Comedy podcasts are a raging demand of public these days because they lack the excessive boredom that often comes even with even the best of serials. According to research, 62 million Americans were engaged in listening to the podcasts every week, and subscribe to an average of 6 shows. There are currently over 900,000 podcasts shows and comedy is the most popular genre.
Comedy Podcasts come in a large variety as the desperately needed (at times) humorous breaks that almost everybody could relate to, in some part of their lives. But how could anybody create such content that amuses and animates the listener/viewer? And more so, how would one persuade people to give an ear to their comedic wit and talent, with just a picture cover and its introduction to lay an aiding hand?
Let us look at some crucial requirements and notches that shall aid the cause. There are a handful of ways and steps that a person would need to start comedy podcasting.
Why Podcast
Undoubtedly, podcasts have become one of the most popular and influential ways to share stories, news, insights, ideas and now some solid funny experiences. From short and interesting storytelling to exploratory researched journalism, podcasting is open to everyone. You won’t be the first one to start podcasting just for the fun of it. Starting a podcast could be an entertaining expressive attempt, a hobby, or a way to add an additional amount of profit to your savings. However, the question that mostly pops in your head is “Why start a comedy podcast?” and it seems to be a problem for most newcomers. We are certain, after reading this article you’ll be just a few steps away from starting your own podcasting career.
It’s fair to say that, podcasting is usually a relatively relaxed environment, with low barriers to entry, affordable equipment, and can be operational in a matter of weeks. However, anyone who tries podcasting knows that the release of the first episode is only the beginning and can serve you good if you get it up and running with more episodes to come.
How To Start
Starting your own podcast has never been easier. All you need to get started is the basic equipment, and there are countless programs and tutorials to support you along your way. Podcasts are also very popular and fun to do. It is only natural that many people rely on them to earn some extra money. But the real question is, can you really make money with podcasting? The simple answer to that is a big YES! You can make money with podcasts. Since the amount you earn depends on how interesting the material is, we will further consider several different monetization strategies and how to make the most of each to make some good profit.
Currently, there are as many crucial comedy podcasts available as there are days in a month. It doesn’t need a genie in a bottle to guess, that as soon as you made the mind of starting your own comedy podcast, you will hear the phrases like, “You will be at a complete loss, it’s impossible, don’t even try.”, or as simple as “It’s not worth your time.” And well, it could be partially true, if you don’t know what to do and what not to do before delivering your first episode.
Everyone who starts a comedy podcast needs to be confident, patient, and extremely gifted to have a unique sense of their own. Due to the ultimate heights and popularity of podcasts, the most popular comedy podcasts are dominated by celebrities. The podcast audience is greedy and is always open to new content, new experiences and new voices. A perfect podcast is one that is quirky and can have a broad series. It’s clear that the podcast you are delivering has enough content to bring every week, and will not be lost with a combination of dozens of other similar programs.
Overall, it’s fair to say that you keep your focus on the material you are delivering in the market. So, that you can attract a small but loyal audience and help you focus on what the audience finds funny, that will make the planning a bit easier. We would like to quote an old saying here, that fits the need by saying: if you try to do something for everyone, it won’t work for anyone. And that’s as true as it can be!
Grabbing The Audience’s Attention
When it comes to podcasting, attaining the audience’s attention is the key to success. Like all podcasts, comedy podcasts include entertainment and an interconnection between the podcaster and the listening crowd. Comedians are wildly known for their insecurities and loneliness. Comedy is a fluent language of any comedian. Communicating this way with their audience is what makes them feel more relaxed and comfortable. In the world of the podcast, the audience is the key to gaining the actual value.
But the real question is “How many listeners are enough to call it your audience?” Ten including family and friends? Or maybe 50 strangers. Perhaps, there must be enough audience to fill a big auditorium. Audience goals must also differ between podcasts. The kind of humor and thematic styles can be restrictive and should be considered from episode to episode. You should also consider the initial popularity of the podcast, to build your audience steadily. Perhaps there are five friends with 25 Twitter followers or a comic with a podcast that has the opportunity to broadcast their performance in front of a new audience.
Please note that comedy podcasts have a limited audience. Of course, people use the Internet. However, there are many people who don’t understand or even care about the podcast you’re putting up. If you choose someone who really knew what the podcast is, only a certain number of people will participate in the comedy podcast. Among those who love comedy podcasts, there are so many podcasts that they are already hooked on. Attention and fans are not unlimited resources. While Marc Maron listeners may want to try out new shows, Marc’s listeners are dedicated to 1-2 hours of shows, which broadcast 2-3 days a week.
The audience can take up to three hours to listen to a comedy podcast if they are traveling. It is difficult to attract an audience from this group since they are already drawn to its magic. With all these in mind, we like to put out some suggestions that can be terrible. We encourage you to develop your audience and lower your target slightly. Don’t worry about crushing old targets, you can form new goals and plan out how to achieve them while you are on it. Nothing can be created faster than a sense of failure. After all, too much sweating is good for nothing, but for creating comedy podcasts it is required to be more focused on creating great content, rather than worrying about the amount or the number of the audience you are making.
Coming Up With A Topic
When deciding on a topic or theme for your podcast, focus on your interests and hobbies. Certainly, there is nothing new on what you’ll end up picking, so don’t lack the confidence if you have a podcast covering a topic of your choosing. Just be optimistic that there is no one out there, who can talk the way that you can. It’s all about humor and how expressive you are with the topic, that continues to attract listeners. It does not need to be hilarious from start all the way to the end to make it admirable. It should just be enthralling that keeps the listener on the edge, a bit amusing, and there you have the perfect podcast in making.
If you love sports, then that’s great, let’s talk about the first time you went with your girlfriend to watch a football show and what a bad date that was. If you’re into current affairs and politics? Maybe share some interesting facts, that you saw on the internet the other day. Take requests for your next episode. Ask the audience to comment on what they would love hearing you talk about. It will build a sense of interaction between you and the audience, that will help them feel connected and also, you’ll be showered with different topics every week.
Finally, you have the opportunity to see if you like the work behind the podcast and it is worth investing more time and money. Ideally, after building and planning for the past two months, you will have a pre-made set of content that can be released continuously. Also, if the topic of humor is based on current events or on upcoming basketball matches, and you cannot build it in advance, you can exclude the dates from your calendar for planning out that for later.
Love Your Content
If comedians don’t like the podcasts they have created, it will be difficult to achieve their goal in the future. Perhaps comedy podcasts that focus on supernatural phenomena will bring out a lot of misconception. In addition, talking about popular trends are the main cause of disasters too. A unique way to make your podcast stand out among the rest is by talking about the content that you are more interested in. Indulging in what the audience loves to hear, sometimes offends the content creators.
Creating content that your audience likes are much more difficult than creating it intuitively. Comedy podcast is a way of mirroring who you really are, and what you love doing. By doing so, your audience can relate themselves with the reflection of your character in the show. Thanks to this idea, the audience can see more of themselves in you. This is a strong way to build a bond. If you always end up saying jokes about burps and farts, it won’t satisfy anyone – not even you. It is impossible to portray yourself as something other than who you are because your audience will be able to see past your facade in no time.
If the humor behind the game of chess is what attracts the creators, it can become a very interesting and unique podcast to listen to. There may be an audience that loves every bit of it or an audience who truly find it monotonous to hear something like that. However, the show must go on for months to years, if the content creators are satisfied with what they are creating.
Comedy podcasts are not just about meeting business goals, but also give you the joy of art and creativity. They have the opportunity to make people laugh on the other side of the globe. They sympathize with the lives they are living and how ridiculous it is, and those who are willing to listen enjoy every bit of it.
Polish Humour and Comedy Skills
Everyone loves some unforgettable good jokes, and they enjoy every bit of it if they could hear the comic say it again and again in his amusing voice. However, people still hesitate when using humor in comedy podcasts. After all, you are not sitting in front of an actual audience to see their reaction first hand. Your content needs to meet your audience, escalate actions, and make a sweet transition of attracting them again next week. It is highly recommended to use a new podcast to plan out the episodes for at least two months. Depending on the length and the content you are coming up with, it could be as less as 2 or 3 episodes or as many as 10 to 15.
Not only do you need technical skills but hosts need talent for being jolly by nature that might aid a comedy podcaster. Because one might say that it is a born talent, on the contrary, humor is being trained, which remarks that it is an art that can be taught. But, let’s just say that it is best when gifted and could be made better with practice.
There are several reasons for this. The first and most important one, to test if your material actually elevates laughter. If you can’t record or schedule so much content, there may not be enough content available to justify the podcast you are planning to push in the long run. Secondly, because regular broadcasts are so important, this specified delivery time only eliminates the need to rush to produce new episodes to keep the audience organized every week.
So, whosoever wants to start podcasting funny stuff should polish their skills by writing down jokes every day, studying other comedy podcasts, and becoming a student of comedy in whichever patch of time, they have available. Besides, reading comical scripts and writings are also in credit for the promotion of such skills.
This genré should be explored further, in whichever form it exists, in essence, films (for example, Bridesmaid (2011), The Hangover (2009), etc.), TV Series (the most beloved to people is FRIENDS (1994)) interviews, other comedy podcasts, such podcasters’ advice, standup comedies, etcetera.
Not just that, but also learn to speak. Practice your voice, and it’s clarity and words’ enunciations, and their stresses, to become fluent during your recording. Minor errors like mispronunciations could always be left as they are or edited later on it just depends on if you want your show to feel overproduced or laid back.
Get Quality Microphones
While ‘speaking’ to an online audience, one obviously needs a medium through which the voice shall reach the ears of the listeners. Hence, microphones are the next most crucial thing that podcaster needs.
Now, here comes a question as to the type and quality of microphones, that one should make use of. The answer is simple; do not go for the highest-paid ones or the entire equipment box, because that is not really necessary for starting a podcast. Many popular podcasters recommend the Audiotechnica ATR-2100 as the best mic for podcasting beginners. I found this mic to do well and be sturdy enough to get through the early years of podcasting.
(Audiotechnica ATR-2100 Source Amazon)
Choose The Podcast’s Profile
Your identity is to be reciprocated through your channel’s name, its cover, and through the introduction. So, choose any good name that comes to your mind, and do not reflect much upon it, because it could be changed over time. However, the introduction must be created properly, because a firm introduction convinces the viewers/listeners that what inside is worth viewing/listening to.
To be able to achieve the attention of the audience is, in the end, the only element that you need. Hence, Impress your audience with your own personality, write about yourself in a manner that keeps them hooked up. Moreover, build up the listener’s anticipation by hinting at the upcoming lambency and finally, Do produce that which you promised. This all could be claimed by bringing about what the audience is looking for; people look for light emotions punctuating their everyday occurrences.
Outline The Podcast
The biggest mistake of podcasters is that normal people think you can just install a microphone in your room, share your humorous experience on a current topic or popular culture, and immediately find an audience. As podcasts are exploding in the field of comedy, having a major “breakthrough” is becoming more and more difficult, and a lot of content created is only heard or seen by few followers (such as on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter).
This may not be a problem if you want to create podcasts just for the fun of it, but this step is best for creators who want to create and grow their own brand, share expertise and attract more followers. A podcast has a specific flow. From the intro to the outro you have to have a path and framework for your podcast. The best thing you can do it write out a few bullet points for what you want to talk about. If it is just you and a co-host you can have regular banter and talk as if no one is listening.
Whatever lies in your mind, try to design it mentally, beforehand. This is the final part of doing the initial tasks before uploading your work on a particular platform. Even if one is overly fidgety and full of nerves, one should not let that hinder the propagation of the process. Instead, simply go with the flow, and you will do just fine. Also, involve another person(s) and converse with them to keep it from being monotonous.
If you have the entire episode all by yourself, it would be difficult keeping up the train of thoughts along with the listeners’ cognition. Yet, another guest or co-host(s) would help supply and keep up the conversation, adding enthusiasm and support here and there. The people that a podcaster might include could be friends because they are the ones who can really bring out the best in you. Family as they can share with the viewers/ listeners some mischief of the childhood, or colleagues as they can help relate a damp day at office or work. There are many many options, but picking a co-host is very important.
Allow Time To Edit
The notes that you have to speak also need software. Good editing software might be your salvation because once having spoken, there might be intruding background voices or in-between noises that could not be stopped from getting in. Through the software and applications, such nuisances could be scratched or overpowered by some soundtracks in the background.
Apart from these sounds, one might add, delete, or enhance the quality of the soundtrack with such platforms. Likewise, too, there are various other ‘paid’ and ‘free’ applications over the web. You can use free software such as Audacity or Garageband to edit or there are several more expensive options. Either way, so editing will be necessary ads you need to add your intro to each episode of the podcast.
Still, some podcasters and YouTubers have been in the business for very long, and they believe that these unwanted sounds do not matter much. And for a newbie just making the leap, these suggestions come in very handy.
Publish And Share Episodes
Lastly, when all the prerequisites have been completed, you have to upload the content on some sites where it would be easy to gather fans and viewers. Sites like Soundcloud allow for free uploads but limit the size of uploads.
Investing in a good podcast host such as Libsyn, Podbean or even free sites like Anchor is required to get your podcast hosted on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, and other podcast sites.
Making A Profit
Some podcasters prefer to price their work. There are several ways to do this. One way is to publish some content for free and request them to pay for the remaining. Or you can have a few free and other paid shows. This way, people are interested in shows with free content and excited about what’s behind the paywall too.
Getting a sponsor is one of the easiest and an essential way to make money on a podcast. The sponsor only pays you to promote the product (or service) they are offering. There are countless different sponsors in many different areas, that are finding ways to promote themselves and what better way to put out then a comic. This makes it easy to find sponsors related to the podcast topic.
If not that, then one might always create a website for their podcast and seek sponsors, advertisements, and donations for the promotion of their data. However, this requires good enough feedback from the limited audience that has gathered already, to convince businesses for an adequate investment.
While a podcast is not a goldmine for comedians it is a way to get more brand awareness and build a fanbase that will come to your shows or even allow you to produce your own shows. No matter your goals a podcast is a great outlet for comedians and another way to build your brand.