Everywhere you look online these days, somebody somewhere is advertising their podcast. When it comes to researching why you should start one for yourself, whether it’s personal or professional reasons.
There are plenty of options out there and suggestions as to why you should do it. The biggest reason is because of the ease of being able to mix in marketing benefits with personal ones. Would you be interested in directing your audience to your services if you’re doing a professional podcast? Do you have enough to say for a personal podcast?
A podcast gives you authority and an opinion online, but everything you broadcast out there will be out there for good. Ensuring that you are equipped with a broadcast audio monitor and the right microphones – even the right podcasting space – are all vital and should form part of your decision making process. What is the intent behind the podcast? Let’s take a look at all of the reasons you should start one, both personal and professional.
- You are passionate about a particular topic. The best reason for anybody, anywhere, to start a podcast, whether it’s for a business reason or for a personal reason, it’s because you have something to say and you are passionate about that something. Podcasting gives you a platform to speak about something that you are enjoying, because you can talk freely and you can engage with your audience on a personal level. Not only is this podcast going to be an effective way to teach your audience about what you know, it’s also a space where you can share your understanding. It hits differently compared to a blog because people aren’t having to digest massive pieces of content, they are listening to words and digesting your inflection and tone of voice. When you become passionate about something, it’s easy to talk for hours about it, so that means you have plenty of content to go on your podcast.
- It’s an easy way to create new content. This is especially important if you’re podcasting for a business service. If your business is in marketing or search engine optimization, you might find that podcasting is actually one of the easiest ways to get your message out there. Marketing changes regularly, which is why everybody in the marketing industry has to stay up to date on the latest and greatest trends. Video content, for example, is a huge media format for some and it works very well, but for others it just isn’t.podcasting would therefore be the best alternative. Not only do you maintain that personal connection to your audience because they can hear the sound of your voice and appreciate what you are saying, but it makes people feel like you are speaking directly to them, quite literally.
- You can create long form content that isn’t boring. As we said earlier, blogging is losing its popularity compared to podcasting because people don’t want to sit and read swathes and pages of content. But podcasting gives you the opportunity to do that long form content that you so need without having people having to sit down to read a 14 minute article but they do have the time to listen.
- You build yourself a personal brand with the help of podcasting in the digital age that we are living in right now, you can create a strong personal brand that gives you more opportunities in the future than you’ve ever had. Whether this comes through sponsors or job offers or anything else, podcasting is going to get you out there and allow you to build a personal brand that shows you off as who you are, not just what you sell. Your online presence can really define a lot about you, and your commitment to a podcast can give you a space to highlight your dedication and skills.
- It could become a second income for you. Did you know that podcasting could provide you with an additional revenue stream that you may not have had before? Additional income is usually associated with the business, but even if you’re not using your podcast for business purposes, you can still create an income stream where you are paid for your opinion. Who doesn’t want to be paid for their opinion? Of course, podcasting is not easy to monetize without a good commitment and that means you need to make sure that your podcast is visible to others, which may mean incorporating other forms of branding, such as social media.
- Podcasting gives you a chance to really work on your skills. If you’ve never been a part of content creation before, you might find that starting your own podcast can make a big difference. It can be difficult to begin with because planning and script reading, editing and recording requires a lot of skills to create something that comes off as high quality. Of course, there’s every chance you’ve used these skills in other areas of work before, but podcasting allows you to develop them. Most podcasters start their podcasts on their own, but as you build a following and as time goes on, you’ll be able to bring guests onto your podcast to either debate with you or to discuss with you, or to really just go on a big vent about things in the industry that are bothering you.
- It doesn’t cost much to get started. A good reason to start a podcast over other forms of content is that it doesn’t really cost much money to start up the podcast. Of course, hobby enthusiasts who love to be on the other end of a podcast will know that as podcasting is a hobby that requires barely any money to get going with, they can build something and then start making things more professional and become somebody who podcasts in a studio as time goes on.
- Podcasting could be more fulfilling to you than being on video. So you might not be of the generation that runs videos on all social media platforms, but you might like the idea of sitting behind a microphone and becoming the audio podcast in somebody’s ears. People tend to listen to their podcasts when they are busy doing other things, and it could really help you to get your name out there as somebody who’s authoritative in a specific sector. If you know that, you don’t have to sit and perform one video, you can just speak your mind and other people can tune in to listen. When you were creating channels in the past you might have found that YouTube takes up a lot of your time, but podcasting is something that you can do when you have a few minutes to spare.
- It’s a productive way to use your free time. If you are struggling to find productive ways to spend your time, then podcasting could be the answer for you. Of course, it’s not for everyone, but because of the attraction of the low startup cost and the lower equipment requirements, it means that anyone can give it a try and see if it’s something they enjoy. You could also include some family members and friends as time goes on, because there’s no requirement for anyone to be on video, so due to hosting conversations remotely and recording them, you’ll be able to edit and upload to your podcast as you decide to.
- you have a chance to repurpose old content. The content that you may have filmed on a YouTube video a few years ago may still be relevant today because trends happen in cycles. Marketing can take a whopping sum from your annual budget if you are podcasting for a business. So you might find that if you need different people to create different forms of content, that podcasting is a great option repurposing older ones. Content that you’ve written down into a podcast is actually a great way to still show people you know what you’re talking about, but update it depending on the trends happening right now.
- It gives you a way to target your audience directly. When you podcast, you are talking to people.It feels like you’re talking to them one-on-one, especially when they are tuning in to listen to you every week. If you are releasing a weekly podcast and you are targeting 300 people, but you’re only getting the interest of two people, then your efforts will feel like they’ve been wasted. But podcasts allow you to develop content and through the right SEO strategies, target the right audience who will want to consume it. So if you’re talking about business content, then you’re making sure that you target your audience in the business space. If your content is more of a girly chat situation, then you’ll be able to find your audience on TikTok.
Podcasting can be huge if you are willing to put the time into it.
