Planning Your Podcast Recording Session

Radio and TV shows use a consistent structure, or format, to make their shows familiar and engaging. For example, a late-night TV show has a monologue, an interview, a variety segment, and then another interview. A format also helps you choose and organize the material you’ll cover in your podcast.

Before you record your first podcast episode, decide on the structure your episodes are going to have, and plan what’s going into each segment.

Tips

Check out other podcasts to get ideas for your format

Professional podcasts are structured to hold people's attention and cover their material in a short period of time. Before you plan your segments, listen to some of the podcasts on the iTunes Music Store and take notes on the formats that you like.

Use variety to keep your episodes interesting

We all love to listen to ourselves talk, but to keep your listeners engaged, you should use a mix of interviews, musical "bumpers" between segments, and even photos and slides. GarageBand makes it easy to add jingles and sound effects, photos from the iLife Media Browser, and even Keynote slides.

Steps

Structure your podcast episode content and plan your recording session

Plan what you’ll say in the episode intro and outro, and what you want to cover in each segment.
Record a podcast intro that says who you are and what your podcast is about.
Record an episode intro that describes the topics you’ll cover today.
Record a few informative segments.
Record a short "outro" to sign off at the end.
After you’re finished recording, you can use GarageBand jingles to spice up your podcast. Try using the same jingle every episode after your podcast intro. You can also use jingles as "bumpers" between segments, and again after your outro.