2 Years of Podcasting and Lessons Learned

Jun 24, 2024

black and white photo of microphone — Photo by Kate Oseen on Unsplash

It’s still so surreal sometimes that I have my own podcast. April of 2022 - I released the first episode of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. The episode was me and my cousin, and she shared her experience attending school in the Dominican Republic and the United States. When I started this podcast, it was audio only, and then after a year, I launched the YouTube channel for the podcast and incorporated videos into the episodes.

As of today, I have 56 episodes published, and actually, tomorrow, episode 57 will be released; however, in these last two years, I’ve learned a few things along the way. I’ve learned a few things about podcasting and about myself. So, today, I’d like to share some of the lessons learned after two years of podcasting.

Interviewing Is Hard

I wrote a whole blog post about how interviewing guests isn’t as easy as I thought. Because I knew that my podcast would be guests, I knew that I had to interview guests. I thought it was as simple as asking questions, but to my surprise, it was more than that. In my blog post, I share about my first interview and how horrible it went.

I’ve received compliments from my listeners and friends about what a good host I am, which always makes me think that this skill I polished because I wasn’t always good at hosting or interviewing.

Technology Doesn’t Always Work

Flexibility is definitely needed when it comes to podcasting. There were two episodes I ended up having to re-record because technology wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. The first one was when I was recording audio-only episodes, and I used the Spotify for Podcasters app to record the episodes with my guests. With this particular episode, it took my guest some time to get on the app, and after we recorded that, I listened to the episode again, and the audio was horrible. So, I had to reach out to the guest again, apologize, and explain what happened. Thankfully, she was willing to record again.

The first episode I recorded in person was the second episode I had to re-record because technology didn’t work as it was supposed to. I had my camera set up, and we recorded everything. I made sure that I could hear the audio. However, when I went to transfer the file from my camera to the app via Bluetooth, I guess it didn’t transfer correctly. So, when I was going to edit the episode after the nine-minute mark, the audio was in slow motion. I was so confused about what was happening and tried to fix it, but when I sped up the audio to sound at normal speed, my guest and I sounded like chipmunks. I reached out to my guest and explained what happened, and thankfully, she was okay with recording again; this time, we did it virtually instead of in person.

Be Organized From the Start

One of the things I help my clients when they are starting their podcasts is setting up a system for organization. This is because I used a system for organizing my podcast episodes, and it worked until it didn’t. So, I used to keep track of my episodes on the calendar app on my phone. I would put the date the episode would be released in my calendar, the episode number, and the country the guest was from.

This worked until a guest pulled their episode, and I had to rearrange all the future episodes on my phone. This took forever, and I thought, “No, there has to be a better way for me to keep track of my episodes,” so I created a template on Google to help keep track of the episodes. And I’ve learned that organization from the start is critical to staying in this podcast game for the long run.

Podcasting Is a Rewarding Investment

These last two years as a podcaster have changed me for the better, and it’s all because of the stories I’ve heard and the incredible people I’ve met. I’m literally talking to people from all over the world! I’m learning about history, different cultures, languages, and customs, and I feel that I become richer in knowledge after each episode.

Into My Thoughts

Discussion about this post