In today's episode, we're joined by the delightful Ellie Swift, the voice behind the popular podcast, "Shine Online with Ellie Swift". Launching her podcast in August 2020, Ellie speaks candidly about the highs and lows of consistent podcasting. Beyond being a marketing strategy, she shares her authentic journey of using podcasting as a tool to connect, share, and educate her audience.

I’m a firm believer in changing things up and going away on holidays! Even if it’s not a holiday, sometimes life happens and you can’t record in your usual spot. This means you need a remote recording option to keep creating content without compromising on audio quality. So today I’m sharing my insights on how to record high-quality content using nothing but your iPhone and a microphone. In this episode, I'll walk you through the essential equipment, setup, and tips that I've personally found invaluable for producing top-notch recordings on the go.

I’m super excited to be chatting with Suz Chadwick today about using your podcast as a marketing tool. Suz is an expert in personal branding and, having recently celebrated the 300th episode of her podcast, The Brand Builder’s Lab, I thought this was a perfect time to sit down and discuss her podcasting journey and the challenges and successes she’s experienced along the way.

Suz is funny, intelligent, has an incredible energy, and with her wealth of knowledge on podcasting and personal branding, I know you’re going to love her. In this episode, we delve into how Suz uses her podcast as a primary marketing channel for her businesses and how she has successfully monetised her podcast.

AI is steadily infiltrating every corner of our lives, promising more efficient ways of doing things. In my quest to find tools that can assist the DIY podcaster, I've put a couple of popular AI video snippet creation tools to the test. But do they really live up to the hype?

Both Opus Clips and Vidyo are tools designed to offer video snippet recommendations based on a full video you feed them. Their idea? Analysing your content and giving you the 'best bits' to share on social media platforms. Basically you upload your full length video, you wait while the AI “robots” process the video and finally receive an email with snippet choices based on an AI-scored system.

Since the dawn of time in the podcasting industry, there hasn’t really been a compelling reason to create episode-specific artwork for your podcast. It was often put in the “I’ll do it later” basket and because podcast platforms couldn’t display specific artwork anyway, it felt like a bit of a waste of energy.

This is no longer the case, and with the changes coming to the latest version of iOS the artwork that you’re able to see on your podcast players can be specific to your episodes. This opens a whole new world of possibilities for podcast branding!

As a podcast producer and media professional who has been working in this space for over eight years, I’ve seen many evolutions of podcasting. One of the largest shifts in recent years is the discussion around how to effectively monetise your podcast if you’re not part of an established podcast network.

I’ve seen the rise in Programmatic Advertising, Host-Read Ad Reads, Patreon Communities, Discord channels and many strategies in between, but today I want to focus on why it’s great to invest in your favourite podcasts at the grassroots level.