Giving your brand or business a VOICE is vital tool in building trust with your audience. In fact, I recently read that starting a podcast for your business increases trust from 45% to 63%. That’s where the connection is. That’s where the trust is built! So, where is your audience hearing from you? Podcasting cracked the internet wide open—nowadays, it’s less about what we SEE in a pretty, edited photo, and so much more about the story and the conversation. Not a starting and ending point, but the WHOLE journey…
Once you get started, I can tell you from experience that having the right podcasting tools at your disposal makes all the difference.
Rather than scouring the internet and getting two million opinions when you Google “best podcast gear” and trying to piece together what tools you need to get your podcast out into the world, let me tell you! There are a lot of tools out there for I’m breaking down my faves. These have been carefully selected to help you streamline your podcasting process, promote your show with ease, and ultimately, take your podcast to the next level!
I am never going to be that person who wants to be surrounded by complicated tech gear while I’m trying to work. I respect the tech, but I want an easy process. These tools help you achieve high quality with an easy set up. So, whether you’re a podcaster looking to optimize your workflow or someone contemplating starting your podcasting journey, here are the tools that can make your podcasting experience a seamless and enjoyable one.
1. Riverside FM
I used a different recording software for years and years and recently made the leap over to Riverside! Riverside is now where I record all my of my podcast interviews and solo shows. I love it because the video and audio recording quality is excellent, and it’s easy for my guests to figure out on the fly, and it allows me to have everything organized in one spot! Plus, there are AI tools that generate short clips for social media and edit your episode for YouTube! Seriously … If you’re looking for a place to record your podcast, look no further than Riverside FM.
2. SwellAI
What would me and my Podcast Producer, Kristi, do without SwellAI?! It is truly a hidden gem in the podcast world. Swell writes show notes, short summaries, social media captions, generates quotes, audio clips, and so.much.more. I could seriously write an entire blog post about everything we use it for–it even has a ChatGPT-style AI chatbot that can complete virtually any request you have in creating promotional assets for your episodes! You can click here to start a free trial of SwellAI and see if it’s the right fit for you!
3. Canva
This is the holy grail and where 99% of our graphics come from. If you’re an entrepreneur, chances are you’ve used Canva at some point in your business journey. But have you thought of using it to create graphics to promote your podcast? Kristi creates ALL of the Goal Digger Podcast using templates in Canva, and you wouldn’t even know she isn’t a graphic designer! It’s an intuitive, easy-to-use platform to create promotional materials for your show.
Pro tip: be sure to send graphics to your podcast guests, too, to make it easy for them to share the episode with their audience!
4. Wavve
I get asked all of the time how I create audio graphics that share the audio waves and captions from my episodes. Remember how I mentioned that Swell generates audio clips from your podcast episodes? Well, this is what we do with them: we add the audio clip and a graphic to Wavve, which then turns them into video clips for social media! Yes, audio into video. (We really are livin’ in the future, huh?) Not only that, but we add captions to these clips in Wavve too, which makes them more engaging for social media scrollers. Wavve is a great tool for creating those viral videos we all want to share!
5. Megaphone
My team and I recently switched our hosting platform to Megaphone to publish episodes and dynamic ads. Megaphone is a very robust platform to host your podcast. Not only does it make it easy for your show to stream on every platform, but the dynamic ad insertion capabilities are top-notch, too. I love using the detailed analytics it provides to get insights for future episodes! Podcasters don’t always have the data we’re lookin’ for handed to us, so Megaphone REALLY takes care of multiple needs at once!
There you have it, podcaster! We’re pretty serious around here about only using the tools we love and trust, and these have truly made the cut. I hope these tools help you get your voice (and your business) out into the world with ease.
Thanks so much for writing this update! I’m nearly done with your podcast-lab and was about to go with your old hosting platform, but now I’ll check out Megaphone. And yes to Riverside.FM – they’re top notch! I used them in 2018 and SO HAPPY to see they have gained so much traction.