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One of the things that I consistently hear that podcasters say they need help with or that's difficult for them is increasing their audience engagement. And let me just say that podcasting is much more than just sitting behind a microphone and saying something that you think is relevant and expecting your audience to engage. It's about actually engaging and building community and conversations with the people who find what you have to say valuable. So today I want to talk about four strategies that I've learned that have helped me increase my audience engagement that maybe you can learn from, too. Let's get into it. Hey, welcome back to another episode of Good Podcasting. My name is Brian. I'm the host of the show. And on the show we talk about everything that's going to help you create, launch, and grow your podcast, from the equipment that. That you may need or may not need to start your show, to strategies to increase your audience engagement, which we're talking about today. So let's jump right into it. The first strategy that I've used or learned or now understand that maybe I didn't when I first started was the, the. The need to be authentic. And you don't necessarily connect that with audience engagement, increasing audience engagement, but let's be real on the front like that. Let's be real. As we're talking about authenticity. The, the. The fact that you are being you on camera behind a microphone, that's what people want. You're the only you that they're looking for. You're the only you that they can find. They're interested in your content because you are the one behind it. You are the one voicing it. You are the one expressing it. They're interested in you and you being you and what you have to say. That's something that I've learned over the years through podcasting, through video content creation is the need to be real, the need to be authentic. And let me just give you an example. When I first started on YouTube here, the thing that I was taught was definitely be you, but definitely use a lot of cuts and a lot of transitions and a lot of jump cuts and a lot of graphics on the screen and a lot of lower thirds and a lot of words and a lot of flash and a lot of whatever. And I enjoyed doing that. But it took away from me being me on screen because I knew I had to think about when the transition was going to happen, what I was going to say, what position I was going to be in so I could pick right back up there. And it took away from the authenticity of me on camera. But the more that I've leaned into less edits, just speaking into a mic, directly into a camera and sharing my thoughts. Honestly, the more my audience has grown, the more my subscriber base has grown and the more my engagement has grown, even in the comments. So I believe that to be true for anybody out here on in the YouTube space or podcasting to just be yourself. Because people are interested, they're going to tune in. If you're, if you connect with your audience, you know who your audience is and you know what questions they're asking, which we'll talk about here in just a moment. They're interested in what you have to say about the questions they're asking and the things that they're interested in. So be yourself. One of the ways that I'm leaning into that currently is to do more live streams. And I know it's only happened once or twice here recently, but I have a few more planned that I hope, I hope you'll turn tune into. Not turn into. You don't want to turn into my live stream. You want to tune in to my live stream. So be watching my community posts and my social media, which we'll talk about later in the show for some upcoming live streams. And that's one way that you can really be real and really be authentic. Because there's nothing to hide behind on a live stream. If you stumble over your words, you just got to continue to roll with it. If you make a mistake, it's there for everyone who's watching the live stream to see. So I'm learning to be more authentic by leaning into doing more live streams that are coming up. So tune in. The the tool I use for that is Riverside. I've talked about this in other videos. Riverside has really jumped in hard to the live streaming game, and they've got all sorts of new features tied to their live streaming. You can stream to multiple platforms all at once. You can engage with your listeners in the Omnichat feature wherever they happen to be watching, wherever you happen to be streaming and they're watching, you can engage with your audience members there. And again, it's just a way. It, it takes, it pulls back the curtain. It takes down the wall. It. It removes any barriers to unauthentic content creation. Now, the second strategy to increase audience engagement is also not something that you might naturally tie to it. It's not something that I've naturally tied to it at least, and that's providing value for your audience. And that's it should be a given that if you're going to get behind a mic, you're going to get in front of a camera, you're going to provide something of value. The two main reasons that people listen to podcasts, it's shown over and over in studies every year, is to be entertained and to learn something new. So if your podcast content or your video content is not answering a question, teaching something new, helping someone understand something at a deeper level, helping them think differently about a topic or a subject or an issue, or you're not entertaining them, what value are you providing? So if you can do one or both of those, you're already providing value. So a couple, couple things that I've learned on how to provide better value to my viewers, to you and to my podcast listeners, is to do your research. Number one, don't just sit behind a mic and talk and wing it. Do your research. An easy way to do that, to find out what questions your audience might be listening or the things that they're, the questions they're asking or things they might be interested in, is to go to Google and just start typing a question related to your topic or your genre and don't finish the question, because as we all know, Google is a mastermind reader and it's going to finish your question for you. So the best way to find out a topic for a podcast that you could provide value to your audience and something in your genre is to start typing a question related to that genre, and all sorts of topics will pop up. Google will fill in that blank for you. Now, you need to also find out what others in your genre, in your niche are talking about. So you're probably already listening to other podcasts related to the topics that you're talking about. You're probably already watching other YouTube channels, other content creators who are creating similar content to you in a similar niche or similar genre on similar topics. And if you're not, I would say you need to, because those are the things that, those are the other creators and other podcasters that your audience may also be tuning into. So if you know what others in your space are saying, you know the unique voice that you can bring and the value that you can bring to that audience that's different than what they're already viewing or listening to. So the thing, the other thing I'll say about that is to know what your audience is listening to, you have to know who your audience is. One of the best ways to do that is to engage with your audience. Like I said in a live Stream is a fantastic opportunity. Who is tuning into your live stream? Ask them some questions. If you're doing it again through Riverside, which is the tool that I use to do it, they have an OmniChat feature that allows you to, to answer questions or ask questions and engage with audiences from wherever, wherever they happen to be viewing it. This enables real time audience engagement and interaction during your live stream and it allows you actually to address specific questions and topics that they may be asking about. So if you want to increase audience engagement, you want to be authentic, you want to provide value, man, I keep going back to live streaming as a, as a great opportunity to do that. Now the third strategy as I continue my little rambling rant here about the things that I've learned about increasing audience engagement is to build community. Live streaming is a great way to do that, but there are other ways to build community. And as a content creator, you have the ability, you can provide a space where community can happen, where people can come together to have conversations, to ask questions, to learn from one another, to grow with one another, to laugh with one another, to just feel a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves. You have, have that power, you have that influence, you have that leadership as a content creator or that potential to do it. So think about the ways you can create space to build community with your audience. One of the best ways to do that is to find a way to provide two way communication. We've talked about live streaming, We've talked about OmniChat, we've talked about all that with Riverside. But what that does is it not only allows you to be authentic, it not only allows you to provide great value in real time with your audience, but it, it gives them an opportunity to offer feedback, to ask questions. It's a difference between talking at an audience and talking with an audience. The live stream chat features are great. Now it goes beyond that, though. The messages you receive from listeners, from viewers, don't just let those hang. Respond to those messages, the comments that you get. Now, sometimes you're going to get negative comments and that happens, but respond to all of your comments. Don't ever leave a comment hanging. If you're truly engaging your audience, you know who they are, you know what the questions they're asking, you're providing value and you're being real. Most of your comments are going to be pretty supportive and they're going to be valuable in helping you create additional content because they're going to be asking questions or encouraging you in certain areas that you know you need to lean into and create more content there. So building community, that it's all wrapped in this idea of building community, this two way communication. You can, you know, beyond all that, create engaging community posts, ask questions, invite responses. A fun way to do that is to bring them onto your, your show not just as commenters behind their screen who are viewing your show, but to invite them on to your show. Now, Riverside, again is the tool that I use to do this and I love one of the things I love about their pro plan. So you'll have to pay a little bit more to, to get to this level on Riverside, but they allow you to actually bring on audience members through their, their Riverside viewership feature. It's an opportunity. If someone's commenting and they're being really valuable, they're adding a lot of great content, a lot of great value to your live stream and invite them to flip their camera on, turn their microphone on and join you on the show for a segment. It could be a really fun and surprising way to engage your audience that maybe they're not always ready for, but might jump onto the next one and might jump onto the next one and jump onto the next one to see who else you bring on. See, maybe they get back on your show. It's a cool way to do it. Riverside, their pro plan provides opportunities to do that. Now the fourth and final one that I'll talk about, fourth and final strategy I'll talk about in this episode on how to increase your audience engagement is to utilize multiple platforms. People are going to social media to find new content and find new ways to engage with the content creators that they already follow. So just podcasting or just having a YouTube channel isn't ever enough anymore. People want more of you. If you're being real, if you're being authentic, if you're providing value, and if they feel a sense of belonging to the community you're creating, they're going to look for you in other places and they're going to share in other places as well. So find a way to utilize multiple platforms. It's a way to expand your reach beyond those things. Now, a couple of ways you can do that to expand your reach in these other areas is to get familiar with different outlets of social media. And again, I've already alluded to that, but don't, maybe a caution, don't jump into all of them all at once because they all behave a little differently, they all share your content a little differently. And so it's, it's worth taking the time to get good at one, learn how the next one works and then continue to expand your reach beyond social media. A great way to engage your audience and using multiple platforms is easy. Email. Don't forget about email. As you build your email list, you own your email list. If things change on social media, you still own your email list and people still check their email. That's the number one way people engage. So continue to build your email list. I think there's other channels, other outlets you can focus on that you can use, but social media and email would be the two that I would recommend to to as far as utilizing multiple platforms to grow your audience and increase your audience engagement. One way that Riverside helps Two ways the Riverside has helped and been beneficial to me in this process is the Magic Clips and the Captions feature. And again, I've talked about this in other episodes, so you may get tired of hearing me say this, but I will just reiterate the fact that when you create content, it's a. It's. It's hard. It takes a long time. Even if you're just recording and you're bringing things together, your audio, you're syncing your audio and your video like I'm doing, and cutting the beginning and cutting the end and just shooting it out to YouTube, it still takes a lot of time. So to take that and chop it up into smaller pieces for social media, for Instagram reels, or for TikTok, it takes even more time. Riverside's Magic Clips feature does that work for you? And the built in transcription and captions feature make that even better than what I could do on my own. Riverside is a great one stop shop for podcasters who are trying to create real and valuable content to communicate and build community with their audience. Because of features that I've talked about in this episode and the Magic Clips feature, again, I'll say this just being real, being authentic, it's not perfect. It's sometimes when you hit the magic Clips button, it'll give you a six or seven clips and they're not perfect because maybe it cuts you off in the middle of a sense. But the beauty of doing it with Riverside is you have the opportunity, you have the option, you have the ability to adjust that magic clip however you want. It is AI after all, and it's picking the clips that it thinks are the most engaging clips from your podcast. But you can edit from there. Riverside gives you the ability to adjust those clips or to create your own. So check it out. It's a great option if you're looking to engage on multiple platforms without a lot of extra work. Check out Riverside. There is a link in the description if you're interested in any of the features that I've talked about in in this episode to to to Riverside. It'll get you a discount on your subscription and it'll give me a little kickback as well. So it's a good opportunity for you, if you find value in this content, to support me as a creator and podcast coach or consultant or whatever you want to call me here on this channel, just call me something nice. All right, so let's just recap the four ways we've talked about them over and over. Be authentic, provide value, build community, and utilize multiple platforms are great ways that can increase your audience engagement. And I know that because these are four ways that have helped me increase my audience engagement here on this channel and on the audio version only of good podcasting. So thanks for joining me for this episode. Whether you're listening or viewing on YouTube. Thanks for checking it out and I'll catch you in the next one. Sam.