Why aren’t you podcasting?

I’ve been asking myself this question so let me ask you? Why haven’t you started a podcast yet? I’ve got lots of excuses for my delay in launching my podcast, but I look around and it seems like almost everyone has a podcast. Why don’t you?

I’ve been doing some research on podcasting and talked to several people who have successful podcasts. Here’s some things I’ve learned.

?Guest quality

If you have interesting, articulate guests, people will want to listen. Conversely, if you interview family and friends because they are the only ones you can get to be on your podcast, your audience will likely be just your family and close friends.

Topic and Questions

Some people can get away with unstructured conversations with little or no planning ahead of time, but these seem to be rare folks. I personally prefer to listen to a podcast that has a focus – the host has done their research about the guest(s) and leads them through a discussion of specific topics with well-structured and thoughtful questions.

?Targeted audience

I see a lot of podcasts that are titled with the host’s name, like “The Eric Byron Show”. Sorry, but I think this is lame. If you already have name recognition you might get away with, but I don’t believe a podcast can be highly successful as a self-promotion, unless you are really famous, and I am not. So, it is important to have a name and theme for the podcast that establishes your target audience.

Feel free to comment on my proposed podcast name “The Flywheel in Motion”. My theme is “achieving sustainable business momentum” and my target audience are startups and small to medium size game development and digital media companies.

?Pace, duration, and consistency

I have come to conclude that not only do you have to publish new content consistently, and on a regular cadence your audience has come to expect, but you also need to be sensitive to the pace and length of each episode. Time is precious so a podcast that takes 10 minutes to get through a jingle, a standard opening, advertisements, a host monologue, and guest introduction usually loses me before the topic discussion even begins.

?I am a fan of podcasts that are 15 – 30 minutes and get right to the topic within a couple of minutes.

?This all brings me back to my original question. Why haven’t you (or I) started a podcast yet? From what I can tell, millions of people have not worried about some or all my concerns and just jumped right in. Some have successfully grown their audience over a period of time. Some seem content or undeterred with having a small number of subscribers. Many published a few episodes and then quit.

?What’s your podcasting story? What do you think makes a great podcast series? If you think you could be an interesting guest on my podcast. Please let me know.