Category: Podcasting Tips

Part 4 of the Podcasting 4 Cs is Community.

If you manage to create a community around your podcast, then your listeners will turn into fans and your show is likely to become self-sustaining.

You could argue that certain types of podcast don’t need or benefit from having a community but I’d say that if you nurture your listeners, there are huge benefits.

Here’s what happened to me (cutting a very long story short).

I started the Yes Music Podcast as a hobby to learn how to podcast and to share my love of the music of the world’s greatest progressive rock band. I released weekly episodes and I did a lot of the things I’ve described in previous emails, especially mentioning listeners by name every week and creating ways for them to get involved with the show.

Five years later, I launched a Patreon (subscription service for creatives) campaign and was amazed at the results. The listeners who saw themselves as part of the YMP community were keen to pay me a monthly subscription fee in return for a few ‘extras’ such as access to exclusive activities on the Patreon site.

I have always made it clear that the main purpose of the Patreon contributions is to help keep the podcast going – not to make a profit. Listener numbers have always been modest on this show but a surprising number of listeners have stayed signed-up to the Patreon group every since.

The Yes Music Podcast is now approaching 450 episodes and its ninth birthday. It certainly would not be still going if it wasn’t for the community which has developed around it. There are plenty more stories I could share about the past nine years of the show – so look out for those in future newsletters.

So, do please let me know if you think the 4 Cs will hep you to establish and/or grow your own podcast and I’ll be back soon with some different but hopefully useful podcasting goodness.

It’s part 3 of the Podcasting 4 Cs this time – Connection.

If you have come up with great content for your audience and are communicating effectively with them, then connection is practically guaranteed.

Audio is a highly personal and even intimate medium which builds strong bonds between you and your listeners. You can strengthen this connection by following these tips:

Release your episodes on a consistent basis

– another C word! Humans love routine. There’s a reason why radio and TV originally had set schedules – to create routines for their audience so the programme became part of a dependable schedule. People used to look forward to their favourite programme airing on a Thursday night at 9pm and they built it into their life. There’s a lot of truth in the expression ‘appointment to view television’ or ‘appointment to listen’, in podcasters’ terms. Even though TV schedules have been disrupted by the appearance of on-demand services, people still tune in to see the news and other topical content at set times. You will find that your listeners build your releases into their schedule and contact you if an episode is late!

Come up with a set pattern for the content in your episodes.

This can be varied, of course, and will undoubtedly change over time but your audience will be happier to turn up consistently if they know what to expect. If your episodes are completely random, your audience’s desire for familiarity may be unfulfilled, leading to less connection.

Mention listeners by name.

I mentioned this last time in the communication tips. It’s just as important in strengthening connection as well. Think about how you can deepen connections by remembering and mentioning your listeners’ birthdays or other important aspects of their life – without being creepy and being mindful of privacy, of course! Mention their tweets and thank them for listening or contributing.

Create special activities and events for your audience.

Invite listeners to participate in competitions (being mindful of the competition laws in your country), giveaways or special online or offline events. Set up a private Facebook group, host live events, create exclusive merchandise – the list is endless. The important thing is to make your audience feel special for listening.

Put a little thought into how to strengthen connection and you’ll be amazed at your listeners’ reaction – and they will tell their friends as well!

This time, we are moving on to the second of the Podcasting 4 Cs – Communication.

This may seem a bit counter-intuitive. After all, a podcast is by definition a form of communication. However, it’s essential to consider how you are communicating with your listeners. If you get it right, this will naturally lead on to the next C – Connection. (You may like to read or re-read my blog post ‘Why Terry Wogan holds the key to your business’ or organisation’s success‘ which talks about communication leading to connection.)

People have written courses and whole books about effective communication and how to achieve it but here are just a few pointers for podcasters:

Avoid using phrases like ‘all you guys out there’ – podcasting is an intimate medium and most of your audience will be listening alone. Your communication will be much more effective if you use pronouns such as ‘you’. Speak as if you are talking directly to a friend, not to a general mass of people at an event.

Try using an avatar – some podcasters actually print out a photo of their ‘ideal listener’ and set it up in front of their microphone to make sure they remember they are talking to a single person, and in an appropriate way.

Mention listeners by name – everyone loves hearing their name in a podcast episode. However many times you mention someone, it’s probably not enough. Try to include thanks for some feedback, mention a tweet or update they posted or an email they sent. You’ll be amazed how excited listeners will get when they hear their name – and they’re much more likely to tell their friends about your podcast as a result!

Try to avoid exclusive chatter – for some listeners, this will be the first time they have heard your show. Put yourself in their shoes – would ‘in-jokes’ enhance communication or hinder it? If your new listener doesn’t understand what you are saying or why you are saying it, they are much more likely to press stop and unsubscribe. Familiarity with the ways in which you talk about things in your podcast is a great way of encouraging listeners to become fans because they will feel part of the group but just be mindful that you risk putting new listeners off.

These are just a few of my thoughts on communication. Let me know if you have come across other barriers to or enhancers of effective communication in your podcast by pressing reply to this email

I’d like to share a little bit about my Podcasting 4 Cs:

Over the past 12 years of podcast production, I’ve found that keeping these 4 concepts in mind is the best way to create a dynamic show which meets the needs of your audience.

In this post, I’m going to talk about the first of the 4 Cs – Content.

Obviously, you can’t have a podcast without content but it’s got to be content which means something to your prospective listeners, which strikes a chord, which moves them in some way.

The only reason anyone subscribes to a podcast is because it solves a problem for them. This doesn’t have to be a business or personal problem – it can just as easily be the problem of being bored and craving something interesting, funny or otherwise engaging to listen to.

If you and your listeners are all fanatical about a sports club, science fiction books or knitting, the problem you’ll be solving for them could be providing the latest news, discussing minute details or simply enthusing about your favourite topic.

Don’t worry if you think your subject is already being covered by one or more other shows. Imagine if Channel 4 in the UK had abandoned plans for a news show because the BBC and ITV were already doing news. What did they do instead? They worked out how they could put their own, unique spin on the news. They scheduled their shows at a different time to the other channels and they ended up attracting a different audience – or maybe even the same audience looking for a different slant on the day’s events.

Often, it’s just your own personality which can make the difference. You won’t present ideas or commentary in the same way as anyone else so don’t be afraid to cover popular topics. Find your own angle and you’ll automatically appeal to a niche of listeners. It’s far more powerful to talk to a small niche who love your message than a huge, general audience who won’t give a second thought to unsubscribing.

So, when you are planning content for your podcast, whether you are at the start of your podcasting journey or many episodes in, ask yourself questions like:

“What do my audience want to hear about?”

“What common problems do my audience have and how can I help to solve them?”

“What can my show offer that no others can?”

After all, your podcast isn’t really about you, it’s all about your audience. Without anyone listening, you might as well keep your audio files on your own computer.

I thought it would be helpful to collect together all my tips videos which I have posted on LinkedIn. So, here you go:

Do you know Sir Terry Wogan?

Whether you know who the late broadcaster Terry Wogan was or you’ve never heard his name until now, the title of this post may surprise you.

Wogan was something of a British national treasure, despite being of Irish heritage. His broadcasting career spanned several decades and many would say it peaked when he hosted a prime-time chat show on BBC1, Wednesdays to Fridays at 7pm, which attracted millions of viewers. Imagine that exposure – every time you turned on the television, there he would be.

Sir Terry also hosted the hugely successful annual live telethon, Children in Need but, believe it or not, all this television work was not where he was most successful in one, crucial respect:

It was on his radio show that he made his greatest impact in terms of the connections he made and the loyalty he built up with his audience.

Before his retirement in 2009, his BBC Radio 2 breakfast show was listened to by 8 million people every day and he was the most successful radio broadcaster in Europe.

So how was he able to build a stronger relationship with his audience on the radio than on television and what does this have to do with your business or organisation? Read on to find out…

In common with other talented radio presenters, Wogan was able to use the far more intimate medium of radio to establish and strengthen his connections with those who listened. Audio strips away the distractions of visual elements. It seems like the host is speaking directly to the listener who concentrates just on the voice and soon feels like he/she knows and trusts the presenter.

Sir Terry understood this and developed his style to make sure all who tuned in felt like part of his virtual family. He encouraged listeners to write into the show and his community grew – with listeners becoming fans. They gave themselves humorous nicknames which Wogan used as he read out their comments – which were almost always comic.

Listeners who didn’t get involved with the show directly soon got to know the names and writing styles of the regular correspondents and so felt like they were also part of the community.

This led to the creation of what I call ‘repeat attenders’ – millions of people who turned out and tuned in again and again to listen to Terry’s show because they knew they would be entertained by his kind, Irish humour but much more importantly because they felt a deep connection to him, his show and the community of listeners which they believed they themselves were an important part of .

So think about your customers, prospective customers or members for a moment. What if you were able to create, deepen and sustain the kind of connections that Terry Wogan had with his audience? Do you think that would help in retaining and enriching the experience of your audience?

But hold on, you can’t just start a radio show can you?

Well, nowadays you can, for only a small investment of time and money – it’s called (as you may already know) a podcast and the beauty of this (relatively) new medium is that it’s on-demand and digital, so it’s free from the constraints of time, place and access.

[Also, platforms like radio.co now make it easy to set up and run your own online radio.]

More and more people are discovering podcasts across the world, and, given the right training and support, you can reap the same benefits Terry Wogan did.