29: How to Conduct Interviews for Your Podcast

Written By Britany Felix
 
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In last week's episode, we covered how to streamline your interview process. Now it's time to talk about how to actually conduct these all these interviews you're going to be lining up.

In this episode, I'm covering each of the most commonly used methods for recording remote interviews including Pamela, Zencastr, Ringr, SquadCast, Zoom, Facebook/YouTube Live, Skype with a 3rd party call recorder; including which ones to avoid and which one is my top recommendation.

Note: Since recording this interview, I’ve been able to start using SquadCast. While it did have some issues when they released version 2, as of December 2019, I am still using it to conduct interviews for my own show and I do recommend it to my clients.

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Transcript

welcome to podcasting for coaches i'm Britany Felix and i'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business i realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show so i created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients if you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more welcome to episode 29 of podcasting for coaches in episode 27 we talked about how to find guests for your podcast and in episode 28 we talked about how to schedule the interviews with your guests in this episode we're going to talk about how to actually conduct those interviews now the absolute best setup for conducting interviews with your guests with going to ride the most reliability and the best quality is fairly complicated with extra equipment and a lot of different things that you have to kind of make sure are in place before the actual interview and there's a lot of different components to that process so while yes there are technically ways to get better quality interviews than what i'm going to talk about in this episode they are quite a bit more complicated and i don't want them to overwhelm anyone or seem like another hurdle that they have to get over or just be another thing that prevents someone from having a podcast so right off the bat i'm going to talk about a couple of programs that if you have been hanging around in some facebook groups or reading some articles or taking some courses you might have heard of and i'm actually going to talk about why i don't recommend these programs the first one is a program called pamela this is actually what i started off using to conduct interviews way back when three years ago now at this point and it's because the program that i went through at the time recommended it unfortunately less than a year after i started using it it basically stopped working it stopped being compatible with skype and constantly caused issues with losing calls the interviews would be recorded but then there'd be no audio files afterwards or the files would be corrupted so they wouldn't be usable all kinds of different issues so we stopped using that unfortunately there are still some programs and articles out there that recommend this program because they have not been updated since then since it was a fantastic program and super reliable so anytime that you're reading any of these blogs or taking any courses or anything like that please check to see when it was published or created or last updated because the podcasting world and technology in general is ever changing constantly there are new updates programs no longer work new programs come around better techniques come out so definitely make sure that you're paying attention to when these things are last updated next is another program that was huge for a while called zen caster i actually loved it i shouted it from the rooftops that it was a fantastic program you didn't have to use skype and deal with connection issues on there it was reliable and the quality was fantastic and it gave you separate tracks for each person on the call it was amazing while it was in beta unfortunately literally the weekend it came out of beta things started falling apart i lost i think like five or six calls in a matter of just a few weeks and same issues you would find out that there was only one track and not the guest or the guest track would be 10 minutes shorter randomly than the host or it would just get stuck forever in like saving and uploading the call after you finish and so you'd never actually get the recording i had to contact support constantly in all fairness they were great guys they really tried to work with me but i just could no longer recommend the program and that was summer of 2017 actually earlier than that i think even and i'm still seeing facebook posts in various podcasting groups where they are still having these issues so i do not personally recommend that you use and caster there are a few people who can use it and never have an issue until they do and i just really prefer to avoid any of those issues if we possibly can next i went to a program called a ringer after zen caster stopped working for me and ringer while the quality was okay i didn't think it sounded as great it had kind of a tinny kind of robotic tone to the voices it just wasn't really natural and the process was actually fairly complicated i had to literally send instructions to each of my guest prior to the interview to let them know how to even access the call and they had to use certain browsers and if they were on their phone they had to download an app and most of the time they had to delete apps from their phone to put this one on there A lot of times it would come time for the call. And I would literally spend the first five or 10 minutes just instructing the person how to get on the call. It was kind of a nightmare. And it was a paid service, whereas there are other ones that are fantastic quality and just as reliable for free. So that's why I don't really recommend ringer. Next is one called squad cast. This is being recommended quite a bit right now. And it's being recommended by several people in the podcast editing and production sphere, that I highly respect and trust and know that they know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, for me, I have tried this program three different times. It's great in theory, it works kind of like Zen caster, you don't have to use Skype, it's supposed to allow separate tracks, it's supposed to be fantastic. But the first time I went to use this back in April 2018, I couldn't even sign up for an account, I literally tried to sign up for an account and the buttons didn't work, it wouldn't go anywhere. Nothing happened whenever I tried to sign up and I tried different ways, closing out my browsers and going back in just never could get it to work, came back a few weeks later was finally able to create an account and I went to go try it on a mock interview with one of my launch clients because I because I do a mock interview for all of them. So they're comfortable with the process for they actually hop on with a guest. And neither one of us can really get it to work. I sent him the link for the call. But for both of us to page two, the call was just completely blank, there was a black background, and that was it. Nothing else on the page at all. And it was doing that for both of us. And I'm a PC user, he's a Mac user, we definitely were not in the same place using the same device. So it clearly was not just an issue with mine. We actually tried using it again a couple of months later, because he had some things come up. And he wanted to redo the mock interview before he actually started conducting interviews. And again, we had issues, we were not able to get this call recorded. So Well, I think it's great. And it's highly recommended by a lot of people that I really respect and trust. I personally can't recommend it just because I've never been able to get it to work for me. So if you can try it out, and it works for you. Fantastic, because it seems like it should work, I'm thinking maybe there might just be an issue with something on my system. All of that doesn't explain why he was having issues as well. But again, I don't personally recommend it. So what I do recommend, is using Skype, and I know most people out there in the podcast production space, are going to cringe when they hear this because there are a few that listen. And it's because Skype is usually not set up to work to its full capability. Most people who use Skype, don't set it up for success. So whenever you hear all these negative things about Skype with connection issues and things like that, it's usually because they haven't done everything they can to make the connection as strong as possible. So if you're going to use Skype with a third party Call Recorder, which I'll go into in just a second, there are a couple of things that I want to make sure that you do. One, I want you to always make sure that you have the latest version of Skype. Two, I want you to shut everything else down on your computer, except for Skype, and the third party Call Recorder, literally everything else. This includes apps that run in the background like Dropbox or Cloud Sync. And even antivirus if you only have Skype, and a third party Call Recorder up and open. And it's one that I've suggested in one that you know that you can trust, you don't have to worry about getting a virus during your call. So you can shut off your antivirus just for the duration of the call, just don't forget to turn it back on when you're finished. This is going to ensure that all of the power from your computer is running into these two programs and isn't being drawn to help power something else. Third, I want you to make sure that you do not use video, Don't even start the call off with video, we want to make sure that every ounce is going into the connection for the call. And video calls just use way too much bandwidth and they really slow the connection down. And that's where it causes a lot of those jumps where audio cuts in and out. And the connection lags. So you're not really synched up and you're asking a question, and there's a delay before the answer. It's going to help with all of those things. Number four, if at all possible, I want you to hard wire into your internet connection. So if you are in the same room as your wireless box, if you have an ethernet cable, and you can plug that into your laptop or your computer, definitely go ahead and do that. That's going to ensure a much stronger connection than using the Wi Fi signal. And lastly, I want you to suggest these things to your guests as well. Are they going to do all of them? Probably not. Can they do some of them? Absolutely. They can know not to have the video on during their call and they can know to shut everything else down. So if you do those things that should help tremendously with the connection and quality of your Skype calls. If you are a Mac user, I want you to use a program called ECAM Call Recorder that's EC a m m Call Recorder. If you are a PC user I want you to use a program called a molto. That's a m o l to in the show notes for this episode, I'm going to have links to these programs, actually, I'm going to have links to everything that I mentioned pretty much except for the programs I don't recommend. And I'm also going to have links to some tutorials for these. So I'm not going to go into how to get these set up, because I have some tutorials in the show notes that are going to walk through that process with you. So e cam is paid, but I believe it's a one time payment, and you're good to go. A multiple actually has a free service. And I definitely recommend going with that one. Of course, with these programs, you'll just need to make sure that they are open whenever you go to start the call. And if they're not set up to start recording automatically, you'll just need to make sure you actually press the record button before you actually dive into the official interview content. Another big one that a lot of people are using these days to conduct interviews is zoom. So zoom is essentially an online video conference calling platform. The reason people are doing this is because it is a lot easier to use than Skype with a third party recorder, you basically just create a call, you send your guests a link. And that's it. It's super easy. Unfortunately, the quality is just not as good as you're going to get with Skype with a camera multo is the quality good enough? That's up to you to decide I have several clients who use zoom, and they're happy with the quality. It's not personally up to my standard. But it's something that you're going to need to test and check out for yourself. If it's good enough for you go ahead and use it. If you want something that is better quality go with Skype with a third party Call Recorder. One of the main reasons it is not necessarily the best quality is because they automatically compress your audio. So what compression does essentially is it shrinks the data for the file. So for the audio file that you get at the end, it has been literally compressed just like you think it would it shrinks it so that it makes it a much smaller file size, which makes it easier for transferring, which is what they think you're going to do. Unfortunately, when they are shrinking that down to a smaller size, they're removing some of the data that is attached to that audio file. Well, that data is literally your voice. That data is what makes the call sound so crisp and clear. So when it shrunken down and some of that's removed, the call doesn't sound as great, you sometimes sound a little bit muffled, you can sometimes sound a little bit wispy, almost like there's a static on your voice when there isn't really a static there. So even when it's removed in post production, there's still that kind of just airiness to your audio, I don't really know any better way to explain it. But it just doesn't sound great. So if you are going to use zoom, if you decide that you're okay with the quality, and this is what you want to go with, there are a couple of things that I want to have you do to make it just a little bit better. First, we need to make sure that you are turning on your original audio, there's actually a couple different ways to do this. And what this means is zoom is going to make sure that the audio that's recorded is what's actually going directly into your microphone. So when you're in your zoom account, if you go into my meeting settings, and you go into the advanced section of the meeting settings, and scroll, I don't know about three quarters of the way down through the page, there'll be an option that says allow users to select original audio or something like that. So you want to make sure that's turned on, then you want to start a call. And definitely you can do this without anyone on there, you can just start a regular call with yourself, it doesn't matter, there doesn't have to be anyone else in attendance. And that will bring up another box if you're signed in where you'll see a little setting section with a gear you know, just like a typical settings icon in there, if you click that, it'll bring up in call settings. Here you want to go to the audio section, and towards the bottom, you'll see a couple little check boxes. And there you'll also have an option to allow for original audio settings. So you definitely want to make sure that's checked as well. After you check this box, which you should only have to do both of those things one time, once you turn those on, they should stay on. Then on every interview call inside the actual call dialog box where you see the video if you ever do video calls, which again, I'd recommend that you do not same escape. You'll see in the upper left hand corner, there's a little grayed out box that asks if you want to turn the original audio settings on and just click that and it should turn blue, then you can start recording and do your call and you should be fine. So again, those first two steps, you should only have to do the very first time and then the third step you'll need to do for every single call. Next in that same individual call settings box where you check the little checkbox for original audio, you're going to go to the recording section. And in there you should make sure that you have selected so that each person can have their own audio track. Definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely. This is part of why I recommend e cam and part of why I recommend among It's because they allow for split track recording, which means you and your guests are on separate audio tracks. This is pretty much a requirement for me, definitely, we always want to do this and will help tremendously in the editing process. So once you have that selected, and you've conducted your call, and you're good to go, and it comes time to export your file there, then when you put it into your audio editor, what I want you to do, because they have compressed this down, and because it is done at a sample rate of 32,000, which I understand that you probably don't know what that means. We want to change this so that it's a little bit better quality. If you're using audacity in the bottom left hand corner, you should see a little box that says project rate. And there it should say 32,000. If you have just imported the track, right from zoom, click the little drop down box and select 44,100. And that'll help kind of boost that quality a little bit. So that's zoom in a nutshell. Again, don't use video. And make sure that you have original audio turned on in all three places, record an individual tracks and then change that sample rate from 32,000 to 44,100. So another thing that people like to do is do a Facebook Live or YouTube Live, and then repurpose that as a podcast interview. So some people are taking their already existing conversations via YouTube Live or Facebook Live and turning them into a podcast. And when it comes to that, we just have to work with it we have other people, however, choose to essentially do a two for one. So they're conducting their podcast interview, but they also broadcast it live. The reason for this is that it kind of helps you repurpose your content, you have content on YouTube and Facebook, and then in a podcast form as well, all during one call. In addition to that, it also allows you to mention on the podcast that you broadcast these kind of behind the scenes things on these other platforms. So it entices your podcast listeners to follow you on other platforms, so that they can see the pre and post interview chats, they can see the things that get edited out, they can see the real raw live version, and get some of that content that they're missing out on by only listening to the podcast. So that's all great in theory, I think that's fantastic. And it's wonderful. The problem of doing this is that your audio quality will suffer dramatically. The audio that comes from YouTube lives and Facebook Lives is not good. It's definitely worse than zoom. So I typically try to steer my clients away from doing this unless they are just dead set on it. Now, if you have separate devices that you can do this on, that's fantastic. If you can conduct your call with Skype and a camera or multo from your computer, and you have a phone that you want to set up right next to it and you want to do your live video from that phone. Fantastic. That is an absolute perfect setup, you can still go live, but you can still have a quality audio recording for the podcast. So the people that decide to go this route, I'm going to have some links in the show notes for how you can strip the audio from a YouTube video. And from a Facebook Live. If you use a program like B live, or I think the other ones called like OBS or something, any of these kind of services where they allow you to do live videos other than just recording right into the program itself, they may actually have a way for you to download the audio only form of that. And that would actually be better than stripping the audio from the video itself using a third party platform. So those are the most common ways that most people conduct their podcast interviews, unless of course, they're like a major production. And they can have a whole full studio setup. And they have all those other equipment. And they can get into the complex process that really will provide you with the best quality. But we're not going to go into that because you don't need to, you can have a podcast that is fantastic quality without spending extra money, having extra equipment going into an extra full complicated setup every time. There are two last things here that I want to mention. I know this episode is getting a little bit long, so I apologize. But one, just as I mentioned, I do with my lunch clients, I want you to do a mock interview with someone hop in a Facebook group and say, Hey, I'm going to start conducting interviews, but I want to make sure my setups okay. Would anyone mind hopping on a call with me? And letting me test everything out? And you'll probably have people that will say yes, if not reach out to people, you know, and I'm sure somebody will say, Okay, yeah, sure, I have no idea what I'm doing, but just tell me what to do. And I'll help you. And then you just walk through the whole process with them as if they were a guest just to make sure that you're comfortable with it. I recommend doing this with an experienced podcaster if you can, because then if you run into issues, they may be able to help you troubleshoot right there while you're on the call. During this call, you want to make sure that your audio levels are good for both you and your guests. You want to make sure you're comfortable with getting all of the programs up and running and recording. And then you also want to make sure that you're comfortable with how you get the audio files at the end otherwise known as exporting from your programs. And what I really recommend doing is actually while you're still on that call with that person, stop the recording, export the track and put it into your audio editing. program and spot check it. Take a quick Listen, see if there was something that stands out to you is your audio super, super, super loud. And maybe you need to adjust your setting and you didn't realize it is your guests incredibly quiet and you can hardly hear them. So maybe you need to adjust that setting. You can make all of those changes in real time while you have the person on the call. And you can just keep doing recordings until you really get it dialed in. And the last thing I want to mention is that I will actually have a PDF in the show notes for this episode with the pre interview checklist. So this is going to be a checklist that when you go to sit down and conduct an interview, you can run through this list just to make sure you've covered all your bases just to make sure you've done everything, like power everything down except for the recording programs, like hardwire, and like make sure your microphones plugged in and turned on because yes, that does happen. like making sure that both you and your guests have headphones, those kinds of things. So to find links for everything that I mentioned in this episode, go to podcasting for coaches. com, click on the podcast tab in the main menu, and then just go to Episode 29. Thank you so much for joining me this week. And I want to invite you to come back next week, where we are going to talk about what link you should share whenever you're promoting and sharing your podcast launch and episodes. Have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you're wondering if now is the right time to start a podcast for your coaching or consulting business, head on over to podcasting for coaches.com where you can either take a free quiz or schedule a one on one consultation with yours truly, thank you so much for joining me today and I will see you back here for the next episode.

 
Britany Felix
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28: Setting Up a Scheduling System To Streamline Your Podcast Interview Process