Everyone in the podcast industry is lying to you.

What's up Party People! Coming in hot on a Monday afternoon, per usual. Did that get your attention? I'm only half kidding, everyone isn't lying to you, most of them are lying to themselves and you. All daggers aside, I am here to challenge a lot of rhetoric in the industry about podcasting as a tool, specifically a branded content tool.

I know you are thinking, Molly these are shocking allegations, big money industries never lie to us. I get it, it's a topsy turvey world and quite frankly, I don't think anyone knows what they are doing. (Slowly raises hand). But all conspiracy theories aside, I truly believe that a vast majority of the industry is teaching/preaching/selling podcasting for business development, completely wrong.

Hear me out, most people think start a podcast, create content weekly, interview people with big audiences, hope to get in front of people who will immediately fall in love with you and want to hire you because they heard your sweet un-mic'd voice that sounds like its coming from a trashcan and post endless audiograms that nobody actually listens to. Sound familiar? They will tell you that reps are the key to "monetizing your podcast" and that you will have to podcast for at least a year to see results. Are they right? Yes. Are they also wrong, yes.

What if you thought of podcast interviews as warm leads instead of podcast episodes, or simply content creation?

Here's the thing, there are 3 waves to branded podcasting and most people are focusing on the one that generates the least amount of revenue, the amplification. If you aren't interviewing the right people, you won't get in front of the people you want to work with. Just because you are advertising, doesn't mean it will automatically work. If that was true I would have started an ad agency 100 years ago, give or take. I think I've been watching a little too much True Blood. The point is, what does talking about failure with rando entrepreneurs for a year have to do with your accounting business? You see where I am going here?

In the words of the great Spiccoli, "all we need is a righteous buzz and some tasty waves". Grab your surf wax kids, we are going to conquer these waves.

Wave 1 : Business Development aka Relationship Building

Who are you interviewing and why? Do you want to do business with them? Do they have access to lots of people you want to do business with? Is there a shared revenue potential and positive gain for both of you? If you are only interviewing people who have big LinkedIn followings, I've got bad news for you. And if you are interviewing everyone who says yes, I've got even worse news for you. Strap in kids, you might need that righteous buzz to get through this one.

Your only job in this podcast game, other than a list a mile long of things you have to do, is focus on the strategy of who you are interviewing and why. If your guests cannot move the needle in your business, you are wasting your time. Spicy, I know. Shitty interviews don't have value, no matter how many of them you do. There is no prize for wasting your time consistently, well it might not be the prize you want. Kind of like when my mom made me guess how many candy corn were in the jar at the local Halloween event when I was in 4th grade. She insisted because she thought I was the rain man of numbers apparently and I refused, because...candy corn, gross. Well, guess who won 12,743 candy corns? That's right, me. Not every contest is worth winning. Doing 281376 episodes of a bad podcast is one of them.

Wave 2 : Podcasts are a Trojan horse of SEO

I'm pretty sure the only people who truly understand the SEO value of a podcast are SEO agency owners, and not podcasters. I get it, SEO is a big scary world run by robots and confusing messaging, just like real life actually. We are all trying to get the attention of the biggest robot of all, Google. Once you have nailed the relationship building portion by interviewing the right people, now you have a mountain of SEO heavy content to drive people to your website, on a consistent basis. Im no SEO expert but if I was I would say, "yo, that shit works".

But how though? I thought you would never ask.

Blog Posts, Newsletters, LinkedIn Newsletters, YouTube (aka 2nd largest search engine in the world), social media posts, and so much more. The metadata from a podcast is ChatGPT gold, if you don't know, you better ask somebody. It's SEO heaven, which has surprisingly bad coffee.

Wave 3 : Social Proof & Content Creation

Now that you have juiced this carrot for the real value now its time to make cookies with the pulp. I know you are thinking, pulp cookies don't sound very good and you are right. They are not the star of the show, but people do love cookies. Im starting to go off the rails here a little, what else is new, you should tour the inside of my brain sometime, phew. The point is the social media and content you get from a podcast is not what is going to drive the value aka the revenue for your business. The social media graphics you are creating are great for social proof but the real value is being able to email your guest a week later with high quality graphics and a runway to the next conversation. That graphic is the bridge to the next level of the relationship, not a social media winner.

Remember, those aren't just podcast interviews, they are warm leads. Its a mindset shift that will make you a lot more money than months worth of social media posts that don't serve any purpose.

No shade but I've seen ya'lls social media, its quieter than a dormant volcano. True story, the quietest place in the world is inside a volcano. One of these days I might have to see for myself. I digress, Facebook gates everything, Linkedin is a cry fest and nobody is engaging with your business on social media, most likely because your clients aren't on social media. Having an interview podcast to create social media content is not the move. However, having a solo super short podcast to create content is. That will be next week's newsletter, actually.

So the next time some podcast guru tells you to record a million episodes on zoom, skip editing them and to create janky audiograms to reach your clients and create raving fans, I want you to tell them to pound sand, politely of course, and then call me.

Until next time, be excellent to each other. Like Dudley Moore said in Crazy People, truth in advertising!

Molls

PS One would think handing out 12,743 candy corns in 4th grade would make you popular, pro-tip, it did not. Turns out everyone hates Candy Corn.