Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast exploring the topics of business, education,
technology and design.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
Join me weekly as my team and I produce content that's informative, positive, fun and uplifting.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders and inspirational stories
with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International
Community School of Bangkok.
Hello, I'm Mr. Jason and I'll be your host today.
We've titled this episode, How to Make a Podcast.
I've always been fascinated in the behind the scenes operations of making things, the
things we see, hear and use every day.
Whether it's our favorite product, a TV show or the behind the scenes look in the kitchen
of a famous restaurant.
It's fun to get a glimpse behind the curtain and see how things are done or made.
So for this episode, we thought we'd give you a behind the scenes look into how we make
a podcast episode.
But before we get into our process, let's hear our quote of the day and get some headline
news.
Our quote of the day comes from Sam Ewing who says,
Hard work spotlights the character of people.
Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
This quote talks about the impact of hard work on people's character.
It suggests that when faced with a challenging task, individuals will respond in different
ways.
In the context of behind the scenes work, it implies that a person's true character
will be revealed through their actions.
Good results come from a strong work ethic, a willingness to contribute and the ability
to recognize the value of every task, whether that task is seen by everyone or no one.
And that's our quote of the day.
For our headline news, we are going to talk about several popular podcast shows.
Starting off in first place is the Joe Rogan Experience.
This show averages around 11 million listeners for each episode.
This show focuses on interviewing a wide array of high profile guests that incorporates the
host Joe Rogan's commentary.
Notable guests that have been on the show include billionaire Elon Musk, US senators,
and famous astrophysicists.
Joe describes himself as a standup comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer,
and performs both nationally and internationally.
Following closely in second place is Crime Junkie, a true crime podcast covering the
frequent cases of missing people, serial killers, and murder.
Inspired by two best friends, Flower and Prawat, there is a crime unrelated segment at the
end titled Puppet of the Month, telling the stories of adopted dogs inspired by fans online
who was sent in photos.
Crime Junkie has been on tour to four cities and was nominated for Podcast of the Year
and Best Crime Podcast Awards in the iHeartRadio Podcast Award.
And finally, we have the show called The Daily, a podcast produced by the well-known American
newspaper The New York Times, which is hosted by journalists Michael and Sabrina.
This show produces five episodes each week and each episode lasts for about 20 minutes.
The Daily covers real-time news while exploring its nuances and perspective in depth.
Additionally, The Daily is recognized as the Webby Voice of the Year.
In this first segment, we'll introduce the different roles of our production team and
talk about a typical episode production sequence.
Most listeners never get to see what happens the days and weeks preceding up to a specific
episode's release.
So, we thought we'd explain the process of how to make a podcast.
I've got the entire Season 2 podcast team in the studio today, so to get us started,
I've asked our team to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their role and
what they do.
Let's start with our administrator and designer, Chania.
Hi everyone, my name is Chania and like Mr. Jason said, I fill the role of the team as
an administrator and designer.
As an administrator, my role is to lead progress meetings at the beginning of class.
In our progress meetings, we talk about updates, reminders, and to-dos for our podcasts.
Sometimes we take this time to discuss potential episode ideas, make Instagram stories, and
tackle podcasts and scheduling issues.
As for my role as a graphic designer, I create episode graphics for our podcasts.
Each episode consists of two graphic versions, one for posts in general and one that is like
a banner for the TV entrance in front of school.
Hi everyone, I'm Premi and I'm not only one of the two co-hosts, but I'm also the
main editor for the podcast.
As co-host, I'm honored with the opportunity to interview our guests and read over segments
of each episode, like the headline news and sometimes the quote of the day or the PSA.
As a writer or editor, I come up with guiding questions for our guests and I look over each
script to ensure they're great and ready to go.
Hi there, I'm Yanhao and I service both the tech engineer and the journalist and I also
help research and gather news for our news segments.
As the tech engineer, I'm there for the recordings where I monitor the sound quality and level
in order to make sure that there are no problems with the audio and help set up equipment from
time to time.
For the journalist's job, I mainly just find news headlines that are relevant to each episode.
Hi everyone, I'm Rebecca.
I am one of the regular co-hosts of our podcast team and I'm honored to interview and learn
from our amazing guests.
In addition to that, I'm also the team's co-editor, helping to find and write the quote
of the day, writing public service announcements, PSA, for the team and will be involved in
writing the guiding questions in the future.
As you can see, and for our particular context and podcast structure, it takes a team to
produce each episode.
We have a specific structure we follow for each episode.
Doing this helps to build listener trust and expectations.
We designed our structure to be consistent and repeatable so our listeners know what
to expect and when to expect it.
So this is one of the foundational things that's important when doing a podcast.
Keep a consistent structure and outline for each episode.
Not only will your team know what to work on for each episode, but your listeners will
know what to expect when they tune in.
My next question for the team is what episode do you think our listeners should definitely
go back and listen to?
Let's start with Premi this time.
The first episode that came to mind for sure would be episode 39.
That's the one we did with Mrs. Anisha on marketing.
She's the absolute expert on marketing and everything to do with that field and beyond
even.
She gave out great and insightful advice and I learned so many things from her.
I remember sitting right here interviewing her awestruck so she's definitely a super
role model for me.
I highly recommend episode 44 USC Cinematic Arts Film and Television Production.
It was our first time interviewing ICS alumni online.
It was a great experience for us because it allows us to experience different ways of
interviewing people, not only in person but also through Zoom.
Personally as a Marvel fan, I admire Mr. Coleman's journey and his experience meeting with the
film's directors and one of the actors in Marvel, Josh Brolin.
In this episode, you will get a glimpse into life as a filmmaker and photographer in LA.
You will also learn a lot from his transfer from ICS to George Fox University.
I would recommend episode 40 which is the one involving the ICS Student Council because
it highlights many of the responsibilities that the Student Council shoulders and also
some behind the scenes of school events that listeners might find interesting.
It really shows the work that our students do to make sure our school gets to have such
community building events.
Just like Premi, I think listeners should definitely go back and listen to the episode
with Ms. Anisha on marketing, journey, and success.
I personally felt like this episode was the most inspiring and interesting.
From this episode, you'll be able to hear valuable advice on what really defines success
and how Anisha's journey has shaped her as a person.
I find it super motivational listening to her experiences and how she handles obstacles.
Yeah, check out all our past episodes.
We've produced over 50 episodes so far between our season 1 and season 2 teams and most of
the content is not time sensitive meaning it was relevant then and it's still relevant
today.
My next question for the team is, what's one favorite memory you have from behind the
scenes so far?
Rebecca, why don't you start us off this time?
My favorite behind the scenes moment was the live chapel show with the former NFL player
Asa Watson.
To promote this live episode, I enjoyed doing interview trivia with high school students
in Muda Center and setting up the stage before the actual live show and mock interviewing
patients when she played as Asa Watson.
Mine probably also has to be the live chapel recording since it was interesting to set
up the stage and look at all the preparations from the sound booth and then celebrate with
everyone afterwards.
I absolutely agree with both Rebecca and Yen Hao.
My favorite behind the scene moment was definitely the live chapel podcast with Asa Watson.
I thought it was really fun setting up the stage like what Rebecca said and I also really
liked going over the script before the actual live audience.
It was a really interesting experience to have.
My favorite moment, like everyone else, would also be the live chapel recording.
It was super exciting getting to interview him in front of the entire student body and
the set up was really fun too and also the time after that too.
I remember it was the day one so we had class afterwards and so that entire class we went
out to celebrate and we also did a vlog.
We also vlogged ourselves celebrating and we also talked about the different future
projects and strategies and we also interviewed everyone on their ratings for each simple
coffee drink that they got.
It was super fun.
Thank you so much for sharing those.
My next question has two parts to it.
What are some of the challenges you have faced so far this season and how have you overcome
those challenges?
Yen Hao, let's start with you this time.
The main challenges that have arose would be finding up to date news that's also relevant
to some episodes because some of them don't have much media coverage or any significant
events that happen.
So what you do basically is just try to find something that's related to that topic or
go back even further so that the problem is it's not as relevant to present day but you
have to make amends.
As a tech engineer, there aren't that many challenges since everything is going as it
should and that's a good thing.
I think when I was asked this question, the first thing that came to mind would be not
having enough people on our team.
We had five student team members last semester excluding Mr. Jason but now we're down to
four.
I think losing 20% of the team was especially hard at the beginning and it has already been
hard since the beginning of the season because I think as a team we really do invest in the
podcast and we would love to see it go a long, long way.
We've had brilliant ideas in every class as well whether that's more marketing strategies
for the podcast expanding our content and mediums, finding merchandise or stickers,
creating websites and so, so many more projects.
But I think the one thing that gets overlooked while we have all these brilliant ideas all
the time is that while we're trying to balance and coordinate all of that, we still have
to plan, invite guests, interview with them, write, record, publish an episode every single
week.
So I think that would be the biggest challenge there would be perhaps the amount of people
that we have that we don't have and then that factors into the time that we could have
had more.
But, okay, side note, everyone sign up for marketing.
The ways in which we've overcome this I think would be by working efficiently and being
organized in the things that we have to do with the deadlines that we have to meet and
Chania, our wonderful administrator, helps us keep on track with the progress meetings
and I think that really helps.
And I think also like over the year we've definitely bonded and connected through these
struggles and we've celebrated our struggles together like the live chat vault and so cheering
each other on is definitely an integral part in overcoming these challenges.
I think one of the biggest challenges for me as a graphic designer is coming up with
an interesting and captivating title that fits in the margins of the text box graphic
for the episodes.
Some titles were too long and could not fit and others were too short and filled up the
space in an awkward way.
I've been able to overcome this challenge through asking for suggestions and help from
my teammates and Mr. Jason as well as experimenting with how small images on the design could
fill up some of the space.
The challenges I encountered in my role as a co-host were planning my time and responding
to the guest responses.
At first I was very rusty in the role.
I still remember once I was super busy that day and I forgot that there was an interview
after school so I went home right after the last bell so I missed that important interview.
Since that I've started using a calendar to keep track of my interview dates so I don't
forget.
Another challenge is responding to the guest's responses.
Whenever I ask a question, I need to give feedback on the guest's response instead
of jumping straight to the next question.
This is something I deliberately drill on top of each interview.
Ok, thank you everybody.
One last question before we take a quick break from our mid-episode PSA.
What's one thing you could tell our listeners about the podcast?
It can be anything.
Premi, let's start with you.
Alright, the obvious answer is to listen.
That's one thing I'd love to tell our listeners about the podcast.
Keep listening.
In all seriousness though, I'd like to add that we love to hear from you all so we'd
love to see you engaged and we love any and all feedback from you.
So reach out to us through emails, Instagram, Spotify, whatever streaming platform you're
on and share your thoughts.
Show your voice after all.
It's because your voice matters.
My answer is simple.
Stop listening.
You never know what valuable lessons and advice you'll hear.
Who knows?
You might not hear these things anywhere else but here.
Every episode is full of nutrients that we can learn from and benefit from, not only
academically but in life.
Our guests are absolutely amazing people in all aspects of their lives, who have studied
hard in high school and college and worked hard in life.
They give us a quick glimpse into their professional lives and lessons learned.
If you missed any of our episodes, it would be your loss.
So we encourage you to check out each of the episodes and see what you can take away from
them.
While the podcast does focus mainly on business and tech, there are also numerous other topics
that have been covered.
Whether you're planning on becoming a scientist or a businessman, I'm sure that Students
Incorporated offers you valuable information from at least some of the episodes.
And that ends our Q&A time for our first segment.
Don't go away because we'll be right back after this short PSA announcement.
Prameen here.
This announcement goes out to all ICS high school students.
Salt Tribs are coming up next week.
This is a time to serve others outside of the classroom, in different communities around
Thailand.
You get to work hard and play hard with your friends, fellow classmates and your teachers.
When we do this together, we learn the joy of service and hard work.
It gets us out of our comfort zones and exposes us to new communities that we are unfamiliar
with.
So enjoy the manual labor and educational times spent with the students from other high
schools.
We are back with part two of our behind the scenes look at how to create and produce the
podcast.
To help you understand how big this worldwide industry is, we've gathered a few stats that
will help put this digital medium into context.
According to Spotify, there are over five million podcasts worldwide, with a total of
over 70 million episodes between them.
My team is going to share some more stats about this unique digital medium.
According to Statistica, by the end of 2024, there may be over 500 million regular podcast
listeners worldwide.
It's also estimated that worldwide podcasting market will be worth 30 billion dollars by
the end of 2024.
Spotify and Apple are the two most popular listening platforms and together they control
over 61% of the podcast streaming market.
This means that 61% of the 500 million podcast listeners are worldwide or using Spotify or
Apple or both.
Thank you so much for those stats.
Now back to the question of how do you make a podcast.
In order to ask this question, we thought we'd talk to you about how we do it here
at Students Incorporated.
I would venture to say that most podcasters do something similar in terms of the process,
but there are lots of small details that probably vary from show to show.
To help us out and to spell out this process, we put together a general process list similar
to the way we do things here at Students Incorporated.
So if starting a podcast is something you want to try in the future, take note.
Janya will talk about what we do first.
The first and most obvious thing you need to decide is what your podcast topics will
be about.
In order to figure that out, you need to know what you like to talk about and what type
of guests you might be able to invite.
Doing this will help you with the second item on our list.
After you've thought about the type of topics and guests you will invite on the podcast,
you can then narrow down your target audience or listeners.
Once you have your topics and target listening groups, you will need to design the episode
outline and structure.
This episode outline and structure should also include an average length and follow
the frequency of releases as designated by the team.
Next, you and your team need to incorporate a podcast format that works best for not only
your team but for your listeners as well.
Here are five popular podcast formats many podcasters are using today.
1.
The interview format, which is interviewing a guest or guests.
2.
The conversational format, which is basically a conversation among two or more people about
a specific topic.
3.
The educational format, which is about educational content that teaches the listeners.
4.
Solo or monologue format, which is basically the host carrying the entire show.
And 5.
Nonfiction storytelling or news format, which is basically just heavy editing that makes
stories come to life.
Okay, on to our next item, Chanyeol.
This item is a lot of fun because it involves giving your show a personality and look.
So next, you'll need to give your show a name and create branding elements such as
a logo, color schemes, maybe a website with other content.
This also involves what type of personality and music or extra audio components will be
added to the show.
Onto our next item with Premi again.
The next part of the process is something I'm heavily involved with because I'm the
season 2 editor.
It is a planned episode script and a few questions.
This process takes a bit of time and energy because each episode needs to be scripted
out properly in order to stay in format and lit.
Rebecca has the next item on the list.
Okay, next you have to set up the podcast production space and the production process
with your team members.
To do this, designate a space where the recording will happen.
And if you are bringing guests into that space, make sure that space is inviting, cozy, fun,
professional looking, keeping with your brand.
Yan Hao, what's next?
Next is the recording of the show.
Make sure you have one or two high quality microphones that are connected to a recording
device.
The microphones could be connected directly to a computer or they could be connected to
a mixer first.
Either way, you'll just want to capture the audio in the best way possible.
Also don't forget to take photos and videos during the recording process.
The extra content can be used for other things like marketing and social media.
Now moving on to what happens after recording of the episode.
Tanya, what's next?
The next step in the process is the editing and post-production of the recording.
This is more technical in nature as you'll need to use editing software to take out any
unwanted pauses or retakes during the recording.
You'll also want to do some digital enhancing of the audio clips along with adding in extra
elements such as the intro and outro along with any music or sound effects.
Once you're done editing, you'll want to save that file in the mp3 audio format.
This file format retains higher quality sound but also helps keep the file size smaller.
Premi, what's next in the process?
Okay, so after post-production, it's time to release your episode to the world.
Releasing it is all about distribution.
Use a distribution method that best fits your process and pocketbook.
If you choose to go the free route, then you'll have to learn how to create an RSS file and
then how to distribute that file to all the platforms you want to be a part of.
You'll also need to upload that mp3 audio file to a web server somewhere.
However, the alternative to all that is more simple and straightforward.
That is, use a podcast hosting and distribution platform that makes the entire process so
much easier.
There are many of these platforms out there and their pricing varies so make sure you
do your homework first before committing.
Students Incorporated uses RSS.com because we are affiliated with an educational institution
we were able to get an education as an account.
Okay, Rebecca, what happens after you launch an episode?
Now that you've released an episode, it's time to promote the show.
This can be done through traditional marketing means or through word of mouth, social media,
website, or by being a guest on another person's podcast.
There are many ways to promote your show.
You'll just have to find what works best for you and your audience.
Think multi-channel promotion, meaning you'll want to promote your show through multiple
channels, not just one.
Okay, last but not least, Yanhao, what's next?
The final part of this process is often overlooked.
It is to repurpose episode content in the form of other distribution mediums.
This could be video on YouTube, reels on Instagram, or other social media platforms.
You could also convert each episode transcript into an article or blog post to be used on
your website.
Be creative and repurpose your content as it will add longevity to your episode.
And there you have it, that's the magic formula.
For this episode, we incorporated the educational format and led with the topic, how to make
a podcast.
However, for the majority of our other episodes, we incorporate the interview format.
As you can see, it's not rocket science, but there is a process that needs to be followed.
This process helps the entire team stay on task and schedule.
With that said, and as we start closing out this segment, I'd like to ask a few questions
of my team that will also help answer the question, how to make a podcast.
My first question, I'll direct to Premi, one of our regular co-host.
So Premi, what do you think are some of the most important aspects of an episode?
I think one of the most important aspects of an episode would be content.
You are really hard to find and deliver content that we trust and hope would resonate with
listeners as well as provide insights and advice that you'd love.
I think the rule that most go by as well would be that quality content matters.
My next question is for our other regular co-host, Rebecca.
What are some skills you feel are needed for podcasting?
And then how can a person improve on those skills?
The skills I feel that are needed for podcasting is knowing how to record your sounds correctly
and deliver helpful messages to your audience, such as how to turn on the microphone or to
speak on the microphone and asking questions that will actually help the audience learn
from the interview.
Another important skill for podcasters is summarizing the guest's points and asking
full-up questions to better understand the message they're trying to convey.
A person can improve these skills by practicing consistently.
This can help them become familiar and accustomed to the various facilities as well as interviewing
others.
As co-editor, I also encourage people to read more news articles and listen to more podcasts
for more inspiration and information.
Thank you.
My next question is for Yen Hao.
What are some of the technical aspects that are involved in producing a podcast and its
episodes?
Each class involves a lot of discussion about new podcast topics, briefings, and basically
just a bunch of work.
Since the podcast involves many different guests, it's crucial that Student Incorporated
maintains a good relationship and image with its collaborators, while also making sure
that all the tasks for each episode are fulfilled.
My last question is for Chania.
There are so many different kinds of podcasts out there.
Our show is quite unique as well because it is produced by a marketing class I teach.
How do you think the team has applied the theoretical knowledge you have learned in
class to the practical action of producing a season of the Students Incorporated podcast?
Our team has applied our knowledge of marketing into a lot of the foundations of our podcast
design content and blogs.
The importance of understanding our audience has driven us to focus on certain topics like
education, design, and technology.
Plus, our understanding of having consistency is also applied in our podcast theme and color
scheme.
Okay, that ends our last segment.
Before we sign off, are there any final words of advice you'd like to share to anyone
who's thinking about getting into podcasting or some form of show producing?
I would encourage them to explore.
I think not specific to just podcasting, but applicable in any other field would be to
explore and to encourage yourself to determine what your interests are or where your passions
lie.
From then on, I would advise them to keep exploring and finding more information.
Another thing I would like to add would be keep listening to podcasts like ours.
As a writer, the advice I get most often from professional writers is to read.
They tell me that the best way to get better at something is to learn directly from the
source.
So if you're interested in the field of podcasting or some form of show producing, then keep
listening to podcasts and keep listening to show productions and in the topics that interest
you, in the topics that challenge you.
Keep pushing forward.
You've got this.
Keep exploring and keep dreaming.
Podcasting is a very enjoyable thing in life.
You get to connect with more people in the world from different backgrounds, different
professions and different lives.
We can really see the greatness of God through each person.
It reminds me of how powerful and profound God is in our lives.
Whenever I interview people, I am reminded that we are spreading God's glory in every
aspect of our lives.
My advice to you is to find something you love to do, something you are passionate about,
and do what you can to glorify God's name.
So you can share your testimony and journey with others around the world through our podcast
and encourage others to find what they are passionate about by giving them a glimpse
into your life.
Even if it's for something casual, I think that podcasting, even if it's by yourself,
is a fun thing to do.
Having people listen to you speak gives you an opportunity to voice your thoughts and
also engage with others meaningfully.
It also gives you the opportunity to network and pick up new skills required to promote
and enhance your podcast that will definitely help you enter any future and diverse.
I would say, go for it!
It's a fun experience that not only allows you to practice communicating and speaking
on a microphone, but also one where you can learn valuable insights and information from
many different guests and their perspective.
Going into podcasting is a really good learning process.
You'll practice many important qualities, especially in teamwork and effective work management.
Like always, the outcome of your hard work is always rewarded when you go back and listen
to it.
Thank you, team.
I hope our listeners found this episode to be full of practical advice as we answer the
question, how to make a podcast.
Now it's on you to go out and try it.
Feel free to reach out to us anytime with questions or ideas.
You can do this by sending us an email to studentsincpodcast at gmail.com or by sending
us a message through our Instagram account which is under the name at Students Incorporated.
As we end this episode, I just want to say thank you to all our regular listeners out
there.
We appreciate your continued support.
Feel free to share our show and pass the word to a friend or a colleague, someone you think
may enjoy our podcast.
And as always, this podcast will not be possible without the hard work and support of our international
student production team.
All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives
sharing copyright free images, videos, and music.
And we are signing off until next time.
Be your Students Incorporated, because your voice matters.