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- [00:00]
Hala Taha
Just because podcast is more competitive than it's ever been and there's more avenues and channels with the video component to do it. To me, that just shows that it is a healthy money making market. Like you don't want to be in a dying market. You want to be in a market that people are putting money behind and energy behind and time behind.
- [00:19]
Julie Solomon
Welcome to the Influencer Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Solomon. If you found yourself here, it means you are ready to unleash the powerful visionary that lives inside you, turning you into an authentic leader who creates influence, impact and change. Let's get started. Hi friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Influencer Podcast. Today we have Hala Taha here to talk about something that I love and that is all things podcasts. Hala is the founder of yap, the Young and Profiting Podcast and Network. She actually has a ton of incredible podcasts under her network. So she knows everything that there is to know about how to start, launch and scale a successful podcast today. We talk about the ins and outs of really what is needed to stick out among the saturation in the podcast industry today. And she does not hold back.
- [01:14]
Hala Taha
She gives us all of the secrets.
- [01:15]
Julie Solomon
To not only how she was able to scale her own podcast, but really how she's able to help other podcasters do that. So if you are in the world of either wanting to scale your podcast or wanting to start one, today's episode is not one to miss. Let's get started.
- [01:31]
Hala Taha
Hi, Hala.
- [01:33]
Hi, Julie. Excited to be on the show.
- [01:36]
I know. I'm excited to have you back again. This is not your first time on the show and I'm so excited to dive in. Today we are going to be covering a lot of ground on a topic that I know so many of my audience is always really curious about and really intrigued about. And that is all things podcasting. How to start a podcast, how do you launch it, how do you scale it, how do you call that engaged listenership and viewership in? How do you get sponsors interested in wanting to work with you so you can monetize your podcast? And there really is no better person to have that conversation with than you. And for those listening, I have had the pleasure of getting to know Hala even more over the last almost year when the Influencer Podcast went under the Young and Profiting Network umbrella. So I am one of the podcasts that Holla's network gets to just support and be a proponent for. And it's been so amazing and so fun and I Just love to kind of see the inner workings of your brain and how you kind of approach what you do when it comes to all things podcasts. So thank you for being here with us today.
- [02:37]
Thank you. I love talking about podcasts. They call me the podcast princess for a reason. I feel like I know everything about podcasts, so I can't wait to talk about it with you.
- [02:47]
You are. You are awesome. So we're gonna just dive into it. So for those that want to dive in, I had hall on the podcast probably about a year and a half ago, and she shared a lot about her story, which I do think is really important, just to kind of understand her heart and her hustle and her drive. So we're going to put that episode in the show notes, if you want to, and listen to that, but we're going to really focus on today about where she's at today and as she said, all things podcasting. So holla. I just have some questions I'm going to start going after with you. You know, I think a lot of my listeners will probably say they would probably look at a podcast like mine, and I could. I could just assume, right? I could just be curious on some of the. Maybe the limiting beliefs that they would have about their own ability to grow, right? They would see a podcast like mine or a podcast like Jenna Kutcher's or Amy Porterfield's, and maybe they're saying to themselves, well, those podcasts started years ago. I could never grow as big as them. Or who would want to monetize and support my podcast when they could support a podcast like Julie Amy's or Jenna's or. The podcast market is too saturated now, so what's the point in launching a podcast? I would love just to get your take on podcasting as a whole in someone's business model and really the way the landscape looks right now.
- [04:01]
So, first of all, you don't have to be a huge podcast to have a successful podcast. A lot of podcasts have the goal of not becoming a huge podcast, but really just networking with people that could be their future leads, clients and customers. And so I have at. So I host a podcast called Young and Profiting. I have an agency with the podcast production agency, and then I also have a network where I grow and monetize shows like yours, right? And so on the production side, when I get clients, usually people have one of two goals. They want to be influencers. They want to grow a brand, build a community, and they want to have a really big podcast with A large following, and their hope is to get sponsorships down the line. Or it's a person who has their own products and services. They're not necessarily caring about becoming the biggest podcast in the world, but they want to speak to people that might buy their own products and services, or it might be somebody who has a business that's doing really well in real life, and they want to interview and attract more leads by networking on their podcasts. And in that scenario, they really don't need a large audience at all. It's more about the actual interview and connection with the guest. And so a lot of people don't realize that the easiest way to monetize a podcast and have a successful podcast is to go that latter route. Interview somebody that might be your potential client. So when I started my agency, actually, most of my clients that come for my social agency and my production agency and now even my network, they're guests that came on my show. So, for instance, me and you had a conversation, then you joined my network. Amy came on my show, then she joined my network, you know, and I get social clients in that same way. And I never have to advertise any of my social or network services. It's just all coming in through the podcast. So I think that's number one, is understanding that to be a successful podcast, you don't necessarily have to have a huge audience. Everybody has their own goals.
- [05:58]
Hmm. Okay. So I know that we don't need to have a huge audience in order to have a successful podcast, but what do we need to have?
- [06:05]
Hmm. So you need to be really targeted in terms of who you're speaking to. There are a lot of podcasts out there right now, and pod fade, which means people quitting, is a huge thing. 50% of podcasters pod fade over time. So it's very hard. Yes. So 50% of podcasts don't last, and 20% of new podcasts that launch every year by the end of the year have POD faded. It's. It's very hard for people to feel good. Yeah, you're doing great. You're doing great. You know, it's very hard to have a successful show. It's not easy to have a successful show, but if you have a niche focus and you're of value and you're trying to help people on a certain problem that they have, and you solve their problem through your content, whether that's solo episodes or interview episodes, and you're very specific and targeted about who you're helping, the problems that you solve all of your episodes are related to that, your podcast title is related to that, your description is related to that. Then you'll have good SEO where you'll be searched and found by people From Google, from YouTube, if you put your episodes up on there from Apple Search, most people are finding their content by literally searching in the Apple app or whatever podcast app they're on. They're searching keywords like, you know how to grow a podcast and they're seeing what episodes come up. Right? Or they're searching that on Google and then they're coming across your episodes that way. So if you want organic visibility, it's super important to solve a problem, be very specific about who you cater to, what problems you solve, and then cater all your content around that. That's super important. The biggest mistake that I see people making now is trying to come out with a general podcast that's just like an interview show that's once a week, like everybody else's show. That's saturated already. My podcast is, you know, we've dominated that, right? Lewis Howes, like, that's already taken over. You can't come out that way and think you're just going to have some broad podcasts unless you're already a celebrity. Now the other thing to keep in mind if you're launching a new show is how are you going to bring in an audience? Okay. It is not the easiest thing to start a podcast if you don't have other channels that are feeding and sending subscribers to your podcast. And video is really the key to discovery. 31% of podcast listeners say they found their new latest podcast on YouTube. So YouTube discovery is huge and it's about to get even bigger because Google podcasts just got sunsetted and it's no longer going to be a thing. And now podcasts are being integrated into YouTube music. So there's all this discoverability that's going to be happening with video podcasts that wasn't there before. It's the power of YouTube discoverability, which audio discoverability simply just can't compete with. It's got an amazing algorithm that feeds people endless pipeline of videos based on their interests. Now we have that for YouTube podcast videos, which is totally brand new and is going to bring in a whole new wave of audiences. And that's actually how people will find. Your audio podcast too, is from YouTube. I also see like other video first platforms like TikTok generating a lot of new podcast audio subscribers. So for example, I just signed Tori Dunlap, a financial feminist. She's got 2 million followers on TikTok. Out of all the influencers in our network, she has the fastest growing podcast. She has the biggest podcast out of everybody in our network. And it's because she's getting all these subscribers from TikTok, which is sort of an untapped place right now for podcast subscribers. So those are the main things I'm seeing.
- [09:39]
Oh, that, that is so good. I want to hone in a little bit on the people that I know are listening that are like, okay, I hear all of this. But now I'm like, okay, well then do I start audio? Do I go to YouTube? Like, what is the simplest and easiest way for me to actually just get started with a podcast?
- [09:59]
This is so important. Just get started. You know, a lot of people, they worry about, I need to have the perfect podcast cover, I need to have the perfect name, I need to have the perfect guests, I need to record 10 in a row, have it batched, blah, blah, blah. No, put something up there and stay active, stay consistent and realize that your show can evolve. My show has evolved so many times. If you talk to a lot of these big podcasters, their show has evolved over time. You can start with audio, which is the easiest thing to do. Audio is the easiest thing to put out. Then you can layer on video and you can use that to promote on social media. And you can, you know, put up your full episodes on YouTube and figure out YouTube and all those kind of things. But at least start somewhere on the audio side and just get something up there, something that you can commit to and stay consistent with. If you can't do one a week, I wouldn't bother at all, to be honest, with podcasting. So at least four episodes a month. If you can stay consistent with that, just get started and then you can evolve your format. You can evolve everything about your podcast, even your title and cover. All those things can be swapped. It's not like YouTube where you upload a video and you. You can't really change it or take it down. You can even edit your audio episodes and swap it in the feed. So there's a lot of flexibility to evolve in podcasting.
- [11:15]
Oh, that's so good. I love just get started. You want to do one a week. You can pick the day. Let's talk about that. Is there a magical day? Yeah, that you need to release a podcast. A magical time. Do you believe so. And I want those questions answered. And then do you also believe when you are first launching a podcast, should you put up more than one episode in the Beginning or is there like a kind of a launch process?
- [11:36]
So Wednesday actually is now the new best day to post an episode. It's really Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are the best days. Friday's not a good day, even Saturday and Sunday is not a great day. They say, like, you know, Monday through Thursday is your best bet for. For episodes. Most people, you basically are uploading your episode and you're scheduling it to be published. You want to publish it at the same time every single time you publish. And usually that's like 4am in the morning, Eastern time is what usually people do, because then you're catching morning time in Europe, and people have it in their feeds in the morning when they wake up. And if they wake up super early, it's already there for them. So a lot of people like to listen to their podcast in the morning as part of their routine. You don't want to mess up that routine for them. If. If it's in their feed in the morning, they're not going to listen to it if you upload it at noon. So you got to make sure you do it consistently at the same time every day when you're publishing it. And usually, like I said, that's like early, early in the morning. 3:00am, 4:00am Eastern Time. Okay.
- [12:37]
Okay.
- [12:38]
So that's the timing in terms of launch process. Binging is always best where basically you. You put up enough episodes where people can basically binge your content. So when you first launch your podcast, you should try to batch six to 10 episodes and maybe launch with about four of them so that you always have a backlog. Because podcasting is unique in that if you get sick, like, let's say you have a regular job, when you get sick, you can just be on your computer and be a little bit slow and get away with it. In podcasting, if you're sick, you can't record. It sounds terrible, and it really delays everything. And so, like, I've got to make sure that I've got enough content in case I get sick one week. Right. So you need to make sure you have a backlog or in case something happens, like, and you're just busy, you want to have at least two to four episodes if you're doing weekly in the backlog. So you want to launch with about four episodes, have two to four in the backlog. And the beauty of launching with four episodes is hopefully people like your content and they continue to listen to all four episodes, and that will really help drive your downloads, and it will ultimately help with your rankings and Things like that.
- [13:45]
So let's chat a little bit about that as well. So in, you know, different, I guess platforms, if you will, may have different strategies, meaning Apple versus Spotify. But when it comes to how are we driving engagement and momentum on a podcast, are we wanting people to subscribe? Are we wanting them to rate our podcast? Are we wanting them to leave a review? Is it a mix of all of those things? What is really the most important key to getting people to help you with those numbers and those downloads and those listens?
- [14:15]
Yeah, subscribing is super important. You really want to make sure that the main call to action that you have to people is subscribing. And one of the things that audio doesn't have is there's no visual component. And you need a visual component to really promote something online. So that's why even if you have just an audio only podcast, you really should be recording video and creating content on social media. And when you're putting up that content on social media, it's not enough to just let people engage because there's a lot of friction when it comes to subscribing to a podcast. Everybody's using different players. Some people don't even listen to podcasts. It's not really their thing and you really got to spoon feed it to them. So that means people who engage on your content, they're liking commenting, sharing, they're looking at your stories related to your podcast. You actually want to go DM them and you want to give them a chartable link that's basically going to redirect them to whatever app is on their phone or computer that they use. So that will reduce the friction. You can create these things called chartable smart links, or you can give them multiple links, like here's my link on YouTube. YouTube's really safe because it basically just works anywhere but Apple Spotify. You might want to give them a few links or send them to a chartable link, try to get them to convert. Then you want to ask them, let me know how you like it. Or you want to follow up page, you get a chance to listen. If they give you good feedback, you want to ask them to write a review. This is something that I feel like no one's doing. And this really helps you drive in the rankings. This really helps with social proof. This really helps with landing sponsors. So one of the reasons why I feel like I get so many sponsors is I have so many reviews. I've got like over 3,000 reviews. I get new reviews every day. They're obviously real. They're really specific and long and you could tell my audience is so engaged. And it also helps convert people who might find me because I'm ranking right now in the Apple Apps, Spotify app, whatever it is. They go and they see the social proof and they see all these comments and they're recent. A lot of podcasters have really stale old comments and it's a turn off and people might not even want to subscribe. So the reviews are really good for social proof to actually get people to convert sponsors and new subscribers and then subscribing actually is what's going to improve your ranking. Most rankings are trending and it's based on daily new subscribers. It's not based on how many downloads you get. It's actually based on your, like the comparative of how many downloads you have comparative to how many new subscribers you have. So actually new shows have a higher chance of ranking and shows with less downloads have a higher chance of ranking if they're getting a lot of new followers. That's why we're seeing like all these TikTok stars ranking at the top of the charts. Like Vivian too, because she's bringing all these new subs from TikTok and it's a brand new podcast that's not getting a ton of downloads yet, but she's getting so many daily new subscribers, so she's ranking at the top of the charts.
- [17:01]
Oh, that's really, really interesting. And it's good to know for people that if you're making up and telling yourself like, oh, I'm going to go into this new podcast platform and I'm going to have to start from scratch and da da, da, da. If you are someone that does have a following on a different platform, it's just about the strategy of bringing them over. And I know, Holly, that you've got a lot of different assets and ways in which you support people to really, like, deepen the concepts of everything that you're talking about. Can you share a little bit about.
- [17:27]
What that is in terms of like, my programs and things like that?
- [17:30]
I want to hear about the programs.
- [17:32]
Yeah. So I'm actually creating a new podcast masterclass that I'm going to be launching at the end of the summer. So I don't have the information yet, but basically it's going to be a podcast masterclass all about growth and monetization because there's so many podcasts out there that are really talking about launching a podcast and like sort of the basics and I really want to help People grow their podcast and monetize it and really go deep into really advanced strategies of how to grow, rank and monetize your podcast. So I'm very excited about this. It's going to be like a two day workshop essentially that I'll do live with people and I'll probably do it every other month next year. So maybe, you know, when I have that launched, I can come back on and talk more about it.
- [18:14]
Yeah, and we could even do like a fun joint venture to my audience when we do get that information. For those of you that are on our email list, we will make sure to include a link in there in our recap that we do every week as well, because I think that's going to be very, very beneficial. And let's, let's switch gears and dive into that. So we've talked about the basics of launching. Thank you so much for what you've shared. But let's talk about growing and scaling because I know that there's a lot of people listening to this, that maybe they've had a podcast for a while, maybe they haven't been as consistent because they didn't know how to grow and scale it. And maybe this is something that they're ready just to take a little bit more seriously and they need a little bit of clarity on how to do that. So I would love to hear from your own experience, not only from your own podcast, but all of the podcasts that you've got your hands into, because you've got your hands in a lot of them. What do you really see that moves the needle when it comes to not only growth, but when it comes to a brand being interested? Like, yes, we want to partner with this podcast and with this podcast host.
- [19:12]
Oh my gosh, so many things to share. First of all, I want everybody to sort of realize that podcast started as this audio platform. It is no longer that podcasts are cross channel. And everybody needs to realize this. And if you want to be a new successful podcaster, you really have to come at it from a cross channel approach. And even if you're an old legacy podcaster, we just had this massive iOS 17 update and most podcasters lost 20 to 40% of their Apple downloads. Some podcasters and even some podcasters are. Our network lost 40 to 60% or more of their downloads. So all the legacy podcasters that we thought had millions of downloads didn't. It was automatic downloads that nobody was listening to. And so Apple is becoming far less dominant. And if I go in the back end of I've got 25 podcasts in my network. Most podcasts, 80% of their downloads are coming from Apple podcasts. Now that's been reduced 20 to 60% or more. Apple is becoming less dominant. And that means that the legacy podcasters that have been dominant on Apple are going to become less dominant. Right. And there's going to be a lot more room for competition and these cross channel podcasters to come in. And so when you ask a fan, like when I ask my fans, where do you listen to my podcast? Some of them will be like LinkedIn. Okay. Some of them will say Instagram. Why? Because I'm playing my full episodes on live stream on LinkedIn and literally there's people who are waiting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12 noon when I'm posting it and they're watching it live and they've put it in their routine that they listen to my podcast on LinkedIn and guess what? I monetize that as a simulcast. And all my commercials go across audio, YouTube and LinkedIn Live. And I treat my podcast as a cross channel platform. I don't think of it only as an audio platform. I don't think of it as only Apple. Even when it comes to audio. I'm thinking about what are all the other audio platforms. There's 70 platforms out there. How can I do media buying on those platforms? How can I trade with those platforms and grow? Because this Apple update really screwed over a lot of podcasters. It didn't screw me over. I didn't lose that many Downloads. I lost 20% of my Apple downloads, which was pretty standard. And I have such huge followings on Castbox and Player FM and Podbean and all these other platforms that I didn't really hurt like everybody else. Right. So it's also a way to sort of diversify your following because one day YouTube could shut down, one day TikTok could shut down. How do you make sure that your show. Because that's really what podcast is. It's just a show across multiple platforms, a brand and a host across multiple platforms. And that's really how you have to think about it. Okay. So hopefully that that kind of helps shed some color in terms of growth. Now what I was talking about before in terms of growth that I really want to stick on is this video discoverability. It's all about video discoverability. Right now, all the big podcasts that are crushing it are doing in person interviews. Everyone's sick of this talking head. I'm about to invest heavily in doing in person interviews. I'm building a whole new studio. If you think about all the big new podcasters, Stephen Barlett, for example, they're all in person videos because people want to see that human connection. They've sort of had sensory adaptation. When it comes to seeing these virtual talking head videos, it's not engaging enough. Enough. It works for audio. If you've got a really, really good audio show, then you know, virtual works. But if you want to take it to the next level and sort of future proof yourself, if you want to future proof yourself, you've really got to start investing in video. And we're going to see a lot more creators becoming video first. And that's going to also help them grow on TikTok and Instagram, because these in person videos and investing in video content and really making it video first rather than audio first, is what's going to make your content stand out and do better on social media, which is then going to grow all of your platforms and get people to subscribe to your show. Now, to your question about how do I get the attention of sponsors? What do sponsors want? This has been like such a learning experience for me because when I first started my network, I was really focused on how many downloads does a person have? Like, I won't sign you if you have less than 100,000 downloads a month. Right. And to me, I thought, if somebody has a hundred thousand downloads, they're definitely going to get sponsors. But what I found is that that's not the case at all. Some of my best podcasters might have 70,000 downloads a month. But the key is they've got a really strong personal brand and they're heavily personally branded. We know exactly what they stand for, we know exactly what they teach, we know exactly who's in their audience. Their face is on their podcast cover. Their face is on their social media channels. They don't need to have the biggest social media channels, but they're out there, they're teaching. They. Everybody knows what they stand for. The brands know who the person is. They want to know who the person is. A lot of these brands and agencies, primarily, they're looking at your podcast cover. Your podcast cover is so important. One of the first things that I do for podcasters, when they sign, I'm like, we need to rebrand your cover. Because I know that that's really what people are looking at. They're literally looking at your podcast cover. They're looking at what you look like. They're assuming your audience looks like you. So if I've got A millennial male podcaster, and his face is on a podcast cover. They're going to choose him if they've got a millennial product for males, because it's a millennial male on the podcast cover. So that's literally what they're looking at, your title, your cover. They might go look at your Apple page and look at your reviews, like I said. They might go to your Instagram and make sure that it looks professional and polished and that you have an engaged following. You can't really just be an audio influencer anymore. It's not really a thing. You've got to be the full package. You've got to have engagement across all your different. You've got to have a strong personal brand. You've got to have a target audience, and you've got to be speaking to that target audience throughout your title, your description, and so on. So sponsors know exactly who you serve and can connect the dots.
- [25:07]
Beautiful. So, so, so good. So let's talk about when you were talking about the Apple platform and you're like, you know, that is not the only one. I mean, for Apple users, it's the one that we're probably most comfortable with. But there's also Spotify, which is a big competitor, but you were throwing out these other ones, Castbot, Podbean. So for people that are trying to grow and scale a podcast right now, if they are only focusing on Apple or only focusing on Spotify, what would be your recommendations or your take about just broadening the awareness a little bit about these other ways that people are listening, slash watching podcasts and what the benefit is over there?
- [25:43]
Yeah, so there's about 70 apps that make up the audio world and podcasts. And then aside from that, there's YouTube and livestream stream. Okay, so there's the audio world and then there's basically YouTube because there's no other really competition right now for video, full video podcasts. And then there is live streams, which can be LinkedIn Live, it could be TikTok Live, it could be Instagram Live, because you can put up your full episode on those platforms and monetize it as your podcast and it counts towards your simulcast impressions. And a lot of people don't realize this. It is, like I said, no longer audio only. Okay. So there's. So I literally charge double for my commercials because I've opened it up for YouTube and simulcast. Right. So that's a big key there. And I've got a large following on those platforms that convert for other offers and things like that. So in terms of the audio apps, there's Android apps, and that's really where you're going to want to focus when it comes to growing your podcast, aside from Apple. Then there's also Spotify, which crosses both. But in my opinion. So there's like a lot of data out there says that Spotify has 30% of audio downloads. In my opinion, that is just false. It is just false information. There's like a big, like, misconception in the audio world that Spotify is making up 30% of the downloads. I've seen the back ends of thousands of podcasts and Spotify makes up like 10 to 12% max. And that's like good performing Spotify.
- [27:09]
Yeah.
- [27:09]
So this whole, whole thing that Spotify is where all the downloads are happening is simply not true. It's very, very hard to get downloads in Spotify. They really only push their own shows that they own. It's really hard to get discovered. And so in my opinion, Spotify is not one to really pay attention to because it's very hard to grow on that platform. And the advertising opportunities that they have aren't cost effective to actually grow your, your podcast. But there's other apps like Castbox and Player FM and Podbean and Podcast Addict and Overcast, and literally, like I said, 70 apps out there. And they all have different media buying packages that you can look into and test. And you can get banner ads in the podcast players, you can get push notifications sent to subscribers. You can be integrated into that podcast app's onboarding process. So for example, if I do a Castbox campaign, they're going to put me in the main banner. Every time I have a new episode during the promotional period, which is about two weeks, they're going to send a push notification to their users about my episode, which will drive up download. They also incorporate me in the onboarding process. So if somebody clicks that they like business and entrepreneurship podcasts, they'll basically suggest my podcast as one to listen to. So it really helps drive subscribers. And these apps typically give you guarantees. They'll say, okay, we'll give you 5,000 subscribers guaranteed. We'll give you 10,000 subscribers, guaranteed. You can start to map retention and what platforms work best for you. You get an opportunity to design a banner. It also is just good for visibility and branding for people to see your out there. And so it's just a way to advertise your podcast that a lot of people don't know about. When you're trying to grow, especially an audio podcast, you really want to be where the podcast listeners are, which means you want to be in the app. So the other way to grow your podcast is to do swaps like this. One of the most effective ways to grow your podcast is to guest on other podcasts. So after we do this podcast, for example, now when people go to your show, because I bet you a lot of people are going to go subscribe to Young and Profiting podcast, they're going to see at the bottom of your Apple page. You may be interested in Hollis podcasts because me and you have now are going to have a lot of subscriber overlap, especially because we've guested on each other's shows twice. So same thing when I'm on Amy Porterfield's podcast on the bottom, it will say, you might like Hollis podcast because her subscribers went. And we've got crossover in terms of our subscribers. So it helps with discoverability by doing these swaps and then commercials on other podcasts and, and feed drops on other podcasts. So. And you could do this for YouTube too, basically working with YouTube influencers or podcast influencers and buying commercials on their shows as if you were a sponsor. And you can actually track in Chartable, which is a great tool. If you're a podcaster, you've got to use Chartable. It's a great tool. It's not very expensive and you can actually track whether it's a swap or a commercial. After somebody listened to, like if I tracked your show, Julie, for example, I could see how many people went and downloaded my show after I guessed it on your show and what that conversion was. And then I could say, oh, like Julie's somebody I need to work more with. I need to buy commercials on her show or I should partner with her on stuff because we've got a lot of overlap in terms of the people that are interested in our content. So all those ways are ways to grow your show.
- [30:27]
That's so good. And what great information about just Chartable and the data that they have there that you can't find anywhere else, you can't find that on these other platforms. So I just, I love this because I think that it's really starting to shift some awareness for those that are listening about the fact that just because podcast is more competitive than it's ever been and there's more avenues and channels with the video component to do it. To me, that just shows that it is a healthy money making market. Like you don't want to be in a dying market, you want to be in a market that people are putting money behind and energy behind and time behind. And so I hope that that just gives you all awareness about the possibility of really diving in to this idea of podcasting and, or to just really taking it more seriously and trying to grow and scale. So with that to say, Hala, I would love to talk a little bit more about what would make someone's like your agency, your network, what would make them say, this is a podcast that we want to work with and we're going to go after them. What do you look for when it comes to that?
- [31:30]
So I see my network transforming as a podcast influencer network because like I said, sponsors of podcast brands and sponsors of podcasters, they're no longer just interested in host red commercials. They want to do branded content, they want social posts, they want us to do webinars, they want us to launch email challenges with them. So it's starting to become podcaster influencer marketing. That's what's starting to happen. The other thing to note that I want to call out is that this doesn't mean to your point that like, podcasts are not hot. Podcasts are so hot top podcasts are known to have very trusted, engaged audiences. Podcasts have super high purchase action. Podcasts make it easy for sponsors to work with really notable people. And the cost is not that high because compared to like, let's say, you know, getting Jennifer Aniston to do a video commercial for you would be way more expensive than getting Jenna Kutcher to do a podcast ad for you. And maybe the reach would be just about the same, you know, so it's, it's, it's just a different way to get your word out there that's quick, fast and cost effective for these brands. The other thing is that podcasts are reaching a listener base that radio and TV is no longer reaching. So radio and TV listeners are getting really old. Most radio and TV listeners are 55 plus, I would say like 60 of them. Right. Especially on TV, it's a lot of older folks. While podcast listeners are literally getting younger. Younger. There's like a huge surge in Gen Z listening. Most podcast listeners are 18 to 54 in their prime buying years. And hosts are so trusted and that people are taking high purchase action. There's more purchase action on podcasts than radio or tv. So for all these reasons, this trusted host aspect, the fact that so many of the people that are hosting podcasts are teachers and educators, they're entrepreneurs that are selling their own products and services that then know how to sell other people's products and services is because that's what they're doing as influencers already and as entrepreneurs already. So for all these reasons, podcasters are so hot right now and influencer marketing with podcasters specifically. So that's how you have to think about it. You've got to think about how can I stand out as a podcaster. So for me, when I first started, even before this whole trend, I started on LinkedIn and I became the number one podcaster on LinkedIn. Till this day, I'm literally the number one podcaster on LinkedIn. And that's how I established myself as a top podcaster. Before I had any following on Apple or any other platforms. I was getting sponsorships because I had branded myself as the number one podcaster on LinkedIn and I had this other channel to monetize and then I started selling commercials on my live streams on LinkedIn, right. And then kept kind of broadening it out. So think about what, where could you dominate? Could you be the number one podcaster on TikTok and FA and really focus there on doing TikTok live streams and TikTok reels for your podcast that are maybe extended and different and unique? And how can you invest in, for example, TikTok or YouTube or YouTube music? Maybe you want to focus there. Like I said, that's some new hot, beautiful app that is like really going to impact video discoverability for podcasts. Maybe that's where you want to focus, but definitely don't just go the traditional route. Think outside the box and where you can really dominate as a cross channel podcaster.
- [34:56]
And when it comes to kind of the dominating on the influencer side with cross channels, what are you seeing that brands and sponsors are wanting? So you talked about webinars, you talked about email challenges. What do you really see as moving the needle to make someone stand out when they are working with a brand from a podcast perspective?
- [35:18]
So what I would say is that when you're selling your podcast, you should always think about what are the other things that I can sell along with my host red ads that are going to increase conversion and open the door for upselling to more branded content and sponsorships. Because usually the door opener is just standard commercials. Because that's what people are used to in this world. They want to do host red commercials. But for example, at YAP Media Network, we make it mandatory for for everybody to do one more thing aside from just the host red commercials to incentivize people to close the deals and to Also increase conversions and get the podcast brands used to the fact that we're doing these types of social media posts or email mentions so that they want more of it. Because what they're going to see is that our conversion and performance is higher from other podcast networks that don't do social media posts and email mentions. And then it gets them curious, well, can we buy these mentions alone? Can we do more social media integrations? And sometimes we see people eventually being like, well, I don't want to do any more podcast ads, but I want to do, you know, a branded episode with social media. And I see that this is working so well. So basically what you want to do is sometimes you might want to offer those things for free initially, just so these brands can get a taste of what you offer and how well it helps conversions. But in terms of what I see is really hot right now, people are really into sponsored interviews. So that might. I'll give you an example. Me and Jenna Kutcher, who's also in my network, we just did a sponsored interview for Airbnb, and it's very lucrative. They, like, I'll throw the number out there just so people understand, like, how much money is in, like, this. $65,000 is what they paid us for one interview that we did that we would have happily done anyway. And so we talked about our revenue streams. We talked. She's an Airbnb host and I, we're both sponsored by Airbnb, and I asked her about what she does, how she has other revenue streams, and I might have had one or two questions about Airbnb that we talked about organically in the interview. And it's super relevant for our audiences. We both have entrepreneurs in our audiences. We're going to play it on both of our feeds, we're going to promote it across social and basically promote the episode together. And it's great for Airbnb because it's very organic. Two girlfriends talking about their revenue streams, entrepreneurs who love to talk about money. And we plugged in Airbnb. It's like a win win for everyone, right? So that's an example of a sponsored interview where the brand's not even in the interview. Or it could be a solo episode. So, for example, I'm sponsored by Constant Contact. And so for them, I'll do webinars where I'll go over email marketing. Webinars are awesome because it also grows your own email list, which I love. So I love to do webinars because it grows your email list so fast, because people have to give their email to register to your zoom link. So I'll do this whole email webinar. I'll create super fans. I'll grow my email list, list. Then I'll take that, edit that, clean it up and put it on my audio podcast, put it up on YouTube, put it up on LinkedIn, cut it up into social content, and it really, really drives anything that has signups. Because in the actual webinar I'll be giving a demo and I'll say, all right, as pre work, we all have to sign up to constant contact or all right, I'm gonna give everybody two minutes to sign up right now. Let me know when you're done. And now then you see everybody's saying, yes, yes, I did it, I did it. Done, done. And they're getting a hundred signups at once, which is really hard to do. So the brands love it. So, like, webinars are super hot email converts.
- [38:49]
So.
- [38:49]
Well, podcasters tend to have very large email lists because like I said, a lot of them are entrepreneurs and influencers and they've been doing this type of thing for a long time. So leveraging email lists is really hot. I would say if you want to get renewals, really lean into promoting your brands on email. Ever since I started doing that, I almost never not have a renewal. A renewal basically means a sponsor wanting to sponsor you again. A lot of podcasters have a problem where they get new sponsors, but they don't renew. And the way that you really have 100% sold out show is that you need to keep getting longer deals, annuals and renewals. And you do that by overperforming. How do you overperform? Email mentions, social media posts, retargeting in the DMs and so on. So hopefully that helps in terms of some of the things that are hot right now with sponsorships.
- [39:38]
Oh, that's so good. And I think that too, it just also opens the mindset up a little bit because I think that sometimes when someone would hear like, oh, a sponsored show, they're going to assume that like the founder of some company is coming on to be interviewed. But that's not necessarily the case. There's a way that you can infuse the brand, the messaging, the content, just in your natural conversation. And I think that that's huge.
- [39:59]
Totally, totally. And, and to your point, you were asking me like, what are you looking for for podcasters that come to your network now that everything's cross channel? Let's say somebody has 50,000 downloads a month, I'll ask questions like, well, how big is your email list? Right. How big is your Instagram following? Do you have a LinkedIn following? Because now all these channels are monetizable. It is no longer just the size of your podcast. So if you're growing your Instagram or your TikTok or your YouTube or another channel and you want to start a podcast, just know that you're already having a head start because you've got all these other channels to monetize. And now your podcast is just this additional thing that you can monetize and use that to really open the door for sponsorships.
- [40:38]
Oh, it's so good. Oh, this is awesome. Hala, I could talk to you all day about this stuff. I want you to share a little bit about your podcast because it is so good. You interview some incredible people. And of course, we have just a great community here that they love to listen and watch the podcast. Well, I want them to hear a little bit more about young and profiting and what they can expect over there.
- [40:59]
Thank you. So my podcast is really catered toward entrepreneurs and solopreneurs and freelancers. We talk all things entrepreneurship, and it's not just about money. Some people have a misconception because it's called Young and profiting, that it's like a finance show. And that's not the case at all. It's really talking about, like, sales, negotiation, marketing, podcasting, and basically just how to grow your business. I'm talking a lot about mindset. I'll talk a lot about AI. I've had so many awesome AI episodes lately, and it's basically any way that you can profit in your life. Life is what we talk about, and it's really focused on entrepreneurs specifically. So, like you said, I've interviewed Gary Vee, Alex Hermosi, Damon John, all the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, and I've unpacked their wisdom and tried to turn it into really actionable, concrete strategies. Something that I think differentiates me from other shows is that, like, we're so crazy about the research, so we're doing a lot of prep. I'm making sure that the whole hour is just jam packed with information where I'm just trying to, like, pull out as much as I can from my guests so that you guys get the most value out of the episode. So that's the feedback I get the most, is like, your podcast is, like, worth every second to listen to. So I love it.
- [42:13]
It's good. I mean, even just being a guest on her show, Twice now. Like, it's so engaging. The questions are there. You're. You're in it the whole time. There's. There's no moment of. Of getting bored because it's. It's a very engaging conversation, for sure.
- [42:26]
Yeah. Thank you.
- [42:27]
All right, before we wrap this up. Thank you. Okay, one question for you before we wrap this up. What does influen mean to you?
- [42:36]
Good one. So influence to me means positively changing other people's lives. It doesn't mean you have a million followers or billion followers. It means that you are able to help solve somebody's problem and you positively move them forward in their life. If you can do that, if you improve even just one person's life, even if it's your kid, you are an influencer, in my opinion.
- [43:02]
I love that. Thank you, as always, for just being you, sharing your light, your wisdom, your brain, for just caring for your community so much. And where can everybody go, follow you, find you, dive more into your content?
- [43:16]
Well, you guys can find me at Young and Profiting. If you guys want to listen to the podcast. If you guys are interested in the network, you can go to yap media.com awesome.
- [43:25]
Thank you so much for being here. Love to you.
- [43:28]
Thanks, Julie.
- [43:31]
Julie Solomon
As always, thank you so much for joining me today and every week here on the Influencer podcast. If you're wanting to dive deeper into the topics and discussions that we have here, I would encourage you to head over to juliesolomon.net and sign up for my weekly newsletter. It is in our amazing newsletter community that we are able to really support you on a much larger scale. And I love to do a ton of amazing things that I send inside your inbox every single week. So just head over to juliesolomon.net you'll see a little spot there that you can add your information in, and you will get on the list and start receiving all of that good stuff.