The following blog post is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. At the beginning of this year, I made a conscious decision to take my real estate business to the next level. I was convinced that I could generate leads by sharing my real estate experience and opinions on a popular podcasting platform called BlogTalkRadio. I am a big fan of learning my doing and trying after watching. After becoming a raving fan of the Real Tech Guy Radio Show and the Tech Savvy Agent podcast, I had the confidence I needed to create a show of my own. One could say that podcasting gave me my social media sea legs, legs that I have come to master and leverage, possibly even rely on for business today. Now sure what Podcasting is? Well, not to worry. Here’s the podcasting definition.
As with all things in life, anything worthwhile doing, takes a little bit of trial and error before you can become successful. This is the story of where I fell short and what I feel podcasting beginners need to know even before getting started with podcasting. I have to admit that it was one incredible ride and I am really proud of the shows I created on the fly. But, if I had to do it all over again, I would follow the following 6 tips on how to get started with podcasting:
- Choosing a Podcasting Community, Platform and Aligning Your Account to Your Brand
- Pre-plan the Season of Topics, Titles, Episode Description, Keywords and Interviews in Advance.
- Prepare Detailed Show Notes
- Add Some Bells and Whistles
- Promote, Leverage, Share
- Rinse and Repeat
Tip 1 Choose a Podcasting Community, Platform and Align Your Account to Your Brand
When I decided to hold my first podcast, I did zero research on what community, platform or tool would best accomplish my goals. I just accepted the fact that BlogTalkRadio was the authority in Internet radio, the people’s choice software in podcasting community because I was already a listener of two popular real estate shows. BlogTalkRadio to me is kind what wordpress.com is to the blogging world. Although there are other blogging platform, as I imagine that there are other podcasting communities, BlogTalkRadio a solid level of free service that will get any beginner to broadcast in 60 seconds or less all you need is a cell phone or mic and an opinion.
If you are the face of your brand and your brand is closely tied to your social media profiles, you can register with your facebook account, which will alert your sphere of influence and network about your new show! The best thing about podcasting, besides listening to your own voice and being creative, is influencers listeners. Much like the vanity url that facebook and twitter provide you, your BlogTalkRadio url will read http://blogtalkradio.com/USERNAME My domain name is my brand and it’s what I want people to remember. So when I set up my BTR account, I registered njretoday. I did not register with my Facebook account because I may one day create a different show, one where I would like to register with my own name. But for now, I was more than happy to reg http://blogtalkradio.com/njretoday
Tip 2 Pre-plan the Season of Topics, Titles, Episode Descriptions, Keywords and Interviews in Advance
When I say that I conducted my show by the seat of my pants, I am underestimating how unprepared I was when I first got started. Immediately upon creating a BlogTalkRadio account, you receive two things:
- a. Host Call in Number
- b. Host Pin.
The host pin is unique to your account and show not be shared with anyone else. If you call in from to the host call in number from your cell phone or a land line, you can start podcasting in 60 seconds or less.
Before you schedule your show, you will have to select a title of each episode, write a brief description of the show and select keywords that are associated with the show. Spend some time coming up with detailed descriptions, which is an important part of how listeners will find and decide to listen to your content. Plus, it’s part of how the BlogTalkRadio moderators evaluates what episodes to be featured. Your description can be 2000 characters long and can include links, but it is bests to keep it brief, while including pertinent details about guests and content.
Think of your show as a short season with a one coming soon pilot episode that will discuss your future topics. This might be a good time to name drop and highlight the people you have lined up to be on the show. This might also be the time when you give your show’s time slot a mic check. If you are using a free BlogTalkRadio account, you will not have a dedicated call in number unfortunately. Some of your listeners will take you on the road and will need the call in number in advance. With a free BlogTalkRadio account, you are restricted to 5 live callers at any one time, which means 5 people can use the call in number to listen in or speak to host (you) directly.
Tip 3 Prepare Detailed Show Notes
One of the things I quickly noticed about myself and how I started each and every episode was how I introduced myself. I am a big fan of the Daily Show and If you watch Jon Stewart, you will notice that he always has a pen in his hand and show notes. On the top of my show notes I have the disclaimer I would mention at the start of every show. “My Name is Angie Perez of Weichert, Realtors. I am a broker salesperson in Edison, NJ. I have been in the real estate business for 6 years. The opinions that I share on this show are that of my own and not that or Weichert, Realtors. We have a great show for you today. . .etc.” Somehow reaffirming that I had a great show lined up for the audience made me feel better as well. I would always talk about what the current topic is for the day and what the next week’s topic would be about and ask the audience to share, retweet or email their questions to be. BlogTalkRadio has a chat room and you can take questions there as well. I found it to be difficult to monitor the chat and conduct my show, but if you have a partner who can take questions while you are live, you will find that listeners will like this feature, especially if you become popular.
Tip 4 Add Some Bells And Whistles
Looking for royalty free sounds or music to add to your show is as easy as scanning istockphoto. This is what I mean my adding bells and whistles. Since people are listening in and not viewing or watching your show, it helps to break up the content being delivered with sounds that will add either your signature mark or help you to make transitions to the next segment/section of your show or stress certain points.
Tip 5 Promote, Leverage, Share
Blogtalkradio provides you with the ability to easily share your show, albeit live or pre-recorded recording with your network on facebook and twitter. Also, I have an email list and after I recorded my shows, I shared my shows with my lists using constant contact. You can use any email marketing software/program to leverage your content. I found that when I added a quick reminder for my leads, past clients and sphere to listen to my show, I would get additional listeners. Keep in mind that when I generated my list of topics, I always had a person in mind as to who would benefit from the show. So, when I sent out my email, I was targeting certain people, certain future buyers and sellers. Not to mention that you can add your podcast to podcasting directories. You can also listen in on other shows and cross network with other hosts, who might have you on as guess on their show or vice versa. One of the things that I did was blog on the same topic as the show so that I would have both written and audio content. You can, for a fee, transcribe your show and place that content on your blog. These are the ways that I promoted my show that I found to be easy for beginners to do.
Tip 6 Rinse and Repeat
The proof is in the pudding. If you follow me on facebook, you might remember a status update where I shared an “ah ha” moment. Because I went out to actively look for people to interview on my show, I can attribute and positively say that I had one closing year to date directly related to my podcast shows. Here’s the short version of that status update. I am a loan officer years ago at a networking event. We connected on facebook, but didn’t do business with each other for a long time. We reconnected on facebook and I asked her to be on my show. She enjoyed it so much and appreciated the way in which I was marketing myself, she referred me a buyer lead, someone who closed in under 60 days. I showed the client 5 hours and netted a $3500 commission check, a check I would have never received had I not given podcasting a try. That same loan officer and I have become friends and we have a very healthy, reciprocal referral relationship. Now that I have had some success in podcasting, I have to repeat it and my goal is to have season 2 of my same show, only now that I have some experience, I can do it better.
Before you get started podcasting I advise you to listen to the following people who inspired me to do my show:
If you are going to start a podcast and want us to listen in, drop your link and show title in the comments below. We would love to be one of your future listeners.
Ms. Perez is a Broker-Salesperson for Weichert, Realtors. She is the founder of Agent Know How and a number of other real estate websites. As an active real estate sales agent in NJ and dedicated sales trainer, Ms. Perez aspires to share her expertise and mentor new or seasoned real estate agents in the areas of business development, business planing, social media marketing and lead generation.
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