← 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
441. Three Benefits to Involving Your Audience in Your Podcast
00:12:07
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
Three benefits to involving your audience in your podcast. Thank you for joining me for the Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. I have a software product called Podgagement. I've given many demonstrations of this product to podcasters, showing them how they can use Podgagement to collect more ratings and reviews, get more feedback from their audience like written and voicemail feedback, track their networking opportunities, a hugely improved feature recently over there, and track their global rankings and search engine optimization with their podcasts and the podcast SEO feature that's just launched and much more. And a thing that I point out to podcasters quite often is that it's not where the engagement lives that's the most important. If you have ratings and reviews only in Apple podcasts, that's not what's most important. It's what you do with those ratings and reviews or your feedback. It's what you do with it. Not where it lives or where you get it, or where it's collected or published for the public. It's what you do with it. Because these things and many more are separate types of engagement with your audience. In fact, there are multiple kinds of ways to involve your audience in in your podcast. It could be with written or voicemail feedback, which by the way, Podgagement has a great way for you to do this, where your audience can send you a voicemail or they can write a message through a simple landing page like Podcast Feedback. Com. Just like Seth Goldstein did recently when he wrote in to say love the show and topics. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much Seth Goldstein. I really appreciate that feedback. So see, that was written feedback sent in through podcastfeedback.com audacity that's powered by Podgagement. So written in voicemail feedback is one way that your audience can be involved with your podcast, but they can also be involved by simply suggesting things for your podcast, like suggesting an episode you might do in the future, or a guest you might have on, or a movie you might review, or a video game, or an Easter egg. You might not have thought of simply those suggestions, even if they're not full feedback that you read or play in your podcast. That is still getting your audience involved with your podcast. It could also be some kind of questions and answer that you get with your podcast. Maybe you are asking the questions of your audience and your audience responds and answers those questions. Maybe your audience is the one asking the questions and then you give the answers to them. They could also be involved through financial support. This is not technically donating, so Please avoid the word donating donations, donate, anything like that, because you are not a nonprofit organization, most likely, so don't use that word, donate. Think of it as the opportunity for your audience to support you or to give value back to your podcast after you've given value to them through your podcast. So some kind of financial support that's getting them involved with your podcast, it could also be some way that they contribute their talents to your podcast, like designing artwork for you, making little audio bumpers, mixing things together, sorting your feedback. We had someone once, for our Once Upon a Time podcast that their sole job, they were known to our community as Slurpees. Their sole job was sorting our feedback that we received for our podcast about the episodes of the TV show we were covering. Because there was so much feedback we received, let's be honest, not all of it good feedback. There were plenty of good feedback pieces in there, but also we needed these things categorized and organized into our notes and. And this listener, Slurpees, did a great job of that, contributing their time and their talent because they were good at spotting good feedback. So these are different ways, and there are many other ways beyond this as well, that your audience can be involved with your podcast, even being a member of your team in some way. So when your audience is involved with your podcast and you acknowledge that in your podcast, you make that involvement obvious, which is easier with things like feedback, financial support, and such. It does three powerful things, and it gives you these benefits that then can really help not only your podcast potentially grow, but most importantly, it helps you to deepen the relationships you have with your audience. So these three things are in the notes. A simple tap or swipe away and. Or you can look at the chapters. They are. Number one, it makes your listener feel special. That person who sent in that voicemail, that feedback, that support contribution, that artwork, whatever it was that they gave. If you mention that on your podcast, you thank them by name. You play their voicemail, you answer their question. Anything like that that you're doing, you are involving them in your podcast that goes out to your audience. It makes them feel special. It's kind of like, hey, Ma, look, I was on a podcast. They sometimes feel like celebrities. They're going to be more likely to go out and tell other people, hey, you gotta listen to this podcast. They answered my question. They played my voicemail, they used my artwork, they included me in their podcast. So they tell other people they become little evangelists for your show because you've made them feel special by involving them and shining the light on them, then that presents all kinds of power to them to help talk about your podcast and it deepens the relationship with them. It helps them to feel seen, to feel a little bit more known and for them to feel a little bit more like they know you. For all of the podcasts and even YouTube shows that I consume, when I get a direct interaction back from the host, I feel this myself. I feel like they know me, they've seen me, they know I exist. You're doing that same thing for your audience when you include them in some way and their involvement in your podcast. Number two, it encourages more involvement because when someone hears Sally's voicemail played in your podcast, they think, hey, I want to be in the podcast too. I want my theory shared, I want my voicemail played, I want my question answered, I want my review read on the show. So just by using what engagement you have and sharing that with the rest of your audience, that encourages more engagement because people like to join other people. Often people don't want to be the first one to pave that path, but once that path is cut, then other people can see, oh, this is easy to do and it seems fun and I want to be part of this too. It's a positive peer pressure. So it encourages more involvement. And number three, it boosts your reputation. Think of it like this, with reviews. If you have ratings and reviews, most likely they are in the United States first for most podcasts. Unless your podcast is intentionally a non United States podcast or it's in a foreign language, and I say foreign, as a United States of America citizen, some other language other than English, it's most likely that the majority of your ratings and reviews are from the United States. Now you can use a tool like podgagement to track all of those ratings and reviews for you from all of the other locations. It's not just collecting from the United States, but from everywhere else. And what can be really nice is when you share a review from an audience member outside of your normal demographic, outside of your own country, outside of maybe even the English speaking countries. So it does those other two things I mentioned already, that it makes that person feel special, especially if they are in a country or some demographic that they might feel like you might never even know they exist. Well, now you're acknowledging not only that they exist, but you're involving them in some way in the podcast. That encourages more involvement. And bringing it back to number three here is that it boosts your reputation. Because when people hear, whoa, she's Got a listener in Zimbabwe or whoa, that's so awesome that he took the time to answer that question from someone who will never be able to afford to pay them for the answer to that question, but he took the time to answer that question anyway. Or she actually listens to the people outside of her normal bubble. She's not just listening to her peers, but also to us, the followers, and her audience. It will boost your reputation when your audience sees you involving the rest of your audience in some way, because they realize that you are personable, you are relatable, you are reachable, and you respond to things as much as you're able to. Of course, this doesn't exactly scale, but even if you can't scale, it still try to do this anyway to involve your audience, if you can, because it does these three powerful things. And when it's boosting your reputation, it's also an opportunity. Like when it comes to the ratings and reviews. If you're reading a review from a country outside of your norm, then your audience is also realizing, whoa, they have an audience in these other countries. That's pretty cool. I didn't realize that they had a global audience. See, once you have an audience outside of the normal country that people would think of for your podcast, suddenly it's a global audience. And that is true. So you can use podgagement to track these things if you want to collect the feedback, the voicemails, the written feedback, track your ratings and reviews, even collect ratings and reviews for your podcast. But whatever tools you use don't really matter here. As much as I would love for you to use podgagement, it's really about what you do with the information. When you get your audience involved, it makes them feel special. That's number one. It encourages more involvement. That's number two. And it boosts your reputation. That's number three. So what are you going to do for your next episode? I encourage you to try to include your audience in some way, involve them, ask for ratings and reviews, and read some of those reviews, ask for feedback, ask questions, read the answers, ask your audience to ask you questions and answer their questions. Involve your audience in your podcast in some way, however you feel that's appropriate for your show and your audience and your topic. And I would really encourage you as well, to open yourself up to things that you might not have thought of. Like, you could ask your audience, if any of you are musically talented and would like to contribute to this show, would you consider doing some kind of little jingle for this section that can be a really fun way to get your audience involved, or maybe it's artwork or something else. It is so much fun to involve your audience in your podcast, and that is building the relationship. Now go out and try this on your next episode. And now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you in your next episode to start and grow your podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com and please try Podgagement to help you supercharge your audience interaction over@podgagement.com thanks for listening. Sa.