Best Advice For New Podcasters

07/07/20 • 1 min

Episode 2: Before launching a podcast, most podcasters ask about things like gear, media hosts, and show art.

Before I started, I asked a friend who had published over 1500 episodes for advice. His first reaction was, “Are you SURE that you want to launch a podcast?” When I assured him that I did, this is what he said.

If you’re absolutely sure that you want to start a podcast, commit to doing it for a year. Once you start, keep publishing at whatever frequency you decide. Don’t look at downloads. Don’t consider whether you like doing it or not. Do it for an entire year before evaluating anything because podcasting takes time.

Every year, I treat my podcast like a television show. Where TV network executives look at viewer ratings, I look back at the prior twelve months to see what I’ve gained from running the podcast. What did I learn? What mistakes were made? Did I earn more business? If I decide that it was worth my time, my podcast gets renewed for another season.

Even though I know I shouldn’t look at downloads, I still do. Committing myself to publishing another full year of podcast episodes ensures that distractions (like looking at download stats or binge watching TV) won’t stop me from keeping my weekly publishing schedule.

I highly suggest you do the same. Give yourself time.

Episode 2: Before launching a podcast, most podcasters ask about things like gear, media hosts, and show art.

I highly suggest you do the same. Give yourself time.

Previous Episode

Podcast Rule #1: There are no rules

Episode 1: When it comes to podcasting, rule #1 is that there are no rules. This is not television or radio where you are restricted to a set program length with a certain number of commercial breaks for ad spots. In fact, who says that you must have commercials at all? The choice is yours.

What’s the ideal episode length for a podcast? I’ve heard it said, “Your podcast should be as long as it needs to be and not a minute more.” One of the many beautiful attributes of podcasting is that you have the freedom to publish a 2-hour episode, followed by a 5-minute episode the next. Your job is to create great content at any length.

In my view, here are the rules of podcasting:

There are no rules.
Serve your audience.
See Rules #1 and #2.

That’s it. As you do your research, you will read many opinions about the ideal podcast length, format, and recipe for success. Don’t get overwhelmed. Stick to these these simple rules whether your audience is 100 million or just 1, and you’ll be headed in the right direction.

Next Episode

Stop Shouting, Start Talking

Episode 3: Podcasters tend to be a pretty well spoken bunch, especially those who do their own editing. There’s no better motivation to improve your diction than having to go back to edit all your ums, ahs, and mouth clicks. Time is money.

With all the time invested in making our shows, it’s not surprising that we’re super eager to do anything in our power to get the word out. If you were guaranteed a 10 percent increase in downloads, would you scream from your rooftop? Heck, I would probably do it for just 10 downloads. It doesn’t work, in case you were wondering.

Guilty of Oversharing

We’re such an enthusiastic bunch that most Facebook groups need to establish and enforce strict rules. Here’s an example from the Podcast Movement FB group:

No self promotion
No posting of own show links
Ask questions, share your knowledge, and become a part of the family

When the admins make an exception, look what happens.

Have you tried sifting through 600+ Facebook comments?! We’re all shouting but few are listening.

As podcasters, most of us are on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. In an effort to get more listeners, we post about our latest episode — everywhere. How is that working for you? I find that it’s a lot of time spent without a great return.

13,000 Unread Messages

This got me thinking about my email inbox where I get a lot of spam. Nearly 100% is automated. Looking at my sent folder as analytics, here’s an important finding.

How many automated spam emails I responded to? Zero.How many emails I responded to from people who I know? All of them.

Follow the Rules

This brings us back to the third rule from the Facebook group: “Ask questions, share your knowledge, and become a part of the family.” This is gold and needs to be our focus.

In marketing, this is the difference between social selling and social spamming. When it comes to podcast marketing, we need to be thinking and behaving differently.

Here are some tactics to try:

Follow more people on social platforms
Comment on blog posts
Share feedback and ideas via email or direct message
Take a social media conversation offline to phone, Zoom, or Skype

Done correctly, great marketers have repeatedly built big dollar, business relationships that began as friendships on social media. If it works for them, it can work for us.

Let’s approach social media in a different way. Stop shouting, start talking.