← The Audacity to Podcast® - tips and how to start and grow profit in podcasting
The Audacity to Podcast® - tips and how to start and grow profit in podcasting
428. What Are the Ethics of Paying for Podcast Interviews?
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
What are the ethics of paying for podcast interviews and should you ever do it or allow it? Thank you for joining me for the Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. You may have heard of people talking about pay to play podcast interviews or something where the guest paid to be on the podcast, and then that raises questions of the ethics of that. Or what about you as a podcaster, paying a guest to be on your podcast? Are there ethical guidelines around that? And I do suggest that there are some guidelines, but here's the thing that you need to know right up front. It is okay to do these things with some caveats and considerations. So that's why I want to raise in this episode. You can follow along in the notes for this episode or the chapters, a simple tap or swipe away. Number one, it is okay to pay to interview a guest on your podcast. Yes, that is absolutely okay. Whether you are paying the guest to appear on your podcast or you are paying a service or a person or some kind of agent or agency to get that guest for your podcast, that is okay. There are plenty of times that you will pay to bring something to your audience that that could be you're paying for an experience that you want to share with your audience. You are paying for gear or podcasting tools to enhance the experience for your audience. That is all totally okay. And I don't think you need to disclose that you paid for any of that. It's okay. You are bringing value to your audience so your audience doesn't have to know that you paid for something and certainly not how much you paid for something, unless it's something you really want to disclose to them. And indeed, there are certain celebrities or really popular people that do charge to be guests on podcasts, and that is part of how they make their income for their time, because it does cost time to be a guest on a podcast. And many of these people see it as helping you to be a guest on your podcast. And certainly the way that many podcasters now approach guests to be on their podcasts. Many podcasters, and I hope you're not one of these types, but many podcasters see the guest as doing the responsibility of growing the podcast instead of the podcaster themselves. So they might see it as an investment in the guest to pay for the guest to come on. And the guest might also see it as a service they are providing, that they are providing some of their expertise or their authority to your podcast. So they might even be spending some time to promote the episode to their own audience. And Maybe they feel they need compensation for that. That's okay. You have to decide if that's okay for you and your budget and your podcast, but ethically it is okay. And this isn't something that you legally have to disclose either. And it's up to you to decide if you want to disclose at all to your audience, because I don't think it's really something that will make much of a difference to your audience when you pay to have something on your podcast. But then, number two, it is okay to pay to be a guest on another podcast. This is where things do start to get more complicated. Where you want to get on someone else's podcast and they charge to be on their podcast, or maybe you sponsor in some way, and as part of that sponsorship, you get to be a guest on their podcast. The idea is what often gets called pay to play, where you're paying to get played on their podcast. Essentially, this can have many benefits to you as the guest, because this can mean you have opportunities to promote your products or services, or get in front of a much larger audience or your ideal audience to promote your own podcast or whatever it is that you want to promote and share. As a business expense, this can be a worthy investment. In fact, a friend of mine recently paid, I think, somewhere around $10,000 to be a guest on a podcast, and. Wow, $10,000. That's about what I charge, by the way, if a CEO wants to be a guest on my podcast and pitches me to be a guest on my podcast, I tell them that I charge $10,000. In fact, you know what? It's been 100% effective at keeping this podcast from becoming an interview podcast. That's the only reason I say I charge $10,000 to be a guest on my podcast, because I don't want to do interviews. It's just not my type of thing. But for my friend who paid $10,000 to be a guest on a podcast, they saw that as an investment in their business and a marketing opportunity, and it paid off. They made much more than that in the amount of sales they earned for from the audience of that podcast. So it was worth it to my friend to pay $10,000 to be a guest on another podcast. And for you, it might be worth it for you, too. Whether you're growing your podcast, your business, your product, your service, you just want to get your message out there. It can be okay to pay to be a guest on another podcast or to pay a service to help you be a guest on other podcasts. For Example, a couple of services that I respect and highly recommend are, are Interview Valet and Interview Connections. Both of the founders of those groups are friends of mine. Interview Valet is run by Tom Schwab, and Interview Connections is run by Jessica Rhodes. Both great people and they help a lot of podcasters and they've been doing this for a long time, and they can help you be an expert guest on other podcasts. And where this makes the most sense to pay to be a guest is like for my friend, when you have something to sell and you see this as an excellent advertising opportunity for your own expertise or the products or services that you're offering, that's when it makes sense to pay to be a guest on another podcast. And you, as the guest, don't have to worry about disclosing that in any way because you've paid to be there. But number three, podcasters must disclose if they're getting paid to feature a guest. I talked about disclosures in episode 374, which you can visit@theaudacitypodcast.com disclose or simply go to episode 374 in your podcast app or tap on the link inside of this chapter right now to jump to the website for that. But in that episode I talked a lot more about how to disclose certain things and why you need to disclose things. The biggest thing that it comes down to is the ethical and even legal requirement to disclose if you are being paid to feature something or someone. This applies in the United States by regulation and guidelines of the Federal Trade Commission. But this also applies in other countries by local laws as well. So don't think of it as just a United States thing. This applies in many places and, and some of these laws now too, because of the nature of the Internet, some of these laws are starting to become kind of enforceable across borders, which is a little bit weird, but also kind of makes sense. So I don't know where that stuff is going, but the best thing to do is try to be above board in all the places and follow the laws as best as you can, especially your own laws that you are definitely within the jurisdiction. But the big idea here is that if you are being paid to feature something, promote something, talk about something, include something, anything like that. If you are being paid, you need to disclose that to your audience. And if you're being compensated in any way, even if it's not just being paid by money, if you're being compensated by a free product or free opportunity or something like that, you need to disclose that and you might be thinking, well, if I disclose to my audience that my guest paid to be on my podcast, then my audience might not trust me or my guest as much. And here's the hard thing to swallow. Yes, that's true. And that's a good thing, actually. If you have not listened to my episode 374 about disclosures, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to it a lot more. Because I dig into things like affiliate disclosures and sponsorships and such. But the idea here is that when you build a reputation and a consistency for disclosing whether you are paid for something, and I suggest even disclosing when you're not paid for something, especially if you are a big fan of that thing, make it clear that you are not paid for it. And also make it clear if you are paid for it. Because when you do this, over time, it builds this important thing we call trust. I'm teaching my son about trust right now, where I'm teaching him. Whatever you do, you must always tell me the truth, even if you think it's going to get you in trouble. I need you to tell me the truth. The consequences will be smaller if you tell me the truth. You might still get consequences if you've done something bad, but the consequences will be smaller if you tell me the truth. And I need you to always tell me the truth so that I know I can trust you. Because someday there might be a time when where you're going to tell me something that's going to be hard to believe and it might be the truth. And I need to know that I can trust you in the future. During those times, it might be difficult to trust you. And the best way to do that is to earn my trust now by always telling me the truth. Even if it's going to hurt in some way. Always tell me the truth so that I can trust you in the future. For your audience, you're doing that same kind of thing. The more that you can build that trust and reputation with your audience by disclosing certain things, like when you are being paid and when you're not being paid for things, that builds up that trust and that authenticity, even with your audience. Like, there are many products that I recommend and I disclose if I am paid for those things. I'm not paid simply to talk about anything. I'm not currently sponsored by anyone. So if I talk about any particular product, I'm not being paid to talk about it. But I do have affiliate relationships with many different products and I disclose that to you. And I also disclose when I don't have affiliate relationships and if I don't get paid for things because I want you to see. I disclose either way because I truly recommend things and feature things I believe in regardless of what I'm earning. Consider things like Audacity, Hindenburg, Journalist, and several other tools I highly recommend and have recommended for years. And I don't get paid at all. Interview Valet and Interview Connections used to have an affiliate program. I don't think they have affiliate programs anymore, but I still recommend them anyway. I recommended them before the affiliate programs, I recommended them during the affiliate programs. I recommend them after the affiliate programs. It'd be nice to get paid for everything I recommend, regardless of whatever it is. But that doesn't influence what I recommend. And I hope that you know that. And my hope is by disclosing all of the time, that builds up that trust so that even if I am getting paid for something, you know, I recommend things I truly believe in. So this applies to you as a podcaster with your guest. If your guest pays to be on your podcast in whatever way that looks like, however, you're being compensated when you disclose that, both when you are compensated and when you are not compensated, that builds up that trust with your audience. So then your audience doesn't have to start thinking they're just having this guest on because they're getting paid money. And certainly don't approach your podcast like that. Don't look at it as just, I want to have this guest on just so I can earn some money. Have the guest on because of the value they can bring to your audience and to your content that you want to share, not the value that they will bring to your wallet. Let your audience then decide how they want to take that. The more that you disclose, I think the more your audience will trust you. If you disclose only those times that you're paid, then your audience might be a bit skeptical. And I think that is fine for them to be skeptical. And in fact, that's why the FTC wants you to disclose if you're being compensated for things, because your audience needs to know that. They need to know. Are you a fan of this person because you're getting paid? Are you being nice to this person because you're getting paid? Are you talking about this product or service because you're getting paid? If you build up that reputation for talking about things, for featuring guests, for doing things, even if you're not compensated in any way, then your audience can trust you more. This is super important. The ethics and legality of paying to be a guest or paying for guests, that's all fine to do, no matter which direction that money is going. But you have to remember that as the podcaster having a guest, and if you're being compensated for having that guest on your podcast, you must disclose that. That is a legal requirement for you to disclose. If you have paid the guest, you don't have to disclose that the guest doesn't have to disclose. It's not their job to disclose that they paid to be there. That is your job because you're the one getting paid. This does raise a question then for number four, what about those booking services like Interview Valet? Interview Connections, if you have an agency that you're working with or a person, or you're using one of these services that help you to find guests or be a guest, Pod Match, help a reporter out, Podcast, guestlist. Com, all of these kinds of services like that you don't need to disclose if a booking service was used because that's not something that changes the ethics of the inclusion of that guest or your appearance on the podcast. It's a third party service that you're paying for. If you want to disclose, that's totally okay, but you don't have to, you don't have to say as the guest, well, I'm here because I paid such and such company to book me on podcasts, unless that's something you want to disclose as part of what you are teaching. And for many people, they see that as a worthy investment. Interview Connections, for example, they've changed over the years from helping all kinds of podcasters and guests to now focusing on helping the high income podcast guests and experts who want to get their message out there and they're willing to invest in that. They just need help in packaging that all together. Interview Valet does some of that too. And Interview Valet also helps the podcasters or you look at a service like podmatch.com from my friend Alex Sanfilippo. And so you know, I am an affiliate for Podmatch and possibly someday again an affiliate for Interview Valet and Interview Connections, I still recommend them anyway. Even if I wasn't being paid, I might be paid someday again. I don't know. But just keep that in mind. But like on PodMatch, it helps to like a matching service like Match.com, or PodMatch.com helps to connect podcasters with guests and guests with podcasters and that kind of thing. You don't have to disclose that these are all kinds of booking services. That help podcasters get guests or help guests get on podcasts. That's not something that has to be disclosed because the money is not being paid to the podcaster. The podcaster might be paying for the service, and the guest might be paying for the service, but as long as the guest is not paying the podcaster, then the podcaster doesn't have to disclose that. But if there is some kind of arrangement there where the guest does have to pay to be on that podcast, even if they're already paying for the booking service going back to number three, then that podcaster must disclose if they're being paid to have that guest on their podcast. So the ethics of this are, I think, pretty black and white that you must disclose. If you are being paid to feature something else, all of these other things, it's okay to pay, it's okay to be paid. You have to decide, though, what is right for you both, what can you afford and what are you willing to accept money for? When I joke about charging $10,000 to be a guest on my podcast, if someone actually said, all right, here's a check for $10,000, I would probably still say, thanks, bride. I don't want to do an interview on my podcast. I just don't like hosting interviews. That's why. It's not that I hate interviews, it's just I don't like interviewing people myself. I like having conversations about things. And if I was going to have a conversation, it would probably not be with someone who pitched themselves to me. So that's why any CEO or booking agent who pitches a guest to me, I tell them it's $10,000, although I think I've raised the price to maybe $20,000 recently. But I'm not going to actually have a guest. And certainly if I did have a guest, I would disclose if they were paying to be there. So you have to decide what's right for you, what's right for your podcast, and what's right for your audience, whether you're going to pay or be paid. But if you are being paid, the most important thing there, the ethics of that, is to disclose that so you can build up that trust as well as be fully legal in all of the places. If you are being paid to feature someone or something else or talk about something, and if you do get paid, I hope you get paid a lot, and I hope it works out for you. And if you pay to be a guest on other podcasts, then that opens up a whole new set of recommendations of things you need to think about to make that guest appearance worth it. That's where you can talk through with the podcaster about what works well on their podcast. Or if you're working with a booking service, then talk with them about the best way to leverage that opportunity, regardless of whether you're paying for it. Look for ways to really engage with the audience. Provide value first before expecting any value in return. And speaking of value for value, if you feel the Audacity to Podcast provides information that is worth something to you, whatever that is, figure out what it's worth to you and consider giving back whatever that is. You can go to the audacitytopodcast.com giveback to give back however much you feel it's worth to you at whatever frequency you feel like doing. Or you can send satoshis and stream that, or send Boost to Grams through a modern podcasting 2.0 app. Now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. Maybe that's up to you. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com and creator of Podgagement and Pod Chapters. Check them out. New features coming soon. Thanks for listening.