Recently, some of the biggest chatter across creative industries has been surrounding AI. Since Chat GBT, a sophisticated AI software was launched in November 2022, the podcast industry has been buzzing with speculation about the role AI will play in podcasting.
There’s one thing for certain, AI is here to stay. Anyone who ignores that fact is both passing up a great resource and trying to fight the inevitable.
When it comes to AI, the people who will get the most benefit are those who learn to use it as a tool to increase their success, and not people who are afraid of it. Even as AI becomes more regulated, the likelihood of it disappearing is slim.
So, how can you embrace AI and let it help in your podcast production process?
Script-writing
If you’re involved in the content creation process of your podcast, you know how tedious the script-writing process can be, especially if there are multiple people and opinions involved. That’s where AI comes in.
More sophisticated AI platforms can write copy for you, and also take pre-existing copy and edit it to your specifications. For example, if you think a section of your script needs to be more concise, you can feed it into an AI and direct it to create a more tailored version that contains the same information.
As of right now, we recommend steering away from having AI write an entire script for you. While it’s a great editor, it does have a tendency to get repetitive when it comes to longer-form content. Besides, the one thing AI lacks is human creativity!
AI's that can help with scripting:
Quick Tip: When it comes to AI, what you give is what you get. Be as specific as possible!
Content editing
Make your life easier by running any content associated with your podcast through an AI that edits content for grammar and spelling. Think scripts, guest questions, episode descriptions, shownotes, etc. This is a great way to catch those pesky little errors that many of us miss!
Most of these AI's will also help you improve sentence structure to improve clarity and avoid repetition, giving your podcast content and promotional copy a bigger impact.
Some editing AI softwares include:
Podcast editing
AI isn’t only helpful for editing copy and content that supports your podcast, but it can also assist in the first drafts of the audio itself.
Giving your raw files to AI to either complete the first draft of your podcast episode or clean up your audio can help you and your team save a significant amount of time.
Some podcast editing AI softwares include:
Transcription
Making sure your podcast episodes are transcribed is an important part of the podcast process. Having and posting your episode transcriptions makes it easy to re-use content on your other channels, boosts SEO and visibility, and makes your show more accessible.
But if you’ve ever manually transcribed a podcast episode, you know it’s a nightmare. That’s why some great transcription AI software now exists.
While some hosting platforms (like CoHost) include transcription software, others do not (or they come at an extra charge).
If your hosting platform doesn’t include automatic transcriptions, we recommend:
Podcast marketing & promotion support
There are various ways to use AI when marketing your podcast, but here are a few areas that make the biggest impact:
Blog posts
If you're a marketer, you’re undoubtedly familiar with SEO, and it’s an important part of podcast discoverability.
Take advantage of AI to increase the amount of SEO-driven blog posts you release. Maybe you feed the AI with a brief for each podcast episode you release and have a blog accompany it, or you use AI to go deeper on a topic you covered in an episode.
The opportunities are endless. But remember, use the blog it creates as a jumping-off point. Make sure to add your own personality, ideas, and content before publishing.
Podcast website copy
Getting stuck on writing some killer landing page copy? AI can help. Use the software to come up with multiple headline options, meta descriptions, and actual body copy for you to add to your website.
Social media posts
Among our favourite uses for these tools are social media posts.
Social media can be a powerful tool to help grow your podcast by building a community, engaging with listeners, and sharing additional content. Use AI to help generate your week's worth of posts to share with your audience.
Copy AI’s to take advantage of:
Bonus: How to brief the AI software
When it comes to most AI software (like Chat GPT), it’s all in the brief.
Let’s say you want to write a Twitter post to promote your most recent podcast episode, where you interviewed an expert about recruiting talent in the healthcare industry.
Here are some examples of bad, mediocre, and great brief.
Bad brief: Write me a post for Twitter about recruiting in the healthcare industry
Mediocre brief: Write me a post for Twitter about my interview with (interviewees name) for my podcast (podcast name) about recruiting talent in the healthcare industry
Great brief: Write me a post for Twitter about my interview with (interviewee's name) for my podcast (podcast name) about recruiting talent for the healthcare industry. Make it insightful, use conjunctions, and avoid repetition. Make the last sentence include a call to action and include the keyword ‘healthcare recruitment.’
Make AI your friend, not foe
As more and more AI softwares, with different capabilities, hit the market, brands will increasingly begin to use them. To remain competitive and increase your efficiency, you need to start thinking about how AI will fit into your podcast strategy.
It’s people who learn how to use AI to get the best results that will get the most benefit from it, and those who fight against it who risk falling behind. AI can be an extremely helpful tool once you know how to use it.
So, play around with a few different AI's until you find a good fit. Experiment with different briefs to see what gets you the result you’re looking for. AI is here to stay, so make sure you’re leveraging it to its full ability.
