Practical Podcast Tips

What should you listen for when picking a song for your podcast? There's so many to choose from, how do you pick?

Did you find this episode helpful? Leave us a review at www.practicalpodcasttips.com. We'd love to hear how it helped!

Creators & Guests

Host
Eric Beels
Podcast Manager, Technical Director and Online Course Creator for Online Coaches, Speakers & Trainers

What is Practical Podcast Tips?

Looking for effective, simple and practical podcast tips? Are you just getting started with podcasting and not sure where to begin? Eric & Amber both give advice on helping you become a better podcaster using short, bite sized episodes. Podcasting can get challenging and exhausting, so doing what you can to make your time more efficient is one of the keys to maintaining your successful podcast. Stay consistent, stay effective, and grow your podcast!

New episodes released every Tuesday & Thursday!

Eric Beels 0:01
How do I find a good song for a podcast? What should you listen for? Keep listening to find out. You're listening to Practical Podcast Tips. My name is Eric Beels. And today, I'm going to cover tip number 20. What makes a good song for your podcast? Music plays a huge role in your podcast production, it really sets the tone for your podcast. But there are some things to listen out for and to kind of pay attention to when searching for some songs. For one, you know, make sure there's no like weird, distracting sounds in the songs, there's some songs I've heard, that have maybe a very unique tone to it, or a very unique jingle, where it can maybe just draws a little bit too much attention to itself, or has weird sounds in it. I mean, I've heard some songs with like, sometimes with like, sirens in it and whatnot. And I am not a fan of those ones. Because it's like, if I'm driving listening to something, I don't want to be hearing sirens. So I'd avoid like weird things like that. But one thing to consider too is music can become an identifier for your show. So sometimes a jingle can be a good thing, it just kind of depends. And you have to kind of use your own judgment for that. But one thing that I always like to say, to really think about and focus on when when picking a song for your show, is that the song should complement your voice. So make sure it goes well with the sound of your voice. The song for this show, I really like it. And it took a while for me to find a song that I liked, I thought fit well, I probably downloaded 20 Different ones before I found the one I wanted. And that doesn't include all the ones that I previewed to just on a relative free website. So the song should complement your voice. And it should always be supporting your voice. Remember, you're the star of your show. So the song should not be detracting or be drawing too much attention to itself. The song shouldn't be saying, Hey, look at me Look, this awesome song. It should be supporting you who is the star of the show people should be coming to listen to you and not the song that you that you have on your show. It's a challenging thing, because there's plenty of times where all hear a song that and think, oh yeah, this sounds really cool. I really liked the way this sounds. And I try it and test it out. And it just draws too much attention to itself. And so I don't like it. And it might depend on the podcast as well, too. You know, it's a challenging thing to just say what songs work and what songs won't work, simply because the style of your show might be different, you might have a specific style in mind that will fit your audience. But an another thing to keep in mind is what's the feeling the song creates, right? So listen to the song with headphones on and kind of pull away a little bit on what the song sounds like. And what's the feeling that you get when listening to that song? Do you feel inspirational? Do you feel super pumped up? Do you feel a little bit sad? What's the feeling you want to give your audience right? So if you're like a motivational speaker, or a sales coach, and you have a podcast, then you might want something that's super inspirational, right? Very, very hyper uplifting. Or if you have a podcast, that's maybe you're talking about more more sensitive subjects, maybe you don't want something that's going to make you feel super inspired. Or maybe you want something more gentle, maybe like more hopeful sounding right. And those are really good things to like search by and to sort by is kind of the feeling that song creates or generates within your within your audience. And, you know,

I'm a huge believer in in music and finding the right song, I will spend hours sometimes searching for the right song. And I'll go through hundreds of songs to find the right one because I think it's really really important to have the right song for your podcast. So if you're spending hours that's you're not the only one to spend that much time searching for a song I do that all the time because I think it's really really important. You know, with that said, you know, you should settle on something but what tends to work is you know, download a few selects that you really like four or five, maybe six different songs and see how they work and then if You're still not sure maybe show it to some people show to a few friends and see what see what they think. Right. So remember, when you're searching for a song for your show, make sure that it complements your your voice, that it doesn't draw too much attention to itself. So just remember that there's a lot of really cool ones out there, but maybe they draw too much attention. So just consider that when selecting one. And remember that you're the star of your show. Right? It needs to be complimenting you. And it's the song should be revolving around you on your show, and or your guest if you if you have guests on your show. And if you'd like to find out more on where you can find music, go ahead and look up episode 12 and Ammar talks about some of the locations of where you can find some relative free music and how to search for that. All right, that's it for this episode. I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to leave us a review. I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know somebody else that could benefit from it. Go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and see you in the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai