Podcast Transcription: How to Get Your Show Transcribed

11/18/20 • 11 min

2 Listeners

In a nutshell: Podcast Transcription is essential to good PR. This article covers three means of getting it done.

You can do it yourself, with some simple tools.
You can hire a freelancer.
You can try a service. This article will also discuss the pros and cons, whys and hows, of a few different transcription services.

We think of podcasting as a purely aural medium, but we ignore podcast transcription at our peril (not to sound like a character from I, Claudius). In all seriousness, if your podcast doesn't have transcripts, that's an awful lot of audience you're missing.

“Wait a minute!” you say. “Transcripts are more time and money. How much do you expect me to invest in this podcasting thing? What's in it for me?”

We've already talked about why you should use transcripts. It bears repeating, however:

11 million people in the UK and 10 million people in the US are d/Deaf or hard of hearing
Many folks have auditory processing disorders
Transcripts of your podcast episodes can boost your search engine optimization
Transcripts are another avenue for more people to understand and engage with your content.

In this article, we're not going to talk about why you want to invest the additional work or money into podcast transcription. We're going to talk about different methods or companies that you can use to get your podcasts transcribed, and in front of your audience.

DIY Methods for Podcast Transcription

If your podcast is a scripted audio drama, you can certainly use that script. You can also sit down and type out your podcast's recording, word for word. If you're already a professional stenographer, this won't bother you too much. However, not many people have that skill set or patience.

Dictation Software Hack

Another option for podcast transcription (recommended in a livestream by our friends at Music Radio Creative) is to use Google Docs voice typing. Here's how it works:

Open up Chrome (you have to use Google's Chrome browser, otherwise the tool isn't available)
Go to Google Docs and open a fresh document
Click on Tools and select Voice Typing from the drop-down menu. A nifty little icon of a microphone will appear. At the top of the microphone, select your language.
Open up your DAW and start playing the sound file you want transcribed.
Click the little microphone icon. It'll change colors. As the microphone picks up the dialogue, the text will appear on screen.

When you try this, make sure that the audio is cued up at the point where you want it transcribed. if you let it run through a minute of intro music or so, the voice typing tool won't recognize the music as anything useful, and will shut itself off.

Google's Voice Typing was pretty good at recognizing what I said when I tried it. To test its accuracy, I selected UK English, US English, and Nigerian English, to see if there would be differences in the resulting text. There wasn't.

You'll end up with pages and pages of unpunctuated text. It's very stream-of-consciousness. You will have to go through it and format it, put in punctuation and check for errors. However, it saves you a lot of time over typing the audio word for word.

There's a quality control issue here, as well. You may notice as you're making this podcast transcript, that you notice the dialogue as an outsider. Transcribing the podcast yourself will help you see the details of what you talk about, and how.
Video Captions

Another DIY method is to use your audio to make a video, upload it to YouTube, and use its closed captioning to provide a transcript. I can't vouch for the accuracy of YouTube's closed captioning. Joe Rogan uses this exclusively, and it works for him. Your mileage may vary.

Headliner is a free app which can be used to make audiograms (and it's fun to use). It's 100% worth your time to try it out, and see how its captioning system fits your podcast.

Think about your SEO for a second. Google's Product Manager for Google, Brad Ellis, spoke about automatic captioning and SEO at the Streaming Media Conference in 2016. He said that when a YouTube user uploads their own captions, Google does index them. But, because the automatic transcriptions are error-prone, they are not indexed. Granted, this ...

In a nutshell: Podcast Transcription is essential to good PR. This article covers three means of getting it done.

You can do it yourself, with some simple tools.
You can hire a freelancer.
You can try a service. This article will also discuss the pros and cons, whys and hows, of a few different transcription services.

“Wait a minute!” you say. “Transcripts are more time and money. How much do you expect me to invest in this podcasting thing? What's in it for me?”

We've already talked about why you should use transcripts. It bears repeating, however:

11 million people in the UK and 10 million people in the US are d/Deaf or hard of hearing
Many folks have auditory processing disorders
Transcripts of your podcast episodes can boost your search engine optimization
Transcripts are another avenue for more people to understand and engage with your content.

DIY Methods for Podcast Transcription

Dictation Software Hack

Another option for podcast transcription (recommended in a livestream by our friends at Music Radio Creative) is to use Google Docs voice typing. Here's how it works:

Open up Chrome (you have to use Google's Chrome browser, otherwise the tool isn't available)
Go to Google Docs and open a fresh document
Click on Tools and select Voice Typing from the drop-down menu. A nifty little icon of a microphone will appear. At the top of the microphone, select your language.
Open up your DAW and start playing the sound file you want transcribed.
Click the little microphone icon. It'll change colors. As the microphone picks up the dialogue, the text will appear on screen.

Headliner is a free app which can be used to make audiograms (and it's fun to use). It's 100% worth your time to try it out, and see how its captioning system fits your podcast.

Previous Episode

Podcast Tips: 7 Strategies to Build a Successful Show that Thrives

The question “How do I make a successful podcast?” differs from the question “How do I make a podcast?” in a whole bunch of ways. There's a difference between a show that merely exists, and one that thrives. Let's dive in to some podcast tips that'll help lead you to the latter.

After all, it's never been easier to actually launch a podcast. You don't need to spend a lot at all, and there are countless tools out there that can make things really easy for you.

Once you've recorded a piece of audio and uploaded it to your media host, you can find your very first episode proudly sitting in places like iTunes and Spotify before the week is out.

This simplicity and low barrier to entry is a good thing overall, because it enables almost anyone to get their message out there, regardless of their background or experience.

But a huge amount of podcasters give up after just a handful of episodes, and that's a by-product of how easy it is to launch. If something is created without much thought or genuine purpose, then it's also easy to quit.

So as we've already put together a really popular step by step guide on how to start a podcast, we thought we could maybe now take a deeper dive into how you can make a successful podcast.

What steps can you take to make sure your podcast will actually achieve the things you want it to?

How do you give it the best possible chance of getting through those tough early days and sticking around for the long haul?
1 – Define a Successful Podcast

First thing's first: success means many different things to many different people.

For some, it's about the big download numbers. Others dream of earning a full-time living from their shows. Many business podcasters see success as getting regular sales enquiries because of their content. And for others, it's simply a case of having a creative outlet and a platform to tell their stories.

So in order to work towards your own version of a successful podcast, you need to first ask yourself, “What does success look like to me?”

2 – Have a “Why”

When you run a podcast, things don't always go to plan.

Life can get in the way, hardware and software can break, files can vanish, and there's really no shortage of things that'll test your patience in the long run.

When things go wrong, you really need to have a solid core reason for wanting to podcast. One that's big enough that it'll never be overshadowed by any of the above.

That ties in to how you define success. But with the question “Why am I doing this?”, it's more about the journey than the destination, as cliched as that might sound.

3 – Play The Long Game

One podcast tip that many aspiring podcasters don't like to hear is that it can take years to build an audience.

And in order to make a successful podcast you need to be prepared to turn up consistently and regularly over the next few years.

That doesn't mean that you can't have short-term goals though. It's definitely a good idea to break down your main ambitions into smaller achievable aims. This can help give you a sense of progression.

But hopefully you just enjoy the process of running a podcast. If you do, then you'll stand the best chance of sticking at it and growing an audience.

If you don't enjoy it, then certainly nobody is going to enjoy listening to you. And it won't be long before you start missing episodes, before giving up altogether.

If you've recently launched your podcast and it's already making you miserable, then it's time to go back to the drawing board. Check out why it might be time to quit your podcast for more help with this.

4 – Make It Sustainable

A big part of enjoying the process of podcasting, is that it isn't a complete battle to get new episodes done and out.

In the planning stages it's easy to have big plans about the time you can dedicate to your show each week. It's also easy to create an episode template in your head that's going to take a lot of work to produce on a regular basis.

The key to making sure working on your podcast isn't something you dread, is to build a workflow of sust...

Next Episode

How to Record a Podcast

This is it: time to record a podcast. Planning is great, publishing is a given, but recording, that's where the magic happens.

In this article I'm going to cover every step. Here's a quick summary on how to record a podcast:

Planning: what prep do you need to do so that the recording goes smoothly?
Equipment: what gear do you need to be able to record a great quality show?
Software: what tools do you need to be able to capture your audio?

By the end of this article, you'll know everything you need to record a podcast. All that's left is to hit that big red button, and get your voice out into the world!

Planning to Record a Podcast

It's tempting to miss this bit out... You know the subject, after all, and you're raring to go! Why not just wing it?

Well, as much as I'm a fan of the seat-of-the-pants approach, an episode plan can make a huge difference to the quality of your show. Don't worry, this doesn't need to take up your whole day. A small plan can make a big difference.
Plan the Topic

First thing, what are you going to talk about? This is the gold. If you choose the wrong episode topic, then your $500 Heil mic and your pro-level Zoom H6 recorder don't matter a whit. Listeners won't care about the show, perfect audio quality or not.

So, do your research. Figure out your ideal listener, and particularly what they care about. Then, for each episode, think:

What questions are your listeners asking?
What problems are they experiencing?
What are they struggling with, right now?

Every episode, you should tackle one of them.

How do you figure that out? Good old fashioned keyword research, tailored for podcasting. Check out that article for a full rundown of tools that can help you find a bunch of questions that you can answer.

Script the Episode

Scripting is an oft-debated topic. Should you go super-detailed, or might you go quite light and off-the-cuff? I answered that in a full article on how to script a podcast with a few examples. But, let's cover it in brief.

On the one hand, a detailed script can make for a really tight, value-packed episode. It cuts the rambling and ensures you cover every single thing you need to.

The only trouble is, a detailed script can cut the spontaneity and drain your personality from an episode. It does take quite a bit of skill to read a detailed script and still sound natural, conversational. But, it's possible.

Plus, of course, it takes quite a lot of time to put together something so detailed.

On the other hand, a light script – just a collection of bullet points really – can provide enough guidance, but not tie you down. You can be more engaging, more free-flowing, more personable, and it takes much less time to prepare.

But, again, the downsides... with a light-touch script, you can much more easily lose your way, forget things and repeat yourself. The waffle factor increases dramatically and your episodes will tend to be longer. That's not necessarily a good thing...

It often comes down to personality and practice. Start with a detailed script, until you get more comfortable on the mic. Then, reduce the detail, bit by bit, until you find that balance between time spent, benefits gained and recording style.

What Equipment Do I Need to Record a Podcast?

You Need a Microphone

First, let's capture that voice. That's what the humble microphone is designed to do. You can find a collection of the best microphones here, so have a browse through and pick something that fits your space and budget.

If you want to keep things simple, go for a USB microphone. You'll plug that right into your computer, and record there. No other equipment needed, just software. I'll cover the recording software below.

A USB mic is ideal for anyone that'll be recording a solo show, or if you'll be recording with others o...