It’s that time of year again and I couldn’t let this date pass without mentioning it.
Every year on September 30th we celebrate International Podcast Day. I personally consider this as not a day for pushing your own podcast, but a day to celebrate podcasts themselves.
Obviously I hope you already listen to This is Rammy but that’s not why I’m writing this. The purpose of this post is to convince you that if you’ve never listened to a podcast before, to give it a try. What better day than International Podcast Day?
We live in an age of smartphones. Love them or loath them, their prevalence means it’s never been easier to subscribe to a podcast. For example if you have an iPhone, you have Apple Podcasts (previously iTunes) built right in, and Android has many third party apps too. Take a look at the subscribe page to see some. Most apps are free too although Pocket Casts that I use cost a few £’s.
The cost of podcasts.
Subscribing to a podcast doesn’t cost anything, so don’t worry about that. The purpose of subscribing is so you always get the next episode downloaded automatically for you. It’s a benefit to you. You don’t give any details when subscribing and can easily unsubscribe at any point. You’re simply telling your app “I like this, please continue to download each episode until I say stop.” Think of it like series record on your TV.
One thing to consider is if you’ve only got a small data allowance on your phone contract, you might want to set the podcast app to only download whilst on WiFi. Most apps have this setting, here it is in Pocket Casts:
Show me the podcasts!
Now you’ve sorted an app, the question is what podcasts will you listen to? Well, anything you like, remember, they’re free! If you have a hobby, favourite TV programme or favourite film, maybe start there as there will likely be a podcast about it and it will be more relatable.
For example, let’s say you really love Coronation Street; a quick search using Pocket Casts on Android reveals this:
Great, so there’s a podcast called Conversation Street (great name) and not only that, it’s still being produced. The latest episode was released only 6 days ago.
That might be something important to you, that the podcast is still active. If you were to start to get into it without realising it’s no longer being produced, you might be disappointed when it ends, sometimes abruptly. We call this “podfading”. Having said that, the podcaster might just need to be told you’re listening to consider starting up it up again, especially if they knew lot’s more people enjoyed it.
Paying with praise.
Whilst I’m on that subject, please, if you do subscribe to a podcast and you enjoy it, let them know. In general, podcasts are created in isolation where feedback is rarely received but counts for SO MUCH. For example when I get some good feedback about This is Rammy, or just a note to say someone is listening it gives me a boost and a lift to keep going. It really does go a long way.
Hey, you said this wasn’t about you!
Right then, back to the podcasts now our soap opera love is satisfied in podcast form. What else is there to listen to? Let’s go super niche, say you have aspirations of being a hairdresser, or maybe you already are a hairdresser. It’s a pretty niche subject but a simple search for hairdressing finds “How to Cut It in the Hairdressing Industry Podcast”:
I wasn’t sure that would return anything, but it did, it’s also a fairly new podcast too, you can see it only has 25 episodes so far. If you were to subscribe now, you’ve only got 25 episodes to catch-up on if you wanted. However you don’t have to, you can usually pick-up from the latest episode on most podcasts.
Ultimately though, what I’m trying to show is that although you can findbmany highly polished podcasts from the likes of the BBC, NPR and others, it’s often the independent podcasters, like myself, that provide just the niche you might be looking for. The BBC is never going to make a podcast about becoming a hairdresser, it’s not likely to get the listenership they require, but the free nature of podcasts means someone else can.
I’d love to know if you discover a new podcast today, or maybe you want to start one yourself?
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