13 Tips for Building Your Brand with Podcasting

1. Get started. Do not just sit by and watch the competition build their audience with great podcast content, while you twiddle your thumbs thinking ‘what if’. When you do get started, be sure you produce high quality, clean sounding audio.

2. Be unique. Successful brands speak with a unique voice. Check out these podcasts to see exactly what I’m talking about. Think about the brands you admire – what makes them unique? There must be a reason for people to listen to your podcast ahead of other similar shows. This will come down to whether they like your personality, topics covered and the method of delivery. Don’t be scared to be yourself.

3. Consider your audience. What do they want to hear about from you? You are creating the podcast for them (not yourself!) so think carefully about the topics they would like you to cover. Answer previous questions you have been asked, or the most common problems facing your business today as a starting point. The rest will come along naturally.

4. Be consistent. Stick to the schedule you decided – weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, people will want to know that every Tuesday, for example, that yoursite.com has a great new podcast session released for them to download and enjoy.

5. Have cool looking artwork. Professional looking art is an integral part of brand recognition and it’s no different when it comes to building your brand from podcasting. When using iTunes, the recommended specifications for the artwork that will be embedded on your RSS Feed is 300 x 300 pixels, in either JPG or PNG format. Keep your image the same across all channels of your online brand. This makes it easy to recognize you in search results – a perfect example is my podcast artwork.

6. Use tags on your iTunes submissions, and set-up your RSS Feed. This will help your podcast get found in the iTunes store easier, converting casual passers-by into subscribers, and ultimately, fans.

7. Reach out to other podcasters. This may seem like getting into bed with the competition, but really, you need to be as involved with your ‘competition’ as possible. This provides you with the opportunity to learn from them, hear what they are talking about, and as with mastermind groups, you may even get great ideas by listening to their podcasts.

8. Promote your podcast everywhere. This means submitting your channel and RSS Feed to podcast directories not only in the iTunes store, but in other places like Zune Marketplace, Blackberry Podcast, Miro Guide, Stitcher, DoubleTwist and Blubrry. This is a new one for me, and I’ve already got featured on Stitcher – the rest are happening currently.

9. Go one step further – create your own App. One huge step forward would be to create an overall app for listeners to download. This would be automatically updated with your newest podcasts, blog posts and information about your business. After seeing the success that Pat Flynn has had with this model, I’m considering itself. Would you download and use a free ChrisDucker.com app, if I was to create it? Let me know in the comments.

10. Interview successful business owners. This could mean sit down interviews, recorded Skype conversations, or even a chat over coffee somewhere quiet. Have plenty of questions prepared and also some extra ideas for filler content. If you’re on location somewhere, make sure you’re both mic’d up well, so as to provide good quality audio to your listeners.

11. Be creative. Many businesses and entrepreneurs are experimenting with podcasting now and you need to be memorable, exciting and full of fresh ideas. This will include everything from the intro in your podcast, to your associated brand artwork, website design, as well as the use of social media. Be memorable.

12. Be sure to promote your other platforms. Utilize the opportunity to  mention your Facebook and Twitter profiles, as well as your blog or company website at some stage during your podcast. This gives you more ways to reach your audience and potentially generate more subscribers, listeners, revenue and grow your audience with viral sharing. Don’t overdo it though – it’ll become very ‘old’, very quickly.

13. Provide value and be remembered. Overall, this should be your number one focus. It’ll guarantee your brand will grow through podcasting. Once you establish yourself as a leader in your field, a go-to person, expert (whatever you want to call yourself!), listeners will keep coming back and downloading your podcast – as well as mentioning it their friends.

Not Considered Podcasting Yet? C’mon, Already!

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of podcasting.