Transcripts
1. Welcome to Class: Hi there. Hello everybody. My name is Ben Haws. I will be your instructor
for today's course. Truly, I'm excited
about this one. I just went through
a re-brand of my own podcast and I learned
a lot along the way. So today we're gonna be
talking about how to find the podcast concept
that works for you. So we're going to talk
about how to find the best, most authentic, most enticing concept for your new podcasts. So if you're thinking
about starting a podcast, if you already have one
and you're trying to up your ante and make it a little
bit better of a concept. If you have a podcast, but you want to
start a new podcast. Any of these situations
this course is for you. I'm so happy that you're here. My name is Ben Haws and I'm an instructor for this course. And I'm excited to dive in. Today. We're gonna talk about
three very simple things, but we're going to dive
into each of them in depth, which I'm really excited about. The first thing we're
going to talk about is the vibe of your podcast. What is the vibe
of the podcast is gonna be really
interesting to dive into exactly what that means. Second is the format
of the podcast. What is, what is the
actual show look like? And how are you incorporating
the vibe into the format? And then the third
thing, we're going to briefly talk about branding because that's really
important when it comes to the vibe and the
format as well. So I'm really excited to
do these three things. We're going to get
you in and out. And hopefully by the time
you leave this course, you have a better idea of what you want your
podcast to look like, and that will set
you up for success. A little bit about me. My name is Dan has. I am a podcast host. You can find my podcast
on Spotify, on Apple. Anywhere you find your podcast
is called Life in bold. And what's interesting is that the podcasts that
I have has gone through many iterations
of the name, the concept, the title, all these different things
have been different multiple times and I've learned a ton about how to land on a
podcast concept that really is authentic to you and enticing for listeners
to listen to. I also am a social media
and a side hustle coat. I help people build
their businesses. I help people build their
brands on social media. People like public
speaker as Podcast Host, artists, anybody like that? I'm able to help
people put together there brand on social media. And I myself am a
business owner. My most notable business is a
photo booth rental company. I go around two parties
in New York City and I run a photo booth and I help people get really
awesome pictures. So I talk about all
of these things on my podcast and I want to really, the only reason I'm saying
that is because I want to make sure that you
understand that I have a podcast
that I tie that is authentic to who I am and that's what I'm going
to help you do today. So if you're interested in, in my courses and my content, you can follow me at
hustle with Ben on Instagram and on TikTok
and also on Twitter. But Instagram is where
I do most of my work. And so if you're interested
in checking out my podcast, The link is in the bio at my Instagram and
that's at hustle. With that, let's dive
into this course. We're going to get some
action-packed stuff. And I really want, maybe it's a good idea to take
out a pen and a paper. Take some notes on your answers to some of the
questions that I will ask you because those are going to
help you narrow down what your podcast content and your podcasts concept
is going to look like. So without further ado, please click into
the next lesson because we're about
to get started.
2. Podcast Vibe: Alright, so the very
first thing when it comes to your podcast concept, deciding what is my
podcast going to be is deciding the
vibe of the podcasts. The reason I say the vibe is I think that's a really
interesting current word that people are
using to describe what is the podcast
actually like? What is the message we're
trying to get across? And I think when
starting a podcast, you really have to decide
the vibe that you want. So what I want you
to do if you have a piece of paper or if you're typing in a notes app
or something like that. I want you to even feel
free to take a time to pause this class and really
work through these questions. But I want you to ask yourself the following questions
when you're trying to decide the vibe
of your podcasts. Because the vibe is
really important. And it's important
because it will set the vibe for what
people are listening to. So the first thing that
I want you to answer is, how do you want
people to feel when they listened to your podcast? Do you want them
to feel inspired? Do you want them to feel like
they're learning something? Do you want them to be laughing? How do you want them to feel when they're listening
to your show? The second question is, do you want to have a niche? So are you a podcast that
is only going to talk about a certain show or a certain
skill or a certain industry. Do you want to have
a niche where people can rely on you for only talking
about one type of thing. That's something that I think is a question rather than
a recommendation. I think some podcasts, or it's totally fine if you
don't want to have a niche. If your, if your niche is
that it's all about you, that is something that is
honestly totally fine. Sometimes people find success when they have a niche
because it's easier, a little easier to convince
somebody to listen because they might
learn something specific about what
they're looking for. Or they might, maybe they're
a big fan of something like there's a podcast out
there called Listeria gaze. And it's all about, It's all about the desperate housewives and they re-cap
desperate housewives. And so their niche is to talk about desperate housewives in a way that is specific to the queer experience
and perspective. And that's a niche. And that's something that they
are able to build a following even if people
don't know who they are because they
have that niche. So it's important
for you to decide. Do you even want
to have a niche? If you do want to have one, what is it going to be? And then go on from there. The next question I want you to take a second
to write down is, do you want your
podcast to be serious? Do you want your
podcast to be funny? Do you want your podcast
to be encouraging? Do you want your podcast
to be educational? I really think it's
important to think through this before you
start recording episodes, because you want to make sure that you're intentional
about what the vibe. This is a question that is
specifically tied to the vibe. If you want a serious podcasts where people are
leaning in to learn more and it's not
really getting laughs. It's just something
that is maybe about something like grief
or something about trauma. Or there's a lot of
different reasons that a podcast would
be serious, funny. Do you, are you a comedian? Maybe you'd want your
product has to be funny or maybe your guests are really funny and you
want to make sure that the vibe is funny
or encouraging. Encouraging is really
around uplifting stories. Do you want to have
uplifting stories? Do you want people to feel
better about themselves after they listened
to your podcast? The last question is with whom do you want to collaborate? And this is important because I want you to think through. Do you want to be
doing interviews? Do you want to be if you
are doing interviews, who do you want to
be interviewing? Do you want to be
interviewing world leaders? Do you want to be
interviewing teachers? Do you want to be
interviewing artists? Do you want to be
interviewing accountants? Think about the people
who are going to be involved in this podcast. And those people, oftentimes
will set what the vibe. It's important to
think about who you want to collaborate with. The questions are, how do you want people to feel
when they listen? Do you want to have a niche? Do you wanna be serious, funny or encouraging,
or educational? And with whom do you
want to collaborate? So what I would
love for you to do is take ten minutes
either now or later and write out a paragraph describing the vibe
of your new podcast. This is something
that I have done. This is something that
many podcasters have done. Write out a paragraph or two saying the answers
to these questions. Who are you collaborating with? Do you have a niche? All of these different things. I think it can be a really, really helpful step
in the process of deciding the concept
for your podcast. What is the vibe? The next step after
you write that paragraph is to send it to friends and see what words pop out to them and
what resonates. Maybe you write a
paragraph about, about how you want to
encourage people to go vegan. Maybe that's, maybe that's
what your podcast is about. And you write all
about morality, and you write about animals and you write about difficult, difficult transitions,
making your, turning yourself
into a vegetarian. And write a paragraph
and let your, let your friends decide
and tell you what is popping out to them
and that will help you decide your vibe as well. Let's move on to
deciding the format.
3. Podcast Format: Okay, So now that you've
decided the vibe of your podcast or you have the information that you
need to decide the vibe. I want to talk about
deciding the format of your podcast because
this is really where we're going to make some
magic and actually land on what the concept of the
podcast is going to be. So if you have a podcast, it's important that your format is consistent across episodes. So your listeners are going
to want to know what, what can I expect
from this podcast? And that's where
we're getting at. I'm going to get into today. It's been totally okay. It is totally okay if
this changes over time, maybe you choose a format and you realize that
it works really well, or you realize that
it doesn't work so well and you want
to make some changes, but it's good to start
with somewhere that you feel good about
and that you like. So similar to the last slide, we're going to go through
some things to think about when you are deciding the
format of your podcast. The first thing that
you want to think about is do I wanna do interviews, discussions are so low. A lot of podcasts have
a little bit of each. A lot of podcasts
stick to interviews. A lot of podcasts
are always so low. It's really important for you to actually think through like, do I want to have guests? One thing that I'll
say about guesses, It's often hard to do guests. And so if you have a
trouble meeting people, or if you have trouble
reaching out to people, or if you find yourself overwhelmed by the
booking process, it might make sense to do a solo podcast or
to find a co-host. If you have a co-host who
always records with you, then it can be discussions and maybe you can
prepare what are we going to talk about today? So I really want you
to think through who is going to be
on the podcast. That's the real question. Is it gonna be you and a
different guest every time? Is it going to be u
and three friends? Or is it just gonna be you every episode doing
your podcasts alone? One thing that I'll say
about doing a podcast alone is that it takes
a ton of preparation, similar to how I'm
doing with this, with this course, you would have to come up with
what you want to say and how you want to say it before you actually
record the episode. Very few people can just turn on the microphone and start
talking and get something good. One of my favorite podcasts
is called we can do hard things by Glennon Doyle. And there was recently a political decision
that came out of the Supreme Court that
she had a lot of feelings on and she actually
did a solo episode. But what was so cool about
the solo episode was that she had clearly written
out a script for herself and bullet points
of what she wanted to say. And it was a very
powerful episode. There's nothing wrong with
doing a solo podcast. You just have to be
very prepared and very able to hold your
own on the show. A couple of other questions. Do you want to play games? Are there segments do, or their songs that people play? When there's a new
segment, things like that. If you're doing a comedy podcast or a very collaborative podcast, a lot of times people play
games like this or that, or something like rapid fire or putting someone
on the hotspot. Like thinking through
things like that can be very helpful as you are building your
concept for your podcast. You know, just when we're
talking about things like, do you wanna do games? Do you want to be so low? One of the most
important things I think is really sitting with
yourself and thinking, what is the most
authentic thing to me? Think about yourself. Think about what will
keep you going as you build and grow your podcast. Don't do something because
you think it's marketable. If you don t think
it's authentic to you, what you need to do
is do everything that feels authentic to you. Because that's what's
going to help you grow. That's what's going to
help you keep consistent. So when you were talking
about doing games are doing, I don't want anybody
to think, Well, it sounds like this is better because that's what a lot
of successful podcasts do. What's more authentic to you, not what you've seen done
before because we live in a world where truly there
are so many podcasts. So the only thing you
can do to set yourself apart is to do it the
most authentic to you. And that's what I have to say
about authenticity today. The other question
is, do you want it to be a Q&A interview, questions and answers or
more of a conversation. So if you're going
to have someone on, do you want to be like, so what do you think
about this and then have them give a long
answer and then say, okay, well so what do
you think about that? And have them give
a long answer or do you want to be a part of the podcast where you're telling your
perspectives as well. That's something that's really
important to think through before you go and actually
launch your podcast. It's important to
think about if you are someone who wants to
share your own perspective, or if you are somebody who
just wants to highlight somebody else's
stories and opinions. Then the last point here is, do you want yourself to be the main attraction or do you want the guests to be
the main attraction? One of my favorite podcasts, a comedy podcast is
Whitney ******** podcasts. And Whitney ******** has
a podcast where she has a different comedian or a
different actor on every time. But a lot of times she is talking about herself a
lot of the time as well. So she's not just doing an
interview where she is, you know, interviewing
somebody else. And so tell me about this
and tell me about that. It's more of a discussion, more of a conversation and an equal parts
where the guests and Whitney ******** are talking just about as
much as each other. So thinking about through, thinking through
what you want in terms of who is the focus on, where's the attention going and whose story is being shared. That's a really important
thing to think through as you decide the concept
of your podcast. So now we've decided the
vibe of the podcast. We've decided what the
format is going to be, and I do encourage you
to take a few moments, take these bullet
points, pause the video, and write down, what
is your format? Is it going to be discussions? Is it going to have
games or segments? Is that Q&A or a conversation and who
is the main attraction? The writing those things
down will really get you closer to deciding what is
the format of your podcasts. With that, let's move
on to this third piece, which is deciding the
branding of your podcast. This is something that I'm extremely passionate about
and I think can really help you grow your podcast
once you've decided on the concepts and branding
is part of the concept, but it's really the piece that's going to help
you grow as well. So let's move on to
deciding the branding.
4. Podcast Branding: So we're here we are. So here we are deciding the
branding of our podcasts. And a lot of times brand is kind of a complicated
word because you're thinking about marketing
and advertising. And you're thinking
about how am I going to get more listeners and
all of that stuff. We're going to talk about that. But I also want to talk about what is the look and feel
of your podcast and, and, you know, what is the
ethos of your podcasts. So now that you have the
vibe and the format, think about the brand
of your podcasts. So again, we're gonna go through five questions here on what you can answer to really help you decide the branding
of your podcasts. So the first one is, what is the name
of your podcast? Now, let's sit here for
a second on the name of your podcasts because this
can be so hard a lot. I've heard someone say, I
can't remember who said this. Maybe it was a comedian
or a musician, but they said the hardest
part of having and starting a band is coming up
with the name of the band. And I think that's exactly
true for podcasts as well. Coming up with the name of your podcast is actually
very important. And there's two reasons that I think it's
really important. The first reason is SEO or
search engine optimization. And if you don't know what
search engine optimization is, it's basically when
someone goes to search for a podcast
in the podcast app, maybe at Spotify,
maybe it's Apple. You want to show up as close to the front of the
searches as possible. So there's different
things you can do through the title
of your podcast, the description of your
podcast, and also ratings. But the title is very important when you're
naming a podcast because you want to make
sure that it's SEO friendly, Search Engine
Optimization friendly. And you also want to make
sure that it's memorable. Makes sure that if you were
at a party and someone said, Hey, what do you like to do? And you said, Well, I have
a podcast and they said, What is the name
of your podcast? You want your name to be
memorable so that they can think about it for the
rest of the night and go home, type it in and that guy was
cool or that girl was cool. And I want to listen to their podcast and
so then they can remember what it was
called and type it in. So like we can do hard things by Glennon Doyle is a great example
because it's a sentence. We all know how to
spell those words. Oftentimes people create
a podcast name where maybe it's a combination of two different words
or maybe it's a word that they
totally made up. And that's great. And you can totally
find success with that. But oftentimes, when it
comes to search and when it comes to people being able to recommend your podcast
in-person to friends. Having a memorable, clear name can be really,
really important. So now that you know the vibe of the podcast
and you know the format, back to the paragraph you
wrote about the vibe. One of my best suggestions for coming up with a
name for your podcast. Share that paragraph with
people that you love, that you trust, that you
admire and tell them, what do you think the name
of my podcast should be? And say which of these words
really stick out to you. Do any phrases come to mind when you think
about this paragraph, I think it can be really, really helpful to share that paragraph with your
friends and family and have them help you decide what the name of your
podcast is going to be. Oftentimes creative people can
come up with great things. But when you get to be an, a place where you're
a little bit more strategic and a little
bit more collaborative. That's where the
magic can happen. And so it's really important when it comes to
naming your podcast. Get some collaboration in there and have some people's opinions because it can't hurt to bounce ideas off of
people you love. The next one is visually, what does your
podcast look like? What are the colors
of your podcast? Is it Rainbow? Is it black and white? Is it glittery? Is it color photos are
black and white photos. What's the font of your podcast? Is it bold, big fonts or is it, you know, nice, classy,
smaller, thin fonts? And just thinking
through what kind of imagery are you using
on your podcast? What does your what does your podcast album
cover look like? Is it a photo of you? Is it just the name
of the podcast? And thinking through just what
is the podcasts look like. Very important to decide. My recommendation again
is to go authentic. Go what you like, what you think is cool. Don't try to do something
just because it's marketable or other
people are doing it. I think it's just another point, just very important to do something that
feels good to you. The only caveat I would say
to that is trying to have everything that you use be
high-quality and clear. So if you're going to
upload a picture of yourself as your album cover. And I don't know if it's
called an album cover, but your podcasts cover, make sure that it's
a high-quality image that people can look to see exactly what it is
and make sure it's not just cropped weird or
make sure it looks good. But other than that, do something that feels
authentic to what you're doing. The third question is, how do you want to write about your podcasts when you
are posting about it on Spotify or Apple and you're writing the description
of your podcast. What is the vibe of
the descriptions? Are you using big,
complicated, smart words? Are you using simple language that everybody can understand? Are you trying to
write in a way that's encouraging or are you trying to write in
a way that's funny. Deciding on how you want to be your own copywriter
and how you want your descriptions and all of your promotional material
to look can be a really, really important decision
to decide the concept of your podcast when you go
to post on Instagram, or when you go to
post on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter. What is the language
that you want to use is, like I said, is that funny? Do you want to make jokes
in your promotions? Do you want to be encouraging? Do you want to make people
feel good about themselves? It's really important to really decide what that
would look like. That brings us to number four, which is how do you
want to promote the podcast and where do you
want to promote the podcast? Do you want, is it a business podcast and it makes sense to promote on LinkedIn? Is it a personal
podcasts and it makes sense to do on
TikTok or Instagram. Think about what that promotional effort
is going to look like. And once you have the
branding and once you figure out how you're going
to make it look and feel, then you can start
sharing it on Instagram, sharing it on LinkedIn, sharing it on Facebook. Because it's really
important to think through. You know, it's not just, Hey, I made a new podcasts,
listened to my new podcast. You want to really add in
some colorful language and described what happened in the podcast and
all of that stuff. So it's really good
to decide beforehand, how are you going to
promote your podcast? The last thing I want to say on branding is just
making sure that your branding and
your advertising is clear, concise, enticing. It's really important that
it's authentic to who you are, what the vibe of
your podcast is. But it's also important that it's enticing for the reader, for the listener,
Social media follower. How can you make sure that things are clear so they
understand when you post, hey, I have a new podcast
that they understand exactly what they can expect out of listening to your podcast. Very, very, very,
very important. Branding is a really
important thing when it comes to podcasts. You don't want to just
post something that sucks. You want to post
something that's nice, that's high-quality, that's
aligned with your brand, your vibe, your format. And it's really important that you think intentionally and strategically about how
you're going to do that. And with that, let's
move to the conclusion.
5. Next Steps: Okay, We did it,
We did the course. I hope you got something out of these lessons that I'm teaching. I really, really
do recommend and encourage you to take a second to look back
through this course, re-watch it if you want to, and actually take time to write down the answers
to those questions, It's great if you
watched the course and you have thought about it
as you watched the course. But I really, really encourage
you to get out a piece of paper and a pen or your notes app on your
computer or your phone, and write down the answers
to these questions. They will help you
figure out what you want the concept of
your podcasts to be. They will get you
a little further. I can't promise that after
watching this course, that you'll just have
the perfect concept. But I hope that I got you a
little bit further toward understanding what
you want out of your podcast and how
you want the vibe, the format, and the
branding to be. Thank you so much for
taking this course. I have other courses here on Skillshare around podcasting, Social media, Etsy,
side hustles. So I would really
encourage you to follow me here on Skillshare. I'm gonna be posting a lot
more about podcasts as well. So I hope that you will follow
me along for the journey, for a follow along
for the journey. I also am on Instagram
and TikTok at hustle with then if you want to stay
in touch, you can DM me. I'd be happy to chat through
your concept with you. Follow me at hustle with Ben and send me a message and
we can go from there. With that. I hope you do follow me
here on Skillshare and have a great day and even
better week and good luck.
Ben Hawes, Side Hustle Coach
