Have you wondered how to make a podcast to grow your personal brand? It’s easy, it’s powerful and learning how to make a podcast work for you is fun. And it grows your personal brand for years to come. Here’s my story.
The start of my journey
Ever since I wanted to learn how to make a podcast, I became obsessed with question-and-answer interviews. In those days, how to make a podcast was more like how to get into radio. Learning how to make a podcast is pretty simple. It’s really about storytelling and engaging podcast formats.
Basically, there’s an interview with a guest, and then they ask questions like “what motivates you?”, “what are your business interests?” or “what makes your soul sing?” If anything was like a broadcast job interview, this was it.
Later in life, I found myself listening to these types of podcasts while commuting to work. It was fascinating to see the evolution of these people’s lives through my daily commute. And I often thought what if I had something like that? What if I could talk about my life through the lens of a particular topic or experience? Better still, what if I could get others to talk to me about theirs?
So, I decided that day that it was time for me to start doing just that. And so, the Disciplinn Podcast was born. My goal with this podcast is not for you to listen and learn something new about me or anything like that (though there are some interesting things about me in there). Instead, it’s for you to hear me talk about whatever my interviewees’ journey has been thus far and then hear me share from my perspective the lessons learned along the way.
This is my first real effort at building a personal brand and it’s something that has always been important to me as an entrepreneur but never really paid off until now. Because in order for your brand to grow you have got to have products or services or experiences people want – things they need or want.
So this blog we’re going to focus on how we can build our personal brands through our podcasts (or how we can use them as tools for growing our businesses).
Why make a podcast to grow your brand?
So what does self-promotion and podcasting have in common? While doing both may seem like a foreign concept to you, there is actually some good reason why they are related. Podcasts are still largely dependent on word of mouth, but with a little bit of hard work and strategy, you can get your podcast and your name out there!
With a personal brand podcast, there is no expectation for people who follow you to actually buy anything from you. The only thing that matters is whether your content resonates with your listeners enough for them to want more than one listen. This tends not to happen unless you are starting with a fairly niche topic or very popular topics.
How to make a podcast blow up your brand!
You might have heard that a podcast is the best thing to do to start doing to build your personal brand. But what if you don’t want to? It could well be that you don’t want to be on the radio, or on television. And if you don’t want to do podcasts professionally, chances are it’s not going to be a great fit for you. Or maybe you just don’t like putting yourself “out there”.
But if you do, this is how can we grow our personal brand?
- build your audience;
- take advantage of social media;
- do something that works for your category.
While I think podcasting is a great option for building an audience, there are some other ways of taking advantage of social media such as webinars and video conferences that can be extremely beneficial for your personal brand. Research shows that people are more successful when they feel connected to whomever they share their ideas (what we call a “social network effect”). In doing so, they are galvanised into action by those around them — not just passively listening but actively participating in the discourse. And from my experience, this is one of the most effective ways to attract attention from friends and family who may not even know your name (but who care about what you are saying).
What to focus on?
When it comes to growing your own personal brand in your podcast, there are a few main things you need to do:
• Define your area of knowledge/expertise and use that as a basis for talking about yourself.
• Identify who your audience is and how they use your area of expertise and how your own experiences might make them more valuable, more influential, and more successful with you.
• Develop an email list. Networking is really tough unless you have an email list of people who want to be part of your network and want to hear from you (the same applies to social media). Build a list of people who engage with you through their social networks.
Just focus on what you need to do in order to grow into a better personal brand than others in the market have achieved already. Think of it as building a new micro-brand that will get bigger over time but which also helps build your personal brand/personal brand image so that people know who they can trust when they’re in touch with it.
This is a post about growing your personal brand through a podcast. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time, and it’s something that has been very helpful in growing my own personal networks, and opening doors for myself and my business. There is no silver bullet, but credibility builds credibility.
If you’re interested in more how to podcast tips – check out this article on using video podcasting!
