Midroll: This is traditionally where you insert a commercial from a sponsor. But you don’t have to. You could exclude a midroll, or you could promote something of your own in this position. The midroll is similar to the sub-intro—a place to put a semi-temporary CTA and then replace it with another prerecorded audio when you want to change up your offer.
Second half of show: This is just like the first half except when you end the second half, you will need to pause to give some dead air space so the pre-outro and/or the outro can be added. Then you can start chatting with your guest again with no issues or just end the call. You decide what you think provides your listeners with the right experience.
Pre-Outro: The pre-outro is essentially the same as the sub-intro or the midroll. It is a third spot to be able to place a CTA. You can think about a CTA that is not going to always be in place and put it here. This could be a monthly offering, a class that is starting, or perhaps a webinar you will be launching.
Solocast: As I mentioned earlier, a solocast is simply an episode you record without a guest. You can record on your own schedule, and the show can be about a topic of your choice. This is a chance for you to shine and share your thought leadership. Simply pick a topic you want to cover and go for it. Keep in mind: A solocast doesn’t need to be just you. If you have a business partner and you want to record things together like Car Talk’s Click and Clack, then go for it.
Example #1: Solocast Flow
Podcaster talks, does own intro, no music
Insert sound effect
Intro (prerecorded and edited)
The whole podcast
Podcaster talks, does own outro, CTA, no music
Outro (prerecorded and edited)
Example #2: Guest Interview Flow
Podcaster announces episode number (optional)
Intro (prerecorded and edited)
Sub-intro (introduce guest; recorded by podcaster) (CTA prerecorded) (optional)
First half of show
Midroll (CTA recorded by podcaster; recommended to treat a product or your company as a sponsor) (optional) (prerecorded)
Second half of show
Pre-outro (CTA recorded by podcaster) (prerecorded) (optional)
Outro (prerecorded and edited)
CTA examples: subscribe, email me, call me, download X, rate and review, purchase product, or purchase book.
This is how example #2 would work:
Episode number . . . pause.
Guest introduction . . . pause.
Then start in with episode. Do first half.
Pause and introduce midroll.
Pause and continue interview.
End the interview with some dead air so the pre-outro and outro can be added later.
Then continue chatting with your guest about anything that will not be part of the episode anymore.
How to Prepare for an Interview
Below are some brief recommendations for how to prepare for and conduct a professional interview with your guests. This should be modified based on the episode flow you select from the recipes in the preceding section.
1.Write down or print out a small script to use for introducing your guest.
2.Make sure you and the guest have added each other as Skype contacts.
3.Break down the guest’s name phonetically and spell it out in your script in a way you can easily pronounce so you don’t make a mistake during your introduction. Here’s a tip: Go to YouTube to hear someone else introduce your guest! For instance: “Stephen Woessner” is pronounced “Stee-ven Wess-ner.” Otherwise, you might accidentally say “Steff-en Whoaz-ner.”
4.Prepare your show script/interview questions/interview flow, that is, the guide you will use to walk your way through the interview. I recommend storing this in Google Drive or some other location where you can easily access the file.
5.Customize the Show Notes for the guest you will be interviewing with the following:
Your introduction for your guests. This should be the bio they provided while booking the interview. Also add in any products or services they want pitched, which, again, they will have provided when they registered.
The date the episode will be airing. Everyone wants to know. This should be in your Airing Schedule document. You don’t need to have this in your recording, but your guests will likely ask at the beginning of the interview.
The episode number. Here is a chance to make guests feel special as new guests (or impressed by your experience, depending on how many episodes you have produced).
A request to promote the podcast. Let your guests know you would be grateful if they shared the episode when it airs. Most are delighted to promote their episode as a great way to share their wisdom with their nations of fans, who then become your concentric circles of lesser fans. Awesome, right?
6.Use this as an opportunity to talk to your guest about business! Remember, these are your Dream 50 prospects. The interview is your “all access pass,” so make the most of it!
7.Open your Airing Schedule and keep it open throughout the interview. As you conduct the interview, you can then say things like: “Oh! That is so insightful! That reminds me of some advice [name of past guest] gave back in Episode [number of episode]! So when have you used this method in a powerful way?” You will sound like you have all the information of all your guests memorized. You, too, can sound like an information wizard with that simple trick. Bam!
8.Split your screen so your browser (housing your script and Airing Schedule documents in different tabs) is on one side of your computer screen and the Skype box on the other side of the screen. Keep your Skype window open enough to see your guest’s first name. I know this may seem odd, but there will be times when you will have a brain freeze and cannot remember the name of the guest you are speaking with. So have it in your show script and in the Skype window. That way you never end up like the rock singer who says: “Hey, Detroit! So happy to be here!” when the band’s actually playing a gig in St. Louis. Ouch!
9.Have your recording software toolbar visible between the two applications so you can easily start the recording when you need to.
10.Do a test call! Skype lets you check that your mic and headset are working properly during a test call. Do this before every interview! If you notice a problem, go to Skype’s settings, then to audio & video, and change the input and output for your audio to your headset or appropriate devices.
11.Dial up your guest on Skype.
12.Click the “record” button as soon as your guest answers. This prevents you from having an engaging pre-interview chat and then rolling into the actual interview, and forgetting to turn on the recorder. Not awesome.
13.When the interview is finished, be sure to leave some dead air for a few seconds before you begin your post-interview chat. The dead space is an edit point for your team.
14.Continue the conversation. Thank your guest for investing the time. This is an opportunity to build rapport and potentially open business conversations.
15.Fill out your Airing Schedule with the name of the guest, mark that the interview is completed, and let your team know where to find the audio file so they can edit it. Also, if you have a preference for the episode airing date or episode number, put it in the correct row on the document so your team remains informed.
iTunes Categories and Subcategories
iTunes represents approximately 60 percent of all podcast downloads. In a later chapter we will cover the process for getting your podcast into iTunes. But for now, I simply want you to review the titles of the sixteen main categories and their subcategories so you can decide where your podcast best fits. Libsyn permits you to select up to three iTunes categories for your show. The categories could be a main category like “Business”—or—a subcategory like “Careers.” The subcategories tend to be a bit less competitive if part of your strategy happens to be scoring a high ranking as quickly as possible in your eight weeks of New and Noteworthy inclusion. I will cover launch st
rategy in detail in Chapter 14.
Arts
1.Design
2.Fashion & Beauty
3.Food
4.Literature
5.Performing Arts
6.Visual Arts
Business
1.Business News
2.Careers
3.Investing
4.Management & Marketing
5.Shopping
Comedy
Education
1.Educational Technology
2.Higher Education
3.K–12
4.Language Courses
5.Training
Games & Hobbies
1.Automotive
2.Aviation
3.Hobbies
4.Other Games
5.Video Games
Government & Organizations
1.Local
2.National
3.Nonprofit
4.Regional
Health
1.Alternative Health
2.Fitness & Nutrition
3.Self-Help
4.Sexuality
Kids & Family
Music
News & Politics
Religion & Spirituality
1.Buddhism
2.Christianity
3.Hinduism
4.Islam
5.Judaism
6.Other
7.Spirituality
Science & Medicine
1.Medicine
2.Natural Sciences
3.Social Sciences
Society & Culture
1.History
2.Personal Journals
3.Philosophy
4.Places & Travel
Sports & Recreation
1.Amateur
2.College & High School
3.Outdoor
4.Professional
5.TV & Film
Technology
1.Gadgets
2.Podcasting
3.Software How-To
4.Tech News
Look at you—zooming through the process!
Rock-solid awesome. Onward to Stage 4!
CHAPTER 11
STAGE 4:
SOCIAL MEDIA, RECORDING SOFTWARE, AND FIRST ROUND OF GUEST INTERVIEWS
This chapter covers the remaining system work you should complete before you schedule interviews with your first round of guests. For example, this is the ideal time to complete the remaining aspects of your social media strategy so you can make any necessary adjustments regarding the content you need to collect from guests to promote their episodes. Working through the process now will help you avoid having to go back to your guests and make a request—after you have already recorded the interview.
This chapter also covers the installation and setup of your recording software. It’s a simple and efficient process, so you will be ready to begin recording your interviews in no time at all.
The largest chunk of this chapter is dedicated to the invitations you send to your guests. Your invitation is critical and must accomplish four important objectives:
1.Introduce the show and pique their interest in being a part of it.
2.Explain in detail how you will promote their episodes so they get some exposure—instead of the guests having to do all of the hard work.
3.Provide social proof either through links, videos, or a list of other guests you have interviewed.
4.Include a link to the podcast’s online scheduling calendar so guests can book their interviews as effortlessly as possible.
We have provided an invitation template and examples so you can modify the content to fit your own style. You’ll then have a top-notch invitation at the ready that will likely result in an 80 percent acceptance rate by your prospective guests.
Figure 11-1 illustrates the highlights of the production process in Stage 4.
The Stage 4 Project Sheet template (Figure 11-2) is available for your free download at PredictiveROI.com/resources/Stage-4. As with the earlier Project Sheets, it’s a Google Sheet template so you can copy it into your Google Docs account and share it with all of the members of your team.
Recipe #1: Social Media Setup
I would like to start off by setting some expectations regarding your social media activity as it relates to your podcast. The recipe covered in this chapter is intended to augment your current social media strategy. This chapter is not intended to replace what you are currently doing on social media. Recipe #1 is specifically focused on sharing your guests’ wisdom and encouraging your guests to share the content with their social media communities, all of which will expand your concentric circles of lesser fans.
You and your team will likely need one to two days to complete Stage 4.
FIGURE 11-1
FIGURE 11-2
SOCIAL MEDIA PROTOCOLS
This is the process we use for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
We recommend connecting your social media profiles to a Hootsuite account to simplify the work and save time.
Twitter
We use Twitter in three ways:
We post through Hootsuite on the day an episode airs. We recommend adding an image to each of these posts to help them stand out in your followers’ feeds. Figure 11-3 is an example of an Air Day tweet.
FIGURE 11-3
We listen to the audio and create one tweet that highlights the wisdom a guest shared while answering each question during the interview. These tweets (which we then add to our Twitter library sheet) contain:
Content about the episode
The guest’s Twitter handle
A link to the episode (shortened using “bit.ly”)
We compile the Air Day tweet, along with the nine other tweets written to support the episode, and load them into SocialOomph as a .txt file to reuse and recycle as part of our ongoing content-marketing library. We send one randomized tweet from our library every forty-two minutes. This strategy has helped us organically attract and engage with thousands of new followers. As Figure 11-3 shows, we include the Twitter handle of our guest, which encourages the like, reply, and re-tweet as in Figure 11-4.
FIGURE 11-4
Facebook Posts
We take the content from the show title field in the Airing Schedule. Then we match it to the Tweet that best represents that title. If none match, we create some new content. We remove the Twitter handle. We massage that content to be clear and interesting (see Figure 11-5).
FIGURE 11-5
We take the image of the guest from ScheduleOnce and create the FB post image.
We insert the copy and then the image into Hootsuite.
We change the title of the post to match what is in the Airing Schedule.
We schedule the posts on Hootsuite.
LinkedIn Posts
We reuse the content from the Facebook posts.
We post to LinkedIn, scheduling it for the same time as the FB posts.
DISTRIBUTION SCHEDULE
Podcast audio goes live at 4 A.M. CST on Libsyn.
New Episode Tweets will be posted between 8 and 9 A.M. in your time zone.
Tweets go out at least once in the morning and once in the evening. At Onward Nation, our Tweet library has grown to nearly 3,500 tweets so we can send a new tweet every forty-two minutes and not repeat a tweet for weeks.
FB posts go out between 8 and 9 A.M. CST.
LinkedIn posts go out between 8 and 9 A.M. CST.
Recipe #2: Set Up Recording Software
You are very close to being ready to invite your first round of guests to schedule interviews. Working through the setup of your Skype account and installation of your recording software is an efficient process. But please complete this step, test it, conduct a mock interview, and then invite your guests to schedule an interview. You don’t want to be installing software and testing Skype on the morning of your first interview.
My team and I created several brief tutorial videos that you can find at PredictiveROI.com/Stage-4 to help this recipe go as smoothly as possible.
This recipe is divided into three ingredients. Ingredient #1 covers what you will need to know about Skype as it relates to recording your interviews. You will connect with all of your guests via Skype to conduct the interviews.
Ingredient #2 is for you if you are using a Mac. Ingredient #3 is for you if you are using a PC. After Ingredient #1, and if you will be recording your interviews on a Mac, go to Ingredient #2. Or, go to Ingredient #3 if you will be recording your interviews on a PC.
INGREDIENT #1: SKYPE
You will need to install and learn how to use Skype regardless of whether you’re using a Mac or PC.
Installation is easy. Go to https://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ and be sure to select the version for either Mac or PC.
During installation, you will need to set up a profile if you do not already have one, or create a new one if you want your Skype account for your podcast to be different from your personal one.
Follow the instructions and keep an eye out for when it tries to make Bing your default browser (Skype is owned by Microsoft).
You can find more installation-specific directions from Skype here:
For PC: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA11098/how-do-i-download-and-install-skype-for-windows-desktop
For Mac: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12015/getting-started-with-skype-for-mac
INGREDIENT #2: MAC
If you plan to record your podcast on a Mac, you’ll be using a piece of software called Ecamm Call Recorder For Skype. This is a short section because the installation is efficient and the video tutorial we created for you in our Resources section visually demonstrates each of the steps if you would like an additional point of reference.
1.Go here: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder/.
2.Click the “buy” button.
Profitable Podcasting Page 10