Authority Building Content

Podcasting is a really good way to grow your speaking career. Both having your own show and being a guest on other people's shows can help you stand out from the crowd, hone your message and make the connections you need to enhance your speaking career. How do we know? Well - a good number of our clients ARE speakers. And their podcast helps them grow their businesses. Let's talk about how.

One: Perfecting your Delivery

Because podcasting is such a consistent, regular event in your life it's the perfect testing ground for practicing your stories, experimenting with new techniques, and getting a feel for how audiences respond to different ways of communicating. It's your sandbox to connect with people who will care about your message, and test out what you want to say, so that when it comes time to present your keynote - you're more than ready.

Two: The Proof is in the Podcast

When you make pitches or submit applications, you need a robust library of content to point at. It should show you being interesting, authoritative, thought-provoking - whatever it is you're going for - and your podcast can be your proof. If you're not up for your own - then being a guest on other people's shows is a great place to begin. Check out our free guide on how to be a great podcast guest, or get a copy of How to Pitch Yourself as a Podcast Guest eBook and audiobook.

Three: It's Really All Who You Know

Who you know makes a big difference in the opportunities that are going to come your way, so making yourself known to the movers and shakers in your industry is a great way to make sure you're top of mind when it's time to make recommendations and review submissions. 

Four: Cultivate Your Audience

A podcast or podcast appearance is a wonderful way to give the people what they want: more of you! If you were making the decision on who to invite to speak at an industry-leading conference, would you pick the relative unknown or the popular thought leader with thousands and thousands of passionate fans? It's not a hard decision to make. Five:

Diversify your Income

Podcasting isn't typically revenue generating right out of the gate, growing an audience and growing credibility can take time. If you're a speaker with a business behind them, however, then your podcast becomes another channel for leads, and through which to promote your appearances, sell your products and even support the causes you believe in. It's never wise to have all of your eggs in one basket and diversifying the methods you use to make an income means that you'll be less dependent on each one. Access to your OWN audience through your OWN platform is priceless. Are you convinced yet? I hope so! Today’s action step is for current speakers or those who WANT to be speakers. Look at some popular speakers you admire, maybe they do Ted talks, maybe they keynote, maybe they have really great YouTube numbers - and see if they podcast either as a host or a guest. If they do, listen to a few episodes to hear how they convey their message, engage with their audience, and promote their speaking careers. Then, spend a little time considering whether or not a podcast, or being a guest on podcasts, might help you advance your career.

Free Resources

Check out our free guide on how to be a great podcast guest, or get a copy of How to Pitch Yourself as a Podcast Guest eBook and audiobook.

One of the first things we talk about with clients is their podcast launch. It can be as simple as you want, or as complex as you have time and resources for - we’ve seen it all! The things you MUST have are: a reason to podcast, an audio recording of your show, a show description, cover art, and a podcast host.  The audio recording is simply an edited recording of you and your guest, if you have one. A show description is a quick 100 or so word description of what your show is going to be about, and why people should listen. Cover art is the visual that is going to appear in podcast hosts - it should be 3000x3000 pixels, very easy to read, and reflective of your brand. The podcast host is the company you’ll be using to store your audio, that creates the RSS feed used by different podcast players like apple podcasts, i heart radio, player FM and so on.  But you might need a lot more: Show Structure Planning - this is a long discussion about what you want the goal of your show to be, and how you want it to be structured. An Audio Brand is also known as an intro, or bumper. It’s a pre-recorded section of you, or a voice actor giving a VERY brief intro to the show, usually over music. This will be added to every episode.  An Episode Runway - It is very, very wise to record at least a few weeks’ worth of episodes before you launch. A Trailer Episode - this is a very short episode that is basically an expansion on your show description.  Launch Team – an email list or segment of people who have committed to helping promote the show when it launches. You gather together a launch team, sometimes called a street team! Email Launch Campaign – Emails to your main email list announcing the upcoming podcast, and encouraging subscribing and sharing on the launch date.  Promotional Partners - these are other content creators, in your space who you have relationships with, who are willing and able to help you promote your new show. Often, they’ll also be the guests of your first couple of episodes! Social Media Sharing Campaign – images and text shares for different social media platforms that contain links to the show, and teaser content. These are for you to share yourself, and for your launch team. Swipe Kits - Swipe is pre-written content you create for your guests, launch team and promotional partners, so that all they have to do is copy, past and post to make sharing easy. You can include graphics, emails, coy for different social platforms - even videos.  So you see - there is a lot of flexibility here - and there isn’t a right or a wrong way to launch your podcast. The larger your audience, and the loftier your goals - the more elements you should include in your launch. If you’re newer in your business, or have hyper-specific goals for your show, you won’t need nearly this much! Your action step for this episode is to think about your own podcast launch, if you’re planning one. What would you like to include? What will make the best first impression for your audience? What do you have the time and resources to include? If you’d like a little help or support with a podcast launch, you can download the totally free Podcast Starter Kit, which you’ll find on the right sidebar.

The first, and biggest, problem is not understanding the platform.

YouTube’s goal is to keep people on YouTube. And what they deem most important isn’t subscribers; it’s how many minutes people watch videos on their platform.

People also tend to try to use ads on their videos too early. It doesn’t make sense to do when you’re only getting a few views for each video. The payout isn’t that good, and you’ll be better off building goodwill with your growing audience.

And, no matter how your audience uses YouTube, there is a set of best practices to get more views. We’re talking how to use titles, thumbnails, descriptions, tags, playlists, cards, endscreens, and more. The second mistake people make is they lack basic AVL knowledge. 

Let’s start with the A: good audio is expected. Smartphones might have megapixel cameras, the mics leave much to be desired. And you might have the best camera, but without a decent shotgun mic or lav mic, your audio will be subpar, making you sound amateur.

Next up is video! Many YouTubers are doing just fine with their high quality smartphone recordings. So can you! And like mics, quality cameras are getting cheaper. And there’s one thing you can do that will make any camera look even better… and that is -

Lighting. The L in AVL. And it can be as simple as standing in front of a window and recording yourself, letting the sunlight bathe you in its free-of-charge glory. There are also some nice lighting systems. You just need to find what works for you, your budget, and your schedule. 

Once you’ve got great AVL, then you need to set up your shot correctly! Make sure your background isn’t distracting, and don’t put your face in the center of the screen. Instead, you want the top of your head nearly at the top of the video frame! It looks much better! And make eye contact with the camera. It gives the viewer the sense that you’re talking with them instead of at a point over their shoulder. The third mistake is winging it.

Make sure your intro is solid. I start every podcast saying exactly what the podcast does for listeners, then a short hook on what the episode is about.

Next, keep it quick and clean. YouTube likes 10-minute videos. Write an outline before you record to keep yourself on track, and if you go off on a tangent, stop. Pick up at a good place and then edit the rambles out in post.

Remember, low energy kills your video. Be the excited version of you (like, don’t fake it), and you’ll be more likely to hold your viewers’ attention. The final mistake is expecting instant results

Unless you already have an audience, or you have a network of people who have audiences, it’s going to take a while to build one up. You can’t get impatient. If you truly love the platform and use it to its best advantage, success will happen. It’s just a matter of time, paying attention to your audience, and using the tools YouTube provides. Your action step for today is…

Really simple. Watch cat videos. If you want to succeed on YouTube, you need to see how other people are doing it, and overall, getting yourself familiar with the platform. Spend an evening or three treating YouTube as your main source of entertainment, learning, or whatever. Then head on over to the Creator Academy and learn how to leverage metadata.

 Do you want a little help getting your own YouTube channel set up and going?

Let’s talk! There are a lot of potholes we can help you avoid - beyond what we’ve covered in this episode. If you want to do YouTube the smart way and make the most of your time, check us out at OneStoneCreative.net! Resource YouTube Creators Academy 

Blogging and producing written content in a readable, free format in your online spaces can be very valuable. While not everyone enjoys climbing a wall of text, it’s still one of the most powerful forms of communication. There are a couple of different ways you can blog. Your writing can live on your own website, on a content platform like Medium, or on one of your social media accounts that allows for longer form content - Like LinkedIn or Facebook. There are pros and cons to each.

Blogging on your own site

Writing on your own site gives you the biggest boost in organic search and SEO, and it’s the place where it’s easiest for your readers to engage with more of your content, and learn more about you and your services. On the flip-side, unless you already have good traffic and an existing audience, it can feel a little bit like screaming into the void. Building traffic takes time. 

Blogging on sites like Medium

Writing for a platform like Medium has the benefit of a built-in discovery network, where readers on the platform are directed to your content - if it’s related to other things they’re reading, and Medium has a membership system where you can be paid for the content you write, based on how many people read it. It *is* playing in someone else’s backyard, however, so it’s not as easy to get someone to learn more about your business. This can be fine - and many people use a Medium installation connected to their website for all of their blogging. 

Blogging on Social Media

Blogging on social media isn’t terribly common - because the goal of a social media site is to keep people ON social media - but my goodness, is it ever easy to share and engage with content there! If your main goal for content is to connect directly with your readers, in almost real-time, then blogging on social might be something to consider. (We wouldn’t recommend that as your only written content strategy, however! As much as possible, you want reading to happen in a place you control, because if you’re playing in someone else’s backyard, they can get fussy and tell you to go home.)

Getting traffic quickly

A way to get traffic results a little more quickly is guest blogging - creating written content for other people’s sites. Think about the bloggers and websites you like in your industry, and see if they ever post guest content on their blogs. If so - pitch an article, and link back to your own online environments. 

Other uses

Writing is also a good way to test content – to help you organize your own ideas about it, and find out how different concepts or topics are received by your audience without the initial outlay of video, podcasting or creating courses. It’s also great material for repurposing! Once something is written - the ideas are out there and you can take bits and pieces of it to use in other pieces of content: your emails, your videos, your courses, your livestreams, your books - it’s pretty much endless.

And that does it for today! We’ll continue to bring you great daily tips to build your authority and create smart, strategic content, so make sure to subscribe! Or sign up for a Friday 5-episode digest.

There are 3 main types of show notes  - Minimal, Bullet and Blog Style, with plenty of variations each. There is also one format that - as of this recording - works the best with the different podcast player apps. We’ll tell you what it is in a few minutes, because first, we’re going to talk about the TYPES of show notes, starting with the minimalist.

Minimal show notes will usually have a short description of the content of the show, links to any resources mentioned, and info about the guest being interviewed - if there was one. There might also be a link to a transcript and one or two key moments.

These are the quickest to put together, and you’ll often see them where a show is being produced by a solopreneur doing their production in house, or in shows where the main business goal of the podcast is networking and relationship building. In the first case, a host needs to prioritize relationship building and promotion with their podcast dedicated hours. In the second, if a business is podcasting so they can expand their professional network (which is it AMAZING for by the way), then investing a lot of resources in creating detailed show notes doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Second, the bullet show notes are probably the most common. They have more written content than minimal show notes, but they aren’t as complete as blog style notes. They’ll take key points, ideas, questions and insights from the podcast, and write them as bullet points, with or without formatting or timestamps. The goal of each bullet is to give a compelling reason to listen and encourage people to engage with the content.

Bullet style show notes are also great from a repurposing standpoint because many of the bullets will be very well suited to social media platforms. They take longer to put together, but they result in more listens, and more engagement, and do a little more for your SEO -- IF you’re putting them on your blog.

Finally, we have blog style show notes. This is when you’ll have either a near transcription of the episode, or paragraphs of content about the show, and what it contains. Some people take it a step further and write a totally unique blog post expanding on one or more ideas from the episode - but that will usually be in addition to another style of show notes. Blog style show notes are far and away the best for enhancing your SEO - you can optimize for keywords, link to other content, and drive traffic to your opt-ins.

But, they also take the longest to put together. It’s not about time-saving as much as it is batching your work. Instead of needing a blog post and a podcast with show notes that you create at different times throughout the week, you get your notes, post, and maybe socials and an email all done together.

Now, that format that works best with the different podcast players - it’s blog style!

Many players will strip out the formatting of your notes, so bullets don’t appear as you want them to. However, there is a functional limit of about 4000 characters - some players won’t display more than that, so if you have longer show notes, you’ll want to create different versions of your notes for submission to the players and your own site.

Your action step for the day is to check out the episode pages of some of your favorite podcasts and see what style they’re using. See if you can guess why they made the choice they did and decide whether or not it gives YOU the kind of experience you want from their show.

As for us, we write a script, then refine it for our site’s blog post, and naturally, the blog post has an embed from our podcast player. Check out how we do it at AuthorityBuildingContent.com/4.

You've probably heard that repurposing content is how you get the most mileage out of everything you create. In fact, we’ve probably said that a couple of times. But do you know the main difference between reusing and repurposing? Is there a chance you're doing it wrong?

Reusing Vs. Repurposing

But all too often, Re-USING is mistaken for Repurposing - and that isn’t the same thing at all. Reusing content is taking something you have created for one context and using it in another context without making any real changes. Repurposing is taking content you have created, and turning it into something new. 

If you record a video for your YouTube Channel you might RE-USE it by uploading it to your Facebook group, including it in the member's area of your course for a bonus, or linking to it in emails to leads that you’re nurturing. 

You might RE-PURPOSE the video by pulling the key bullet points out and using them in a blog post, or taking the main idea of the video and writing a twitter thread about them. 

Re-using changes the context, and re-purposing changes the content. Both are good! But choosing when to do which is important, because the experience of your audience has to come first. 

Here are some questions you should ask yourself when you’re looking at a piece of content and deciding how to re-use or repurpose it.

What impact does the platform it was made for have? Here’s what that means. Let’s say you’ve created a YouTube video. The expectation for that content is that it’s easily shared, easy to click links to learn more and SEE - with their eyes - what you’re discussing. If you’re going to RE-USE it, it needs to be in a place where they can still see, share, and click, like Facebook. If you’re going to repurpose the video, you need to rework it for platforms where your audience might only be reading or listening, like social media or podcasts. 

How much does the content need to be altered? There’s a big difference between a blog post and an Instagram story - but the same idea, facts, research, and even phrasing can be used in both. If content needs a lot of altering to work on a different platform - you’re looking at repurposing, not re-using. 

What do I want people to do because of this content? Every piece of content needs to have a clear purpose - and that purpose will often be tied to the platform you’re creating it for. If you want your audience to do the same thing on different platforms, you can often re-use! An example might be an infographic that demonstrates a strategy. That infographic can be re-used in a video, on social media and in a blog post. But if you want your audiences on different platforms to do different things, you need to repurpose the content to fit. Say I want our social media followers to engage with us personally, and I want our Youtube subscribers to click through to our website. I will re-purpose the content I make for video to be more engaging on social media. 

Always be mindful about how you’re repurposing and reusing. Doing one when you should be doing the other wastes your time, and more importantly, your audience’s time! It looks lazy, and laziness does not typically contribute to building authority, elevating your brand, or getting new clients. 

Your action step for today is to look at a piece of content you’ve created and decide whether you should re-use it, or repurpose it! Feel free to find us on Twitter and let us know what you’re working on, or learn how we re-used this script! 

There are four main purposes for creating content: 1) Audience building and Engagement. 2) Relationship and Network Building, 3) Thought Leadership, and 4) Organic Reach and SEO. Any of these CAN lead to sales, but none of them have to.

Audience Building and Engagement

This is one of the most common reasons to get into content creation. You make the content, get it into the world, people see it and like it, and join your list or buy your stuff! If you’re starting from scratch, you'll be on the Audience part before the Engagement part – which means getting your content in front of as many people as possible. On the engagement side, you already have an audience and are giving them something to enjoy, learn from, and talk about.

Now, Audience Building and Engagement is a good reason to create content. But if you don't have the audience, expect to invest a bit of time building it. This doesn’t make sense for all businesses. And that’s fine. There are other reasons to create content!

Networking and Relationship Building

This is where you create content that puts you directly in touch with other people, either during or after creation. Interview podcasts are a great example! You need to interview people to have episodes to air, and so you’re effectively using the podcast as a tool to open doors and meet people. You’ll see the same kind of effect in a round-up blog post, or when you create a virtual summit.

Thought Leadership

A lot of people want to be thought leaders. And you know what? A lot of people are. Being a thought leader in your content means that you have something new in an industry where things seem almost entrenched, slow to change, or on the wrong path. In other words, focusing on your own thoughts, opinions, knowledge and expertise in what you publish.

Organic Reach and SEO

People use search engines to find information – and a staggering amount of search requests are totally unique. That means no one has ever typed them into Google before.  But if you don't have content out there, then you'll never by found by people searching for you! When you have a lot of content, you’re *going* to get more search – but you’re also going to have resources for your clients when they have questions. Demonstrations of how well you know your area of expertise, and mountains of content to draw on when it comes time to repurpose content for new initiatives like books, courses and podcasts.

Broadly speaking, most of your content should be in one of the first three categories, and also doing number 4 – SEO and Reach. It’s absolutely fine to shake it up, of course, or even use different channels for different purposes, but for the most part – pick a real goal, and stick with it.

Which strategy is best for you? There are a lot of variables that go into this kind of decision – but the key takeaway is to be consistent with the purpose for the content on each channel.

Your Action Step for this Episode is to think about your goals as a business. Are you looking to generate more business? Do you need to elevate your brand? Do you need better organic search? Do you have an audience craving more connection with you?

Whatever your most immediate goal is - think about the kind of content that will help you achieve it!

Make it easy to decide:

If you like this episode and want some more details about how to choose the right content for YOUR business, check out this handy infographic we made to simplify which content is best for which revenue-generating goal!

The internet is awash with content. It’s hard to know what content you should make, WHY you should make it, and what to do with it once it's made! Welcome to the Authority Building Content podcast. We'll help you make smart choices about content so you can build authority for your brand, generate leads for your business, and connect with your audience.

It's a new age of content creation. It's time to be smart and strategic.