Five months ago I got it in my head to start a podcast. I’d never podcasted before but I was a rabid podcast listener. I mean, how hard could it be?
Well, I actually found out that it’s not that hard. But I hated it. Before I talk about that, though, let me back up a little bit.
Why I started the podcast
As I stated above, I’m a huge fan of podcasts. I go hiking and driving a lot and I love listening to podcasts then. They’re entertaining, educational, and free. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the Holy Trinity for any kind of content. My desire to start a podcast after listening to a bunch was akin to watching Robot Wars on TV and then deciding to build a robot. “Yeah, I can do that!” It just seemed like fun.
The other big reason I started the podcast was of course to drive traffic to my site. Successful podcasts drive tons of traffic to their affiliated websites, and I wanted to test out podcasting as a traffic generation method.
And finally, I started the podcast just to see what the whole process was like and find out whether I’d enjoy it.
Why I abandoned the podcast
I created just one podcast episode before realizing that podcasting wasn’t for me. In fact, I hated it.
The problem is that I’m not very good at speaking. I’m a writer, not a speaker. It’s hard for me to organize my thoughts verbally and have them sound coherent. Because of that, I wrote the entire podcast episode word-for-word and then just read the stupid thing. Of course, anyone who listened to the podcast could tell that I was just reading; it didn’t sound like natural speech. Because of that, it wasn’t very interesting to listen to.
That was the main beef I had with podcasting, but I also didn’t like the editing process that came after recording (though I did get pretty good with Audacity). Taking out all of my pauses and mistakes was a long, mind-numbing process.
Why this matters to you
This blog post isn’t really about podcasting. This blog post is about trying new things, seeing what works and what you enjoy, and sticking with what works and what you enjoy. I’m glad I tried podcasting, because now I know that I have no real interest in it. It didn’t work for me because I didn’t enjoy it. And now I know.
Now, you might be saying, “But you should have stuck with it longer! You should have done more episodes to see what kind of traffic and traction it could have gotten.” I would have, had I enjoyed the process, but it just wasn’t worth it in the end.
So here’s the moral of the story. Try everything at least once to see what works for you. Stick with the things that you’re good at, that you enjoy, and that work well. Podcasting isn’t my thing, but it might be yours. You might hate Twitter and if that’s the case, don’t go there. You can still market your blog/product/business/whatever effectively by focusing solely on, say, Facebook or YouTube. And on that note, you’d actually probably have more success if you focused heavily on just one or two strategies instead of having a toe in each one.
- What traffic generation or money-making techniques have you tried and just didn’t like?
- What are your favorite podcasts? What makes a good podcast?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve put together some podcasts, and while they are *not* super-spiffy-professional quality, they were fun to do, and I think I can polish up the rough spots, and continue to get better at it. But I don’t just talk — I interview. The process is pretty simple. You just start with a list of questions you plan to ask, and then the only challenge (at least for me) is to stay on-task, and not run too long. I try for 20 minutes, max (and I’ve failed to keep it that short a couple of times). I think for the next podcast, I will share the questions I plan to ask with the interviewee before the session, and get suggestions for additions or changes.
Awesome transparency Tristan.
I agree, gotta at least try it once (like food) but don’t feel bad if it doesn’t fit your style. I can’t tell you how many projects I got a few days into and found that I didn’t have much care for them. You just move on. There are always new ideas to try and some of them will definitely stick.
Love how you are transparent with this stuff Tristan :) I have had kinda same experience before; it was not a podcast but I was trying to do Youtube videos and audio version of blog posts. The editing part was the hardest and boring stuff and it took hell lot of time. Of course if I stuck with it for a while I could have mastered the art, but there are other important things in life and business. So I started procrastinating on creating another recording and finally let my recording schedule to RIP :P
Well, may be I should try it once more!
Thanks for sharing your story. It’s very important to do what your wants you to do. There is a huge difference between doing what you want to do than doing what you are being told to.
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I think you made the right decision, just stick with what you’re good at, if its writing you’re evidently doing a great job.
I agree that it’s important to try a lot of different types of content to see what works for you. Like you, I’m a writer more than anything, and yet I do like podcasting. However, I find things like creating a PowerPoint presentation for something like SlideShare to be boring and time consuming,so I only created one.
Interesting points… I’ve noticed with personalities who really have it down on podcasting, they have been doing it for at least a year, if not years. Take a look at Srinivas Rao http://blogcastfm.com/ – whenever he replays a “BlogCastFM Classic”, it’s almost painful to listen to because of his audio quality, fumbling, slightly boring moments in the interviews, etc. He’s had two years of regular podcasting to get up to the level he is today, where you have absolutely no attention on the quality of the show, you are just hearing the message. He makes it sound easy, but it’s taken him a while to get there.