Steps to Attract Fans and Foster Podcast Listener Loyalty

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:00

Welcome to The Circle sessions featuring the Circle of Experts. Each week, one of the Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. The circle of experts are Yasmine Robles and Izzy Dadosky from Rebel Marketing, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Yasmine and Izzy are here. They work alongside clients to design a website that's driven by strategy, looks amazing, and that you can use to grow your podcast, and then in turn, your business as well. Well, this is what our well, how many have we done these link LinkedIn lives? We've done

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:00:44

Fourth, wasn't it? Fourth? I thought four?

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:46

That's what I thought. I thought it was six. Oh, okay. It feels like It feels like together, guys. Exactly. It's it's the metric change. Yeah. Exactly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:54

Four equals six in metric. But that no. This has been good. We've been, getting together with a LinkedIn live to to to, number one, talk about podcasting growth. We touched upon this on the on, some previous LinkedIn lives, I'm sure, lightly, is that building a community around your listeners or, you know, trying to build a community with your listeners and and tying it into why a website is such a good place for that. And, Izzy, I'm gonna ask you first. So, if I've I'm looking at building a website, and I do want to have, like, a central home, a.com where I can talk to my people rather than it being on social media, which is fine, and we'll talk about maybe a social media group and such. But what are some options you could look at? Let's say, around a website that you wanna draw them to the website and have a community.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:01:53

Well, basically, all you would need is a landing page, and Yasmine can correct me on anything here. But, that's typically what you would need in the maybe a community tab, but the whole thing with it is it's just getting more SEO and keywords that if people are looking you up and you're like this influencer, you want your website to be the first thing that pops up, not like somebody else, like, maybe selling merch of you or something else like that. Like, you want your, page to show up first. So I think it's important to have one especially because then that kinda also, like, gives some, what's the word I'm looking for? Not validation, but less scammy. How about that?

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:37

Oh, okay. I'll I'll

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:02:38

go with that. Like, it's like that stamp a seal of approval. Like, oh, it's like their legit thing. So, that's what I would take out of it, though.

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:47

Yeah. Well, we you know, with podcasting, it's very difficult to, number one, get feedback from your listeners. We're just very passive listeners. That that sort of thing. And and and number two, when you start to build and number two is to build that community because we're passive listeners. So there needs to be some incentive, an easy way to get to a group, as well as some incentive to be a part of that group. And and and I think we, three, can probably come up with some ideas about, you know, those FOMOs. I guess you could say that, oh, this is why you wanna be a part of the community.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:20

I mean, Yasmin, have you seen out in the wild some, examples or maybe something's come to your mind about why you'd wanna be part of a a group that's based around a podcast or or a business or or around a podcast, that sort of thing?

Yasmine Robles [: 00:03:34

As the business owner creating the podcast or as a listener?

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:39

As the business owner, first of all, why you'd wanna create it and then that incentive of, okay. I wanna do this. I wanna have a community, but how do I bring them in?

Yasmine Robles [: 00:03:49

So I think it really depends on your goal for the community. So, for example, I listen to a lot of murder podcasts.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:56

Mhmm.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:03:56

Community there means that people might be trying to either solve whatever is going on together, commiserating on the latest episode

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:08

and the trials and tribulations

Yasmine Robles [: 00:04:08

of whatever crime was happening. So that's so if your goal is to create that kind of community, that's one thing. If you have a business, let's say you're a law firm with a podcast and you're trying to create a community, What is the value that they're going to get out of it? You don't wanna create a community where people just it's crickets. Right? It's there's nothing to talk about really. They listen to your podcast. They might support you, but there's there's nothing going on in the community. So What is the goal? Is it for you to continue to provide value? Is it that you're bringing in let's say you are that law firm for small business owners? Are you bringing in other experts? So are you bringing in us to talk about marketing for for your audience? Are you what exactly is the purpose? And I think asking yourself that before you start the community is the most important thing because that's going to dictate the kind of content that you provide, the tone of voice, how often you can provide content, even are you charging money for this community? So if you're charging $5 per month, fifty dollars per month, are they getting is that audience getting the ROI that they want?

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:21

To me, you're right. It add let's say that you're under a time time constraint for your normal podcast. You only want it to be twenty minutes. You know that's the opportune amount of time. Where you have a community, you're you could add bonus time, opportunity to do a q and a, that's within that that social community, bringing in guests. That could be a longer form that you know will not really be good as a podcast, but as a bonus to your listeners that you can go into the Discord or whatever medium you use, to to have that extra bonus content longer form, you can bring them there. And back to your murder, you know, podcast, I've I've think I've either you've mentioned this or I've heard it out in the wild that, during that podcast that they'll put in their evidence and their other research in a community for the community members to see where they just really can't put in the podcast or in the podcast notes. They bring in in the community, and then the community chats about the the the content and the evidence and the notes and the, you know, the 911 call or whatever the case might be that really couldn't have been in the podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:29

So you're right. It's that what what can't I deliver through that podcast, maybe, number one. And number two, what would my audience want bonus extra that I can't offer, but it's that building community around it. I I like that a lot. Yeah.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:06:44

Yeah. And that bonus content could look in could look like a variety of different ways. For example, Substack, you can follow people for free, and just listen to for I I do a lot of doom scrolling, but I've got Self stack has been has worked for me because I can now get follow a certain creator and get certain news from that creator but their Paid version of that if you become a subscriber you get for for one of them, you might get member only or subscriber only lives. They'll still give you the information, but you get it later on in the day instead of right when everybody else gets it. So it could still be where you're only gatekeeping the information For a bit of time or maybe it's those lives where you answer questions so if it is that law firm, maybe the lives are where you answer questions for your community but then the recording of the live gets disseminated afterwards. So think about, again, the purpose, your mission of your business. Is it where you're going to completely the entire community is locked down, or is it where you're going to continue giving free value, in hopes of turning those people into customers? It just things to think about.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:04

Alright. Well, and also be listening to your your listeners. They may be giving you that feedback that they want that type of content and and don't feel that you can't offer to them. This is an example. Now you brought up Substack. What are some other, platforms that can work well for this that you've seen?

Yasmine Robles [: 00:08:21

Oh, there's so many. And I think it it depends on your goals. So Substack is seems to be a pretty simple one from my point of view of the user. And then you have, like, a little forum area where people can post things, and you can set it I think the one that that I follow, he set it so that only paid people can start a new thread, but then I can still read throughout. Right? And, Subsec is one of them. Circle communities is another one that's a little bit more robust. I believe there's a higher there's no free option for it, but it's a pretty cool one if you want that forum feel. You can have sort of a course.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:09:02

It's not like an in-depth course, but you can have sort kind of a course on there. So that's a pretty good one. Not Klaviyo. There's Kajabi. Kajabi is another one that some clients use because it has a webs not my favorite, but it has a website version to it, but it can still have, like, That community feel and it just they all vary in price points. I mean literally your community could be facebook groups

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:29

It

Yasmine Robles [: 00:09:29

would be hard to get me to go on to facebook But if your people are there if that's where your audience is, that's one one place. I know the the kids these days are on Discord. Izzy can tell me if I'm wrong or not. Yeah?

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:09:45

Yeah. They're on Discord. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:47

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, can you implement and and, you know, again, we're drawing them to the.com. Mhmm. Your.com. Can you implement, like, a Substack or a Kajabi or a Discord into your website that all they'd have to do is go to your.com and then they see that live feed, like, through Twitch or something like that?

Yasmine Robles [: 00:10:06

You can. It depends. Again, it goes back to what your goals are. So if we're taking that law firm, that law firm has a podcast and they have, a website, I'm assuming. And then they want to attach this other community, we would have to talk about what platform of a website they have. So if it's WordPress, yes. We can bring in a couple of different plugins and and develop a few things where they can have it within their own site. If it is where let's say it's Squarespace, then, technically, Squarespace can have a course, but it's not like a forum.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:10:42

It's not where people can feel connected. So perhaps it's just a link to your circle community or to your substack that we strategically place in different locations on the website.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:54

Okay. Because you

Yasmine Robles [: 00:10:55

I don't know if you have anything to add. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:58

Yeah. Okay. I I I mean, I've I've noted that, and I know that some will put, you know, hey. We're live. Go to our website. Go to YouTube. We're live. That sort of thing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:05

But it's that you still have to be in the YouTube or the Substack to really engage anyway. So I didn't know if it might be worthwhile or at least that's the starting point, obviously. Go to your.com, and then the link is there to go live and, boom, it opens up that sort of thing. So at least at least you're getting that trail, and they're landing their page for a minute to get where they need to go. So yeah. Okay. No. Those are great.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:26

I I there was another one I can't think of. There another option. It's another community. It, I've been a part of and utilized, but I can't think of what it is, but it seems to work in the same fashion too. So Yeah. At your point, there are a lot of them.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:11:37

There are a lot of them. And I I just wanna stress that. Don't worry about the tech. If it is something where you have to start off simple, let's say it is Substack, it might not have all the bells and whistles you want. But the most important part of a community is people connecting. And so once you figure out that puzzle piece of getting people to be active in the community, you get into the cadence of providing that whatever value it is that you're providing in addition to your podcast, then you can switch to a different platform. I just don't want people to get overwhelmed on which platform is the best. It's really it's the hardest part is getting people to be active in a community.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:15

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well and and that goes back to the planning. Like you said, why do you wanna do it, and can you stay consistent with it? Because if once you commit create a community, you need to be about be a part of it. Whether you're telling them that, okay. We're live once a week to answer questions. Let's go back to your law firm, example that, okay.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:34

Mondays at noon, I am here. I am answering not advice, but it's a q and a session. At least you know at that point in time, that's when you're gonna reach me. That's it. Beyond that, I'm not here. Yeah. And just tell them. But but or or do you allow the going, okay.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:50

Yeah. I'm here occasionally. I mean, obviously, you probably can set up to get some notifications and such, but it's still you're there to make money, not necessarily to give free advice and answer questions. So, yeah. It's just part of building up that community.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:13:05

It depends on your community. I know, there's communities that I'm a part of that there's it's it's a yearly the yearly fee is, I would say, depending on your depending on what you think is expensive. It's, you know, it's with it's a it's a money. It's money, but it's because it's grown sufficiently. They offer workshops. They offer, they teach you a lot. They bring in speakers, and then they actually have people or ambassadors who will answer questions. So if I can't figure something out with code, I will put my all the information I can, and somebody with from their team will answer that question or help me out in some way.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:13:47

Sometimes they'll even hop on and and create create a video about why it is that one thing that I missed in the code, what that is breaking the site. Yeah. So it depends on again, it depends on the value that you're bringing to your folks. It could be a hundred and $50 per year. It could be, I don't know, dollars 2,000 per year. It just depends on that value.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:07

Right. Yeah. So, you you had mentioned too that you'd be hard pressed to bring you into a Facebook group. And that's gonna be a lot of people. You know? So what are the benefits, to if you have a really good Instagram following and they're interacting there, but you do want it to have more of a closed community feel to it? I mean, Izzy, how do you what what are some ideas to draw them from an Instagram community you know, your your followers into a community like this? Is is it more difficult than it's worth maybe, or is is that social media platform just to utilize it?

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:14:42

It depends on, like, what you're wanting to do it for. Like, I know we are a part of a bunch of different communities and organizations because they have that, like, either educational benefit where then it's like you have that community to talk to others trying to figure out the same things you are within your industry. Those are great for that. There are communities for, fans even. Like, I've like, fan pages will have their own communities, and it will be just on Discord and different things like that. And that's why we sometimes see now with, certain, like, top people and different things that they have these accounts called, like, Taylor Swift HQ or Olivia Rodrigo HQ because they have those communities within that one account. Yeah. And they will have the website and different things where they have options for people to talk.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:15:35

So it really I think overall, it's that somebody's getting something out of it and also that the people within the community are sharing interest about the same thing. So

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:46

Yeah. Yeah. I've I've known some podcasters that, you know, utilize the community for, obviously, the community aspect of it, but they are generating ideas for content as well too.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:15:58

Mhmm.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:58

That that, you know, whether it's a, you know, a just a bold session that they're just talking and or type whatever. They may not even be recording what they're doing, but they're these topics continue to come up. It's like, well, I need to address it in my podcast, which is another pull into, you know, that that continual little call to action within what what you're doing. And and that, you know, is a is a point too that we we tend to create content and forget to include calls to action, or we add too many two calls to action where we can't think of but one or two. Again, remember where your listener is and or viewer, potentially, you know, if you're on YouTube with what you're doing, but it's that they can only do one thing at a time. Just, you know, what what's the most important thing? Or do the best you can by lacing it within your content. So it's not just a, at the very end, listing five different social media destinations, and don't forget to do this, and don't forget our store. You know, that sort of thing is like, okay.

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:58

Then it turns into a a commercial, basically, when it comes down to it. Yeah. Very difficult. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I I think for what we just talked about is I think for me, I think a community is worth it. I guess I look at a community almost as a an extension of a a newsletter to a certain degree.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:18

You know, it's a you you you you're allowing that two way conversation, and maybe it builds on two or three people initially, but then they talk and they talk and you get to to build up. They're gonna invite people, whatever. But it's an extension of a newsletter. You get to talk about you get to brand yourself. You get to be more than who you are on your podcast. You can kinda let your hair down a little bit and and and still hold what you want true, but be, a little bit more, you can have laid back at that sort of thing, but still accomplish what you want to accomplish. And your listeners get to get a feel of who you are a little bit more. So if if market like and I you knew I was gonna go market like it's hot podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:59

So let let's let's let's, like, do a a real live experiment. So let's say you wanna create a community for market like it's hot. Where do you think you'd wanna go with this? What would you do? Let's say, yep. We we we do. It would be let's let's do that. Let's let's let's create a community where we'd be talking these folks once a week, just a q and a bowl session, that sort of thing. How would you start that? What what would be the process in your mind for market without putting, I know, putting you on your spot, but I am. But, like, where would you go? Because I could see you two doing a really fun community.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:29

You guys would have a blast. But it's also

Yasmine Robles [: 00:18:31

so many dad jokes.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:33

I know. Exactly. You know? And it may just be dad joke session. That's all it is. But, I mean, how would you start? How how would you do the research in regards to what platform would be the better, not the best, the better to have that, have your community again?

Yasmine Robles [: 00:18:48

I'll let Izzy answer first, and then I'll give my thoughts.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:18:52

Okay. Platform wise, I think I like Circle Okay. The best.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:00

Two Why why do you like so what what why do you like Circle the best? Is it just to use your user interface? You like how it works?

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:19:06

User interface, and then I also feel like everybody just knows immediately how to use it. Like, you don't even really need a description, and then you can also break up each conversation into, like, different, categories. So there would definitely be a dad jokes tab on there to get everybody's, like, day lifted. You know what I'm saying?

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:26

Sure.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:19:27

Guess the answer to Yasmin's joke today type thing. Yeah. And then we could give him a little fake certificate to post on LinkedIn, like, I guess Yasmin's dad joke today.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:37

There you go.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:19:38

Then we I feel like we cover a lot of things too. So it's like, we could go, like, the marketing route or we could go, like, helping out other like, we're involved in, like, and a bunch of other, like, women's organizations, always just make it a small business, like, women's thing, or we could just go full fledged marketing. Mhmm. But then if we're doing full fledged marketing, what marketing are we focusing on? Are we doing social media? Are we doing website design or SEO or analytics and all that stuff?

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:07

Yeah.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:20:08

Because you don't wanna overwhelm the community with too much information or else they might feel like they cannot talk in it. So Right. Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:15

Yeah. Yeah. And and and that's a good point of really dissecting what making it light, but that's that little extra that they it's worth the extra or it's worth the, half hour. Let's say it's a half hour session that is like, okay. I picked up a couple of things. That was really good. Now I I know I'm not alone in not understanding why I have to check you know, why Instagram I shouldn't post the same thing on Instagram and Facebook as an example. Even though I can do it on the dashboard, I really shouldn't.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:43

That kind of stuff. Yeah. That that makes sense. I yeah. Well, your thoughts, Yasmin.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:20:48

So I it depends on the budget. If we were on a tighter budget, I'm used to Slack. So that would be the only thing with that is that, you know, you can't I don't think you can post something like workshops or you know, in an easy way to be organized with it, but there are different channels. You can have a dad jokes channel and all that. I know we're part of an organization called Together Digital. They're on Slack, and it's a very active Slack channel. If we had the budget, Yeah. Circle would be one of them.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:21:19

But I think going back to how do we launch this thing and make it make it so that it's not this two people So it's not like Izzy, myself, and maybe like one other person in the group. We would have to figure out KPIs of how many people, for example, would need to be following us on LinkedIn or Instagram that are likely to sign up for it. How many of these people would we would we give them a free version of it or to just pick things up, or would we make them ambassadors? Would we give them a kickback if they invite more people? The communities that have been the most successful have been ones where there's a lot of value, whether it's just workshops, it's speakers coming in. There they answer a lot of questions that you might have. So, yeah, I can see where we could take that, whether the tabs could be something like social media, website. It could be marketing planning because I think a lot of business owners, the first question they say is how often do I have to post on social media, but it's really not about that. It's about the planning and the kpis that go behind the scenes. So I think I I'm kinda starting to like this, but I also tend to have shiny object syndrome.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:22:38

So

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:40

Izzy's probably going, why did you bring this up, Brett? My god. Now another thing I have have to do. Jeez. I'm sorry.

Izzy Dadosky [: 00:22:45

We could help you.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:46

But it it's intriguing it. Brett.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:22:49

Brett answers questions.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:50

But it but it is intriguing because even though we say podcasting is pretty much you could do whatever you want, but there is limitations to it. You have to be cognizant of the listener only probably only gonna give you twenty minutes of their time, maybe thirty. Depends on who the guest is or what you're talking about. That way, maybe an hour. I mean, depends on where it's going, of course. And you you you look at your analytics once it's done and you learn over time. So you really want that avenue going, where else can I talk to my people because I I it's so lonely out here? I'm not getting feedback. They're not emailing me.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:23

Can I come in to community that just gives me energy to keep podcasting? And they can give me feedback. I give them feedback, and and I and I can make a better, I can make better content for them because of this. So it is intriguing to be able to tell this is and and you may end him having really potentially more people in your community than you do listeners to your podcast, possibly. And that's okay. You you still win because you're you're having this conversation. Again, depending on your goals, are you trying to build business from it or, you know, referrals possibly from the community or something like that? Watching how much time you give to it and what you wanna do with it is important. But, no, I I'm right with you. I'm thinking that when you're just giving all these examples going, that can make a lot of sense.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:24:11

And I don't wanna you know, it depends on your business. So if you sell, what's one thing that you could be doing? I know, Brett, you work with a pet store. Right?

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:22

Mhmm. Yeah.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:24:23

Yeah. So maybe if they had a community, they could also sell, like, merch specific with funny sayings on their t shirts or something specific to their members.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:35

Available only through this, which is Yep. Very cool. Exclusive stuff. People love exclusive stuff. Yeah.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:24:40

Yeah. So you could I mean, it really it the sky's the limit. You could just depend. Patreon is a good one too if you wanted to use that, for a community. It just depends on what your goals are. For us, we're a marketing agency. Circle seems to fit because we would likely be doing things like workshops and downloadables and things like that. It might be where people just get together on Substack and you like, For me because I'm doing a lot of doom scrolling It's more like everybody's in the same boat and everybody's like sad and frustrated and we can all be sad and frustrated together There are other things on substack guys don't

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:17

was gonna say, it sounds like a sounds like a very sad place.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:25:21

There's other creators. But, you know, you it's it can be as simple as that. It's just people loving your content, and then they get together and love talking about whatever that topic is. Or it could be where you expand it out and sell merch and sell you know, give out workshops and things like that.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:39

Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. We got another one under our belt. This is good. This is good.

Yasmine Robles [: 00:25:44

Thank you, everybody.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:46

Yeah. Thank you.