews or being interviewed.

The best growth happens as you get a little bit better every day forever. (5:15)

Bjork coined the phrase and concept of One Percent Infinity, which simply means that you can improve a little each day over a longer period of time. Rather than thinking of it as going from 0 to 1000, the One Percent Infinity concept means small wins along the way that add up over time. (Read more about this idea at Pro Blog School.) Bjork and his wife Lindsay run Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro and he shares what this one percent infinity looked like for their journey. (9:23) Some of this looked like making intentional business decisions to scale this day by day.

When you have something at 80%, leave it to work on the thing at 10%. (13:05)

I loved this concept of not perfecting the things that are already working really well, but letting those stand while you then try to bring up another element to that same 80%. Start working bit by bit, day by day on the areas of your blog and business that really need the help. Don’t spend time tweaking when you could be making a bigger, more important change. (Raise your hand if you ever spent like two hours messing with your sidebar??) We steal from progress when we focus on those little things that aren’t moving you forward. Move forward on something matters. You will steal joy from yourself if you focus on things that aren’t really accomplishing a larger goal.

“There is so much opportunity to perfect things that don’t need to be perfected.” (15:20)

When you hit a plateau or get stuck in overwhelm, you need to be able to get out. (19:10)

Consider the things that are not actually impacting your bottom line, whether that is traffic or downloads or sales. Figure out the things you’re doing that don’t need YOU in them. Pass those off to someone else. (Which reminds me a lot of my episode on free vs paid tools!) Or, if they aren’t moving you forward, stop doing them altogether. Drop off the things that don’t matter to focus on the things that DO. Experiment with giving this to someone for a month.

Need tips for a membership site? Here are Bjork’s tips. (34:18)

Try a presale to validate the idea and prove the concept. Consider a course vs a membership. With a membership you need to offer something of value every single month. Consider how you can niche down and focus on a specific audience rather than a generic audience.

Many businesses lose money the first few years, but online that may not be the case. (43:18)

Adjust the revenue and expense categories so that you might be profitable from the beginning. How can you become profitable right from the start or as quickly as possible? Find what point it takes to spend money that will save your time. You have to consider the time value of your projects and the things that you are doing. When you start, use the free things that make sense for you rather than diving into paying for all the bells and whistles. You need the things that are worth your time.

Links we mention:

Meron Bareket (his session helped me learn sound editing for podcast editing!)

Maritza Parra & the superniche

Ramen Profitability

And if you want to hear a bonus episode with Bjork where we talk tech and my fears about the apocalypse, listen to Bonus Episode 62 here!

What I’ve Learned in a Year of Podcasting – 053

July 27, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 8 Comments

Happy podcast-iversary to me! I’ve been podcasting now for sixteen months, but just passed the 52 episode mark, which seems like the official time to celebrate. (As to why it took longer than a year? I also hosted another podcast and couldn’t quite hack both. That’s a freebie: don’t take one two or three podcasts at a time your first year.) For this episode, we’re talking about what I learned in a year of podcasting.

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What I Learned in a Year of Podcasting

About the Technical Side of Podcasting

It takes many more hours than you’d think. Each episode takes maybe a total of like 3-5 hours. Sometimes with my shorter solo podcasts, it’s only 1-2 hours. That includes recording, editing, writing up show notes, doing all the meta data stuff, uploading to my media host, and actually publishing. It’s a LOT. If you don’t have a lot of time, don’t start a podcast.

Like everything else on the web, you have to WORK to find an audience. I assumed that since I had been blogging for years, I would have no trouble getting thousands of downloads. The reality is that most of my original audience didn’t carry over (to the new blog OR the podcast), which shouldn’t have been surprising to me. After all, I started the podcast and Create If Writing site because my lifestyle blog peeps couldn’t care less about writing, blogging, and social media. But it still surprised me. A year in and I really want better numbers. I’m on a steady climb. But it’s work. And audiences for blogs don’t necessarily cross over to podcasts.

Despite all the popular trainings that say you’ll get rich podcasting, you will not get rich podcasting. See the part about it taking 3-5 hours to publish and also the part about struggling to find listeners. There is money to be made. People are making money. I still hope to do that one day. But about a month in, I realized that making money was a long way off.

You need a workflow for editing. My biggest struggle for the first bunch of months was editing. Yes, there are YouTube videos for everything. But they all say different things. And I would encounter an issue, look up a YouTube video, spend an hour watching and trying to implement, and everything would sound worse than it did in the beginning. I finally hired an editor, but that only worked when I was getting paid for my other podcast gig. I went to Podcast Movement in 2015 with the goal of learning to edit sound myself and after ONE amazing session with Meron Bareket, I DID. I can’t sing his praises enough. I now have a workflow that takes me five minute to edit sound. THANK YOU, MERON. Check out his free podcasting checklist.

There are two kinds of editing. So…my mention above was for sound editing. There is also CONTENT editing. Some people just leave everything in, but I realized quickly I’m not one of those people. I edit out mouth sounds (especially lip smacks) and sometimes loud breathing (more of this is happening now that I’m pregnant and out of breath) and excessive ums or longer pauses. After my five minutes of sound editing, there is always an hour or two of content editing. Maybe one day I’ll chill, but probably not. 🙂

You will begin to edit yourself. Because a few things really annoy me, I found that I autocorrect myself. As in, I RARELY make those lip smacking noises anymore and when I’m recording, I’m very aware of my pronunciation and the way my mouth is moving. I’ve also cut way down on ums. This is the third kind of editing. I’m pretty happy with the effect on my overall speech. Thanks, podcasting.

You really DON’T need to spend a billion on equipment. Everyone talks about the Yeti because it’s like the sexy mic with a fun name that looks cute. But based on what I hear from multiple sound professionals, my trusty, un-sexy ATR2100 is the way to go. There are different kinds of mics, dynamic and condenser. The dynamic (which is the ATR) cuts out more background noise. The condenser will make your sound editing more difficult. I hear great podcasts from people with the Yeti, but when it’s more money and the sound quality will be harder to achieve, why not go with the unsexy? The ATR is generally about $60 and other than buying Ecamm Call Recorder for recording my interviews, I pay my monthly Libsyn media fees and I’m good to go. I use the free Audacity program to edit and I have my site on WordPress. Simple stuff.

About Myself

I talk too much. I had to edit SO MUCH OF MYSELF out of my early interviews. They were rambling. I talked. And talked. And talked. It was super embarrassing to hear these monologues back as I edited. So I got better at this, too, over time. I still like a more conversational podcast, but I had to tell myself to shut the heck up. Mentally. Not out loud. Because that would be weird.

I CAN talk alone. My very first solo show was a wreck. I think I called myself a weirdo like four times. A friend nicely told me after that episode that I needed to trust myself more. And also that I should smile more when I talk. Done and done. THANKS, LIZ!!! I now write out the briefest of notes for my solo shows and blow right through them. I guess I channeled all the me I now edit out of my interview podcasts and put them right into the solo shows.

I’m a perfectionist about SOME things. Remember that bit about editing out lip smacking sounds? Yep. I do that. And I do it for my guests. And I can’t stop! While I’m happy to let some things just slide (um: housework, anyone?), I can’t NOT spend a lot of time editing my podcasts.

I’m good on the fly. Okay, so truly I learned this in college the time I had an oral report due and realized in the first five minutes of class that I had prepared all my literary criticism and notes on THE WRONG TOPIC and had ten minutes to plan a twenty minute oral report right then and there. After that, what can life throw at me? But it can really be intimidating to interview big time people that I’ve looked up to for (in some cases) YEARS. I get nervous still when I hit the call button, but after that, I love talking with people. It’s easy. Fun even. I’m not sure this skill has a practical application in real life, but it makes interviews fun.

About General Podcasting

Always know how to say names. I constantly started an interview and, after saying my guest’s name, had to stop and say, “Wait– is THAT how you say your name?” Also, my name is hard, so I started sending out a note that said “Kirsten rhymes with BEER-sten.” Figure names out before you go live or even get your guest on the phone.

Go to the bathroom first. I will not divulge with which guest this happened, but I may have allegedly peed into a cup (while my mic was muted, duh) during an interview. Ahem. #proudmoment

Be respectful of time. Let guests know how long the interview will take and DON’T GO OVER. Unless you realize that things are on a roll and you ask if it’s okay if you go a little long to finish a train of thought.

Set expectations. I didn’t always send out a little document with what to expect and it was ALWAYS a mistake not to. I had people do interviews while in the room with other people who were talking and eating or people not know they needed earphones or just a lot of things they needed to know. Sometimes I did say this in email, but without a little document PLUS the email, people didn’t always get it. Be sure they know what you need them to do. Especially if they aren’t podcasters or used to doing audio interviews.

Podcasting is addictive. I have now been at the helm of three shows. One is still going on. Another I hope to resurrect. One died, but I’ll be repurposing the content here, which is excellent news! You start a podcast and you may fall in love. Forever love. Launching multiple podcasts might be something that happens to you. This will likely not be my only one. It’s just too fun!

I can’t even begin to say what I learned from all my guests. It’s all soaked up in me, sponge-like. Sometimes I had amazing conversations that weren’t recorded. I feel like I learned so much more than I could ever put in show notes.

I’ve loved this year. I love my small but might community. (Are you in the community? You should be!) I’m happy to still be going strong and hope this is the year to really dig in now that I have some great content and fabulous guests behind me to GROW. I hope what I learned in a year of podcasting might save you some trouble and some time!

Any questions about podcasting? Thoughts from your own experience?

For more resources, see my posts How to Start a Podcast in Two Weeks and Tips for Starting a Podcast.

Aaron Mahnke from Lore Podcast on Storytelling – 015

September 16, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 3 Comments

I love a good story. And I love a good SCARY story. You don’t have to be a scary story fan yourself to enjoy this episode where I interview Aaron Mahnke from Lore Podcast. (But you DEFINITELY want to be a scary story fan if you listen to Lore.) Aaron is a writer of scary stories himself. (Find his books HERE.) I love the story of how he came to create Lore. You can read it in his words on his blog, but the short of it is that he had been trying to created a freebie for his email list. In his words:

I believe people innately hunger for story. We enjoy a well-told, well-written tale. It allows us to escape for a moment and live in someone else’s world, a world where problems have solutions (most of the time) and things make sense (again, mostly). Story is in our DNA and it’s our legacy.

So much YES. A giant thanks to Marianne Tolosa from The Lipstick Campaign for recommending this podcast to me! Find Aaron on Twitter (as Lore and as himself Aaron), Instagram, the Lore Podcast website, or his author page. Buy his books HERE or subscribe to Lore HERE.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 015

My Favorite Quote:

“Sometimes folklore is paint on top of a just a messy human situation and we tell it through the lens of a fairy tale or scary story because humans really can’t be the monsters.”

Big Ideas

Aaron has been doing the self-publishing routes and Lore came out of Aaron creating a freebie for his email list.
His journey in starting Lore, like so many stories I’ve heard, was sort of a happy accident, or an organic creation that sprung out of something his other work.
Each podcast episode takes about 30 hours to create, start to finish.
Reading out loud reveals how some words sound next to other words. <- This is great for editing the written word, not just spoken words!
Aaron uses Evernote to save ideas, links, and photographs as he researches and prepares topics.
The podcast has helped him to find the time to write because it has allowed him to be freed up from his other design work.
To get his most recent novel finished, he committed to writing 2000 words a day and then wrote those words. Every. Day.
Aaron is a plotter, not a pantser. Plotters tend to more comprehensively outline and plan things out while pantsers traditionally write by the seat of their pants. (Let me know in the comments which YOU are!)
Lore was NOT started as a way to market books, though it’s a very natural connection that makes sense. I think the difference is in the quality of Lore.
In terms of podcast ads, he keeps to sponsors that make sense also with the podcast itself and with the audience. He also puts them at the end to be less obtrusive to the content itself.

Want to Start a Podcast?

We talked about starting podcasts and the technical bits to that. If you are thinking about starting a podcast, I’ll be having a series here very soon, but here are some other links! (And I would HIGHLY recommend paying someone to edit. I’ve used Christopher Wright and he was affordable, fast, and did a GREAT job. It’s worth the money. Trust me.)

We talked about the different kinds of production and planning for podcasts. Aaron writes out a script and then reads it in a way that is very natural and not forced. For my interviews (and in the intros and outtros) I tend to write a few outline-y notes and then go off-the-cuff so it sounds more natural.

Pat Flynn’s Free Podcast Course
John Lee Dumas’ Free Podcast Course
Aaron Mahnke on How to Get Your Podcast into the Top 20
How to Start a Podcast in Two Weeks
So You Want to Start a Podcast?

Relevant Links

Home Work – Aaron Mahnke’s other podcast about working from home
The Wake – graphic novel that’s inspiring Aaron this week

What I Want to Know from YOU

Do you listen to Lore & love scary stories like I do? (We can still be friends if you don’t.)
Are you a plotter or a pantser when it comes to writing? (I’m a pantser who sometimes plots.)

Kiki Talks Podcast Movement -012

August 6, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Two and a half days. Twenty-five pages of notes. More knowledge than I can possibly share here. The Podcast Movement conference was honestly the best conference I have ever been to. Not simply because of the attention to detail and how smoothly everything went, but because of the incredible sessions and the connections with other podcasters and speakers. I can say now that Aisha Tyler, who is laugh-out-loud funny, also possesses the ability to make me cry.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 012

Why so incredible? Podcasting is not new and yet it still has an aura of freshness. A palpable sense of excitement buzzed through the Omni in Fort Worth. Coming straight from a blogging conference, the difference in atmosphere was staggering. Everyone I talked to had an excitement about their podcast, whether they are on their 50th episodes or just gearing up to launch.

I met Taylor Bradford from Pink Heels Pink Truck and the Boss Girl Creative podcast. She and I had been friends online but never actually me, so it was great to have another person I could hang around with and share notes and observations.

Best Sessions

Practical Application: Meron Bareket led a session on sound that totally gave me the tools I needed to up my game. I’ve got an editor for some of my interview episodes, but the difference in this week and the weeks before is stunning. Plus? His post-production method took ten minutes.

Inspiration: I feel like this was a ten-way tie. Hearing Sarah Koenig from Serial was incredible. It was like EXPERIENCING an episode of Serial. I got to meet John Lee Dumas before his keynote and was so impressed with how kind and generous and real he was. I’m a huge fan of Pat Flynn, so getting to hear him talk (and beat box) put a giant smile on my face. He had some really neat stories (that I mention in this episode) and shared his vulnerabilities and fears with us.

What impressed me most about the speakers across the board was how incredibly willing they were to connect. They took time to talk to EVERYONE. They did not put on airs. Katie Kimitsos, who led a session on community, talked with me and Taylor at the end of the conference about some of the things she is working on and her goals.

I really loved getting to meet Cliff Ravenscraft, aka The Podcast Answerman. He had a meet up I attended before things officially started and I got to actually talk in person about my podcast. When I had a few questions after the conference, he dived into the comment thread to answer. THAT is the kind of connection I felt as a theme of the conference and was very much what Cliff talked about in his session. He had so many great things to say, many of which impacted this episode.

Can I tell you about this episode? It’s a little weird.

There’s no music, first of all. Just me. While I LOVE the music that my friend Josh of Unbroken Light put together for me when I called in a favor when I started the podcast, I want to shift a few things and I think shifting the music is a must. When listening to a session on email newsletters, Maritza Parra challenged us to think about niche and to be even MORE niche than we already are. What could be more niche than a podcast for writers and creatives dealing with the passion and practice behind making good art?

PLENTY.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw this podcast as a place for the worn out. The burned out. The tapped out. The down and out. I feel like this podcast provides inspiration and tools for writers and other creatives who find themselves in that boat. The vision isn’t wholly different than the one I came in with, but it is more specific and I think better helps me think about my goals.

Which brings me to my biggest two goals after Podcast Movement:

1. Sound. (Thanks, Meron!!!)

2. Connection.

I want to connect better with my guests. To have amazing interviews, not just GOOD interviews. I want to hear more personal things and get right into the real heart of who my guests are and why they do what they do. I also want to connect more with YOU.

With connection in mind, I set up a voicemail for the Create If Writing podcast! You can call 929-31ifpod and leave a voicemail for me any time. Weekly I’ll be asking questions in the episode and in the show notes, but you can also just call and give me feedback or say hi. I plugged this in the Facebook group this week and got several calls– clips of which you’ll hear in this episode! (If you want to call and just leave a message that you definitely don’t want aired, just say that and I will respect those wishes! Otherwise: it’s fair game.)

Thanks to this week’s callers!

Cheval from What’s the Word? podcast

Misty from Worth of Our Calling

Anita from Blessed But Stressed

Liz from So I Married a Youth Pastor

Jenna from The Gleeful Gourmand

This week I want to hear from you about my new tagline and focus. I want to hear who YOU are and why you are listening. I want to know what you hope to gain and how you are growing.

Overall, I want this to be an accessible podcast. I want it to make an impact. I hope it does, and you can definitely help me do that by letting me know what you love, why you’re listening, and what you want to hear.

I’m not writing up traditional show notes, but I hope this episode is inspiring for you and next week I’ll have an interview with the insanely gifted Marc Martel. You can get a sneak peak of him in this video on YouTube. (SERIOUSLY.)

Thanks to every one of you listening. I mean it. I’m so thankful for you, though I may not know your name or face. Let’s change that, shall we? Join my Facebook group, leave me a voicemail, shoot me an email (kirstenoliphant at gmail), or subscribe to my weekly email. Let me know what’s inspiring you this week.