How to Start a Podcast With Abu Zafar
Ever dreamed of creating your own podcast? Become the next Teri Gross or Joe Rogan? This week we’ll learn how to do it with the help of Lifehacker’s own video producer Abu Zafar. Abu recently prepared a three-part video series for Lifehacker called “ How to Start a Podcast,” and this week he joins us to share some of the basics of podcasting he learned from experts like Josh Clark (“The Material You should know “), Misha Eucephus (” Tell them “I am) and Roman Mars (99% invisible). When not busy creating quick tutorial videos for Lifehacker, Abu moonlights as host and producer of his own podcast network, Lore Party .
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Abu Zafar:
When considering creating your own podcast for the first time, take this advice from Misha Eucef, producer of Tell Them I Am :
I think first you have to ask yourself, why should this be a podcast? Do you just want to be a podcaster? Or is it something that you are trying to create that does not exist and should exist? And should it exist as a podcast? Because something can be a great Instagram story, a great series of illustrations, a video interview, a documentary, or an essay. And I think the question of why sound is important and why the human voice is important and why this environment is important is a big question. And just because you don’t know the answers to these questions doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be a podcast. You should probably try to find answers to these questions, but it’s worth taking the time to try to justify it.
Before starting your podcast:
I mean, it’s so cliché to say, but finding your niche, or finding something that doesn’t exist yet, is getting harder and harder to do with the internet and the little niche pockets that exist all over the place. Internet. But there is always a way to hide what no one else can. And I think this is very important.
If you don’t measure the success of your podcast by revenue or downloads:
At the end of the day, regardless of whether your podcast was successful, I believe the metric of success should be whether you succeeded in saying what you wanted to say. Or by researching a topic you wanted to learn. If you succeeded, then I think you made a good podcast. If you got in touch with people, then I think you did it.
For more practical tips on how to create your own podcast, we highly recommend listening to this episode!
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