This is the secret to a highly effective content strategy on social - and it's not what you'd expect!

In the current digital marketing landscape, there are a million and one ways that you can choose to promote your business online. Between all the big social media platforms, to content like YouTube, or blogs, it can honestly feel like a "choose your own adventure" book that has no clear ending. My team and I have worked with dozens of small business owners that are uncertain about how to approach content marketing, where they should start, and which platforms they should focus their time on - especially when you have limited time to invest in online marketing. In this episode, I want to share one approach to digital marketing that I think will help save you time, allow you to grow, network, make sales, and establish yourself as an expert in your field - all by using one platform, and that is: starting a podcast.

Keep on reading to see my step-by-step strategy for using a podcast as the backbone of your content marketing strategy. And in case you're already feeling intimidated: don't worry, we're going to talk about how you can do this as a total beginner that doesn't know anything about audio editing, microphones, or RSS feeds. Let's get into it!

So, let me level with you for a minute. In this episode of Creator Club, it's my goal to convince you to start a podcast. Why? Because my team at Creatorly would love to work with you on your podcast launch? Sure - we would love to have you on as a client, but that's not really why I share this stuff. Honestly, I've shared enough free resources that you can teach yourself how to edit and launch your own podcast just by watching my YouTube videos.

The real reason I'm sharing this is because I know just how effective a podcast can be at marketing your business, and bringing in new clients or customers, and improving your brand awareness in general. So, before we get into some of the details of the "how," I want to take some time to walk you through the "why." I think you might be surprised as just how effective podcasting can be for your marketing.

Why Podcasting is such an effective marketing tool

The first reason why you should start a podcast as your primary digital marketing strategy is because a podcast can truly be so much more than just a podcast. And this is where the time-saving piece that I mentioned earlier comes into play.

Here's what I love so much about podcasts: first of all, they are a super-effective piece of content marketing on their own. Podcasts have some of the best retention rates in the digital space. What does that mean? It means you're holding your audience’s attention longer than on any other platform.

Think about it this way: if you're seeing my Instagram content, I might have your attention on a story or Reel for maybe 15-30 seconds. If you're watching my YouTube video, if I'm lucky, I've got your attention for on average, half of one of my videos - so maybe 5-7 minutes. Whereas on podcasts, which tend to be in the 30-45 minute range, on average I'm keeping your attention for 95% of the entire episode - so basically, 30-45 minutes. That's huge! That is a massive jump from literally anywhere else on the internet - and the coolest part is, most podcasts are doing that! Any podcast that is gathering an audience and seeing more than just a handful of downloads is likely receiving that 95% completion rate. If you're not in the marketing world, it might not seem that remarkable, but for a digital marketer like me, I know the huge benefit of being able to hold an audience's attention for so long. Brands and advertisers value that kind of attention to the tune of thousands of dollars. So, for you as a small business owner or content creator - that kind of attention on your brand can be worth a lot as well, whether you're looking to sell your own products or to secure brand deals.

In addition to simply holding attention, in podcasts, you're able to provide your audience with a ton of value, and build a truly authentic connection with them, the kind that only comes from extended exposure to your content and personality. People who listen to your podcast will feel so much closer to you, and therefore much more likely to make a purchase, than people who just see your content on Instagram.

Okay, so we know that podcasts on their own can be really valuable, but as I was saying before, you really start to see the value of a podcast in your marketing strategy when you realize how a podcast can actually be so much more than a podcast for you - it can be the backbone of all of your content.

How to Content Batch with a Podcast

When you create a podcast each week, what you're really creating is a long-form, high-value piece of content that is ready to be repurposed into as many different smaller pieces of content as you would like. Whether you're doing an interview-style show, or a solo show like this, there are countless possibilities for how you can take this podcast, and turn it into a social media content calendar. There are a million different ways to do this, but to illustrate my point, I'll just walk you through one possibility.

Let's say you're hosting an interview-style show, where the guest teaches the audience some skill or strategy that's relevant to your niche. After you've recorded the episode, and edited and prepared it for publishing (don't worry, we'll get into the details of that later in the episode) you could then take the podcast, and create a transcript from it that could become a podcast for you. You can either type it out the old-fashioned way, or use an online transcription service like Rev, where you pay a very reasonable rate per minute, or Descript, which automatically creates a transcript that even recognizes different speakers. So, with only a few extra minutes of work, you've not only got a podcast, with all of it's benefits that we already talked about, but you've also got a blog post, which is great for developing the SEO on your website, and it makes your podcast accessible as well.

But it doesn't end there - you can take the text that you have from your transcript, and you can find a section of the interview that was particularly helpful or insightful, and you can use that as the source for a value-packed graphic carousel on Instagram. Carousels on Instagram are a really effective way at grabbing attention, and they tend to have a very high engagement rate compared to other types of posts. The biggest struggle with these types of posts is how much time it takes to come up with a concept and write the copy - but if you have a section of a podcast to source from to create it, that will save you a lot of time in the content creation process.

Next, you can find a good soundbite or a stand-out quote from the interview, and you can design a Tweet graphic. We all know the ones - graphics posted to the Instagram feed that look like (or truly are) the screenshot of a Tweet. These are highly shareable and are one of the best types of feed content you can make on Instagram to generate organic growth. It works well in this case too, because if you have a guest, you can easily use a Tweet graphic template in Canva, and swap out the name and profile image for your guest, so can you properly credit them for the quote. This also might incentivize them to share the graphic as well, once it's posted, which will help increase your reach as well.

In addition to these graphic posts, if you recorded the video of your podcast interview, you can use them as well to create short clips of memorable sections of the podcast - potentially even Reels or Story content.

You can see now how by recording one podcast episode, you've created a ton of valuable source material that can very easily be repurposed into content for your social feeds. And I used Instagram primarily in my example, but you can use this method to create content across any platforms that make sense for your audience: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok - really anywhere. You just need to take the source material, which is your podcast, and repackage it in different formats to make sense on whatever platform you're posting it on.

In addition to essentially being a made-for-you content strategy, podcasting has many other benefits as well, the next one being: networking.

Enjoying this post so far? Check out this video:

How to use your podcast to network and find new leads

When you host a podcast with interviews, you have the perfect excuse to meet new people and make connections with folks in your industry. Even though, as I've already talked about at length - podcasting has so much to offer your brand, I honestly think it would be worthwhile doing even if the only purpose was to meet people. In our current digital world, you're not going to make many connections by asking for Zoom coffee dates or the chance to "pick someone's brain" - but, if you ask them to be on your podcast, they're likely to agree, because there are several benefits to them: increasing their 'featured on' list, increased SEO, practicing their public speaking skills, having a piece of content to share with their audience, all of these are a huge benefits to a guest and they don't have anything to do with your audience size. Of course, as you grow, you offer the additional benefit of having an audience too, which will continue to help you get in contact with more guests.

I would personally recommend that as you decide on your potential list of guests, that you make sure that these folks will have some value to offer your audience, and that you're not just picking them because you want to get to know them. But, chances are, most people you'd be interested in having a conversation with, your audience would be interested in too. Just make sure that you're doing the work of pre-planning, designing questions, and practicing your conversational skills so that you make sure that you're guiding the interview in a way that's going to be interesting to your listeners. If you can get that down, then you'll really be able to interview anyone that has a skill or specialty and turn it into great content.

This will open up so many doors for you, because it means you can start to interview potential leads as part of your sales process, you can interview brands or folks connected to brands you want to collaborate with, and you can interview people who have audiences that you'd like to be connected with. However, it's important to know as a podcast host that you really need to be realistic about what you can expect from your guests. Not every guest you have will share about the interview, or make several posts about it on Instagram. You can make this easier for them by creating nicely branded graphics, or even going as far as making custom graphics that suit their feed as well - but at the end of the day, you can't make someone promote something, and if you tried to do that you'd like burn any bridge that you just built.

As long as you approach podcast interviews with sincerity and authenticity, and you think about how you can offer value to your guests, and not focus too much on what value your guests can offer in return - then you'll see success with this method of networking.

In addition to networking, and providing a built-in content strategy for you, podcasts are also valuable to your marketing strategy because they position you as a thought leader and expert.

Why having a podcast positions you as an expert in your industry

Whether it's warranted or not, it's definitely true that people who have podcasts come across with a certain amount of authority. Really, any business owner who is also a content creator is going to have that benefit by having a public presence, but you see it to varying degrees depending on the kind of content. Having a blog for your business is pretty standard at this point, and creating content on Instagram is also fairly run of the mill, but it depends a lot on how well you do it. However, when it comes to podcasting, in general, we're still at the point in 2021 where if you have a podcast or your business does, that's going to cause you to be taken more seriously. People understand the commitment and knowledge that it requires - and also, just on a basic level, producing 30-45 minute long episodes requires that you have something to say.

All of this means that being the host of a podcast gives you a certain amount of internet street-cred, which can help you in a lot of other areas of your career. Whether it's in sales, partnerships, or brand collaborations - having a podcast, especially one that becomes well known in your niche, will bring you a lot of great opportunities.

How to plan a podcast launch

Let's talk about how you can start your own podcast. You need to start with planning your content strategy- whether that's choosing your first few guests, or deciding on topics for your first few episodes, you want to have a plan in place so that you know you can stay consistent once you do launch. I'd actually reccomend having 3 or so episodes ready so you can launch with a few - this means that when you get your biggest surge of traffic to your podcast that you'll probably ever see at one time, when you launch, that you have a better chance of capturing that audience and getting them to binge listen to more than one episode. So, all of that is to say, plan out probably ten or so episodes: three to launch with, and four for the month after your launch. That will give you a good amount of time so you're not rushed with producing your weekly episodes.

Okay, so that's planning covered, next you need to actually start recording.

How to record a podcast for beginners

There are so many ways you can go about recording a podcast - but for the sake of this episode, I'll share what my process looks like. I personally use the Rode NT-USB Mini, this is Rode's new podcasting mic for creators, it's fairly affordable at just about $100, and you can plug it directly into your laptop, and just start recording. That's what I do - I plug it into my MacBook, and I use QuickTime to do an audio recording. If you don't have a Mac, you can easily use Audacity, which is a free, crowd-sourced audio editing software. You can actually record your audio in there and use it to edit as well. If you want more details on this, I have a ton of tutorials on it on my personal YouTube channel.

The basics of publishing a podcast

And finally, once you have everything recorded, it's time to publish. Again, there are a ton of different ways you can do this, including paid platforms like SimpleCast or Libsyn, or free platforms like Anchor, or you can even host a podcast directly on your website through Squarespace or WordPress - which is what we do for Creator Club. I personally like that option because you can essentially post a blog post and a podcast episode all in one place - but using a free platform like Anchor is great too.

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