Alex has already given us some great tips on starting up your Podcast, but what I want to talk about today is how to keep doing a Podcast after you start. I record a daily Podcast for Apple Gazette, and a a weekly Podcast for Forever Geek (both Bloggy Network sites).

Recording a daily Podcast can be challenging. There isn’t always a great deal of news out there to fill up your time, and to successfully continue to record a Podcast daily, it has to be as easy and efficient as possible. Here are a few tips for pulling it off.

• Minimize your set up - Your set up time needs to be as short as possible. While I think mixers are great, and really help with a lot of things, I have managed to reduce my set up by not using a mixer for my podcasts. I use a Samson Q1U dynamic mic. It include software based microphone pre-amp that lets me control my levels like a mixer would, and it works great.The only other tool I use for recording the daily Podcast is Apple’s Garage Band. Since Garage Band has specific settings for Podcasting, it makes it so all I have to do is launch the program every morning. My intro and exit music, along with the the Podcast artwork are all already pre-set. All I have to do is hit the record button, and I’m ready to go.
• Keep It Short - What I found very quickly, that I was mostly surprised by, was that the vast majority of users want short, simple Podcasts. They weren’t as into the 30 to 60 minute format as I thought, and based on their feedback, I switched to a much shorter format that his provided me with great results and a growing listenership. For a daily Podcast I try to keep the show under 15 minutes. Some episodes have been as little as 4 or 5 minutes, depending on the news of the day. The key, I feel, is to not get caught up with a specific time. This isn’t radio…you don’t have to fill up dead air. Deliver the information that your listeners want, but keep it short and to the point.
• Find Content - Subscribe to as many RSS feeds as you can on the subjects that your Podcast is about. Some days the news is slow, so the more variety of sites you visit, the more variety of content options you’ll have. Remember, you always need to credit your sources, and - again - don’t be afraid to keep it short.
• Minimize your Post Production - For post-production I send my completed Podcast to iTunes, then convert it to MP3. I don’t have a variety of different formats that I deliver the show in, and thus far, have not had any requests or complaints that the show wasn’t available in a dozen different formats. Keeping this simple helps to keep my production time down, making it easier to do the show daily.
• I also don’t roll my own RSS feeds. I know lots of people prefer it, but I find a program like Feeder to be much more useful, and an all-in-one solution for adding new content to the feed, and uploading it all in one program. I still use TextEdit from time to time to check the code in the feed to make sure everything is working well, but Feeder really helps speed things along.