Discuss Different & Entertaining Topics Here

My name is Chris and I have a background in tv but have always wanted to start a podcast. My great friend Karen also showed an interest and it’s something we have spoken about for years. I finally came up with the idea of Ask Karen where I would be the host and Karen gives advice and opinions of different topics. It’s very much a light hearted podcast and the idea is to use the Ask Karen premise as a vehicle for us to discuss different topics and hopefully be entertaining. I have tried to make our content of good quality and have taken some time to create a website as well as Instagram and twitter accounts. 

I have always been a big fan of podcasts. I believe it a great medium to be able to talk direct to the listener. Essentially we wanted to create a podcast that makes people laugh and entertains. The idea of making it a podcast that listeners can interact was to make listeners involved and become a part of the content. We only started in March 2019 and so far are 4 episodes in, so it’s still all very new and I think we’re still finding our feet with it all. From the point of coming up with the idea we probably had our first episode live within a month. I’m the one that produced and edited everything so I really wanted to get it launched as fast as possible.

We are currently recording and releasing an episode every week although I think this is going to be hard to keep up. It all depends on when we are both free to get together. We both have day jobs so it can be tricky to fit it in our week. I’m currently paying a monthly fee for hosting which should hopefully cover everything I need. I also paid out a bit for our website address and the website but I really wanted to give a professional look to our podcast. We do find this ourselves and it would be great in the future if we could get sponsorship but I understand we will need more listeners for that. For marketing I’m manly using twitter and instram as they are free but I’d love to be able reach a bigger audience as I really believe we have great podcast to offer.

As we are so new we haven’t yet got enough listeners for sponsorship. We currently have around 400 listeners a month so hopefully this will slowly grow. The main reason for doing it though isn’t really money, we really love creating it and for me it’s a creative output. I used to be a musician years ago and I feel I need to have something creative in my daily life and this is definitely filling the void. I enjoyed creating the music we use on the podcast too.

I use my iPhone to record the whole thing. I have a decent condenser microphone and an audio interface which means I can record anywhere. I used GarageBand to record the audio and to place the music. It’s very easy to edit and I can even do it on the train on my journey to work. I would say I look after the production and any prep which allows Karen to not have to worry about any of that and be herself. As it’s based on Questions and comments from listeners I am compiling this into a script as they come in and add in anything topical and anything I feel would be entertaining. We haven’t yet had any guests but I’m thinking we could. It’s essentially a ‘friends having a chat’ podcast so a third voice would work well.

My main goal was to get our podcast on iTunes but I’ve since heard about so many other platforms so I’ve tried to get us on as many as possible. We’re on Stitcher, Spotify, Podbean (hosted there), tunein, castbox, pocket casts and a few others. 47% of our listeners are using iTunes with Spotify coming in 2nd at 11%. So far I find Instagram is the best place to reach out to new listeners and I have taken some time to create some video clips of the podcast using cartoon images. I’ve also put these onto YouTube with the idea that new listeners might come across them.

I’m afraid as I’m so new to this I don’t have much advice to give. I have advice to pass on which was to make sure you upload content as regular as possible and to maybe have several podcasts to upload from the start. Given the nature of ours we weren’t able to do that. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast though I would say to go for it! I have been thinking about it for years now and I feel I needed that final push to do it. Once it’s up and running and you’re doing it it’ll force you to put the effort in.

We have a website which contains all our links, info about the podcast as well as the latest episode to listen to:
www.askkaren.co.uk
We are on twitter and Instagram @askkarenpodcast
We have an email askkaren@hotmail.com
We really are excited to be in this great arena and are looking forward to reaching new listeners. Please give us a listen and if you like us, tell your friends!