Welcome to Help Me Podcast, a podcast designed to help you launch and grow your own podcast. I'm Gino, your host, and I'm a podcaster myself. And in this show, I'm gonna help pass down all the things that I've learned from running my own podcast to helping my clients with my Business Pleasant Podcasts, so we as podcasters can grow together. Hello, and welcome back to Help Me Podcast. It is my first
episode in quite some time. I think, October of last year was the last time that I released an episode, and I wanted to say thank you for everybody that's listening since. And, you know, I still have people listening in and hopefully learning things. So I've been keeping my newsletter going and trying to figure out, you know, what works best for
me and what's the most helpful to people. And, basically, what I've kinda come down to is releasing a newsletter once a month and kinda just recapping and talking about the things that I learned about podcasting in that month to then pass it forward. So the other week, I was kinda, you know, thinking about this podcast and thought that, you know, maybe it's a good idea to expand on that newsletter and basically create a podcast version of it and talk about the things that I talk about in
that newsletter and release the episode once a month. So going forward, I think what I'm gonna do is release this podcast one episode a month, and it's just kinda gonna be a recap of what I've learned from podcasting with my own podcast and my clients and kinda just hitting on maybe 2 or 3 topics that, I think are really beneficial and helpful to another podcaster. So Help Me Podcast is back, and it definitely won't be at the pace that it was, last year where I was releasing
2 episodes a week. That was a lot of work, and I think I covered a lot of the basics. So, really, now we're gonna just be going forward talking about, like, new tools or, you know, new strategies or new things that I'm doing with podcasting that I think could possibly help you. So we're here in April, and I'm gonna talk about the things that I learned in the last month of March doing my own
podcast. So the first thing that I wanna get into is this new AI program that I stumbled upon called Opus Clips and o p u s clips, and it's basically an AI service that takes videos and puts them into clips that you can then put on Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube, you know, kind of those those viral clips that everybody's watching everywhere and the short form content that, is engaging and has
subtitles and is formatted correctly. So I want to talk about this service because I started using it recently and it's really saved me time and it's I think it's an awesome product so far. I've only been using it for a couple weeks, but, so far, it's been, like, really, really helpful and saved me pretty much, like, 30 to 45 minutes per episode that I release. So these podcast clips that you see everywhere, you know, obviously, you need to have
a video in order to make these clips. And I know some people don't have video podcast, myself included. I don't have a video podcast. But I do have an interview style podcast working towards our purpose where I interview other people, and I record on Zoom. So I have a video for my podcast. Right? And I'm mostly just doing that so that I can see the person when I'm talking to them and not just do it like, you know, audio only. I think it's a better conversation when you can see
the person, see their facial expressions, and that sort of thing. So I usually have this video that I don't end up publishing, but what I normally do is I go in and I take clips, and then I'm able to take, you know, the highlights, 32nd clips.
So even though I'm not really publishing the video podcast, I still have the videos for these clips because I think the clips are helpful for marketing a podcast and, you know, it's also a way to help break down the long form content into short form content. So tons of reasons as to why these clips are good. But what I was doing previously was as I was editing my podcast in my audio editing program, I would basically import the raw zoom video file and edit that along with the audio.
So that way I had an edited video version of it as well. I just needed to render it as video format And I again, I don't do the whole episode, but when I find a clip in editing that I think is a highlight or I think would make good for a social media clip, I will then render that 30 seconds or 40 seconds as a video file. And then from there, I'd have a raw video file in the Zoom format. So I'd have to bring it into a website called Canva, which is a site that I've talked
about on this podcast before. Canva.com, if you've never used it, it's great for building anything graphic design wise for the Internet. And you can do video editing on there also. And so basically what I did was I had a template where I would go in and I would change the format from horizontal to vertical. I'd go and manually type out the subtitles and make this clip that is an Instagram reel or a TikTok video. And, you know, I got it down to a point and I
templated teaching. So it really only took me, like, 30 to 45 minutes to make 2 clips per episode. You know, I was kinda happy with that and being like, well, you know, I can do it on my own. I don't have to pay anybody to do this. I can do it in about 30 minutes with these templates as long as I got a good clip. And then I came across Opus Clips and made my life way easier. And, really, all that I have to do is upload this Zoom raw file to this site and it'll automatically
find the clips. It'll automatically crop it in vertical format and, you know, put one person on top, one person on the bottom, and then it automatically puts in the subtitles. And it also automatically puts in those, like, kind of flashy subtitles that you see nowadays and, you know, highlights different colors, different words, and stuff like that. Makes it a little more eye catchy than it does of just, like, straight text, which is what
I was doing. So not only do the clips look better, but you literally just have to find the raw zoom video file and wait for it to upload and do its magic with AI. So for me, it's a huge time saving because instead of making these videos myself, I'm literally just uploading the file, waiting for it to work, and then I have tons of different clip options. And it basically spits out, like, 10 to 20 clips for, like, a 45 minute long interview.
And, you know, they're not all perfect and they're not all great and some of them don't even look good, but there's at least 3 or 4 that are, like, really good. And they also give you, like, this little rating score sort of thing saying, like, how viral it has the potential of being and, you know, how engaging it is and this and that. I'm not sure if the scores are really good for teaching, but at the end of the day, I'm getting 2 to 3 to 4 clips that are really good with no time invested for
me. So I found this Opus clip platform and I think it was through an ad on Instagram or something like that. And I went and I checked it out and they give you, like, a free hour, I think, of upload time or something like that so you can actually test it out without putting your credit card information in. And once I ran my first one, then I was like, holy crap. This is really helpful.
I I basically went and saw how much it was and saw that they're running a special promotion on a year of service for it. So, basically, I paid a $114 for which is about 9 and a half dollars a month for a year's worth of this service, and it also gives me 60 hours of upload time, which is about, you know, 60 episodes of an hour long. My episodes aren't that long, so I probably got, you know, 65 episodes maybe, which is plenty for the whole year for my one podcast. And, you know, after
the promotional year, it goes up to $30 a month. But, again, like I said, if it's saving me, you know, even 30 minutes per episode and I'm a weekly podcaster, then that means it's saving me 2 hours a month, which if I wanna pay $30 to save me 2 hours, you know, I'm basically paying this AI service minimum wage to pull me out these clips. And I don't have to do teaching.
No communication. I'm just uploading the link and it already knows what to do. So as far as I'm concerned, you know, even at $30 a month, it's probably worth it. But, you know, I'm only a couple weeks into it, so we'll see how it keeps learning, if it gets better, if these clips will even be relevant in a year from now, you know, because the podcasting industry is always changing. But for right now, it's, like, a huge time saving for
me. So wanted to share that as been one of the things that I learned for last month. You know, this is mostly ideal for people who have interview style podcasts where they do a Zoom interview. You could also do it if you were recording in person as well and you had, like, video cameras in person. You can upload the raw file and it'll find the clips for you and crop it and do all that. And, lastly, if you have a solo podcast, like a podcast like this, for example, you could still create video
clips from this. What I would do if I wanted to get video is I could literally just start up a Zoom and record it and kind of just, you know, record myself with my webcam. And even though I don't really need the video for anything else, I can use that video to
make these clips. So it's a great way to market your podcast, and it's a great way to get new people to see your podcast, because everybody knows that reels are the things right now that Instagram's pushing and you can get more reach and new people to see your stuff with a reel versus just, like, a normal post. So I'll keep you updated on Opus Clips and we'll see if, it's something that I
continue to keep using maybe a year from now. But I'll put a link in the description for the Opus Clips website so you don't have to go looking for it. And, yeah, definitely check it out and and, you know, use their free trial and and let me know what you think. The next thing I wanna talk about, ironically, is taking a break from podcasting.
In my other podcast, Learning Towards a Purpose, in the month of April, I'm gonna be taking a break from podcasting, meaning that I will not release any episodes, and, you know, the intentions are to come back in May with weekly episodes again. And there's a couple reasons as to why I'm doing this and, you know, a
couple different things I wanna talk about as far as taking a break. I think when people start podcasts and they're kind of excited about it and maybe they've got a bunch of episodes that they got ready to go and a bunch of people they wanna interview, and maybe you do it for a couple months, and then you start to realize, like, how much work it is. And, maybe life gets in the way or you have other commitments.
And Podcast is something that, like, takes down a lot of podcasts and it's something we all know is something that we have to try to prevent from happening. So I think taking a break from podcasting can be very helpful in that. So a couple reasons as to why I'm taking my break now. One thing is I'm building out a website for my podcast. You know, it's something that I I know that I want to keep doing and I know that I want to invest more into. And I've kind of seen the limitations of the free
hosting websites that you have. And, you know, I wanted to have my own website so that way I can do future things and have different services and offerings in the future, you know, whether it's merch or courses or, you know, meetups or memberships or something like that, you know, I'll have a place to have that centralized. It's also gonna help me with SEO and, you know, creating a blog post for
each episode and getting that SEO from Google. You You know, that's something that doesn't really happen as much when you have a website that's posted on a different website. So I'm gonna use the month of April to design and launch that website. Another thing that I'm taking this break for too is, I kind of just got behind on my episodes. You know, I always talk about banking episodes and having episodes ready to go so you don't have to, each week, like, do all the work and then push it out
there. I like having episodes that are at least 1 week in advance and, you know, if something comes up, you can shift things around and it keeps you staying consistent. I wanna bang some more episodes this month. I wanna get a bunch of interviews done, have at least a month's worth of interviews done, So that way when I come back in May, I will almost be a whole month ahead. So then in May, I could start recording and, you know, almost work like a whole month in advance
to keep me going consistent. And, you know, a weekly podcast is a lot of work and trying to put together interviews and, you know, work with other people's schedules. Things come up, you know, people cancel, and it's not always the easiest to get the podcast recorded. So it's gonna give me a chance to catch up and to refill my bank of episodes, which will help me stay consistent when I come back. I think the idea of taking a break is a little bit
more clear to your listener too as to what you're doing. You know, you can easily just, like, not post an episode 1 week and then fall off and not say anything about it. And that might seem a little bit easier to do, but I think it's always better when you can be honest with your audience and say like, hey. You know, I'm gonna take a break this month so that I can work hard and come back and, you know, keep releasing episodes consistently instead of just kind of disappearing.
I think that that will help you retain some of your listeners, and, you know, it kinda tells them what to expect. I think that's something that, like, surprising for me, anyways, was that, like, when I stopped releasing
episodes for this podcast, people still listened. And last month actually was, like, almost as much downloads as was a month of me releasing new episodes, which was, like, really surprising to me and really, like, why I was thinking of this idea and and trying to think of a way to, like, kinda bring it back because it seemed like it was something that people were still listening to. So I think that just by taking a break, it doesn't mean
that people are gonna stop listening to the show. You know, I think you may be surprised that, like, you know, if you take a month off, you actually really don't lose that many listeners and especially if you're clear and upfront with the fact that you are gonna be taking that break. And the last topic that I wanna talk about in this episode is podcast hosting sites. Right now, I host this podcast and my other podcast on Transistor, and I bought Transistor probably like
2 or 3 years ago at this point. And at the time, of course, you know, I did all the research and looked into all the different hosting sites. And Transistor for me was the one that seemed to make the most sense. It allowed me to have more than 1 podcast and, you know, all the other good things that you want in a podcast host. But recently, I had a client who was looking to go out on their own and step
back from a podcasting network. So since it had been so long since I looked into the different options myself, I want to give it a a fresh look and to see, you know, if there were any newer ones out there that offered some better stuff. And basically, you know, after all my research, I came across this site called Red Circle that I think is probably the best option out there now, at least for me. If I needed a podcast host right now, I would
definitely sign up for Red Circle. They were the most affordable, and they have the most benefits and options, out of any of the hosts out there. Am I gonna go switch to Red Circle now from Transistor? Probably not because it's kind of a pain, but, you know, if I were to start a new podcast, that that's the one that I would use and that's the one that I would recommend. And, you know, I just thought that it might be helpful for anybody who's thinking about getting a new host right now
or maybe who's somebody who is just starting their podcast. If you've been doing research yourself, maybe you've heard of Red Circle, but, in my opinion, I think that's probably the best one out there at this moment. And, you know, they I think it's it's 19.99 a month right now, but if you pay yearly, it's 14.99 a month, and they basically have unlimited everything, unlimited podcast, unlimited upload hours. They give you a embed player. They give you
a podcast website. They give you all the stuff that you want, analytics. And then they also give you dynamic inserts, which can be used for ads or for, you know, intros or something like that, which is a big thing that I don't have on Transistor. And that's a big thing that, you know, podcasters use
these days to help keep their older content relevant. A dynamic ad or dynamic content, if you don't know, is basically like just a marker in an episode where you can say like, Hey, at the 15 minute mark, play this new sort of audio and you can kind of interchange that piece of audio. So, you know, if it's an
intro, for example, you can keep that intro the same. And if a year goes by and you need a new intro, you can say, okay, here's my new intro, upload my new intro, and then it'll automatically repopulate all of your old episodes with that new piece of audio. And it's mostly used for ads when people, you know, sell ads for a certain amount of time or they want to update from an older ad, it's a great way to do that. But that's the one thing that I am kind of missing in my
hosting site is having dynamic content. I would like to be able to not have to go back into my old episodes and basically re upload a new MP 3 file just to update people with, like, the new things that I'm doing. For example, like, my website, you know, like, I'd like to have an outro that says, like, hey, you know, find more at working towards our purpose.com. But right now with all my old episodes, I can't really easily do that.
So what I'll probably end up doing is changing the links in the show notes, which I will then have to do manually also and go into each episode and just, like, copy paste the link in to the show notes, which is going to take a little bit of time. But, again, with these dynamic content blocks, like, it's really easy to change things like that. So that's one thing that I would be looking for if I was getting a host these
days. But, yeah, I just wanted to share the findings of my research and to say that Red Circle would be the platform that I would use. Also, a disclaimer, I haven't really used Red Circle that much. I helped a client get an account for it and get their podcast moved over, but I haven't really done any work on it yet. So, again, maybe more to come with that, but let me know what hosting site that you use and, you
know, which one that you think is the best. So those are the three things that, I I've been thinking about this month as far as podcasting, and, I'm happy to bring this podcast back. And I think it just makes sense for me to, in alignment with my newsletter that I release at the beginning of every month, it makes sense to release one of these podcast episodes at the beginning of every month also. And so, yeah, you can you can look forward to 1 episode a month, you know, which is, again,
a drastic change from my 2 episodes a week. But these episodes should be a little bit longer format than the old episodes were, and I think they're gonna be more relevant and more on topic with, like, the new things coming out for podcasting. As a podcaster myself, I'm always looking out for, like, stuff that helps me produce my show or grow my show. And I'm also always working with clients and helping them out with their podcast and
their podcasting problems. So, you know, this is my way of being able to kinda just pass it down and help my fellow podcasters. So the links for everything that we talked about, I'll link Red Circle, and I'll link Opus clips, in the show notes so you don't have to go too far to find them. And I will look forward to talking to you on on my episode at the beginning of next month. And at that time, I'll hopefully have learned a lot about creating a podcast website. So, you know,
maybe that's one of the things that I'll talk about next month. But thank you for listening and tuning in. I hope this podcast was helpful. If you aren't signed up for my newsletter, you can also do that with the link in the show notes, and I will see you all next month. Happy podcasting. This show was produced by Pleasant Podcast. And if you need help launching your own podcast, go to podcast where you can check out my offerings and some of my freebies to help you launch
and grow your own podcast. And if you haven't signed up for the Help Me podcast newsletter, you can also do that with the link in the show notes. Thank you for listening and I'll catch you on an episode real soon.