#21 Podcast Positioning and Community
Community is everything for podcasters. Positioning plays a big part in that.
Recently, I’ve been obsessed with learning about community. Books like Obviously Awesome by April Dunford and The Business of Belonging by David Spinks really have changed my perspective on positioning and how we can all reach more of the people we want to connect with.
Surprisingly, there isn’t anything for podcasters on this subject. Everything is focused on businesses and big corporations. So I wanted to share some of my ideas on better ways podcasters can build an impactful community.
Podcast Ambassadors
I personally don’t care about reviews. When I’m searching for podcasts, the reviews are the last thing on my mind. I care about the content, how it’ll help me, and who sent me the show.
We need to create podcast ambassador programs. We need the people that love our podcasts to share the show AND reward them for it. But how do we set this up?
My process is simple:
A form for all new podcast subscribers to complete when they hit my website
Part of this form is to let us know where they heard about the show
If they give us a name, we reward them as the new listener AND the supporter that sent them
The hard part is setting up landing pages and forms. Then you need to get people to actually use their names. If you can get the rewards right, you’ll have podcasters promoting your show consistently.
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A New Way to be Social
Social media isn’t social anymore. How often do you open Instagram and see someone you actually know? How many people comment on your tweets or Facebook posts that you’ve actually met in person? We’ve lost the social part of social media. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Now, podcasters need to use social media as a news platform. We have to learn how to cover trending topics in our industry. This makes you informing to your listeners. They’ll start sending you news and topics when they see articles or posts online.
Short videos or podcast episodes are perfect for sharing your opinion or perspective on news. I have some other concepts that work just as well…
Networking for Podcasters
Roundtable episodes. I might have talked about this already but I have to say it again. Roundtable episodes are great for connecting with even more people in your industry. Some of the people you see as competition should be sitting with you and having conversations.
You’ll have an advantage in promoting your podcast episodes if you have multiple people on episodes every now and then. This even leads to podcast swaps for promotion!
I have a lot more of these crazy ideas. Right now, I’m focused heavily on PodCentral. and making podcasting easier. You can get on the official waitlist here.