These Are The Tools We Use To Run Our Podcast
Bluehost – This is our web hosting company. Without Bluehost, there’d be no excusemyadlib.com or emaradio.com. Now why would you be a podcaster today without a website? Your website is your hub. Any and all information your listeners need from you shouldn’t come from Twitter (where it’s easy to miss tweets) or Facebook (for the same reason). It should reside on your website. Your website is your storefront. Bluehost’s customer service far outweighs the very light damage done to your pockets. Well worth the investment. Sign up now.
WordPress – After you sign up for Bluehost, the next thing you need to do is install WordPress. This is, by far, one of the fastest ways to get a website up and running these days. It’s also one of the easiest ways to manage your website. You can make major updates easily and quickly when necessary. You can also change the design with a flick a da wrist. AND, your site will be responsive (adjust to fit the device it’s being viewed on). To sum it all up…you NEED WordPress if you’re going to have a website and not pay a developer out the ass to make updates. You don’t have to be technical AT ALL.Trust me. Go sign up.
PODCAST
Libsyn – So we obviously do a show, right? The technical term is a podcast. Our podcast is simply an audio file. These files can be big. We need somewhere to host them. In other words, we need someone to hold it for us while we use it. That’s where Libsyn comes in. We store our audio files with them, but post them on Stitcher, iTunes, our site and other podcast curator services. The files would slow our site down if we tried to host them there. You absolutely need to sign up for a Libsyn account if you’re going to be a podcaster. Don’t eff around. Go do it.
Aweber – If you’ve joined the EMA Mailing list, then you’ve probably gotten some emails from me (Big Therm) on behalf of the crew. Well check it out, when you get those emails, I’m not necessarily writing them at that time. Aweber allows me to set up what’s called an Autoresponder. That means I can write like 30 emails (in one day) and send them out to you over the course of two months (one every two days). I can even personalize them (to include the recipient’s name or whatever). All the work for this to happen could’ve been done in one day. I can do a TON more with Aweber. It’s crazy. Sign up and if you do, lemme know and I’ll give you some personal consulting on how to truly maximize this tool.
PRODUCTIVITY
Groupme – This is simply how me, J-Boss and Rozay keep in touch on a regular basis. We have very busy lives, so we can’t always physically get together (outside of recording the show). Groupme acts as our virtual office or lounge, even. We communicate about ALL things EMA with Groupme. We love the design, reliability and flexibility (can use on Android, Apple and on a computer). I realize there’s other group chat tools out there, but we fux with Groupme. Get an account, my g. Their emoji game is on point too.
Wunderlist – Every week on the show we have to cover at minimum, 13 topics. In addition to that we make announcements, give shoutouts and present yams of the week. That’s just the main show. We have another show, (Diggin’ in the Crates) and a weekly blog post (Top 5 Fridays). We have meetings and many other administrative things we have to do related to the show. To track these things, we use Wunderlist. It’s a list-making app. It allows you to create all kinds of lists. It can be accessed via all devices and keeps you logged in (can’t stand when I get logged out of an app). Give it a try.