Free Podcaster & Creator Resources For COVID-19

[00:00:00] Hey, and thanks for listening to the Podcasting Simplified podcast. My name is Ross. And today I put together some resources. Most of them are free for you, for podcasters, creators, small businesses, and basically anyone who is struggling during this time of uncertainty.

[00:00:28] So what I did was I kind of seeing a lot of different messages from different people on Twitter and email lists and things of different software or companies that are offering some other services for free, for specific uses or just in general. And I just wanted to highlight

[00:00:47] those so that you can take advantage of them if you need the help. So the first category that I have here is monetary help. So ConvertKit, the email service provider that I use and recommend, made a Creator Fund to help creators. And what they're doing

[00:01:06] is they're going to cover up to $500 for basically anything, any expenses that you may need help with. So that could be rent, childcare, groceries, medical stuff, you name it. And you just have to apply. And they started out with $50,000 but then a bunch of other companies joined in

[00:01:26] to kind of add to the fund. And so I believe there are up over 150,000 right now and I'm sure that'll continue to grow. But I just wanted to highlight that they are still looking

[00:01:38] for more people to help contribute to that. So if you're in a good position right now, you can reach out to their COO Barrett Brooks. It's B-A-R-R-E-T-T at convertkit.com to talk

[00:01:54] to him and arrange that. And then I'm in the U.S., so I know most people listening and reading the website are in the U.S. So the Small Business Administration is offering disaster relief loans for small businesses up to $2 million at a 3.75% interest rate.

[00:02:15] There are long-term interest rates and actually 2.75% for nonprofits. And those are great rates if you need the help. They are doing that pretty, I'm pretty sure in every state, every county, I'm in Colorado and I know it's available here for everyone. So that

[00:02:33] might be something to consider. And those are the monetary things. I know I've seen some stuff from Facebook and I know Amazon is doing some things for their local community near their offices in Washington. But those are the ones I wanted to highlight. Now, for software,

[00:02:54] Zencaster is a remote recording software and they have a free plan but they've removed all the limits for it. So you can have unlimited guests, unlimited recording time on their free

[00:03:05] hobby plan and go ahead and sign up. A lot of this stuff is going to be for a limited time but definitely something you can take advantage of right now. Buzzsprout, also the podcast hosting company that I use and recommend, is offering free pro accounts

[00:03:23] for schools or colleges moving classes online, federal, state or municipal governments, non-profit or charity working to help combat COVID-19 and then other requests on a case by case basis. So if you're really struggling, need some help, definitely reach out to them

[00:03:39] and they'll be happy to work with you. You just need to create a new podcast or account and it's free. There's no credit card needed to create an account. And then there'll be

[00:03:50] a COVID-19 button in the header that you'll click on and then you'll fill out a form there. Also, Wooshka is an Australian podcast hosting company and they're offering free private podcasting for schools K through 12 worldwide. And they actually rode the

[00:04:09] microphone company partnered with them and is offering equipment to schools in, I believe it's New South Wales and Australia. So really cool to see them kind of help there. And then also back to ConvertKit, they updated their free plan which came out recently,

[00:04:32] which now lets you send broadcast emails up to 500 people instead of up to 100 people. So that's a pretty big increase there. Great way to get started and maybe reach out to your community

[00:04:43] or start your email list, whatever you want to do. And they're also giving you access to two of their paid courses that I believe is called the Creator Pass. And so you can sign up for that.

[00:04:58] I'll have links in the description for all this stuff. And then I also have a, I put together a blog post with all this stuff as well. So it's at podcastinsights.com slash free. Try to keep it nice and short and easy to remember podcastinsights.com

[00:05:13] slash free. And then Anchor is a podcast hosting platform you may have heard of. I think it's a great option for kids and teachers or maybe if you're, you know, want to teach your teacher kids

[00:05:27] how to start a podcast, it's 100% free. It can be used all, you know, from a mobile device. So you don't need, you don't need to have a microphone hooked up to computer and all that

[00:05:39] stuff. You can just record right in your phone. It's a great way to learn how to edit to and you can publish all that stuff right from the mobile app, which is really cool for both iOS and Android

[00:05:52] devices. So check that out. It's a great way to get started. And I don't always recommend them for more serious businesses, but you know, right now it's a great free way to get started.

[00:06:05] And then I also have some courses, not I don't have courses, but there are some courses available for free right now that normally costs quite a bit. So the first one, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive

[00:06:21] Income is giving away Smart From Scratch, how to find a winning business idea and land your first customer. So that's normally $249 and you can sign up for free right now. And then

[00:06:33] Ahrefs, which is a, I don't know, SEO suite of tools. They do keyword research and rank tracking and stuff like that. They have a course called Blogging for Business. And I have taken it. I

[00:06:46] actually happened to win a copy a while back and it's a $799 course, which they're giving away for free. And it's excellent. They do some, they do great instruction. They have their own

[00:06:58] custom platform they, they designed it in. So definitely check that out. I think it would be a good, a good compliment to podcasting. So Blogging for Business is what that one's called. And then Digital Marketer, they, at digitalmarketer.com has opened up free access to the

[00:07:19] Digital Marketer Lab through the end of March and that may extend depending on how things go. So that is their full access to all the courses about anything online, online marketing. So Facebook ads, landing pages, email, list building, product launches, homepage design,

[00:07:39] you name it, there's like 30 other courses. So you can access that for 100% free, but not trying to upsell you on anything and that's till the end of, end of March. So definitely check that out and, and maybe this is a good chance to learn something new.

[00:07:56] And then I also have been getting a lot of questions and visitors asking about certain things. So I highlighted a handful of guides on podcastinsights.com that have been really popular in basically the last week. So I just wanted to kind of highlight those. I have free guides

[00:08:18] on how to start a podcast, how to start a WordPress blog about the best podcast recording software, both free and paid options. And then kind of going along with, what is it, Zencaster? There's remote recording software. There's other, other software

[00:08:39] companies available that do the same thing. So I have a post about that and then how to make money podcasting. This may be something you want to get serious about and people are definitely spending money right now. It's, it's not, you know, it's important to

[00:08:55] actually keep the economy going by selling and buying. So there's quite a few options in that post about how, how to make money. And there are some like in-person events that definitely

[00:09:08] wouldn't apply, but you can also kind of modify those and turn them into online events. So that is something you may want to check out. And then I also have a deals page. So if you're looking for

[00:09:22] deals or maybe a free month of something, I have lots of deals that, and I only post them from companies that I trust and have used or have vetted and have heard a lot of good things

[00:09:32] about. So that's another one. And then maybe you are starting to, I don't know, work from home more often or want to start creating something. And I have a handful of posts and guides around

[00:09:48] microphones. So a couple of the popular ones in the last week have been the best computer microphones. There's a post about iPhone mics, so ones that you plug into your iPhone and you can record from Android microphones, USB microphones, and YouTube microphones, which

[00:10:07] actually contains kind of three different sections of mics depending on the type of recording you're doing. So a bunch of options there that you are welcome to check out if you're interested in those

[00:10:21] things. So that is kind of the highlight of some of the stuff that I have found that is available right now during this kind of time of uncertainty. I hope that was helpful. And if you

[00:10:36] know of any other companies that are offering free resources, so that could be software courses or monetary help like ConvertKit created with their Creator Fund, I would love to hear about

[00:10:49] it because I will update this page and make sure that I share it as widely as I can. So thanks for listening and remember you can see all this stuff at podcastinsights.com

[00:11:01] slash free. And if you need help with anything or maybe I can answer some questions or anything, you can always reach out to me, rossetpodcastinsights.com and I'll do my best to help you out. Thanks and see ya in the next episode.