I recently attended Podcast Movement for the first time, which was in Philadelphia this year and it was AMAZING!
Podcast Movement is the biggest annual event for podcasters. And as a podcaster myself, and as someone who provides a service to fellow podcasters, I couldn’t resist!
I learnt a lot about podcasting and where the podcast industry is heading, caught up with old friends, made new friends, and I got to hang out with some of the real movers and shakers in the podcast industry.
Ignite Podcast Movement
I was lucky enough to be chosen to do a talk at an event called Ignite Podcast Movement. My talk, “How to Become Loved as a Podcaster (by Those who Hate Podcasts)" explored ways that podcasters can get people who NEVER listen to podcasts to discover them, consume their content, and (hopefully) fall in love with them! (and maybe…just maybe…start listening to their podcast).
Having never been to Podcast Movement before I wasn’t sure what to expect. Also, the talk was fairly unusual, it was in the style of PechaKucha – if you have never heard of that, neither had I! Basically, the speakers were given a fixed number of slides to use (in this case 20), and they changed every 15 seconds automatically. So, once I started talking, I had no control over when my slides moved onto the next – which made timing really important.
I’m lucky to have an AMAZING creative team here at Content 10x, and we worked together to develop really good slides.
Once I got up on stage and started talking about all the ways you can repurpose a podcast episode everything went really well…because let’s face it…once you get me talking about repurposing (my favourite subject) I never stop!! Here's the video recording of my talk...
After my talk, and throughout the rest of the event, a lot of people came up to me to let me know they liked it – which was lovely to hear.
Check out this mention I get on the awesome Podcast Websites blog!
In this podcast episode, I talk all about the event and I share the talk that I gave (but you’ll have to watch the video in this blog post to see it presented to slides). I also touch on the repurposing opportunities that come with live talks / presentations.
You can listen to the podcast below (hit play!):
Or, if you prefer, you can grab some popcorn and watch me talk to the slides below (highly recommended):
More Reach: More Impact
According to Podcast Insights only 44% of the US population (over 12) have listened to a podcast.
This is a statistic that really stuck in my head when developing my talk. This means that 66% of the population who don’t listen to podcasts, will be hard to reach for the podcasters who only create podcast content and don’t repurpose.
I asked the audience, which consisted mainly of podcasters, to think about why they have a podcast.
Is it to raise awareness of a particular subject?
To help people?
To grow their business through content marketing?
To make people laugh?
Whatever the reason, what’s likely very important for all podcasters is to reach as many of the right people as possible, and to have the biggest IMPACT as possible.
Whilst podcasting is the medium by which people have chosen to communicate and reach others, it’s having impact and influence that’s really most important.
The same goes for all content creators. Whilst it’s so important to focus on your core medium of communication – be it podcast, blog, video… - it’s always important to consider those who won’t be reached in that way and how you can reach them in alternative ways.
Introducing Barry the Brewer
In my talk, I introduced the room (and now the world!) to a fictional character we at Content 10x have created, called Barry.
Barry doesn’t listen to podcasts.
He’s one of the 66% of people that don’t listen to podcasts.
In my talk I asked the audience to imagine that they had a podcast about making beer. The podcast would be perfect for Barry…if only he knew it existed.
Furthermore, I shared a specific problem that Barry was having with brewing a batch of IPA. And, I shared that the audience’s beer making podcast had just put out an episode that would have solved ALL of Barry’s problems.
But, how will you reach Barry, and help him solve this problem, if he doesn’t know you exist?
Let’s find out…
Reaching an Instagram Audience
We know that Barry doesn’t listen to podcasts. But, what does he do instead?
One of the first things Barry does in the morning (before he even rolls out of bed!) is check his Instagram account. Okay...don't get judgey...I do this too!
How could you reach Barry on Instagram?
There are plenty of ways to do this, from quote visuals, audiograms, or why not release a short video on brand new IGTV to announce the news that your podcast is live and what it’s about?
Barry might stumble across your video, click on the link to your podcast and find the solution to his problem.
Reach your Ideal Audience on Google
Hands up if you go to Google to search for answers to your problems?
That’s what everyone does, right? If not Google, then the search engine of your choice.
Barry is no exception here.
When Barry is carrying out a text-based search on Google. Again, it’s safe to assume he doesn’t find you because he has no idea your content exists if you only have a podcast and you don’t repurpose.
So, how can he find you on Google?
Show notes help of course. But I also recommend writing a long-form blog post each time you release a new podcast (or video etc) – sharing the key points of your podcast episode.
Do some keyword research and optimize your blog post to help improve your SEO. Think about what someone might type into Google’s search bar that would help them find your content and then focus on those keywords when writing your article.
What happens next?
Barry finds your content. You help solve his problem. And he falls in love with you – awesome!
Reaching a YouTube Audience
Let’s assume that Barry didn’t find you on Instagram or Google because you didn’t repurpose your content on those platforms (big mistake!).
Where do you think he will search next?
He’s already looked for a solution to his home brewing problem with an image and text-based search…so you can bet he’s already on YouTube looking for a great video to come to his aid!
If you’re a podcaster, consider video recording your episode and using the footage to create a highlight video that you can post on YouTube. You could even post the full episode on YouTube and start a brand-new video series.
Or, if you don’t video record your podcast episode, you can still create a video by pairing the audio with images. You could create a video-trailer – just like this…
Reaching a Twitter Audience
Maybe these people who do not listen to podcasts spend a lot of time on Twitter instead.
Any maybe, just maybe, if you spent some time repurposing your content onto Twitter you could reach them.
Creating a whole host of Tweets based on your podcast episode is one thing that you should do.
But there are other things that you could do too. For example, run a Twitter Chat when your podcast goes live. This is a great way to reach people searching for solutions on the platform, engage with them live, and build a community.
Claim a hashtag for your weekly discussion and get things going by asking your audience some questions. I talk more about Twitter Chats in this blog post.
What happens next?
You guessed it!
Barry is on Twitter (frantically searching for a miracle at this point), comes across your Twitter Chat and gets in touch with you. Now you have the opportunity to direct him to your podcast or video, and he falls in love with your content – success!
In Conclusion
The key point of my talk at Podcast Movement was that if you don’t develop a content repurposing strategy, you risk never reaching a big proportion of your potential audience.
In the case of podcasters, if they don’t repurpose their content, 2/3 of their potential audience will never hear their voice.
So, I challenge you to think about how you can repurpose your content into different formats to reach new and different audiences.
Whenever you put lots of time and effort into creating any form of content, you owe it to your content, yourself and your audience to repurpose it in order to impact as many people as possible
For example, I’m excited to start repurposing the talk that I did at Podcast Movement. Me and the team at Content 10x have got tons of repurposing ideas lined up from videos to SlideShare and much more (including of course this blog post and podcast episode!).
We’ve also got a secret repurposing project coming up soon that I’m really excited about, so stay tuned for that!
This is just the beginning of our repurposing journey for this live event, and we’re going to continue to repurpose it to expand our reach and grow our audience across multiple formats and platforms. Make sure that you do the same with your content!
For more interesting statistics and facts about the podcasting world, check out this awesome infographic created by Music Oomph. It includes fresh data from multiple 2018 surveys from Nielsen, Edison Research, PwC and others.
Our statistic, in the tale of Barry, was taken from the fact that 44% of the US population have listened to a podcast (so 66% haven't!). But there are so many more interesting stats and facts in this infographic!
