Build Your Authority By Planning A Podcast Topic That Sets You Ahead From Your Competitors

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works today. Get ready to feed Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Feed. You'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard here with my co host and better half, Tracy Hazard, and we've got a really good topic to talk about, especially another good end of year topic. I think, as a lot of people I'm sure are thinking about topics for upcoming podcast episodes, especially if your podcast maybe isn't brand new. I think, I think if you're newer, I don't know if this is going to be as useful for you, but I think it's good to think about. So, Tracy, share with us what we're doing.

So lots of people ask me every year, how am I going to come up with topics like what is this? Where do I get my ideas for topics? And so there's a couple of different ways, and we talk about them all the time here. When we're initially starting out, we brainstorm a list of the questions that people ask us the most because that's where we want to start. We want to build a foundational. So these are ideas around topics. Now, sometimes we're only taking guests on our shows, so the topic topics don't really matter. However, I like to make them matter because I like to make sure that I'm focusing the conversations into a topic area that's of interest to my audience. So for instance, if I'm doing a podcast on podcasting, which, you know, ironically, I am once in a while. Once in a while, yeah, I might have a list of things that I want to discuss, like getting celebrity guests or something like that. And so when I find a podcaster that I want to interview on my show, that's the topic that I match that person to. So I may have a list of topics that I then match and guide the conversation to because they happen to be an expert in it or better at it than others that I've seen. So that's one of the ways that I'm always keeping a topic list, even though I'm doing all interviews in a particular show, because we do want our titles and all of those things to have a keyword focus and not just general stories. And conversations. So that's one of the things. So those topics do matter. But when I've done 25 or hundreds of episodes in a particular area, I'm at the point point at which I need to figure out what the next topic should be. That's one of the cases of what we do here on Feature Brand all the time is that Tom's like, what are we going to talk about today? And I've got a list. Right. And so what is the most appropriate topic off of that list? So let's talk about how we might get that list by trolling the competition, because that's one of the fastest and best ways to get good topics.

Yeah, it's really a good thing to do. Now, maybe like I talked to a customer just the other day that has a subject matter that's so niche. There's not many podcasts out there, like someone in the chemical industry. I'm talking like Dow Chemical, that type of industry. Not too many podcasts. A few.

But you control the blogs, though, so that's another thing. So if you've got chemical companies are your competition, or soda companies are your competition, you control the topics of what they're covering. So that's another way to do it. Just because it doesn't happen to be a podcast doesn't mean there's not a YouTube channel or. Or a blog out there that's in the subject matter. You can do the same thing. So this is a little bit easier than trying to do a Google AdWords model of where you're trying to find the key topics and the trending topics and things like that. If you're not experienced in how to search for long tail keywords, that can be an extremely difficult thing for you to do. So let's assume our clients don't know how to do that and you're going to be looking at how to do this. So we're going to be talking about how you can do this yourself. So the first things to do is in the podcast search engine. So whatever your favorite search engine is, pick the one you're comfortable in because you're comfortable using the search there. So if it's Apple, if it's Google, if it's Stitcher, doesn't matter. Use that and search in your main topic category. So if ours is podcasting tips, that might be the first thing we do, or how to podcast, we would type those into that search engine and see what shows up. What we're really looking for here are both podcast shows and episodes. We want both because Sometimes people have shows that are on digital marketing, but they have episodes on podcasting in particular in this case. Or they might have episodes on the topic you're looking for. So that's a way for you to kind of find out what the most common and popular topic is. Because if they're handling it on a show that's not about the niche area, then it's more likely to be something that most people want to know.

Like if you have a show focused in the cannabis industry, but you know, there might only be certain number of cannabis podcasts out there. But if you are then searching episodes, you're going to find episodes in general business related or general marketing related, podcast investing, that have an episode here or there related to cannabis. And if those are coming up in search, they're pretty popular episodes and relevant episodes. So, you know, surveying those would be helpful, right?

So check out their titles, check out the topic, check out the comment. You don't have to listen to them. This is the point. If they're not not doing a good job of titling them to begin with, then they're not enacting a really good strategy themselves. So they're not a podcast worth following, listening to, or modeling. If they are putting great titles on their episodes, you know, they're putting effort into their keywords, you know, they're putting effort into their topic development. Those are the ones we're going to match, those are the ones we're going to model. So what I like to do is just go down the list and copy the titles. Like, you know, screenshot them, copy and paste them, whatever it is, I just go and I make a spreadsheet of the titles and I just pull through those titles and then I look at those titles and I say, what is the likely keyword? Podcast guest tactics or podcast cover art? Like, you know, they might be those ghost kind of topics. And so I would put a list together and just pull out those keywords to the side of it. So now I have a column that all has titles in it and I have a column that has what I believe the keywords are out of that. And then I start to look at search and search. Like I can resort my spreadsheet and find all the duplicates. And so if I find like there's 10 that are in podcast cover art and I see that really all the titles are overlapping, they're not differentiating themselves, then I will just keep one if I see them over differentiating. So some might be about the visuals, some might be about the titles, some Might be about fonts. So if there's some different ideas there, I might change that keyword and make it even longer tail. So podcast cover art, fonts, podcast cover art, colors, right? Like, you can see how I'm building on that topic and saying, okay, so I might have multiple niche areas. Of course, if I've covered this before and definitely are sure that I've really covered it, then I will skip those ones and delete them. But the next thing that I do is once I look at that, I don't listen to the episode. And here's really why I don't listen, I don't read their post, is that I don't want to influence the way that I would talk about that topic. All I want was the topic. I need to do it in my format, in my way, bring my unique edge to it. So even if it's a topic I might disagree with, okay, like, someone's going out numbering podcast episodes, which I think is stupid, and we put it in their titles, right? But even if they make that the topic is about numbering your episodes, I know that when I do that topic, why you shouldn't be numbering your podcast episodes, right? Like, I know my twist on the topic might be counter to general public opinion. And that's okay. That's actually a great way to address a topic, is to address it.

But in the negative, being controversial is a really good way to get attention, certainly, and get a lot of people talking about your episode and your show. So that's one tactic. But definitely looking at your competition and not listening to the episode. I want to emphasize this point Tracy just said, because there's a really good one. Who the heck has time to go listen to a whole lot of competitive episodes? Plus, you're giving them a lot of your time, which you don't have.

They don't need to have your listens.

Right? But the point is a good one. You don't want to copy your competition. You want to be uniquely you. You want to be different. And the best way to be different is to really not have detailed awareness of exactly what they talked about, but being aware of the topics and making sure you're covering those important topics. Very important.

If you've never heard their show before. So in other words, you're just finding the competition for the first time. Definitely watch their trailer teaser. Check out one of their episodes just so that you have a basis for what their show is like compared to yours, because that's always a good way to go. Understanding how you are still differentiating and what's working for you, that's a good plan. So if you've never heard their show before, don't ignore it altogether, but don't let it influence the topic decisions that you're making here, that your purpose for reviewing them is to simply review the topics and to really get some new ideas for the next year. So we build this list together of all these great topics. We built it off of titling. We pay attention. The reason I save the titles is because if they're doing a really good job of titling, I may want one that comes up similar. Because think about it from this perspective. If someone is searching for that particular title and I've titled mine similarly, not exactly the same word for word, but similarly, then my episode will pop up as well, because people don't type in the whole thing exactly. They would never copy it in. They're gonna get like three to five of the words that are in that title. So if mine are patterned in a similar way, then I have a good chance of showing up when someone's searching for that other episode which might be more popular than yours because it was older than yours, it's had been out there longer. They do a better job of promoting their show. So this is where we can sort of draft off what's going on in terms of publicity and marketing that somebody else is doing. And we can draft off that and still be our original selves and attract our audience to our topics instead. Maybe they like the title of our show better. Maybe they like the angle of the twist that we put on it. Like why not why you shouldn't do something.

I like that, Tracy, is to putting a different perspective on a title, maybe in opposition or a negative. You still got the key words, but it's a different perspective. It's going to pique curiosity and get people to listen. But this is also really what we're talking about today is modeling what other people either have done or currently doing. And while we're all for originality and stepping out and being yourself, you have your unique perspective, your point of view on your subject matter. That's absolutely true. But we're not trying to take anything away from that or to minimize the importance of that. That is all very important. But there's definitely something to be said for modeling what others have done that has been successful or popular. And remember, when you look at any show, at least in the Apple podcast apps, you look at all the episodes of a show, they do give you an indication of the popularity of each episode. They won't tell you exactly how many plays each episode has gotten, but. But there is a rank of popularity, and it's in kind of a bar graph.

Yeah, it kind of just looks like it's got more dark bars and more little hashes than the others. And, you know, that's a good way for you to tell is this popular or not? I don't always pay attention to that because when you start to see a prevalence of things because a lot of people do a terrible job of promoting their episodes. A lot of really great people with great topics do a terrible job of promoting their episodes. But you'd skip something that might be really important in your industry if you only went by popularity. Now, popularity might help you rank something out of the list of which ones do I tackle first? Right. I now have a list of a hundred topics. How do I decide which one to do first? Right. You might use popularity as a way to decide that.

And that's my point is it just does give you an indication if you're looking at another show's episodes. And to look at this, you have to click into that show and view all their episodes. It shows you you can look at by popularity what the most popular episodes are. It tells you what topics people listen to the most or episodes they at least listen to all the way through versus just listen to a portion of it. Because Apple, uniquely compared to other podcast apps, does notice that they pay attention which episodes have people listen to just 10, 15, 20% and then they left it or ones they listened to all the way through. And that popularity is an indication of that. So I do think it's one thing to consider and look at.

What about shows that are POD faded? Okay, now this is something that I'm a fan of actually looking at the POD faded shows, because nine times out of 10, it was something on in their part, on their end, how they viewed podcasting and not necessarily their topic. So unless the show's really terrible and I take a quick listen to it and I go, oh, this is an awful show, they phoned this in. They didn't know what they were doing. This is not worth duplicating. The reality is, is that if you make sure that you've covered something that was in a POD faded show, especially a popular one or one that maybe went 100 episodes and then POD faded, then you could really find some great topics that you need to make sure you have because you're continuing on. So if I'm searching for a show and I'm interested in a topic And I see this one over here that has a hundred. But they don't have anything new. Or even if they have 25 episodes, they haven't posted anything new. But their topics sound more interesting or sound more relevant to what I'm looking. Foundational, learning elements. Then I might choose them and then come back to yours. But if you had both, I'd rather choose yours. Right, if you had both those topics. Plus, you're posting frequently, and currently I'm totally choosing your show. So that's a way to attract a binge listener.

Yeah, that's very important because people do when they get listings of shows, when they search on a subject, they're gonna look at all these different shows, and it's very clear, oh, gosh, they haven't published since 2018. Hmm. Okay. Well, if they see you've got episodes the same topics and you've posted currently within the last month, within the last couple weeks, they're probably gonna give yours a try first. So that's a great way you can draft off of another show that it's still competing with you for plays even though they're not publishing recently. That's a really good point, Tracy. I like that one.

And then the last thing I wanna mention is social media competition. So there's a lot of Facebook groups out there that are in your niche that are run by podcasters, that are run by organizers. Like, in the podcast industry, there's like 12 different podcast groups that are run in Facebook, and they're run by someone who does have a podcast on how to podcast or selling a course on how to podcast. So it's really easy for us to go into those groups because most of them are open. So they don't restrict who goes into them. Most of them are open, and they allow us in. And we can look through that and see the questions most commonly asked by people. Because if they're being commonly asked within these groups, they're not finding the answer out there. They're not finding it with the coach that's there. So you can fill a gap that's happening before that coach gets around to filling that gap with an episode as well. So that's a really great way for you to do that. If you can get into some of those competitor groups, the ones in the financial management, there's lots of them that are really open groups. Investing real estate groups are really open. So, you know, going out in there and seeing what kind of questions people are asking can really help you hone in and get to a great new topic. List, and that can get you the more current topics. What's really going on today that people are interested in and concerned about? How does such and such apply to my developing my show today? Right. So it's more a timely and relevant topic.

Another tip I'd like to add to this, Tracy, is to don't underestimate the power of Google. Okay? Seriously, it's not that difficult. If you're wondering, gosh, what questions are people asking in my topic area, or you have an idea for a subject, maybe you found a podcast episode that you have from a competitor and their topic and you're wondering how relevant is that? Are people really asking that question? Or what other questions are the people that are interested in that subject also asking? Go to Google. I don't know if you've really looked at this lately, but when you type in a question to Google or even you put in a subject like launching a podcast, frequently asked questions, or faq, Google will actually pull up a lot of options of other commonly asked questions that people that ask that question also asks. Then it's by relevance. So Google knows, and I just want to make sure everybody understands this. You know, when people search on topics on Google, Google not only pays attention to those specific topics that they searched on, they also rank, understand, and will share what other questions the same people that asked that question also asked within the last month. So you can really start to dig a little deeper, dive a little deeper into some of these topics and see what other questions, what other topics did those same people also search on?

So this is a really great way, if you're still seeing and you feel like, gosh, I have to address this question again, but I don't really know what angle to address it in. Like, this happens all the time. Like when we were doing the New Trust Economy, when I was doing that a lot, we would get constant questions about cryptocurrency wallets. And so, like, how do you get one? Is actually our most popular episode. Like, how do you get a cryptocurrency wallet? And we did it early on, and it was because of this kind of thing where we tried typed in cryptocurrency wallets, because we discussed it before. But like, how to get one Was one of the top questions that we saw coming up on Google. So if you've got your keywords that you're noticing these topics that you're pulling, but you're like, I don't really know how to create a new angle on it, because I did talk about this a year ago or in my first hundred episodes, but now I'm in my second hundred. A great way to figure out what, how to discuss it again without duplicating what you did the first time is to type those keywords into Google and see what other questions come up or what other more common and more typical questions are happening today. And that might help you develop how to handle that keyword section again. Right. You already did it. But it's worth bringing up into the next 100 episodes.

That was a great example, Tracy. I really appreciate that. Yeah. It's something that I always remember in digital marketing. In different events we go to and we hear other experts speak on subjects, how much they focus on modeling others. Right. And that's what we're talking about today. But there is definitely this balance to be struck between modeling others, seeing what they were doing. Make sure you're covering some of those same topics, but also charting your own territory, approaching it from another perspective. Balancing that, I think is important. Yeah.

And I really want to mention this. This is what we discovered when we did the 3D printing podcast, is that it was such a new topic area that it was. There was really not enough information. People didn't even know what questions they were going to have at any given stage. So if you're dealing with an advanced stage of things. So like when we talk on the binge factor, I'm talking about advanced podcasting tactics. We're all testing brand new stuff out. We don't know if it's going to work. So if I were to skip talking about the topics because they weren't on the popularity list, on the newbie list. Right. Then I would be missing out in serving my advanced audience. So don't discount your ability to be knowing, to be that curator, to be that expert. Who knows what questions people are going to ask next and be able to be addressing that at the time. So that's really important to go with your gut on that one. If you say, I really want to address this topic, I feel it's really important in our industry. It's important in my topic area. It's going to be important to my listeners. And being a paying attention to what you believe your listeners want most, then you should cover it. In the end, we found it rewarded us tremendously with traffic.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. And we actually didn't model any of the other podcasts only because they were focused on the news and too techy and we were creating a niche for ourselves that was separate. So for us, it was really important to Go into those newbie groups and to ask those people who were just figuring this stuff out to ask them what they wanted and to figure and to watch what questions they put in Facebook groups. Because we couldn't get it from the other podcasters because what they were doing was just so in the zone and we were trying to be counter to that.

Yeah, there can be times where you're going to chart your own course. I'm not saying you should be like everybody else, but I think you should be aware of what others are doing and that can help you make smart decisions for how you're going to be different.

That's right. So anyway, I know topic planning is big on everybody's list. I mean, we got to think about our episode topics and it's always a constant. What do I talk about today? So having a running list and spending a little bit of time making that running list. So, you know, I do this regularly. About once a month I will sit through and just search through a series of podcasts that I have saved into a list. So I don't actually listen to them, I'm not actually subscribed to them, but I have them saved into a playlist and so I'll just go through that and check out their episode topics and see what new came up. And so once a month I might add it right to my. And so I just do it straight in my phone and I just add it right into my Google Doc and just add another topic idea. And so I just do it. So once you've kind of built up the list, maintaining it and coming up with four or five new ideas every month should be really simple and shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes.

Well, you know, Tracy, I think it'd be great at some point for maybe for you to do a little screen share on your phone to show how you do that, how you make that playlist. Because I have to be honest with you, I wonder if that's unique to the app you use to listen. Yeah, probably, because I don't remember being able to save a playlist in my Apple podcast app. I know you're an Android user.

Yeah, it's a stitcher thing. That's what I use, particularly stitcher for that purpose. And so because you can just save to a playlist and you can have a bunch of created playlists, we talk about some of these things, topic building things. So if you're still in the foundational stages, you want to know how to search Google and you want to have visuals on that. There is a masterclass, a topic planning masterclass in our resources area. So we'll link that to the blog post for this episode and you can check out the masterclass that I did. It was late last year, so it's a year old. But the way that we do it is timeless, like none of that has changed. And so that could give you, especially if you're in that early stage, start out of planning your topics for your first year in podcasting. That is a great place to start.

Is that masterclass and that's in poditize.com within the feed your brand podcast blogs. Is that right?

That's right. It's there. But we'll link to it from this episode in poditize.com, feed your brand and you'll be able to find exactly the right video without having to search for it.

All right, well, wonderful. Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching everybody. If you're watching on YouTube and this has been a great topic, I really enjoyed it. I hope you did too. And we will be back next time with another great episode. Until then, it's been Tom and Tracie Hazzard on feed.

You'd brand.

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