Podcasting Best Practices | Episode Follow-up

Share the Love

If you or, even better, your guest gives a shout-out or kudos to another person, make sure to follow up with that person to let them know about the reference. On Episode 029 of The Indy Author Podcast, Zach Bohannon recommended that listeners watch Bailey Parnell's TED Talk "Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?" I sent Ms. Parnell a link to the episode and she responded to me and to Zach with a gracious note of thanks. On Episode 043, author Steven James told a cute story about Robert Dugoni's daughter, and I dropped Bob a message to let him know; that exchange resulted in Bob agreeing to be a guest on the podcast!

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Create Once, Publish (and Promote) Everywhere

Once you have gone to all the work of producing a podcast episode--lining up a guest or topic, doing the needed research, recording the episode, editing the audio and video, and posting it on the podcast and social media platforms--you might think your work is done. However, that would be like going to all the work of building a boat, using it for a day sail, and then never taking it out of the slip again.

Don't create content and use it only once--create it once, then publish and promote it everywhere. Keep an eye out for other opportunities to use your hard-won content to create to continue to produce value for you and your listeners.

That value might be as content in a future episode. Does a guest mention a tip for creating multi-dimensional characters that reminds you of a conversation you had in an earlier episode about creating a compelling villain? If you realize it in the moment, mention it. If you realize it after the recording is complete, include a reference in the show notes. In either case, include a link to enable people to easily find that other content--content they may have missed in its original form.

That value might be as bite-sized bits of content to entice people to listen to the entire episode. When I am editing an episode, I keep an eye out for passages that are especially intriguing or represent especially well the topic of the episode. I clip those out as audiograms if they are short or as video excerpts if they are longer and use those to promote the episode in the week following its airing.

Wondering what an audiogram is? Here's one I did using Descript for Episode 040 - Storytelling Lessons from Investigative Reporting with Hank Phillippi Ryan. When Hank saw it, she tweeted: "Wow! This is incredibly cool! I am mesmerized watching it! How did you do this?" (The answer is Descript.)

This re-​use of content will not only going be efficient for you, but also earn you the appreciation of your guests--after all, they have invested time and effort in the episode and have just as much incentive to make sure the content is shared widely as you do.

​Here's a note from Dale L. Roberts after I interviewed him in Episode 034 on Connecting through Video.

I hopped onto a video chat and hit it off with Matty from the get-go. We easily burned through an hour of content and could’ve done another hour if time permitted. But, just when I though she was done and it was over, she blew me away. Matty is a promotional machine! Wow! 

Matty broke down the interview into small sound bytes and broadcast it across social media. I’ve never been on a podcast where the host has done so much to promote an appearance. I felt like I was slacking with my promotions when looking at her. And, Michael, you KNOW how heavily I promote my interview appearances. ​

​Dale L. Roberts, Self Publishing with Dale

You can continue capitalizing on the value of your podcast content even after the primary promotional period for an episode is over. Don't let that content languish! Put a reminder on your calendar periodically to check through backlist episodes for evergreen content that can still provide your listeners with value.