Nearly every podcaster wants to help grow their show’s reach. As we discussed on Better Podcasting episode #217 a good way to help advance that goal is to create additional supplemental content. But as a hobby podcaster you are busy. You go to school full time or have a full time job or three and you generally had a full life before podcasting anyway. And to add fuel to the fire if you happen to have a Patreon account (as of the writing of this post Better Podcasting does not have a Patreon account nor do we plan to add one in the near future), bonus content is not just a nice thing, in many cases it is expected. So how much time is complementary content creation for your podcast going to take? And, is it worth it?
Since switching formats on a trial basis in early February 2020 both Stephen and I have committed to creating extra content for our website, our complimentary YouTube channel and our Better Podcasting social media accounts. Generally the goal is to keep all of this extra content creation within some sort of time budget and money budget. Both Stephen and I have a small existing infrastructure to help create content in general, but neither of us have full fledged dedicated media studios. We also have full time jobs and family lives. We both have our limitations in terms of resources and time. These limits not only impact our ability to produce our shows but also impact our ability to produce extra content as well.
So far since switching formats one of the ways Stephen and I have been reaching out more is through the Better Podcasting social media Twitter and Facebook accounts. In addition to text posts, questions and polls we both have been creating short informative and sometimes funny videos. Stephen mostly uses his Android phone while I’ve been having fun getting to know my GoPro Hero 7 Black better. In truth I would love a step up to something like a Sony a6400 or a6600 mirrorless camera with an external shotgun microphone but that just doesn’t seem to be in the budget right now no matter how much I try to save for one. And I refuse to buy one on credit for now. It’s not ideal, but it keeps both of us from acquiring too much podcast debt.
As such, the short social media video creation has presented some technical and non-technical challenges to overcome. One of these challenges is the time it takes to create the content. If time is a commodity that even a hobby podcaster should be aware of, it is worth keeping track of that commodity and ensuring you aren’t spending too much of it on extra content creation.
For instance, a few days ago I tried to make a short video for the Better Podcasting Facebook Page running down where I was in the attempt to recover data from a FAILED 2 TB Hard Disk Drive. I intended the video to be short and done in less than 30 minutes, thus staying within acceptable time usage for the complementary content creation. Instead, the production of the 2 minute 39 second video took around 4 hours, delayed my trip to the gym by 2 hours and reminded me of what could go wrong with such a short social media update.
In all, there were ten different challenges that took up time during the production:
- Set-up and short rehearsal
- Change up the video camera
- Change out the iPhone 8 stand
- Take time to frame the shot correctly
- Multiple takes (because contrary to popular belief I’m NOT a grip it and rip it guy)
- Transferring the file for processing
- Windows 10 Update
- Trip to the Post Office
- Re-edit and re-render
- Amazon Delivery Distraction
If you’d like to know more specifics about the ten challenges and how they effected my video production I discuss them in detail in the YouTube video linked below. Suffice it to say I did not anticipate so many challenges compounding all at once. These ten challenges taken by themselves don’t add up to much but when compounded ended up taking over half a work day. This is on the excessive side of time management and if this happened on a routine basis I could not in good conscience recommend this sort of extra content creation to any hobby podcaster. Thankfully, most of the time the extra content creation does not go into overtime and is kept to a more reasonable 15-30 minute time frame.
However, if you are similarly attempting extra content creation for social media odds are that you will run into challenges like the ten challenges I encountered. On February 14th, 2020 I was lucky and had some time to work through the challenges. and completed the video and the Facebook post. On another day I would have called it quits or not bothered with the post production in order to get the video posted. Whether you choose to work through your own challenges or cut your loses is up to you. Personally, I would recommend that you keep your eye on the ultimate goals and prioritize work, family, school and your regular content creation over the extra complementary content and social media posts.
In the end hobby podcasting is for the fun and passion of it. If extra or complementary content creation is getting in the way of it then focus on other parts of the podcast and your life. That way you will be more likely to stay happy, passionate and engaged with why you wanted to start podcasting to begin with and not end up frustrated, or worse podfading because of all the time you are having to put into your show.
What do you think about additional content creation for your podcast? What challenges and innovative solution have you arrived at to keep producing it? I’ve love to hear your experiences in the comment section below.