The Simple Formula to Grow Your Audience
It starts with knowing who your target audience is
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Raise Your Hand If You Have Never Heard Me
I was waiting for the staff at the Higheredpod.com event to introduce me, so I grabbed my camera and said, “If you’ve never heard my show, or ever heard me speak (in other words you were like, “Who???) I asked them to not be shy and raise their hand.
This is how you grow your audience. You find people who should be listening to your show - but aren’t. I then had ONE chance to make a good first impression.
Feedback
I got some good feedback, and one note that made me cringe.
The praise was that it was educational, filled with good info, and entertaining.
The note? I had met some of the attendees the night before at a meetup and added three slides to the presentation that fit this situation. This happened late at night, and you guessed it - had a typo (and lucky me I copied one slide and edited so they got to see the typo twice - ugh…). As much as I hate to hear of my mistakes, I DEEPLY appreciate it when someone shows me a way I can improve (Thanks Christopher!).
Now I could beat myself up, or I can look at this as a learning lesson. The lesson? Don’t add slides at midnight when you’re 10 minutes from going to sleep. Tuck the knowledge away for another day and realize you did the best you could.
One of the reasons I chose to attend is I didn’t recognize ANY of the speakers, and aside saw it as a great opportunity to grow my network (and it was).
Get in front of people who should be listening to your show (in any format on or offline) but aren’t. Make friends with them, and tell them about your show.
Podcast Hot Seat
Is your show note getting the downloads you feel it deserves? You may be missing something. This service lets you know when you “Have spinach in your teeth.” Get a podcast audit and a free month at the School of Podcasting
Check it out at podcasthostseat.com Your Audience Will Thank You
My Latest Content
School of Podcasting (follow)
Are Big Companies Poisoning Podcasting? (Caution this contained some strong opinions, and let’s just say I’m not going to be featured on Spotify any time soon).
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Puppies and Podcasts: The Weird Connection You Didn’t Know You Needed
Feeding My Faith (follow)
Lose Your Luggage
Stuff That Caught My Eye
Sponsor Magnet - THE Book on Podcast Advertising
Sponsor Magnet is a book by Justin Moore. I had read part of the kindle book, but downloaded the audio book on Audible for the seven hour trip to Chicago. I listened on the way home, and it made the time fly by. This is THE book if you want to developer partnerships with brands (which is different than advertisers). As much as I can have my opinions, Justin had me changing my mind on some of the “standard strategies” when it comes to advertising and sponsorships. It’s a really good book. The audio book has additional brief interviews with people who put the strategies into play and reaped rewards (so if you have a choice, go with the audio book).
All of Your Stats in One Place - Coming Soon
Some of the cool people I met in Chicago were customers of Podpage. In hanging out I discovered they are working on intelligence.fm which will be a dashboard where you can see your download metrics along with Spotify and YouTube metrics. I am officially on the wait list.
Quit Playing Music - Even on YouTube
The Professor of Rock YouTube channel often plays clips of music videos as he interviews the musicians and artists who created them. He’s done top 10 countdowns in the past and apparently Youtube has been removing his videos. see video.
Click Rank - An AI SEO Tool
Click Rank is an AI Tool I purchased from App Summo and so far it’s pretty cool. It did an audit of my site and let me know what needed some help. As I have had this site for twenty years, there were lots of things that need polished.
So does AI do good SEO? I can tell you this, it fixed things I never would have gone back and done by hand. Could a human had done a better job, sure. But I wasn’t goin to do it, and I wasn’t going to hire someone to do it. For me, that means I’m doing better than I was. For a lifetime deal of $79, it seemed like a good value to me.
What’s Coming In The Future
I’m brining something back I haven’t done in YEARS, and it’s just for newsletter readers. Keep your eyes peeled.
More Great Interviews
I've got interview with David Hooper and Traci DeForge in the can and soon to your ears. Do you have any topics you’d like to hear?
Need Help With Your Podcast?
Whether you’re just starting or a seasoned podcaster, the School of Podcasting can help. Helping podcasters is what I do, and I’ve been doing it since 2005
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