► Tell us about you and your podcast
The podcast is hosted by Rachael Fitz and Ashley McC: two women in their twenties that have been friends their entire lives. Bumping Uglies is about all the things that life in your twenties has to offer. Sex, love, drinking, embarrassment, and new experiences. Our listeners are people that like to laugh, are open-minded, and like to learn a new thing or two in the midst of light conversation.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
We decided to start this podcast years before we started listening to podcasts, but didn't actually act on it until we became avid listeners ourselves. We wanted to do a podcast as a way to stay connected to each other as well as a way to try a fun new thing. We love the conversation and the real aspect of podcasts. This was never a business or success type of goal it was always about having fun and sharing our lives with each other.
We have only been podcasting since November 2017, so about 4 months. We jumped in blindly. We bought mics and got a hosting site and recorded and released our first episode within a couple weeks of actually deciding to do it.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We release an episode every week. We have a day each week where we talk about what we want on the next couple episodes. We have a recording day and then it takes a few hours to edit the audio from the recording. All in all I would say getting everything together for an episode to be released takes at least 6 hours.
We started this podcast when we both had some extra free time but scheduling is key. Knowing that you are recording on this day at this time and communicating if things need to change for a certain week is so important. Currently we pay for our hosting, but everything else we do ourselves and haven't ventured into paid marketing, ads, or sponsors yet.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
At this point we haven't discussed sponsors. Maybe in the future. Podcasting is a creative outlet. It allows us to connect with other podcasters. It allows us to connect better with each other since we live in different states.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
To record an episode we use mics, headphones, and computers. Pretty standard. To record and edit we use audacity and we release on podbean. Up to this point we have had guests only in person. We are in the process of having new guests via skype. We find guests on all of our social media outlets.
For each epiosde we sit down and make a guide that is a loose bullet outline of what we want to cover. We make sure to have any websites or pages ready to link before we publish an episode so that listeners can find the content we talk about if it isn't our own.
► How do you market your show?
We are hosted on podbean, but we are available on pretty much every listening outlet: iTunes, google play, iheartradio, spotify, etc. We do get most of our listens on apple media. Twitter is by far the most useful but we do use facebook, instagram, YouTube, and reddit as well to get our new content out every week.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
As we mentioned we jumped blindly, but we've learned a couple things. Create social media before you release your first episode, create excitement for your new podcast. Release a few episodes all at once for your first release, so episodes 1-3 or 1-5 instead of just your first one. Don't be afraid to ask other more experienced podcasters for advice and it might take a while to get into a groove and figure out what your listeners really like to hear.