Detailed Notes
The past few years have included us creating content channels across a number of outlets. Â That has led to a request to provide a presentation on how to go about such tasks. Â The goal is to focus on the content portion more than just list technical tools and platforms. Â We talk about approaches to producing content and considerations if you want to start down any of these paths.
Creating Content Channels - Many Options, Similar Approach One thing that was apparent in creating this presentation was how similar many of the channels are. Â That gives us some overarching steps to take and then refinements based on your channel. Â All of this combines to give you a thoughtful approach to creating content channels. Â Likewise, it provides some checklist material to help you get started.
Transcript Text
[Music] so let's look at a podcast now as you look at the items for a podcast you're going to see that it's very similar same kind of thing you need a like a mission statement or a vision or some sort of theme and an approach and a tone those things that make the podcast what it is very much like blogging you're going to have this style of of writing with a blog you want to have this style of presenting for a podcast and same thing is it just you are you going to be doing interviews are you going to be maybe grabbing snippets of of other stuff because maybe you're playing some uh you know some snippets of of either shows or other podcasts or other interviews or things like that all of that you want to think through and say okay how am i going to do this with a podcast even more so than a blog there are definitely production values that you need to consider is this uh and this really sort of even part of like your branding and stuff like that is it does it sound like you're sitting in a closet somewhere when you're doing the podcast are you going to have some high-end audio equipment or is there going to be some you know some production done to that and editing or are you just going to sit down and start riffing and then you record it for however long and then post it are you going to have like a an opening and enclosing audio segment are you going to have advertisements are going to be put in are you going to is it going to be just like you start talking and you're done or is there like segments to your podcast all of those things you want to you want to think through those because you want that you want that to be consistent from episode episode so that your audience has a you know a sense of this is how this thing works and it they sort of expect it to flow in that certain way same thing we talk about set up a schedule a calendar particularly if you're involving other people if you're doing interviews in that then you need to get the interview scheduled way before you're going to want to get that produced and and published because you got to you know make sure that whatever issues they may have with scheduling and last-minute things that come up there may be a problem recording it so you have to record it again there's just there is a lot to that could go wrong so schedule out figure out are you going to you know promote the is this going to go out once a day once a week once a month couple times a week whatever it is and even more so probably than a blog let's make sure we have our initial topics list built up let's um you know start putting the pieces together particularly if you've got like advertisements or pre or post audio or anything like that if you've got um themes that you want to you know you want to hit on on a regular basis maybe even reuse some of your recordings about those themes or those stories or those uh informational nuggets then you're going to want to get those pieces in place with a podcast more like a blog you can just it's really easy you could use like our launcher internet business we within a couple of days you can have a site thrown up on aws have a wordpress site and start blogging and you're off and running with the podcast yeah you can record it and just have those recordings available but for you know to actually be a podcast that people are going to see show up on uh particularly like apple apple's podcasts or all of the different podcasters that are out there or stitcher i can't remember all the different stuff that's out there then you need to figure out spend a little bit of time of what channels am i going to publish through and in particular what needs to be done to get on that uh what kind of lead time do i have apple in particular it takes i think minimum it's going to take you probably a couple of weeks once you've put some episodes together and you followed all of their branding guidelines which are things like you know you have to have like a um like a cover page and an icon and you know content about like what is this kind of what is this podcast about what's categories things like that which it i think when i put those together the first time i put together a podcast i think it probably took me i mean it took me an hour to just sitting down walking through getting all that stuff together throwing the content in and that's not including like getting a um getting a logo put together and things like that so you you need to think through that um it's there's some upfront work that needs to be done and it's not stuff that has to be done all the time it's basically you know to get launched but you're going to want to make sure that you've you've walked through those steps and explored those and then again you know as we get to that launch date how are we going to what kind of announcements are we going to have how is this going to get how are we going to get listeners how are we going to get heard as far as you know putting out this podcast and some of it may be tied to that prior bullet point there of your publishing channels or your partners is it just you know if you can get out on apple podcast and if somebody once you're launched if somebody's looking for your topic then they can find your podcast it may be challenging because there's a million podcasts out there literally i think maybe more than a million now but again how am i going to let people know that i've done this assuming that's what you want to do so let's talk about your youtube channels the prior two you know we were writing with the blog we're talking with a a podcast now we're talking audio and video when we go to youtube and there's other places out there like it but just youtube's sort of like you know like apple is the big podcast place youtube is going to be your big video place uh although there are like you know twitch or twitch and stuff like that there are definitely other platforms that are out there and other channels you can look at depending on what it is that you want to what you want to produce again if you find this looks very familiar you want to have some sort of a like a theme or a mission statement what am i going to produce and it may be very specific it could be i'm going to do little snippets of code in java every three days or three times a week i'm gonna have a little you know java coding session that i do for people to learn from it could be more general it could be i'm gonna have uh programming tips and tricks or i can go back like gardening tips and tricks uh it may be uh like project based like i'm gonna do projects and maybe they're they could be programming projects maybe it's like constructions i'm gonna do home improvement projects i'll uh was it this old house or something like that and i'm going to do regular videos you know youtube sessions of me doing that it could be a travel log it's all kind of stuff like that but again particularly with once you add as you add senses to the the channel to the communication you know with writing it's really just content once you add audio there is the your voice how you speak and inflect and all that adds to it adds emotion even to your communication and now when you get into video as well then you add things like your look but also how do you do you dress up do you do makeup you do you know whatever as part of that and it could be video can get far ranging so it could be that you dress up as a smurf for your your youtube channel all the time which hey if somebody makes a lot of money as like a programming smurf youtube channel give me credit that i threw that id out just because i don't need money i just want i want people say oh yeah that was rob's quote brilliant idea but when you get to the video stuff there is a lot to consider because it can be you just turn on a camera and point it to yourself and it's however you look that day but it could be something where you want to make sure that when i do this i want to be in a suit and tie or i want to have a lot of people do i want to have like a clothes that i'm wearing like i've got a coat or a shirt or whatever or baseball cap that have uh logos or other things that are promoting my show or maybe promoting other people's shows there may be uh you could be like uh you could be somebody like your shtick is that you always wear this specific hat or style of hat or you always have these funky glasses or whatever it is you need to think about that because now you're just you're not only producing content you're talking through it and then your mannerisms how you look that impacts it as well assuming there's a camera on you if you're doing something recording yourself doing work on a desktop the developer nor youtube channel you do need to think about what is on the desktop sometimes some people their desktop is always the same and it's got again you may have a background that promotes your you know your site and provides information about it but it may not it may be something else you may not want to do that but you also may need to do things like adjust your your ides that you use or font sizes and colors and stuff like that so that somebody that's watching it can actually see what you're doing for example for myself it's like i have much smaller fonts but when i go to record i have to blow those things up so that it's actually visible to you know a typical viewer again scheduling calendar b yeah your stuff should drop like clockwork you know you pick a time you know every saturday at noon you have a release something like that you need a release schedule that will help so much to build momentum and to build a following again you need a topics list yeah i i would say usually you know with your topics list you want enough that those are going to last you for your first you know probably month or two of of going through it that you've got a nice long list to work from and then you're just going to want to make sure that you're continuing to build on that on a regular basis if you're going through all this work from a video point of view then you probably want to consider do you monetizing it do you want to bring in do you want ads to be available how often are ads going to show up how often you know the timing of my releases and how that may impact my following my ability to monetize uh some of that's the language and the things that you use can i is this going to be suitable to all audiences or is this more like an adult only kind of thing you know the youtube world once you get into particularly youtube um you're gonna have to watch out for copyrights they will block you from monetization they will block you from maybe even being shown depending on how you use other [Music] uh other people's content and this includes audio so if you've got some sort of soundtrack that's you know musicbed then you need to be aware of whether that's you know do you have the rights to produce that to make that part of your show if you have little video snippets do you have the rights to doing that because if you don't then they will they they will pull it um and i think they're still pretty aggressive about it i mean as an example i know that i've had my kids have just had some silly video that they wanted to do and in the background music was playing that was you know copyrighted uh maybe it's like they're listening to the radio or whatever and it got pulled because they had too much time which is i think seven or ten seconds i forget what it is but they had too much time for fair use and or it didn't fall under fair use guidelines and so got pulled so you need to think about that as particularly if you're building things that are part of all of your uh episodes like if you've got pre-roll and post roll if you've got snippets you're going to use on a regular basis backgrounds you're going to have make sure that you're that you own that stuff that the you know you're following the copyright rules as as expected and then how are you going to build a following i mean a lot of this if you do it right if you've got good content and you've got a regular schedule and you announce it properly then followers will come but how are you going to do that how are you going to nurture it how are you going to make that more likely to be successful than than not and again same thing we've seen with with all the channels so writing or audio books which i sort of grouped together because it's really there's a lot of similarities in this even though again in writing you're just communicating you're just you have content if you go to audiobooks then you can have production values that can factor into it and and you can add some more emotion to the the content that you're sharing if you're getting into a book and this actually i guess is something that you could think about for podcasts and blogs and youtube channels and it does a little bit have to do with theming and stuff like that but is this for book in particular or audiobook it's a fiction is it non-fiction are you going to write a story about some superhero lost in space or are you going to write about how to do your taxes or whatever it is what is your it's it's topic selection but if you're going to do a series of books or audiobooks is you know very much what is this and you can do a mix and you can do the uh called the dramatical histories or stuff like that that are historical novels that are you know somewhat loosely based varying levels i guess tightly to loosely based on historical events but also have fictional characters involved and you can think of people like a tom clancy or something like that that have built entire series that there's fiction but there's a lot of non there's a lot of truth there's a lot of reality that's woven in there as well and so when you're writing a book or audiobook you need to think about that as what what am i what do i want to try when i want to take a stab at you
Transcript Segments
[Music]
so let's look at a podcast
now as you look at the items for a
podcast you're going to see that it's
very
similar
same kind of thing you need a like a
mission statement or a vision or some
sort of theme
and an approach and a tone those things
that make the podcast what it is very
much like blogging you're going to have
this style of of writing with a blog you
want to have this style of
presenting
for a podcast and same thing
is it just you are you going to be doing
interviews
are you going to be
maybe grabbing snippets of of other
stuff because maybe you're playing some
uh
you know some snippets of of either
shows or other podcasts or other
interviews or things like that
all of that you want to think through
and say okay how am i going to do this
with a podcast even more so than
a blog there are definitely production
values that you need to consider
is this uh and this really sort of even
part of like your branding and stuff
like that is it
does it sound like you're sitting in a
closet somewhere when you're doing the
podcast are you going to have some
high-end
audio equipment or is there going to be
some you know some production done to
that and editing or are you just going
to sit down and start riffing and then
you record it for however long and then
post it are you going to have like a
an opening and enclosing
audio segment are you going to have
advertisements are going to be put in
are you going to
is it
going to be just like you start talking
and you're done or is there like
segments to your podcast
all of those things you want to you want
to think through those because you want
that
you want that to be consistent from
episode episode so that your audience
has a you know a sense of this is how
this thing works
and it they sort of expect it to flow in
that certain way
same thing we talk about set up a
schedule a calendar
particularly if you're involving other
people if you're doing interviews in
that then you need to get the interview
scheduled way before
you're going to want to get that
produced and and published because you
got to you know make sure that whatever
issues they may have with scheduling and
last-minute things that come up
there may be a problem recording it so
you have to record it again there's just
there is a lot to
that could go wrong so
schedule out figure out are you going to
you know promote the is this going to go
out once a day once a week once a month
couple times a week whatever it is
and
even more so probably than a blog
let's make sure we have our initial
topics list built up let's um you know
start putting the pieces together
particularly if you've got like
advertisements or pre or post audio or
anything like that
if you've got
um themes that you want to you know you
want to hit on on a regular basis maybe
even reuse some of your recordings about
those themes or those stories or those
uh informational nuggets
then you're going to want to get those
pieces in place
with a podcast
more like a blog you can just
it's really easy you could use like our
launcher internet business
we within a couple of days you can have
a site thrown up on aws have a wordpress
site and start blogging and you're off
and running with the podcast
yeah you can record it and just have
those recordings available but for you
know to actually be a podcast that
people are going to see show up on
uh particularly like apple
apple's podcasts or all of the different
podcasters that are out there
or stitcher
i can't remember all the different stuff
that's out there
then you need to figure out spend a
little bit of time of what channels am i
going to publish through and in
particular what needs to be done to get
on that uh what kind of lead time do i
have
apple in particular it takes i think
minimum it's going to take you probably
a couple of weeks once you've put some
episodes together and you followed all
of their
branding guidelines which are things
like you know you have to have like a
um
like a cover page and an icon and
you know content about like what is this
kind of what is this podcast about
what's categories things like that which
it
i think when i
put those together
the first time i put together a podcast
i think it probably took me
i mean it took me an hour to
just
sitting down walking through getting all
that stuff together throwing the content
in
and that's not including like getting a
um
getting a logo put together and things
like that so you you need to think
through that um it's there's some
upfront work that needs to be done
and it's not stuff that has to be done
all the time it's basically you know to
get launched but
you're going to want to make sure that
you've you've walked through those steps
and explored those
and then again you know as we get to
that launch date how are we going to
what kind of announcements are we going
to have how is this going to get how are
we going to get listeners how are we
going to get heard as far as you know
putting out this podcast and some of it
may be
tied to that prior bullet point there of
your publishing channels or your
partners is it just
you know if you can get out on apple
podcast and if somebody once you're
launched if somebody's looking for your
topic
then they can find your podcast
it may be
challenging because there's a million
podcasts out there literally i think
maybe more than a million now
but
again how am i going to let people know
that i've done this assuming that's what
you want to do
so let's talk about your youtube
channels
the prior two you know we were writing
with the blog we're talking with a a
podcast now
we're talking audio and video when we go
to youtube and there's other places out
there like it but just youtube's sort of
like you know like apple is the big
podcast place
youtube is going to be your big video
place
uh although there are like you know
twitch or twitch and stuff like that
there are definitely other
platforms that are out there and other
channels you can look at depending on
what it is that you want to
what you want to produce
again if you find this looks very
familiar
you want to have some sort of a like a
theme or a mission statement what am i
going to produce and it may be very
specific
it could be i'm going to do
little snippets of code in java
every three days or three times a week
i'm gonna have a little you know java
coding session that i do for people to
learn from
it could be more general it could be i'm
gonna have
uh programming tips and tricks or i can
go back like gardening tips and tricks
uh it may be
uh like project based like i'm gonna do
projects and maybe they're they could be
programming projects maybe it's like
constructions i'm gonna do
home improvement projects i'll uh was it
this old house or something like that
and i'm going to do regular
videos you know youtube sessions of me
doing that
it could be a travel log it's all kind
of stuff like that
but again particularly with
once you add
as you add senses to the
the channel to the communication you
know with writing
it's really just
content once you add audio there is the
your voice
how you speak and inflect and all that
adds to it adds emotion even to your
communication
and now when you get into video as well
then you add things like
your look
but also
how do you do you dress up do you do
makeup you do
you know whatever
as part of that and it could be
video can get far ranging so it could be
that you dress up as a smurf for your
your youtube channel all the time
which hey if somebody makes a lot of
money as like a programming smurf
youtube channel give me credit that i
threw that id out just because i don't
need money i just want
i want people say oh yeah that was rob's
quote brilliant idea but
when you get to the video stuff
there is a lot to consider
because it can be
you just turn on a camera and point it
to yourself and it's however you look
that day but it could be something where
you want to make sure that
when i do this i want to be
in a suit and tie or i want to have a
lot of people do i want to have like a
clothes that i'm wearing like i've got a
coat or a shirt or whatever or baseball
cap that have
uh logos or other things that are
promoting my show or maybe promoting
other people's shows
there may be
uh you could be like uh
you could be somebody like your shtick
is that you always wear this specific
hat or style of hat or you always have
these funky glasses or whatever it is
you need to think about that because now
you're just you're not only producing
content you're talking through it and
then your
mannerisms how you look that impacts it
as well assuming there's a camera on you
if you're doing something recording
yourself doing work on a desktop
the developer nor youtube channel
you do need to think about what is on
the desktop
sometimes some people their desktop is
always the same and it's got again you
may have a background that promotes your
you know your site and provides
information about it
but it may not it may be something else
you may not want to do that but you also
may need to do things like adjust your
your ides that you use or
font sizes and colors and stuff like
that
so that somebody that's watching it can
actually
see what you're doing
for example for myself it's like i have
much smaller fonts but when i go to
record i have to blow those things up so
that it's actually visible to
you know a typical viewer
again
scheduling
calendar b
yeah your stuff should drop like
clockwork you know you pick a time you
know every saturday at noon you have a
release something like that you need a
release schedule that will help so much
to build momentum and to build a
following
again you need a topics list yeah i i
would say usually
you know with your topics list you want
enough that those are going to last you
for your first you know probably month
or two
of of going through it that you've got a
nice long list to work from and then
you're just going to want to make sure
that you're continuing to build on that
on a regular basis
if you're going through all this work
from a video point of view then you
probably want to consider do you
monetizing it do you want to bring in
do you want ads to be available
how often are ads going to show up
how often you know the timing of
my releases and
how that may impact my following
my ability to monetize uh some of that's
the language and the things that you use
can i is this going to be
suitable to all audiences or is this
more like an adult only kind of thing
you know the youtube world once you get
into particularly youtube
um
you're gonna have to watch out for
copyrights
they will
block you from monetization they will
block you from maybe even being shown
depending on how you use other
[Music]
uh other people's content
and this includes audio so if you've got
some sort of soundtrack that's you know
musicbed then you need to be aware of
whether that's you know do you have the
rights to produce that to make that part
of your show if you have little video
snippets do you have the rights to doing
that
because if you don't
then they will they they will pull it um
and i think they're still pretty
aggressive about it i mean as an example
i know that i've had my kids have just
had some silly
video that they wanted to do
and in the background music was playing
that was you know
copyrighted uh maybe it's like they're
listening to the radio or whatever
and it got pulled because they had too
much time which is i think
seven or ten seconds i forget what it is
but they had too much time for fair use
and or it didn't fall under fair use
guidelines and so got pulled so you need
to think about that as particularly if
you're building things that are
part of all of your
uh episodes like if you've got pre-roll
and post roll if you've got snippets
you're going to use on a regular basis
backgrounds you're going to have make
sure
that you're
that you own that stuff that the you
know you're following the copyright
rules as
as expected
and then
how are you going to build a following i
mean a lot of this if you do it right if
you've got good content and you've got a
regular schedule and you announce it
properly then
followers will come
but
how are you going to do that how are you
going to nurture it how are you going to
make that
more likely to be successful than than
not
and again same thing we've seen with
with all the channels
so writing or audio books which i sort
of grouped together because it's really
there's a lot of similarities in this
even though again in writing you're just
communicating
you're just you have content if you go
to audiobooks then you can have
production values that can factor into
it and and you can add some more emotion
to the the content that you're sharing
if you're getting into a book and this
actually i guess is something that you
could
think about for podcasts and blogs and
youtube channels
and it does a little bit have to do with
theming and stuff like that but is this
for book in particular or audiobook it's
a fiction is it non-fiction are you
going to write a story about
some superhero lost in space or are you
going to write about
how to do your taxes or whatever it is
what is your it's it's topic selection
but if you're going to do
a series of books or audiobooks is you
know very much what is this and you can
do a mix and you can do the uh called
the dramatical histories or stuff like
that that
are
historical novels that are you know
somewhat loosely based varying levels i
guess tightly to loosely based on
historical events
but also
have fictional characters involved
and you can think of people like a tom
clancy or something like that that have
built
entire series that
there's fiction but there's a lot of non
there's a lot of truth there's a lot of
reality that's woven in there as well
and so
when you're writing a book or audiobook
you need to think about that as what
what am i
what do i want to try when i want to
take a stab at
you