#20 Five Ways to Produce Roundtable Episodes
This episode strategy will help you connect with more listeners and build community around your podcast.
Podcasters have to get creative. We need to find new ways to connect with people that we want to listen to and support our show. The old days of interviewing a ton of experts, getting promotions organically, and blowing up are gone. Let’s talk about a new option for podcasters to execute.
5 Reasons You Need Roundtable Episodes
Why are round table episodes important? Well, this is for a number of reasons. First of all, you build a community around your show. Nothing makes people feel like they're part of something more than them literally being part of it.
Do you think it would be hard to get people to promote your episode if they were a guest on that episode? Most podcasts do interviews with experts and thought leaders and people that dominate their industry. The problem with that is those people don't feel the need or feel required to promote the episode.
To them being a guest on your show, really just isn't that valuable.
But, if you had three people from your industry that are your peers or that you've worked with before or maybe you've met at an event. Those people will be perfect for a round table episode.
And that leads me to keep point number two, which is you promote at an even higher level. Imagine this, you do. Around a double episode a week. And you cover trending topics. The fun part about that is you never run out of stuff to talk about. And let's just say you have two people on, at a time instead of the usual one guest.
That means after a month you've done four round table episodes. In addition to your other episodes that are going live. But again, because we have two guests on each episode, instead of it being four guests, it's now eight! Now when those eight people are promoting your show, think about the expanded reach that comes with that.
That leads me to value point number three, which is you connect with more people in your market. I'm not telling you to have anybody on your show. I think it's very important to only have people that are active in your community that are releasing content within your market. And people that you might even consider to be competition in your industry.
This is a perfect approach because when they go and promote the episode, It's only going to attract more people that share the same interests as you.
I try to tell podcasters the goal should be to attract and connect with new listeners, not create them. With Roundtable episodes you're kind of feeding two birds with one seat.
You're not only connecting with new listeners through the guests that you have on your round table episodes. But you're also creating super guests from the people that are on your round table episodes. They're going to help you connect with their people faster than you ever could on your own.
Now the fourth value point, become a thought leader. In 2015 and 2016, the best way to become a thought leader was to just put out a ton of content. If you released enough content, that will be more than enough for you to become a thought leader in the space.
Now that's just not how it works. We have a ridiculous amount of content.
And most of it is garbage content. It's just not that good. It sounds mean and rude and disrespectful, but the truth is. You can watch a ton of TikToks and a ton of short videos. But after you watch them, how many of them do you actually remember? How many of them did you digest? How many of them had an impact on you personally?
It's very rare. So to become a thought leader, you need other people to believe that you're a thought leader. You need other people to know and understand that you have experience expertise and value to provide this specific marketplace.
I can post a hundred episodes saying that I'm a leader in the podcasting space. But unless other people believe that I'm a leader, I'm not a leader. And what better way to put your expertise, your skills, all of that stuff on display?
Now the last value point here is one that's controversial, but you know me, I don't really give a damn. Roundtable episodes, make it very easy to sell products and services.
I'm not saying that you should sell to every person that's a guest on your round table episode. That's not my point! What I mean is selling becomes easier because now you have more touchpoints. Somebody that you have on your show in a Roundtable episode in February, for example. And they might come back in June and buy a product from you.
That's usually how a lot of selling works. If you provide that high level of value and you're consistent, you're not pushy. When people are ready to work with you, they will they'll come back around and be ready to pay for a price. And there won't be any crazy negotiations. That's what Roundtable episodes do for you.
It makes selling a layup because now you're not putting people through. The extreme sales process with a bunch of calls and a bunch of jargon. And you're not over-complicating the process. You're making it really simple.
So that's why round table episodes are valuable. Now let's talk about how to execute.
I want to also let you guys know. I'm starting round table episodes for pod central. And we're just going to have a simple conversation. Two to three podcasts, toes. And we'll talk about the trending topics in the industry, and what companies are bought in. So a podcast is doing well.
What new tools are out there for us, all of that stuff will be covered. So if you want to be a part of that, make sure you complete the form that is in the link below. If you complete that form, you'll get on the list to be on one of the upcoming round table facilities. And. You don't know who you'll meet. Cause I have some really heavy hitters lined up for these round table episodes.
Make sure you complete this form.
Step 1: Choose a Time
Step one to setting up your round table episodes is to set up a special time. I think it's good to treat it like a new segment. And it could be every Friday or Monday. I think it's good to do it during the week because you can cover all the topics from that week. Pretty easy. Now again, we want to keep this narrow in the sense that it's only covering topics in your industry.
So, if you are in the comedy world, you talk about what's happening in comedy. If you're in movies it’s super easy. You talk about movies that just came out. What did well, what didn't do well, all of that stuff, if you're in sports. So you only cover that stuff that happened that week in sports, you see pretty much every show can do this.
If you have a business podcast, that's about investment or personal finances. You could do the same thing. Every podcast I can do this. So setting up a special time is step one.
Step 2: Send Invites
Step number two is to invite the guests. I think it's good to have outreach first, so you can have really high-quality guests first.
Now I noticed, I said high quality, not high quantity. Like their follower count shouldn't matter that much. You want to connect with the right people. That's the goal here. So having two to three guests is great. I always say to invite an extra person because somebody will usually cancel or they can't get on or their equipment isn't working or something like that.
Have extra guests lined up and ready to go.
Step 3: Plan Topics
Now number three is to have a list of topics. Um, controversial on this because I believe you should have the topic. And then a few bullet points on said topic. Personally, there's nothing I dislike more than listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video and somebody's talking about something. They know nothing about it. That is very, very, very, very frustrating. And to avoid that you can easily. Just have bullet points on each topic. You don't have to have long paragraphs or anything just simply bullet points will do. That's perfect. That's more than enough.
And then have enough topics, but you don't want to have like 23 to five is perfect. That's more than enough content for a 45-minute or hour-long conversation. More than enough.
Step 4: Marketing Materials
Next, you want to create marketing materials for every episode. And this means the shorts. This means using a long-form video and that YouTube. All of that stuff. The goal here is with the marketing content. Make your guest look like the celebrity.
No go and make clips of you talking. Make clips of them talking because then you make them look like guests, they look like the expert. They look like the person that is having fun. And then that makes them want to share the content, which means they will be committed to sharing the show. Most podcasters get this part wrong.
They try to create clips based on what they're saying and what they believe is profound. And that's fine. But you also have to make the content to that makes your guests feel like a superstar. Think about it from this perspective. If you were to go on a show with, let's say Joe Rogan or whoever your favorite podcasts are, it's just thinking of them.
When they gave you marketing materials for that episode when you want them to give you content from you’re talking, are you answering questions? Like, how crazy would you feel if you got videos of the host talking? This just wouldn't feel right. What did probably not? So don't be selfish when you create this content.
Create the content with the guest in mind, making them look like the celebrity. And I believe you should do this for all the people at the round table. Because again, that's how you expand your reach.
Step 5: Prioritize YouTube
Now, my last point is YouTube. You have to get on YouTube with this content. 'cause round table-type content does really well on YouTube. People want to watch bigger discussions.
YouTube has replaced what we used to watch and consume on cable and all that stuff. So now people are looking for new age talk shows and that's what your round table content can become to the right people. It becomes a new age talk show where people are super interested and they're looking forward to seeing who you have on the show.
There'll be in the comments, asking for certain people to come back. That's how it works. So YouTube is just going to be really valuable for podcasters going forward.
So podcasts round table episodes are something I believe every host out there can implement. Everybody can do this for their show. I would advise you to try to start with at least one per month. Not even once a week, just once per month. Then you set the foundation and you’ll start to see amazing results.
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Yay! You used my hand in the stock image!