Keywords

podcasting, community building, content creation, social media, email marketing, online criticism, business funding, personal branding, authenticity, audience engagement

Summary

In this conversation, Sam Berne shares insights on starting and growing a podcast, emphasizing the importance of community engagement, time management, and authenticity. He discusses various strategies for content creation, including leveraging social media and email marketing, while also addressing common concerns about costs and equipment. Sam provides practical advice on handling online criticism and navigating business partnerships, ultimately encouraging listeners to be patient and authentic in their branding efforts.

Takeaways

You don’t need fancy audio equipment to start a podcast.

Titles

The Art of Podcasting: Building Community

Sound bites

“You can find great talent on Upwork.”

Chapters

00:00 Starting a Podcast: The Basics

Sam Berne (00:00.822)

But by starting a podcast, there’s so many different ways that you can go. You could have say in Santa Fe, your business was restaurants rest your restaurant owner. What you could do is you could actually invite other people in the industry to come on your show and that would help you cross-pollinate. They get to know about you. You’d get to know about them again. It’s part of that giving where you’re not asking the guests for anything, but you let them

talk about themselves and so they have their audience. have your audience and this is how you start building the podcast and at this point I’ve got a very large download monthly download. You can get analytics from it and a very high retention rate where people want to listen to the entire podcast. So I’ve had some interest interesting guests on I’ve done a lot of Q &A podcasts and then you can also

look to be on other people’s podcasts as well. So there’s a lot of different advantages to being to having a podcast because it’s that audio channel and it’s another funnel for you to start to get followers. One of the things I do with my podcasts is I sometimes they’re very short. They’re five minutes or they’re three minutes and I say, hey everybody is doctor Sam and I clarity podcast.

And you know, I have this great idea blah blah blah, and I’ll talk about it for a few minutes. Well, that’s our show for today. Thanks for tuning in until next time. So I’m posting maybe four to six podcasts a week. And also another thing that you can do is you can take excerpts from the entire podcast and you can post those on your social media site. So I do that all the time. I just did a interview with a doctor and we took the

Sam Berne (02:29.144)

Or you can send me an email or here’s my upcoming online workshop. So there are ways again that you can use the podcast the audio channel as a simple free way to start building your community. Another thing you can do is you can go on Facebook or Instagram or tick-tock or YouTube and you can do a live show Q &A and this is amazing.

When you start doing this on a regular basis, you will get you will get interactions with other people and they will get to know you and this is another great way to develop your brand. Looks like there’s Q &A. We’ve got a few questions. So let me let me start with this one. I’m intrigued by the idea of four to eight content pieces per day, but can’t imagine how to do that and still have time.

To do my other work. How do you budget time for that? Well, I would start off with maybe pick one of the social media sites that you know, you’re most attracted to you maybe can look at where you think most of your customers are and

Maybe post one a day or two a day. I think it’s going to take some time management organization. You know, I always say if you’re really passionate in what you’re doing, you will find the time to post maybe again, you can get one of these scheduling content programs and you can take all of your pieces and put it in the

Sam Berne (04:45.761)

my editing and posting, but I’m making enough money now that I can do that when I started out. I was doing everything and I was full-time in my practice, but I knew that this was the ticket for me to be able to create a brand and it would create a legacy for me that I could then maybe let go of some of the other things that I didn’t like doing because I so enjoyed the creative process. So start slow.

and just see what happens. All right. Can you recommend who to find someone to help with Google and updating a blog or blog? Okay, so there are two sources that I use that I tap to great get great talent. The first is Craigslist. The second is a platform called Upwork and Upwork is a platform

that where there are a lot of freelance people and you can actually create a post on Upwork. It won’t cost you anything and I have gotten some of my best talent. got my bookkeeper. got my website. People that are that are managing my website my web store manager my person who organizes my posts so Upwork.com would be a great place for you to look.

If you can’t find anybody on Craigslist, but my goodness, there’s so many writers out there. Maybe you can find somebody at one of the at the community college and that way you won’t have to pay as much maybe a student somebody who’s a good writer. So there are ways that you can figure this out writing is is hard for me. And one of the things I’ve started to use now is an artificial intelligence platform.

Sam Berne (07:14.442)

But that’s a way that sometimes if I need to do a quick blog, I’ll do it that way. But there are lot of avenues there. Try those and that should help you. Okay, next question. My business is focused on city management and municipal government. I have been writing monthly newsletters on LinkedIn and in one year have 315 subscribers. Some mayors and city managers are on LinkedIn. However,

City Councilors tend to be on Twitter and I’m hesitant to join. What’s your experience with Twitter? Can I direct people on Twitter to my website where I can repost my 25 articles from LinkedIn? Well, you know, Elon Musk is really wreaking havoc with Twitter right now and there there’s all kinds of things going on with Twitter that

I can really understand where a lot of people have mixed feelings about it. I post every day on Twitter. I probably do five to seven posts on Twitter. You can interact with people. It’s a great way to have conversations with people in your industry. You know, you could actually spend time looking up say in your situation, mayors and city councilor city managers who are on Twitter and you could engage with them.

And then maybe at that point, once you engage with them, if there’s some communication back and forth, you can definitely direct them away from Twitter towards your website. But I I would say this that the more you diversify your content. The more followers you’re going to get and you know, the same goes with LinkedIn where if you can interact.

Sam Berne (09:40.767)

and they’re going to be more interested in what you’re writing about. All right. Next question. Don’t podcasts require paying for service and editing ability? Well, the answer to that is it depends on the service. It depends on how many podcasts you are posting. But if you start at the very beginning, you can get the free part of the service. Now, in my case,

because I’m posting so much at this point. I pay about $40 a month. Okay, it’s not a lot, but that’s what I pay and editing again. You could get on GarageBand and you could have that audio file on GarageBand. I actually hired somebody to help me learn how to cut, know where I said or or you know, if there was, you know space in there that I didn’t like and within five minutes I could

edit on GarageBand. I uploaded it to Dropbox. I now had a link that I could then send it off to my my podcast service. So there are ways to do it. Maybe you find somebody that you hire just maybe one or two times to show you how to do it. But it’s so easy to do off your phone. If you look at apps where you can do the podcast and you know

Again, you don’t have to over overproduce or over edit it. Okay, don’t worry about that. I know somebody who’s an actress who she spent $1,000 on one video and I said, what are you doing? She says, well, it has to be perfect. I need to get the script. You know, I need direction. I need production. That’s the wrong way to go in my view in my

Sam Berne (12:05.086)

Do you take videos with your phone without a microphone wondering whether the quality is acceptable for Instagram and YouTube most definitely. So this video that went viral on Tik Tok 300,000 views. I had no microphone. My microphone was my phone. I basically press play. I put the camera in front of my face. I had a great background of the snow and the microphone I used was the phone’s microphone.

I put it up on TikTok and there you go. So the quality will be acceptable. You know, again, if it’s really windy or it’s really loud, you might consider again, okay, I don’t want a lot of sirens going on in the background. Now. I will say at this point in my sophistication. I do have wireless microphones right now. I’m simulcasting this and I’m recording this on my phone and I have a wireless microphone that I use.

That’s excellent and I have other microphones also as well, but I’ve been at this six years. I’m making money. I can do it. I want to invest back into my business. But the short answer is just start recording. Don’t worry about it. You can play it back. If you can hear it, it’s going to work fine for your social media posting. Okay, how do you set up a podcast page? Do you have to pay a service? What are the podcast?

page options. Well again, depending on how many podcasts you do the answer to that is you could actually have the podcast set up in a way where you don’t have to pay for service. That kind of just depends on how many podcasts you’re going to do again. If you don’t know how to do this, you can go to Google and Google will show you how to set up a podcast page.

Sam Berne (14:30.526)

putting the podcast out and then you could put the link say on Facebook and say, hey, here’s my podcast or on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever. And that’s a way you can start getting traffic to people to listen to your podcast. Okay, I have an Android phone. Does the Apple podcast site work for Android phones? I don’t know that answer, but I’m sure the doctor Google could help you with that again.

My feeling is because so many people have Android phones. I think that the podcast services will work based on the app you’re using to record the podcast. If you have a son of kind of like a voice memo or some kind of an audio recording app. I think it’s very universal at this point because so many people are doing podcasts.

Do you use your email list to make product offerings or is that only social media itself? No, I actually use my email list to make my product offerings and the way I do it is I create a newsletter where part of it is education. Part of it is I’m, you know, uploading like my blogs or my latest videos maybe that relate to the product and then I send that out as an email blast.

and digest watch the sales come in. It’s amazing. It works so well. Now you have to be careful that you don’t send too many emails out and sometimes I’ll send a newsletter out where I’m not selling any products or I’m just educating people and I use two newsletter services. One is MailChimp and the other is one called Clavio. You might not have heard of it.

Sam Berne (16:52.394)

But even with the discount because of the volume, I’m making really good money from that. How do you handle hostile responses online? I rarely get this on my business page, but that is a contained group so far. I do encounter it in bigger groups. Okay, I get this a lot. So there are always people, know, they what they do is I think about their life must be really miserable for them to take the time to be judgmental.

of me. Okay. And so I, I definitely have compassion for them and either I might engage them and give them an answer if they’re, you know, asking a legitimate question. Otherwise, I just delete and block them and the social media sites. Now at this point are very, very protective of people and it’s very easy for you to delete and block those people.

Now, if you’re in a group situation, you need to talk to the facilitator and let them know what’s going on because I know in my groups, usually the people that are in my groups, they love me. They’re not going to badmouth me. I’ve never had that happen. But if you’re in say a mixed group, if that’s going on, sometimes I just say, I don’t want to be part of the group, but you as the influencer have the ability to block anybody

And you should not take any grief from anybody. You just delete them block them don’t engage them and move on. That’s the best thing to do. I in my experience. Okay. Another question using your method when product is a technology license licensing opportunity. For example, we are finalizing a technology and are in need of funding. So

Sam Berne (19:22.954)

relationship and you need to be very careful that you’re keeping control of the brand because you don’t want to lose leverage like what are the strings attached because if you get involved in a partnership and somebody is giving you money, they’re going to want results. They’re going to want, know, probably some of the profit and so you have to be very clear if you’re going to go that route. Now in

Technology, you do need a lot of money. There’s no question about it. And this is where perhaps your score mentors can direct you in places where you might be able to get funding, but you can get it in a way where you don’t lose control or leverage of the brand of what the product you’re trying to put out. It’s not an easy road, but you can do it. And sometimes the upside is really amazing.

So that’s how I would answer that. If I’m not comfortable with video content, what are some of the options beyond blogging that utilize written word content? Well, one of the things that you could do is you could either speak into your phone or or talk into your phone and you can get a transcript of what you have said and you can edit it.

And you can use that as your written blog. And I really get it. A lot of people that I work with, they don’t want to do video. It’s hard and they even don’t want to do audio. They’re shy. So there are ways that you can get these programs where you can actually get a transcript and then you can post it that way. One of them that I use is called Otter.ai. That’s a good one for

Sam Berne (21:49.231)

which then if that’s your interest or that’s your brand you could take that AI information and then you could make it your own. So that would be another way that you could get ideas for your blogs. Another question you mentioned programs for scheduling your social media postings. What would I recommend? Will they allow you to post across multiple platforms? So second question first definitely they will allow you

to post across multiple platforms. I haven’t used them in about three years. So the one that I used, I’m not sure I would recommend for you. Again, that’s something that I would Google and then they have great customer service. So you could, you know, inquire what would be the best social media scheduling program for you based on what platforms you’re using when you want to post.

What are the duration of the of the of the post and things like that. So that’s readily available on Google and the support system the support team there will be able to help you figure out what’s the best way to go. You’re very welcome. Your audience is 55 plus. What platforms do you recommend all of them Facebook Instagram LinkedIn?

TikTok now some people will say TikTok is just for kids. I got to tell you I am so surprised with the TikTok response that I’m getting there are people that are 55 and over that are now on TikTok.

Sam Berne (23:59.877)

You know, in my audience is about 70 % women 30 % men and again, some of my biggest followers are in Australia, Germany, India, the UK and so it you know, it’s very surprising to me, but you can get analytics from that and then you can target your advertising based on those locations and the socioeconomics.

and the type of person listening and watching. Next question. Does your wireless microphone connect to your cell phone? Yes. And the type of wireless is called the Rode Rode. I love it. I actually did an interview in a restaurant that was super loud and it was amazing how that microphone worked on my phone. The person was videoing me and the other thing is

I’ll hike in the in the mountains and I’ll put my tripod out and I’ll be say, you know 75 feet away and I’ll be walking towards my phone and that microphone is great. So it’s called the road wireless microphone. I highly recommend it. It’s maybe three or $400. It’s great from your experience. What should you not do in social media marketing or via podcasts?

Talk about yourself and brag and make everything about you. I wouldn’t do any of that stuff. I would make it about how can I serve and create value for my audience? How can I educate? How can I document and create stories that will inspire them to want to come back for more and I wouldn’t ask them for anything at the very beginning, you know, you’re dating them.

Sam Berne (26:25.337)

Okay, next question. I’m concerned about mixing my personal and professional life. If I did a video my feeling is that I would need to be dressed in formal attire that does not fit with sharing a daily story during my real life. Well look as long as you’re authentic and you do what feels comfortable to you. One of the things that when I do personal posting I

Get to control what I am talking about. So for example, my family is off-limits. There is no social media that includes my family. That’s private. Some other things that I’m doing are also private, but there’s some things that I’m really excited about might be activities. It might be interest you get to choose and I got to tell you when you mix the personal with the professional.

You’re going to get a wider audience of people who are then maybe interested in your professional life, but you get to choose that and in terms of dressing formally. Well, look, I’m a doctor and all of my posts. I’m not wearing a white coat. Okay, because that’s not who I am. I gave up that white coat many years ago. In fact, I did I found a

a picture of myself in my white coat when I was doing my internships and I’m actually giving a lecture to some of the residents and I have these very funny glasses on and I have a beard and it was kind of funny. You know, people love that. So I don’t use a white coat. I don’t wear a tie. I’m out there and when I’m hiking Dr. Sam and you know, I’m on my morning walk. I’m wearing a sweatshirt. I’m wearing a baseball hat. So

Sam Berne (28:51.769)

So a lot of times when I’m doing a video, if I’m in a rush, I’ll just take the video on my iPhone and I’ll just do the iMovie editing on it and ready to go. So you don’t have to get fancy software. mean iMovie is going to come or if you’re you know on a PC, you’d have to figure out what is the editing software, but I don’t do a lot of editing. I do some for example with TikTok.

A lot of times the rhythm of Tik Tok, I’ll share an idea. I’ll stop the camera. I’ll share another idea. Stop the camera. I’ll share another idea and stop the camera and then I’ll weave those three separate videos together in a very fast way. So again, if you go on my Tik Tok site and you can look at one of my last videos again, this one that went viral, you can see that the ideas that I give boom.

Boom, boom. that’s tik-tok on my podcast. It’s a lot slower. know people need time to digest. So I’m speaking more slowly. So again, you’ll know based on the social media site. What part of you you’re going to bring but don’t worry about that. It’s got to look perfect or a sound perfect. Just start posting. Okay, my last

thing I think I’m going to say is that you can do what I’m doing that because of the internet today. This is a great time to start developing brand. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint and be patient financially be patient emotionally. And if you can do those things

Sam Berne (31:20.789)

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Dr. Sam Berne has been in private practice in New Mexico for over 35 years and where he works with patients to improve their vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University, Doctor of Optometry from Pennsylvania College, and did his postdoctoral work at the Gesell Institute in collaboration with Yale University. He has been awarded The Special Awards for Service from the Behavioral Optometrists in Mexico for his innovative and holistic work with children.

His protocols take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to health and wellness. He understands and treats the body as one integrated system rather than a collection of independent organs in order to identify and address the root causes of disease. His whole health protocols improve vision and wellness by healing the mind-body-spirit through nutritional protocols, vision therapy, and self-care techniques. This views each person as genetically and biochemically unique and enables the individual to make lifelong improvements to their well-being.