These days, it can feel like everyone – from big-name brands to small creators and influencers – has started a podcast. The internet is buzzing with different genres, niches and voices, and no matter what you feel like listening to, there’s always a podcaster for you.
Earlier this year, I decided to take the plunge and start my own podcast. Focusing on some of the biggest issues, struggles and challenges facing freelancers today, The Lonely Freelancer was my way to share my voice and my thoughts with the self-employed community online. Technologically, it was a big step for me to take, and it definitely took a little bit of practice to find my editing style at first, yet it’s been so incredibly rewarding to carve out my own little space on the airwaves.
So if you’re considering setting up or starting your own podcast – whether it be for your business, your passion, your hobbies or yourself, here are my top five reasons to get you started.
Self Promotion
When you begin a podcast, you are committing not just yourself but also your voice to your audience. For the first time, your digital followers can hear, engage and connect your spoken words rather than your typed ones, and it presents a great opportunity for some self-promotion. Whilst you talk about your chosen topic, you always have the platform to talk about yourself and your goals as well. You can highlight your own achievements, you can promote your latest products, services or posts, and you can share links to your own projects in each new episode. Through your series, you can deliver high-quality insights into a chosen subject and discuss your accomplishments and strengths simultaneously. It’s a powerful and unique way to get your name out into your field and can help you become discoverable and recognisable for those you’re trying to attract.
There shouldn’t ever be any shame in self-promotion, particularly when it comes to individual accomplishment, and if you have the right platform to illuminate yourself, then that stage should be yours for the taking.
Business Marketing
As a business, beginning a podcast is a great way to attract new clients and business to your brand. By extending your services beyond computer screens and print promotion into the audio sphere, you can reach new audiences on a whole new level. Taking a topic that represents your skills and the industry you create in, and turning it into weekly or monthly discussions can help to identify your business as a source of knowledge and experience that won’t go unnoticed by potential customers.
It’s also a good way to improve your marketing strategy – by coordinating your social, digital and podcast strategy into one cohesive scheme, you can cover all possible bases and deliver high-quality content across the board. Whether your clients want to check out your website, browse through your socials or listen to your thoughts on the latest industry updates, they’ve always got new ways to find you.
Raise Awareness
Raising awareness of a charity, project, cause or topic doesn’t have to remain a 2D attempt. Some of the most popular podcasts right now are those talking about important social issues or taboos that affect us all on a daily basis. From opening discourses on mental health and feminism to challenging racial stereotypes and industry-specific stigmas, podcasts present an open platform for in-depth conversations about the subjects that matter.
Your project, your business, your movement and your voice can and will be heard through a podcast – it can be empathised with, understood and interpreted in a way that the written word can’t, and it can genuinely inspire great change from its listeners. So it doesn’t matter what you’re raising awareness of, an impassioned podcast series is a solid way to get it out there.
Employability
After the recent economical downfall of COVID-19, employability and job-seeking have rapidly become hot topics online. More and more people are searching for work in the UK, and have been forced to hastily update their CVs for their next remote job interview. Beginning a podcast, regardless of the subject matter, is a great addition to any resume or job application. Proving to a future employer that you have the capacity, technical skill and communication abilities to deliver quality content on a regular basis, especially in an over-saturated market, can be a big boost to your employability.
There’s a reason that we’re not all podcasters. Let your podcast help you to stand out amidst the crowd, and highlight your abilities in your chosen space.
Challenge Yourself
Finally, what better reason to start a podcast than as a self-challenge attempt? Push yourself to produce great episodes, to edit, to brand and promote your podcast on a weekly basis. Create new topic ideas every week and reach out to strangers for their guest opinions. Use your imagination to develop interesting segments and memorable catchphrases in new series, and build your own unique audience just by using your voice. Let yourself talk, possibly for the first time, about the things that matter to you – and forget about the figures and the numbers at the end of it. Just talk for you, about the topics you care about and let them guide you to grow.
It’s always a good time to take on a new, exciting project, especially one that we can build from the ground up. There’s no better chance to prove yourself than this.
Podcasts can be funny, clever, insightful and powerful. They can make us cry, make us laugh, make us think and make us change. If you think you’re ready to start your own podcast, then what on earth are you waiting for? Get recording!
If you have any questions about recording a podcast or have any recommendations of great podcasts you’d like to share, drop me a message and let’s chat!
