Presentation is among the 5 cornerstones of podcasting (content material, presentation, manufacturing, promotion, and P.R.O.F.I.T.), and the way you talk in your podcast could make the most important distinction in whether or not folks get pleasure from and profit out of your content material.
Listed here are six free and non-technological methods to enhance your podcast by speaking higher!
1. Hearken to your self
Do you hearken to your individual podcast after it is printed? I recommend ready at the very least a few days, and pay attention such as you hearken to every other podcasts, together with the identical pace changes, identical headphones or earbuds, and identical environments.
This can make it easier to pay attention like the remainder of your viewers. Plus, it could possibly make it easier to discover issues which may be distractions that you may work on avoiding or enhancing out.
For instance, you may discover how a lot you or your cohost(s) interrupt one another. You may hear how usually you do not full your ideas. You may hear phrases or phrases you say an excessive amount of. You may hear that background is a matter—or perhaps it truly is not and also you thought it will be.
When you have company or cohosts, attempt to focus first on your self and the way you can enhance earlier than making an attempt to assist others enhance.
2. Study from all suggestions
We love the constructive suggestions! The tweets praising our podcasts, the 5-star critiques, the suggestions telling us how a lot our audiences love our podcasts.
And we additionally obtain some unfavorable suggestions.
We have to study from each!
You do not have to vary your present for the individuals who left or for a tiny portion of your viewers. However you must attempt to study from each little bit of suggestions you obtain! You’ll be able to study what you are doing effectively and may proceed or improve. You’ll be able to study what you are doing poorly and may reduce or search to enhance. And you’ll study what stuff is not making a distinction in any respect.
3. Change into extra curious
I usually hate the phrase “If it is not broke, do not repair it.” I believe that angle stifles invention and innovation.
I believe the core attribute behind making nice issues is a way of curiosity. This is not just for interview-based podcasts! Whilst a solo host, you’ll be able to change into extra inquisitive about your area of interest, extra inquisitive about communication strategies, and extra inquisitive about new instruments that may enhance your podcast, have interaction your viewers, or develop your affect.
And all of it begins with curiosity.
Sure, curiosity generally results in extra bills, but it surely does not should! Typically, curiosity can save cash! Take my earlier episode for instance, “Audacity Is Enhancing Quick! Right here Are the High New Options to Attempt.” I’ve already heard from a number of podcasters and even podcast-editors who are actually inquisitive about making an attempt Audacity once more, and presumably saving a whole lot of {dollars} yearly!
Curiosity can lead you outdoors your consolation zone, particularly speaking to or listening to folks you won’t have in any other case thought-about. For instance, I prefer to generally ask for suggestions for a specific sort of podcast, after which I strive a few of them. That curiosity has led me to some gold mines in schooling, inspiration, and leisure!
4. Increase your vocabulary, however not an excessive amount of
How do you describe issues?
I grew up listening to a kids’s audio drama collection known as Adventures in Odyssey. It had a personality named Eugene Meltsner (initially voiced by Will Ryan, who died in November 2021). That character was geeky, liked science and computer systems, and infrequently spoke with huge, incomprehensible phrases. And you’ll in all probability guess that he was my favourite character!
You need not discuss like Eugene—and truly, you in all probability should not, until that is how the vast majority of your viewers speaks. As a substitute, discover the steadiness between utilizing a bigger selection of phrases and sustaining comprehension.
Contemplate even the phrase “very” and all the higher phrases you could possibly use as a substitute:
Not solely are most of those phrases nonetheless comprehensible, they’re additionally extra descriptive and invoke deeper emotions. It is like including coloration to an image or seasonings to a meal.
So strive increasing your individual vocabulary, and you can begin with merely the phrases “very” or “actually.” After that, you could possibly strive different phrases or phrases that may not essentially be dangerous, however may perhaps be communicated higher or with extra selection.
5. Enhance your grammar and pronunciation
My dad and mom made me take some speech remedy once I was a child.
I hated it!
However now, I want I had labored tougher at it.
Since being a teen, there have been two instances I began working to enhance my grammar and pronunciation—each had been the direct response to unfavorable suggestions. The primary was when somebody critiqued certainly one of my first public speeches and he identified that I incorrectly mentioned “there’s” once I ought to have mentioned “there are” in reference to a number of gadgets. That small factor launched me into years of making an attempt to study higher grammar, finally discovering Grammar Woman’s Fast and Soiled Tricks to Higher Writing, and even changing into a managing editor for my earlier employer.
The second time is far more current, and got here from a unfavorable podcast overview that identified I used to be—to the listener’s annoyance—announcing the title “Emma” like “Imma.”
That was in 2018, however I paid extra consideration to it a 12 months or so later and realized what number of E’s I pronounce extra like I’s, like “get,” “enter,” “them,” and extra. I am truly nonetheless making an attempt to work on this, and I by chance revert once I’m not paying consideration or get lazy. And that led me to comprehend there have been different phrases I wasn’t announcing fairly appropriately—or maybe I ought to say persistently with my basic northern American accent. Like announcing “issues” and “suppose” extra like “thangs” and “thank.”
(Please don’t level out once I mess up, at the very least not presently. I in all probability already heard it and have mentally kicked myself for it.)
I am not condemning you in the event you pronounce issues with a regional accent. These are inconsistencies I’ve concluded are incorrect for me.
And to make issues much more difficult, there are some instances sure vowels are imagined to be pronounced like completely different vowels! Just like the O in “ladies” is imagined to sound like an I. And a few American English dictionaries even differ! For instance, how the A is pronounced in “lav” and “lavalier microphone”!
So to some extent, these points may come right down to a selection of fashion and what you utilize because the authority.
A very powerful factor is to speak in a manner your viewers can perceive you, even when they may get a bit of distracted by an accent at first.
6. Conquer dangerous habits
You in all probability knew this one was coming! Study what your dangerous habits are in podcasting and work to beat them! It might be crutch phrases or phrases, like “um,” “like,” yeah no,” “ya know,” and extra.
It may be unusual ways in which you phrase issues, bland responses (like “That is an awesome query” or “Superior”), or overly used figures of speech (like “on the finish of the day”).
It may be habits whereas podcasting, like saying the identical pointless phrases each time, loudly fidgeting, getting distracted, or making inappropriate compromises.
Life is the perfect place to coach
No matter stuff you determine to work on, do not save your efforts just for once you podcast. Practice your self on this stuff in your on a regular basis!
It is just like the query I generally see, “How do I cease saying ‘uh’ in my podcast?” You cease it in your podcast by stopping it in your life!
You can additionally use your podcast as coaching grounds so that you can enhance these and different areas in the remainder of your life. For instance, perhaps you study methods to have extra significant conversations along with your husband or spouse by coaching to ask higher questions in an interview and listening higher to the responses!
In different phrases, use life to make you a greater podcaster, and use your podcast to make you higher at life!
Want podcasting assist?
If you happen to want one-on-one assist, or you have not launched your podcast, but, click on right here to request a private teaching and consulting session and we’ll join you with a podcasting professional we belief!
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Disclosure
This submit might include hyperlinks to services or products with which I’ve an affiliate relationship. I could obtain compensation out of your actions via such hyperlinks. Nonetheless, I do not let that corrupt my perspective and I do not advocate solely associates.
