I want to preface this by saying I am not a macro podcaster bestowing my words of wisdom on aspiring creators. I am still an amateur podcaster, who is actively learning the art of podcasting. I hope whoever is looking for this advice finds it helpful in deciding whether to start a podcast of their own.

I started my podcast, Junkie 4 A Story in 2021. I made the decision after a year or so of contemplation. In the first twelve months, I overworked myself, building a library of content for people, when they found my podcast. And I would recommend, in the beginning, creating and uploading as many episodes in the shortest span of time, say 50 episodes in six months, so listeners and viewers take you seriously. But with that good idea to build my content library, I had some other bad ideas that contributed to the unsuccessful and slow growth of my podcast.

Repetition is key in this binge era. People are used to finding more of the same of what they like easily. Therefore, I have learned that when an episode performs well you want to have similar content available for your audience who enjoyed that episode. For example, one of my Donna Summer’s episodes, How Casablanca Records Kept Donna Summer’s Dim All the Lights from Reaching Number One, performed well in its initial release; subsequently I released episodes related to Donna Summer and Disco music.

Once you know what your audience likes, give them that on repeat. Then give them what they like with a little something extra or slightly different. You don’t want to stray too far from a working formula but you also don’t want to be a one trick pony.

Followers and subscribers alike, would get bored quickly if they searched my podcast and found episode titles such as, Donna Summer Shines in Thank God its Friday; Donna Summer Performs the Longest Note Ever, Donna Summer Remixes her Disco Classics; Donna Summer had the Highest Grossing Concert of 1979. Just to be clear, these are made up titles. Is anyone sick of Donna Summer yet?

After that success, I didn’t focus solely on Donna Summer content. If you experience a high-performing episode, you want to give your audience what they expect with a surprise they don’t mind. I didn’t do this well but I’m telling you what I’ve learned.

After you see good stats, like I did with Donna Summer, you should create more content that people who liked that episode would enjoy. Something like, The Triumphs of Disco Queens, Donna Summers and Gloria Gaynor, In The Wake of Disco Demolition 1979, and Celebrity True-Crime w/Queen of Disco Donna Summer: The Multiple Threats to her Life, to keep their interest a while longer.

But again, part of the skill you develop as a podcaster is knowing when to move on. I’m not saying I’m the best at it, only making observations and suggestions. Staying on a trend for too long can cause a decline in growth and engagement.

Which brings me to a sensitive topic: time. Time is precious so don’t assume your audience likes theirs to be wasted. I hate when I listen to a podcast and the ads take up most of the episode running time. I don’t mind ads, which is why I don’t skip them, to support content creators; however, your ads shouldn’t run longer than the actual content: that is not respecting your followers/subscribers time. You also don’t want your videos to sound like the lunch hour at a fast food joint. Some podcasters do too much chitchat before they get to the actual episode topic–don’t make that mistake.

And now, for us storytellers, know when to pause and when to rev up the action/drama. Telling a story in a podcast format teaches you how to deliver a story. You learn how to get the listener invested in the story, then slowly deliver interesting details and build up to satisfying climax. I don’t always get it right, but that is my goal with each episode.

Depending on which platform you are on, you can learn from the analytics that platform shares. It tells you how long a listener tunes into an episode for, which episodes are most popular, which topics are trending, etc.

This can be helpful for reasons like deciding what your next episode will be or if you want to move on from a trending topic. This has helped me tremendously with my creative writing. I learned that I don’t need to make content for every trending topic. Depending on your brand and the author career you want to build for yourself, you learn which trends you want to partake in and which to avoid.

Another issue I kept running into, and you should avoid is to stop repeating what isn’t working. For the first few years, I was a scatterbrain with my ideas for content. The scorpio in me wanted to do everything. I believe everyone warns against this and for good reason. As best you can, narrow your content to a genre and sub genre within the podcast category.

It will be easier for people to find your podcast and know what to expect from it so they can decide whether they want to follow it. If you are too broad with your content, you confuse people and they usually won’t return or follow your podcast and they might even spread the word about how much they didn’t enjoy your show.

Do not underestimate how much time this will consume in your work life. From recording, to coming up with titles for your episodes, to thumbnail designs, finding ideas, trying to repeat success of well-performed content, it is a todo list times twenty. And we haven’t even talked about editing and marketing.

Whatever hours of the day you think it will take up, multiply that by four and that is a more accurate estimate of the time you will spend on your podcast, in recording, editing, planning, etc. Just don’t go into this thinking you can casually record and upload whenever you get a spark of an idea or to promote your own works. You won’t get far, and will likely quit within a year with that mindset.

I’ll leave it there for now. I’ve said more than enough to help those out who may be considering starting a podcast. And if you are a podcaster, feel free to add some pointers in the comments that I missed. We’re all learning and don’t mind a useful tip.

opening image is from Miz.Moolah.com