When you are starting up a podcast, it can be hard to know how and where to begin. But no matter what you plan to cover in your podcast, you’ll need to partner with a reliable hosting platform to connect with an audience. If you’re wondering how to choose the platform that is right for you, read on to find out the questions you should be asking about your hosting platform.
How Easy Is It to Publish Your Work?
When you are choosing a Podcasting platform, you want to make sure it isn’t a chore to get your work out to your listeners. A good hosting platform will streamline the process for you. They will ensure you can easily upload your materials and set exact publishing dates and times.
Different platforms will offer different strategies and software to let you manage your podcast’s timeline. The best way to learn more about setup and what will make sense for you is by reading reviews of how each platform organizes its content. After all, what makes sense to one person might not make sense to another. Look for comprehensive reviews of hosts, like this review of podbean, and you can get an understanding of how a program operates behind the scenes.
Can the Platform Help You Monetize Your Work?
The next question you’ve got to ask when searching for the right platform is whether they will provide monetization opportunities. An excellent hosting platform will facilitate these deals to help you grow your income.
Additionally, you may be looking to offer premium content behind a paywall or ad-free content for those that donate to you. For these situations, you need to think about finding a service that allows you to send out differentiated content to separate customers.
Some services can handle that while others cannot. It’s better to plan for things like that before committing to a platform. That way, you won’t have to migrate platforms later and lose listeners as a result.
Does the Pricing Work for You?
Thirdly, you need to think about the potential cost of hosting on a platform. You should clarify if it costs anything to host your podcast on the platform or if it is free. Moreover, if the host does charge, is that cost reasonable?
When pricing things out, you’ll also need to think about timelines. Ask if the hosting platform locks you into a contract for certain payments or if they let you change your plan on a month-to-month basis.
Whatever you do, you’ve got to shop around before you settle on one service or another. You must see if the hosting fees they charge fit into your budget.
Does It Host Everything You Need?
Lastly, when choosing a platform, think about what kinds of content you want to create and pass onto your audience. If you’re going to include a video component of your podcast, will a platform be able to host it? Or do you want the option of live-streaming events?
Some platforms can handle different forms of content with ease. Others simply cannot, or they charge a high price to publish various types of media.
Plus, you want to consider if you can create a community website or space for others to interact with you in the same place they download the podcast. You’ve got to think of all this before settling on the right platform for you.
In the End
All in all, starting a podcast isn’t always easy, but finding the perfect platform to host on doesn’t have to be a struggle. If you partner with a successful hosting site or network, take advantage of resources, your broadcast is sure to succeed.
