Learnings for creating your own podcast..
Over the past couple of months, I launched a podcast wherein I tell non-fiction stories that are backed by heavy research. You have true crime to mythology to history to just human stories which need to be told.
Just sharing my learnings here for creating UGC audio content…
- You are in their ears!!
Audio content is heard right ‘In the Ear’ and any minor disturbance can simply put the end consumer off. As a result, the quality of the audio is of paramount importance. I am not underscoring the importance of content quality but excellent content will not survive if dogs are barking in the background or the fan is making a buzzing sound while you are recording.
Written content can survive in-correct grammar; people tend to read with the flow and writers can sometimes get away with incorrect sentences too. Video on the other hand has too many elements and too many senses involved, hence quality can be played around with as long as you are not releasing something for the 72mm screen or the OTT platforms.
As a result, audio quality is of paramount importance..
2. The narrator conundrum
This is an extension of the above point where audio quality is extremely important for the end consumer. The voice of the narrator and the quality of their narration style really makes a huge difference to any content being read out. Many a times an excellent voice with great narration skills can get an audience hooked to an average story and vice vera.
Here the creator is not done with just after scripting the content — he or she now needs to find the right narrator for voicing it. I have written an excellent story but who will read it out..where to get the recording equipment from…who will do the editing??…It is just a compounding problem for creating quality UGC audio content by individual creators and I believe this to be one of the biggest hindrances for quality creation of UGC audio content..
3. The right tools/platforms are still awaited
While the tools for creating quality audio content are getter better and cheaper and more mass focussed, there is still no tool or platform to do to audio what Instagram did for pictures or TikTok for videos.
On the plus side, this medium of content consumption is growing. You have record numbers coming out in terms of time spent on audio apps and the number of listens that happen over each piece of content.
All in all, a good time to start thinking about audio content creation.
Here is a link to my podcast on Spotify. You can also find it on all streaming platforms of your choice. Just search for ‘Incredible Tales’.
