Podcast: Play in new window | Download
If you're focusing on only podcasting, you could be missing huge potential to grow your audience! My guest Ms. Ileane from BasicBlogTips.com will inspire you to add blogging to your podcast strategy.
4 reasons podcasters should blog
1. Discoverability
A blog gives more opportunity for being found by search engines. Text can be indexed by Google and other search engines, but audio isn't popularly indexed yet.
iTunes is also a search engine, but it's very hard to be discovered unless you're in the top.
Blog posts can also contain more keywords than a podcast episode's title.
2. Easy consumption
Website visitors can scan written content and understand your message far faster than listening to a podcast episode.
3. Massive blog-reading audience
Podcast listenership is growing, but far more blogs are being read than podcasts are being heard or watched. Writing blog posts allows you to reach a broader audience.
4. More opportunities to make money from your podcast
Writing blog posts between your podcast episodes give you more impressions for promoting affiliate links through quality reviews, sharing what you use, or mentioning relevant deals and sales.
You can later refer back to these product-related posts on your site and continue promoting quality information with profitable benefits.
Should your content go in the blog or the podcast?
As much as you can, try to share your message in every media possible. Some material will be a better fit for a certain format (such as video, blog post, or audio).
If you publish podcast episodes on a consistent schedule, but you have time-sensitive news, this is optimal content for writing a blog post.
Do transcriptions help podcasting?
Transcriptions can provide a way for others to read your podcast content instead of listening. This makes it easier for search engines to find your content.
If your episode shownotes are simple summaries with bullet points, you're missing the opportunity to provide high-quality content. A transcription can help you get there, but it may not be your best option.
Sometimes, you may want to point more information in your blog post than you can share in your podcast episode.
If you have long podcast episodes, then transcriptions are probably not a good idea because that's a lot of content for a blog post.
If your podcast contents irrelevant content, then your transcriptions should omit these. You can leave in your personality, but you don't want to burden your readers with “fluff” before they find the content. Remember that your written words will help your post rank better in search engines. Do you really want to rank for the “fluff” or for the actual content of your post?
How to get started blogging if you already podcast
Curate content
You are probably already searching for and consuming content (if you're not, you should be!). This content can inspire you to write your own perspective, reshare the information with your audience, and alert you to topics for writing.
Scoop.it or Google+ are great places to find content.
Incorporate feedback
Make it easy for your audience to send you feedback, and then consider responding to the feedback in individual blog posts. Even if you usually respond directly via email, you can repurpose your email reply as a blog post.
Ms. Ileane really likes using SpeakPipe for vetting feedback.
Direct feedback options are often more welcoming to commenters because they won't feel their message will be publicly visible.
Just make sure you have the sender's permission to share their feedback. You can either ask this in your correspondence, or have it as an option on your feedback form or stated terms.
Invite guest authors
When you're not interested or available to write your own blog posts, you could pull in some trusted members of your audience who share your same passions. Ms. Ileane has huge success with this on Basic Blog Tips.
Don't worry about the length
You don't have to write long blog posts. 200 words is easy and an ideal length.
Relax if you're not a writer
If you can talk, you can write. It doesn't have to be perfect. Have a friend proofread your posts.
Don't try to be perfect or else you'll never start.
Connect with Ms. Ileane
Ms. Ileane is an avid blogger, and I know you'll love what she writes.
- Sign up for Ms. Ileane's email list
- Follow @Ileane on Twitter
- Read Ms. Ileane's personal blog
- Watch Ms. Ileane on YouTube
- Subscribe to Ms. Ileane's podcast
- Get basic blog tips and basic podcasting tips
Need personalized podcasting help?
I no longer offer one-on-one consulting outside of Podcasters' Society, but request a consultant here and I'll connect you with someone I trust to help you launch or improve your podcast.
Ask your questions or share your feedback
- Comment on the shownotes
- Leave a voicemail at (903) 231-2221
- Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome)
Connect with me
- Subscribe to The Audacity to Podcast on Apple Podcasts or on Android.
- Join the Facebook Page and watch live podcasting Q&A on Mondays at 2pm (ET)
- Subscribe on YouTube for video reviews, Q&A, and more
- Follow @theDanielJLewis
Disclosure
This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship and may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.
Related Content
Through the years I have gone back and forth. One thing about blogging that I like is it can be done without regard for exhaustion. I would compose blog posts when I was tired. It is hard to podcast effectively with a tired voice. No longer do I blog because of a few reasons. The blogosphere appears to be more saturated than the realm of podcasting. My community is more engaged with the podcast medium than to the blogging one. They lurk more with blogs and interact more with podcasts. I think blogging can definitely help many people. It is less successful for me and my community.
Jonathan, I certainly can think of many times when I continued blogging when there was no way I could have recorded a podcast.
I know that there a tonnes of blogs out there but that never stopped me because I love to write. I mentioned in the interview how I didn’t even have a niche when I first started blogging. I just kept doing it until I found something that I felt passionate about without regard to how many other people where doing it.
Thanks for your feedback.
That’s a good point on interaction. But then again, look at how we’re interacting with each other in the public comments on a post.
I agree with Jonathan. There are “too many blogs” in my opinion. I write “posts” on Facebook, Twitter, and in the episode description. I am, however, interested in writing in an email newsletter. However, I do not have that subscription service yet. “Making money” is not the top reason I am podcasting, so this affects my view. I am podcasting to propel my authority and reputation into the internet. That will be more valuable later on, but not immediately monetizable.
Roger, I spend way more time on Facebook then I care to admit but believe me I went in “kicking and screaming”. After about 6 months of seeing Facebook as the number one traffic source for my blog I decided that it would make sense for me to learn how to use the platform to my advantage. Twitter has always been my favorite platform but these days Google + is giving it a fair fight. Well maybe it’s an unfair fight but you know what I mean. lol
Thanks for the comment Roger.
When I look at where I devote my time I see a direct correlation to the ROI. I hesitate to use that term as it invokes visions of outlaying funds/fiscal resources in the hope of getting money back. To me ROI measures anything from time to energy to skills to money. The one exception has been when I blogged heavily. The engagement wasn’t there. With podcasting my listeners reach out to me via e-mail, in person, and social media (Facebook, G+, and Twitter). My MadMimi e-newsletter has proven helpful too. I think that blogging can be very helpful for some people though. It just hasn’t been for me. Actually, my commenting here is a result of Daniel’s e-newsletter and if this was a blog with no podcast, I probably wouldn’t have commented. But, I’m an odd duck in that way.
Jonathan, it’s so important to know your audience and what format works best for them. Daniel and I didn’t talk much about email marketing but I’d love to explore the benefits of building an email list if I ever come back on the show. If you ever get a chance to listen to my podcast you’ll hear me talking about email marketing in many of my episodes.
That reminds me – I need to get on Daniel’s list too! Thanks Jonathan.
Look at MailChimp for starting your newsletter. I’m still on their free plan for my own email newsletter.
Hi All –
Great episode Daniel! Great info Illene. I blog lightly on one of my sites….need to up the regularity of that first and foremost, but then again, I am working on a new “brand” – was supposed to be live June 1, but HD crash delayed a few weeks. May be shutting other one down for a bit.
In anycase, I do plan on a 2 prong if not 3 approach… Blog what can’t wait, like Daniel said, and Podcast as well. 3rd prong will be video/tutorials via youtube or vimeo. Looking forward to getting it all going!
Thx again for the content, ideas!
-Adam
Hi Adam, it sounds like you have a great plan in place and of course I love the ideas of expanding your brand through video tutorials. You don’t need to decide between YouTube or Vimeo because you can do both. I use OneLoad (formerly called TubeMogul) and distribute my videos to Daily Motion, Meta Cafe, Photo Bucket, Flickr. They recently added Facebook so you can upload to all of those sites at once and it’s all free. I have a YouTube video showing how it works and I also cover the fantastic stats they provide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqpyMv4Z-tA
I’m looking forward to seeing you in the near future Adam.
Thanks so much for your comment and for listening to the interview.
That’s cool, Adam! As you’ve seen, I’ve also added YouTube to my mix and it’s going well. I think that YouTube is far more social than Vimeo.
[…] Write Like Your Speak: In Stephen King’s book, “On Writing,” he stated that the best writing mimics the spoken word. […]
[…] Dave Jackson at School of Podcasting, Jon Overall at WordPress Plugins A to Z, Daniel J. Lewis from The (award winning) Audacity to Podcast and many […]