105: Ask Me Anything - Part 3

Written By Britany Felix
 
105 Podcasting for Coaches Britany Felix.png

What’s This Episode About?

Today's my birthday! For the past two years, I've done an Ask Me Anything (AMA)-style episode where you were able to ask me any question you wanted and I answered it in the episode. Well, it's that time of the year again. 

In this AMA episode, I answer the following questions from listeners just like you:

  • How do I grow my show? (Also phrased as how do I grow my audience, increase visibility, or increase my downloads)

  • How do I record an interview with someone who's not there with me in person?

  • Is it worth it to do transcriptions for each episode?

  • What's a good editing program for beginners who can't outsource it yet?

  • Do I really need show notes?

Transcript

Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 105 of podcasting for coaches. Today, the day This episode is being released is actually my birthday. And I have a tradition on this podcast of doing an AMA episode every year for my birthday. In case you are not aware, ama means Ask me anything. And that is literally what you can do. So on my Instagram at podcasting for coaches, I recently solicited questions, and I also have just been in conversations with other people elsewhere, Facebook groups, people emailing me, sending me DMS, all of those different things, getting questions for this episode, so that I can answer them for you. These episodes tend to always be a lot longer than I anticipate. So I'm gonna go ahead and just jump into the first question here. Actually, it's kind of the first several questions all rolled into one, a very, very popular theme this year for this ama episode. And really just podcasting in general, is along the lines of how to grow up podcasts, increase visibility, grow, audience increase downloads, it can be worded so many different ways. And it was. But it all basically means the same thing. It's just how do you grow your show and your reach and get it in front of more people? So this question actually has a few different parts to it, I can definitely give you some tips for promoting and those sorts of things. And I'm going to in just a second. But first of all, the most important thing that is going to help your show grow, is that is actually a good show. And I know that a little bit of real talk, of course, you probably think your show is fantastic. And I hope that it is and I think a lot of yours probably are. But if I'm being perfectly honest, there are a lot of podcasts that I come across that for one reason or another is not what I want to listen to again, and it's certainly not wanting them to share with others. So to start off, we need to make sure that your show is actually good. And by that I mean we need to make sure that the content is engaging, it's connecting with your audience, and that there's nothing about the show itself, that's actually turning your listeners off. So in Episode 71 of the podcast, titled podcasting, you're doing it wrong. I listed a few things in that episode that are applicable here, which is basically kind of along the lines of having bad audio quality, having intros that just go way, way, way too long, taking too long to get into the content of the episode itself. forgetting that you're actually talking to a listener, all of those sorts of things. So definitely go back and check out Episode 71 to dive more into that. But some other episodes that will help with this or Episode 92, the three key parts of a great podcast Foundation, this gets missed by almost every single podcaster. We all get really, really excited when we know that we're going to start a podcast and we jump right into the artwork, and what's the name? And are we going to have guests and how are we going to record the audio and what's our launch date going to be in all of these kind of like technical pieces of the puzzle. But we forget just like everything else that needs to have a great foundation to sit on top of so that everything with the show is consistent. cohesive, serves a greater purpose and objective. So go back and listen to Episode 92. If that's a step you might have missed when starting your show because it's never too late. We can always go back and pivot rework some things. But we want to make sure we have that foundation in place burst because that's going to set your show up for success. So the next episode that I think could be beneficial for this is Episode 80 tips for building a bond with your podcast audience. Because one of the main ways that you will increase your audience grow your show, increase your visibility, increase your downloads, however you want to word that is having a show that is so good. You're listeners want to share it with other people. And one of the ways that this will happen is by creating a bond with you and your individual listener. So definitely go back and check out that episode because your listeners are key to your growth. So we need to make sure that they are absolutely taken care of. And they feel that your podcast is just as safe, little amazing, comforting space every time they listen to it, where they feel seen and heard and accepted. And they want others to feel the same. Alright, and the next episode gets a little bit more on the technical side Episode 97. Why not editing your podcast is a terrible idea. So one of the main things that I hear a lot of time with podcasters is that they say, Well, I don't really want to edit my show, because I want it to sound natural. And the other thing is, Will filler phrases and crutch words as an arms are in our conversations naturally? So why would I remove those, it's gonna sound too robotic at that point. And I promise you that is not true. When it is done the right way. It is so much better for your show, than leaving it alone and leaving all of that stuff in there. And Episode 97 goes into the details of why that is and why you especially as a coach or consultant or somebody who is podcasting as part of a business really, really needs to make sure that your show is top quality. Now, I don't mean that it has to be absolutely perfect. You don't need to have some NPR level show. You just need to have something that appears professional and like you've actually put some time and effort into it and into the experience that your listeners going to have. Okay, the next episode relating to this is Episode 93. And that is podcasting. pet peeves, and how to avoid them. That kind of goes a little bit hand in hand. There's some overlap with Episode 71, the podcasting you're doing it wrong episode. But mostly these are things that listeners have stated are some of their biggest pet peeves are podcast, and why no matter how good the content is, they will turn off the episode and never listened to another one. So definitely go check out Episode 83 to make sure that you're not committing any of those podcasting, foe paws or those pet peeves. Alright, so now on to the real stuff. Let's say your content is good. Let's say your audio quality is good, you've got those things hammered down. So it can't be that that's not what's hindering the growth of your show. Then we're going to go into Episode Number 37, where I talk specifically about a whole entire episode devoted to how to grow your podcast audience. One of the main things that I cover in there, besides having fantastic content that your audience wants to shares, is being a guest on other podcast, because one of the barriers for people who have never listened to a podcast before, which are going to be a lot of people in your existing audience, is the fact that there are a lot of misconceptions around podcasting, people think you have to pay for it because they hear the word subscribe. They don't know how to listen. And at this point, they're too embarrassed to ask. They think that there's not a podcast about something that they're interested in. They think podcasts are all three hours long, and they just don't have time to listen. They think podcasts use up their data plan. There's so many misconceptions here. So if you're a guest, on another podcast, where your ideal listener is probably in that audience, you have eliminated all of those barriers, because if they're hearing you on that show, they're already a podcast listener. So then it's a super, super easy jump for them to come over and check out your show. Another main way to grow your audience is through SEO. I know it seems crazy to think that a podcast needs to pay attention to SEO. But that's actually the case. One of the number one ways that people find new podcasts to listen to is through an internet search. Especially as Google has gotten more and more into the podcasting Game Over the past year or two. This is actually becoming more and more true. So we want to make sure that we are putting those keywords into our episode titles into our descriptions on our website in the show notes, all of those things that are going to point back to your content and have it show up in the search results whenever your ideal listener is searching for something that you've already talked about on your show. Okay, and there are a few other tips in that episode. So go check it out if you want some more. But next, we're gonna go into promoting the show. Obviously, people can't be aware of your show, if you don't let them know about it. So you do have to promote your show. And I have several episodes here that are going to help you with that. One is Episode 35 strategies for promoting your podcast episodes with Sophia Parra. The next one is Episode 87 Pinterest strategies for podcast with Janet osofsky Next one is Episode 88 LinkedIn strategies for podcasting with Chris Hines. And finally, Episode 89 Instagram strategies for podcasting within draya Jones. So go check out all of those depending on which platform you're interested in Episode 35 was Sophia Parra was kind of a blanket overview. We talked about a few different ones and kind of some general promotion strategies. And then obviously 87 8089, we dove into specific platforms. Okay, so if you are unsure if your show is good, is your content engaging? Is your audio quality? Good enough? Are you taking too long to get to the main content? Is your call to action? Kind of a waste? aka, are you asking for ratings and reviews because you should definitely not use that as a call to action. I can definitely help you with that. I actually offer a service, a podcast audit, where I can come in depending on which package you choose. And take a look at the back end of everything that you've done, the show notes, your social media promotions, and then of course, the show itself, and let you know what you're doing well, and what we can maybe tweak to help it perform a little bit better. So if you are interested in that, and obviously to get links to the episodes I mentioned and for anything else, I will mention in this episode, go to the show notes on my website podcasting for coaches. com, click on the episodes tab in the main menu, and this is episode number 105. Okay, on to the next question, which was how to record remote interviews. So how to record an interview with somebody who's not in the same room that you are. In the past, I have gone through just about every single platform that there is and tested them out. And for pretty much all of 2020 I was recommending a platform called clean feed I have within the past couple of months. As I mentioned in my most recent edition of the podcasting insiders Club, which is my monthly newsletter, just go to the website to learn more about that. I have switched things up a little bit. And now I'm actually using a program called riverside.fm. Couple of things I love about this platform are one is that the audio quality rivals recording straight into your computer, which for a third party recording program is almost unheard of. I have done tests where Yes, me a professional podcast editor who actually has a pretty good ear at this point, I'm very trained to notice the subtle differences, it is almost impossible for me to tell which recording is which which one came from Riverside, and which one I recorded straight into audacity and my computer, I can still tell a little bit of a difference. But that's for me, someone who's been editing professionally for five years at this point. So for the average podcast, or it is definitely good enough quality. And it will allow you to have separate tracks for you. And your guests, which are an absolute must I will not use a program unless it has this. Because let's say for example, your guest coughs while you're in the middle of asking you a question. If you're both recorded on the same track, you can't get rid of that cough. If you each have your own separate audio track, where it's just your audio on one and just their audio on the other, it makes it super, super, super easy to just silence that cough completely. And then besides just having a really easy to use and nicely designed user interface, the feature I think you're going to be most excited about is the fact that it can also record video, this is the very first recording program that I have ever recommended the entire time I have been doing this, that also will allow you to do video without really sacrificing any audio quality. Now, if you have a very poor internet connection or your guest does, I would still suggest turning the video off because it could impact the connection of the call and leave you with some distortions. But I haven't really had that happen yet. Every call that I've done, where we have had the video going during the interview, it hasn't really impacted the connection for the call or the quality of the audio. Now occasionally, there are a few distortions here and there, but nowhere near as bad as using something like zoom or Skype, especially if you have video going on those platforms. So as of right now, like two months into Riverside, I am thoroughly enjoying it and I'm comfortable recommending it to others. I have not experienced really any problems with it so far. And I will obviously keep you updated if that changes. Okay, so the next question was whether or not transcripts are worth it. Worth It is a little bit of a subjective term here. But I'm going to assume, is there an ROI on the transcripts? Or is it worth putting the time and effort and money into doing them? And the short answer to this is no. However, that is a very short answer that does not apply to everyone. So if you're going to be paying a real live human, to write out your transcripts from your episodes, then that probably is not worth it. However, there are services that are pretty decent, they are not perfect by any means. And if you have the time to get those processed, or you have a VA, who can get it done for you, then yeah, it might be worth it. I actually just recently had my VA go through and do transcripts for all of my previous episodes. So 100 Plus, and now she's doing them on a weekly basis. And I think the whole project only cost me like 100 bucks to have her do that. Now, to be fair, she was not reviewing the transcripts. So she was just uploading them into the program that I use, which is otter.ai. And yes, that is otter like the animal. And then it was spitting out basically a Word document. And she was copying that and pasting it onto my website in the individual show notes post for each episode. So it was not necessarily a super time consuming job, which is how I was able to keep the cost down. And so to me, that makes it worth doing it. Because for one, it is pretty good for SEO on your website, especially if you have a brand new website that doesn't have a lot of existing content, you don't already have a blog on there. These transcripts can help. Although, even though I am not an SEO expert, I do believe that Google can tell the difference between a transcript and something that was actually written for a human being to read. And they don't wait the transcripts as heavily as they do as like if it were a long form blog post that was actually written out in paragraph form. I could be wrong on that. But I have heard that, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's not going to serve any function. And then obviously, and I think more importantly, if you have someone in your audience who is hearing impaired, and yes, there are hearing impaired people who do like to consume podcast content, a transcript can obviously be extremely beneficial for them. So another program that a lot of people swear by for transcripts, I'm not exactly a huge fan of it. But I can see why some people like it is d script. And this allows you to actually edit your audio from the transcript. So let's say you did want to remove a word from the actual recording, you could delete the word in the transcript, and then it would delete it from the recording, which I think sounds mind blowing in theory, and like we're living in fricking, 3021, and not 2021. But me being a discerning editor like I am, it's not exactly the cleanest cuts, and it doesn't leave you with the cleanest edit. So sometimes you can tell that something was removed from the audio. And I'm not personally okay with that just because of the high standards I have for my shows. But maybe it works for you. I know plenty of people who swear by it, like I said, so otter.ai or D script. If you do want a real human being to write this out for you, so that you can make sure that there aren't really any errors that you're going to get with an automated one like otter or D script. There is another platform called Rev. R EV. And again, links to all of these will be in the show notes for this episode. Okay, so the next question was basically what is a good editing program for beginners can't afford to outsource yet they need to learn how to edit on their own, what should they be using. So I actually recommend a program called audacity, which is what I am using to record this right now. It's what I actually use for all of my content editing. Still, five years later, as a professional podcast editor, it's what I use. Now, to be fair, it's not the only thing I use, I have other programs that allow me to clean up the audio, make some adjustments to it, make it sound better. And then I put it into audacity to make my actual content edits. So if I am removing those crutch words, those filler phrases, you know, that sort of thing. I do all that in Audacity. But with you just getting started and learning how to edit on your own. You can do some general basic cleanup in Audacity, and it should be good enough for you to get started. So I do have an episode Episode 18, how to edit your podcasts using audacity that's probably going to be very beneficial for you. And this is available for both Mac and PC users. Okay, and then the final question we're going to do because This episode is already getting quite a bit longer than I wanted, as I predicted, is do I really need shownotes? This is the question I hear fairly frequently. And I know why it's because people just don't want to do them. And I get that it does take time. But I'm telling you, they don't have to be super complex. So the answer, do I really need shownotes? Yes, you do. Again, there are exceptions to this. And if the show notes are the thing that are stopping you from doing your podcast, then you know what the show notes can come later. I'm actually working with one of my launch clients right now. And that's what we're going through, she was completely rebranding her whole website. And we went to lunch, but her website's not quite ready yet in terms of getting the shownotes created and getting all of that set up on our website. And you know what, we're not going to wait on it. We're launching without those show notes, and she's going to go back and work on those later. So there are exceptions to this rule. But in general, yes. If you want your podcast, to be a part of your business, to be an extension of your business, to be a tool for your business to be part of your ecosystem of your business. Yes, we want show notes. The reason for that is because one, it will help you with SEO, which will help your show get found to it will allow people who find your website first to then discover the podcast directly on your website and take a listen to individual episodes right on your site without having to go to a different platform, because maybe they're not really a podcast listener, maybe they haven't started doing that yet. But you're gonna have a player, write on your website for each episode where they can listen right there, which bonus also keeps them on your site longer, which Google likes. And then another really important reason why we want to have shownotes is because it's going to be one of the things that draws your podcast listeners out of that podcast app and on to your website, it's going to be the place that they go to to find those resources that you have mentioned in that episode. Just like I've done here, with all of these episodes, I've mentioned, these recording platforms, editing platforms, transcription platforms, all of those links are going to be put together in one place for you in the show notes on my website. So if you're interested in any of those things, you're going to go there to check it out. Which means then you're going to be on my website where you might potentially check out some other things. That's what we want to have happen for your listener. And then lastly, it gives you something to promote on social media, going all the way back to the first question, how do you grow your audience, you share the content. So if you have these individual show notes post for each episode, then you have something to promote on social media each time you release an episode. And you're not sending people to Apple podcasts, to Spotify, to amazon music to audible to anywhere that your show is that's not your website, those places get enough traffic, I promise you, they don't need your help. Let's get traffic to your site. So that's what you want to promote. And you can't necessarily do that if you don't have something to promote. So that's where the show notes come in. Okay, so that's going to wrap up this one, because again, this is too long. I'm trying to get my episode shorter these days, because I know we are all busy, especially as things start opening back up again. But if you have other questions that I didn't answer here, you didn't know that I was gathering questions for this ama episode and you're bummed that you missed out and couldn't ask yours. Please still ask me. I'm at podcasting for coaches on Instagram. You can obviously send me a DM I do have a contact form right in the main menu on my website. And then of course you can email me directly Britany at podcasting for coaches, and that is Brittany with one t so it's br ITANY at podcasting for coaches. All right, that wraps up this episode and we are going to see you back here next week. Have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, you can do so on Instagram at podcasting for coaches. If you know it's time to finally get serious about starting your podcast, go to podcasting for coaches calm and click on the work with me tab in the main menu to learn more about my one on one launch consultation packages or my self paced online course. And I look forward to seeing the podcast that you create and put out into the world.

 
Britany Felix
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