In this week's episodes, I'm talking about the tools I use to make my podcasting life easier!

Captivate:

• Episode planning tool
• Dynamic show notes
• Calls to Action
• Booking guests
• Research Links

Headliner - My go to audiogram tool.

Canva - for all my design needs. Go for the Pro account. Well worth the £99/year.

Otter.ai - transcribing podcast episodes to make show notes, pulling quotes, and repurposing more easily.

Buffer and Meta Business Suite - Free social media scheduling tools. Meta allows you to mention people in the posts.

Audacity - For recording solo episodes and for all my editing.

Asana - Project Management tool. The one I find works best for me.

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Welcome to podcasting one on one with me your host

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Rachel. This podcast is for female business owners and

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solopreneurs that are looking to start a podcast that add to your

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own already awesome offering. I'll give you helpful advice

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that you can take away and use in your podcasting journey. I

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hope to answer those tricky questions that just keep you

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from starting. Once a month, I'll be joined by other female

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podcasters. They'll share their journey with you and offer tips

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and advice they discovered along the way. Let's get started.

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Hi, and welcome to this week's episode. This week, I thought I

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would share with you the tools that I use to make my podcasting

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life easier. Firstly, one big tool that I do use is Captivate.

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This is my hosting platform. It's a paid platform. But in my

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opinion, it's well worth the 17 pounds a month. So let's have a

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look at some of my favourite tools. There's the episode

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planning tool, which I really love. Here, you get to write out

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the notes that you're going to use to talk about the episode.

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For example, now I have my notes in front of me about the tools

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and my favourite things about them. You can put in a summary,

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you can put in the title, you can add research links, which I

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really, really like this feature. So anything that I

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talked about. So all the tools that I'm going to talk about in

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this episode, I'm going to link in the shownotes. And with

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research links you can have, you couldn't save the link. So you

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can use them again, it includes the link, you can change the

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title. And also you can put a little description on it, which

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I find really, really good. So take a look for yourself and see

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the research links section in my show notes. You can set up show

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notes, templates to show notes. So to save you time, each time

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you do them, you can have calls to action. And these can be

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dynamic where if you update them, it will then update. If

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you've clicked dynamic version of your calls to action, or the

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information that you're putting it in. It means that when you

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update those calls for action, it will update them on all your

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other episodes as well, which is a really great feature,

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especially if you've got people going through your back

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catalogue of episodes, it will keep the updates and the course

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structure and fresh. So you don't have to go back and

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individually change all the links in the previous episodes,

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which means you won't get anybody with broken links, which

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I think is really, really good. Making it easy for them. There

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is their booking guests feature. So you send out the booking

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link. And they can book directly into the calendar into the

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scheduler. And as you can add options for like what

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information you want them to provide. So like I asked my

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guests to provide a short bio, their social links a picture,

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this is so I can put this information in the show notes.

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And then also use it for my social media content. So when I

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want to share, put an image in their audiogram or social media

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posts, I can do that easily without having to go back and

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ask them again, my only tiny and it's such a tiny little thing

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with the scheduler is although you can put dates when you're

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not available, it doesn't link up to your calendar, like

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Calendly, something like Calendly does.

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So that if you say for example, you've got something that's got

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in your diary, you could basically get a double booking

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somebody could go in, but my way to combat this is I've decided

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on days that I want to record so I prefer to do my recording on

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Wednesday and Thursday mornings, this is a time I've set aside

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for that. So in my calendar that's linked to Calendly I

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block that out. So no one can book in that. And then if

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there's some weeks where I'm I'm not available that day or ever

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I'd go into the Captivate platform and put my my days that

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I'm not available. So that combats that situation. That's

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just something to be aware of if you are going to be considering

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Captivate that you don't get your double bookings in your

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calendar. But it is good to have everything all in the platform

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there. It just makes things so much easier when you're putting

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together the episodes. And you can also so once the guest is

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booked in when you go to the episode when you're publishing

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the episodes, you can link that guest in so all the information

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will automatically go in which again is saving you so much time

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on those little parts that can just take a little bit more

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time. So that is that's really great. That's what I love about

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Captivate. The platform is so easy to use and it's pretty

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intuitive. So if you're interested in looking at a paid

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platform, you know for these features and things that I've

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talked about, you can get a seven day free trial, I'll put a

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link in the show notes in the research links, so you can check

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that out for yourself. Okay, so my next tool headliner, I've

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talked about headliner before, I absolutely love this tool for

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making my audio grammes. It's also really great you can do

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audio clips and visual clips. So you can upload your video clips

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here, if you're doing a video podcast, for example, or you

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want to do an author just for social media, just an extra

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little tip there for your marketing, and you can put

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captions on it. So I always caption my audiograms visual or

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just audio, I do the design for the audiogram in Canva, which is

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another tool I couldn't do without, I do all my design work

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in Canva. Any graphics you say, in my marketing is all done in

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Canva. I just love what you can do with Canva. So otter.ai, I

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love this app as well. I sometimes if I want to plant

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that plant out my episodes, and I'm not feeling just typing it

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out, I will talk into otter and then transcribe it. And then

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pick the notes out from there to follow for the episode, which

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works really well. This is also really good. If you like doing

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some of your best thinking outside, if you're on a walk,

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you can record easily in your phone. And then you can have

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that you don't have to kind of like retype it back up when you

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get home. I also use otter to transcribe all my episodes, and

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then export it as an SRT file, which I can upload into

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Captivate so that there is a transcription of the episode

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there. For those that need it or one tip, it's also really good

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for sometimes picking out quotes. So obviously, when

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you're going to pick up clips, for your audiogram, you'll

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listen back to the episode and highlight the clip you want to

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take. But sometimes I find and I found this as one of my clients,

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they like to have an audiogram clip, and they like to have a

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quote. So when I'm thinking of a quo or when I'm listening to an

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episode or making it the timestamp, and sometimes it's

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you know, a bit long, or you just want to don't want to spend

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ages re listening to it to type it out, I then go back to the

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time stamp in the transcription and copy and paste it and then

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just check it for spelling mistakes, just make sure that

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it's like they haven't transcribed the words wrong. But

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this is I just think this is a little hack that save you can

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save some time, especially if you're transcribing the episode

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anyway. It's also really good to transcribe the episode just to

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have a visual document of it for when you're doing your social

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media posts.

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Do you want to run at some points and things like that and

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lift some content straight out of there, it's really easy to

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do. But my scheduling for my social media to promote the

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podcast IV, I use Buffer, which is free and the meta business

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suite, which is what I use for Facebook and Instagram, I found

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that scheduling to Instagram from buffer hasn't been all that

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easy. Sometimes it fails or doesn't work, whether that's

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because of the connectivity of the accounts. So I much prefer

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to use meta business suite plus, I need to go I want to schedule

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to my Facebook business page, which I can't connect to buffer.

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So yeah, I just do all that best. And also, you can't do the

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mentions in buffer which is a little bit irritating. I find

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that annoying with the posts I schedule and I have my guests

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ones. So sometimes I don't schedule my guests ones, I post

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those natively so that I can tag them in it or have to remember

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to go back and edit the post to add the person in. And but in in

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meta suite, you can. As long as they've got an Instagram or

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Facebook account, you can tag them directly in the posts or

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mention them directly in the post. So I really liked that

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picture, or data T Another tool I couldn't do without obviously

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like I said, I'm recording this. I recorded my solo episodes into

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Audacity, I edit in Audacity, I polished the audio in Audacity.

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I first came across it many years ago, my husband introduced

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it to me back in my uni days. And it's something that came up

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first when I was thinking about editing tools. I don't have

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Apple, I'm not an Apple user. So like GarageBand or whatever the

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apple one is wasn't really an option for me. I think it's

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really user friendly. I like the fact that I can see my levels

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and the microphone when I'm talking. I have got to grips

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with the tools and the effects in here. So this is just what I

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find really comfortable. And now that I really use the software I

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find that I can edit really quickly and easily. My final

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favourite tool is Asana. It's a project management tool. It's

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very similar to Trello Monday Knowshon clickup That kind of

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tool. But of all the few that I've tried, I prefer Asana just

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because that's just what I prefer. And I like looking at

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the Kanban view, I like having things in calendar, I have

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different boards. And then I use it for other parts of my

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business as well as my podcast and for my clients for myself to

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keep a track of what needs to be done. I like the fact that you

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can make subtasks within a task so you can tick off what you've

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done. So for my podcast planning, I will have a little,

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I'll have a task for each episode. And within that I'll

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have like, I've recorded it, edited it audiogram clip,

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creating social media posts, show notes, all those kinds of

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things, so I can clearly see what I need to get done for each

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episode. And then obviously, the episode as a whole. So this

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works really well for me. These are the tools that I use to make

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my podcasting life easier. I would love to hear from you to

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see which tools you use to make your podcast life easier, and

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why you love them. So either DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram or

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you can drop me an email. I would love to hear from you. As

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ever. If you have any questions around these tools, or you'd

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like a little bit more information about any of them,

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please let me know. And I will catch you next time. Thanks.

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Bye. Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed

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today's episode, please like share and subscribe. Your

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support means so much to me. If there's a question or topic

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you'd like covering then I'd love to hear from you. Find the

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podcast on Instagram at Reggie Botfield and drop me a DM till