The Things You Need to Know to Effectively Expand Your Podcast Brand Authority

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Hi, welcome back to Feed your Brand. This is Tom and I'm here with Alexandra today and we've got a really great subject to talk about that should be of interest to all podcasts out there, but you may not realize that it's something you should know about.

Yeah, we're going to talk about what podcast brand authority really means.

You know, it's something we talk about a lot with the people we work with, but it's an important subject for everybody listening to this podcast who is thinking about starting a podcast or already podcasting. And that is your brand authority. That is one of the major reasons a lot of people start a podcast. And I thought maybe it'd be good for me to just give an example of how that worked for me as I first got into podcasting more than, I don't know, five years ago or more. I forget what it is, but now I've recorded well over 650 total episodes between a couple different podcasts. And the first podcast was in a niche area and it was an experiment because both Tracy and I had a interest in in the 3D printing market and the 3D printing industry. Cause our entire career we have been in product design and development and 3D printing was something we used. But 3D printing, if you've paid attention to the media in the last few years, has become a really big deal and it's more widely adopted and used than it ever was before. We knew about 3D printing, had some experience with it, but we were by no means experts or authorities in the field. And it was actually Tracy's concept to say, hmm, I wonder if we started a podcast because she had surveyed the market of 3D print podcasts and there weren't that many out there. There were two or three and they were very technical, very geeky. And that was not really the perspective we wanted to take on it. We wanted to take more of a different perspective about using 3D printing in design and about markets for people buying 3D printed products. Not about the tech of how to 3D print something as much. But really what we wanted to do is establish ourselves as experts in the field. We actually also wanted to learn more about 3D printing because while we used it and knew a bit about it, we didn't know everything about it. We actually were not experts at the time. And we thought, well, we could interview others on the podcast and maybe their expertise will rub on off us, we will learn more. And we thought we might become experts or seen as authorities in the field and at the same time build an audience, a community to market to in the future. And actually all of those things did work. It's a really good example because we are now seen as premier Experts in the 3D printing industry and we've continued to use it, but it's not our full time endeavor.

Right. How long do you think it took you to get to that point where it was doing all of those things for you, from launching the podcast to having that brand?

Well, I'll tell you, launching the podcast, within just two months, we already had the perception out there in the market that we were experts in the field. Even though I will admit today we were not. Actually think today in many aspects of 3D printing, we absolutely are experts. We've become experts sort of through the osmosis of interviewing all these people and researching all these topics that we talk about on that podcast for reviewing, reviewing.

Printers and 3D printed products.

You're right, we've done a lot of reviews of products and that podcast is more than 540 episodes deep at this point. So you can imagine when you record that many episodes and have that much experience in that field, you do become an expert. Now that doesn't mean I'm a universal expert and know everything there is to know about 3D printing. Not at all. The technology, the market keeps moving and there's always more to learn, and that's sort of what keeps it fun for me. But I would say, really, within 30 to 60 days, we were seen among certainly the podcast community as experts in the field. And then it took maybe another only six months to a year for us to be seen as experts in the wider 3D print community and were sought after to speak at events and we could get an interview with anybody in the industry. So it was a great way to gain access to people and it benefited us tremendously. Plus then we ended up building such a large podcast audience, we were able to monetize that with sponsored advertising, which is also another nice benefit, which I think if we were not seen as experts or if our show was not seen as an authority, we would not have been able to command sponsorship dollars.

For sure.

So it did it quickly. But that was, I would say, within the podcast universe, you can gain that credibility more quickly.

Definitely. It's a smaller marketplace than the Internet because you're not competing with every website in the world. You're only competing with every podcast on itunes or Stitcher or Google Play.

Yeah. You're only competing with the other podcasts that are available in those places people are searching for what to listen to. So competing there in a niche subject area was not that difficult. But then when it comes to the wider Internet at large, that was a tougher nut to crack, and we experimented with that, and it took a while to sort of crack that nut and eventually did. And this is where we get into the discussion of brand authority on a wider scale. And I think what we want to get to today is that you can use podcasting as a tool. Yes, to establish yourself as an expert, to show you can talk and speak on a subject with interest and intelligence and authority just speaking about it. But if you just stop there and leave it within the podcast universe, you're not going to build wider industry authority and authority in the eyes of Google. And I think that's really important distinction to make today, because you may have heard us talk about on this podcast in the past the concept of social proof and social proof, really what that means is it doesn't matter what you think about yourself or you say about yourself. You could say you're an expert all day long. It doesn't really matter unless the world says you're an expert or sees you as an expert. And while podcasting is increasing tremendously in listenership, and I love my podcast audience and I'm happy to be bringing value to them on a weekly basis, the reality is the podcast universe is still very small compared to the Internet at large. And where are people going to go first when they want to learn about something they're interested in or something they have a pain point on?

It's the Internet.

Well, and where on the Internet? Google, of course. Google. Right. I mean, there are other search engines, but I think I read a stat recently that bing was like 1.3% if that of people searching on Bing. And there are other search engines, and of course, YouTube is a big search engine. I think it's the number two search engine owned by Google now, but still main Google is where people go. Google is seen as the ultimate resource for anything you want to search. I mean, it's become a verb. Go Google it.

Yes, exactly. That's what I was going to say. Especially among my peers and the millennial generation. What used to crack me up when I initially started working here with you guys was that you would ask me a question to research it, and I would literally just type the question into Google and I'd get all my results I need, which is not the thought process you used to go about. Even five, ten years ago. You would have to be like, okay, what's the topic? I need to research the topic. I can't just ask my question into a search engine. Right. Nowadays you can just ask the question right out.

Yeah, I remember we used to search periodicals. Used to have to go to the library, the card catalog, you remember that? That's like analog Google find.

Yeah, right. And doing a lot of telephoning, inquiring with people. Or of course there were encyclopedias, which, you know. Anyway, let's not go too far down that old school rabbit hole. But the reality is Google right now is the ultimate entity that is determining who has authority on a subject and who doesn't. And the way you gain that authority is by having written blog posts on your website, among some other, I guess, a little more minor technical things that you can do. But in reality, what Google is looking for and the fastest way that anybody, it's really democratized in many ways. Anybody can compete on any subject on the Internet and organically get onto the first page of Google search for the things that you talk about, your areas of interest, your areas of expertise. But it has to be written blog post form and not just a little 300 or 400 word summary post about your podcast or about anything. I mean, it has to be in our opinion. I mean, if you read on the Internet what the length of blog posts in terms of the number of words that Google's looking for, you'll find various opinions of usually, you know, it used to be like 1250 words and then 1500 words keeps creeping up and up. Quite honestly, I'm of the opinion that it's 2,500 words today is really where you need to be on average with the length of your blog posts in order for Google to really pay attention to you and rank your posts high up on the first page of Google search. That's just from our experience, my personal opinion, there is, there's a lot of basis in evidence and fact in that, but I'm not also going to make this a boring, technical episode and lay all that evidence out for you with all the podcasts and blog posts we deal with. That's the reality of it today. 2,500 words. And it takes a long time to write, to think and type a 2,500 word blog post.

Well, that's why we do every episode is a blog post, because we want to use that Google power for ourselves as well. We do that for all of our clients. And as a company, we've just now started reaching out and having fully written blog posts that are not from a podcast, that are from interviews we did that are sort of just a straight article or a feature article. And even those we say no shorter than 800 words at a minimum, because we don't want. Even when it's written, you need it to be longer, you need it to be as long as you possibly can. And so on a feature article, when the purpose is not necessarily to get on the first page of Google. For us, on our featured articles, we tell our writers, never any shorter than 800. And it really should be closer to 2,000 words.

Yeah, I'm surprised we actually set up that minimum of a standard of 800 words.

Well, when we do as many episodes as we do, our average is still 2500.

No, the average, no question is. Yeah, absolutely.

And that's the important part, is that you're average.

But here's the thing. As a podcaster, if you are really just focused on your statistics, your reach, and your engagement with people in the podcast realm, you are leaving opportunity on the table. There is so much more that this podcast can do for you in terms of building your authority and establishing your credibility, your expertise in your subject matter. You may already be a subject matter expert in your field. I'm not questioning that. I'm not suggesting you're not. Although I will admit that when it originally came to me in 3D printing, I was not a subject matter expert. I was an enthusiast. It was an area of interest for me. And then expertise and authority grew out of that. Eventually. You may be a doctor, a lawyer, I mean, whatever your profession is, you may be an expert in your field, I'm sure of that. But does the world know that just relying on the MD after your name or Esquire or whatever it is, that you've achieved a certain educational status and have experience in terms of academia and professionalism? And so that gets you a certain amount of credibility off the bat, but it doesn't give you social proof and raging fans who are waiting to hear your next episode, who trust and want you to give them your knowledge, those nuggets of wisdom that help educate them or that excite them, entertain them. I mean, there May be many different reasons why all of us out here podcasting are podcasting, but the social proof is really what we all need and I think should be doing this for. Unless you're purely doing this as a passion project and you don't care how many people listen to you and you don't really care what they think. You just want to put this out there. And there are some people are doing that in podcasting, but I would say it's the vast minority of people are doing that. So building your authority on your platform and your platform, I think we've talked about this in a past episode, includes your podcast, your website, your social media profiles, all of these things, the way in which you reach the world, communicate your message to the world, are a part of your platform. And that's the kind of brand authority when we're talking about how do you achieve podcast brand authority? I actually had a recent experience with a prospective customer, not even working with us yet. Started a podcast two months ago, has maybe 15 episodes. They are already ranked on iTunes. The number two position out of the top 200 on, I think it's the business news category. Whoa, this blew me away. Because I have to tell you, he was referred by someone that we know and said they want to get more out of their podcast. And I'm looking at them within the podcast universe. I'm like, wow, you guys are crushing it. In a couple of months and a small amount of episodes, they've hit on a subject matter and their podcast name, I think just happens to be just right. People looking in that business news category are intrigued by them and listening. And they also have some amazing, very high level guests, which is another important thing you would do when you create a new podcast. And they're number two now. They didn't even know they were number two. I'm talking to him on the phone, he didn't know where he ranked on itunes. And I think the last time he looked, they were in the top 200, but pretty far down. And I looked on this phone call and was like, you know, you're ranked at number two right now. And I screenshot it right then so I could send it to him, which is amazing. And I'm going to tell you, it's even more amazing because honestly, the audio quality of this podcast is lousy at best. They're not taking a lot of care with the equipment they're recording, with the environment they're recording in. And the people editing this podcast, quite honestly, I think, are not professional audio editors in the Podcasting world. I think they have some audio editing experience in tangent ways, but it's not their primary day job. And he admitted to me he has some support staff in his company and he has a guy who's kind of an AV guy, and he's been editing the podcast. I was giving him good feedback on his quality to try and help him improve it. But anyway, the point here is he has, as a company, as an individual, and a brand he's trying to build for his company and the things he wants to do in the future, he needs brand authority on a wider scale. He already has some podcast brand authority within the podcast verse. Right.

Within itunes.

Within itunes. Right. And I don't even think he's on very many other distribution channels and he'll need to fix that also. But he's got some authority there within itunes, but he really has not expanded that and taken advantage of that to have a wider authority on the Internet or a platform. And that's the next step in his opportunity going forward.

I want to note that we have now been almost completely through this brand authority topic here, reiterating that it's about a platform, and we have not once mentioned how that involves graphics in any way, shape or form. Because when we talk about brand authority, we're talking about how your blog posts are being seen on Google, how you're ranking out there, being seen as an authority in the marketplace, being seen as an authority in your niche, which doesn't necessarily mean your graphics have to be branded. A lot of times we talk about brand authority, and the people we work with get that confused with making everything branded, everything look the same, everything be in their exact templates, their format.

Their format, their style guide for their brand. Right.

Which is not entirely what we are talking about here. We're not talking about branding everything. We're talking about building brand authority. And I want to be clear on that, because I feel like a lot of podcasters get those two things confused. They come to us and they say, well, I want everything to be my brand, and it is your brand completely. Everything stays your brand, but that doesn't mean everything has to be identical and everything has to have your exact brand on it. Right. Building a brand authority goes beyond your actual brand. Right.

I agree 100%, Alexandra, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because I do think that your brand is one important ingredient.

Yes.

Of your overall brand authority. But there are those that feel everywhere there is anything out there in the world that represents my brand, it has to look the exact same way it has to be the exact same image. And actually, our experience has shown us that if you do that, it actually hinders your brand authority instead of helping it. There are ways to do it, and those are subjects for. Actually, I think we've talked about that maybe in some past episodes or we can address certain other issues that we have not in future episodes. I don't know. We should go too far down that road. But no, it's an important side note. I'm glad you brought it up because it is an important distinction to be made. So this company, this brand of a new podcast that's killing it on itunes, I can't wait to see what they do when, first of all, they improve the audio quality and just give a little more intentional and professional attention to that and then expand that and make their own website the destination for their podcast. So here I'll give another side note that hinders your brand authority. This company made. One of the rookie errors that I see in a lot of new podcasters is that they go and they host on a platform. I think in this case, these people were hosted on Spreaker, and.

Oh, no.

Well, so they hosted on Spreaker, and there are a lot of platforms. We don't do this on Poditize, our Poditize platform, because we believe your website needs to be the home for your listeners. It needs to be the hub, the destination, where everybody knows to go, it's on your turf. And this is because of the brand authority that you need to build and all the Google ranking, et cetera. But what often happens is these platforms say, oh, you're starting a podcast. Oh, great, and here's how you publish your episodes. And you know what? We have a webpage for you right here on our platform, and this is the website that you want to submit to itunes as the website for your podcast. And actually, I think many of them don't even suggest that. I think they make it a default page. They do.

And actually, I know that from Libsyn, specifically Libsyn, when you don't put anything in the podcast webpage field to send to itunes, they automatically fill in their Libsyn page for your show on there.

And I'll tell you, they're doing that to help them and not you. And you know what? They're in business to try to make their business grow and be better. And the reality is that's in their best interest. I'll tell you right now, that's not in your best interest. And we don't do it for that Reason, I think it does you a disservice. But when I went to the itunes listing for this podcast, I clicked on the website link that they always list one on iTunes, and it jumped over to Spreaker.com this podcast name, and I'm like, oh, no, opportunity missed. Really. It's a rookie error, and it's understandable. And you know what? Hey, to their credit, they've done a tremendous job getting a podcast in two months to the highest ranks in their category on itunes. So they're definitely doing something right.

Right.

But still, it's kind of like they're cruising in second gear with a sports car that has six gears when they.

Could win the whole race. Because if they're ranking in, iTunes is second. You know, the keywords within those episodes are valuable enough that itunes is shooting it up to the top. So if Google could see that too, they would be at the top on Google as well.

Absolutely. And you just can't do that with podcast MP3 files. Just another side note, and we've probably said it in the past, but some of you may be new to this podcast. Google does not pay any attention to the words that are said within your audio file, within your MP3 file within your podcast. All they pay attention to as a post or a file is what's in the title and what's in the tags, if they even pay attention to the tags. I think the tags are more for itunes than they are for Google.

No, it's the text, the metadata.

Right. The description of the episode at most. So all those valuable nuggets and rich phrases of things that you and your guests say within your episode will never see the light of day in Google search unless you convert it to a written blog post. So there you go. Side note over. So what is your brand authority? It is how far you reach as a brand across all different platforms. And we've had other episodes on social media. I'm not going to delve too far into that. But there's right way and wrong way to use social media to promote your brand authority. And again, the big clue in case any of you new to this podcast don't know the big clue is be selfish. It's your domain, your turf, your website. This is not all. These companies are providing me these opportunities. Oh, I can put everything on Facebook. Well, Facebook wants you to put everything there because it helps Facebook. There are ways you can have presence on Facebook and followers, but you are encouraging, inviting, building anticipation for your followers to come experience more your home turf.

Right. I was Actually just talking about this with another podcaster, explaining to him that you always have to drive people back to your website. Even if you're sharing the audio file in Facebook, which Facebook lets you do, you can upload an audio file or a video file or create an audiogram, but every single post, that text, that copy that is in the text of the post, you always have to put that link back to your website because that's where you want to drive people when they see the post and like it and want more. You want them to click through to your website, not to a link to a random audio file on Libsyn or speaker or not the link to Libsyn or Speakers page. Because then you're giving away that brand authority to those other places.

Yeah, you're really taking the wind out of your own sails and it'll be much, much harder for you to achieve your goals. So, hey, I think that's a pretty good place to leave this episode. It's a great general discussion about your brand authority, your podcast brand authority. And there are a lot of deeper dives we can take into some of these subjects, and we'll continue to do that in upcoming episodes. But in case you weren't aware of it, and I know some of you probably are, and thank you for bearing with us on this episode, but I think unfortunately, all too many people are really not completely understanding the opportunity they have to get more out of their podcast. And really, ultimately, that's what it is. It's brand authority, recognition, social proof, reach. It's all a part of it.

Yep. All right, sums it up.

Well, hey, if you have a comment or anything you'd like to share regarding the subject, please go reach out to us anywhere on social media at FeedYourBrand. Or you can go to the blog post @feedyourbrand.co the blog post for this episode and leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you.

So thanks for listening.

This has been Tom and Alexandra on Feed.

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