The Two Most Important Parts Of Your Podcast

The Podcast Award Are Open If you've ever benefitted from this podcast, do please take the time and nominate the show (school of podcasting) in the EDUCATION category. The Two Most Important Parts of Your Podcast I was watching an episode of Live From Daryl's House (Daryl Hall of Hall and Oats Fame). He has all sorts of musicians of different styles and genres. There is always a small segment where you hear them getting ready. They have had time to prepare. They know the music, but there are two things you always need to figure out and this is no different in podcasting. How to start a segment. How to end a segment.  Why because the first part is your first impression. A bad first impression can really lose your audience for the rest of the song (podcast in our case). A bad last impression and we've just blown all the positive mojo we just created.  We talked a couple of weeks ago about the Podcast Interview Wizard software and how it helps you get to the point quicker. It gets you focused on the meat of the interview.  One strategy is to pick your main point, the one that really inspires people to laugh, cry, think, or groan and come back to that with a tone that signals to the audience that we're moving on, we are done, this is the final thought. Unless you're Jerry Springer, you don't need to announce "here are my final thoughts," you can just say them.  Likewise if you are transitioning to another segment, just transition. Get yourself some royalty free music, fade it, etc, (or just leave a pause of silence). There was only one person who could get away with announcing a transition and his name was James Brown. Why did he do this? Because his band would launch into a groove, and just repeat it over James's singing. So James would be in the middle of the song and ask "Can we take it to the bridge?" and eventually they would take it to the bridge. In other cases James would "hit it and quit it."  Announcing a transition is about as stupid as someone asking, "Can I ask you a question?" (cause they just did). At least that is my opinion.  Because of My Podcast Troy Henritz & Nick Seuberling Troy does the blacklist exposed (theblacklistexposed.com), and recently he's been getting flooded with swag. He got an album (as in an LP) and a Blacklist encyclopedia. Go to schoolofpodcasting.com/510 to see swag Nick Seuberling - First Advertiser Check for Minor League Soccer Podcast I was able to seal my first podcast/website sponsor. I've been podcasting for 11 years now and this is my very first sponsor. On a podcast that only has 8 episodes produced. I recently launched a new podcast that covers FC Cincinnati (http://cincinnatisoccertalk.com ), the newest soccer team in Cincy and I approached them about marketing their team store and ticket sales on my podcast. They immediately jumped at it. Today I received my first check in the mail, and I don't even have a signed agreement yet with the team. I'd say they're eager. Just goes to show, if you're in the right niche, you can sell it to anyone no matter how many episodes you've produced - Nick Seuberling   New and Noteworthy Update - Corey Finneran Corey did a push for iTunes reviews for Ivy Envy. He gained 56 reviews this week. He now has 226 ratings and 191 reviews. He did not budge from #3 when you search "Chicago Cubs" in iTunes. The two that rank ahead of us?#1 - 150 ratings, 128 reviews and the last published episode was 11/11/2010.#2 - 7 ratings, 4 reviews. Promote your show like iTunes doesn't exist. Use it. It's a tool. But I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket. Wordpress as a Free Website Option John Wilkerson comments on last week's show and wondered why I didn't mention Wordpress. BTW, I have a new favorite podcast because of your "favorite podcast" episode at year end.  Never heard of No Agenda until I heard someone mention it on your end year end show, actually it was last years show...