Can’t decide which podcast format to use? Darth Sidious has come to your rescue.
Today on the WPMRR podcast, Joe is joined by Joe Casabona, an online course creator, podcast host, and web developer, to talk about podcasting from scratch, professional audio editing, and repurposing content for different mediums.
Listen in for some pro podcasting tips!
Episode Resources:
- Here’s Joe Casabona’s Blog Page
- Resources from Joe Casabona
- Catch Joe Casabona on Twitter
- Joe Casabona’s Youtube Channel
- Send in your questions to yo@wpmrr.com
Joe Howard:
Hey hey, good WordPress people. Welcome back to the WPMRR WordPress Podcast. I’m Joe.
Joe Casabona:
And I am Darth Sidious.
Joe Howard:
And you’re listening to the WordPress Business Podcast. Darth Sidious on the pod this week. I love when people pick dark characters or evil characters, because most people pick the good characters. But you went with a dark one this time. You were BBA last time. You get to be a bad character this time. What’s going on?
Joe Casabona:
Not too much. Yeah, Darth Sidious, that choice is brought to you by my daughter, who tends to also like the dark characters.
Joe Howard:
Nice.
Joe Casabona:
She loves Darth Vader and Darth Sidious and Count Dooku. Got to represent the Sid.
Joe Howard:
Totally. The dark characters have a place in this too. It’s this balance of good and evil. You can’t have all the good without some of the evil as well. Plus, some of those evil characters are some of the coolest. They have some of the coolest makeup and costume stuff, so I’m down with that. It sounds cool.
Joe Casabona:
Sidious is just a… talk about bad guy who executed his plan nearly perfectly, over the span of like 60 or 70 years. Just impressive.
Joe Howard:
That is totally true, yeah. Almost exactly, nailed it exactly over a long period of time. He was senator. Man, he played the game pretty well, you have to admit, even though he was a bad character. Darth Sidious on the podcast this week, also known as the one and only, the great and powerful Joe Casabona. What’s going on, Joe?
Joe Casabona:
Not too much, I’m good. I’m glad we could get together back on the pod. I’m glad to be here.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, man. It’s your second time on the pod. Man, we’ve known each other for a long time. It even seems weird to talk about how we met and that stuff, because we’ve known each other in the WordPress space for so long. You’re always up to something new in the WordPress community, or with your WordPress work. People can go and listen to your last episode and hear about all of the amazing stuff you do in WordPress. Maybe let’s do an update. Tell people some of the new stuff you’re working on now.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah. The things that I do mostly these days are podcasting, course, and video creation. As we record this, I am sending the last of my new book to layout with my publisher. I’ve got a book coming out on HTML and CSS that’s being published through Pearson. I’ll be happy to wrap that up. As we record this, I’ll have a second child on the way very soon.
Joe Howard:
That is a big new thing for sure. Listeners know I’ve got a six-month-old at home now. I’ve got number one. You, Joe, were actually one of the people I was talking to before Morrison was born being like, “Okay, what’s it like to have a baby? Can you still work? Can you do anything? What’s going on?” You were one of those people that definitely guided me through this. Hey, if we decide we want a second at some point, I guess you can be my guide again. Tell me about what it’s like to have two. Let’s start there. How are you feeling? Are you feeling a little nervous? Are you kind of feeling cool, calm, collected? What’s going on in your head right now?
Joe Casabona:
I’m feeling a little bit nervous because I have two major projects I need to wrap up, pretty much before my son comes. That added pressure, because I don’t want to work once he’s here. Especially because it’ll be, now we’re going to have to switch to man to man defense, because we’ll have two. I want to be there as a supportive father and a supportive husband. I don’t want to be distracted by the major projects. I’m going to barrel through and get all this done, so I can be fully present when my son is born.
Joe Howard:
Yeah. That’s always a little bit stressful, because you don’t really know when the baby is coming. Sure, it could be right at nine months, or nine and a half months. But also, it could be a little bit early. When does the deadline come? Correct me if I’m wrong, but your wife is expecting in the next couple weeks, few weeks here. You have kind of a deadline here coming up, right?
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, she is 39 weeks today as we record this.
Joe Howard:
Wow.
Joe Casabona:
The due date is exactly one week from today. Theresa was right on time. She was born at 11:06 P.M. the day before her due date, so just an hour before her due date, because Casabonas are always on time. He could come early, or he could be right on time. But yeah, we’re in crunch time right now.
Joe Howard:
Nice. All right, well, by the time this episode goes live, you will probably have two kids. You’ll have your new one here. If you’re listening to this episode, go and give Joe a congratulations. You can probably hit him up on Twitter. He’s just JCasabona, right?
Joe Casabona:
That is correct. Thank you.
Joe Howard:
No problem, yeah. Give him a little shoutout. I’ll be on Twitter. I’ll be like, “Hey, Joe. How you doing? Everything good?” Man, two is more than one. I like that expression that people say. Going from one person, you have one kid at home. You have one person in the game. One person is on the bench getting a breather, or you have two on one. Now it’s one on one.
Joe Casabona:
It’s one on one.
Joe Howard:
The next step is totally zone defense.
Joe Casabona:
You’ve got to go zone defense, yeah. My father-in-law said you’re not a real parent until you have three. I’m like, “Great.”
Joe Howard:
You think your skills are advanced with one or two. Oh yeah, just try juggling with three. Cool, well, congratulations, Joe. That’s really exciting for you, man. I’m pumped.
Joe Casabona:
Thank you.
Joe Howard:
Finishing up a few projects before that gets done. Obviously you’re a podcaster. People know you as being a podcaster in the WordPress space. How I Built It is pretty popular. Now you’re not just running a podcast, but you’re actually helping other people with podcast stuff too, which I think is pretty cool. Tell us a little bit about the kind of work you’re doing there too.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, for sure. I’ve been podcasting for seven years or so now. I’ve had a successful one for… it’s for years this month actually that I launched How I Built It.
Joe Howard:
Nice.
Joe Casabona:
That’s been a lot of fun. I do get a lot of questions around, how do I start a podcast? What do I do? How did you grow? And things like that. How are you making money? At first, I figured that the market was pretty saturated with podcasting courses, because lots of people have those. I decided to just launch a build your podcast website course. Then I realized that nobody needed a website for a thing that they didn’t have.
Joe Casabona:
If we’re going back to the Star Wars analogy, I was sending Luke to fight Darth Vader, not without mastery of the force, without a light saber. I was just like, “Go fight Darth Vader.” I took a step back, and I created a new course called Podcast Liftoff that shows you everything you need to do to plan, produce, and publish your podcast. Then you get the website course for free. Once you have your show, if you want to build your own website, then you can.
Joe Howard:
Cool. It’s everything podcasting. I remember starting this podcast, and it was a lot of work. It was a lot of stuff to do, and a lot of things I didn’t know. When you’re going through and saying, “Okay, I have an idea for a podcast.” Okay, how do you get from I have a great idea for a podcast, I’m motivated, I want to go do this. Actually get from there to having your podcast on all the players, and having a system down for how you’re publishing? What’s my content about? How am I targeting an audience and giving valuable content? Am I planning out each episode? How do I edit my audio? Those are all questions I had to answer along the way. I remember totally flying by the seam of my pants and being like, “This is the decision I’m making today. This is the decision I’m making tomorrow.”
Joe Howard:
It would’ve probably been helpful to have a pretty good guide of someone who has done it before, and has run a successful podcast. Maybe our next podcast will have a little bit more help doing it this time. I’d love to chat about starting off with a podcast. I’m sure that there are other listeners here who are like, “I would love to do a podcast. I don’t even have an idea for a podcast.” What are good first steps people should be taking in terms of making it easier to actually get started with podcasting?
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, for sure. Well, let me just say that you’re absolutely right. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started either. I didn’t even know I needed a separate audio host. Jackie D’Elia informed me of that. She was like, “Who are you hosting your audio with?” I’m like, “I don’t know, WordPress.” She’s like, “Probably don’t do that.” Shoutout to Jackie for making sure that I got off on the right foot.
Joe Casabona:
Starting a podcast is… choosing your topic and your format are critical. Everybody says this about everything. Don’t just start something to make money. But don’t just start a podcast to try to make money, because you’ll be disappointed in the beginning. You will lose steam quickly. If you’re not passionate about the topic, then you’ll have no drive whatsoever. The first thing I tell people is, podcasting is a great way to grow your business. I believe it’s the next content plane. I am proof positive of that.
Joe Casabona:
I would not be self-employed without my podcast. That’s how helpful it’s been for me. The topic I picked was one that I was passionate and curious about. I was having conversations with people about how they started their businesses, to get insight on how I should run my business. I thought this should be a podcast. It was a topic I was passionate about. I was asking the right questions. You should make a list of topics for yourself when you are ready to pick yours.
Joe Howard:
Totally.
Joe Casabona:
Things that you’re interested in that you want to be known for. Especially if you are going to try to grow your business here. How do you want to establish yourself as an expert? In what field do you want to be seen as the go to person? That’s where I would start with picking a topic, because it’s something that you’re going to have a depth of knowledge of, that you won’t need a ton of motivation to talk about. If you are an expert in the field, you won’t necessarily need to do a ton of research in the beginning. We’re lowering that barrier of entry for you.
Joe Casabona:
Then the second part of that, before I stop on this very long winded answer, is your format. A lot of people are like, I should just do interviews, or I need to do one specific format. You don’t. Mix it up. Do solo shows where you talk about some topic for 15 or 20 minutes. Bring on guests that can help reinforce your points, or teach your audience and you about something new. I learn so much from my guests on how to run my business better that I can then pass that information on to my audience. Mix up the format. Make it easier on yourself, and pick a topic that you know a lot about and you’re very passionate about.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, I love all that advice. It’s all resonating with me so much thinking about starting this podcast. One thing I’d add to that is, because you mentioned be flexible around your formatting of your content. I think this is super, super important. Because I think a lot of people start a podcast and say, “I have to keep it super consistent. I have to deliver my format the same way every time.” There are some established podcast you listen to that have the exact same formatting every time. It’s really well produced. It’s really nice to listen to. That’s great, but it does not have to be everybody.
Joe Howard:
If you decide after a few episodes, I want to do a guest appearance, go do it. See what works, see what doesn’t work. Our podcast, I think listeners know at this point. We’re a pretty informal podcast. It has good audio production, but it’s not formatted, or it’s not engineered like some of these super TED Radio Hour podcasts. Kristie and I started the podcast, and we did the first 10 episode or so together. One day I was like, “I want to talk to some other people.” I started having guests on. That’s literally how it started. I didn’t put a ton of thought into it. I was just like, “I want to talk to more people. I want to put more people in front of other folks, in front of our audience. Selfishly, I want to learn from them.”
Joe Howard:
I totally agree with you, Joe. So many people I have talked to in the podcast, I’ve learned so much from. I would never know anything about the iPad Pro or what pen I should use to write beautifully had I not talked to you last time. These are things that help me. If you can help yourself, you’re helping your audience. After episodes I’m like, man, I just learned so much. I know that’s a good episode, because the audience is like a kid in the room who is brave enough to ask the question. 10 other kids probably have the same question too. I totally agree with all that stuff.
Joe Howard:
I think the place where a lot of people get stuck is the audio engineering piece, or the editing of the audio. Anybody can sit down and record a podcast episode by themselves, with someone else. That part is actually not too hard. You get the recordings together and you have audio. You can turn that into a podcast. But how do you do the audio editing piece? For some people, they may want to learn it. Maybe that’s something that you go over a little bit in your course. Some people may want to try and find someone to hire who can… maybe not the $100 an hour person. But maybe there are some folks out there who can, for $10 or $20 an hour, do a little audio engineering for you and make your podcast episode sound good. What do you recommend about bridging that gap for folks who are like, I have a podcast. I can do all the recording. How do I go from having my audio to making it sound good, and putting it out there in the world so that people won’t hate it because the audio is so crappy?
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, for sure. I would say absolutely, you do not need to sound like Joe or me when you’re first starting out. Again, I’ve been podcasting for a long time. This is not my first podcast microphone that I’m using. I am a stickler for my own mic quality, more than I should be. You will spend a little bit of money here, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot. For $60, you can get a decent built in… I’m sorry, a decent external microphone. For let’s say $300, you can get an upgraded microphone and what’s called an interface. It’s an XLR microphone. That’s what you see on stages if you go to a concert or speaking event. It’s a microphone that can go into a piece of hardware that will make your voice sound better right off the bat.
Joe Casabona:
That’s the next step. I think if you’re starting out, the ATR 2100 is the microphone for you. It is, again, $60, $70. It’s a USB microphone that actually converts to an XLR microphone. It’s going to give you a much cleaner sound going into your computer. It’s pretty forgiving of the environment too. That’s the second thing that you want to do to make your life easier, is try your best to treat your environment for audio. Don’t be in an echoey room. Make sure you have at least some way that the sound is being deflected away from your microphone. This could be bookshelves behind you. Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy, if he is recording at home, he will record in his closet with a comforter over him. Because clothes are a great way to dampen sound and echo.
Joe Howard:
Totally.
Joe Casabona:
I’ve recorded a course like that, where I’ve put a comforter over my head and I record it. Anything to make your audio sound better going into the computer is going to make your life a lot easier. You have two paths, as Joe alluded to. If you want to edit your own episodes, I would recommend Audacity. It is free. It’s open source and cross platform. There are a lot of tutorials on it, including one in my Podcast Liftoff course, in how to remove white noise. How to cut and do transitions and things like that. Or you can go the hired editor route. Again, you don’t have to pay $100 an hour to somebody.
Joe Casabona:
I pay my editor something like $30 or $40 an episode. He just puts my guests’ audio with my audio. He cleans it up a little, and he inserts ad spots. That saves me hours a week. I found him on Fiverr. If you want, I can give Joe a link to him in the show notes or whatever, but you don’t have to spend a ton. If you’re starting out, try it out and see if you’re going to edit. But treating your audio going into your computer is going to massively help you in the editing process as well.
Joe Howard:
I have a lot of thoughts there. But two are, one, when I started doing podcasting, I always hated the sound of my voice. Which I think a lot of people can resonate. It resonates with a lot of people. I remember hearing my voice on an audio message machine growing up. I couldn’t stand it. It’s cringe worthy. It really turns out, it’s just that the audio quality was so bad. Yeah, maybe some people have better speaking voices for radio or podcast. Maybe that’s true to a certain degree. But when we got our audio engineer to produce our podcast, I remember the first time I heard the final version of it with the really cleaned up audio, really high quality and thinking, oh my God. I actually kind of sound good. This is great. I’ve never heard myself sound like this.
Joe Howard:
It really does make a huge difference. Not just for the quality other people are listening to, but for liking to do the podcast, and liking to hear yourself on the podcast. That’s just something that I always remember. Still till this day I’m like, how do I sound like this on the podcast? It sounds good. High quality audio is really the answer. I think for people starting off, I did a podcast before I did this podcast, which was totally a warmup into podcasting. It was called The Walking Marvin Podcast. Marvin is my dog.
Joe Casabona:
Yes.
Joe Howard:
I don’t think the website is up anymore, but it was WalkingMarvin.com. I’d just walk Marvin and talk about stuff, business things, etcetera. It was not a great podcast, the quality of the audio, because I was just talking into my microphone on my… Back then, there was no AirPods. It was with wired headphones for my iPhone. It’s fine to get started with something like that. I would for sure say if you have $60 to invest in it, it will really help the audio quality to have even a basic microphone.
Joe Howard:
If you’re starting podcasting, you’re not going to be great at it your first episode. You’re probably not going to be great at it your first 10 episodes. This is going to be episode like 100 plus, 103 maybe of the podcast. I don’t really consider myself that great at it. It’s a work in progress. If you start off with that expectation, I think you’ll be much better off. Like you said, Joe, it’s hard to build a business on a podcast. You have to grow a pretty big audience to do that. This podcast, it throws a few customers to WP Buffs. It throws a few people to WPMRR and the stuff we’re doing there. We probably, at the end of the day, lose money on it. I don’t know.
Joe Casabona:
Got you.
Joe Howard:
I don’t know, it’s a complicated equation. But it’s not a profit center for sure. It’s not a place where I’m like, “We’ve got to keep doing the podcast because we’re making so much money on it.” It’s like, I like doing it. WP Buffs helps to fund it, and that’s great. I get to talk to cool people like you. At the end of the day, I think yeah, I just talked about a lot of thoughts. I have thoughts apparently.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah. I think you’re right. You need to get your reps in. That’s what I tell people. I was asked about this at a Word camp in September in the before time, when we could go to Word camps. They’re like, “How do you get comfortable in front of the microphone?” I said, “I was in drama club. I have always been comfortable performing or being in front of people.” But being in front of a microphone is a little bit different. You need to practice and do it.
Joe Casabona:
Record a few demo episodes for just you, and listen. They never have to be released if you hate them, but you will find your sea legs. You will become better. You’ll understand what you can do to improve some of the things that you do that you might want to stop doing. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. We’re not all going to be Joe Rogan as far as making money is concerned. But this can be good, consistent content for you.
Joe Casabona:
One of the stats that I keep saying is, there are 31 million YouTube channels. There are less than one million active podcasts. Only about 50% of Americans listen to podcasts right now. There is plenty of room to grow in this field. If you start now, then you will be on a new platform, a new plane of content where you can grow your business. Especially as more people start to listen to podcasts.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, totally. I don’t know about you, but I just got offered a $100 million deal by Spotify. Maybe you’re not the biggest podcast, but this podcast is huge, man. I’m good.
Joe Casabona:
I’m hoping. I think they’re just snatching up all the Joes right now.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, right. There you go. [crosstalk 00:24:16] Joe Rogan followed by Joe Casabona followed by Joe Howard, obviously. That’s a good strategy for them. Another thing about podcasting is, I feel like having a podcast in the WordPress space, and you know this very well, it gives you this platform and this voice to speak to people. As you grow your audience a little bit, you start to get shared around the WordPress space. This could be in any industry. But you start to become someone that people listen to in their industry. I find that very interesting for the reason that I know a few things about entrepreneurship.
Joe Howard:
I’ve grown a semi successful business. I know some things, but there is so much I don’t know. I started a podcast which I think I’m supposed to be an expert in stuff, because I started a podcast and I talk about things. That makes me an expert, but it’s kind of the other way around. If you just keep doing a podcast and you kind of grow into your space, you’ll start to gain a smaller audience and maybe a medium sized audience. It’ll grow. But it’s almost like you become whatever “expert,” or you happen to know things, and it’s become of the podcast.
Joe Howard:
I don’t know things and I’m giving that to people. It’s more like, I think people think maybe me and you, we know stuff. But it’s because we have a podcast. Of course they must know stuff. But it’s not really like that. People who listen to this podcast know, I don’t know about a ton of stuff, because there’s a ton of stuff I don’t know about. I would for sure advise people to… don’t worry about being an influencer, or being one of the voices in your industry. That will come once you’ve done a podcast for a year.
Joe Howard:
I’ve only been doing it for a year and a half. You’ve been doing it for years. At this point, people know us from the podcast. But it’s really just because we did it for a while. People eventually were like, “Fine, I guess I’ll listen.” Now we have a good amount of listeners. When you-
Joe Casabona:
That’s like… Sorry, you’re in the middle of a thought. Keep moving with it.
Joe Howard:
No, go ahead, go.
Joe Casabona:
I think that’s so powerful in podcasting. It’s a more intimate medium. People who are listening to this right now, they’re probably listening on headphones. They’re hearing the inflection in our voice. If we wrote this stuff, our personalities wouldn’t shine through as much. As a result, people feel like they know us a little better. Therefore, they trust us a little better and they view us as experts.
Joe Casabona:
If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, this is really important for you. You are always going to be ahead of somebody. You don’t need to be the number one businessperson on the planet to give out advice. Again, this is stuff I learned from my podcast. Brian Krogsgard just said this to me in one of our interviews the other day. You’re always going to be a step ahead of somebody. Somebody will be able to learn from you. If you make your content relatable and give them quick wins, they will absolutely trust you and view you as an expert, because they are learning from you and growing with you.
Joe Howard:
That’s a really good point, because the world is so big. The podcast space is so big, and the WordPress space is actually pretty big. There are always going to be folks who are just a step behind you, or a few steps behind you. What’s also interesting is that your content, once you put it up there, can last forever. Someone in 10 years could come and find something that’s useful to them. Some evergreen content that you wrote or put in a podcast.
Joe Casabona:
People prefer different content in different ways. Some people prefer to read because that’s how they consume information. If reading is cognitively taxing for people, or they are driving somewhere and they can’t read, but they still want to consume some content, a podcast is perfect for that. They can listen and consume the content that way. Cover your basis. Make sure that you’re catering to all of the people who want to learn from you in different ways. Whether that’s having a podcast and a transcript, or taking a blog post and turning that into a podcast episode, and repurposing that content.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, that’s a very interesting point about the purpose of repurposing content. Which is that people absorb… it’s not just people with different learning methods. Some people are visual, some people are audio. Some people want to read. Obviously that’s one reason to put content in different mediums. But also, people just absorb content. It’s not just a learning method, it’s the time of day. Sometimes I’m on a walk with my dog, and I want to put a podcast on. That would be audio. But when I’m walking my dog, I’m not going to put a YouTube video on.
Joe Casabona:
Right.
Joe Howard:
But if I’m working on my computer, I’ve got this big huge gaming monitor. I’ll have my work on one side. Maybe I’ll want to listen to something while I’m working. Then YouTube is going to be better because I can literally just go to YouTube.com, I’m subscribed to Joe Casabona on YouTube. I can just go and listen to his recent podcast episode or his recent unboxing or whatever. I think having content for those different pieces is also super important. That’s a good point.
Joe Casabona:
Absolutely. It’s a quick win for people who are wondering, how do I come up with consistent content? Unless today is your first day on the internet, you’ve probably created content in some way. That is prime for repurposing and resurfacing. Because you put out a podcast episode about a five year old blog post, guess what? You can send more traffic to that blog post too.
Joe Howard:
Yeah. It’s a snowball effect of… When I started WP Buffs, it was nothing. I had to work every day to write another blog post. Please don’t go to the first 20 blog posts written at WPBuffs.com. They’re so bad, but that’s how you get started. I actually keep them up for that reason, because yeah, maybe people find them and they’re like, “This sucks.” Good, yes, it did suck at the beginning for sure. That’s how you get started. I’m fine with people seeing that stuff actually.
Joe Howard:
When I started the podcast, we got started somewhat more quickly because we already had a small email list in WP Buffs. It kind of snowballed into other things. I think it’s important for people to keep that expectation. If a podcast is that first thing you’re starting, no one is going to listen to it for a long time probably. Maybe not a long time, but you should be expecting your first year not getting a ton of traction.
Joe Howard:
If you can keep that expectation in your head, because I feel like a lot of people will get down on themselves. After a month, I did four episodes and no one is listening. I got like 10 downloads. Three of them were my long, which was how a lot of our stuff started too. My mom recently replied to one of WP Buff’s tweets. I was like, “Thanks, mom.”
Joe Casabona:
Nice.
Joe Howard:
Helping us get that engagement. You’ve got to be ready to put that grind and work in. It’s like what people say about being a professional athlete. All the work you do when the cameras are off is what makes a difference. Being a podcaster is no different than being a professional athlete. We’ll make a good parallel there. You’ve got to be working.
Joe Casabona:
That’s exactly what I tell people too. “I am a professional athlete,” is what I tell people.
Joe Howard:
A professional audio athlete. There you go.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, exactly. But you’re right. Instead of saying, “I only got 10 downloads,” you should be like, “I got 10 downloads. 10 people were interested enough in me to listen to me talk for 20 or 30 minutes.” That’s really nice. Because time is, I think Bill gates said this, time is the only thing that you can’t buy more of, right?
Joe Howard:
Yeah.
Joe Casabona:
The fact that anybody is willing to give you their time, especially when you’re first starting out, is something to celebrate. Whether it’s 10 people or 10,000 people.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, I agree. People like Joe, and me Joe, and anybody who is a huge podcaster or a huge anybody in their space, they started with 10. I remember getting our first email subscribers and being like, “Oh my God. People are giving us their email address?”
Joe Casabona:
Yeah.
Joe Howard:
You dummies. I can’t believe you actually did that. Now we get a bunch every day. It’s kind of an afterthought. But it all started there. That’s where everybody starts. If anybody is out there who has got 10 listens and they’re feeling a little down or something, that’s good. You have to be there and go through a little bit of that struggle period to get to where you want to be.
Joe Howard:
I studied math in college. I was a mathematics major. It was hard, very hard. But my dad always said, “If it was easy, everybody would do it. You would see a ton of math majors out there.” It’s not easy. That’s why it’s good that it’s hard. Think about that. That’s good, it’s good that things are hard. Let’s wrap up a little bit, and talk a little bit about video. Because I think video is a cool area that you’re also into.
Joe Casabona:
Sure.
Joe Howard:
I don’t know if I’d say another step up from audio. Maybe it’s a similar step. I don’t know how you would think about it. But to me, video is like not only do people have to hear you, but they see you on video. That’s a little bit more pressure. It’s like, okay, obviously you need some sort of video equipment to do this sort of setup. Let’s keep with the basics and just talk about what kind of video can people get started with? Since video is such a huge, growing piece of marketing and just the internet. Video has always been big. It will continue to grow, I think. But how can people get started with video in a somewhat simple way?
Joe Casabona:
Yeah. If we’re talking about professional services that I offer, the video startup is a much easier sell right now. I think more companies and brands are realizing that they need video. It’s because YouTube is so huge. It’s easier to discover videos because there is YouTube. There’s not a YouTube of podcasting yet at least. I think Spotify is probably trying to be that, but we’re probably a couple of years out from that still.
Joe Casabona:
There’s a whole YouTube algorithm thing. To answer your question, if you don’t have a rocking camera, if you have something that is just a built in camera, I think that if you want to do in front of the camera stuff, you should probably at least get a webcam. But if you can’t, lighting I think is the most important thing. Because if you’ve ever taken a picture, maybe not before the current set of phones that have that night mode now. But if you’ve ever taken a picture with a camera in daylight and then at night, the night picture is going to be grainy because the camera has to work harder to get a clear picture. Same thing for your webcam.
Joe Casabona:
If you are in a dark room, you’re going to just look bad because the camera has to work harder. Make its job easier by setting up a couple of lights. For like $20 or $30, you can get a couple of white lights that you can put on your desk. That’s going to improve your picture a lot. But if you could do screencast stuff, it doesn’t matter what camera you have. Most computers come with screen recording software. On a Mac, you can use QuickTime. If you want to step up a little bit, you can get ScreenFlow or Camtasia, which is both Windows and PC. I’m sorry, Windows and Mac.
Joe Casabona:
When you’re thinking about what kind of videos to put out, again, determine how you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Then figure out what you want to teach people. If it’s a screencast, walk them through something step by step. Narrate everything that you do. Script if you need to. If it’s a talking head video, again, dole out some advice. It’s not going to be as long as a podcast. Three to seven minutes, three to 10 minutes I would say. I think the YouTube algorithm favors… it changes all the time, so who knows? I’m not a YouTube expert. But it seems to favor that seven to nine minute content.
Joe Casabona:
That’s probably the amount of attention that you have for a viewer as well. Some of the YouTubers I like have 17 minute videos. Sometimes, I break those into two sessions. Because I’m eating lunch, and I watch half the video. Then I come back later. That’s kind of sad that I’m only taking 10 minutes for lunch. That’s a whole other thing. The point is, determine what kind of content you want to put out. If you’re doing talking head videos, make sure if you can’t get a really nice camera, at least have good lighting. Or start with screencasts where you show somebody step by step how to do something with the tools that you use on your computer.
Joe Howard:
Yeah, I think all good advice. Cool, man. I think that’s probably a good place to wrap up. We talked about audio, we talked about video. Let’s tell people, where can they find all the stuff you talked about? Your course, some of your video stuff. Also, maybe some of the tools that you use. Because I know we didn’t talk a ton about tools. People are always like, “What does Joe use? I want to know what he uses.” I know you have a page up with all the stuff you use too.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, for sure. All of my stuff you can find at… We talked about a lot of things actually. By the time this comes out, there will be a page on by website, Casabona.org/… we’ll just say Joe. Hopefully that’s not taken already. Make it really easy. Casabona.org/Joe. That will take you to a bunch of resources. But if you are looking for anything that you want to do right now, my blog is Casabona.org.
Joe Casabona:
My podcast, course podcast, Liftoff, is at PodcastLiftoff.com. You can get 25% off with the code Bufftastic. Then I’m on YouTube. If you search for Joe Casabona on YouTube, I’ll have breakdowns of my recording gear and my video gear. Again, if you’re looking for a hub, Casabona.org/Joe will have everything.
Joe Howard:
Nice, cool. And he’s JCasabona on Twitter.
Joe Casabona:
Yes.
Joe Howard:
If you want to give him a follow, he’s a WordPress influencer. He’s one of the people you have to follow, so give him a follow.
Joe Casabona:
You’re making me blush over here.
Joe Howard:
Last thing I ask guests for is just to ask our listeners for a little five star iTunes review. If you wouldn’t mind giving them a little ask, I’d appreciate it.
Joe Casabona:
Yeah, definitely. Give this a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, because it helps people discover the show. Please do that.
Joe Howard:
Yeah. Thank you, man. In the comments, leave something you learned about this episode. Maybe a “Thanks, Joe.” Joe C., because you’ve got to be explicit about which Joe you’re thanking. We’ll shoot him a screenshot and say, “Thanks for the review.” It’s cool to hear what you learned so we can do more episodes about these kinds of topics. If you’re a new listener to the WPMRR WordPress podcast, go through some old episodes. We’ve got 100 plus old episodes for you to binge. We’ve got any topic you probably could have thought of. We’ve got some content on it. Go through and check out some older episodes. If you have questions for us at the show, shoot them in to Yo@WPMRR.com. We like to answer questions live on the podcast. Kristie and I have a few Q&A episodes that have been really fun to do. We’d love to do more.
Joe Howard:
Any questions you have around monthly income or revenue, or podcast, video, or anything around growing your WordPress business or business in general, just let us know. We’ll answer some questions. That is all for this week. We’ll be in your podcast player again next Tuesday. Joe, thanks again for being on, man. It’s been real.
Joe Casabona:
My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
