In Episode 58 of the Power Your Platform Podcast, I’m sharing 5 reasons why I script my podcast episodes. Let's take a look...
#1 – Ensuring Accessibility
The bonus of scripting my podcasts is that it allows me to capture the most important points very quickly and save them as a my podcast transcript. This allows my non-hearing clients to also benefit from my podcast. As podcasters, it’s really easy to forget about the importance of accessibility. But when we take the time to make our resources available to everyone, it benefits us all.
#2 – Repurposing Podcast Scripts as Blog Posts
It’s easy to repurpose podcast transcripts and create blog posts. All you need to do is cut and paste your podcast summary! Again, this is not only accessible for those who are a part of the Deaf community but it also is the way some people prefer to access the content.
So once again it expands my reach and my ability to get my message across to even more people than those who are listening to my podcast each week.
#3 – Scripting Keeps My Thoughts on Track
I’m a fan of frameworks and action items and processes that help explain to my listeners how they can move from point A to point B or overcome some kind of obstacle using a formula or approach that’s worked for me.
When I use a script, it helps me keep my ideas on track. When I’m going off on a tangent or I feel a rant coming on, I ask myself: is this on topic or is a topic for another podcast? And very often, it’s actually a separate podcast topic that I need to be creating at another time. The cool is that this means there is NEVER any shortage of podcast topics.
#4 – Scripting Works Best with My Personal Style
I’m a writer, so I think in sentences and paragraphs and not necessarily in free flow ideas which I know some other creators do. I’m someone who mulls over a topic for days sometimes before it becomes a podcast episode. So scripting is something that definitely come smore naturally to me than just winging it, and again that’s largely due to my own personality and preferences.
#5 – Scripting Makes It Easier to Work with an Audio Editor or Co-Host
Even if you’re a solo podcaster, you might share your audio files with an editor from time to time, and when you do, having the script to send a long makes it a lot easier for the other person to understand what needs to be added in or taken out, because the road map is there.
If you’re producing a podcast that’s co-hosted with someone else, then knowing who’s going to be saying what helps avoid repetition and interruptions.
So what are the downsides of scripting? First, it can be tempting to read in a monotone voice straight from the script. Second, it can seem to take a lot of time (though that’s time you’ll save in the long run).