7 Intentional Ways To Boost Your Podcasting

Lots of factors you can’t control influence the success of your podcast. But you can control your intent. And you can learn to apply that intent with purpose across your podcasting efforts.

January 13, 2021

Article

Every rational podcaster intends on making a great podcast. That’s good because I can assure you that every rational listener intends to only listen to great podcasts. No one intends to listen to a podcast that's just “meh” or “ok”. Our intent, as listeners, is to listen to shows we think are going to be great. Unfortunately, some of the shows we wind up listening to—and making—fall short of that goal.

Intent matters in podcasting.

Don’t Sweat The Podcasting Stuff

The idea of intent in podcasting isn’t new, but it was brought home to me last night during a remote barre class I was taking. Barre is an exercise form that is intense and precise, relying on small motions isolating particular muscles. Do it sloppy, and it’s easy. And you’ll see no benefit. Do it with intent, as the instructor reminded me, and it’s hard. And with the effort—and intent—comes the benefits.

The advice of fellow podcaster George Hrab suddenly made sense. Geo is much more serious about his workouts than me. And it shows. He also doesn’t listen to podcasts or even music when he works out. I always thought that was nuts, as gym-time (back when we had gym time in the Before Times) was a great “found time” method of churning through podcasts. But not for George. He focuses all of his intent on his workout. And did I mention it shows?

So from my sweaty realization with my leg hiked behind me and hip flexors complaining to your awaiting ears and eyes, I give you seven ways you can apply intent to your podcasting efforts. Seven ways you can break out of your habit (and my habit) of going through the motions and really focus on what it is you’re doing when you’re doing podcast-y things.

Select Your Podcast’s Guests With Intent

If your show, like many shows, features guests, examine your intent when choosing guests. Why are you inviting a particular person on your program? There are lots of reasons. Some suggest you invite big-name guests with big-time followers so that your show gets a boost when the guest shares the episode. And I can’t argue against the math.

But how does that intent serve your audience? Are you able to cultivate and expose good nuggets from your guest for your listeners if the entire reason you brought on the guest is to boost your numbers? That doesn't sound like a good basis to build an interesting conversation upon.

Publish Your Podcast’s Episodes With Intent

It’s a lot of work to put out a podcast episode, a reality I understand as well as anyone. So I’m not immune to, when the audio file is finally done, the overwhelming desire to just get the damned thing out there. Now, please, and as quickly as possible! And with the least amount of work!

Half-assed efforts at polishing the audio or writing the episode copy will certainly save you (and have saved me) a lot of time. But if the intent was “save time”, there’s not much benefit to your audience. Congrats on getting the time back for you. But your audience is left with a less-than-great episode to listen to, wasting (or at least devaluing) their time.

Repurpose Your Podcast’s Episodes With Intent

There’s more to podcasting than just updating your show’s RSS feed. But there are so many different places to repurpose the episode, it’s easy to get lazy. Hey, I get lazy on this and often copy and paste the same text and same image in lots of different places.

But like you, I know I should be doing better. The right thing to do is intentionally make content specific to each medium, channel, or property. When we don’t, we don’t get the benefits we want from these channels. My friend Mark from Captivate.fm has a great case study that covering his team’s efforts on YouTube, and why they’ve eventually decided to stop trying to repurpose podcast content there.

Guest On Other Podcasts With Intent

One proven way to get more attention to your podcast is to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. My default answer is “yes” anytime I’m asked to guest. I’m pretty focused on being a great guest, but that may be to my detriment. I’m usually not thinking “what am I getting out of this?” other than exposure. I could do better with my intent.

Next time, I’m going to do a little due diligence on the show to really understand the type of content the host is making. From there, I can make an educated guess about the audience and some ways I might make myself attractive to said audience. I’ll still be focused on being a great guest. But if I can present myself to their audience in such a way to better the chance the audience may want to seek out more from me… Why that sound like a great idea.

Displaying Your Intent Outside Of Podcasting

Yes, your friends and family know you're a podcaster. Perhaps because you bore them nonstop talking about your podcasting if you’re like most of us. But what about the other people you interact with on a regular basis? Do they know you're podcasting?

Does your social media presence clearly indicate you're a podcaster? Does that presence talk to your unique approach to podcasting? Do your posts and other forms of communication funnel back to the topic(s) you cover inside of podcasting? Take a look at the key places you communicate with the non-podcasting world, and apply some intent.

Listen To Other Podcasts With Intent

I don’t have any evidence to back this up, but I think a podcaster’s playlist of other podcasts speaks volumes to the type of show they produce. Are you being intentional with your own listening choices?

Do your own listening habits help you grow as a podcaster, nourish your psyche, or replenish your soul? If so, keep on listening to those! But if the preponderance of podcasts entering your ears are from the Top 10 or you just trying to keep up with the popular shows… Is that really helping you grow as a podcaster?

Prepare Your Show And Episodes With Intent

I saved the best—and hardest—for last. I’ve repeated the old and likely apocryphal adage about spending more time sharpening your ax than cutting down the tree far too much, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The amount of intent you bring to “show prep” matters. And the amount of before-mic-time is often many multiples of on-mic time.

But if you are intentional in your prep work, that will come through in your episodes. Your audience will appreciate it. And you’ll be happier knowing you’re putting out better quality content.

Something, Something… Road To Hell?

None of us are perfect. Thus, we cannot have perfect intentions. Nor can we perfectly execute our intentions.

I struggle with many of these. I’ve yet to reach Zen-master level with my own podcasting intent and doubt I ever will. But I genuinely do believe that if we're intentional about our approach to podcasting we will see a boost in and benefits to our overall podcasting efforts.

If you agree with me on this (and the other things I have to say on the topic of podcasting), I encourage you to visit BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra and buy me a virtual coffee to show me your support.

Most importantly, please tell a friend about Podcast Pontifications. Do it with intent by intentionally reaching out via email or some direct form of communication to one working podcaster you know to let them know about Podcast Pontifications. Together, I think we can all work towards making podcasting better.

I shall be back tomorrow for yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Transcript

Lots of factors you can't control influence the success of your podcast. But you can control your intent and you can learn to apply that intent with purpose across your podcasting efforts.
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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I think every rational person intends on having a great podcast. And I can assure you that every rational listener intends to only listen to great podcasts, but no one intends to listen to something that's just meh or okay. We might wind up listening to that, but our intent was to listen to something better, something great. Because intent matters.
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I was thinking about this yesterday as I was doing a workout. Sheila's got me doing these crazy barre classes remotely, which are great. I actually enjoy the workout, nice little short movements. And at one point in time, the instructor talked about intent and intent is very important here, right?
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Cause you're not just doing one big, heavy lifting. You're doing loose, small motions and you have to intentionally focus on certain muscles, lift with your buttcheeks, not your thigh, for example.
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And I was thinking about a friend of mine and podcaster, whose name is George, in much, much better shape than I am, serious about his working out. When George works out and like, you guys, he seriously goes to the gym and things like that, although not so much these days because of COVID-19. When he does that, he is so focused on his workout, he is so intentional about his workout, that he doesn't even listen to music.
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Which is weird. That was the whole benefit to me of going to the gym pre-COVID days is so I had more time to listen to podcasts. George doesn't do that - listen to the music. Why? He's focused in on his intent. Him, he gets a more intense workout because of his intentional focus on it.
And it made sense to me last night when I was doing the little barre exercises.
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So with that, it gave me the idea to talk about intent on the program. And that's intent as podcasters, as opposed to just, you know, going through the motions, just accepting the routine we have developed here in our podcasting efforts.
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And I came up with seven ways you can apply intent because it's one thing to say, look, podcast with intent, but there's another way - it's another thing all together to actually apply that. So here's how you might do that.
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Number one - use intent when you are selecting your guests for the show, if in fact you have guests for your show. But many podcasts do. Why are you inviting the guest on the program? If the intent of inviting a guest on the program is that well, they're a big name person, they've got a big following, and so that will then give me a bigger audience on the end, they can bring an audience to my show - okay. That may be okay.
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But does that really serve your audience? Is that what your audience wants to hear? The entire reason you brought someone on a program is to boost your numbers? That doesn't sound like a very interesting conversation you're about to have with that person. So you've automatically set yourself up not to have a very interesting conversation because you're just hoping their presence will boost your numbers.
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Number two - intent with your publishing. You may just slam out publishing. You may just do the last bits of editing and writing your copy and those various things, because it saves you a huge amount of time. And I understand the desire there, but what's the outcome you're going to get from rushing through the publishing process other than just saving time? Where's the benefit?
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What do you expect to get out other than time back? Congrats. You've got time back, but you have not intentionally made a better show. So be intentive, apply intent to the publishing process of podcasting.
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Also, think about intent with your repurposing of content. Are you copying and pasting in all different places? I'll be honest, there's some places where I'm copying and pasting, not making content specific to that medium, to that channel, to whatever. There's a great blog post, which I will link to here from my friend, Mark from Captivate.fm, which I'm on the advisory board.
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He talks about why, for his show, he's no longer repurposing videos out to YouTube after trying several different efforts, he's decided to give up on that. And it all comes back to intent of purposing in that particular medium.
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What about intent when you are the guest? Not when you have the guest, but one of the great ways that we podcasters get our name out there is by guesting on other shows. Think about the intent of you being on a show.
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And here's another area where I struggle - what do I want to get out of that appearance? You know, I need to probably do some due diligence on the show itself to understand the topic. Yes, I'm there to be an expert. I'm there to offer my opinion, and I'm there to make sure that I give as good of a show as possible.
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I am totally focused on making the show really good, but I should be focused on what do I want to get out of this deal? This exposure I'm getting from myself, what's it come back to me? Same thing you should be thinking about when you're a guest on someone's program.
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What about the intent when you present yourself as a podcaster to the world beyond podcasting? You know, do your friends and family know you're a podcaster? Probably because you bore them nonstop. But the other people you interact with on a regular basis, do they know you're podcasting? Does your social media presence indicate that you're a podcaster? And if so, what kind of podcaster? What's your intent?
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Does everything come through with what you are, who you are and does that flow back into your podcast?
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What about the intent of the things that you listen to? The podcasts you listen to? Are you listening to grow as a podcaster to nourish your psyche, to replenish your soul? Those are great things. Those are good reasons. Those are good intents on listening to other podcasts.
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Or are you just keeping up with those that are in the top 10 list or whatever? Are you just following trends because it's fun? Where's your intent on the things that you should be listening, that you are listening to? Are they helping you?
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And finally, what about the intent wrapped around your show or episode prep? There's the old adage about sharpening your ax, which I've said a hundred times on the show, sharpen your ax before you cut down the tree. But prepping for a show before you sit down to record, oftentimes will take many multiples of the time it takes to actually do the recording.
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Do the prep work upfront. Be intentional in your upfront episode prep. Will likely help you out.
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Now, like I said, I struggled through some of these. I'm not perfect. No one is. We can't be intentional all the time. I have not reached quite that Zen master level, but I think if we're intentional about our approach to podcasting, it will give us a boost to our overall podcasting efforts.
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If you agree with me and the other things that I say, I encourage you to please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra, and buy me a virtual coffee. It's a nice way for you to say thank you to me.
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But most importantly, tell a friend about Podcast Pontifications. Do it with intent. Intentionally reach out via email to one working podcaster you know, and let them know about Podcast Pontifications because together I think we can all work towards making podcasting better.
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That's it. I'll be back tomorrow for yet another Podcast Pontifications.
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Cheers!

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