Hey all,
I'm one of those people that likes to talk to ANYONE...but I didn't always have the confidence to be able to do that. Having now graduated from University and also being in a pandemic unable to go anywhere, I thought it would be a good idea to offer my services, advice or tips to those on social media to work on projects/collaborations...remotely! I stumbled across a post from one of my connections on LinkedIn asking for guests to come onto his podcast, so I decided to directly message him to find out more information!
He replied back to me and told me that the podcast is going to be all about sports, but that he could try and find some social media / marketing opportunities for me in order to help the podcast be started successfully! Little did he know, I have quite a lot of interest in a variety of sports including tennis, swimming, cycling, snooker and even walking, so decided to let him know about some of my experience to see if I was NOW a suitable candidate to be on the podcast!
Here are some of my expanded tips and tricks about starting a podcast because I wanted to keep my ideas short and sweet without rambling on too much!
1- The first thing to do is think about what you're going to talk about and who the target audience is for your content. In Josh's case, he has decided to create a sports podcast, so the best thing to do is to reach out to as many sports friends that he has, any companies or agencies that provide sporting facilities and also asking some of his connections to share his post to see if they can help find other people who might want to get involved. I also suggested that he could directly message students that are studying any sports related courses or are part of any sporting societies. With podcasting, the best thing to do is contact as many people as possible with your idea, as although they might not be able to help you personally, they should at least be able to find 1/2 contacts that they could get you in direct communication with to discuss your ideas further!
2- The next suggestion I gave Josh was to expand his online presence. From looking at his profile I can see that he hasn't posted much apart from a short post saying that he was looking for guests for a podcast, and a recent post explaining that he has recorded his first episode (which is great news!), but he can definitely try and network with new people online. Similarly to the above point, this can be students, graduates, sports coaches or even local sports teams in his local area that could have contacts elsewhere around the world. I explained that I had a similar project where I needed people's advice and opinions and I shared it in a LinkedIn post, and was able to get over 50/60 suggestions for ways I could implement and structure my project!
3- I also suggested that Josh used hashtags (#) on as many of his posts as possible, as this is a way to connect you with other likeminded people through simple words and phrases. For example, Josh has a sports podcast, so his hashtags could simply include #sports #teamwork #exercise #games #football #tennis ... and many more! Each hashtag will have its followed audiene, but people could also have this post or these hashtags recommended, and that's another way to organically grow your audience with the power of social media!
4- The next two things I gave Josh advice about was using a website to create professional looking logos or thumbnails when advertising his podcast for people to watch, and it's much more interesting to see a person of the interviewee than just a blank screen with the title of the episode. I also said that creating an Instagram or Twitter page specifically for the podcast could be a good idea, as anybody on his personal social media may decide to unfollow him if he is trying to blend both of his social media accounts together!
5- The next thing to think about when creating podcasts is where you are going to share them...Facebook? YouTube? AnchorFM? There are so many options, but personally for me I decided to use AnchorFM which is a free uploading service for podcasters to share their content, and their podcasts are also shared to a variety of other sites simultaneously at the click of a button! One of the reasons I used AnchorFM for my podcasts is that you're able to customise almost every aspect of the episode, including the thumbnail, title, description and even whether you wanted to include adverts before, during or after the podcast episode!
6- In addition to sharing the podcast on social media, he wanted people to collaborate by writing about different sporting experiences they have, so that he could share those on his Facebook page. I also said that he might get the interest of 10 different footballers for example, but they could each have a different topic that they are all passionate about, in order to showcase variety, rather than just the same questions, same answers and for the podcast to sound repetitive. The topics could include how to play football, mental health within the game of football, something to do with inclusivity or maybe somebody's personal journey from non-professional football to being in a football league with other prominent teams.
7- And last but by most certainly not the least important point...is the structure of the podcast! Before inviting a guest to come and speak, I would definitely have a pre made structure for how the episode will pan out, so that you know exactly how long the episode will be and what will be covered. It's always a good idea to share the outline of the structure with the guests, but don't show them everything, as this willw allow them to pre plan all of their answers, and the podcast won't come across as a genuine conversation. With podcasting some creators decide to have little games or ice breakers throughout, to break up the bulky content from the fun/entertainment aspect which I think is also really important within podcasting. Although I haven't created any podcast episodes for a while, and haven't really created much content online recently, I feel as if I want to try and give advice to those who are either starting out, or that aren't able to access the tips and tricks to keep up with the current times!
As I do with all of my messages, I ask people if they fancy having a voice or video call to discuss anything further, and although I'm not being paid to give out my advice, I know that at least something I've written in these messages will be beneficial for Josh (and hopefully many others) when they begin their journey in the podcasting world!
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