Morgan Franklin: It feels like every other person this week on
TikTok and LinkedIn, I cannot get away from people saying that
October is the new first of the year reset. And basically, if
you don't start your resolutions now for January of 2025 you are
not gonna be successful, and you have to start right now in
October. And if I'm being honest, it's kind of stressful
also, and I've always felt this way, don't wait for a month or a
date or a new week to do what you know you want to start
today. That's the biggest lesson in all of this for all of us,
you don't have to wait for what you want. And that being said, I
have a kind of love hate relationship with resolutions
and very strict like self improvement regimens, but I do
love planning and strategy and honestly, riding the wave of
everyone being there would unto best self at the beginning of
the year. No surprise here I am already working on q1 for 2025
and I wanted to share a few of the things that I'm starting to
work on as a podcaster and a producer and a strategist, and
three things I'm starting now to grow my podcast in 2025 so that
hopefully it can help you grow your podcast too. Hello and
welcome to podcast for profit. My name is Morgan Franklin. I'm
a Podcast Producer, strategist and educator. This podcast will
help you create and grow a podcast that cuts through the
noise of social media and speaks directly to your target
audience. If you're ready to create a podcast that will align
you with the experts in your industry, position yourself as a
trusted leader and create another source of revenue for
your business, you're in the right place. Okay, so the first
thing that I'm doing to grow my podcast in 2025 that I've
already started working on, and if I'm being real with you, is
probably the least fun. And the thing that makes me the most
uncomfortable is filming short form straight to camera videos.
So this is the kind of video that you'd see on Tiktok or
YouTube shorts or reels where I'm just talking about a podcast
episode or something related to podcasting, or something about
me. I do think that these informal, straight to camera
videos that are kind of like a monolog, like you're FaceTiming
a friend. These are the most impactful pieces of content you
can create right now. It feels real, it feels personal, and it
feels like it's genuinely coming from you, and that's what I love
about it. And as someone that wants to curate every single
inch of my social media presence, this is really
difficult for me, and I've heard from many other people that it's
very difficult for you too. It feels very vulnerable, but the
numbers are there, and that is what matters. People don't want
a highly produced, professional, polished graphic designer. They
want to feel like they're talking to you. Another thing
that I'm shifting my operations on in the social media realm for
the upcoming year is the way that I promote episodes. This
might kind of seem like an insignificant change to some of
you, but I think it makes a really big difference, and we
have to stop pretending like having a new episode is a
novelty or a reason to listen. We do this all the time, and I
see this every week, and I know that you do too every week, I
see someone out here posting the same three graphics that they've
been using for two years as a new episode. Or listen to my new
episode here with special guest XYZ. And I hate to tell you, but
no one cares. No one cares if you have a new episode. If it's
the day of the week that you should have a new episode, you
should have a new episode. This is not news, and I am so guilty
for this. For years, I have been so guilty of this because we
think people should care, right? We put so much time and energy
into this new episode, and we're really proud of it. We want
other people to hear it, but that is not going to make them
listen. That is not enough. This is what's going to get them to
listen, piquing their interest, showing them the highlight or
the part of something that you're talking about that they
might want to hear more of, and then telling them where they can
listen to more. Here's a quick example. So earlier this week, I
was on Tiktok, and I saw these podcasters talking about
Halloween costumes. I love Halloween, so of course, I was
in immediately. They were talking about the costumes that
we need to retire in 2024 and not just retire, but like when
they would be cool again. And I thought that that that was just
such an interesting concept. But the snippet that they were
talking about was they were saying that three hole punch gym
from the office, a very notoriously lazy costume, is
out. But if you give it five to 10 years for this generation of
kids who think that millennial stuff is kind of lame, if you
give those kids time to age out of picking the things that are
cool. In about five to 10 years, it'll be cool and kind of
hipster again, to be three hole punch gym and as an office fan
and as a millennial, and as a millennial that can find the
humor in making fun of millennial stuff. I thought that
this was really funny, and so, you know, I found them, I
followed them, I found the podcast and I listened to it.
And the lesson to take away from this is that they weren't
advertising that they had a new episode that wasn't the focus of
this. They were showing people that small part of what they
could expect and then leading them to the podcast. Oh, and by
the way, if you want to listen to this podcast, it is so funny.
It is called pals. That's P, a, l, s. The hosts are hilarious,
and I'm so glad that I found that podcast. I do want to note
that they have a video component of their podcast, but you do not
have to have a video component of your podcast to create
interest in this way with short form content. Literally, just
get on your phone and start recording a video where you talk
about the episode. Because, you know, I can make a video for
this episode so easily. My hook would probably just be something
like this. Is why I'm not waiting until January 1 to
implement my 2025, podcast marketing strategy, and this is
what I'm already doing. And then listen to the full episode here.
Perfect, perfect video. That's all I need. Short and sweet
tells me what to expect, gives me a little taste, tells me
where to go. The easiest content that I'll make all month, I've
said it before and I'll say it again. You don't have to have a
video component of your podcast. You don't have to be filming it
every single time you make a podcast to have short form video
content. The next thing is YouTube. And yes, like so many
of us, I have been really avoiding YouTube, not because I
don't like it, or think it's great, or think that it's great
for podcasters, it's because I don't want to do it, I don't
want to do another thing on another platform, but YouTube is
the fastest growing podcast platform. So what's a girl to
do? Here's my plan for YouTube for the first half of 2025 and
I'm not even gonna guess what the second half is gonna be
like, because we could all be living on Mars by then. So
here's the plan, I'm gonna keep posting my podcast episodes on
YouTube. I do that already. I just take the audio, I put it in
Canva, I make a graphic, and then I upload the podcast with a
static image to YouTube. However, my goal is to make a
very casual video to go on YouTube every week, probably
just filmed on my laptop with loom, where I'm talking about a
podcast or how to do something with editing or AI or something
informational and probably educational, and uploading that
every week to help drive traffic to my page, so that hopefully
people will start following me, and then when my episodes do
air, it will pop up because they follow Me. And eventually, yes,
I do want to do more on YouTube, and especially to make higher
quality content, but I just want to do what makes sense for me
how much time I have, and I know already I'm pretty strapped for
time, and I encourage you to do that too. Think about what you
can do in the time that you have, instead of stressing
yourself out and burning yourself out and then ended up
not doing anything, because I know this stuff adds up, but you
have to figure out where it can fit into your own content plan.
And the last thing under social media for the start of 2025 to
grow my podcast. And wow, this has been a lot already is
working on hosting live events on LinkedIn. Now, this might not
be exactly right for your niche or podcast, but for mine, since
it's mostly podcasters and business owners. This makes a
lot of sense for me, but I want to involve some kind of live
component into my podcast advertising, and I think that
this would be a good way to do it. If you're someone that's
already using webinars or LinkedIn lives or any kind of
live event to promote your podcast or business, please
reach out to me. I would love to hear how it works for you. And
if you're open to sharing any information with me, I would
love it. And of course, I will share it here on the podcast.
Okay, so now that we have the social media prong of the
approach, now I want to talk about in person events. In
person events are a major pillar of my 2025 marketing effort for
my podcast. And you know, it might not be in the way that
you're thinking, and if you're thinking, I don't want to go to
a podcast conference, that's not really what I'm talking about.
Well, I am very excited to go to podcast conferences, and I will
be announcing a few that I will be going to and speaking at in
2025 very soon, I think that there are just as many
opportunities to make meaningful connections and spread the word
about your podcast where you are, and whether that's
literally where you live, or the industry you're in or the
community of people that are around you, I think the best
first step is always to grow where you are and this is
something that I have been majorly slacking on, especially
the past six months. I normally go to so many local and industry
events, and I've been a little bit off my game just because
I've been busy, but I'm making plans to go to more in person
events and meet people in real life in 2025 I truly believe
nothing grows your podcast like going out there and getting out
of your comfort zone and meeting people face to face. I am so
lucky that I live in the Nashville area, where we have
multiple artist organizations and a community just for
podcasters. And if you live in the Nashville area or the
surrounding area, I hope that you look up Nash pod. So that's
N A S H pod. It's seriously the nicest, most welcoming group of
people, and of course, I'm there too. In that same vein, I want
to focus on meeting people in the industry and talking to
people who do the same thing as me. This is really intimidating
to me, and I think it probably is to a lot of other people too,
in this industry. I still feel really new and like I don't know
where I belong, and I want to be friends with other people
working in the podcasting industry without them feeling
like I'm trying to take advantage of their experience or
knowledge. So it's a gentle balance, and one that I'm still
trying to figure out. And that being said, I want to encourage
you, no matter what industry you're in, to try and make
friends with people who do the same thing as you or work
alongside you. And I know that that can be hard. I know it can
be scary, especially when it's your competition, but think
about how much you guys have in common. Think about how much you
could help each other. Think about how they're probably
feeling the exact same way as you. There is more than enough
money and opportunities and clients for everyone. So focus
on what you can give to your industry and how you can impact
the people around you, and I promise that everything else is
going to fall into place. The last thing that I'm doing to
grow my podcast in 2025 is learning more about and properly
implementing AI. If you've listened to any of my other
episodes where I talk about AI or chatgpt, you know, I have one
theory about the future of artificial intelligence. Ai
won't replace us people who use AI will. I'm a big believer in
putting things into the universe and claiming what is yours. So I
do want to share that I'm currently creating a workable
model for an AI app that's just for podcasters, and podcasting
there will be free and paid portions of this app, but I am
so excited, and also me creating this app wouldn't be possible
without AI two years ago, this would have been impossible.
Because, yes, I do have two programmers to kind of bounce
ideas off of, but most of the mock ups and the things that
I've been doing in this stage are all completely possible
because of AI, and that's just insane. I use AI at every part
of my podcasting journey, pre production, production, post
production and promotion, content, writing, advertising,
you name it. I probably use AI for it, and it doesn't replace
my creativity. If you're listening and you're thinking,
oh well, I've tried chatgpt And it sucks. I get that it isn't
going to do the work for you. It's going to help you get about
70% of the way there or do the things that you don't really
want to do. For example, now, instead of trying to take my
transcripts and painstakingly make them a blog post from every
episode. I can ask chat and GPT, Hey, break this down from the
transcript and get me 70% of the way there, and then from there,
I can make it consumable for a human, and that is the part that
really matters. But a few things that I know that I am starting
to implement AI into my workflow for podcasting in 2025 booking
guests, following up with guests, because that takes
forever, collecting guest recommendations, following up to
share episode informations after an episode goes live, outlining
episodes, researching questions and topics that people have for
episodes and specific audience segments, understanding my
listener data and honing into that information to know what
people actually want to hear, because I don't know about you,
like I try to compare episodes, I try to compare retention
rates, but as far as me digging into that information, it is a
little bit hard and intimidating, but with the right
AI prompts and tools, you can take your analytics and say,
Hey, what do people actually like to hear? And isn't that so
powerful? Isn't that what you actually want to know? There are
truly endless ways to use AI and to make the podcasting process
easier. And if you haven't downloaded my four most used
chat GPT prompts you need to the download is free, and of course,
it is compatible with the free version of chat GPT, so even if
you just want to try it out, you can absolutely do that. I'm also
going to link my store in the episode description. I just
released a new Instagram template pack, and I am in love
with it. I think that it is so cute, and I love it. I have all
kinds of different resources to make your life easier, to grow
and promote your podcast. I'd love to hear how you are
planning to promote your podcast in 2025 send me a DM on
Instagram. It's at Morgan Franklin media, or add me on
LinkedIn. I'll have both of those linked in the episode
description, and as always, I can't wait to listen to your
podcast. Hey, thank you so much for joining me on this episode.
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