The 5 Essential Factors That Keep Listeners Engaged

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:13

Welcome to The Circle Sessions featuring The Circle Of Experts. The Circle Of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle270Media Podcast Consultants. Each week, one of The Circle Of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design, and the implementation of all these. I get asked this a lot. What are some essentials that make a good podcast? And As a podcaster, producer, and a podcast consultant, I I offer direction to help them be better creators. You know, over the past years working with my clients, this direction usually falls into 5 essentials that make a good podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:05

Those being, is it Your voice, is it entertaining? Is it informative? Is it edited? Is it good? Let's go with number 1 here. Is it Your voice, I emphasize and put it in air quotes. Only you are you. There's no other person with your life story. Views, Thoughts, experiences, you name it. Your listeners want to hear your voice. There are very few original ideas, But there's no shortage of original people. We're all unique.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:35

As podcast listeners, we discover new podcasts weekly because there's an interesting topic or a big name guest. But the thing that'll keep us listening to every episode is the host. Sometimes it's their charm, sense of humor, or charisma, but it doesn't have to be Your voice, your it is important, and your listeners want to hear it. Is it entertaining, your podcast? Is it entertaining? One of the goals of a podcaster is to have people listen to the podcast. Why else would you've created it? To keep people from unfollowing, Unsubscribing, 15 seconds skipping, or just plain ignoring, or worse yet, deleting your show. You have to figure out an entertaining way to share your content. I'm not talking about comedy though. One great example is to have a recurring segment.

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:22

This creates something to look forward to so listeners keep coming back To hear new episodes, entertaining doesn't necessarily mean comedy or corny. Is it informative? Why is someone listening to your podcast? You should be asking that of yourself with every episode. Now informative doesn't mean a deep dive into a topic or an overlooked fact unless that's what you do. Informing your audience is an opportunity to provide an moment to the listener. Your goal is to create episode after episode that the listener wants to share. Not every episode is going to be that. But when your goal is for that to happen, you'll win more times than not. Are you adding to their day, or are you just making some noise? Is it edited? Now when people think about editing podcasts, they tend to be on either side of the spectrum.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:13

To some, editing means NPR style podcasts. To others, editing means taking out a few umms and uhs, adding some music at the start and the end of the episode. In reality, editing lives somewhere in between. Here's a fresh way of looking at editing. Don't think of editing as something that happens after creation. Editing is part of the creation of your episodes. Editing is as important as writing, as important as researching your interviewee, and in reality, Just as important as any other production aspect of your process, however your show works, remember to edit. Is it good? You don't always have to create something for the largest possible audience.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:53

That's the beauty of podcasting. It's one of the joys that you can find your audience no matter how broad or small. But is your podcast one that you would follow or Or subscribe to if you didn't make it. Do you like it? Make the best possible podcast you can in all areas From concept to production, audio quality to a consistent release frequency, good content, good audio quality, and staying true to your audience. But bottom line, enjoy your podcast, and your listeners will as well. You know, podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint. Be patient, take action, and apply yourself. Let's talk about what podcasting can do for your business in the next 12 months.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:35

Whether it's B2C or B2B, we can create a content marketing strategy that will work for you. Connect with me if you'd like to talk more about this. My calendar is available at Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants' business website at www.circle270media.com.