While it's true that you can create a basic podcast episode using something as simple as an app on your smartphone, your audience will appreciate a more sophisticated approach. And when you have your own podcast, you want it to sound as excellent as possible!

Lucky for you, there a many great tools that will take your podcast to the next level! These tools include sharing episodes on social media, editing your episodes more efficiently, and creating stunning podcast artwork.

Here are the 15 tools we recommend no matter what kind of podcast you have:

1. Notion: Note-taking and collaboration

Notion gives you an online, collaborative workspace that unites your tasks and notes in one place. This tool provides your entire team one central location to brainstorm episode topics, draft your scripts, and jot down notes during interviews.

Do you have a standard editing and upload process? Use Notion’s Knowledge Base tool to download your tribal knowledge into an easily accessible depository so anyone on your team can learn tasks quickly.

Need to assign some to-do’s or tasks to your editor or virtual assistant? Use Notion’s Task Board to manage every person’s assignments and see what you have coming up at a glance.

You could cobble together a bunch of separate tools to manage your notes, tasks, and projects, or you could use Notion.

Dropbox was one of the first cloud storage solutions and is a great way to collaborate on projects with your team members. You can easily add new files, share notes, and manage everything through your computer's built-in file storage system (works on Windows and Mac). If you need a more robust collaboration tool with file management, look into Dropbox.

2. Calendly: Scheduling with co-hosts and guests

Use Calendly to schedule podcast interviews, with no need to engage in back-and-forth emails with your co-hosts and guests. Just set up a calendar with your availability and share it with your guests to find a perfect time to record. It also uses time zone detection so that you can easily coordinate with guests in other time zones.

The free version of Calendly allows you to create a single event, which is perfect if you only want to use it for scheduling podcast interviews. You can also upgrade to their paid plan if you plan on expanding to multiple kinds of events or want to simplify your calendar.

Once someone reserves an appointment, that information is listed in your "Upcoming Events" section in your dashboard along with all of the details that person provided when they booked their time slot. You can also integrate Calendly with your preferred email management app or calendar to create a seamless experience.

When it comes to scheduling with co-hosts and guests, Calendly is the hands-down best solution.

The Buzzsprout Advanced Podcast Statistics give you actionable data that’s easy to understand. Every podcaster wants to know if their podcast audience is growing, Buzzsprout’s advanced stats make that easy to track.

Use the Episode Downloads chart to see how your audience is changing over time and quickly identify popular episodes so you can serve your listeners more of the content they love. The Listener Locations section shows you where your podcast is popular, even breaking it down into the countries and cities that produce the most downloads.

Buzzsprout also shows you all of the apps where people are listening to your podcast. Instantly identify your listener’s favorite apps and use that information to provide better show notes and track your audience demographics.

Buzzsprout advanced podcasts statistics are included in all Buzzsprout plans. Sign up for a free account to get access to these statistics.

4. Squadcast: The best overall online interview solution

Remote podcast interviews have become the new normal for many podcasts, allowing you to interview guests from all over the world instead of only the people that live nearby. With Squadcast, you can record an interview with anyone on Earth in real-time and be confident that you'll end up with a high-quality recording.

When you’re ready to conduct your interview, each participant clicks a unique link to join your meeting using their computer’s internet browser (Google Chrome works best). Squadcast will then record each person’s audio on separate tracks, making it easier to edit when you are doing your final mix down.

But what truly sets Squadcast apart is its audio quality. You get true lossless audio from each person, so you’re getting the best quality possible. And at the end of the day, audio quality is the most important factor when you’re recording for your podcast.

Like Squadcast, Zoom allows you to record high-quality interviews with guests over the phone. While Squadcast captures full lossless audio from each person, Zoom has a broader range of connection options including the ability for your guests to call in over the phone or use the Zoom app on their mobile device.

Zencastr is an audio-only online recording solution designed specifically for podcasters. You can edit your interviews inside of Zencastr to speed up your post-production workflow and export high-quality audio files to use in your podcast episode.

Many podcasters use Skype and Google Hangouts to conduct long-distance interviews, but the subpar audio quality and common connection issues make them platforms to stay away from if you can.

5. Facebook Live: Broadcast your recording sessions live

Many podcasters go the extra mile and connect with their audience with live broadcasting sessions. It allows your most enthusiastic fans to listen to your podcast as you're recording it—even parts you might edit out later. Some podcasts will make this a special perk for Patreon supporters, but it's also an excellent way to reach new listeners.

When you're first getting started with live streaming, we recommend Facebook Live. You can stream directly from your Android phone, iPhone, or webcam and automatically upload it to your Facebook page, group, or personal profile.

Once listeners start tuning in, you can ask them questions during your recording, allowing them to contribute to the episode. Facebook Live is an easy way to incorporate listener interaction directly into your podcast episodes while also growing your online presence and becoming a social media influencer.

If you’re trying to grow a YouTube channel to complement your podcast, you can also live stream on YouTube. You want to concentrate all of your efforts on the handful of platforms that move the needle for you, so if YouTube is important to you go live there instead of Facebook.

6. SpeakPipe: Record listener comments to use during your podcast

Engaging your audience, and getting feedback from your listeners should be one of your highest priorities. One tool you can use to receive voicemail recordings from your listeners is SpeakPipe.

Add SpeakPipe to your website and visitors will be able to send you voice messages from anywhere on your website by simply clicking on a button. SpeakPipe also provides a hosted voicemail page, so you can receive voice messages without installing anything on your website.

Visitors don’t need a SpeakPipe account to send you a voicemail. They can post a message with just a few clicks without typing anything, and visitors can listen to their recording before sending it. The widget allows to record messages as many times as they want, so they can practice before sending you their final voicemail.

Messages are stored within your SpeakPipe account, and you can access your SpeakPipe mailbox from any computer or mobile device. The SpeakPipe mailbox has an option to download a voice message as an MP3 file, so you can put it on your website or insert it into a podcast.

If you’re looking for an easy way to incorporate your audience into your podcast episodes, SpeakPipe is an excellent solution.

7. Hindenburg Journalist Pro: The best podcast editing tool

When you first get started in podcasting, free editing tools like Audacity* and GarageBand** get the job done. But if you find yourself wanting a more robust editing tool, we recommend Hindenburg (no relation to the Zeppelin).

Hindenburg is an all-in-one recording and editing powerhouse, with next-level tools like automatic audio leveling and their Voice Profiler which automatically applies the best EQ settings whenever you record a new episode. You can also easily add music tracks and sound effects to make each episode even more engaging.

Hindenburg's Noise Reduction effect is powerful and simple to use. It will automatically identify not only persistent noise but also hum and hiss, then calculate how best to reduce them.

The hardest part about switching to a new audio editor is learning the software. Hindenburg has you covered! They have step-by-step tutorial videos to walk you through every aspect of their software so you can get up to speed and start cranking out episodes in no time.

Buzzsprout Exclusive

If you’re a Buzzsprout podcaster, you can try Hindenburg for free and get a discount on their software by clicking the link in the “Resources” tab in your Buzzsprout dashboard.

Alitu is an under-the-radar online podcast editor that we recommend often. Alitu lets you clean up and combine your audio recordings, incorporate different elements of your episode such as an intro and outro, and integrates with many of the larger podcast hosts so you can upload your finished episodes directly to your host.

Adobe Audition is a powerful editing software with a wide range of mixing and mastering capabilities. If you already use the Adobe creative suite, consider Audition for all of your post-production needs.

*Audacity is an open-source audio editing software that's available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

**GarageBand is Apple's pre-installed audio editor that comes standard on every new Mac and iPhone.

8. Auphonic: Pro-level audio optimization

Auphonic is a popular audio optimization software that polishes your audio files and increases the quality of your podcast episodes. It's a favorite tool at Buzzsprout HQ, and we think you'll love what it can do for your podcast.

Auphonic uses top-notch audio algorithms to fine-tune your podcast episodes and allows you to customize your output files (wav, mp3, and aac, to name a few). It has an adaptive leveler that evens out the volume between the segments of your show. Loudness normalization, so your episode isn't too loud or too soft. And noise and hum reduction to eliminate ambient background noise.

It's true. You could do all of those things using a high-end digital audio workstation. Or you could upload your episode files to Auphonic and let them do all the work!

Read our step-by-step instructions or watch our full tutorial to learn how we use Auphonic to optimize our podcast episodes: