Two Years of Podcasting – My Twist and Turns

My Mentor Podcast host, Edidiong Idang relishes two years of consistent audio content creation. The Self-discovery Coach lays bare her journey, highlighting her challenges while offering a helping hand to newbies who are keen on embarking on the podcast walk of talk. 

I started podcasting as a hobby. Even though this was a new wave of technology, I was determined to learn on the job.

A few things that encouraged me as I thought of venturing into this online space were:

1. The love for my community, my tribe. That is the community of young women and girls. With them as my motivation, I was ready to surmount whatever mountain that there was to deliver value and impact their lives through the stories of other women.
2. My recent training as coach: At that time, I was recently trained as a self-discovery coach and all the ‘ginger’ was released upon me. By ‘ginger’ I mean that I had so much courage and zeal to face such a huge task. I saw more positivity than negativity. I was ready to ONLY succeed.
3. My love for the microphone: Having hosted a radio show on two disability-related programs in a Federal radio station in Nigeria, I discovered my love for the microphone. My little research on  podcasting as at that time revealed that I was going to be my own Master of Ceremony (MC). That truly gladdened my heart and made me look forward to launching my podcast.
4. An escape route– On a light note, I saw podcasting as the easy way out. Even though I was just being trained as a coach, with all the zeal, I wasn’t really ready for screen time. I usually told myself that I never wanted to be a celebrity (that still hasn’t changed). I just wanted to make impact in the lives of women and girls through my empowerment program. So the podcast was one way of achieving that- making impact without being seen or celebrated.

Starting up a business or new venture can be herculean. It demands maturity of heart, patience, and commitment to mention a few; but most importantly, passion. Passion is what keeps the vision going in the face of a setback. As I made that big step to launch my very first episode, I didn’t really think about what the progress would be but I was excited and celebrated every singular ‘like’ on each episode. 

So if you are thinking of becoming a podcaster, here are a few challenges I faced while starting out My Mentor podcast. I am hoping that they can guide your next steps. You may face lesser, the same or more challenges depending on various factors around you such as age, knowledge of ICT, financial status and social net worth. 

• Finding the right name- I struggled to get the right name for my podcast. I knew vividly what I wanted it to be all about but coming up with a captivating name was a huge challenge. A similar challenge first time podcasters face is getting a name that is not already in use. 

• Strong dissemination channels- Since I was just starting out my media engagement, I struggled with finding the right channels to share my latest episode. This was even more tough because of my career background. I felt it quite absurd to do a media broadcast on WhatsApp with the link of my podcast bearing in mind that most of my contacts were my professional colleagues. But I needed to start somewhere after all.

• Navigating the podcast features- Especially if this is a new thing for you, you will definitely struggle with understanding the features from the start. For instance, on Anchor now ‘Spotify for Podcasters’, you can upload an episode and have several segments under it. At my early stage of podcasting, this was a huge struggle for me. Similar to this is maximizing the various channels where your podcast can be streamed for wider viewership. Some of these are Spotify, google podcast, apple podcast, overcast, Amazon Music, Castbox and the like. At first, all these were overwhelming for me.

• Finding the right sound and quality check- At first, I was more interested in recording and uploading on Spotify. But as time went on, I decided to learn new techniques for making my podcast interesting and less boring. One of such was adding sound or bed music to my broadcast and getting help with audio checks. These features are readily available as interludes or sounds on the podcast page and can be readily imported at the point of publishing your podcast. One needs to identify which one works best.

• Investing in quality accessories- This wasn’t what I planned for because of additional financial expenses but I realized that if I do not get the right media equipment to aid my podcasting then I was as good as a failure. 

• Low feedback- Like every other human being, the little or no reactions to my post were really discouraging. What helped me cope was that this was meant to be a hobby as well as a side hustle. So when the expectations were not met, I was more content that I was doing one of the things that I loved doing best.

So let me know if this was helpful to you. I would also love to know what topics/areas you would be podcasting on. And if you are already podcasting, what challenges did you face?

By the way, I am available to share with the first 10 people, tips on how they can choose a captivating name for their podcast. If interested, all you need to do is to provide me 3 comparative analyses of my first 3 episodes and the last 3 (Positives and negatives). 

Send via this comment section or to edidiongidang @gmail.com. Subject – My mentor analysis.

I will personally reach out to you.