How To Start a Podcast In 2025: 12 Podcast Tips and Resources For New Creators

[00:00:00] Number 11, I've learned that social media followers and real views and shorts and TikToks and all that, none of that translates into podcast growth. Yes, what's up guys and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Eric, I'm your host and you're listening to Clipped.

[00:00:26] And Clipped brings you the tips, resources and people to help you crush your content goals. And for those of you starting a podcast in 2025, maybe you've been listening, maybe even watching, maybe even quietly thinking, shit, I got to start a podcast. Well, this is the episode for you talking about all the things that I would do if I were starting a podcast this year.

[00:00:49] Covering content, covering video, inviting guests on your show, different things that I've learned over the past almost three years that I've been doing this. Things I wish I did differently from the beginning and things that'll no doubt benefit you. Some of these are just like your standard podcast advice stuff and some of these are personal to like what I want to teach you and what I've gone through.

[00:01:14] So without further ado guys, the 12 things I would do if I was starting a podcast this year. Just want to give a shout out to Riverside. They're sponsoring this episode. The URL is Riverside.fm and it's one of the best places online to record high quality audio and video all remotely. There's a ton of other cool features. They can help you with show notes. They've got AI for putting clips together for your podcast and several other features.

[00:01:44] I think you're going to love it. So if you're looking for a solution for recording online, check out Riverside. It's Riverside.fm. And if you're new, enter promo code CLIPED. That's the name of this show. C-L-I-P-P-E-D at checkout for 20% off. Let's give it a go.

[00:02:15] Okay. The first one prepping takes a long time. I used to prep a lot in the beginning and then I kind of stopped a little bit because I thought I could wing it. But hear me out. The more prep you put in, the more smooth the recording and your post-production is going to be. Prepping is also can be boring or can be a little challenging or it's something you tend to put off or I tend to put off at least.

[00:02:39] And so keep in mind, the more you prep for your guest, if you're doing an interview or if it's solo, the more you prep your notes, whether you write out a full script or do bullet points, it's going to take longer than you think. But that's all with good effort because it's going to make your recording smoother. There's going to be less starts and stops and less editing. So prep, prep, prep. It takes a while, but you're going to be glad you did it.

[00:03:05] Number two is to try not to interrupt your guest. So if I were starting a podcast, I would make sure I kind of practice this early on. So my brain moves fast. If you're the type of person where your brain moves quick and you're always thinking, try not to do a whole lot of mm-hmm or interrupt them. Even if you have a good point that you want to make or piggyback on something that they say, wait till they're done talking. It takes practice.

[00:03:32] So if I were starting a podcast, I would make sure that when I'm interviewing someone, I let them have the floor. The reason you're having them on your show is to highlight them and get their insights out to your audience. So try not to interrupt them. I mean, once in a while, if it's natural and depending on the flow of the show and the conversation and who you're talking to, that may happen naturally. But you're going to want to work on not interrupting your guest. If that's something you think that you'll have a problem with, take note of that.

[00:04:01] And also because a lot of times myself, I'm listening just so that I can respond rather than listening to wait till they're done and then add to what they're saying instead of just waiting to get my voice out or ask my next question. When you learn to listen, that specific episode is going to develop more naturally and you might go somewhere that you didn't think you were going to go.

[00:04:28] And that I think makes the conversation like gives it more range. And I think your guests will thank you for that. The next is that if you're about to start, be aware that it takes a long time to get comfortable and find your voice on the microphone. I want to say it took me at least like 50, 60 episodes.

[00:04:49] And even now still to get comfortable with the way I talk, the way I look on camera, the way I feel when I'm on the microphone, not trying to like put something on, but also trying to be energetic. I'm more of like a low key person. So I also realized that like when I think I'm like ramping up the energy, when I listen or watch back, it doesn't really reflect that.

[00:05:13] So I like really need to amp up the energy to show you to just project myself and my message and what I want to talk about. It might be the opposite for you. Maybe you're super high energy and you need to tone it down. But the bottom line is it takes a long time to get comfortable. So don't give up if you feel uncomfortable or you don't like how you sound or look. It's going to take a while to find your voice. For me, 50, 60 episodes for you. It may be quicker. It may be longer. But just know that it's constantly a work in progress.

[00:05:42] And it's likely that you're not going to like how you sound in the beginning. So keep that in mind. Next is using chat GPT. I love AI and it's helped me a lot. It's sped up a lot of my workflow. But I will say that overuse of it has made me kind of like more reliant on it. Now when I'm like writing something, I'll pause and be like, wait, should I just put this into chat GPT? Or it's like, oh, I almost feel sometimes like I don't have like a mind of my own because I've been becoming too reliant on this AI stuff. So keep that in mind.

[00:06:11] It may, it can help you. But if you're like thinking you're going to use it all the time for everything, you might want to take a step back and hone whether it's your writing skills. For me, that's what I use mostly chat GPT for. Or maybe it's like you're editing. I know like Podcastle and Descript and AI speech enhancement. And there's all these things that can help your workflow, but don't come too reliant on it. Learn your craft, hone your editing, your writing, everything.

[00:06:39] And I think once you kind of have that down, then just use AI as like a tool that helps you with your craft, not like where it becomes your craft. Okay, so number five, if I was starting a podcast in 2025, I'd obviously go all in on video. I'd honestly probably start with it. That's what I would recommend. It's a lot more legwork, but I think it reaps a lot more benefits,

[00:07:07] it's not just because you can cut up clips for social media, but because it becomes like a legit discovery platform on YouTube. YouTube is now, I don't know what the data is, but it's in the top three. I don't know if it's Apple, Spotify, or YouTube for the platform that people consume their podcasts on the most. It's up there. I've seen different studies where it's like, Gen Z prefers video podcasts,

[00:07:32] or YouTube is slowly becoming everyone's favorite podcast search engine. Doesn't matter. You've got to get video going. And that's because YouTube prioritizes podcasts. They have a dedicated podcast tab inside the YouTube music app and inside regular YouTube. And if you all want to know how to correctly upload your podcast to YouTube so that it shows up as a podcast, quote unquote,

[00:08:01] and not just another video, I have a video on that on my YouTube channel, which I'll link to below. If you're not uploading video, you're going to be missing out because YouTube's algorithm actually pushes out good videos, aka good podcast videos, to new listeners where the other platforms don't do that. If you catch on to YouTube's algorithm, it's going to push it out and you're going to get eyes and ear balls on your show.

[00:08:29] So just a couple of quick things for doing that. Titles and thumbnails are super important. It's going to help with your SEO. Your title and thumbnail should have, you know, catch words, keywords that are related to the content within your video, within your episode. Think about what things would people be typing in the search bar for that you would want them to land on your video.

[00:08:56] You would want your video to come up when people are typing in XYZ. And be sure to think of that when you're naming your videos. Weave those keywords into your YouTube description and hashtags and ask yourself, you know, would I click this if I saw it on YouTube? And another tip for video is like, yeah, it might just be a talking head of you or of you and another person in an interview, but try to weave in some other visuals,

[00:09:26] maybe some B-roll. Descript is great for this. Riverside has a B-roll feature. I'll link to Descript and Riverside below. It gets a little more tricky because there's a lot more moving parts. You have to be more creative and oftentimes just a talking head won't perform well as like a video that has a B-roll and maybe some other like visual elements. So unfortunately, you're going to have to get your video editing chops up. Make sure you add timestamps and chapter markers.

[00:09:56] I wouldn't skip video if I was launching a podcast this year. I'd see it as one of the top ways to get found and grow a new show. And honestly, even if you're camera shy, there's ways to make it work without being on screen 100% of the time. And like I said, you could add B-roll. I think screen shares work really well too. If your podcast lends itself to do a screen share, actually showing, recording the screen share, showing the information that you're talking about

[00:10:24] works well for informative podcasts. Yeah, got to get on there. And YouTube's algorithm is actually going to help you. Whereas with the podcast listening apps, there's not really like an algorithm that pushes your content out. Yes, people type in keywords related to an episode, it'll come up. But YouTube's discoverability is a lot better.

[00:10:51] The next thing I would do regarding guests is to change my mindset around booking guests because I've found, and this is just personal, and this might work for you, is that most guests, even if they kind of seem like they're bigger than you or out of your league, a lot of the people you reach out to will say yes and they will come on your podcast. Now, if you're just starting, maybe you want to wait a few months, six months, whatever the window is for you that feels right before you feel comfortable reaching out to some of these guests

[00:11:19] that you've put on a pedestal in your mind. Honestly, a lot of guests will say yes because they want to get their message out to a new audience. Even if it's a small audience, hey, like 50 or 100 listeners or viewers, that's a lot of people for somebody to speak to and for people to hear for the first time. And so if you have a mindset right now of like, it's going to be hard to book the right guests or I want to get a certain caliber of guests, I would say that make sure you're comfortable, make sure your show's in a good flow and you're on the rise and you're feeling good,

[00:11:50] you're getting good feedback about what you're putting out and you're professional. Reach out to some of those people. I would, and I think you'd be surprised at how many of them will say yes. So if you're starting an interview-based show, don't think that you can't get good quality guests because chances are more will say yes than you think. All right, this is number seven. If I was starting a podcast in 2025, what would I do? I would plan, plan, plan. And this is kind of like the first thing where I said prep.

[00:12:19] It's not easy to come up with new ideas and interview questions for people week to week. And so I would just know going into it that it's a long journey. It's a grind. And if you want a good show, a professional show, you're going to have to come up with new ideas or once you're a year and six months in, revisiting some of the older ideas and putting a new spin on them or if you've changed your mindset or some opinions about some of the things

[00:12:49] you talked about previously, that's a good way to come up with new ideas. But the point I'm trying to make is that it's not easy. And so don't think it's going to be easy to come up with new ideas or new questions week to week. It's not like super difficult. It's not that you can't do it. It's just it's a time thing. Because I think people think podcasting, it's like so easier. It's not going to take a lot of time, especially maybe if you're just doing audio and you can sit down. But I think the longer you go on,

[00:13:18] like this is episode 88, I believe, I think it actually becomes more difficult because you feel like you already covered stuff. I can't even imagine people with like several hundred or a thousand episodes how to keep coming up with content and keeping the show engaging. If you're in this for the long game, just know it's harder than you think to do that. Okay, number eight. If I was starting a podcast, I would make sure I get far ahead on my production schedule before, well, definitely before I launch.

[00:13:48] And then as time goes on, I would make sure there's always like a couple weeks worth of episodes in the can. To be completely honest, I used to be like a month ahead or at least three weeks ahead with episodes. But life happens. I'm a father responsibilities and I run my production company, the podcast Haven, and that takes time. And I've found that as time has gone on, I have gotten further behind. And oftentimes I'm week to week. I'm recording this on a Monday and this is going to go live on Wednesday.

[00:14:17] So that's an example of what not to do unless you have the chops to like edit quickly and the confidence and like the lack of stress that you can pull it off in two days. Like me, it is still stressful, but you get what I'm saying. Don't do that to yourself. If I were starting a new podcast, I would make sure I get a lot further ahead with production than I am right now. That way, if you can't record one week for whatever reason, you've got something ready to go and it just eases the stress.

[00:14:49] All right, number nine, I would say get involved in your podcast community. Community's key and I put it off for so long. Go to conferences, connect with people on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, there's tons of local meetups. I'm going to put a link to some of the podcast groups that I'm a part of in the show notes. So you can click on those and you can join them. It's all about supporting each other. There's live events. There's some groups where you can like put a link to your episode

[00:15:16] and you can do like rating and review swaps where they listen to your episode, they rate it, you listen to theirs. And there's tons of groups out there. And I would say that the podcast community is like one of the most supportive communities I've been in. So I would say get involved in community early. It's going to help you grow your show and it's going to help you like overcome some things or just learn things that you don't know what you don't know,

[00:15:46] I guess is what I'm trying to say. And there's people there that can help you. And if you have questions, they've got answers. If there's weird things about hosting your episode or downloads or analytics or production and editing, all these people in these groups can help you with that. I don't know about all of them, but there's people in these groups that can help you with that. There's going to be new people that are like a level below you, people at your level and people above you. And getting involved in these communities is going to help you avoid pitfalls

[00:16:13] and it's also going to help you learn from your lack of experience and also celebrate your wins. I mean, that's a big part of it too is the support and people rooting each other on. All right, number 10. I've learned that I tend to ramble sometimes in interviews and I tend to even ramble here in like solo episodes. And so I would say if I were starting a podcast and I was new to this, I would focus a lot on editing. You're going to want to take some of that stuff out.

[00:16:43] Not all of it. You're going to want to leave some of it in so that it sounds natural. But I think it's like get to the point, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Don't go on too many tangents. If you find yourself stuttering or verbal tics or ums or ahs or even on your guest side, I would say editing is your friend. And I don't think you can edit enough as long as it's tastefully. Then keep your episode shorter than you think they should. If you recorded for 45 minutes, chop it down to 40 minutes, 38 minutes,

[00:17:13] clean up some of that stuff and that will naturally cut the episode like that filler stuff. And I think cutting all that is your friend. And again, you have to do it tastefully and the right mix of like tangents or small talk or like fillers. So that's important so that it sounds naturally. But you're going to want to cut quite a bit of that in my opinion. So if I was starting a podcast, I would realize that if the recording didn't go as well as I thought it could, cut, cut, cut.

[00:17:43] That's my philosophy. All right, two more. Number 11, I've learned that social media followers and real views and shorts and TikToks and all that, none of that translates into podcast growth. I think you want to be out there, you want to get your face out there, talk about the things that you talk about on your show. You don't necessarily want to talk about your podcast specifically, but you want to position yourself as an expert and I think that helps with branding. And I think all those social media clips and videos,

[00:18:12] I think it helps grow your social media. But in my experience and a lot of the clients I work with, it doesn't translate to podcast downloads for several reasons. One, because social media consumers aren't necessarily podcast listeners. And the journey to take somebody from like a reel to then go to the link in your bio, click on like the Apple podcast link, then go, the Apple podcast app or Spotify, whatever it is, opens up and then they follow the show. It's a big leap

[00:18:42] for the audience to take. And so I found that it very rarely translates to podcast downloads, which is a big part of podcast growth. However, you still got to do it. It's part of building your brand and getting your name out there. But don't rely on that to grow your podcast. To grow your podcast, you're going to want to advertise on other shows. You're going to want to do podcast swaps with other shows that are in your niche. You're going to want to be a guest on other shows. You're going to want to

[00:19:12] fine tune your growth strategy to implement within the podcast ecosystem, not necessarily social media. When you start to promote yourself amongst other podcasters and podcast listeners, that's where you're going to see your show grow. And lastly, number 12, I've learned that my voice, well, I knew this because I was an audio engineer, but you might learn this, is that your voice will sound different

[00:19:41] on different mics. And just because the mic is more expensive doesn't mean that you'll necessarily like it the best on your voice. For instance, this is the Shure MV7 and I have it plugged in via XLR, not USB. but when I plug it in via USB, I think it actually sounds better. I don't know why I should probably put it in via USB, but I have like my whole setup here

[00:20:10] and that's a whole other conversation for another day. But I've learned that these combo mics, USB and XLR, which a lot of them are these days, a lot of the new manufacturers coming out with mics give you the option for both built into one mic. I'm going to say too on the Audio-Technica ATR 2100, which is another mic I love, and the Samsung Q2U and the Shure MV7, they all sound better plugged in via USB.

[00:20:40] So keep that in mind. The mic you bought might not necessarily be the right mic for your voice and I realize budget constraints and all that, you can't just like go buy a million mics to try. Or maybe you can and if you can, buy a couple and test them out. But all that to say is that you may have to get a different mic if you don't like the way you sound. Test them out, play with it. If you don't have the ears for it, ask people, ask in these communities, ask what they think, ask your friends, your family, your listeners, how they feel

[00:21:10] about your sound. For instance, I tend to get close with this and it kind of like blows out the capsule a little bit. So that's it guys. If I was implementing a podcast this year, these are the things that I would do. And hopefully this provides some insights on like what you're going to be getting into with your show, some of the things that take a lot longer than expected, some of the things that might be easier or the mindset shifts around guests and growth. Maybe this will help you kind of determine where you stand on those things

[00:21:39] and just give you some insights on what to expect. You can learn from my mistakes and hopefully learn from my advice. If you want to learn more about my offerings, I run the Podcast Haven. We're a podcast production company. We mainly work with enterprise level clients. However, if you're a small business owner and you need help with production, head on over the podcast haven.com. There you can see what we offer and fill out the contact form. We'd love to chat, get in touch and walk you through how it works and how we can help

[00:22:09] you with your podcast. Keep listening, keep engaging, keep creating. I'm out.