Viral Podcasting

While podcaster server5 websites come and go, YouTube is by far the largest podcast server in existence. Literally millions of podcasts have been posted there. Many are unaware that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after it's parent Google. This means that when you post a podcast to YouTube, there are potentially billions of YouTubers who can discover your work product. Until recently, it was a pain to post your podcast to YouTube. It required taking you WAV or MP3 file and converting it and uploading it to YouTube. It was a very time consuming project. Now however, it's much easier. Simply go to LIbsyn or Spreaker, click a box and presto your podcast is automatically posted to YouTube. You're limited to have your podcast square as the artwork and you'll have to manually add tags and key words, but most of the work is already done for you. It's a great way to expand your show's outread and dramatically broaden your potential audience. Start doing it now! Dont' forget to purchase my boo

Tyler Sheff's podcast took off when he found his inner voice. An introvert by nature, podcasting allowed him to connect with large numbers of people and break out of his shell. Following his passion for real estate and his desire to get potential investors accurate and actionable information, he conceived of the CashFlowGuys Podcast. In a little more than a year, he's gotten over 200,000 downloads. It's helped him get clients and he's helped change people's lives. By far, it's the most satisfying career he's ever engaged in. While there's many real estate podcasts, Tyler prides himself on cutting through the hype and getting the real story out there. At this point in his life, there's nothing he'd rather be doing, for which we applaud him.  Dont' forget to purchase my book Viral Podcasting. Just click the link.  

As it becomes more mature growth of the US podcasting industry is slowing, however in the rest of the world it's just beginning to take hold. Giorgio Minguzzi started his Italian digital marketing podcast nearly 2 years ago. While the equipment was easy to come by, except for his Heil PR-40, the expertise required to produce a great show wasn't. Especially in his native Italian Language. Giorgio spent nearly a month discovering the intricacies of the good old Mix-Minus. If only he had found Cliff Ravenscraft, his problems would have been solved. But Giorgio has learned the intricacies through the School of Hard Knocks approach and it's paying off. There's very little competition in the Italian Marketplace. He's already doing monthly 5 figures in downloads from his weekly show. Of course he's avidly consuming my book Viral Podcasting in his quest to become a profitable podcaster and just landed his first sponsor. Keep up the great work Giorgio!

Doing interviews in a live setting can be a lot of fun or a nightmare. The first time I ever did a live interview was in a grand ballroom with 5000 present. I didn't have time to prepare interview questions or do proper preparation. I was truly on my own. Somehow the adrenaline kicked and the questions started spewing from my lips. The interviewees seem to respond well and I began to relax. Later when I played back the interviews they sounded pretty good. The crowd noise in the background really added a sense of reality to the interview. It was an epiphany. I finally understood what the report on the street went through. It was a real growth experience. Next time you have the opportunity, try it. It will help you grow. You'll have to think on your feet and you'll have to make the interview pace flow. Flow is everything! Your rhythm and temp will help determine whether your interview is interesting and exciting or boring and humdrum. It's your decision, reach for greatness through a live interview. It will cha

Ben Krueger of CashFlowPodcasting is an accomplished podcasters and helps others to create successful and profitable podcasts. Ben looks for cliets who are already successful. As the saying goes, "Nothing succeeds like success." Ben says, if someone is already successful in their business pursuits, then creating a profitable podcast is almost guaranteed. Like so many other podcasters, Ben's career kind of took off after some lucky breaks. He was already a major podcast fan and listener. Then everything else seemed to flow naturally from there. He acquired the technical tools and then it took off from there. He already had some familiarity with video production. So audio production was easy. It seems to be a common pattern among our industry. Ben has some very practical tips if you're looking to start your own podcast today. But you have to get started, have a plan and have passion. The rest will follow. 

Very few successful people in life have done it all on their own. Talk with anyone at the top of their profession and the odds are they've had a number of mentors or coaches along the way. A good coach is often hard to find, but you'll no doubt be rewarded for your efforts. But make sure you listen to your coach. You don't have to agree with everything they say, but if you've got the right person, they won't tell you to do something unless they absolutely know it works. It's really that simple. For someone who's succeeded in their profession, the idea of mentoring or coaching someone is one of the best experiences they'll have. One thing that students often don't understand is that the coach will learn as much or more than the student. It forces the coach to look objectively at the things they've done in life and to obtain a better understanding of how things work. Finding a podcast or media coach can be difficult. There's just not that many people around who actually know how to create successful shows and p

Daniel J. Lewis has been podcasting since 2007 and also help people find podcasting success. Daniel got his start by listening to other people’s podcasts such as TWIT and Grammar Girl. Daniel launched The Audacity to Podcast in 2010. Longevity in podcasting means a lot. Starting out Daniel’s biggest obstacle was  building an audience. He learned this skill by the seat of his pants. It was easier in 2010 than it is today. How do you get people to discover your content? You have to find your audience, not wait for them to find you. Turn them into ambassadors for your podcast. Daniel believes that there will never be saturation of the podcasting market. There will always be niches and opportunities. So what are you waiting for?#audacitytopodcast @danieljlewis #viralpodcasting

I hear so many people bemoan the fact that they don't have a good voice. Fortunately, there's no requirement that you have an operatic or Shakespearean quality voice to become a great podcaster or radio talk show host. Some of the most famous people out there have not so pleasant sounding voices. Look at Howard Stern. His voice is nasally, twangy and highly New Yorked. It hasn't seemed to hinder his success in the least. If you do have a great, it by no means guarantees your success. A guy in New York who will go unamed has one of the best voices I've ever heard, even better than mine (a lot are) and yet he's never made it because he lacks susbstance and compelling content. He just sounds superficial and not deep enough. Which shows that content is indeed king, but so is your ability to connect with your audience and get your true voice through. That means practicing the techniques we discuss here. If you really are hung up on the quality of your voice, then please get a voice coach and make it sound the best

In business branding has become an essential element of success. Nowhere is branding more important than in making a podcast go viral. Branding will help make your show become sticky. Cliff Ravenscraft is a perfect examply of successful branding. He is the Podcast Answerman. Or Pat Flynn of Simple Passive Income. You're going to invest a lot of time, effort and money into building your brand. Don't do things that will damage your brand, i.e. politics and religion, unless your show is dedicated to these topics. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. That's not to say that you should avoid controversy, quite the contrary. Controversy sells, for sure, just don't let it damage your branding efforts. Don't get carried away with your ego. It's amazing that Hollywood can't or won't figure this out. They're alienating half their audience and don't seem to care. Branding also means that you must be consistent with your show. Release it the same time every week. Make it the same length each time. These are th

In podcasting as in radio, the first thing you must understand is what my good friend Wayne Allyn Root says, "Facts tell and stories sell!" Telling facts doesn't create audience engagement, in fact it will often do the opposite. Telling stories is our greatest asset as everyone wants to hear a good story. If you want to buiild a large audience you've got to become a master storyteller. That's not an easy task, I'm always learning how to better tell a story, even after all these years. If you closely look at the greats of radio or podcasting, you will find they have one thing in common, the ability to tell a story in a compelling manner. I'll go back to Valerie Geller's Beyond Powerful Radio, speak visually, create images in the listeners mind. Then you'll have them exactly where you want them, which is in the palm of your hand. It's not an easy, but anyone - with enough practice and effort can do it . And it will open up doors that you never even realized were closed to you. 

Time to get down to monetization. Always be monetizing if and when you're ready to. First you need to build an audience. You've been guest posting, you've been promoting, you've been crushing it! Doing a podcast is no guarantee of success. However, if you've got superior content, excellent audience engagement, you're being real and your numbers/analytics are starting to take off, then it's time. You're skills as an entertainer have really come into their own. Do it right and your show will support you in a very comfortable lifestyle. It really works! Is your model working, you'll soon find out. Whether you're a spokesman, a guru, or an advertiser supported or a brick and mortar operation looking to expand - monetization is the goal, but be certain that you don't put the cart before the horse. If you try to soon, you'll hurt your show and you will fail. Doing it too late and you might go out of business before you succeed. Always look for balance and the right timing is essential. 

As a podcaster you need to become an expert in analytics. What are analytics? Simply stated, they're statistics. How many downloads are you getting? How many of them are duplicate downloads? Where does you audience come from? What countries? What percentage of your audience is male/female? All of these numbers are interesting, but they're very important. Before I started making money off the show, analytics was all I had. Also, make sure that you've enabled your site for Google Analytics where you can very easily track visitors. As a rule, the more downloads you get the better. It's a measure of how well your show is being received and you'll learn a lot about who's listening to you. 

How to make your show go viral. First, you need to determine your show's format. In podcasting there are no courses to really show you how to create a successful show format. Now, it's starting to catch on and there are podcasting courses in school. There are many formats, including: interview, monologue, commentary, hybrid and many more. Of course as previously stated, you need to pick the right name. Trademark your name as soon as you can. My show's name wasn't be best. I looked for great guests. Interviewing techniques will help you make your guest look good. Find guests who have broad followings and may have their own podcast. Everyone running a blog or website is always looking for content for their site, especially high quality interviews of themselves. Make them look good, but don't be a pushover. Don't interrupt, be a good listener, treat them with respect and deference. Send them a link of the finished interview, send them a tweet to retweet. Use Faceboo. Guest posts on other's sites and getting your

Should you write a script for your podcast or just wing it. It depends upon you. If you're a subject matter expert and can talk without notes about your topic, then by all means go ahead and don't use one. If not, at least come up with bullit points for your commentary or discussion. When interviewing a guest, often times your guest will ask for a copy of the questions up front. We do this on the show, however with the proviso that we will not be bound by the questions. There's nothing worse and more boring than a canned interview. If you choose to go this route listen to your finished product and see how it sounds? Does it sound canned and pre-planned? You'll know. The answer to these questions will determine your best practices. I always shoot for excellence, however, it's a moving target. Therefore, I'm willing to settle for doing the best job I can. Sometimes, I will write the show notes to an interview before I actually do the interview. This has the effect of focusing the interview and it allows me to v

Air checking is vital to every podcaster, but the odds are you don't even know what it is. Simply stated, you sit down with your producer or other respected party and critically review a recent episode you've done. You cover the good, the bad and the ugly. It's best done in a non-judgmental, constructive manner. The goal is to improve your game, not to crush you. When I sit down with Valerie, we check my use of imagery, how am I using the word "you" to connect with the audience, am I using radio speak, which in today's world is a major no-no. How could I have better done that intro? Air checking plants those seeds in your mind. I never consciously implement Valerie's suggestions, however, they seem to grab hold unconsciously and blossom. Before I know it, my shows have transformed to another level and my analytics and downloads start going up. That's what Viral Podcasting is all about!

There's loads of equipment choices out there for every budget. You can start with a cheap $20 headset and move on from there. We use a Heil PR-40 Microphone, the gold standard of podcasting, a Mackie PRO-FX8 Mixer, a Behringer Gate/Compressor/Limiter and some other things to give the best possible sound. Quality equipment and sound editing practices go hand and hand with high production values. As Cliff Ravenscraft says, "High production values won't get people to listen to your podcast, but it will get them to come back again and again." But there are many choices available to you to produce a quality podcast. You can use a USB microphone, many of which have excellent sound. You have to do what's right for you and your budget. Don't overproduce your show. It will wind up sounding fake and unnatural. Do the minimal edits required, a little bit of compression, a small amount of tweaking and let it go. I know a number of people who cut out every breath and every verbal stumble. That's a big mistake. You're not

This seems so obvious I almost hesitated to bother with it, and yet there's so many people out there doing podcasts and being inauthentic. Like myself, many of you grew up in the 1970's with the crazy, zaney radio guy. You know the voice. It's as fake as a three dollar bill. There's just no room for it in our society today. And yet so many people try to emulate it and they succeed and thereby fail. Don't be something you're not and don't be somebody you aren't. Proudly admit your faults and your audience will bond with you. Of course keep it appropriate at all times and never admit to a felony, unless of course the statute of limitations has run. But you get the point.

Before you start podcasting you'll need to identify the people who you think will be listening to your podcast, your target audience. What is their sex, their income level, their geographic location, their marital status, employment status etc. Look at your Google Analytics, your podcast server analytics, as well any other information you can accumulate about your likely audience. Look at market surveys, there's plenty of them available to you on the internet at no cost. Never assume your audience composition, because invariably you will be incorrect and suprised. You can never do enough research to make these determinations. Once you've been running your show for a while, go back and reexamine your demographics and analytics and see if your audience is who you expected it to be. Are there more males than you thought? More elderly, less retirees. Perhaps you'll need to adjust your content accordingly. Never pander to your audience, but it's okay to cater to their wants and needs. Remember, there's often a fin

This could be the most important thing you do. Naming your podcast is perhaps the first major decision you will make once you decide to do a podcast. Too many would be podcasters put too little thought into this important task. A great name can propel your podcast into the stratosphere. A bad name could condemn it to obscurity. All too often podcasters choose mediocre names that do nothing to help them promote their brand and their podcast. You need to put a lot of time and thought before you name your podcast. Get feedback from friends and family. Search trademark and copyright databases to be certain that no one has used it before. Make sure that you're unique. Remember that consumer product companies and big pharma spend untold millions every year naming their products. And it pays huge dividends for them. Tide, Crest, Clorox, , Lipitor. The list goes on and on. So what's in a name? It could be your very success or failure.  

Welcome to Viral Podcasting. If you want to start a podcast or you're looking to bring your existing podcast to the next level, you've come to the right place. I suggest your purchase two books that I believe you will find extremely useful and perhaps indispensible to your podcasting career. First, my mentor, Valerie Geller's book Beyond Powerful Radio: A Communicator's Guide to the Internet Age?News, Talk, Information & Personality for Broadcasting, Podcasting, Internet, Radio and my book Viral Podcasting: A Proven Process to Earn a 6 Figure Income from Your Show. They will help you succeed and become an effective communicator and podcasting business person. I've been podcasting for nearly 6 years. During this time I've had 10's of millions of downloads. I've figured out the formula for audience success and monetary success. It's not easy, but if you're willing to do the work, you can do it too. It requires a committment of time, effort and love. There are many others out there far more successful than I