Answering YOUR Questions Around Creating an Engaging Podcast
Joe Casbona (00:00)
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome to another episode of Podcast Workflows. Now, Podcast Workflows is a website and podcast that provides insights into how to improve your podcast systems and workflows, allowing you to create and grow a high quality podcast by showing you how to best spend your unlimited time. And today is a questions roundup. I've been...
doing live streams over on YouTube lately, you can find the link to my YouTube channel, YouTube, YouTube channel in the description for this episode and over at show .podcastworkflows .com where this podcast lives. And as a result, I've been getting a bunch of questions around podcasting, automation and things like that. And I...
Thought I'd break them down into some categories. I got a lot of really great questions around how do I do a solo show, right? This was kind of based on my, my live stream a few weeks ago where I talked about maybe you should stop doing an interview show. and so I got a lot of really great questions. So I'm going to run through those questions today. If you want to submit a question to the show for me to answer, you can go to podcastworkflows .com.
slash feedback. That's podcastworkflows .com slash feedback to submit a question for the show. You can also again hang out at one of the live streams or send questions over on social media as well. I'm Jay Casabona. So, okay, let's dive into these questions. So, the first one is around having
being pretty comfortable with the technical aspects and having more questions around the design, the content of the show. So here's the first question. How can I be confident that I'll have enough to talk about to make sure the podcast can go long enough? I like this question for two reasons, right? One is it implies that there is a quote unquote long enough.
for a podcast episode, but it also talks about how will I pick good topics, essentially, or have a good general topic for the show and then pick good subjects for each episode. And so the first thing I would say here is there is not a long enough, really, right? There are shows that are one minute long. There are shows that are several hours long.
And I think the most important thing to consider is, are you adequately answering the question or solving the problem that you set out to solve? So that brings us to the first part of this question. How can I be confident I'll have enough to talk about? If you pick a show that or pick a topic for the show that aligns with your expertise, you will always have enough content.
Right. I've been talking about content or podcasts for years at this point, and I always have questions to answer. People are submitting questions. Maybe they're asking questions I answered five years ago and maybe I have a different answer now. But when you're a subject matter expert, you can take a question, answer, expand upon it and again, only make the episode as long as.
it takes to answer that question. That means that if you can answer the question in five minutes, so be it. And if it takes you 20 minutes to cover a topic, so be it. I think it's worse to have a complete, I'm sorry, I think it's better to have a complete short episode than to have a long episode where you include way more than you needed to include. So,
I would say don't worry about the length of the episode. Worry about its completeness for the topic. And if you're worried that maybe you're not going to, you know, you have like 20 episodes and you're going to run out of steam after that. First of all, always ask for feedback. That's how I'm doing this episode today. Right. And you'll always have stuff to talk about, but take it one question at a time. Right. Answer.
one question each episode. And that's a really good way to start because then you also start building a resource for potential customers and clients. Okay, so that's what I would say here to this question. And I'll also remind you that Stuff You Should Know started as a six minute long podcast.
where the hosts basically just read the article from howstuffworks .com. So you can start in a way that's comfortable for you, feel it out, see the feedback you get, and then evolve. Okay, so the second question. I'm launching a podcast for my brand, and I'm wondering, should the podcast be under...
the brand directly or should it be completely separate and direct people to the brand? One of my goals is to grow an audience so that I can drive traffic to the brand that doesn't necessarily need to be a branded podcast. And maybe if I separate it, I'd be more capable of picking up sponsors someday. So the question in here is I have a podcast I'm launching for my brand. Should it be part of the brand's website or separate?
And then there's this other question about the association and potentially sponsors. So let's take this question step by step. If you have a podcast that's directly related to your brand, it should be under your podcast, your brand's website, because a podcast is content and more content pleases Google. And so if you're creating this great resource, that's also going to be content.
You should definitely have it as part of your brand. I wouldn't say I would say don't, in fact, call the podcast Brand Names Podcast, right? So I would say don't call it the Acme podcast, right? Or the Rode podcast. I just looked at the first brand I see off screen here. Because we want it to be very helpful.
And we don't want to make the brand the focus of the show necessarily. So if you have a I always go to like the the bicycle analogy. If you have a pen shop called The Pen is Mightier. No, that's actually a great name for a podcast. So if I have a pen shop called Casa bonus pens.
I wouldn't call the show the Casa bonus pens podcast. I'd call it the pen is smite ear probably. I'd make it a name that people are searching, right? So fountain pens for beginners or ballpoint pen for beginners or you paid how much for that pen, something like that. And then during the episode, I would give really good advice.
and point people to the brand's newsletter or mailing list or whatever, right? Hey, if you like this, you should sign up for our mailing list. We talk in depth about this stuff over there. And then we also offer special deals on the kind of software we talk about, right? Our software, right? This is brought to you by Brand, where we help people do exactly what we talk about on this podcast. So if you're interested, go over here to learn more.
And then I would say if it's separate, I'd be more capable of picking up sponsors, maybe. So the answer to this question is a little bit twofold, right? First of all, if you are accepting sponsors, definitely don't accept competitors as your sponsor, right? And so it might be a moot point here, right? Because just because it's a branded podcast doesn't mean it can't have sponsors. But...
I definitely wouldn't run a competitor, right? I wouldn't run Anderson Pens as an ad on the Casa Bona Pens show. Anderson Pens is that actual real shop I've purchased from before. Because we're doing the same thing, right? And if I'm starting a podcast to get more people to buy pens from me, I'm not going to accept money from Anderson Pens so that people go spend money with them.
Right. The other idea here is if you're launching a podcast for your brand, you may not want to have sponsors at all. Right. This is a decision you'll have to make. But I think if you're launching a podcast for your brand, that you are using it to drive traffic to your website and hopefully get people to purchase. I would make that the main focus of monetization for your podcast.
at least at first. And I'll say like what I'm saying is not something that is absolute. It's not an absolute truth. It's not something that could be true in the future. On this show, I have, you know, I had it sponsored in the beginning. Then I decided I didn't want to have it sponsored because I wanted to focus on my coaching services. And now it is an option for sponsorship when people sponsor the website. So it's fuzzy.
But I would say if you're starting off and you're trying to create a great resource to potentially get clients, focus on that first and make your call to action to get people to join your mailing list. Speaking of, if you're enjoying this episode, if you want to launch a podcast the right way and you don't want to spend all of your time producing your show, you just want to create great content.
You should head over to podcastworkflows .com slash join there. You'll be able to join my mailing list and you'll get access to my 40 automation templates for free. So those are the automations I used to run my shows there across Zapier and make and a few other tools. But it'll it's a newsletter that goes out a couple of times a week giving you tips for how to improve your podcast workflows. And you'll also get this 40 plus.
Automation Database for free. That is over at PodcastWorkflows .com slash join.
Okay, next question. Question I get all the time, I'll answer it every time I get it, is what kind of frequency should I be looking at is weekly acceptable?
You should make it as often as you're comfortable producing. That should always be the first answer, right? Because there are some people who are like, you need to publish your show three times a week and people won't do that. They'll be like, they'll go strong for the first week or two and then they're not going to do it. So if you want, if you're like a seasoned podcaster and you feel like you can do that, then fine, like build up to that. If you are starting off, I would say.
the most infrequent you can be is fortnightly or every two weeks. Right. I used to say like monthly is maybe OK. I don't think monthly for a new podcast is good anymore unless you already have a huge audience. Right. Like the Cortex podcast with Mike Hurley and CGP Grey. They both have massive audience. CGP Grey has like a huge.
like millions of people audience. And so he can be monthly because he already has a bunch of people who will just consume content whenever he puts it out. Also, he has conditioned us, I'm part of the audience, he has conditioned us to subscribe to him so that we know when he puts out content because unlike every other YouTuber,
out there, right? He's he got big on YouTube if you don't know. He doesn't publish on a strict schedule, right? He publishes every few months, like when he completes a deeply researched and choreographed video. And so, yeah, CGP Grey and Mike can get away with it on Cortex. I think if you're just starting off and you're trying to build an audience and you're trying to create a great resource, I think every two weeks is the least that you should do.
Weekly is perfect, I think. And then if you are feeling adventurous, you can try twice a week. I don't rec... If you're starting, I don't recommend twice a week. I would recommend weekly and get a few episodes recorded before you start releasing them. And I would say maybe have like eight recorded or 12 recorded at the start. So you have a three month, a three month head start for your show.
Okay. And then, how long might a good podcast be? I covered this already. Like it's solo talking 15 minutes enough. Yeah. 15 minutes for a solo show is great. but like I said earlier, make it as long as it needs to be without being much, much longer. So if you are answering one question and it takes you five minutes to answer that question, make it a five minute episode.
If it's a bigger topic that you maybe broke out into three or four different sections, 20 minutes is probably great. If you get to like 40 minutes solo, you may be rambling. I would just say I would just say that. Or it could be a two parter, right? As I look at I look at Riverside here, I've been talking for 15 minutes and that includes the intro and the little plug for my newsletter in the middle.
So 15 minutes feels like a sweet spot if you're covering one topic. Maybe 20 if you're breaking that topic up into subtopics. So I think that's really good, but again, make it as long as it needs to be. Okay, that is all of the questions that I had kind of prepped here. This is probably gonna be a 20 minute episode, right? So I talked a little bit and now I'm gonna wrap up. So...
Confidence comes from picking a show where you already have an expertise. All right, that's the first thing And if you pick a topic where you are the expert then you will be able to go long enough episode wise or just like Number of episodes wise. Okay when it comes to a branded podcast Definitely put it on the brand's website because good content is good for Google
Google or new content. Google loves new content. Don't name it after the brand, though. You could call it something that people are searching. Do a little bit of keyword research to see what kind of things people are asking and name your show that way for keywords that you're trying to rank. And you could always say like presented by the brand. But we want to make this a useful resource source first and foremost, then.
plug your newsletter or your website or some resource during the episode. That's also going to be useful for the listener. And when it comes to sponsors of branded podcasts, I would say definitely don't do competitors. But if you wanted to drive traffic and people to buy your product, I would focus fully on that for a little while and see if that's an option. Frequency, month is no good. Every two weeks is the minimum. One week is the sweet spot.
and a podcast episode should be as long as it needs to be. OK, that's it for this episode of Podcast Workflows. I hope you liked it. If you did, definitely head over to PodcastWorkflows .com slash join. If you want to submit a question for me to answer on the show, you can go to PodcastWorkflows .com slash feedback. All of that will be in the description for this episode in your podcast player of choice. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time.
I'll see you out there.
