From the Podcasting Strategy Simplified Archives: What's Next In the Evolution of Podcasting, Tech and AI with Anika Jackson

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Hey, this is Anika Jackson from Your Brand Amplified. I'm on a little hiatus, so please enjoy this episode of a podcast that I was on so that you can get to know me a little better and gives you another podcast to follow. Thanks again for listening to Your Brand Amplified, and I'll be back again soon.

What role will the evolution of technology continue to play in the podcasting space?

Let me take that a step further. What role will the evolution of technology continue to play in our world as a whole? We are living in a time when technology is growing and expanding and evolving at a rapid pace, and AI is becoming more and more an important part of our lives. Now, if you're on the side of resistance, if you're pushing back against AI, You need to stop doing that today because AI can help you if you use it responsibly.

And learning how to do this is gonna put you in a much better spot going forward.

Tonight on Let's Blow This Up Live, I was joined by my friend Anika Jackson, and we had a phenomenal conversation talking about some of the great things Anika is doing in the world of podcasting, how she's adopted AI into her practices, and how she's teaching others at the collegiate level and at the professional level to do so as well. As has become a little bit of a theme here on Let's Blow This Up Live, we've been doing a lot of talk about podcasting because more and more brands, entrepreneurs, and professionals are leaning into this medium and utilizing it to grow their business, to actively communicate with the people they're collaborating with, and to actively communicate with their audience. If you're resisting podcasting, you should probably stop doing that too.

But I'm going to assume you're not because you're listening to this show and you're about to learn a lot of great things from myself and Anika Jackson.

This is the replay of the Let's Blow This Up Live installment that took place on Wednesday, June 26th, 2024.

And I'm going to step aside so you can consume it from start to finish. This is Anika Jackson on Let's Blow This Up Live. Here we go.

Let's blow this up.

Look alive, bomb squad. We are back for another episode of Let's Blow This Up Live. I am your host, Jason Zerkone.

Is damn glad— I am damn glad to be back with you this evening. It is June 26th, 2024, and we have an an excellent guest joining us tonight. Anika is one of my longtime friends here in the podcast space. She's bringing a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge on the communication space, the AI space, and of course the podcasting space.

You might have noticed a little bit of a theme developing here.

It's because everybody's doing podcasting.

Why aren't you? So let's get into it. I am pleased to welcome to Let's Blow This Up Live, Anika Jackson. What's up, Anika?

Hey Jason, great to see you.

You too, pleasure to have you here on the show.

Great to reconnect with you, catching you at home, which is, I'm learning, very hard to do.

Much like Simona Costantini, who joined me last week, hopping the world.

It's a thing. I wanted to travel more this year and, uh, now I'm like, wait, be careful what you wish for because I'm traveling apparently.

For me, I, I don't get to do all these great huge trips that you ladies are doing, but tomorrow I leave for Charlotte for the Empowered Podcasting Conference, and I'm pumped. I haven't really gone to a podcasting conference in a couple years. I haven't really done a ton of traveling either, so I'm looking forward to getting on the road. And I don't know, audiobooks or podcasts will be consumed in the car, a little mobile university, but it's going to be fun.

Where has your travel been taking you lately?

Ooh, let's see. I have been— Yeah, we only have an hour here, so, um, well, in the past few months I did a little trip down the West Coast, starting in Seattle, Oregon, and then Northern California. I have been to DC to talk to Congress on behalf of small businesses with Intuit and the needs of small businesses for AI tools and infrastructure. Uh, then I was in Philly working on my MBA, which also has a specialty in AI. You'll Season themes here too. Uh, and then I just took my daughter to Vancouver to check out a university and see some family on the island. Next I'll be in Athens, uh, and then London, then Vegas for an AI conference, and then Podcast Movement in August. So really excited about that. I wish I were gonna see you this weekend. That conference looks amazing.

Yeah, like I said, if you—

with all this travel you're doing, if you wanted to get crazy and tack on one last minute trip, this would be the one to do.

I'm gonna enjoy being at home for a minute.

I think, yeah, that might be better considering you've covered all corners of the globe over the past few months. So, well, it's great to have you here tonight because I know you bring a tremendous perspective to the show. And as we were talking about off the mic before we went live, I was saying how this podcast really isn't built— or livestream/podcast isn't really for podcasting per se.

It just happens to be that everybody that I've been connecting with that wants to join me live is into podcasting. Well, I think that too. Well, and that tells the story of where this is headed.

My conversation with Simona last week, I made that prediction that we are headed in a place where websites weren't a thing, and then they were, and then social media came along, and the resistors kept away from that as long as they could.

Until they couldn't. I feel podcasting is the next big thing in that whole revolution.

So as we talk about the value of this platform, I'm glad that everybody I'm bringing on the show feels the same as me and is able to utilize this platform much like I have.

Well, that's one of the things I love about you and our friendship is that since we met doing each other's podcasts way back a couple years, 2, 3 years ago. So not really that, you know, but in the podcast world, it feels like a long time ago. We've both been through different growth stages, iterations of what we're presenting, and had those pivots that you find when you're an entrepreneur and in the business world and you see what's coming next that we need to be on top of.

Absolutely.

And we're really where I see podcasts going, especially for businesses.

You know, this is actually the panel that I'm going to be leading when we're in Charlotte this weekend is this social media that we're living in, the social media world that we live in today, it's changed so much and it's become so algorithm-driven and it's become so ad-driven that we can still utilize it to build relationships for communication, but we're still going to be looking for better ways to make those connections, not just with our audience but with the people we're collaborating with. And that's where I feel podcasting stands out because we're a prime example of that. We met because of podcasting. We, we did guest swaps. We collaborated on each other's shows in the past. Here we are doing that again. And this is the beauty of our industry is that we always get to make those connections and build on the relationship, but at the same time create great content for everybody that's tuning in.

100%. I learned something. I get inspired every time I have a guest on one of my shows. And it really is the way of the world, 'cause some of the things, not to get like off track and go into the world of digital ads, but I do teach digital media at USC. So, you know, on one hand we have Facebook is really trying to lean into getting younger audience members back. So the tactics that they're taking with, they're promoting reels, they're promoting different kinds of content that they hope will get some of the younger audience back from other platforms.

Yeah.

I hear from some of my students, Instagram is paying, like giving companies big rebates to do reels for their ads because they're again trying to go more into the video content. So we see this landscape consistent, constantly changing. Nobody can stay on top of it. You know, they're trying to get new audiences, but they're just taking from audiences they used to have and taking from other platforms that they have. And podcasting is kind of an equalizer, and you can see like little mini snippets on social, but you can watch full episodes if you feel like watching something, or you can listen to it like we were talking about when you're driving to that conference. Yeah, you can listen to all your favorite podcasts. And I— this is the new networking. This is like the best networking I've had. I get to amazing experts I never would have had access to. I get to learn from them, and then I get to share that with my students. And I get to, you know, think about like, okay, what do I want to do next? How do I want to engage in this industry? That's powerful.

It really is.

And the whole networking aspect of this, clearly we're back into real-world scenarios, real-life scenarios where we can get together with people and the government's not mad at us for doing so. But this whole world of digital networking and digital connection became so normalized because of COVID And I always try to find the silver lining in everything. I feel that was the biggest silver lining, at least in our space, was the fact that this became so normal. It became such a thing to do that, you know, for me personally, this is the only form of digital network that networking that I like to do. When I try to go to those big Zoom meetings where there's like 50 people on and then they try to do little breakout rooms, holy shit, is that a mess. I'm sorry, I just can't do that. I tried it once and I said, this is not for me. I prefer to be in person with those kinds of groups because that's always where the magic was for me before COVID I loved going out to networking events, meeting new people, sharing what I do, sharing my passions, hearing what ticks or makes everybody else tick, finding if there's any synergy there.

I feel you can get more from that in that real-world in-person environment.

But with podcasting, because it's built around engaging conversation, telling good stories, it really comes out in this environment and allows us to build on relationships that are either, you know, maybe just slightly developed before, but now it could be embellished to the biggest degree. And it's so hard to not take advantage of that in our world today.

It's the only— and I always preach this, I'm a big believer in integrated marketing strategies. And, you know, if podcasting is the only format that gives you everything. So you get the video, you get the audio, you can create snippets for social media, you have blog posts, transcripts, you have newsletter content. Somebody else is sharing it. So you're— they're creating backlinks to your podcast from their website and their social media platforms. You are being seen as a thought leader. You're showing your guests as a thought leader, and you're just engaging in so many different things that we all think about, all these buzzwords. That people talk about with, you know, oh, we all have to be thought leaders. We all need to show up this way and that way. And podcasting is the only way to do that and get content that goes across the whole integrated marketing strategy and system.

You're a woman after my own heart, Anika Jackson. That's a big part of the business model of Bombtrack Media. It's digging into this content and maximizing it as much as you possibly can, because more than likely you're trying to create a presence on multiple channels. And if you have to constantly put yourself in creation mode to where today I'm doing a podcast, tomorrow I'm writing my emails, next day I'm writing blogs— why not simplify the process? Start with podcasting as the base, but then repurpose all that content and then check off all the other boxes that you have, because that is going to help you work smarter, not harder. At the end of the day, you're going to give yourself time and reduce stress. That's pretty big in our world these days.

And I want to flag, yes, Jay, 100%, in person is always a great way to network. But I also would not have met 99% of the people I've met through podcasting if it weren't for this format, because we don't live in the same places. We don't sometimes don't even live in the same parts of the world. I wouldn't be able to bring on experts who invented, you know, the personal virtual assistant that Siri and Alexa are based on. Like, I wouldn't have access to those type of people. Um, but I will say that tie-in with AI is huge because it also helps simplify the way that we market and streamline our processes for podcasting. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have tools that helped me create reels. You know, you still need to have the human editing, make sure that they actually like make sense and look good, But it's so fantastic to be able to take some, take content that we created and then use a tool. Okay. Create this, create that. I'm going to do a little bit of zhuzhing with it. And then now I have all of this stuff and take up so much less time. We both, we talked about how we both have virtual teams in the Philippines, which I love. And, you know, we also have team members here, but it's really great because it just shows that we truly are a global economy. And there's, there's so many people with talent out there that we can now work with because of this format.

Yeah, no, you couldn't be more dead on with that.

So I want to say, Jay, welcome to the show.

Glad you're here, my friend.

To everyone else in the Bomb Squad watching Anika and I tonight live, please drop some comments, drop a hello. Would love to feature any questions that you might have for Anika and myself to answer.

And as we continue down this path with everything you've been doing, Anika, obviously, like you said, the AI is a big part of it, but Before we go any further, why don't you get the Bomb Squad caught up on who you are, what brought you into podcasting, and if there is enough time, go into all of the great things that podcasting has done for you in recent times, because I know that list is pretty extensive as well.

Um, who— well, it's— yes, I'm trying to condense the story. So I grew up in Kansas. I was really into music and bringing people together, that collaboration and connection has always been a big part of my life. And it started on the dance floor, and it started out promoting DJs and clubs and events, starting to throw my own, have a zine, bring people together for dinners, and then move to Chicago where I did the same thing, and then LA. I've been in LA 3 times. Between that, I also lived in San Francisco and in Houston. And all of the places that I've lived, I had this connection point of How do I get people together and get them involved and create some harmony and synergy and some really cool things where people can come together and share ideas? And when I lived in Houston, I had a show, a radio show. It was digital and it was terrestrial radio and it was Facebook livestreamed. By the end of the show, we had commercial. Our last studio, we had like different sets we would move to for different vignettes. And we'd bring on different co-hosts and it was really fun. And then I moved back to LA. We did a little bit virtually, but it wasn't as good. And at that point I discovered podcasts, maybe, you know, a little late. So this is like 5 years ago. I started really getting more into podcasts, started being interviewed on some podcasts, and then had the opportunity to produce and host 2 podcasts for clients. Which was really fun until I realized that they really didn't have budget and I was doing all the work and doing all the guests and interviewing and like they weren't utilizing it as a marketing tool that I knew it was. 'Cause I had a PR firm, I was their publicist, but I'm also running their podcast. At that point, my boyfriend said, "Why don't you just have your own podcast? You love talking to people, you love connecting." He's in the film business, so he's like, "I'll edit it for you." And then he got tired of editing it. And that's how my accidental foray into becoming a podcaster, and then realizing like 3 and a half years into the journey, which is about 4 years now, um, a little over 4 years, but my podcast November 2020, um, realizing that isn't a hobby, right? It's not just a side of my business, it is my business. And this is what I love doing. I love talking to people. I love people being able to listen and learn things from my guests. And I love being able to figure out how to make that repurpose that and bring it to other people. And so that's a very condensed version of my journey to podcasting.

Morning people wake up for peace and quiet. McDonald's breakfast people, we wake up for the sweet rush of getting that warm, delicious breakfast right before it ends.

Hotcakes, sausage patty, hash browns, scrambled eggs, biscuit, real butter and syrup. You know how our Big Breakfast got its name, and you know where your whole family can share one for just $6. McDonald's. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer or combo meal.

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

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So Your Brand Amplified, as you said, it came together in, uh, 2020. So in the heart, I guess that probably, uh, it was pretty much the heart of COVID and there were a lot of podcasts that came to life in that time frame, but many of those folks did not see it through. You are the complete opposite of that statistic because your show is still going strong.

And I feel that, man, you know, that, that time frame, there was, there were so many good shows that started.

I think there was a lot of people that had these ideas and realized they had a little bit more time on their hands to actually bring them to life. But man, if they just would have had the right mindset and thought beyond it just being this, well, I've got time, let's see what happens type of thing, versus this could truly be something that changes my life, whether it's through my business, whether it helps me launch a business, or whether it just opens up new doors of opportunities in my particular field of interest.

There's so much value that got lost, and there's so many shows out there that went dead after a few episodes. I'm glad to hear that yours was not one of them.

Thank you. Well, I, I had a slow roll, so first as we evolve. I kept the same name. You didn't, but for my show originally, it was, I was interviewing other publicists because I had a PR firm called Anika Jackson PR. Your Brand Amplified was my registered trademark for my PR firm. I was like, oh, I'll just call the podcast that. And then I was like, I'm only going to ask 5 questions. Drive time is 27 minutes. I'm going to, you know, average in the US. So I'm just going to keep it to this, this, this. And it just didn't feel good. I didn't like keeping it to like, because somebody would say something and I'd be like, I need to ask, I want to ask this. I don't want to ask this other question that's written down that I feel like I have to ask. So I totally changed it, expanded it. I started getting more serious, started putting out weekly episodes because I was like, yeah, if I really want traction, it has to be weekly. I didn't even realize where it was until other podcasters and other people in the space were like, you know, your podcast's doing pretty well now. And it's like, oh, Okay. And it kind of fell into it. But now what I really want to do is work with people who are intentional about the journey. I'm like, take my knowledge, take the tens of thousands of dollars that I've spent self-publishing, doing all this work, figuring out what works, what doesn't work all the time, 4 years plus. And I'm here, ask me questions.

Yeah.

What do you feel is the biggest opportunity that came your way because of your podcast?

Ooh.

Um, I— there's so many. Where do I start? I think one of the biggest ones is being invited into an ad network. So on my podcast, you will hear ads. And I'm really— and I'm a little geeky because I do teach digital media. And so we— I teach people about digital advertising and marketing. So I love the fact that it's now like a little test ground for me. I could say, why is that ad on my podcast? I mean, it's a big network, right? Be like, oh, I think it's because that guest is from this part of the country and that's a product that would be popular there. And so I get to kind of do my own research on my podcast by listening to it and listening to the ads. And that creates some revenue for me, which is fantastic because a lot of us are small entrepreneurs and businesses who are self-funded and We don't have big companies or celebrity names attached that are funding what we're doing. Um, I have had sponsors for my podcast and one of the sponsors is helping me get to podcast conferences. So that helps underwrite some of the costs. Then there's also this benefit of being able to teach my students because for a digital media management program, the master's, you have to do a capstone project. And for that capstone, it has to be a digital product. So a lot of them are going into podcasting, and it's great to be able to mentor my students and inspire them and show them you can do this. And not only can you do this, but you can make this a business, right? You can make this something that you pour— like, that you are really passionate about and also really enjoy and can make money at. And the making money part, you know, it takes a little longer, but it, it is there. USC also has a minor in podcasting for the undergrads, and my ambition is to like have a full-fledged podcast department. Um, some other podcasters there and I want to start— we want to do a Fan Fest because a lot of the podcast conferences, they're for industry, they're not for the fans. And so we want to do that. Our ambition is to do that in the next couple years on campus. So hopefully you'll come out.

Hell yeah.

Um, yeah, so there's so many things, so many directions I want to take it in, but it has opened up a whole world of possibility of connections. It has opened my eyes more to like just using AI as a tool for my podcast to this whole big world of AI and how every business needs to embrace it no matter what your business is or you will not be in business, period.

Like, I agree.

Reality. Yeah.

Well, I'm talking about the whole podcasting thing and that being another pillar in a brand's whole component of growth and communication. You can't resist AI in that same respect. It's got to be utilized as well. But the quick thing I want to say before I'm going to put a question up from our friend Jay, I love that idea that you're actually looking at the fan side of it because I think, like you said, a lot of the conferences that we see are all geared towards helping podcasters be better podcasters. I, in a major way, that does impact the fans because now if people go to these concerts—

I keep calling this thing a concert. Keep going to these conferences. I've been doing it for 3 weeks.

I keep calling them concerts. I don't know where this is coming from, but if people keep going to these conferences and learning how to be better podcasters, how to tell better stories, how to utilize it for more active communication, that's going to bleed into how they produce their content. Ultimately, the fans win. But to gather all the fans together in that perspective, that's, that's a really cool concept. And if this ever becomes a full-blown department and you need professors, maybe A move to USC is on the cards. We'll see where that goes.

But, and before you ask your question, I will say it's not, I'm not gonna take credit for the idea. It was Imran from Great Pods who has this idea. He's doing an incubator at USC Marshall and we met at Podcast Movement Evolutions. Okay. And I'm like, yes, let's put this together. This is amazing. And so, so yeah. Okay. You're now gonna have to be on the committee, Jason.

All right. Yeah. Please do not forget. We'll definitely stay in touch on that.

So Jay asks, what were some of the challenges you faced rebranding?

And I actually could speak to this too, but the stage is yours first.

Honestly, I didn't really have too many challenges because when I was only interviewing publicists, it was still a side part to my business. My business, I had like 12 employees, you know, benefits, the whole thing. So it was really, really busy and crazy. And I just fit podcasting in where I could. Because I already had Your Brand Amplified as part of my business name. And I like Evolution of Brand, which is your podcast. I was able to evolve it to just really talk about brand. I will say I have had, you know, I used to say, welcome to Your Brand Amplified, where I talk to publicists, marketers, and brands. And I've changed that and it's evolved and I have evolved that. Because I was like, I'm really talking to people who've built brands. I'm really talking to business owners. I'm really interviewing people who've done really cool, amazing, crazy things. It's not just marketers, publicists, and somebody representing a brand anymore. Um, and so it kind of evolved naturally. And that's, I think, where the sweet spot came in. And that's why it got more traction is because I like to have like really natural conversations. Most people are able to, not everybody is, but you know, where it's like this, where you feel like you're listening into a coffee conversation.

Bingo. Yes.

Yeah.

And that is the best. And it's really cool because I have people from all these different places I've lived who tell me they listen to it. And that just inspires me so much more because they don't need to. I'm not, you know, they're not like my best friend or my mom who I hope are listening to it, which I don't actually know if they are, But I love hearing that people actually listen to it because they're getting what I hope that they're getting out of it.

Yeah. I can, to speak to Jay's question, for me, it wasn't really a challenge. It was this feeling inside. And I was at a crossroads. And you mentioned my show was Evolution of Brand. I remember when that got rolling, I was into that so much that I'm like, this is the show. This will be the show I run until I fall off the chair and they take me off the air. But as I kept going forward, it started to be this thing where I'm, I'm looking at numbers. I don't get too bought into that. I'm more invested in the whole networking part of it. But thanks to PodMatch, I was so far ahead with content, with what I had in the bank. And then where I had to make the decision was I was looking at my upcoming schedule. I had, and I'm not making this number up, 43 interviews set up to go. And I just, I, I can't, I was not, I knew I needed to rebrand my name, like my business name. My podcast, as much as I was loving it, was not speaking to what I do, and it wasn't allowing me to have the right kinds of conversations for me. I was enjoying the fact that I was expanding my knowledge base because I was meeting all these different people where they were and bringing that onto the show. But it made it a little less specific for my audience because one week we're talking about branding and then the next week it could be about, I don't know, like, God, it could be, it was all over the map.

Right, but that's— see, and what didn't work for you and your show where you're going works really well for me.

Sure it does. And, and that's the thing for me.

I, I looked at everything I had lined up with all of those upcoming interviews and guest appearance. I said, you know, I will literally have content for a year.

Yeah, but if I'm not happy producing it, this is not going to—

I'm not going to have a good time. And that's when I made the decision. I have to make the pivot now before this crop of interviews gets started. There's no point in wasting anybody's time.

Right.

I was also facing the decision of I'm going to have so much content banked, I might have to go to 3 episodes a week because I've always felt that it's unfair for a guest to come on a show and then their interview or guest appearance doesn't go live for months. I mean, I think I've been in situations where I like—

I—

my rule of thumb was always 3 months at a max. If I can't get somebody's interview out in 3 months, I have to adjust things on mine. That's just my personal standard. But I've, I've done appearances where I didn't get anything out for like 6 months because they—

so one was a year. I forgot I even did it.

And that's the problem with that was I'd already changed.

Oh yeah.

And then it goes live and now that's irrelevant.

So I've done a couple of those, but I will say same problem for me. Um, and it— PodMatch started it, but then all of a sudden these agencies found me and people started, you know, reaching out to me and just, pitching me via social media, LinkedIn, finding my email, finding my like personal email all over the place. And so I've, I'm booked through May of next year. Um, but what I do promise people now, and it used to be that I, I would do the interviews really fast and then it'd take a while to get them out. And so now, and I, I have moved to right now I'm doing 3 episodes a week because it's summer, but I have moved to 5 episodes a week.

There you go.

So because I have so much content, but I also, it's all content I want. I love speaking to all these guests and that this is, this is what I'm like, this is my business now. Right. Um, but I will say for Jay, one thing I have done is I've started another little thing that I'm launching in July called the Promote You Podcast. It's going to be just people leaving me voice memos, people who are in my network. So I just want to say thank you. So you can leave me up to a 10-minute voice memo of your promotion. and I will put it on my same RSS feed. And so that fills some of the gaps in too. If I don't have 5, right over the summer, I'm traveling, I don't have 5 episodes. I have like 3 a week. So I can put that out. I'm still promoting people. The same audience is still getting the information and they get to hear a direct message from somebody, but it's all people that I want to promote. And so it's still, and it's free. I'm not charging for it. It's just, like a thank you to people for being part of my audience and part of my community. And, um, so that is a little bit of a rebrand or a shift, but I think it's still completely congruent with my overall brand.

That's a very unique way to get user-generated content into a podcast.

No, I think that I commend you for that. That's very innovative. I've never seen anything like that, and I think that's a ton of value packed into that for listeners that may have something that— obviously they're into your show for certain reasons. Perhaps they have something they can contribute even in a 10-minute package. There's a lot to that.

Yeah.

I can't wait to hear how that goes. I may have to get on the mic here and put something together for you.

Please do. I would love that. Uh, and then the other thing I did is at USC, which for those who are not in Southern California, University of Southern California. Um, yes. Uh, so for that there was a speaker series for the digital media management program and the speaker series. Would be maybe once a month and it would have— my kid was just in the background, so sorry, live on air.

Yeah, she can say hi.

She's like, she's like, sorry, sorry. Um, when she was a couple years younger, she would have come behind and like made bunny ears and stuff, but now she's like, no, don't. Um, so the speaker series, I was like, hey, a lot of my students are asking about podcasting. I want to do a workshop for them outside of class. But I want to open up to the whole program. And they're like, why don't you just do the speaker series? And so I did that. And I was like, why is it just a speaker series? It's like once a month, mostly students come, but not all the students can make it, right? It's on Monday nights, 6 o'clock. So why is that not a podcast? It's also a great promotional tool for the university. It gives us the ability to have more guests who might— that time frame might not be convenient for them depending on where they are in the world. And now more people can listen to it, and I can still use the content depending on what class I'm teaching that semester to say, listen to this episode because this guest has the most up-to-date information for you.

Another great way to utilize the content in more than one way.

Yeah.

I love hearing about this coming together at a college level because, you know, having a communications degree and having done— I, I focused a lot on radio when I was in that program, but television was a big part of it too. Then there was the written— I love that program. I'm very happy that's what I got my degree in. But I do think about where we are now and how cool it would be if podcasting was a part of that program. And I'm sure to some degree it's getting worked in, because I would have to think at that collegiate level, even coming into college, I'm sure kids are finding ways It, the barriers, barriers to entry are not large. So anybody can come into this and start a podcast and utilize it in a number of different ways. And what you're teaching them about building a business around it, I think that's going to be incredibly helpful for these kids once they get out of school.

100%, because all major brands are looking at starting podcasts. I mean, there's a Trader Joe's podcast, right? Yeah, I love Trader Joe's. I don't listen to the podcast, but there are people who do. Who want to find out about like the new products or like whatever they're talking about. So there's a podcast for everyone and about anything pretty much, um, or there should be if there isn't. And if a business doesn't have a podcast, they are missing a huge opportunity.

I could not agree more.

I feel that I talk to people that say, well, what am I going to talk about? And it's not that you're area of focus or your area of expertise needs to be the main subject in some cases.

You think about how companies like Wendy's and Red Bull utilize their social media platforms. They're not using those platforms to just share a picture of burgers and fries or an energy drink.

They're putting content in front of people that they know they'll enjoy. So when you go to these accounts, you're getting an experience.

Wendy's is incredibly snarky.

So good.

And sarcastic.

It's fantastic.

And they do those I think they do this once a year where they tell you— they'll— you send them a message and they'll roast you.

My favorite is when they all pile on each other, like all the different fast food brands are like egging each other on.

Yeah, and you've seen this, and this is a slight removal from social—

or from podcasting, but with social media, some of the NFL accounts last year, the Tennessee Titans, when their schedule went live, the way they announced it was they went on the street and they just went up to random people and showed them the logo. And people— some people, actually everybody they featured had no clue, and they just said these random things, and that's what they would put up as who they were playing.

It was the most hilarious genius thing I've ever seen.

And that, that went viral in like half an hour. The second that went live, everybody was sharing that. Other teams were jumping on it. You can get that same type of effect with podcasting So if you feel like you're in an industry where no one's going to want to hear what you have to say because I'm boring, I don't know.

No, it's, it's not about that.

It's you're—

you've got a personality, you've got stories to tell. If you start focusing on the stories that have brought you into the world that you're in, that's going to be entertaining to the right audience, and they're going to gravitate to your brand even more so because you took time to bring them those stories and put this whole new face on your brand.

Yeah.

And it's not about us. It's about like what we're building, right? It's about the why. And that is, I mean, in the world of PR, that's such something I see often is like people are so afraid to be on the camera or be interviewed. It's not about me. I don't want to be the face. Well, it's not about you.

Yeah.

But you do have to talk about it. It's really about the information that you can provide. It's really you doing a service to people. You know, that, that's why we're here. We're not here just to stare at ourselves. Like, that would not— that doesn't have any value.

There are some people that I feel have built a social media presence around that philosophy.

Oh, true.

And some of them are successful. And I get— and I get it. There are ways that you can do it, and there are ways to be subtle, and there are ways to be in somebody's face with that type of approach.

But you're right, Anika, at the end of the day, this is not about us.

This is about what we could do to provide impact, but that impact falls on the audience.

And if we can bring them into our orbit and give them a welcoming environment to be a part of, and, and we're building a community around that, that speaks volumes. And that's going to carry your brand into the next level and beyond, because those people are going to then become your advocates and start talking about you and telling people they need to listen to your podcast and check out your brand or do business with you. Sky's the limit. But if you don't take time to find a good way to put a spin on this story that's going to attract people to you, you're going to get lost in the shuffle.

Yeah, I couldn't have said it better. Uh, and I think there's, you know, there's also the people who are like, well, podcasting is oversaturated. No, think about what, what Jason said earlier about the number of podcasts that started during the pandemic and then how many of them stopped. I have friends who just started podcasts who are like, you know what, this is going to be a limited series because now I'm— I met somebody else that we're going to do a project together, and it might be a podcast or it might be a show, but that resonates with me more. That's fantastic. I mean, I— this is my third podcast because I had the two others for clients. Those are still running. You can still listen to those episodes. They're, you know, Great.

But yeah, same thing when I did Evolution of Brand. Those are still there. I don't really, I don't really push people towards that because that was just in a different chapter of my life and my business. But that's something that anybody wants to go listen to, it's, it's there for their consumption.

That's their choice.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I really love— so this is the first year I've gone to podcast conferences because Truly, it was like last fall when I was like, I think I need to take this more seriously as a, like, I'm a professional podcaster now, not just a hobbyist. Um, but I got to speak on one of the littler expert outside stages at Podcast Movement Evolutions, and then I'm speaking on a bigger stage at Podcast Movement in August about AI tools and how they're revolutionizing your content for You know, all the things for podcasting.

I, I do want to dive into that, but I do want to say one thing on saturation before we go to this. For those that are in the Bomb Squad consuming this content via podcast format, through the live stream as we sit here right now, the, the podcast space is not oversaturated with active podcasters. It's oversaturated with too many podcasters that gave up way too soon. Yeah, and the numbers reflect that. I know I, I've talked about this on my other show, Podcast Theory. If you're thinking that you don't have something to bring to the table because somebody beat you to it, they haven't, because you still have your own unique perspectives that you can contribute. And I feel that's one of the biggest obstacles that people put in front of themselves. We'll do all kinds of crazy things to stop ourselves from taking the first step, right? That's one of them. On top of, I hate my voice. No one gives a damn about what I have to say. Oh, and too many other people are already out there talking about it. No, no, and no. That's not the case across the board. But the oversaturation point, we're not even close, not even in a small whiff of that. So get that out of your head now. Now, horrible segue to AI. We'll go back to what you said a moment ago, but you're right. I want to know more about this. And I feel this is not just— obviously this transcends podcasting, but we've— we're living in a world where AI, or artificial intelligence if you're not into the whole brevity thing, is— it's not— well, maybe it is taking over to some degree, but it's one of those things where I think back— I'll tell this story as we lead into this— back when I was doing my master's degree I wrote my final paper on employee engagement and turned it in. It was— I did a leadership master's program at Duquesne University, turned that into my professor. In that time period is when Google had just become the thing, and I was using Google along with sources from the library, but I leaned more towards what I was finding on Google. And it wasn't that I was going to uncredible websites, right?

I was finding legitimate information that I was including in my research.

And when I turned in my paper, I got my grade back and I got an A-. And my professor wrote at the top of the paper, this would have been an A+ if you would have used more sources from the library than Google.

Wow.

And I immediately marched right into his office and I said, listen, I'm not expecting you to change the grade, it is what it is. But I think you need to be aware this is where the world's going, right? And I again presented every website that I landed on and found credible research for this topic.

I didn't do anything wrong. I feel it's odd to knock me down a partial—

not a whole letter grade, but to knock down the score to even a small degree just because I didn't sit in the library for an extra day. It just seems weird to me.

Well, I just feel that's what it would have— I'm like, if you feel this is less credible because of that, that's on you.

I'll take my A-minus and my 3.9 that I ended up with for the whole program, and I moved on and graduated and was happy. But the point is, you can't think about AI— that, you know, fast forwarding to now, AI is that thing now, right? This is a part of our world. If you don't find a way to adopt it and utilize it the right way, it's, it's going to cause problems for you.

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I think about having to handwrite everything. Right, or print by typesetting each letter and then moving that into different methods of copying, printing. Now we have these laptops that we're on and we're able to type on them and, and send messages, or our phones. Same concept. Uh, for a lot of my students, interestingly, because they are in a digital media program, they still— some of them don't 'Really want to use AI?' And I'm like, 'You have to. There's no excuse for errors in grammar or punctuation if you can check it on Grammarly, or even if you just use Word, right? That still will find a lot of stuff.' But you have Grammarly now as well, which is fantastic. Talk about brevity. Just all these little things, these things that are helpful and will help us write better. Um, and AI is not taking away our creative our license. It's not taking away our— and I know some people could argue that with how you can create graphics and video now, but the creativity still has to come from our brains. Yeah, right. We still have to come up with the concepts. We still have to double-check everything. AI is there. It's a tool to be used to help some of the menial tasks, some of the things that might take more time, take more money, so then we have more time to do things we really love. Like, I'd rather spend my time doing more interviews or creating new courses, doing workshops, then oh my gosh, now I need to come up with, you know, show notes for 5 more episodes, and I have to handwrite that, right?

So I feel just like Google was the tool of the day back in the early 2000s. These are the tools now. There he is. He said we're gonna hear your dog at some point.

Oh, yeah. So I thought my mic usually keeps that sound away, but not today. That's all right.

Like I said, we're a live environment here, so dogs are welcome as well.

But Google was that tool 20 years ago. Now AI is that tool.

And if you use it the wrong way, irresponsibly, and you just fire in, hey, give me 5 sentences or give me 5 paragraphs on A, B, and C. And then it spits it out and you just copy and paste that and you don't finesse it. You don't take time to add your brand voice to it.

Exactly.

Sometimes I look at something like that and it sparks some ideas and I can take those ideas and I can rewrite. Like, that's when the last couple blog posts I've written, I got the start from ChatGPT just by putting in some very specific prompts of what I was looking for. And some of it was dreck. Some of it was just overword vomit word salad because that's what it does. Sometimes I'll put that in there. Please use really big words just to see what it spits back at me. And some of those are hilarious.

That is always—

yeah, well, that's never the final product for me, right? That's right. And then I take that and I, and I massage it and I finesse it and I put my voice into it. I add my own little layer of sarcasm or something that's more matter-of-fact. And that's what my readers see, whether they're consuming show notes, blog posts, you name it. Yeah, this is something that—

why wouldn't you take advantage of this?

Exactly.

And this— and I will be— I will admit, when this first came out, I looked at it and said, holy shit, our school's gonna have problems because this is all kids are gonna do now. And I made me wonder, is this something that's gonna hurt us? But yeah, I've learned the error of my way.

I mean, you know, it's— there are going to be people people who misuse it. I can tell when a student has written a paper that they're not attributing AI, but they've clearly used it because it's really generic. They have no examples, they have nothing personal in the assignments. It's very obvious. The other thing is I'm doing a 3-day AI for Business workshop. Today was the first day. In the first hour, man, the number of tools that I found out about. Like, there are tools for everything now. Like, you can even put your brand voice into AI tools and have it write things in your voice, come up with graphics. It's— the technology is moving so quickly, and it's not even— I would argue that the things that it's actually capable of, they're not even showing us. Because I interviewed Kevin Sorace, who is— he has 94 patents in AI, including the one that he invented in the '80s that Siri and Alexa, you know, licensed. And the capabilities he programmed that virtual assistant with in the '80s, it's far more capable than anything we're using them for today.

Wow.

So that's—

wow.

And there are also— there are a lot of jobs. I mean, there's— there are jobs like manual labor in the fields or manufacturing that will probably go away. There are a lot of other jobs that are being created. There are also jobs like, we don't have enough radiologists, and you can use computer vision to be able to detect disease, right, in scans. Um, then you also have a human look at them, but it's, it's helping with these areas where we either have these mundane tasks where we could— those people could be doing other things um, you know, or where we don't have enough people going into that field, but we need the capability for our own healthcare system. So there are so many different implications and ways that it's really a great tool to be utilized. There are a lot of jobs being created that people like— data translator, the person who takes the ideas of the executives and knows business speak and knows IT speak and can translate information between the two. I didn't even know. I just found out that was a job, right? There are all these other things that we can do, capabilities and freedom of expression that I think we'll be able to find because of these tools.

I agree 100%. I feel like, to loop this back to podcasting, we have so many opportunities to create content. And we've talked about this already, the repurposing aspect and how it can check a lot of boxes and cover a lot of marketing and branding initiatives that you have within your business. So if you're utilizing a podcast for one part of it, it can essentially be used for all parts of it.

But that repurposing can take time.

Yeah.

And if you're going to sit and make all your video clips, you can get AI assistance with that now. If you're gonna write blog posts for every episode, you can get AI assistance with that now. So think of the time that you have put back into your world that you can utilize for more creation. Or this— people might just think I'm crazy, but you could take a break. You could walk away from the microphone for a minute and actually recharge your batteries because you're not chaining yourself to all this 100% human-made creation.

I'm again not saying that you copy and paste everything it gives you, but you're— when you get that framework it makes life a lot easier for you.

And like, I think of a copywriter, a very skilled copywriter can churn out so much more in regards to really, really good copy because they have a tool that's helping them at least get the ball rolling instead of staring at a blank screen for a minute and figuring out what do I come up with to get the, get this show started.

Yeah.

I can utilize ChatGPT and That's some of the fun for me is just manipulating the prompts. Just start with a basic idea. Okay, well now add this to it. Okay, now add this. Okay, remove this, but now put in a little, you know, you can get in there and the more specific you get, the more it's learning exactly what you want.

I mean, that's the level we're playing at right now. That's going to only continue to get more powerful, more intuitive.

So if you can start Figuring that out now, it's gonna make your life so much easier on personal side and professional side.

Exactly.

And I think there's gonna be a lot of companies out there that are gonna be looking for that type of experience when they look at resumes.

Yes.

How have you utilized this in your world? Because we are starting to become a company that's adopting these principles. We'd like to have people on board with it.

You know, the other thing is in Simplified, the platform that I use to create a lot of my content, I have put my own voice in. So it has a thing where now you can do your own AI voice. So it has you read the same paragraph, and I can give it prompts to— I can type in something and say, okay, do this. And that's really helpful because I've had an upper respiratory infection off and on for like 6 weeks, and I lost my voice. For like 2 weeks. I, I saved it to— I had to cancel all my interviews. I saved it just to teach class, and even then it was barely there. I barely made it. But if I had used that, I could have used that tool during that time to create content for me so that I still wouldn't lose that flow, right? Or I could have like had it do my whole presentation for my classes if I thought about it, but I hadn't thought about it that deeply yet. But it's— there are all these things that we can play with and try that will help us to like If you wanna take a vacation, right, you could have all of your content created for the next 2, 3 weeks and then feel really good about being able to go take that break because we don't take enough breaks. I know.

That's why when I said it, I felt like people might be like, what?

You could do that?

And, and it's funny, we, we had had this conversation in one of our communities. Uh, it's on the podcast morning chat.

Her podcasting morning chat, and we were talking about this idea of taking a break.

And sometimes people do feel guilty for doing so, but in not doing that, they're burning themselves out. This is one of the big reasons why I look at seasons as the best way, especially for a brand new podcaster coming into this.

There's so much more at your disposal now for getting started.

Obviously the AI tools that are out there, you can get lost in a sea of what do I get into? What do I not get into? But 2024, getting started with a podcast, there's a lot more moving parts now than there were even 9 years ago when I first did my first podcast.

Yeah.

I'm sure you experienced the same thing, Anika Jackson Jackson. But trying to instantly lock yourself into full-time creation mode to get started, that's a lot to ask. You talk about why a lot of people podfade and their show or their episode, I'm sorry, or their podcasts go away after a few episodes. That's one of the biggest reasons. But if you come into this with a strategy of let's do a season first, start to develop our voice, create some good content, repurpose that content, see how that aspect of things works, then you can build on that over time. And you're giving yourself a built-in break so you don't instantly have yourself chained to your computer, chained to your microphone, trying to constantly be in creation mode. You are Jay Franzi approved tonight, Anika Jackson.

I do. Thank you, Jay. Yeah, that is, uh, that is one of the things. And that's also why I always recommend if somebody's going to start a podcast, bank like 12 episodes if you can. Most people don't. Most people think 2, 3, 4 maybe, which is still great. If you can make 12, then you have 3 months to see, is this something I want to keep doing? You put out an episode a week or however often, every other week, whatever, you know, whatever your schedule is going to be. Um, but then you give yourself time to really reflect and decide, is this what I want to pursue? Is it not? How— or do I want to shift it a little bit? Uh, and like right now I'm going to be gone again, like July 16th I'm taking off for 3 weeks, so I'll have enough episodes that I won't need to worry about the podcast for 3 weeks, which is amazing. That's such a great feeling. I can really pour into like just being present with my daughter and enjoying time.

That's a beautiful thing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take your 12-episode recommendation one step further. Now, this speaks against what I am typically talking about with seasons, but if you are going that weekly podcast route when you're first getting started, I would say get 15 to 16 banked. And the reason why is when you roll out your premiere, don't just drop one episode. Give your audience 3 to 5 episodes. And I, I think 5 is a better number just because it, it sets you up in a binge effect mode right from the start.

Mm-hmm.

And it gives people the opportunity to sink their teeth into what you're doing. It's not just based off of one episode, right? So whether you dump all 5 at once as the world premiere of your podcast, whether you do one episode a day over the course of 5 days, it's your choice. But you're ultimately giving your audience much more to consume right out of the gates than just that one episode, because more than likely, if you've been doing it right, you've been talking about this podcast a lot. So you're promoting and you're marketing and you're putting all these messages out into the world that this podcast is coming, but then you just roll out one episode. Yeah, yeah, kind of a lackluster launch. Roll out at least 5, but then if you do bank 15 to 16, maybe even more, you've got enough in the bank to still do what Anika Jackson Jackson said. As you said, to roll out the red carpet for a good few months and give yourself an opportunity to really feel things out and get used to what you're doing, you don't put yourself in a deficit. You still have content to pull from.

That's— Jason, that's so smart. Um, I love the idea of bingeable because we all do binge content these days, right?

Right.

I just think about like we, on our last trip, my daughter and I, we finished like 3 shows, a season each of 3 different shows. Cause we just, okay, we're going to watch this show. Okay. Now we're going to move to this show. That's the, that's the world we live in now. Like when we have the downtime for entertainment. That's what we want. And if you're going to listen to podcasts, that, you know, listen to them all. I mean, there are some podcasts that go hours and hours and hours, so obviously that—

sure, that makes it harder. I draw a lot of parallels from the streaming services that we have at our disposal today and podcasting, and that's why I went the season route with what I was doing. I think this past weekend, this past Sunday, my daughter wasn't feeling too well, so we We're both big into Cobra Kai. I said, want to just watch some Cobra Kai? And I think we ended up getting through like a season and a half because we just put it on and it, it rolled. And we're getting ready for the launch of season 6, so we wanted to refresh— not that we don't remember what went on, but nevertheless, that's how people consume content these days. And if you can bring your audience into your world by giving them more right out of the gates, I think they're going to appreciate you a lot more for that. And when you need them to do the things like share it give you direct feedback. They have more to base anything they say or anything they do off of versus just giving them an episode at a time. So definitely a lot of creative ways to roll content out into the world these days.

Yeah, and Jason and I are happy to talk to any of you about them.

Oh yeah, until we're blue in the face. I'm sure we can keep that conversation going all night. So as we get close to winding things down here, Anika, Obviously, you can tell us about the travels, a lot on your plate, so I won't make this specific to you, but in regards to podcasting, in regards to AI, what's next? What do you feel we should be on the lookout for?

Well, I've mentioned a little earlier, so I'm doing this AI for Business 3-day workshop right now. The way I see things moving when we're talking about building a brand, customer personas, because when you're building a podcast, it is a brand, whether it's part of your existing brand or a separate business. Uh, I really think AI is going to give us those tools to leverage where you can say, you can put in, here's my ideal audience, here's what I'm trying to create, and it'll build out whole models for you, financial models, uh, customer personas, how to advertise. Platforms, all of these different things. And so I think that's going to make our lives so much easier to really be able to be specific, um, in a world when all these other things are changing with privacy regulations, third-party cookies going away, first-party validation, email validations that you have to— all these things that we have to do as small business owners. Tools like this are going to help us streamline the process, get our content out better, reach the right people much more easily, and help them find our podcast. And find the ones that are right for them and ripe for them instead of just finding, like having to go and like search this whole huge database and random podcasts popping up.

You know what I wanna do?

And I'll throw this out to you now and then I'll talk to you.

Okay.

Mark Ronick and Nick Nelbach, they started NextGen Podcaster. The whole focus is on AI for podcasters. I'd like to get the three of you together here on the show for a live forum where we could, you know, mainly you three. I might just lay out and let you guys take over because you clearly know more about this than me. But I think it would be fun to get all of your perspectives. The goals— I, I'm, I'm holding a spot for Nick in July. I just haven't had a chance to talk to him, but I'm gonna see him this weekend and see if he wants to come on with me in July. And we'll most likely spend a lot of time talking about the experiments he's been doing with AI and how it's impacting podcasting. He's actually using AI to generate and build a whole podcast with everything voice generated from— it's crazy how far this thing has come. He's got it on YouTube now. So if you look up Next Gen Podcast, you can see some of the results. But I think it'd be fun if you're into that. We can get everybody to reconvene here and just go nuts on AI.

I love it. Yeah, there's another woman podcaster I know. Who's doing a podcast with her AI voice. So yeah, I, I definitely, I think this is gonna be a really, it's a really cool thing. It's really fun. And it's, it's for me, I'm 100% in on that panel, by the way. Um, I think the other opportunity is that in personalized chatbots. So as we're delivering content, whether it's livestreamed or a podcast that somebody's listening to or watching, they'll be able to ask other questions and find out about other episodes that have the same content or find out more about the guest from other sources by working with personalized. I'm actually working, like I interviewed somebody about that yesterday who has this really cool company. And I was like, that's what I want to do for my website so that like people can come on and search SEO guests, right. Or anything. And they'll be able to get all, pull all those episodes and just get the snippets from that, from all the guests who talk about that topic. So I think that's something that we're going to definitely see happen with AI and podcasting. Because podcasting is a, it's a great search. It's a great way to find information from experts that you never would've gotten to speak to or, or necessarily heard because you probably aren't necessarily searching them up, but you're following hopefully your favorite podcasters and then, and they're bringing them on for you.

So yeah, lots to be excited about. Lots to look forward to. Anika, as predicted, this was great. I'm so glad you were able to join me. And again, catching you in between travels and also on an off night from teaching.

Yes, the only Wednesday I have off the whole summer.

Right? Yeah, I knew when you told me, I was like, well, we're locked in.

All for you, Jason. I'm glad the weather held up for you because I know—

Yeah, yeah, for members in the Bomb Squad that are here in Pittsburgh, you know, we were having tornado warnings, and right when I was about ready to start, a wicked storm rolled through and I I was just completely expecting the power to go out, but we made it.

Yay!

Here we are. So Anika, like I said, I apologize. I had your graphic made and forgot to put it in the queue. So you're just gonna have to talk this one out, but tell the Bob Squad how they can connect with you, check out your podcast, and ultimately get more value from you and everything you're doing.

Thank you. I'm on all social media, Your Brand Amplified. I'm doing the thing that I never recommend people do. And you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm doing— I'm giving all the— I'm like, given all the calls to action, I'm like, no, I'll just call you later. Find me there, find all my episodes, get my newsletter, all my social media, all the things, because I have a couple different things going on and I have some, some new things launching that you can— you'll be able to find out about soon on yourbrandamplified.com.

Very well said. Bringing it back to just that one call to action. I appreciate that.

I will do that. Why was I doing that?

Yeah, it's one of those things I think we just sometimes forget, even when we do this all the time. Sometimes we forget it's better to just leave one call to action. That way people know exactly where to go. But as always, I'm gonna make life easy on the Bomb Squad. They will be able to find that link in the show notes on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app. So please connect with Anika Jackson, check out Your Brand Amplified. If you dig deep in the archives, you'll find my guest appearance on there from a while back. We're gonna have to freshen that up soon, but we'll talk about how we can make that happen. But for all the viewing audience tonight, thank you for being here with us.

We do this every Wednesday night at 8 o'clock PM.

However, next week, July 3rd, because of the Fourth of July holiday, we will be preempting and not doing an episode of Let's Blow This Up Live, but we'll be back on July 10th with a very special guest. I'm not going to reveal that yet because I want to make sure 100— I think it's like 99% sure we're locked in, but I want to make— before I start announcing things, I want to make sure we're at 100%. But for— especially to Jay, thank you for being a part of the show tonight and dropping some great comments and questions. We appreciate you being here. For everybody else in the Bomb Squad, thank you very much for joining Anika Jackson and I here on Let's Blow This Up Live.

Enjoy your Fourth of July.

Anika Jackson, again, thank you. You were awesome.

Thank you, Jason.

And a pleasure to have you here. And we will do this all over again on Wednesday, July 10th, 8 o'clock PM Eastern Time. Write that down and make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. Click the bell so you get notified when new episodes go live. Please don't be a dick about this. My name is Jason Sercone, and we are going to sign off on this episode of Let's Blow This Up Live. Until our paths cross again, stay explosive. Have a good night.

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