← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
522. Behind the Mic: Crafting a Brainy Podcast
00:47:04
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer shares her top tips for launching and growing a successful podcast, reflecting on her own journey since starting the show in 2018. With over 500 episodes, a global audience, and multiple...
Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 522 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to share my top tips for brainy podcasting. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:19]
Unknown
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host. Host Melina Palmer hello.
- [00:35]
Melina Palmer
Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Podcasting has come a long way since I first launched this show back in July of 2018. And here we are just after the seven year anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. In that time, I've released over 500 episodes, built a global audience, published three books, delivered a TEDx talk, and launched an entirely new YouTube channel. Be sure to check out @brainymoulina if you haven't yet. But it all started with that very first microphone and a lot of research. One of the most common questions I have gotten over the years, especially from people starting or scaling a business, is should I start a podcast? And my answer is maybe. There's a lot of magic and opportunity in this format, but it isn't as simple or effortless as some might suggest. As with pretty much everything in life, it takes time, strategy, and a whole lot of intentionality to do it well. So today I'm sharing a refreshed version of an earlier solo episode with my top tips for launching and growing a successful podcast. Whether you're just getting started or already a few episodes or seasons in, from search strategy to branding to content planning and why consistency matters, I'm walking through it all from a behavioral economics perspective and my personal experience. And as you'll hear, this ties closely with the message of my TEDx talk. There's nothing magical about Monday and the concept I'm going to be talking about more in the next episode, which is the power of not yet. Because podcasting, like so many things in business, is a long game. Saying not yet to the wrong things, distractions, shiny objects, or things that you can't just do today, but something that's better for tomorrow can create space to do the right things the right way today. Really quickly, before we get into the episode, I want to be sure you know there are links in the show notes for my top related past episodes, books, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to, and atthe brainybusiness.com 522 now let's jump right in with those top podcasting tips.
- [02:57]
Unknown
Podcasting is a growing medium and just like any exciting new ish format, it can feel like everyone has a podcast and that you must be there to be successful in business. Just like social media influencing of any kind, our brain uses availability bias, herding and optimism bias to make it seem like this is easy and everyone can be an overnight sensation. When doing research for my Show Back in 2018, I saw a lot of people who were claiming to teach you how to do a podcast and wanting you to hire them to consult on it and talking about how easy it was to add this into your existing content mix. You can spend one hour a week getting it all together, or you can easily just record all your interviews in one day and be set for the next two months or whatever else. Here's what I Our brain is programmed to look for the magic solution, the pill that makes it so we don't have to work out and can still have six pack abs, the five minutes a day to becoming a CEO. The post once a week on Twitter and magically have a million followers. It simply doesn't work that way. Anything that's worth doing in your business, whether it's a podcast, blog, video series, course, membership, group, product or service offering, if it isn't worth your time to be there and build it out right, it probably isn't worth doing. Yes, at some point you will have an opportunity to hire help, but that's still an investment. You're just putting in dollars to buy back your time because you've been successful enough investing in that particular thing enough to grow it. I've said this on the show before, but it's still true. Each episode of the podcast, even the easy ones that I already know what I want to say. Like this one. Take me six, eight hours in research, writing and recording or if doing an interview, finding the guest, vetting, getting on the schedule and doing the intro and outro. It's an average of seven hours just to get to the point of it being recorded and sent off for editing. A quick shout out here to the Pro Podcast Solutions team. They do the editing for each episode, show notes and make sure everything gets posted where it is supposed to. All those different platforms and up on my website every single week. And I'm very thankful that I don't have to do any of that because that just seems like a spot where.
- [05:26]
Melina Palmer
I could mess things up.
- [05:27]
Unknown
There's also additional time required to create the social images and promote that, create worksheets when needed. And then there's all the time reviewing and improving the content, posting on each of the social channels I use, creating the weekly newsletter and sending that out, considering if it should be converted into other content, engaging with listeners on social media and over email. It just takes a lot of time and that's a good thing. It means it's successful and I want to be able to invest that time. But if I hadn't dedicated enough of my business to it, I would never have been able to grow it in the way that I have. So whenever I say this, that I dedicate the equivalent of a full day or more each week for each new episode of the show, someone will inevitably ask, yeah, but does it have to? Or sure, but what if I Whatever the rest of that question is, the answer is sure, of course you could spend less time on it. Technically, anyone can have a podcast and record right into their iPhone and post it with no editing. And sure, I could do less. I could not spend as much time researching articles and content for the show. I I could choose to not write out a full script for each episode, which ends up being about 5,000 words per show, by the way, which is a tenth of the average business book. I could spend less time on socials and interacting with people. I could not vet my guests as thoroughly and could choose not to read the books for those who I bring on the show. I'm surprised how many hosts don't do that, but all those things are what make the brainy business successful. I get compliments on my show notes and how thorough they are all the time. A lot of that is because I write out these massive scripts with all the links and research in them, but that's also because of the team that puts them together. You can thank Emma, Tricia and Karen for that. People tell me how much they love that they can absorb the details before listening and when they don't have time to listen, they can learn something from reading those show notes and all those timestamps. So you know where to go to hear something you like. That isn't mandatory, but it helps show the professionalism and make it easy for the listeners to get what they need. I don't need to post every full episode to YouTube each week, and that takes time to create the video with the audiogram and make the artwork, but it's nice for people who want to listen that way. I also get compliments on the artwork and it isn't necessary to do different imagery for every episode but it makes for shareable content that draws people in and makes them want to listen and learn more instead of kind of blurring into the background of one more of exactly the same image from the brainy business. I also get compliments on the audio quality. Thank you to Mike, Jody and the rest of the Pro Podcast Solutions team for your help on that. I did the research and invested in good audio from the beginning, which meant spending money to get trained on how to record, what type of microphone to use. Mine is an Audio Technica ATR 2100 USB which I have linked for you in the show notes and I do have a pop filter on it as well. They also let me know what system to record into and I invested in the music and having someone do the voiceover for the intro and outro. Having professional editing from day one. That training again was from Pro Podcast Solutions and their information is in the show notes for you. I don't get anything from talking about them or sharing their information, but I send a lot of people their way because they're awesome. Darrel and his team are fantastic. I highly recommend them or any editor if you're going to do a podcast. I remember when I was doing research before starting the show, I I was asking around, I did a lot of research. I'm sure you can appreciate it sort of in my nature, but I was looking around asking people who had podcasts that I knew already how long it took them to create their content and if they did their own editing, as I was trying to decide if I wanted to do it myself. I've done a lot of website stuff in the past. I know HTML and I've done some video editing, so I figured I could probably figure it out. So many people said they did their own to save money and that it was taking them four or eight hours a week to edit each episode, which is not giving you the return on investment in most cases if you need this as part of your business strategy. One of my friends said she had a particular episode with some quirks that were difficult to edit and she spent an entire 24 hours on one rogue episode editing it so it would work. No thank you. That made it really easy for me to say that it was in no way worth editing myself and was very much worth hiring that out. So my tip here is know what your value is in the work you're doing outside the podcast and what you want it to be doing for you. Why is a podcast a good fit for your business model and how will it support the work you do. While download numbers and subscribers feel like the only thing that matters and a big piece to be tracking, they aren't necessarily the most important stat for your business. In my case, downloads and overall reach are very important as my goal is to be known as a thought leader in behavioral economics. Speaking engagements, consulting projects, book deals, they align with that strategy and downloads are a good thing for me to be tracking and constantly looking to increase. One other reason I started the show was to help people understand what behavioral economics even is and how it can apply to business. Creating an hour of content every week has helped me develop frameworks around things like pricing strategy, which eventually became a course. It lets me test concepts and connect with smart people in the industry. In a world where people don't know what behavioral economics is, having a chance to listen to me and my style, how I talk about the concepts and my thoughts on how they tie in, or case studies on research or projects I've done with clients. It all helps establish expertise and thought leadership and can provide a lot of value without necessarily needing a lot of downloads. When thinking about the goals for your podcast, consider if you want to help existing clients understand what you do and show your depth of knowledge, then the reach doesn't need to be beyond your existing clientele and downloads are less important. It's nice to have downloads and attract new clients, but that may be a secondary goal. If you have a regional topic you're covering, getting downloads around the world may not matter either. You don't need to actively try to keep people from listening if they aren't a fit and you really can't anyway. But that reach isn't your goal. The other big goal that a lot of podcasts have is to connect with the guests who could be clients for you down the line. If you're in a very specialized market and there are some big names you want to connect with, asking them to be a guest on the podcast can open a lot of doors. Interviewing them for the show can demonstrate your expertise and get them thinking about hiring you or at least put you on their radar. For some of these people, it may have been impossible to get them to open your email when without a podcast, as you're just one more vendor. But when you have a show to interview them on, it's flattering and they may be more inclined to join you. If anyone listens to that episode, that's a bonus for you because the relationship with the guest was the real win. Knowing your goals before you jump in and create a podcast is incredibly important and should be used to determine how you set up the structure of your show. There are a lot of interview shows out there and that's great. I know when I tell people that 90% of my show is solo episodes and that in the first I think 80, I only did one interview, they are amazed. It isn't super common to just talk on a podcast in the way that I do, but it was central to the thought leadership I was building and how it ties into my overall business model. It was very strategic to not do interviews for the bulk of the beginning of the podcast and I hadn't planned on doing them at any point. It just sort of fit and made sense. A podcast is a big reciprocity trigger as well. I've linked to the episodes on reciprocity and lead magnets in the show Notes for you, which again you can find@thebrainybusiness.com 108 giving away so much free content helps make it easier for people to do business with you. They want to thank you for the kindness and know that a podcast doesn't need to be super long episodes. My show was originally almost an hour in every episode and I've shortened them over time. They're usually around 30 minutes now, but anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes on average, I'd say. And it's flexible. I don't feel like I have to do any specific time limit anymore. And there are other versions of podcasts that people love. There are daily five minute podcasts, little 90 second episode nuggets that give you a cool little tip without getting too in depth. There are podcasts of people reading the daily headlines and stories to you. They aren't creating new content so it's less work, but but they likely aren't part of a business model and a consulting type of space either. There's give and take and it can all be personalized, balanced against the work it takes to create a great show. As I mentioned earlier, and the time that you're able to invest in what people are wanting to listen to. If you create shorter episodes, there is less work in some ways. But as Blaise Pascal first said, I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. Clear, concise, targeted content can often take more time to create than something longer. With all of it, don't feel confined to what you're already listening to or what a podcast has to be. A podcast doesn't have to be anything. It's your show. You can make it fit your own model and plan and just make sure you're keeping your own business goals and audience in mind as you set it up. You'll be in way better shape than your competitors if you do that. Which brings me to the next point. This one may kind of feel like a bummer, and it's very much related to the other things I've been saying so far. But I want to talk a little about numbers and stats and revenue so you're aware of the landscape and that it can help you make an informal, informed decision about whether a podcast is a good fit for you and your business or not. So first, let's talk about Pod Fade. There are over a million podcasts now, and a lot have been added during the Coronavirus pandemic, according to my podcast reviews, and there are links to this article and some others for you. In the show notes they say that just under half of podcasts are considered active, which means they've posted a new episode in the last 90 days. It doesn't necessarily mean they've been a victim of Pod Fade, but in many cases they have. So what is Pod Fade? It's that most podcasts don't get past episode number seven. It's presumably because they didn't properly think through their goals and the amount of work required, and potentially got discouraged when it wasn't an immediate windfall in their business. So if you need a strategy that is going to be immediately bringing huge numbers and results and things in your door, well, there aren't a lot of things that just sort of do that. But you know, a podcast, it does take work. And for a lot of shows, for most shows you're not hitting those numbers you would like to be from the very beginning. And again, it takes work to grow the show. I'll talk a little bit about average numbers here in a minute, but before that I want to say something about podcast stats. So they also aren't as detailed as we would all like them to be. They show downloads per episode and geography and the type of devices people use. But you can't see demographics or know that someone came in on this episode and listened to 10 more or anything like that. They're pretty basic in their information, which is a bummer. You also don't get email addresses or names of listeners or anything like that. Unless you do, like I do, and actively encourage listeners to connect with you on social media or over email, you aren't going to know who they are or how to target them or find more people just like them. There are general details out there about all podcast listeners As a group, which are great, podcast listeners tend to be well educated. They buy brands, they hear recommended on shows, they have disposable income, they're pretty evenly split by gender. And again, I have linked to some full articles for you to check out in the show notes. Again, I want you to know it's not my intention to discourage you if a podcast is in your master plan or it's a big dream of yours. My podcast has absolutely transformed my business in the best way possible. It has been amazing, and the tips in this episode are a big piece of that. But there are a few things that you need to know before you jump in, because I don't want you to put in a ton of work time and financial investment only to end up pod fading after seven episodes or less. It's better to not start if you aren't going to get the results you want and it's not going to meet your goals. So here are two really important things to know. First, most podcasts do not make money and they actually cost money. While there are companies that advertise on podcasts in general, they're looking for a lot of downloads before they're interested in investing. And if you aren't doing the things I talk about in this episode, being strategic for how this works with your business model, it will likely not make money for you. If you plan to start a podcast, ask yourself, if this doesn't generate any income for me in the next year, am I willing to invest the time and money to create the best show possible? Is it going to create value for me and my business? Outside of that, can I carry the costs associated with running a show? If the answer to any or all of those questions is no, it might not be a fit for you, at least not right now. And you want to know that if you could carry it without making anything, then if it does better than expected, that can just be a big win and something you feel excited about versus being really stressed if it's not bringing in a lot of revenue for you from the very beginning, which is difficult for a lot of shows to do. And one reason for that is this second item, which is the average download numbers for a show, and I'm guessing it's a lot less than you think. Again, this is availability bias at work. We see the successful numbers and shows out there and assume everyone gets tons of downloads and you think about radio and the millions of people out there and YouTube influencers and all of that, and just assume that's what everyone gets. Have you ever tried to grow a YouTube channel or Twitter account or Instagram or anything else. It's never really that easy. Podcast downloads are not a perfect science. And what I'm going to talk about here are the average episodes that podcasts have. So if you look at all podcasts and there are over a million of them, like I said, so all podcasts in the entire world and what their averages are, this is looking at after an episode has been live for 30 days, how many downloads does it have? So this episode comes out on July 10th and the number of downloads it will have on August 10th or right around there would be what's looked at to help calculate those average downloads for the episodes for my show. What do you think the average podcast gets for downloads per episode after 30 days? I'm going to give you a second to have a number in your head. Ready? According to Libsyn, the hosting platform I and many other podcasters use, the average podcast episode has 141 downloads after 30 days, it's less than 150 downloads per episode. That is something really important to know when you ask yourself in your strategy if it's a fit for you. If you're the average 141, and remember, that means that there are several hundred thousand that are under that number, will you be happy? How many clients do you need in your business? If they're the right 141, that could be amazing for a lot of small businesses and companies starting podcasts. But for others, it could be a bad use of time. Once you gain traction, you can have tons of downloads, of course, and once you have a good back catalog, it's a lot easier to be getting more downloads every single day and week. So while the average is 141 downloads per episode, you're in the top 10% of all podcasts. When you have 3,400 downloads per episode, you're IN the top 5%. When you hit 9,000 downloads per episode after 30 days, and if you have over 50,000 per episode, you're IN the Top 1%. Those numbers did pull out some of the big outliers like Joe Rogan, I believe, but there are still several that are getting a huge amount of downloads in those first 30 day spans. And you can see how the top few percent are getting the bulk of the downloads. It's possible and can be a fantastic strategy. I look forward to being in those numbers someday. But again, it takes dedication to the medium and focused effort to get there. Again, I promise it's not my intention to be a total downer on starting a podcast. The Brainy Business and getting it set up. It's been the best thing I've ever done for my company. It's worth every minute I spend on it. I just want everyone to be prepared so none of you that choose to start a show end up pod fading. A couple more things on this setup piece and things to think about and then I'm going to close out the episode with launch tips and details on my process for each podcast episode of along with the names of the systems I use, because I get questions on that a lot as well. Putting my marketing and brand hat on here for a second. I don't know that I ever take it off, but I'm definitely putting it on now. I want you to think about how you're going to stand out from competitors if you're starting a podcast. It's great when you can be early on have your blue ocean. That's another big reason that the Brainy Business has been so successful. I have people tell me all the time that when they search for behavioral economics or business psychology, my podcast is the first or sometimes the only one that comes up. And on multiple search terms, they say I keep showing up, so they know that they should give it a try. Knowing which areas are searchable in those podcast apps is really important in helping people find you. You want to know what are the terms they're going to be looking for where you want to show up. The name of your podcast is searchable and your description should be searchable as well. But I'm pretty sure the name carries more weight than the text in the description, so definitely make sure you have a really solid name. When I launched the Brainy Business, there weren't many people searching for behavioral economics yet, especially in the business space, so I knew I wanted to have a more descriptive name and still wanted to include that for anyone who was specifically looking for behavioral economics. So if you go and look at the official name of this podcast, it's not just the Brainy Business. The full name is the Brainy Business and then it's got one of those pipes that's the vertical bar. So it's the Brainy Business Pipe. Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Pipe Behavioral Economics that helps me come up in searches, and most people don't read that far, so it's okay that it's long. If you're looking to establish thought leadership and want people all over to find you, it's important to think of these search terms. Calling your podcast Something fun and quirky but unrelated will not help you get found in search, which means people aren't going to organically find you. It's going to just be a lot more work to get people to realize that you exist. My original company name was Defying Gravity. I loved it and the logo was amazing, but I knew it didn't fit with the new brand and podcast, so I had to let it go. Searchability and clear alignment to the topic was more important. And do know that full long name doesn't need to be on your art, and it probably shouldn't be, but you want to be super strategic with the words that you use. And speaking of art and search terms, when you think about your future listener and client, what are they going to be looking for in a podcast? And again, thinking about the words they're going to type in. Is it sales? Paleo tips? Behavioral economics, how to knit, Whatever? If you know what your person will search for, type that in before you choose your own show art and finalize your name to see what comes up in the top results. If they're all blue backgrounds, you want to pick something with a yellow background or orange or pink or green, anything but blue so you can stand out. If they all have their faces on the art, maybe you should go without your face. What types of font do they use and what does that say about them? What do you want people to think about you in comparison? And if you show up next to them, what will happen? Make someone want to click on you instead of them. It was a very strategic choice to have a purple and very fun font and the cartoon type of brain with the rocket ship because I wanted people to know that while this is an academic topic, it's not going to just be a boring, difficult lecture type of thing to listen to. I wanted to prime people with this fun, engaging imagery to make them more likely to click and then want to take that next step. And you need to remember that most people listen to podcasts on their phones, so if you're searching, the art is really small, which is why you want less words. And they need to be big enough to be able to read clearly at a quick glance. The name and art should draw their eye and make them want to click to get to the next step of reading your full title and description and decide if they want to listen to an episode. As you've heard me say many times on the show, you want to think of the small steps and the next little thing you need them to do to move them closer to the end goal, which in this case is to download an episode and then to subscribe. But before that you need them to pick the right search term to see you to draw their attention. Then you need them to click on yours and you need them to read the title, and you need them to scroll through some of the episodes that exist and then listen to one and then decide to subscribe. I've linked to episode 43 on how to build a brainy brand, which has some good tips for you on that, as well as episode 61 on color theory, which talks about the benefits of contrast and if you're going to be investing in a podcast, it should be a main driver of business for you. For me, it's the top of my funnel, how most people find me. So so I talk about it and cross promote and showcase it everywhere I can in every presentation I give. When I'm speaking at events, when I talk about a concept, the slide references the episode number of the podcast with more details. The podcast is all over my website. When I do an episode, I make sure to reference past ones. When commenting in groups I'm a member of on Facebook, I bring it up when appropriate and not being weird or pushy. It's a primary item on my speaker sheet and it's in the signature line of my email. You can't do this sort of push with everything, which is why you want to really invest in whatever your main strategy is. The podcast is mine, which makes it worth the time and one of the first things I can mention when people ask what I do or when I can talk about my business. When you're running a podcast, especially at the beginning, you really start to feel like a narcissist, constantly bringing up that you have a show. But in general it just feels this way to you because it's foreign and you're saying it to multiple people and in multiple places. Even when I feel like I'm saying things nonstop, it's amazing how many people I'm connected to on social media or see at networking events that have no idea what I do or things that I've added into business that I feel like I've said a million times. I actually just had someone join the Be Thoughtful Revolution in the last month who I'm connected to on social media and who's gone to my in person workshops and we're friends. She's on my personal social and is on the newsletter list and I know that she's listened to the podcast quite a bit in the past and a friend who's already a member of the Revolution mentioned the group to her, and before that she had no idea that it existed, but it was right up her alley and she ended up joining. People are busy and distracted and have a lot going on and social media filters what people see. Even when you feel like you've said something a million times, it doesn't mean everyone has seen it. So say it one more time Another question I get a lot is about whether or not a show needs to go every week, or if you can be less frequent to save on production time and effort. In my opinion, it's almost not worth doing if you aren't going weekly. And I know that's a bold and possibly controversial statement, but let me tell you why. It's because of habits and understanding how they work within the brain. If you aren't consistently putting out content every week, you will not get factored into your listeners routines. I have people tell me all the time that they listen to my show every Friday morning when they get ready for work or every Saturday night when they take the dog for a walk or on their drive into work on Tuesday. When you can be an every time option, you become part of the habit and the subconscious brain loves those routines. If you're less frequent even every other week, you can easily fall by the wayside and be forgotten. Your listeners will be less faithful to you and they'll fill in with something else in the off weeks when they're still looking for content on that drive or walk or getting ready. Personally, I also don't like seasons for the same reason. I know a lot of shows will release episodes for a few months and then take a few months off. I see this as a big opportunity to lose listeners and momentum. My advice is to launch a show that you can do consistently every week for at least one full year before evaluating if it did what you wanted and needed it to do. Never miss a week. Never do a sloppy episode in a rush. Give everyone your all to ensure it's high quality every time because you never know what someone's first episode might be and you don't want it to be that bad one. I've had to re record entire episodes all over again, even when they're an hour long or add something that needed additional logic or whatever it is and rerecord when I really didn't want to and wanted to be done with that episode for that week. But you just need to be able to invest in that quality because it doesn't take much for people to get frustrated and leave, especially when they're first finding you. The other advice I give for a launch is to start with your first three full episodes and go live with all three on the first day. This allows people to begin that binge listening and start forming that habit right away. If you launch with only one episode and someone likes it, and then has to remember to come back in a week to get the next one, they may forget. Three episodes is a lot of content to get through in a week, assuming they're, you know, 30 or hour long episodes and they can really get attached to your advice and style so they're more likely to hit subscribe and have their app automatically deliver content to them. One thing I had looked up quite a bit before launching my show was if there was a best day of the week to release content. A few years ago, everything pretty much said it didn't really matter. But in general weekends are pretty slow for downloads and I've seen that as well, so they aren't a top choice. But any weekday should be fine and you can plan around your schedule for what works for you. I chose Fridays so people could listen over the weekend if they wanted and start the week off with new knowledge. And if I could go back and do it again, I might not pick that day. But it looks like right now there's some general advice that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday might be better days to launch a show, but in general I just wouldn't get too hung up on that. Once you get a few weeks or months in and have a back catalog going, people are finding you whatever works for them and they can work it into the routine. It's more important to pick a day that works with your schedule so you can release great content on time every time than it is to be on the perfect day, because that just doesn't really exist. Now to wrap up the episode, I want to give you the walkthrough of what I do each week, along with the names of the systems and equipment I use. Again, things I get questions on all the time and those will be listed out for you in the show notes so you can check it all out at the brainy business.com1:08 instead of feeling like you have to take frantic notes now. When I was looking to start my podcast, I couldn't find any checklists or charts with tips of what to do for each episode to make sure I was following best practices. So after doing a lot, lot, lot of research, I made my own. I've built them into Trello now and have been considering setting up a mini item to buy to get access to templates and plan for some time. Now let me know if that's something you'd be interested in by sending an email to melinathebrainybusiness.com or connecting with me on the socials where you can find me as the brainy biz. If enough people are interested, I can make it a priority to create and have it available for everyone to buy. So here's what I do for each new episode of the podcast. First I come up with a topic and determine if there will be a guest or it's going to be a solo episode. For ease. Right now I'm only going to talk about solo episodes, but there are additional steps with guests. I determine my topic and then I start doing the research which includes writing out the full script. This one now that it's complete, and going back and reading through and is 7,000 words. When all is said and done, I keep notes as I go in that Word document to all the relevant past episodes and articles and links to put in the show notes to make it easy on the team to add them all in. I then record using my ATR 2100 mic into a system called Audacity. When I'm done recording, I download the WAV file, which my editors say has better quality than an MP4 like you get on Zoom, though I do use that for interviews and then I submit it to the editing team. We use Basecamp and I upload the audio Word Doc create any images using Canva. I always do a square for social media that's unique for each episode and a wide one for YouTube. I sometimes make special ones for Instagram stories, but the square can be shared there pretty easily, and if the episode needs a worksheet, I create that in Canva as well. When the episode is edited, I listen to the entire thing in full to make sure everything is accurate and there are no spots that need to be rerecorded or breaks in logic. I do listen to every single episode before approving. This is often a good time to go for a walk, or sometimes I would listen when getting my nails done. Assuming it's approved, I submit that and review the full show notes and edit those before submitting for approval. Once those are done, I use Headliner to make an audiogram for YouTube and I've used these for posts on social media as well with shorter clips of audio. It's now really nicely integrated into Libsyn, which like I said, is where the podcast is hosted, but I don't have the bandwidth to do that as consistently as I would like. Hopefully moving forward we'll do those more regularly. I then set up the newsletter in ActiveCampaign and the team pushes the episode live and puts it up on the website. I then write all the social copy for the announcements on LinkedIn and Facebook, which each have multiple pages both personal and for the business that need to share, as well as Instagram and Twitter, and post that headliner video of the full episode on YouTube. We also set up multiple other pieces of content to share throughout the week and ongoing with pull quotes and images and other notes that line up with the topic that can be shared now and into the future and may be if there was an article that I like that someone else wrote that ties back to a specific episode to make notes about that to share later. Those are all in a content repository that I have on Trello that is built out to keep all that content. There is a lot of it, and this could also mean seeing if any of the episodes could be repurposed for an ink article or a post on Medium or any other content that might make sense. And then there's also lots of engagement on social media throughout the week, responding to comments and emails and Instagram stories all the time and then gearing up to do it all again for the following week's episode. You can imagine with 108 episodes now, as I said, there's a lot of content out there that can be repurposed and shared, so that's a job in itself as well. Well, if you are considering starting a podcast, coming up with all of that content and fears about not having enough topics are really very real concerns. My biggest tip for that which you can use for a blog or YouTube channel or newsletter, any other content you create is to sit down and spend an hour making a list of every topic you could possibly do an episode or post about. Break them up into smaller pieces, combine some together, list and list and list as many as you can. When I first did this I came up with nearly 100 topics so I knew if I got stuck at any point I could revisit the inspiration list and grab something to talk about. And that first brainstorm was enough for nearly two years worth of content. I still haven't used everything on that list because listeners have requested other content or when working on an episode, I found something related when reading an article that I wanted to talk about as well and did series and the format has modified from what I had in mind originally as I do interviews Now I still have at least 30 topics from that original list and many more that I've added since then. Write down ideas in bulk when you don't need them immediately it's much easier to come up with a bunch of topics when you don't need them. When it's for next week's show, it's a lot harder to create a topic from scratch because your brain is just overwhelmed by the stress of setting that up. So having the time to know what you want and doing that in advance as you're doing your initial brainstorming and determining if a podcast is right for you is a really great tool tool to make sure you have the confidence to be able to move forward and know that if you go forward with the podcast, it meets your goals and your needs and is going to help your business to thrive.
- [43:45]
Melina Palmer
So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about podcasting tips and content creation tips today? For me, I've been reflecting a lot on how far the brainy business has come over these years and how much I've learned from showing up every week and now twice a week, no matter what. One of the most important lessons is this. Your audience builds trust not just through your insights, but through your consistency. When people can count on you to be there every week with thoughtful, high quality content, they come to feel like they know you and hopefully like and then trust you as well. And that is incredibly powerful. And if you're thinking about launching a show of your own, I hope this episode helped illuminate the real work and reward of doing it well. From understanding your goals to picking the right name and format, every detail adds up. And yes, podcasting is a lot of effort, but if it fits your model and you're in it for the long haul, it can also be one of the most valuable, joy filled parts of your business. I know it has been for me. And if you're someone who is struggling with the overwhelm of life and business and feeling compelled to say yes to everything, be sure to tune into the next episode, which comes out in just a couple days, which is the audio from my TEDx talk. There's nothing magical about Monday where I dig into the power of not yet in achieving your most important goals by knowing what matters and saying not yet to everything else. Until then, remember that something is a not yet. It doesn't have to mean never, it just means it's not the right moment yet. I had to not yet our new YouTube channel and doing more with video for years to be sure. We did it right. Hey, did I mention we just launched a new YouTube channel? Follow me at Brainy Molina to check it out. I think you'll like it. Giving yourself the grace to grow at the right pace without skipping the foundations is one of the most thoughtful things you can do for yourself, your business, your audience, and more. So I'm curious now, what stuck out for you from the tips in this episode? And do you have any additional questions about podcasting or creating content that I can answer? Come share them with me on social media. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as ways to connect related episodes, books and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com 522 and just like that, episode 522 with my top podcasting tips is done. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast where we learn about the power of not yet. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.
- [46:47]
Unknown
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness. Com.