► Tell us about you and your podcast
Hello, my name is Dizzy and I'm one of 4 hosts (my good friends Eric, Carlos, & Luis) that we have on “Off the Dome”.
On the show we talk about almost anything and it's always a good time. This show is really just conversations among friends and anyone that listens to the podcast can attest to it. Things can sometimes get out of hand, but it only adds to the entertainment.
At the end of the day we do this show because we enjoy doing it and our audience enjoys it too. 😊
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
Personally, I started podcasting because I enjoy everything that goes into the process of making a podcast. I’m a good public speaker, I’m very opinionated, I’m good with computers so the editing process was never something that scared me, and honestly I just love podcasting overall and it, without a doubt, is my favorite hobby.
I started doing this podcast because Eric approached me about it; I was already doing my own podcast (“The Weekend Sports Podcast”) and had all the equipment that he was going to need to start his show, so I offered to join him and Luis on their adventure of starting up “Off the Dome”.
We started this podcast at the beginning of 2018; we initially had another name for the show but after more thought we ended up switching it up. We didn’t get our first episode out until February due to us working out all the kinks in the show’s start; we actually have like 6 episodes that never saw the light of day for a multitude of reasons. We didn’t really catch our stride until Carlos joined in, and the rest is history I suppose.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We do episodes every week, usually we’ll record an episode once week and post it roughly a week later, giving me approximately 5 days to edit and post everything. We usually record for a couple of hours and from that we try and get a good 30 minutes to an hour for any given episode.
Honestly, it does at times get hard for me to balance meeting up, recording and editing for the podcast (I do this for 2 podcasts total actually) along with my school work (I’m a full-time college student) and my part time job, but I make it work. Besides, I love doing this so to me it’s all good.
We fund the podcasts ourselves; between the 4 of us it’s not too bad but it can be costly at times.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
In a sense podcasting benefits my career because I hope to be a journalist/broadcaster someday, so this is good prep. Honestly, I just enjoy doing it. As far as sponsors go, we don’t have any at the moment, but we’d totally be interested.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
Currently we use the BEHRINGER U-PHORIA UMC404HD audio interface w/ 4 BEHRINGER ULTRAVOICE XM1800S mics. I do all the show’s editing through AUDACITY; I’ve found it to be more than sufficient for our purposes and I’ve gotten really good with the software.
Usually we record an episode every week and post it a week later, giving me approximately 4-5 days to put everything together, edit and post; we usually try to hit 30 minutes to an hour of recording on any given episode.
As of right now we haven’t had any guests on the show, the 4 of us are kind of the stars of the show. We are, however, more than willing to do an interview someday.
► How do you market your show?
We do most of our marketing through Twitter. Eric and Carlos specifically do a lot of the show’s promotion, whether through social media or just word of mouth.
Personally, I think just interacting with people in person and talking to them about the show is most useful. It’s a smaller net you’re casting but it provides a lot of feedback from the people who are actually tuning in and in turn helps with quality of episodes and if the quality is there people will eventually tune in.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
My advice to anyone aspiring to be a podcaster is to only do it because you like it. Don’t go into this thinking you’re going to be the next big thing, because if you do that then you’ll likely be disappointed at the rate your show grows and in turn just feel bad overall about what you’re doing. So I’d say have fun with it and don’t stress. 😊