(upbeat music)
- We've talked a lot about the RODECaster Pro
and what an awesome tool
it is for recording audio and creating podcasts,
but the next question that comes up inevitably
is once you've recorded something,
how do you send your podcast out into the world?
My name is Tom, this is the Enthusiasm project
and today I'm gonna share with you why I use Anchor
to distribute my podcast.
And this is not in any way a sponsored video.
I did not talk to Anchor about making this.
It's just a thing that I use.
I'm just a guy that uses Anchor
and I like it and it's very helpful
and people have asked this question,
so I wanted to share it with you.
Why on Earth would you wanna use a service like Anchor
instead of just distributing your podcast yourself?
For me, five or six years ago,
I produced several different podcasts
and I was in charge of all the distribution
and uploading and I was doing everything manually
and it was awful.
I couldn't stand it, it was like the most tedious process
to get everything configured, to get it uploaded and updated
and to set up all the feeds to go to the different services.
It's not that it's the most difficult thing in the world,
but I just found it to be so clunky and so time consuming,
that I actually dreaded,
any time there was a new episode,
because it meant that I
would have to go through this process again.
So fast forward a few years,
wanting to start a podcast of my own
and Anchor is an option that's available.
And the reason I chose Anchor
is because it just gets out of the way
and let's me upload my podcast to the world.
It's almost like YouTube for podcasts.
So once you have your podcasts finished,
that means all you do is upload your MP3 file
directly to Anchor and then it sends it out
to all the services that you select.
And you can be in charge of which services
your podcast is available on.
Anchor is owned by Spotify,
but it works with all the other services.
It takes a couple days when you first create your account
for everything to become active
and then after that it's just automatic
and it's beautiful and it's free.
But there's also a bit of confusion
and misconceptions and even what seems like downright
conspiracy theories about Anchor.
So I wanted to go through those and address them
and then you can decide for yourself and your workflow,
if Anchor's right for you.
This really sounds like an add, but I promise it's not.
But if you're from Anchor and you wanna pay me for it,
I'll take the money.
All you do is go to Anchor and click on Sign up
and you can create a free account.
From there you'll have a dashboard to your channel.
Here is mine, you can adjust your channel art,
which will appear across all of the platforms.
You can do your description.
For me, I have my podcast available
on nine different platforms, so it goes to Anchor,
Breaker, Google, Apple, Overcast, Pocket Casts,
Radio Public, Spotify and Stitcher
and I have done nothing other than just click these options,
when I started my account.
And I just figured why not put it out on everything.
Make it as widely available as possible.
And my podcast is very much a side project
so I pretty much like never promote it
and it still kinda shocks me if people say,
"Hey, I heard that episode of your podcast".
'Cause it's like, oh, people can listen to this.
But that just proves to me that these things actually work.
It gets out there,
people can search things and find things.
Once you've got an episode ready to go,
all you do is click New Episode
and then you just upload your episode right here.
It processes and you click Save.
From there, you can add in a description.
You can add in season number, episode number.
You can select if it's going to be a
clean or explicit episode.
You can basically change all that info.
You can even do individual artwork
for each episode of your podcast.
And of course you can schedule it,
so it doesn't have to post right away.
You can schedule it for a certain day and time,
so that way you can plan ahead and be very organized
and super professional about your podcast.
But the cool thing about this Create your episode page,
is it does give you a few options
that are kinda awesome.
If you don't have your own editing software,
you do a lot just from within Anchor.
And they also have an app,
so you can even do some of this stuff on your phone.
Which makes everything very accessible, very, very easy.
So from here you can literally capture audio
in your browser, you can do the same thing on your phone.
You can even bring in guests.
So if you wanted to an interview,
you could do it that way.
The coolest thing, I think though,
is that you can do messages.
So if you click on Messages,
people can go to your Anchor page,
click on Leave a Voice Message
and they can just through their phone or whatever,
just leave a message for you kinda like a voicemail.
And then you can listen to it,
but you can bring it in to a future episode.
And one of my favorite things to do,
(slam)
ouch, when I'm recording, is I just connect my computer
to the back of the RODECaster Pro
and if I want to include a listener message,
I just say, you know, "Hey, we talked about this last week
and this person had an idea so here's
you know, so and so's message",
and then I just play it.
Listen to it on the RODECaster,
it records directly into the podcast
and then I can upload that as a new episode.
You can click on individual episodes
and you can see the analytics for those episodes.
Look at this beautiful chart here,
it's like the back end of a rollercoaster.
There is even a money tab
and if you go there,
you have the option to use sponsorships, listener support,
different ways to make money with your podcast.
There's no threshold to this.
You can start right away
and then basically every impression of an add,
or an Anchor sponsorship gets you money.
Now for the last part of this video,
I want to address where a lot of the confusion
comes from with Anchor.
Which is the terms of service.
So, I am not a lawyer, I'm not an expert.
I've been using it for a couple of years.
I have had zero issues.
But I just wanna show you directly from Anchor's website,
their terms of service.
You can kinda see some of the more tricky areas
that people have been dealing with.
Anytime you create an account,
you're automatically agreeing to these terms of services.
So it's a good idea for you to read
through them thoroughly on your own.
They're actually not crazy long,
compared to like iTunes or something.
So, it's pretty digestible and they have little summaries
throughout to help you understand what's happening.
Basically, there is a lot of controversy
about what Anchor was and wasn't doing
and Anchor addressed that by trying to make things
as clear as possible and remove ambiguous language
as much as possible.
Which I actually really appreciate.
So part one is eligibility.
Ideally you're over 18
and you're just in charge of everything.
But if you are under 18, but over 13,
you can use Anchor with parent permission.
Registration, they're just saying
you're responsible for your account.
This ownership section here, number three,
is saying that basically Anchor owns Anchor's stuff.
Down here in number four is where we get into user content.
And this is where when we create stuff
and we upload it to Anchor, what happens?
Where are the rights, who owns it?
All that kinda stuff.
So, basically what they say is,
first you are responsible for making sure that the content
you post is legal, is appropriate, doesn't break anything.
Anchor's not responsible for that.
The rights that you're giving Anchor,
according to their terms of service,
is basically the right to host and distribute your podcasts.
And there was some confusion,
because people were saying,
"Well, I don't wanna give Anchor the rights to my podcasts",
and you're not giving up the rights
to anything that you own.
You're giving them the limited rights to distribute it.
Because legally they have to have some kinda rights
to your content in order for them
to send it out to other people.
You still own everything and they say that very explicitly
in their terms of services.
It says in bold, you own your content.
Anchor prides itself on empowering creators
and we have no intention to take ownership
of your content in any way.
You're giving us permission to host,
use and distribute the content you create.
For example, this allows us to syndicate your content
at other platforms so that you're audience
can hear your podcast anywhere they choose.
And then of course, you're also saying,
that your content does not infringe on anyone else's rights.
You're not just violating copyrights all over the place
and you're doing you're part,
they're doing your part
and together, everybody's making podcasts.
There's a giant section on user guidelines.
Which kind of looks like the part of my classroom syllabus
that I use with my students.
Which is basically all the stuff you can't do.
If it's illegal, or terrible,
or in super bad taste, don't do it.
Kinda just like with YouTube
or any other online platform like this.
The monetization section, number nine,
kinda goes over what we talked about.
How it works, the different ways you can make money,
who's eligible, who's not, how payment works,
when you get paid, how you get paid.
All of that sort of stuff.
And then they go into account termination
and arbitration and more serious things.
That's beyond me, nothing I do is gonna go into that.
Hopefully nothing you do is gonna go that seriously.
Essentially, if you just wanna upload a podcast
and not have to deal with all of the feeds
and everything manually, yourself, Anchor works great.
I think there are other services that do similar things.
I've been using Anchor for over two years,
just about two years and I love it.
It works wonderfully, it maintains audio quality.
I've never had a single complaint,
and I've never had a single issue.
And in conjunction with the RODECaster Pro,
I can finish recording a podcast
and have it uploaded to Anchor within five or ten minutes.
And scheduled and ready to go.
Which is about the simplest workflow I can imagine.
Now again, I'm not a lawyer,
or even a professional podcaster.
I'm just a guy who uses Anchor
and I wanted to explain to you
why that service works really well with me.
Might not be perfect for you, depending on your needs
and maybe there's something I even missed in here.
Something I overlooked that's really important,
where it's like, "Oh my gosh, why are you using that?"
I don't think so, but if there is,
I definitely love hear about that so that we're all
as informed as possible.
So I hope that's helpful and useful information.
Especially since so many of us
have been starting podcasts lately.
It almost seems like it's a legal requirement in some ways.
And actually, it reminds me, do you know what a group
of dolphin actors is called? A podcast!
Because a group of dolphins is a pod
and they're like a cast of actors.
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