1 00:00:00,250 --> 00:00:04,046 You. We've reached the end of the episode and if 2 00:00:04,068 --> 00:00:07,646 you enjoyed this podcast or you got something from it, you might be 3 00:00:07,668 --> 00:00:11,226 interested in my weekly newsletter that I send out every Monday 4 00:00:11,258 --> 00:00:14,798 morning, full of podcasting tips, tricks, and 5 00:00:14,884 --> 00:00:18,734 news. So if you like this show, you might like this newsletter. To sign 6 00:00:18,772 --> 00:00:22,474 up, just go to the show notes and click the link. Thanks for listening 7 00:00:22,522 --> 00:00:26,120 and happy podcasting. You you 8 00:00:26,810 --> 00:00:30,534 little disclaimer for the show. I accidentally just recorded the whole 9 00:00:30,572 --> 00:00:34,246 thing and did not hook up my microphone properly. So the 10 00:00:34,268 --> 00:00:37,846 audio quality is going to be worse than normal since it's my 11 00:00:37,868 --> 00:00:40,874 laptop speakers. But I did the best that I could to try to make it 12 00:00:40,912 --> 00:00:44,746 tolerable without having to rerecord it and to not be a 13 00:00:44,768 --> 00:00:48,490 perfectionist. So here you go. Hey. Welcome 14 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,258 back to help me. Podcast. This is episode 15 00:00:51,354 --> 00:00:55,198 67. Thank you for being here. And today we're going 16 00:00:55,204 --> 00:00:58,926 to talk about starting with Community and how 17 00:00:58,948 --> 00:01:02,686 you can use a community to grow your existing podcast or 18 00:01:02,708 --> 00:01:06,194 your new podcast. I was talking to somebody about this just 19 00:01:06,232 --> 00:01:09,778 yesterday about how much work a podcast is and 20 00:01:09,944 --> 00:01:13,346 just to be able to create it and to edit it and to come up 21 00:01:13,368 --> 00:01:17,174 with topic ideas. Maybe you're interviewing people, it's a lot of work to get 22 00:01:17,212 --> 00:01:20,886 the actual product out there. But if you look 23 00:01:20,908 --> 00:01:24,514 at a podcast that's successful, really just creating 24 00:01:24,562 --> 00:01:28,406 it is like half the battle, right? Because the other half of it 25 00:01:28,508 --> 00:01:32,106 is also marketing the podcast and getting people to know that it 26 00:01:32,128 --> 00:01:35,674 exists and doing different things to grow your 27 00:01:35,712 --> 00:01:39,546 podcast. So in this conversation, I just want to talk about how 28 00:01:39,568 --> 00:01:43,134 you can use community to grow your podcast. And I was listening to 29 00:01:43,172 --> 00:01:46,814 another video, as I always do, doing some new research every 30 00:01:46,852 --> 00:01:50,222 week to try to learn more things about podcasting. And I came across 31 00:01:50,276 --> 00:01:54,082 this topic within a video that was basically 32 00:01:54,136 --> 00:01:57,860 talking about leveraging your community and kind of 33 00:01:58,230 --> 00:02:01,826 doing a grassroots sort of marketing plan, at least 34 00:02:01,928 --> 00:02:05,650 for a new podcast at the beginning. But this could also work for 35 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:08,694 a podcast that you've had for a little bit. And basically the idea is just 36 00:02:08,732 --> 00:02:12,518 getting like ten people or friends who you have 37 00:02:12,604 --> 00:02:16,438 in the niche of your podcast and basically reaching out to 38 00:02:16,444 --> 00:02:20,022 them one on one and being like, hey, I know you're in this 39 00:02:20,076 --> 00:02:23,674 community or you're familiar with this niche or you 40 00:02:23,712 --> 00:02:27,434 enjoy this niche. I have a podcast about this niche if you wouldn't mind 41 00:02:27,472 --> 00:02:31,146 taking a listen. I think you'd like this episode, something like 42 00:02:31,168 --> 00:02:34,990 that, where you physically reach out one to one to people. But 43 00:02:35,060 --> 00:02:38,286 in order to do this, I think it's also important to figure out what your 44 00:02:38,308 --> 00:02:41,966 niche is and what your community is. And that's what the 45 00:02:41,988 --> 00:02:45,634 conversation that I heard was talking about, is being 46 00:02:45,672 --> 00:02:49,362 able to find out where people that would listen to your show 47 00:02:49,416 --> 00:02:53,214 would hang out, whether that's in person groups 48 00:02:53,262 --> 00:02:56,942 or events or networking events, or maybe it's Facebook 49 00:02:57,006 --> 00:03:00,738 groups or know, there's tons 50 00:03:00,754 --> 00:03:04,486 of places that people form communities. And how can 51 00:03:04,508 --> 00:03:08,166 you become a part of the community that would want to listen to, 52 00:03:08,188 --> 00:03:11,830 your know, just a simple example would be something 53 00:03:11,980 --> 00:03:15,610 know if you have a podcast about farming, right? And maybe 54 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:19,418 there's a local farming meet up every Wednesday night where 55 00:03:19,424 --> 00:03:23,038 all the farmers kind of get together and talk farm stuff, right? Kind of a 56 00:03:23,044 --> 00:03:26,634 silly example. But if you have a podcast about farming, 57 00:03:26,762 --> 00:03:30,238 the people that go to this event about farming might be 58 00:03:30,324 --> 00:03:33,950 interested in your podcast. So that would be a perfect place to go 59 00:03:34,020 --> 00:03:37,586 and just discuss your podcast and to talk about your 60 00:03:37,608 --> 00:03:41,346 podcast. If I look at myself, I certainly don't really 61 00:03:41,528 --> 00:03:44,946 sell my podcast as much as I could be. And I think maybe that might 62 00:03:44,968 --> 00:03:47,666 be hard for a lot of people to just say like, hey, I created this 63 00:03:47,688 --> 00:03:51,206 thing, go listen to it. You're kind of asking almost a little bit of a 64 00:03:51,228 --> 00:03:54,822 favor. Maybe you're not 100% confident with what the podcast is 65 00:03:54,876 --> 00:03:58,678 and it's growing, and maybe you're a perfectionist, but you kind of 66 00:03:58,684 --> 00:04:02,266 have to silence all those voices, I think, in order to grow your 67 00:04:02,288 --> 00:04:06,058 podcast and to get people that could actually find some enjoyment out of it. 68 00:04:06,144 --> 00:04:09,626 And maybe if you look at it in that way of like, okay, well, 69 00:04:09,728 --> 00:04:13,466 maybe this person will enjoy or learn or find a sense 70 00:04:13,488 --> 00:04:17,086 of community with this thing that I created. Even if it's not perfect, you can 71 00:04:17,108 --> 00:04:20,206 almost look at it as like, well, if I can connect the right people to 72 00:04:20,228 --> 00:04:23,966 the show, then I'm kind of helping them out in a way. So maybe 73 00:04:23,988 --> 00:04:27,826 that seems less selfish. But another thing that you 74 00:04:27,848 --> 00:04:31,234 could do for, like, a newer podcast, if you haven't started a podcast yet, and 75 00:04:31,272 --> 00:04:35,106 maybe you're trying to refine your podcast and figure out 76 00:04:35,128 --> 00:04:38,966 what niche or what genre your podcast is going to be, something you can 77 00:04:38,988 --> 00:04:42,838 do is to spend some time in different communities and to become a 78 00:04:42,844 --> 00:04:46,518 member of those communities again. If it's a subreddit or if it's a 79 00:04:46,524 --> 00:04:50,054 Facebook group, those are places online that you can 80 00:04:50,092 --> 00:04:53,450 join and you can see what people are talking about and what people are interested 81 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:56,380 in and you can make connections and you can friend. 82 00:04:57,230 --> 00:05:00,426 You know, if you're in a community like that, let's just say you're in a 83 00:05:00,448 --> 00:05:04,026 Facebook group for a couple months, six months, people are going to start to 84 00:05:04,048 --> 00:05:07,546 notice your name and they're going to start to see, oh, this person's an active 85 00:05:07,578 --> 00:05:11,278 member. And I remember when they commented on something else. And once you kind 86 00:05:11,284 --> 00:05:14,946 of gain a little bit of that leverage, now you can start asking questions like, 87 00:05:14,968 --> 00:05:18,706 hey, I'm thinking about doing a podcast, or you can get 88 00:05:18,728 --> 00:05:22,242 feedback from the community as to what people enjoy. 89 00:05:22,376 --> 00:05:26,082 And when you do launch a podcast, you could ask of them, 90 00:05:26,136 --> 00:05:29,650 hey, I just started this podcast. I'd really appreciate it if everyone 91 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,966 listened to it and gave me some feedback on it, what they liked, what they 92 00:05:32,988 --> 00:05:36,518 didn't like. And then right off the bat you have maybe if the community 93 00:05:36,604 --> 00:05:40,278 is a couple of hundred people, maybe let's just say ten people listen to your 94 00:05:40,284 --> 00:05:43,994 podcast. Now you have ten new listeners that you didn't have before and 95 00:05:44,032 --> 00:05:46,618 if they enjoy your show, they're going to want to share it and they're going 96 00:05:46,624 --> 00:05:50,106 to want to tell other people about it. So I guess 97 00:05:50,288 --> 00:05:53,542 the topic of this episode is kind of this grassroots sort of effort. 98 00:05:53,606 --> 00:05:57,182 And something else I heard in the video that I was listening to was that 99 00:05:57,316 --> 00:06:00,766 some of the guys that have bigger podcasts that were talking 100 00:06:00,868 --> 00:06:04,606 were saying that this is how they started their first podcast and how 101 00:06:04,628 --> 00:06:08,466 they started to gain some traction is they literally just reached out to all of 102 00:06:08,488 --> 00:06:12,226 their friends or their network circle who might be 103 00:06:12,248 --> 00:06:15,426 interested in that topic and just said, hey, I'd appreciate if you listen to this 104 00:06:15,448 --> 00:06:19,286 one episode and let me know what you think. And kind 105 00:06:19,308 --> 00:06:22,966 of manually getting new followers. And I think that 106 00:06:22,988 --> 00:06:26,406 that is a really good idea. But I could also see how it would be 107 00:06:26,428 --> 00:06:30,234 difficult for people, like I said, struggling to ask for help or 108 00:06:30,272 --> 00:06:34,106 struggling to put your face or your product out there if you're a 109 00:06:34,128 --> 00:06:37,866 perfectionist, but I think that it could be a beneficial thing 110 00:06:37,888 --> 00:06:41,674 for your podcast. And after listening to that, I also 111 00:06:41,712 --> 00:06:45,214 kind of challenged myself to do it more often. And when I am in 112 00:06:45,252 --> 00:06:49,006 groups of networks or when I'm meeting new people to just 113 00:06:49,028 --> 00:06:52,366 kind of talk about myself more and to talk about what I do more and 114 00:06:52,388 --> 00:06:56,186 to be like, hey, I have this podcast and this is what it does. 115 00:06:56,228 --> 00:06:59,966 And if you're interested, maybe you should listen to this episode. It's my most listened 116 00:06:59,998 --> 00:07:03,458 one, that sort of thing, more of selling yourself. And 117 00:07:03,544 --> 00:07:07,346 actually right after I listened to that video, what I did was I 118 00:07:07,368 --> 00:07:10,982 went on Canva and made like one of those I'm sure you've seen 119 00:07:11,036 --> 00:07:13,878 barcodes that you could scan on your phone and it takes you to a link. 120 00:07:13,964 --> 00:07:17,570 Well, if you go to Canva, you can actually create those custom barcodes. 121 00:07:17,650 --> 00:07:21,046 So what I did was I went to my transistor site, which is just my 122 00:07:21,148 --> 00:07:24,854 main page that has all my episodes and then all the links to the streaming 123 00:07:24,902 --> 00:07:28,266 sites. So I took that link and I made a barcode in 124 00:07:28,288 --> 00:07:31,180 Canva just like a very simple page, 125 00:07:31,710 --> 00:07:34,894 PDF sort of thing and I 126 00:07:35,012 --> 00:07:38,830 downloaded it to my phone. And now I have basically 127 00:07:38,900 --> 00:07:41,578 like a little app on my phone that I could click and it's a barcode 128 00:07:41,594 --> 00:07:44,894 to my podcast. So now it makes it that much easier for me to share 129 00:07:44,932 --> 00:07:48,466 my podcast to people because sometimes when people ask me I'm just like, 130 00:07:48,488 --> 00:07:52,226 oh, this is the name. It's working towards our purpose. And they're like, 131 00:07:52,248 --> 00:07:55,140 oh, okay, cool. But I'm certain 132 00:07:55,670 --> 00:07:59,506 90% of those people forget the name and forget to look it up. But 133 00:07:59,608 --> 00:08:02,166 it's much easier if you could just pull out your phone and be like, hey, 134 00:08:02,268 --> 00:08:06,054 here's a barcode that you could scan and you can go follow 135 00:08:06,092 --> 00:08:09,894 it on Spotify in two clicks. So that for me, 136 00:08:10,012 --> 00:08:13,306 I hope is going to make it a little bit easier for me to be 137 00:08:13,328 --> 00:08:16,666 able to share my own podcast when I meet people and when people ask me 138 00:08:16,688 --> 00:08:20,346 about it and also encourage me to bring it up 139 00:08:20,368 --> 00:08:23,998 more often and to sell myself more often. So I 140 00:08:24,004 --> 00:08:27,578 think a lot of that is going to be with practice 141 00:08:27,674 --> 00:08:31,438 and something to get better and better at. But yeah, I think that that 142 00:08:31,444 --> 00:08:35,086 was a thing for me anyways. That feels like it'll be easier for me 143 00:08:35,108 --> 00:08:38,862 to then share my podcast with other people is going on canva 144 00:08:38,926 --> 00:08:42,642 making a barcode and just giving people a really easy way to 145 00:08:42,696 --> 00:08:46,142 get to your podcast and to go listen to your podcast 146 00:08:46,286 --> 00:08:49,426 and also putting it on my phone. I don't know if you could do this 147 00:08:49,448 --> 00:08:52,966 on Apple, but I know on Android you can create like a link for a 148 00:08:52,988 --> 00:08:56,726 document and it looks just like an app. So you click it and then 149 00:08:56,748 --> 00:08:59,926 it'll just open up that PDF that I made from Canva. So I hope that 150 00:08:59,948 --> 00:09:02,598 this was helpful. Thank you for tuning in as always, and I will see you 151 00:09:02,604 --> 00:09:03,400 on the next 152 00:09:08,650 --> 00:09:12,254 welcome to Help Me Podcast, a show designed to help 153 00:09:12,292 --> 00:09:16,126 you launch and grow your podcast. I am your host, Gino, and 154 00:09:16,148 --> 00:09:19,774 twice a week I will release a new episode with different tips and 155 00:09:19,812 --> 00:09:23,562 tricks for launching and growing your podcast. From audio engineering 156 00:09:23,626 --> 00:09:27,278 to learning intentionally to growth tactics, each episode will be a 157 00:09:27,284 --> 00:09:29,690 bite sized tip to help you podcasts.