A step-by-step guide to publishing your first episode

Podcasts have been around for awhile now but can be a little intimidating in terms of knowing the technical aspect of how to launch one. Thinking of starting one for your school but need a little help unpacking the tech?

Here’s how to get started podcasting, the technical version.

What’s a podcast?

A podcast is a series of linked audio-based stories. They’re a little like Netflix video series except without the video. Kind of like little talk radio shows, made by people without radio stations. Or FCC licenses. They’re like–

Well, they’re this, actually:

And this:

And this over here:

And each time a new episode comes out, it arrives in your email or gets sent directly to your device.

Can my students podcast?

Absolutely. And undoubtedly, some of them already are. 

Okay, I’m in. What do I need?

A podcast is, at its most basic, a series of digital audio recordings that are stored on an online platform which produces an RSS feed. The RSS feed is what you submit to iTunes and Stitcher to build an audience.

Whoa, that got complicated quickly.

Here’s how to keep it simple: SoundCloud.com is a great platform for beginning podcasters because it takes care of producing an RSS feed for you; the basic (and free!) account gives you 3 hours of time to work with. If you aim to keep your initial podcasts between five and ten minutes long, that’s still at least 18 episodes to start with.

Okay, I’ve signed up for a SoundCloud account. Now what?

Record your first podcast episode: “Meet Your Host”

Let’s take it from the top.

On Mac laptops or Chromebooks:

SoundCloud allows you to record right into your web browser. It doesn’t offer any editing options, but editing and background music are for another day. Let’s start with the basics:

1. Log into your SoundCloud account and click on Upload.

2. Click “Start New Recording”

3. Click “Record”

4. You get a second “Record” button. Click that to begin the actual recording.

5. Review your recording. If you like it, click “Upload your recording”. If you don’t, click “Start Over”

6. Add information about the first episode of your new podcast — episode title, a logo, and tags to help people find it.

7. You can make episodes public or private, and choose whether to let subscribers download new episodes, as well as embed them in other websites. 

If episodes are embeddable in other websites, you can do this:

Great for digital portfolios!

Muy importante! Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click SAVE to finalize publishing your episode.

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And now, let’s do it with iPads, iPhones or iPods

From the top: to record your first podcast episode with iOS devices, you need a recording app. Again, for just starting out, let’s use SoundCloud. SoundCloud is integrated remarkably well with the free iOS app Voice Record Pro.

This is he:

I didn’t mark up any of the buttons, like Record, Stop or Play, because I think Voice Record Pro’s got one of the most intuitive user interfaces I’ve seen on an app, certainly the clear best out of audio recording apps. So!

• Tap “New Recording”
• Tap “Record” and start answering the three questions in our Meet Your Host episode:
• Then you can upload it directly to SoundCloud:

Dassit.

Ways to share your new podcast

Congratulations! You have a podcast! Let’s get you some listeners!

SoundCloud users can click “Follow” on your profile page, or you can take your RSS feed from SoundCloud and submit it to iTunes, as shown in this quick video tutorial:

Now go out there and take the podcasting world by storm!