Batching Your Podcast Episodes

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Welcome to podcasting one on one with me your host

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Rachel. This podcast is for female business owners and

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solopreneurs that are looking to start a podcast that add to your

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own already awesome offering. I'll give you helpful advice

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that you can take away and use in your podcasting journey. I

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hope to answer those tricky questions that just keep you

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from starting. Once a month, I'll be joined by other female

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podcasters. They'll share their journey with you and offer tips

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and advice they discovered along the way. Let's get started.

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Hi, and welcome to this week's episode. This week, I'm talking

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about batching. For those of you who don't know what batching is,

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is when you create several pieces of content at once to

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save you time. I batch my podcast and my social media

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marketing every four weeks, when my guests are concerned, I tried

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to get them recorded as soon as possible to give me extra time

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to edit them. So I've already planned out what the episodes

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will be about. But I wait to the full weekly slot to fine tune

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the episode content. So I did this at the beginning of my

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podcast journey, I decided I was going to commit to 12 months,

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and I outlined 12 months worth of weekly episodes. So whatever

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it is for you, maybe it's a season, maybe it's six months,

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however that looks for you. That's, you know, you, you do

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you.

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Let me share my process with you. And you can take from this

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whatever you need. And this is just so I can show a working

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example of what it's like to do batching. So when I first

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started, I planned out 12 months of weekly episodes, I had the

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titles in mind for each episode and started doing guest

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research. Now we'll talk a little bit more about guest

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research in a future episode coming up in the next few weeks.

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Once I had my episodes laid out, I broke them down into four week

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chunks, so I knew which episodes I needed to concentrate on. And

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one of those episodes would have been will be a guest episode, I

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use the episode planning feature in Captivate to plan my

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episodes, which I absolutely love. It's really simple, you

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can put a description in there and write all your notes that

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you want to follow. Like, for example, now I'm following the

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notes that I've made in the app as a planner. It also makes

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adding details for guests and show notes super simple. I also

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have an episode coming up this month, talking about the tools

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that are used, and obviously Captivate is one of them. So

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I'll go into a little bit more detail about that. And the

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features to make things easier on a future episode. So But just

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for now, that's where I plan yours, I used to plan it in a

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Word document where I had a table for the episodes, you

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could also use a project management tool, so it's just

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whatever works for you. So then I work on the episode content

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and I write up notes to guide me when I'm talking. I record my

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episode straight into Audacity. As I'm doing now, I love the

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simplicity of Audacity, and I find it easier to record

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straight into the platform and then I can easily edit and

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polish the episode so and then I also pull quotes and clips from

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the episode I do this kind of like all in one go. So I'll

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record an episode, edit Polish pull quotes and clips. And then

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I will do the next few episodes in that order so that when I

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move on to the next episode, I've got a finished one already.

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Then I will edit the guest episode and pull quotes and

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clips from that as well. So then all four episodes are done. I

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then do the uploading, I upload them all to captivate, I add the

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show notes, I add a transcript and then I schedule them for

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publishing. When I have all of this content scheduled and done,

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I move on to the planning the social media posts to go with

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the podcast. So I create audio grammes in headliner of each of

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the episodes. I commit to three posts a week going out cross

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platform, and by cross platform, I mean LinkedIn, Facebook, and

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Instagram. One post is the day the episode airs, which is the

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audio Graham post and I try and write something that links to

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the clip that I've chosen and talking about, and you know,

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just let everybody know what the episodes about. But the other

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two I like to create one posts around the subject that I'm

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talking about. And also over the four week timeframe, it's a good

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idea to repurpose them content from previous episodes, it's so

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easy to forget this, I haven't really been doing this myself up

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until recently. So what I've decided to do, while at the time

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of this recording, it's November by the end of October 2022. So

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I'm going to dedicate one post a week to repurposing some of my

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previous content that's still relevant for my audience. You

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know, you might have new followers that haven't had

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chance to see this content yet. And we all know that kind of

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statistic where I think something real like 4% of people

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of your audience see your content at any one time. So and

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if it's still relevant, you can tweak them, you don't have to

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just put them out as they were. But depending on the kind of

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engagement that you got on those posts, maybe you could tweak it

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to kind of increase engagement, if it wasn't that great before.

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These are just little things that you can think about. I

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generally scheduled all my content to go out through buffer

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and meta business suite, these tools are free, I use both on

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the free version. An interesting thing I heard recently about

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LinkedIn, is that the algorithm Gods prioritising native posts,

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rather than third party sharing, which is through scheduler, so

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the posts wouldn't do as well, if they came from a scheduler,

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then if you post them natively. Now, I don't know how,

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how true this really is, whether it's depending on the type of

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ordinance that you've gotten all those kinds of things, because I

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know lots of people love to second guess what the algorithm

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does, but you know, it'll do what it wants, or it's just too

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complicated to kind of work out. But what I am going to do is I'm

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going to test this out over the next four weeks. So this episode

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comes out at the beginning of November. So for my for weekly

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episodes, I'm going to post natively as opposed to

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scheduling them. And I'm going to monitor the engagement that I

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get and compare it to other months. It's good to experiment.

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I'm not sure if you've listened to the Janet Marie episode, she

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hosts the courageous content podcast. And she really knows

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her stuff when it comes to posting on social media. And

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it's just interesting, we were talking about testing. It's not

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something I've done a lot of but here I'm just interested to see

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what the engagement would be, or if there was a difference to it.

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So I will let you know what I find in a future episode. Well,

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next month in December. Okay, let's get back to it. So if your

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podcast has guests, then I found getting them booked in well in

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advance wherever possible, which allows you to time to get the

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rest of the things done. Because obviously, once you've recorded

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you need to edit, you need to create all the social media

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around it and all of those things. So I found it's, it's

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good to have them in the bank, if you will. It just allows you

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that time to get your next guests and that leeway time.

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Obviously, if your show is every week with guests, you're going

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to have to be really hot on getting these interviews,

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scheduled and sorted and things like that. If you get the guests

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on in advance of the episodes being released, it also gives

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you the opportunity to create the social media assets to send

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to your guests. This will make it as easy as possible for them

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to promote the episode, and obviously increasing the reach

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to their audience as well. So that's something to think about.

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I hope that this episode has helped give you an idea of how

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to shape your batching as I said before, remember to do what

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works for you and your schedule. This for weekly batching works

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really well for me, that's how I like to do it. But you need to

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take the idea of batching and run with and do what works for

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you and your schedule. There's no point trying to crazy boss

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someone else's schedule until your work life. If you have any

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questions around this episode, or I would also really love to

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hear your batching tips and advice as well. Always good to

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take new things on board. And thanks for listening, and I'll

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see you next time. Bye. Thanks so much for listening. If you've

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enjoyed today's episode, please like share and subscribe. Your

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support means so much to me. If there's a question or topic

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you'd like covering then I'd love to hear from you. Find the

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podcast on Instagram at Rachel Botfield and drop me a DM till

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next time bye