This is super random, and I am totally behind. But have y'all been using threads to talk about your podcast? I personally gave up on threads early after it's released. But because a few of my friends and clients had been telling me about how they were using it, I was like, I'll give it another go. And let me just say that the algorithm on the for you page is really good based on what you're posting about, at least for me. So I started posting about podcasting. Bam, it's like my entire for you pages about podcasts. And I'm getting to connect with so many people. So I started to ask questions over there and engage in some of those conversations. Which brings me to today's episode between threads, my community membership and my email list. I have been gathering some of the burning questions that y'all have all about podcasting that I really haven't answered here on the podcast, or at least not in such direct clarity as a question answer. So join me in today's episode as I answer these really important questions about podcasting. Let's go. Before we dive in, here's a word from our sponsor. I have been in the podcasting space for a while now. And let me tell you one of the biggest struggles I see podcasters dealing with is the quality of their podcast recordings. From choppy audio to lagging video, the list could go on forever, but not with Riverside FM. As a virtual recording studio, I can rely on it for creating studio quality content in both audio and video formats. Riverside has become my go to tool for recording solo episodes, interviews, mic check society trainings, and even taking my calls with their built in editor. It's an all in one software for podcasters, especially if you're just starting out. Not only is it easy to use, but it's a lifesaver for repurposing content. My absolute favorite feature is magic clips, where with the click of a button, you have ready made social media clips for easy promotion and sharing to drive even more listeners to your podcast. Get started today with Riverside FM by heading to the link in our show notes or going to creators.riverside.fm forward slash clocking in and use the code Gaffin 15 for 15% off. Hey, y'all welcome to the clocking in Podcast, the podcast for podcasters entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world while building their own personal brand in the podcasting industry. I'm your host Haylee Gaffin, owner of Gaffin creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. If you're a podcaster, or even just dreaming about launching your own podcast someday, this show was built to help you merge your love of conversation, education and business. You can find resources, show notes and more for the clocking in podcast at Gap and creative.com. Today's episode is brought to you by MIC CHECK society, a community that was built for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great, scale your podcasts, improve your processes and connect with your listeners through our educational trainings, our private members only community and our monthly calls. If you're ready to join us, you can head over to Mic check society.com and enroll today. And you can get $10 off per month with the code podcast. Now let's clock in and get to work. Okay, let's start going through these questions. And I want to treat these almost like rapid fire answers where I read the question and then I tell you my immediate thought and my immediate answer. And if there's a particular topic that you want me to expand on, let me know head over to Instagram at Haylee Gaffin and connect with me over there. It'll be linked in the show notes of today's episode. But I really just want this to be like a quick and simple podcast episode for you to consume but also give you my insight and my knowledge and details so that you can make more I guess informed decisions for your podcast. So question number one, how do I boost my listenership? The number one thing that I want to say here is there are so many different opportunities for marketing. But the number one thing I see podcasters doing wrong. And I'm guilty of it too is we don't talk about our podcast enough. We're not actually marketing it to the channels that we have. And that is what keeps us one from growth, but also consistency. So a lot of podcast players are not the number one thing that our audience is going to look at every day. So if they're subscribed to your podcast or following your podcast yet, they're not opening that app or they don't have notifications turned on. They're not listening to your show. So you have to consider every episode like a brand new launch. You have to market that episode. If you're not doing that Have, you may be losing out on listenership and again, I'm speaking from experience. I do this all the time, I put out a good episode and I get nervous about marketing about it. And I just pause and I don't do anything with it. But that would be the number one thing is talk about your podcast market it. The second thing I want to highlight here on boosting your listenership is borrowing audiences, getting your podcast in front of new people. Because if you're not growing, your social media, your email, any of the places that you would typically market your podcast, then you're not going to grow your listenership because you're not marketing it to new people. So either grow your audience through new people, or borrow audiences. The third way that I typically would recommend just rapid fire answer would be paid advertising. You could do this through Facebook ads, which I don't necessarily recommend as a starting point, there are tools like mo pod, player, FM, overcast, so many podcasts, specific places that you can pay to advertise your show. And this is something I've considered playing around with more episode ideas around and giving you examples and actual times that my clients and I have done this. So if that is something you want, please please let me know. And I will definitely prioritize that episode. Okay, question number two, is pros and cons of editing. Does it really matter? As a producer? Obviously, my answer is going to be yes. But I want to highlight a couple of things. Because the cons, obviously, it's either going to take time or money. And that's not always fun. But let me get to the pros. The pros are it does create a better listening experience, making your listeners come back for more. And I will say like, we're not an agency that edits out every single arm, I think arms are natural. Sometimes I think that it adds value to the conversation, it gives you the emotional side. Sometimes it is just a straight up filler word. And we want to take that out. There's also times where there's awkward pauses, or the guests and you talk over each other. And those are things that we all want, we always want to take out. We don't want those left in the conversation unless it's just unavoidable. Like, it makes sense that you talk to over each other because of something you said later. So I absolutely think that editing is important and valuable. And it does matter. I do know of podcasts that don't edit their shows, and they're doing just fine. I think it really depends on the host the guest. And if you can get away with not editing, but I personally, I personally add to every single episode whether my client thinks they need it or not. Okay, the third question is What does monetization actually look like for a small podcast? Okay, there are a number of ways you can monetize. You can do it through brand partnerships and sponsorships. And these look a little different for smaller podcasts. But they are still possible. As a small podcast myself who has been working through this approach. Yes, it is possible. The other ways are selling your own products, and affiliate. So you've heard me talk about my own products on this show. I do it. You've heard me talk about affiliates, and recommending tools. And I like I did it a few episodes back when I talked about tools. Those are all ways that you can earn income and money through your podcast. Now there are a couple of others that I don't really explore. But those are the ones that my clients are working with. I have a little bit of knowledge and experience and that I would actually recommend to a client. The next question is how do I know if I rank on charts? And does it matter? So I use a tool called charitable and I follow all of my clients on this tool. And essentially what it is, is it's telling you where you fall on podcast charts, doesn't matter. I guess, uh, no. I personally am not like, I don't have a goal to hit charts.
I'd really never do. I have clients that are on charts actively. My issue with charts is they are so fluctuating that you could be in the top 30 podcast one day and then not the next day but then backup two days later. It is really based on this algorithm that includes the keywords and basically SEO of your podcast, the downloads, you're getting the followers you're getting the release Times, oh, there's so many little things that Apple really won't tell you is happening on their end to actually get you to rank. So that is something that, yeah, it's cool. It's great to be able to say like, oh, yeah, I'm a top. You know, I'm a chart topping podcast. But if you're not on the charts, and you're still claiming that, what does that look like to the outside? Not knocking you if you're doing that, because I absolutely would if I was a chart topping podcast. So just something to consider. I I personally, I follow it if my clients had is really cool. If they don't, I'm not worried about it. Tips for titling my podcast episodes. Now, I lean more towards the direct over cutesy. But keep in mind that some people want more catchy like click not click Beatty, but something that would make you want to click it and get exactly what they talked about. I personally think that for clarity, the direct like, this is what this podcast is about works 500,000 times better than like a cutesy title. So I do lean more towards direct and clear, versus the catchy cutesy. So really, that's my, that's my opinion on it. It this is an opinion, though, it's not that one works better. Just opinion wise, I lean more towards that more direct. And I think that is because I do have a background in SEO. And so I'm also considering the website blog post when I'm doing this. Therefore, whenever my clients have like, a really direct title for SEO, sometimes we will switch that title over on podcast players, and it'll be a different title for podcast players versus their blog post. Alright, and the final question today is, I feel like I'm doing this alone. Any advice? If you are a solo podcaster, and you either do all your solo shows all your production, maybe you have a guest or two every now and then. But if you are a podcaster, who is like this person said doing this alone, my advice would be there's three pieces to this. One, this is probably whether you do the other two or not definitely do this, find another person who also has a podcast and turn them into your podcast bestie. Find a way to connect head over to threads, there are so many podcasters over there. That would be my number one piece of advice because I if I didn't have all of these podcasters around me that I work with, absolutely I would, I would feel like this is not worth it. If I didn't have a client who listened to my show, reach out to me and say, Hey, I listened to this and I want to meet because I want to do that to my podcast. Like that example you shared, I want to do that. If I didn't have that. I don't know that I could continue to create content every single week. And if you're missing that, there might be something missing in your podcast. So having a podcast bestie or whoever to come in and say, you know, it'd be really cool if you did this with your show. Or it'd be cool. If you did that. Maybe you put a call out for someone in your audience to become that person. Or maybe you like I said, head to threads head to the communities that you have and see if there are other podcasters, who would just want to be like, accountability partners. Now my second thing here is and I'm going to say this because it's what I do. But you could work with a producer. If you are working with someone who is editing your show, giving you any type of feedback or advice. This is something that they could be for you. They could be that like, the person you lean on when it comes to like, oh, what should I do for an upcoming series? Are you liking the podcast? Like my clients asked me all the time? Did you like the episode? And what can I do better? And I'm a very I'm an encouraging Podcast Producer, but I'm also an honest Podcast Producer, like if I think that they could have done something better. I'm going to tell them again. No, that's not fun to hear. No, no one really likes criticism. But like I will tell my clients Hey, you could do this a little bit better if you tweaked how you say this or how you respond or there's so many things. I as a podcast host myself. I go back and I listen to my own shows. And I'm like, I really wish I had set that differently or I wish I would have done that better and I mentally make note of that for the next one. Okay, As the last of these, like doing this alone advice is to find a podcast community. There are free ones, there are paid ones. We have MIC CHECK society, which is our paid community for podcasters. If you use the code podcast, you get it for $9 a month. But if you just do not have the budget for that right now, that's totally fine. There are free Facebook communities as well out there in the world who you can find who you're looking for. Absolutely. I think, finding those communities being in those spaces, I'm in a lot of them just to be lurking. Like, as someone who just gets inspired by others, I am in a lot of free Facebook groups, for that very reason. And yeah, so I highly recommend you find someone who becomes your podcast bestie and that you aren't doing this alone. And if you are still struggling and you're like, Okay, I just want to try out a community, head over to Mike tech society.com. Come join us. We'd love to have you in the group, even if it's just for a month or two. Okay, friends, I hope you enjoyed today's q&a style episode. If you enjoyed it, I would love to know. And if we answered your question this week, would you share this to your Instagram Stories? Or if there's someone you know that could benefit from this conversation? Will you share it with them? All right, friends. I will see you all next week for another episode of clocking in, talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening to clocking in with Haylee Gaffin for resources mentioned in today's episode head to Gaffin creative.com. If you're a podcaster looking for a community that will help you improve your podcast. Make sure you check out Mike check society, our community for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great enroll today at Mic check society.com and use code podcast for $10 off per month. If you love this episode, I'd be honored if you'd leave me a review in the Apple podcast app. Until next time, I'm your host Haylee Gaffin clocking out
