TRANSCRIPT Become a Podmaster S2E3 – Podcasting Goldmine: Craft, Grow, Monetize Like a Boss!

[00:00:00] Ethan Baird: Hendrik, father, son, what’s your favorite month? 

[00:00:04] Hendrik Baird: July. 

[00:00:04] Ethan Baird: Why July? 

[00:00:06] Hendrik Baird: No, I’m telling you the truth.

Welcome to this episode on, um, marketing and finding an audience for your podcast and using a podcast as marketing. 

[00:00:27] Ethan Baird: Yeah. So when we speak to our podmaster program clients, this is always one of the big things that comes up. How do you build a podcast audience? And it is an incredibly important and super fair question because you see some shows out there with literally hundreds of thousands of listeners and you wonder , yourself, how do you get there?

[00:00:47] Hendrik Baird: Yeah. I mean, podcasting has become such a powerful medium and we share stories, ideas, expertise, and, um, how do we reach the audiences globally? And when I speak of an audience, I speak of a number of individual listeners, very specific people, just like you are a very specific person listening to this, you’re not many people, you’re just one, and a podcast really has an audience of one of many ones, hopefully, who all add up to those hundreds of thousands in the end.

But I think podcasting is also changing the way that we consume content. The way that we connect with our audience, it’s an interesting development in the broadcasting field, or we call it narrow casting, in fact, because it is such a narrow audience that we reach. And we were speaking in a previous episode as well, it’s not just about the numbers. It is about engagement. It is about community. It is about feedback.

[00:01:43] Ethan Baird: But ultimately people are going to want to know how do I get those numbers up? Because one follows the other, right? 

[00:01:48] Hendrik Baird: Sure. And social media obviously is a big component of this. And how do you use social media and the communities that you already have on those platforms? And, um, how do you repurpose your content also to disseminate the information that you created on your podcast in other ways, so that you can get to people where they are and hopefully draw them back to listen to your podcast?

[00:02:12] Ethan Baird: And that’s also an interesting point about what is your audience even in the first place?

Is it just the people who listen to the physical feed of your podcast? Is it the people who read the blogs? Engage with you on social media? How do you quantify all of that together? You know, what is actually the, the total audience of your brand? I think really is the broader term. 

[00:02:30] Hendrik Baird: Yeah. So I think you need to think of your podcast in terms of a multimedia production, because if you do a video podcast, it’s also an audio podcast; it’s also an article, it’s also a picture; it’s also, uh, so many things that could be. You must really think out of the box. I think this medium is really challenging us. And unfortunately, too many people are too narrow in their thinking when it comes to podcasting. They think I’m doing a podcast, that means I’m going to interview somebody. I’m going to produce an episode. It’s done. Where’s the next one? And they forget about all the other things they can do with it to reach that wide audience we’re talking about. We talk social media and we know there are lots of different social media platforms. We know the big ones. There are many others.

 If you look at my book, Become a Podmaster: Everything You Need to Know to Master the Art of Podcasting, which is available on our website, and everywhere online where you buy books,: there’s a list, two pages of lists and lists and lists of social media platforms. Most of them you’ve never heard of before, but they still exist.

And, uh, speaking to Walter, we discussed the importance of understanding why someone is on a specific platform. Why is somebody on TikTok and not on Facebook? Why is somebody on LinkedIn and not on, um, Telegram and How them being on a specific platform influences their behavior and their engagement. 

[00:03:49] Walter Gainer II: Hi, my name is Walter Gainer II.

I’m a digital marketing podcaster. I’m heading to the digital marketing side of podcasts and audience growth. There’s a lot of similarities with each of the platforms, with the way people use each of them is different, right? Like, Instagram, for example, or actually, we’ll use a Facebook 1 because that’s a really good example.

People don’t talk about Facebook as much anymore, but it’s still a really great platform to use to grow your audience on Facebook, you know, younger generation. A lot of them, like, I’ve actually had people ask me, like. Wait, what’s Facebook like they might know what it is, but they don’t have an account.

And I was like, crazy to me because growing up for me, everyone had a Facebook account. And what’s interesting about, like, everyone having a Facebook account versus like a tick tock account. So a lot more people have tick tock on Facebook. People will post they’ll talk with their friends on tick tock.

They don’t really post as much, but it’ll be in the comments. They’ll look for new shows. So the behavior is different. Like on Facebook, people are naturally there to share their thoughts on things similar to Twitter, but on Tik TOK, they’re just there to hear other people’s thoughts to watch. So it’s like really understanding why someone’s on that platform to begin with.

[00:05:00] Ethan Baird: A major point is to really make sure that you have the right social media platform for the right audience. It’s no point putting yourself on every single social media platform in the world when you know that your audience is mainly on TikTok. Now you’re spending all this time and all this effort producing all this content for all these platforms when you know, I could just publish the podcast, put something up on TikTok and I’ll get the same results.

So you’ve got to really make sure that you know who your audience is and figure out those demographics and then pick the right platforms for that audience. 

[00:05:31] Hendrik Baird: For sure. Look, uh, for us, we are looking for people who are interested in business and the one big platform for that is LinkedIn. So that’s where most of our efforts go.

We are also on Facebook and on Instagram because you kind of have to be there, but it’s not as important for us specifically as LinkedIn is. That’s where most of our attention is focused because we’re looking for business people, specifically coaches, to come and do our Podmaster startup program if they are interested in starting up a podcast.

So for us, TikTok is never going to work. It’s not something we’re even considering at this point. And then you also have to consider how people use these platforms. On LinkedIn, I know there’s a lot of people looking for work, for instance, and that’s not the kind of people we want to target. We’re looking for existing entrepreneurs and what are their behaviors and how do they interact with that platform?

And I think that, uh, Walter contrasted Facebook and TikTok quite well, highlighting how people use it quite differently. 

[00:06:30] Walter Gainer II: It’s funny. It shouldn’t be as challenging as it is sometimes, but it really just goes down to understanding what your show is, why your show exists and who your show is really meant for, um, sometimes.

People kind of, um, assume that everyone’s going to love this podcast or this show. And when in reality, it’s like, it’s a certain type of person, certain type of individual who’s going to go and look for that show. So once you understand what your show is, you can understand, okay, so this is my show, what exactly am I looking for on social media?

Am I looking to kind of. Entertain the masses or for this specific group of people. And then once you understand that, once you understand who that person is, it’s going to listen to your show. Then you also have to understand the different social platforms and which features are going to help you to reach that audience.

So each platform has their own special features and tools that make it unique. And it’s really understanding, um, Um, What you could use to leverage your show, what you can use to help you reach that audience. So, like, with Facebook groups, you could create a whole group around the identity of your podcast and kind of use that to meet people in the middle for say, um, Twitter launched their version that was.

Communities linked in have groups. Um, tick tock doesn’t really have a group function, but they have other features that help you to reach your audience. So you really understand 3 things. What your show is; that identity, that premise, who your audiences are and then also which features are available on these platforms and which ones you really, really.

Um, feel comfortable using it’s like those 3, that 3 kind of trifecta. They’re going to help you to identify which, um, platforms are the best. Um, as an example for a lot of B2B shows, they, um, understand that their shows exist to help people in their business, whether it’s, um, Sales, technology, healthcare, it’s all around these like business professionals.

So they typically want to leverage LinkedIn because LinkedIn is where a lot of their ideal audiences, um, quick secret hack, you know, people are people. So everyone is on every platform, but LinkedIn, if you go there, people already are kind of expecting that type of content. So you’re kind of meeting people.

Where they are and what they’re looking for. 

[00:09:05] Hendrik Baird: So some of these social media platforms are also very sticky. I know my friend Tom, he’s big into TikTok and hours will fly by when he just scrolls from one thing to the next. He goes like where did the time go? I spend three hours wasting my precious time here on uh, this platform and TikTok is very sticky. I think one of the things I read somewhere was that If people are on TikTok, they won’t click a link to go out of TikTok to your thing. They’re going to stay on TikTok. 

[00:09:34] Ethan Baird: And in fact, the platforms don’t want you to make people leave either. 

[00:09:38] Hendrik Baird: The same with LinkedIn. You know, it doesn’t want you to go out of there. 

[00:09:41] Ethan Baird: And in fact, even when we send links on DM to people, it’ll be like, are you sure you want to click this link?

Please make sure it’s a trusted source. Like they’re doing kind of everything in their power to really make you locked into that one platform and you will not leave. 

[00:09:55] Hendrik Baird: And Walter has some strategies for engaging people on these sticky platforms. 

[00:09:59] Walter Gainer II: You can’t simply be like do this and everyone’s going to go. So that, uh, part we said about convincing is really interesting.

Cause that’s like the question. How do we get people to go from Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook over to my podcast to listen? And, um, it’s different for every show, but there’s kind of three different things I would kind of suggest. One is to kind of let go of the need for people to go listen, because part of understanding your audience is understanding that not everybody is your audience.

And what I mean by that is like, uh, your content is content. You could create it and deliver it in so many different ways. A podcast is just one of those ways. And not everybody is a podcast listener. They may become one, but as of today, if they’re on, uh, Um, TikTok watching a clip from your podcast episode, they’re probably on TikTok because they want to be on TikTok.

So ask them to go to listen to your podcast as a whole, completely different, um, activity for them. So, uh, to convince them that’s going to take a lot of work, it’s going to take some time because someone who’s going to TikTok, they’re there for a particular reason. When I go there, I’m there to laugh.

Um, occasionally I’m there to learn as well. I’ve gotten a lot of like house tips, um, from how to, um, fix things. Not all of them work right away. They’re not all quick. They don’t take 10 minutes. They take 10 hours sometimes, but I go there for a particular purpose, not always to find a podcast that I want to listen to. Um, so one thing is kind of letting go of trying to get everyone to listen. Another thing you could do is what I mentioned earlier with Lincoln bios and basically what that is like in the URL you have in your profile. You have a link that goes directly to your podcast and. That’s part of making it easier for people who choose to go listen , but all you have to do is get a LinkedIn bio link and people will go there.

Now LinkedIn bio is something that it still works. It’s still good to do, but it’s not as effective as it once was because everyone says it and it’s easy to tune that out, especially if I don’t really want to go anywhere. I just want to be where I am in the comments, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, but this kind of newer strategy is to ask people to not go anywhere, but just literally to engage, you know, comment, share, and story, and you can have people comment a specific word, and when they do that, It’s in your job to give them everything they need to go listen to your show, whether that’s DMing them and sending them a link.

That’s a lot easier, less clicks than clicking to your profile, clicking to the LinkedIn bio, and from there trying to figure out, okay, where do I go from all this? And now you give them exactly what they want, what they came for, making it super, super easy for them. So those

three kinds of things. One is kind of letting go of trying to get everyone to move over to is making it easier for people to get to your profile if they choose to. And then the third one is like taking a whole step further by giving it to them. So it’s almost like a customer service act in a way, kind of like if I’m engaging with a platform that’s about marketing. Personally, I don’t need as much information on things like, uh, social media marketing. I know that. So I might engage with your post, but I don’t really need to listen to a whole podcast about social media marketing. I do this all the time and already have my resources to learn more than I trust and I’m loyal to. But let’s say you do an episode on paid social ads. And that’s something I don’t do as often. So I might want to learn a little bit more, and understand the theories behind it. Um, but then again, I don’t really want to go searching for that. I don’t want to click the link and start listing and maybe I’m too busy. But if you send it to my inbox, I’m more than happy to check it out when it’s convenient to me, so, um, just off the top of my head, those kind of some 3 ways you can kind of get around that and it’s kind of accepting having some clear measurable goals and a specific strategy on how to not convince people, but just provide value to the right potential listener.

[00:14:18] Hendrik Baird: One point I want to take away from this is not everybody who was on a social media platform that might engage with you will necessarily listen to your podcast and you’ve got to adjust your expectations accordingly. Maybe you need to give them the content in another way so that they can still get the value out of it on the social media platform, knowing that they’ll never listen to you. 

[00:14:40] Ethan Baird: There’s actually a couple podcasts that I quote unquote follow purely because I see their clips pop up on my Instagram reels. And then I’ll watch them pretty religiously when they pop up, but I’ve not subscribed to their platforms. I’ve never listened to their actual podcast. I haven’t even looked at their main Instagram page, but their content does come up and I am engaged with it. So it is a really interesting point. You know, you can bring a horse to water. You can’t make them drink. You can’t force somebody to go listen to your podcast. So yeah, there is something to be said about giving people some options at least to experience your content.

[00:15:13] Hendrik Baird: Steve Ramona also uses social media platforms but he also leverages his email lists. 

[00:15:20] Steve Ramona: Yeah, my name is Steve Ramona. I’m in Northern California. My podcast is Doing Business with a Servant’s Heart. Through the Pantheon, there’s a couple things that I learned. One was when I started, of course, I didn’t have a link. I, you know, when I started in October, I was just recording.

I hadn’t launched my podcast. I wouldn’t launch until January. Because I just wasn’t ready. I want to get shows in, figure this thing out. So what I did between October and January, and this is the greatest tip I’ve ever learned, is I built a form that people could be on a waiting list to subscribe to my podcast.

Well, guess what? When my podcast started, I emailed 250 people. I have 250 downloads in one week because they’re like, yeah, I’m ready. Click, click, click, click, click, click. Cause I built this email list of potential people that want to subscribe to my podcast. That’s one way of market. Pantheon is another way. We have people in Pantheon, people we work with that help market it with email lists, social looping, which I won’t get into, but in a different way, that’s why my podcast grew so high is because Pantheon helped me market it. So you need some good company to market your company. As Josh Tapp, who’s the owner of Pantheon says, if you want to grow your podcast, you’ve got to spend money on it, whether it’s YouTube or whatever. So it’s important that if you’re going to want to make money with this, you have to spend money.

[00:16:39] Hendrik Baird: Ethan, I think when you start a podcast, it’s really important to understand who your target listener is. That one listener who you can make many listeners who are kind of the same, who ends up being your target audience. And what are their characteristics? That’s something I think that’s truly important.

And you’ve also got to look at your social media platforms and see what tools they have and what features they have, and then use those ones that, um, align with your podcast goal and your audience preferences. 

[00:17:07] Ethan Baird: I think this also speaks to just the broader point of a lot of this stuff is marketing fundamentals.

People want to ask us, how do you get your podcast to have a lot of listeners? And the unfortunate answer or the fortunate answer is how do you market your business? How do you market anything else? You put stuff out there, you test, you get metrics. And you adjust. So same thing with your audience. You need to find out and learn about this audience of yours.

This one listener, what do they do? What ways do they want you to promote the podcast to them? What platforms are they on? All of these fundamentals that you would already be doing if you’re doing a podcast for your business, you should do for the podcast as well. 

And I think Walter’s example of creating Facebook groups or Twitter communities, that’s really an important point we spoke about in one of the other episodes is, you’ve got to create a community here.

And once you have a community, you need to engage with them and they must engage with you so that it becomes more than just listening numbers. It becomes a two way conversation. And so it seems email lists are quite important hey? I read somewhere that, you know, emails are slowly dying, but then you also read like, but people are still opening the emails and still I use my email every day.

So I don’t always necessarily open the things I’ve subscribed to, most often unsubscribe, but there still is value in using an email list, especially when you launch a podcast and you want to get initial traction and downloads. For instance, we are launching a podcast, which is an audio drama, which will be launching in September, October of 2024.

And, uh, as part of our launch, we are sponsoring an event and we are getting their email list, which means we can email five, six thousand people, and let them know where to listen to our drama and, uh, that will certainly help us with the numbers. 

Every podcaster ultimately then figures out their own approach for growing their audience.

And, uh, I think Steve has a really interesting one where he has a very consistent recording schedule. He records a lot and he really makes sure that the people in his network and the people that he has recorded with share the post. It seems so obvious, but he really makes a fine point of making sure that people actually share it.

And that’s done wonders for him growing his audience. 

[00:19:19] Hendrik Baird: Then of course, you also have to take into consideration which social media platform you are on and how do you adapt your podcast contents to suit that audience, um, as part of the wider audience. It’s not just a case of, I do one thing and it’s going to go on everything.

You know, the audience on TikTok is vastly different to the one on Facebook. We always say, you know, it’s all these like me who’s on Facebook and TikTok and Telegram and WhatsApp, you know, and even WhatsApp. Um, it’s such an important tool, specifically in South Africa, it’s the most used sort of app for communication.

And now they’ve got those updates on the business thing. And, you know, you can use that for advertising, for speaking to the people that you are in contact with, and then people share that as well. But that content is different to the ones you would post on LinkedIn, for instance. 

[00:20:04] Ethan Baird: Yeah. So I think the main takeaway here is to figure out your platforms and figure out how people expect content to be given to them on those platforms.

[00:20:13] Hendrik Baird: And to pick up another point you made earlier is to leverage your guests and the people that you collaborate with and use those networks. We just think like, I’m here doing my little podcast. Nobody’s listening to it. But I’ve got 10 people I’ve already interviewed, and if I just look at their LinkedIn, they probably have 5, 000 people collectively between them.

How do I leverage those networks and get my content over there? So you’ve got to think a little bit broader. 

[00:20:37] Ethan Baird: Do you make it easy for them? 

I think that’s really important is to make it very shareable, make it very simple for them to do so. So it is not a huge amount of work for them either. Here’s the clip. Do you want to share it? 

[00:20:48] Hendrik Baird: And something we’ll talk about in much more detail in another episode is how to monetize your podcast. That’s one of the first questions you always get. How do I make money off podcasting? And Steve talks about consistently creating content. 

[00:21:00] Steve Ramona: Growing my audience was the key. That’s why I just started recording, Ethan. I just record, record. That’s why I have 142 since October. Most people don’t have a hundred in their lifetime and that’s okay. My goal was right. You know, my goal is, I want to get as many out there to grow my audience. So when I go to somebody, they can be a sponsor and I have a sponsor and what they were excited about was not only the fact that I had a hundred thousand views and 3, 700 downloads, was the fact with a sponsor, it’s evergreen that their podcasts that I’ve done, I’ve done 10 now, something go back to a year later and listen to this show and go eight, seven network, wow. And they click the link and maybe join or maybe inquire. So sponsors get an ongoing promotion all the time. It’s what I tell my people that are potential sponsors. This is the greatest thing. For minimal cost you can have yourself out there forever. You do a social media ad. Goes through the timeline, disappears. They’re great. Nothing against them, but this is so valuable in the sense of the cost and the ROI on that. And it might be 3 or 4 months till they do. But again, it’s going to sit there if that platform is around for 10 years, like, I don’t know, the Apple podcast has been, if I started the first day, well, I’d still have a show on there. Somebody goes back and listens. 10 years ago, if the company is still in business, man, we’re good to go. 

[00:22:30] Hendrik Baird: Yeah, being consistent is probably one of the most important things, isn’t it? Even if you’re doing seasons and you know, once a year, you’re putting out six episodes, do it once a year.

And people will get used to that. If you’re putting out an episode every Thursday, then don’t skip a Thursday. And I think one of the mistakes people make is they wait until the last minute to produce the episode and then before you know it, Thursday has come and gone and you haven’t put out a new episode.

You’ve also got to think about working in advance, having a bit of a buffer, banking six episodes. 

[00:22:59] Ethan Baird: There was a stage where I was editing for a certain company and on a Friday I’d receive the episode that was supposed to go out on a Monday. And that is the worst case scenario. The entire team is flailing because we had a whole bunch of content we had to put together the show notes to be written, there was marketing material to be generated. And ultimately, because that podcast was not properly planned, the execution was not as good as I wanted it to be. And the results just weren’t as good. Uh, we kept trying to get them to record two weeks in ahead and we never got to that point. But if they did, the quality of that show would have gone up by 10 times. 

[00:23:33] Hendrik Baird: I think you should at least have three months in advance in the bank. 

[00:23:38] Ethan Baird: Depending on the kind of show you want to do. 

[00:23:39] Hendrik Baird: Well, not true. If it’s current affairs it won’t work, but if it’s evergreen content, go for it. Sam Mitchell also uses social media quite a bit. Let’s find out how he does it. 

[00:23:49] Sam Mitchell: Hello, everyone. My name is Sam Mitchell and I run the podcast Autism Rocks and Rolls. We have all the social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. I, we do it, our biggest stuff on Facebook, but I have a big Instagram post as well, but a big Facebook group called Sam Stories and other resources.

So we use that a lot too. And you can basically hear all the news, all the resources go there because it’s A, easier, and B, it’s grown so much I can’t change it now. I got 1.0k members. So it’s definitely not going anywhere. 

[00:24:25] Ethan Baird: What I really love is that he’s building his own community. He’s got his Facebook group where his people can join and he can start owning that.

It’s not vague at all. You know exactly where to go. If you want to be part of Sam’s community, you join that Facebook group. And I think all the social media marketing needs to work towards that direction of creating this community. 

[00:24:45] Hendrik Baird: The other point about Sam is that, and I think it’s a general point, you know, who was this one client we worked with and they wanted to start a podcast and after episode one, they wanted to be world famous.

It’s not gonna work like that. It’s gonna take a while. And, uh, Sam has this interesting story of, uh, how his podcast, um, unexpectedly grew. 

[00:25:06] Sam Mitchell: It kind of picked up very unexpectedly. I mean, the first few, I would say, 10 is when it started to dwindle, but then after 10, I would say it grew very unexpectedly. And the way I’ve grown the audience is literally never shut up about it.

So anytime I get a chance to do a vendor that’s free, you can bet your bottom, I’m going to do it. I mean, I’ve gotten to do a lot of wrestling commentating through local shows, and we always get to spread the word out there. So anytime we get a chance to spread, spread the word, whether that be through an event, other people’s events, networking events, podcasts like this, I’m all in and that’s the way it’s worked for me. And there are points I won’t lie, it’s very frustrating because you can only, because of that day, you can only talk to one person and that’s it. But then there are lots of days where you’re talking to millions of listeners. Or future listeners to say the least.

This is how I knew the podcast was going decent when I got this review. Back in, let’s see when this review was: 2022. I’ll read it to you and it’s from the Bustinator from Apple Podcast. It says I’m going to be honest I didn’t know a lot about autism before this podcast. Sam has done a great job of explaining and providing insight into this world from the eyes of someone who is on the spectrum. From what I understand, that explanation can be very hard for someone with autism, but Sam does a fantastic job of maintaining conversations and keeping the podcast interesting and fun to listen to. Very impressed, excited to see what comes from him in the future. Once I got that one, that just proves I know I’m doing my job correctly. 

[00:26:44] Ethan Baird: So now this is a difficult thing to quantify because it’s organic growth, right? It’s really hard to explain exactly how that happened or what caused that to happen. Or more importantly, it’s very difficult to recreate that for somebody else because the circumstances are so random or uncontrollable.

[00:27:01] Hendrik Baird: But it does prove the point that consistency and holding on and continuing to create and create and create can lead to some real success.

And also about engagement, isn’t it? About engaging your audience and chatting with them and being a person at the other end of it is there are people, real people who are podcasters and real people who are listeners and if you can get them into a community, what is the most valuable thing they can do for you? Talk about your podcast. Word of mouth is still the most effective way of marketing and it’s worth more than anything else. ,We 

definitely had to pick the brain of Nicole Engelbrecht when it comes to podcast growth and audience growth. Being in my mind, one of the most successful podcasters in South Africa, with one of the largest audiences, I think she has some really interesting insights on how she creates the post and how she markets her show. 

[00:27:54] Nicole Engelbrecht: Hi, I’m Nicole Engelbrecht. I am the creator and host of the True Crime South Africa podcast. Whenever I post a new episode, there’s a good amount of engagement. What’s really heartwarming to see is, and I think that is a reflection of how deep the community ties have been built around the podcast is, whenever I post something, a sort of like a success story that’s happened around the podcast, whether it may be an award or even something that I’ve done personally, maybe, you know, a book or whatever the case may be, that gets a lot of engagements, people are really excited.

Um, you know, there’s always tons of comments and likes and shares. And I think that that really does speak to the level of how engaged the audience is and how they really feel like they’re a part of the journey. 

[00:28:48] Hendrik Baird: Yeah, it really takes an investment to actively engage with your audience. It’s a time investment, hey? It’s one thing producing the show. It’s another thing going and sitting there and reading all the posts and commenting on them and answering them and answering DMs and all that sort of stuff. And you might even need a virtual assistant to help you with that. It can become overwhelming for the single podcaster.

Absolutely. If you think of just how difficult it is to manage your own email inbox sometimes, imagine having that with a thousand people constantly trying to speak to you. 

Yeah. And if somebody sends you an email and you only answer them two weeks later, that’s not really being consistent, is it? You’ve got to have a regular time set aside every day or every week where you attend to these things and where you, where you work on building your community, but in the same breath, you’ve also got to have boundaries because people will over share.

[00:29:41] Ethan Baird: It’s because you’re building a parasocial relationship. If you’re building a community and people start to view you as a trusted source or just that person that’s in their ear every single week for an hour on their podcast, they start to think that they know you. They start to think that they’re your friend. And I think that’s where those boundaries also really have to come into play where you have to carefully navigate the world of people having a relationship with you where you honestly have no relationship with them.

[00:30:09] Hendrik Baird: So let’s find out from Nicole how she engages with her audience. 

[00:30:13] Nicole Engelbrecht: Um, so I think social media has been probably the most important way to build a community around this podcast, which has happened. It’s actually been quite an incredible experience to see how the community has grown and how people have become deeply engaged with the podcast.

I personally selected three social media platforms to focus on, uh, which for me was Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And the reason I did that was because I was and still am doing all my social media myself. And I think I sort of felt from the beginning that it was important for me to be engaged personally with listeners.

Um, and I found that to be quite helpful. Um, you know, I think that’s one of the reasons that I have such an engaged audience is because they do see me as a human being, um, although I was accused of being AI the other day, but that’s a story for another day. Um, so I really think that that’s been very helpful.

Um, but I would advise podcasters to pick their platforms. Firstly, start small and build out, don’t say I’m going to be on every single social media platform that exists because firstly, that’s not necessary and it’s also counterproductive. Choose your platforms that you focus on based on the niche that you’re, the sort of section of audience that you’re looking to focus on.

You’ll figure that out once you start on these platforms. Um, you know, but generally older people, so people maybe 35, 40 and upwards prefer Facebook. Um, you know, our younger generations prefer Instagram and then Twitter is often the mix between the two. 

[00:32:09] Hendrik Baird: Something we don’t really talk about much is the podcast launch.

[00:32:13] Ethan Baird: It’s not something we’ve honestly really done yet. 

[00:32:17] Hendrik Baird: But it is something we’re going to do with Stripped: An Audio Drama Podcast, which is South Africa’s first feature length audio drama podcast. Uh, we are planning a big launch for that. 

[00:32:28] Ethan Baird: Exactly. And what does a podcast launch even entail, you know, because we know what a product launch could look like, and we have some very strong ideas of how we want to launch it.

But yeah, we did speak to Diogen about his experiences with podcast launching and specifically, a course he took going into detail about how to launch a podcast. 

[00:32:46] Diogen Ntirandekura: My name is Diogen Ntirandekura. I am the host of, uh, the podcast called Consulting Lifestyle. So it was done by, uh, Pat Flynn. I don’t remember exactly the course, but it was about the name of the course, but it was really about launching your first podcast or launching a new, uh, a new podcast.

Uh, and it was very good because, uh, it gives you all the basics, whether it’s about the, uh, equipment, how to write properly or a podcast bio, having a bit of the, the question that you ask, like the ideal, uh, listener, the ideal guest in case you have a, you have a guest, uh, exactly listing resources where you could, uh, where and how you could find a guest.

Uh, making a choice of platform, choice of podcasting platform. And, uh, what does the podcasting platform do to you? The tools. I think it was Audacity and I don’t know what other tools that were explained. So, uh, it really gives you everything for you to launch your, uh, uh, your podcast. I have explored, I have not used much, but yes, my, uh, podcast platform also has a, now some kind of AI tool.

I think that it can be great for, um, show notes, can be great for, uh, someone that is, uh, less comfortable babbling, uh, behind the microphone for minutes, uh, they could get a tool to do it for them. They record their voice and, uh, they write the text and they get it done for them. That’s technology. I think we just have to, to, to evolve with that, but I think there will always be a space for, uh, everything that is natural in terms of voice, but otherwise in terms of editing all the time consuming tasks that can be, uh, where we can leverage AI, I think it’s great.

[00:34:34] Ethan Baird: I’d be very interested to see what the stats are on podcast launches and how much of an impact they make because we’ve spoken about podcasts being a long term thing, you know, you’ll get audience in a year, perhaps over time, but I also see the value of making a big splash to try to get a huge amount of people in when the show launches, so that you can start building that audience immediately. So I’d be really interested to see if anybody has stats on what a podcast launch can actually do and what a successful launch could look like. 

I have to tell you something embarrassing that happened during the course of recording the interviews for this podcast.

So peek behind the curtain. Both Hendrik and I went our separate ways and interviewed a whole bunch of people for the show. So two people that I ended up interviewing, uh, Steve and Christian. And the reason I got to Christian was because Steve spoke about a company called Pantheon, which helped him launch his podcast and is supporting his podcast.

So I went on LinkedIn, looked up Pantheon and I saw, Oh, Pantheon’s a podcast company. Christian Swain, he works there. Let me go interview him. Turns out it’s two completely different companies that had nothing to do with each other. 

[00:35:43] Hendrik Baird: But they had the same name. 

[00:35:45] Ethan Baird: Both have the same name. Both are in the world of podcasting, but they do very different things.

So then I actually had a bit of an awkward moment during the one interview when I was like, Oh yeah, I found out about you from Steve. And he’s like, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Anyway, let’s talk about your podcast network. So I had a very interesting discussion with Christian about, uh, his Pantheon, the, the company that he works at, and they’re actually a podcast network, which is a group of podcasts that come together under a larger umbrella, like Gimlet would be an example of the, one of those.

There’s quite a few of them. The audiences across the various shows might be smaller, but now you’ve got the power of having multiple shows and lots of room for collaboration. So in this clip, uh, you’ll hear Christian talking a bit about Pantheon and how they grow the podcasts in their stable. 

[00:36:29] Christian Swain: Yeah, I’m Christian Swain.

I am the CEO, I’m president of Pantheon Media. Uh, we are a podcast, uh, company that focuses on music related, uh, podcast, uh, shows. A big advantage to, uh, our network is, uh, for somebody who joins us, is a, a like-minded audience. I think a big problem in, uh, in, uh, podcasting and most people would agree is discovery.

And, uh, you know, when you have a c of 2.5 to 5 million podcasts, depending how you listen to it, it’s hard to find what you’re looking for, uh, from a, uh, a listener standpoint. Uh, and so by coupling, uh, all of these podcasts of like minded subjects, uh, an audience can easily move from one to another. So we have a fair amount of anecdotal data of people telling us that if you want a good music podcast, just go to Pantheon. So that’s an advantage to the podcasters themselves by swimming in a small sea of like minded individuals. Uh, there’s a lot of cross pollination that, uh, occurs, uh, within the network itself. A lot of our podcasters end up as guests and hosts on other shows, a lot of producing engineering flips around.

So it’s a little bit of a little ecosystem, uh, if you will. Uh, within the Pantheon side of things. So that’s, that’s from the podcasters side and why they would want to be a part of the network. Why they’d want to be a part of Pantheon, uh, specifically.

From our standpoint, what we look for, uh, and especially today, uh, you know, early on, uh, you know, there weren’t a lot of music podcasts. In fact, part of the reason why I started Rocker Archaeology is because there weren’t very many, if any. Podcasts that were really music focused and trying to tell these stories. And, uh, since then, a lot have popped up. You know, subject matter is, uh, is, is important, uh, for us, uh, you know, we know what our zebra stripes are. And so we’re looking for other zebras that could fit into the pack or herd, excuse me. 

The next is, um, the passion of the creators. Uh, without passion in podcasting, uh, you’re sunk. I think what we’ve seen, uh, in the podcast business in the last six months or so, um, you know, around the first of the year, there was a lot of dire talk about podcasting.

Geez, you know, uh, the, the, the great gold rush was over and, and some of that may be true, but if you really look at the analysis of, of what, what, what was going on and why, Is it seemed that on the, on one end, on the high end, the big platforms, uh, you know, the Amazons, the Apples, the, the Spotify’s, uh, you know, aren’t handing free money out like candy to every celebrity who wakes up one day and says, uh, I need a podcaster. My management says I need a 360 degree marketing campaign and podcasting needs to be a part of that. Um, Hey, can you give me some money? That sort of thing. I think a lot of that’s gone. Yeah. Uh, I think a lot of the ROI did not work from that perspective of just throwing money at celebrities and, uh, hoping that, uh, something sticks and, uh, it makes a hit.

Um, very few of them have been, uh, been a hit, um, you know, with the exception of something like Smart List. On the other side, and this is really huge is, you know, during the pandemic, every mom and pop woke up and said, Hey, let’s make a podcast. Um, and they did about three and realized that, uh, it’s not as easy as it seems.

Uh, sure, you can get the equipment and you can record yourself. Uh, but the success of a podcast is really built on a couple of things. First is content, the quality and consistency of that content. Uh, if you’re not out continually adding to, uh, to your show, uh, and engaging, uh, your listeners, uh, with new content, uh, social media, uh, um, you know, everything that goes along with that, um, you’re probably not going to be a successful podcaster.

So, uh, we, we look for people who are engaged, uh, in that, that have a track record that we can look at and say, wow, these people are passionate. They put quality content together. Um, and they do this consistently. And what I mean is the editorial content, the, uh, the, the audio side of things, um, we’re not so, uh, specific about that because we know we can fix that if that’s an issue. Uh, we’ve, we’ve taken many podcasters, uh, on with some, uh, audio issues and worked with them to elevate their audio game. We can fix that. What we can’t invent or fix is the content itself. And so as we’ve gone on, we’ve gotten a little more choosy, a little more particular in, in what we’re looking for.

We don’t cannibalize. We don’t want, uh, you know, 15 Kiss shows, uh, on our network. Uh, we have one, uh, that’s good enough. We have the best one. So, uh, there you go. Uh, and so things like that are what we look for, uh, from a, from a podcaster standpoint. 

[00:41:46] Hendrik Baird: So it seems to me there’s a lot of benefits if podcasters join such a network.

[00:41:51] Ethan Baird: Yeah. And I think a lot of the existing really big podcasts, actually most of the really big podcasts on some kind of network. You’ll see they’ll typically have some kind of a little banner on their show or a little introduction. Uh, there’s so many of them out there and yeah, you typically get access to support because there’s experienced podcasters all are part of this network who can help each other out, typically pay for some kind of infrastructure.

And also typically have some kind of way to monetize across all the shows. So instead of someone buying ads on one show, like who doesn’t have enough audience to actually sell the ads, let’s take 50 podcasts that will have a thousand listeners apiece. Now, all of a sudden you have a big enough audience to sell.

[00:42:31] Hendrik Baird: Right. Let’s sum up, um, getting an audience and marketing to that audience is not easy. 

[00:42:39] Ethan Baird: It’s big. It’s complicated. It depends. It’s a very unfortunate answer. 

[00:42:43] Hendrik Baird: I think something we haven’t touched on, which I think is, is really important is it starts with quality content. If you have a shitty show, you’re not going to have an audience. 

[00:42:52] Ethan Baird: That is so incredibly important. I think sometimes people put the cart before the horse, you know? They want to start thinking about Facebook groups and Patreon pages, and how do I get people to pay me for my podcast when they have barely even conceptualized how they’re going to actually record this thing and what’s going to make their show interesting in the first place.

[00:43:11] Hendrik Baird: The second point is it’s got to be entertaining. Nobody’s going to listen to a boring show. You’ll have two seconds ago. Oh no, this is not for me. It’s got to be entertaining. This is entertainment. Even if you are educating somebody, even if you are promoting your business or something off key, it’s still got to be entertaining.

Nicole’s show is very entertaining. It’s gripping. It’s intriguing. And that’s why she’s one of the biggest podcasters in this country. And then, you’ve got to leverage social media. That’s truly important. And the other thing we’ve also learned is networks. You’ve got to leverage your networks. You’ve got to group together. You know, there’s strength in numbers, isn’t there? 

[00:43:52] Ethan Baird: Yeah. Ultimately, as I said previously, all got to do with marketing fundamentals. If you wanted to grow a community, if you wanted to grow a business, if you wanted to grow an art page, how would you do so? A lot of those same answers apply to this, growing a community and keeping them together in a place that you can access them, building up databases of email addresses.

Building up social media pages, getting up the following, putting out interesting content, sending people with calls to action to your show, collaborating with other people in your niche who could then recommend their audience to your show and vice versa. It’s a large sticky challenge that you have to figure out for your own show.

But ultimately, if you are a business owner, you already have some idea of how you should be doing this. 

[00:44:40] Hendrik Baird: And if you want to start a podcast, well, let Ethan and I show you the way. We have something called the Podmaster Startup Program, six sessions of an hour each and a load of resources and extra sessions in between.

And we take you from conceptualizing your podcast through to monetizing the whole thing and everything in between. So find more information on our website, Baird.Media.