Viral Podcasting

I hear so many people bemoan the fact that they don't have a good voice. Fortunately, there's no requirement that you have an operatic or Shakespearean quality voice to become a great podcaster or radio talk show host. Some of the most famous people out there have not so pleasant sounding voices. Look at Howard Stern. His voice is nasally, twangy and highly New Yorked. It hasn't seemed to hinder his success in the least. If you do have a great, it by no means guarantees your success. A guy in New York who will go unamed has one of the best voices I've ever heard, even better than mine (a lot are) and yet he's never made it because he lacks susbstance and compelling content. He just sounds superficial and not deep enough. Which shows that content is indeed king, but so is your ability to connect with your audience and get your true voice through. That means practicing the techniques we discuss here. If you really are hung up on the quality of your voice, then please get a voice coach and make it sound the best you possibly can. Self-improvement seldom ever goes to waste. But always keep your eye on the basics. Never sound like you're reading. Nothing bores your audience more and will cause them to turn you off quickly. Remember, it's a process of continuous self-improvement and evolution. Your goal should always be to do this show just a little bit better than the last. You'll be amazed how great you sound in a very short period of time.

In business branding has become an essential element of success. Nowhere is branding more important than in making a podcast go viral. Branding will help make your show become sticky. Cliff Ravenscraft is a perfect examply of successful branding. He is the Podcast Answerman. Or Pat Flynn of Simple Passive Income. You're going to invest a lot of time, effort and money into building your brand. Don't do things that will damage your brand, i.e. politics and religion, unless your show is dedicated to these topics. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. That's not to say that you should avoid controversy, quite the contrary. Controversy sells, for sure, just don't let it damage your branding efforts. Don't get carried away with your ego. It's amazing that Hollywood can't or won't figure this out. They're alienating half their audience and don't seem to care. Branding also means that you must be consistent with your show. Release it the same time every week. Make it the same length each time. These are things your audience will come to expect. 

Go back to your podcast's name. It is the first big branding decision you will make. Then its designing your website, your marketing materials, your intro and outro and show music. Everything you do and every decision you make is going to effect your brand. Don't make any rash decisions, think everything through and do things that will enhance your brand.

In podcasting as in radio, the first thing you must understand is what my good friend Wayne Allyn Root says, "Facts tell and stories sell!" Telling facts doesn't create audience engagement, in fact it will often do the opposite. Telling stories is our greatest asset as everyone wants to hear a good story. If you want to buiild a large audience you've got to become a master storyteller. That's not an easy task, I'm always learning how to better tell a story, even after all these years. If you closely look at the greats of radio or podcasting, you will find they have one thing in common, the ability to tell a story in a compelling manner. I'll go back to Valerie Geller's Beyond Powerful Radio, speak visually, create images in the listeners mind. Then you'll have them exactly where you want them, which is in the palm of your hand. It's not an easy, but anyone - with enough practice and effort can do it . And it will open up doors that you never even realized were closed to you.

Time to get down to monetization. Always be monetizing if and when you're ready to. First you need to build an audience. You've been guest posting, you've been promoting, you've been crushing it! Doing a podcast is no guarantee of success. However, if you've got superior content, excellent audience engagement, you're being real and your numbers/analytics are starting to take off, then it's time. You're skills as an entertainer have really come into their own. Do it right and your show will support you in a very comfortable lifestyle. It really works! Is your model working, you'll soon find out. Whether you're a spokesman, a guru, or an advertiser supported or a brick and mortar operation looking to expand - monetization is the goal, but be certain that you don't put the cart before the horse. If you try to soon, you'll hurt your show and you will fail. Doing it too late and you might go out of business before you succeed. Always look for balance and the right timing is essential.

As a podcaster you need to become an expert in analytics. What are analytics? Simply stated, they're statistics. How many downloads are you getting? How many of them are duplicate downloads? Where does you audience come from? What countries? What percentage of your audience is male/female? All of these numbers are interesting, but they're very important. Before I started making money off the show, analytics was all I had. Also, make sure that you've enabled your site for Google Analytics where you can very easily track visitors. As a rule, the more downloads you get the better. It's a measure of how well your show is being received and you'll learn a lot about who's listening to you.

How to make your show go viral. First, you need to determine your show's format. In podcasting there are no courses to really show you how to create a successful show format. Now, it's starting to catch on and there are podcasting courses in school. There are many formats, including: interview, monologue, commentary, hybrid and many more. Of course as previously stated, you need to pick the right name. Trademark your name as soon as you can. My show's name wasn't be best. I looked for great guests. Interviewing techniques will help you make your guest look good. Find guests who have broad followings and may have their own podcast. Everyone running a blog or website is always looking for content for their site, especially high quality interviews of themselves. Make them look good, but don't be a pushover. Don't interrupt, be a good listener, treat them with respect and deference. Send them a link of the finished interview, send them a tweet to retweet. Use Faceboo. Guest posts on other's sites and getting your post up on popular sites are very effective. Post to 3rd party websites that aggregate content are another very effective means of promoting your show. Some aggregators have huge followings, so seek them out and take great advantage where possible.

Should you write a script for your podcast or just wing it. It depends upon you. If you're a subject matter expert and can talk without notes about your topic, then by all means go ahead and don't use one. If not, at least come up with bullit points for your commentary or discussion. When interviewing a guest, often times your guest will ask for a copy of the questions up front. We do this on the show, however with the proviso that we will not be bound by the questions. There's nothing worse and more boring than a canned interview. If you choose to go this route listen to your finished product and see how it sounds? Does it sound canned and pre-planned? You'll know. The answer to these questions will determine your best practices. I always shoot for excellence, however, it's a moving target. Therefore, I'm willing to settle for doing the best job I can. Sometimes, I will write the show notes to an interview before I actually do the interview. This has the effect of focusing the interview and it allows me to visualize the finished performance. Generally these interviews are among my best. The key is to develop techniques that work for you and that allow you to find your comfort zone.

Air checking is vital to every podcaster, but the odds are you don't even know what it is. Simply stated, you sit down with your producer or other respected party and critically review a recent episode you've done. You cover the good, the bad and the ugly. It's best done in a non-judgmental, constructive manner. The goal is to improve your game, not to crush you. When I sit down with Valerie, we check my use of imagery, how am I using the word "you" to connect with the audience, am I using radio speak, which in today's world is a major no-no. How could I have better done that intro? Air checking plants those seeds in your mind. I never consciously implement Valerie's suggestions, however, they seem to grab hold unconsciously and blossom. Before I know it, my shows have transformed to another level and my analytics and downloads start going up. That's what Viral Podcasting is all about!

There's loads of equipment choices out there for every budget. You can start with a cheap $20 headset and move on from there. We use a Heil PR-40 Microphone, the gold standard of podcasting, a Mackie PRO-FX8 Mixer, a Behringer Gate/Compressor/Limiter and some other things to give the best possible sound. Quality equipment and sound editing practices go hand and hand with high production values. As Cliff Ravenscraft says, "High production values won't get people to listen to your podcast, but it will get them to come back again and again." But there are many choices available to you to produce a quality podcast. You can use a USB microphone, many of which have excellent sound. You have to do what's right for you and your budget. Don't overproduce your show. It will wind up sounding fake and unnatural. Do the minimal edits required, a little bit of compression, a small amount of tweaking and let it go. I know a number of people who cut out every breath and every verbal stumble. That's a big mistake. You're not a rock star. You're not aiming for perfection, just excellence.

This seems so obvious I almost hesitated to bother with it, and yet there's so many people out there doing podcasts and being inauthentic. Like myself, many of you grew up in the 1970's with the crazy, zaney radio guy. You know the voice. It's as fake as a three dollar bill. There's just no room for it in our society today. And yet so many people try to emulate it and they succeed and thereby fail. Don't be something you're not and don't be somebody you aren't. Proudly admit your faults and your audience will bond with you. Of course keep it appropriate at all times and never admit to a felony, unless of course the statute of limitations has run. But you get the point.