This content was created by Dotty Scott. This content was uploaded by Dotty Scott. This is a YouTube video titled "Podcast Marketing: Understanding and Leveraging Podcasts for Business" (uploaded 2023-09-02). It is a single-speaker instructional/talk format in which the speaker explains what a podcast is, contrasts true podcasts with live social video (Facebook Live, YouTube, Instagram), describes distribution platforms (Spotify, Apple/iTunes), episodic structure, and how podcast marketing works (sponsorships, ads). The speaker gives practical advice for business owners on whether to launch a full podcast or use live/social formats as practice and notes they personally do occasional interviews and social uploads rather than a full podcast.
Chapters
Podcast marketing. Oh, by the way, what the heck is a podcast? A lot of people do know what a podcast is, and that is simply an audio that tells a story or gives information, and it's put out through the podcast network, which is an entire network of different podcasting programs. Spotify is a big one. Apple iTunes. There's— probably hundreds, literally, across the world of audio-only podcast platforms. Is that the end-all of what a podcast is? Because I know a lot of business owners that claim they have a podcast and it's not really a podcast. First of all, podcast. Are only audio. They're streamed through audio devices, radios and whatever else you might have. Usually a smartphone is what they're streamed through. And, um, I personally listen to them on my computer. They are sequential, or there is a series of them, and a lot of times the episodes go from one to the other to another if it's a story kind of podcast, uh, and you need to listen to them sequentially. And sometimes the episodes are completely standalone, but they'll all be on the same general topic. And there's seasons, just like a TV program will have episodes in a season, and then they'll have a space and then they'll do another season. So that's the format of how podcasts are. And if you think about podcast marketing, it's very similar to TV shows. You can have sponsorships or advertisements or commercials, whatever you want to call them, um, similar to a TV show. So you might do a segment, have a commercial, a segment, have a commercial. That's a very common thing in podcasts. You could have a company that sponsors your entire episode, your entire season, possibly. And that's another thing where in the beginning you might say sponsored by blah, blah, blah, blah. And some of the commercials in there would be for that company, whatever it is. It could even be that you are doing some sort of a cameo spot within there for a company whose product you're recommending or whose service you're recommending. Those are all part of marketing. It's very similar to television. So if you're confused at all, think about TV. We've been subjected to TV marketing our entire lives. So that's what it is. Now, let's get back to the definition of podcast. Because it is taken very loosely. So what I described is your actual what a podcast is, but there's a lot of business owners that might do a Facebook Live here and they're interviewing somebody and they'll call that a podcast. Is it? Technically, no, but it could be put on their website. It can be put in YouTube. It can be shared on social media. So it has the capacity to be a podcast. Um, if you do more and have them either in a sequence or episodic type of a thing, yes, you can call it a podcast. A lot of business owners are doing things outside of the actual podcasting world, the platforms that actually promote podcasts, and they're calling it podcasts. Good for them. However, marketing on that is a little bit different. So be clear when you're talking to a customer about maybe you wanting to sponsor something or you're wanting your advertising put on their podcast, that you're really clear on what kind of a podcast or what flavor it really is. And is it going to be going to, you your target audience or not. So what the distribution is and all of that sort of thing is important when it comes to pricing, if you're going to be the one advertising. But if you're a business owner and you are not ready to actually have a real podcast to go out and put your information and your episodes and your series and all of that. On a podcasting platform, you can still do Facebook Lives or any live social media. Instagram has them. YouTube has them. You can do interviews, you can do informational, educational, all of that in long form format, half hour, 45 minutes, an hour, whatever it is. You can take advantage of that and not have a real podcast. Think of it as practice. It's finding, dipping your toe in the water and finding out if you really want to do a podcast because a real podcast takes commitment to the process and you can't quit when you get frustrated. Because once you get a following of people listening to you and your reputation is now on the line. You can't just drop it. It is a commitment and I don't have a real podcast. I just, a lot of people dip my toes in. I do interviews here and there. I put them up on YouTube, put them out through social media lives, all of that kind of stuff. And that's it for me because I don't have the capacity to actually do a real podcast. And it's not on my marketing platform or my marketing plan for now, it might be in the future because I certainly know how to do one. Are you doing one? Do you want to do one? Do you want to evaluate if it's something that you really want to do or not? If so, get ahold of me. I can help you think through the process and figure out if this is something you want to do as a long-term marketing plan, or are you better off to just dip your toe in and and test the waters, so to speak, and see if you even like it. Podcasting. Think about it.
