Podcasting during the holidays poses several challenges. Is it okay to take a Christmas break? If you podcast, will your listeners be too busy to tune in? In this post, we’ll get into how you can best prepare your podcast for the holiday season.

 

Taking a Break

You need to work out whether to continue recording or take a break from podcasting during the holidays.

Maybe you’re concerned that people are busy around this time of year, and nobody has time to listen to podcasts. Or, perhaps you decided to take a break because it fits your personal circumstances better. Rather than giving your show a complete rest, consider preparing content in advance to put out so that your podcast doesn’t fall entirely off your audience’s radar. Some people actually have more free time for listening during the holidays.

 

Sticking to Your Podcasting Schedule

The advantage of sticking to your production schedule is that your podcast could have its chance to shine and stand out in a crowded arena if bigger podcasts are taking a holiday break. You might get some drop-in listeners who decide to stick around because your podcast really speaks to them.

Remember that most folks have time off during the holidays and many will travel. They’ll want to fill their phones with great podcasts to listen to.

There are creative ways and means to stick to your schedule. For example, if you usually have guests on your podcast but they are busy during the holidays, consider recording a few solo episodes.

There are advantages to pressing pause on releasing interviews until the New Year. Your guests might not be as on top of promoting their appearance on your podcast as they usually would be, and a great episode may slip between the cracks if you’re not both creating buzz around it. As long as the interview content isn’t likely to go stale, consider pushing your juicy interviews back until you know there will be time to promote them properly.

 

How to Flex Your Podcast Schedule

If you decide not to take a break, then there are a few ways to make releasing your shows easier. After all, you don’t want to be trying to edit out the sound of wrapping Christmas gifts because you ran out of time and are now taking multitasking to the extreme!

If you’re going to stick to your regular schedule while podcasting during the holidays, then remember the golden rule. Podcast hosts should always be prepared. Here are just a few ways you can get the jump on prepping your podcast for the holiday season.

  • Reduce your release schedule. If your show typically goes out weekly, you could half your workload by dropping temporarily to every other week.
  • Instead of letting your feed go completely inactive, prepare some re-releases. As long as your replays are well-curated, you’ll keep the interest of your listeners. These could even be in the form of a “best of the year” or “highlights” series.
  • Play with some new ideas. If you’re part of a podcasting community, then put the word out that you’re keen to do a guest host exchange. You even could help each other out and mix things up to keep your audience interested by replaying each other’s shows.

In short, the earlier you start getting ready for the holidays, the better. It’s much easier to spread this task out by preparing an extra episode a week rather than trying to cram everything in at the last minute.

 

Key Takeaway

It is true that releasing brand new content over the holidays may not be optimal since many of your usual listeners won’t get to hear it.

Using one of the ideas discussed here will help keep your podcast feed active, while optimizing your use of time in the best way.

Pre-planning your seasonal content ensures your podcast feed isn’t completely inactive over the holidays. As well, before you sit back and relax for the season, you may also wish to start planning your first couple of episodes for the new year so it’s easy to dive back in!

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Learn 6 quick, essential ways to ensure your podcast is running at peak performance.

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