Make a Podcast People Love

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Speaker 1: Too often content fails because we're not pulling the right levers, 2 - > or worse, we're unaware of the levers we even. 3 - >

Speaker 2: Have access to. 4 - >

Speaker 1: What if you had a content dashboard like a pilot 5 - > sitting in a cockpit, with a clear understanding of your 6 - > instruments and what can make your content fly. Today, we're 7 - > breaking down the adjustments that take a video podcast from forgettable. 8 - >

Speaker 2: To must watch. 9 - >

Speaker 1: So, Benji, we were just in the kitchen talking about 10 - > this idea that I think dawned on you shortly after 11 - > we did a live call this morning, Yeah, talking about 12 - > our State of Video Podcast report, and you have this 13 - > analogy of like, what if there was this dashboard in 14 - > front of a content marketer that allowed them to see 15 - > all of the different variables that they can dial up 16 - > or down based on what they want their content to do, 17 - > what the use can of the content. And when you 18 - > think about content for a typical creator who's trying to 19 - > reach a mass audience and get brand deals with you 20 - > better help or big consumer brands this kind of thing, 21 - > it's like, well, they're always just trying to get more eyeballs, 22 - > Like that's the thing they're all trying to optimize for. 23 - >

Speaker 2: But in b to B. It's much more nuanced than that. 24 - >

Speaker 1: Is. Is this a piece of content that we know 25 - > our sales reps are going to share in the sales process. 26 - > Is this more of a top of funnel play? Is 27 - > this problem aware solution aware? There are a lot of 28 - > different things that you have to optimize for v B content. 29 - > There are actually multiple things you need to move a 30 - > lever on to dial in what your content needs to 31 - > be for the purpose that it needs to have. Elaborate 32 - > a little bit on that and what those levers are, 33 - > because I think this is going to be super helpful. 34 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah. So like when I get on a plane, I 35 - > am very. 36 - >

Speaker 4: Overwhelmed when I'm supposed to go to the right and 37 - > instead I look to the le and I look what 38 - > the pilot has to deal with, because that is just 39 - > a can of worm. Who knows what this button does, 40 - > or this lever does, or how people understand where they're 41 - > getting when they're flying, Like, I got a million questions 42 - > for pilots. 43 - >

Speaker 3: Think about content in the same way. 44 - >

Speaker 4: When you're at the beginning of like a video podcast 45 - > journey or a content type journey. One we clearly know 46 - > we want to clear destination. What's the goal for this content. 47 - > We jack that even up sometimes right, because the more 48 - > stakeholders you get, it's almost like you have multiple pilots 49 - > fighting over who gets to fly the plane that can 50 - > cause all sorts of directional issues and steer this ship 51 - > off course or this plane off course. That's one element 52 - > of it. But then you even can go to specific content. 53 - > So let me just speak to video podcasts for a second. 54 - > If you're a show, you probably have a show level 55 - > strategy where it's like, these are the levers that we 56 - > can pull, and we're going to talk about what some 57 - > of them are. So if you're like, I have no 58 - > idea what you're referencing, I'll go into specifics. But we 59 - > have show level things that at the outset of creating 60 - > a piece of content like that, you would decide this 61 - > is how our hosts are going to be set up. 62 - > This is kind of where it's out on a scale 63 - > of education to entertainment, Like that's a lever that you 64 - > can push or pull even at a show level. That's 65 - > one side of it. But then there's another level of 66 - > intentionality that goes episode to episode, piece of content to 67 - > piece of content. Are we getting specific about what we 68 - > want to try? Like we could literally decide that what's 69 - > best for this specific piece of content is to dial 70 - > up you and I disagreeing on something. If you know 71 - > that that lever is at your disposal and we're like, okay, 72 - > we're going to change up this, and we're going to 73 - > actually pick a topic for the co host to debate, 74 - > and we're going to be okay with them disagreeing. That 75 - > can be a one episode decision that doesn't have to be. 76 - > This is the context of my entire show. So one 77 - > of the problems I see in business media is that 78 - > one you have no clue what those levers even are, 79 - > and then two, if you do know, you set it 80 - > and forget it, like we're going to now be in 81 - > a Tesla and auto drive all the way to our destination, 82 - > which just isn't true in twenty twenty four, going into 83 - > twenty twenty five. With content, you have to be thinking about, 84 - > how is this thing we're creating right now unique? Needs 85 - > to be adjusted? What do we want to change or update? 86 - > And you can the creative side of me gets so 87 - > excited about this because, yes, you have a default setting 88 - > that you want to set for the show to give 89 - > people something predictable, but you also have a piece of 90 - > content to piece of content setting where you can decide 91 - > what those little changes or tweaks are, and when you 92 - > get intentional and you're able to communicate those things, you 93 - > make better content. 94 - >

Speaker 3: So the first one we have. 95 - >

Speaker 1: On this list is something we talk a lot about 96 - > and we were actually kind of disagreeing with this before 97 - > we hit record. I'm like, this is this a lever 98 - > or is this a switch? And it's a round co 99 - > hosted commentary. So it's like if you I was thinking 100 - > about it, like this is a switch, you either do 101 - > co hosted commentary or you switch it over and you 102 - > do it an You're like, no, it's a lever because 103 - > you can go you can crank all the way up 104 - > on co host to commentary where we're talking about what 105 - > other people are doing and you and I are given 106 - > weighing in on that. 107 - >

Speaker 2: Uh. 108 - >

Speaker 1: Or you could pull it down and in route to interview, 109 - > where we're just literally interviewing someone else and asking them 110 - > questions to feature them and their expertise. In the middle 111 - > way too, that is actually having a conversation with a 112 - > third kind of guest co host. 113 - >

Speaker 3: Yes, someone pulls up a seat right here. 114 - >

Speaker 4: You and I still have our chemistry third person caught 115 - > comes in and boom, that's that's a great conversation. Again, 116 - > if our default setting for B to B growth was 117 - > we are a co host of commentary show, so you 118 - > and I eighty percent of the time are doing. 119 - >

Speaker 3: This style of show. Great. 120 - >

Speaker 4: There are topics within B to B marketing, within content, 121 - > within the crossover of business and media that for sure, 122 - > you and I are not the all out expert in 123 - > bringing a third person in and saying I'm going to 124 - > just for this episode go conversation right in the middle. 125 - > We're going to stick there for a minute. Great content choice. 126 - > Because you're bringing in someone that you know could be 127 - > interesting to your audience, you probably need to be very 128 - > curious about that, so it stays a conversation doesn't become 129 - > an interview, but that is very much something you should 130 - > know you have at your disposal. What I find is 131 - > a lot of times in interview style shows, guess what, 132 - > they never try to push the lever to co host 133 - > the commentary because either they don't know another person and 134 - > they got stuck doing interviews and they're like, I don't 135 - > know who I would co host this with, or they 136 - > don't know how to get to conversation which is as 137 - > easy as in your next outline, like what are the 138 - > stories you're going to tell, what's some personality you're going 139 - > to put. 140 - >

Speaker 1: In, and just plan for questions to ask. 141 - >

Speaker 4: So just knowing that you have that ability, that it's 142 - > not like a set it and forget it. We're only 143 - > an interview style show gives you the freedom to say, 144 - > what's the best way to get this message across? And 145 - > that's what is great about and exciting about content. So 146 - > that's the first one I would push The second one 147 - > on here is entertainment and education. We don't need to 148 - > camp out here because we call it edutainment. That is 149 - > clearly the middle there where you're trying to be yes, 150 - > more educational, but also potentially entertaining. 151 - >

Speaker 1: And here's a practical example of how this flushes itself 152 - > out on two shows that we've just been working on 153 - > pre production on. So there are collective shows. Sweetfish owns them. 154 - > One is for revops leaders and another one is for 155 - > yeah CISOs Chief Information Security Officers. Very specific B to 156 - > B audiences that we're trying to engage the way we 157 - > formatted these shows, we have three different segments. There's a 158 - > segment where the co hosts are talking about the specific 159 - > topic that we're building the episode around, so it's an 160 - > industry specific topic. We then get into segment two, which 161 - > is research Roundup, similar to what we do on this show, 162 - > where we're we go and our team finds some research 163 - > related to CISOs or related to REVOPS leaders, and we 164 - > tee up the hosts to talk about, Hey, what do 165 - > you think about this research? 166 - >

Speaker 2: Is it off? Is it wrong, is it right? Do 167 - > you agree with it? Whatever. 168 - >

Speaker 1: Then the last segment of the show is actually a 169 - > game show style segment where we're talking about industry related 170 - > things but in a fun way. We went and Bob 171 - > buzzers and like it's like buzz in or it's you know, 172 - > it's hot or not Revops Edition. Like that stuff makes 173 - > great content. It it indexes way more on entertainment. But 174 - > when you look at like that lever if education is 175 - > up here and entertainment is down here, we're not in 176 - > the middle. We're probably leaning toward education, but there's an 177 - > element of fun entertainment that we've injected into. 178 - >

Speaker 4: So on that example, like segments are a great way 179 - > of in the beginning of starting something. We're going to 180 - > do this segment so that we can recurringly have fun, 181 - > so we can recurringly get this data point across, which 182 - > might be a more serious segment. Like you can think 183 - > of several ways you can use segments to achieve education 184 - > or entertainment. And if it's recurring, let's say you're going 185 - > to try it and do it for ten episodes or whatever, 186 - > or you just end up like people love it, you 187 - > just keep doing it, doing it, doing it. That at 188 - > a show level, strategy is like you set this up 189 - > as a lever you pulled one time that's now set 190 - > in a specific place, and then in the future you 191 - > can decide on an episode to episode level, is this 192 - > appropriate for this specific piece of content. So I think again, 193 - > remembering you have those two this is what we're defaulting to. 194 - > This is what we're doing for this piece, and we 195 - > know why. 196 - >

Speaker 1: I like the visual of thinking about segments as the 197 - > handle on the lever, like segments are what you grab 198 - > to move this thing up or down. Because you don't 199 - > have to use the same three segments in every single episode. 200 - >

Speaker 2: We're gonna swap out. 201 - >

Speaker 1: This segment for this segment because we want to index 202 - > higher on this particular thing. So co host commentary to 203 - > interview with conversation being in the middle entertainment to Education's 204 - > what's the next one? 205 - >

Speaker 3: Casual? 206 - >

Speaker 4: This is pretty easy. But the reason why this is 207 - > different than like education entertainment is just tone. So you 208 - > and I have done episodes where we literally talked about, 209 - > like what's a failure or something that you know happened 210 - > in your personal life that you're like, I don't know 211 - > how I'm going to be able to overcome this, like 212 - > a time when you kind of either messed up or what. 213 - > That's a very like kind of casual personal in a 214 - > way authentic, So not casual in the sense of like 215 - > this is easy to talk about, but like that's a 216 - > more conversation you might hear at a bar that you're like, wait, 217 - > why are marketers talking about this? Versus like on the 218 - > serious end of the spectrum, it could be like literally 219 - > a data report where you're like, the point of this 220 - > specific episode is to get across facts and you can index. 221 - >

Speaker 3: On how you want to do those things. So you 222 - > could go like serious, yeah, like would you where. 223 - >

Speaker 2: We so, Lex? When I think of Lex Friedman. 224 - >

Speaker 4: I'm thinking serious. I think serious, Yeah, for sure. HI 225 - > Mean he's wearing a suit, he's on the puller ups 226 - > very casual. Right, both are successful and both are conversational. Yes, 227 - > so that's another interesting pieces. Like I would say Lex 228 - > indexes more towards interview, but he's still in a very 229 - > unique way, like you like him because you can get 230 - > his personality in it, so he's not totally into interview. 231 - > It's just you notice once you go like what about 232 - > this show that everybody has their own unique dials and 233 - > they're all in different places, Like all of those levers 234 - > are pulled slightly different and that's what makes it unique, 235 - > which is so freaking awesome and exciting. But I think 236 - > serious to casual where you would go our show generally 237 - > is kind of not funny. We're pretty serious and we 238 - > index on that side of things. But for this episode, 239 - > it's probably best for our audience to have a more 240 - > casual thing, for us to let loose. What if ninety 241 - > five percent of your micro videos are serious because that's 242 - > your content, but you sprinkled in a few funny clips 243 - > because funny stuff does happen on serious shows. 244 - >

Speaker 3: Guess what those clips will pop off. 245 - >

Speaker 4: They will be some of your best performing content and 246 - > it could get people interested in your more serious stuff. 247 - > So indexing on what you know is going to be 248 - > your default, but also having a room for that more 249 - > casual type stuff as well. 250 - >

Speaker 1: It's next lever you've got quick takes versus a deep dive. 251 - > We actually have recorded episodes today, this one being quick 252 - > take literally just developed the thought in the kitchen a 253 - > few minutes ago, versus another episode we've recorded that was 254 - > based on a research report that we've been doing for. 255 - >

Speaker 2: The last month three months. 256 - >

Speaker 3: Yes, and spent hundreds of hours on both awesome ideas. 257 - >

Speaker 4: Right, because you and I are really passionate about this 258 - > idea today, because we're literally talking about it, working it out. 259 - >

Speaker 3: And I know this will be valuable for people. 260 - >

Speaker 4: So I don't need five pages of notes and a 261 - > bunch of data to back this up. I need people 262 - > to walk away from this episode and go, oh, I've 263 - > been thinking about my content wrong, Like I could just 264 - > slightly tweak this or change this, or get more excited 265 - > about the fact that I have control over episode to 266 - > episode content or content piece to content piece. So yeah, 267 - > you can play up how quick you want to make 268 - > something five minute, ten minute time matters. 269 - >

Speaker 3: So little if the content is quality, people tune in. 270 - >

Speaker 4: I realized on the airplane I was halfway through a 271 - > Modern Wisdom episode and I was like, actually kind of 272 - > excited about it. I was like, I thought, for sure, 273 - > on my two hour flight to Pittsburgh, I would be 274 - > done with this thing, and I'm still going. So I'm like, 275 - > it does The length doesn't matter the three hours. If 276 - > it's adding value, it's adding value. So quick take or 277 - > deep dive, you can play with that. We've done an 278 - > episode recently where I set a time around my phone 279 - > said we're gonna do this in twenty minutes. 280 - >

Speaker 3: That gives us an interesting extra element for that episode. 281 - >

Speaker 1: Yeah, a little game mechanic that can add to it. 282 - > You've got visual style on here, so raw polish shee 283 - > this a lot with Colin at Zumir's content. 284 - >

Speaker 2: They've got some content that literally is like them with a. 285 - >

Speaker 3: Phone recorded a whole video podcast, like in their car. 286 - >

Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they they're cinematographers and so they obviously 287 - > can go way heavy on that side of it. 288 - >

Speaker 2: I'm super polished. 289 - >

Speaker 4: Yeah, here's the mistake of people are making with this 290 - > is if you started a hyper polished show, you get 291 - > really afraid of making the iPhone shot video. But if 292 - > something happens in your industry that you really have a 293 - > take on we need your iPhone video. So, like your 294 - > show strategy or like your default is, we want as 295 - > much polished content as possible. 296 - >

Speaker 3: It's great. I mean, I'm flying here. We're doing this 297 - > content because we want polished stuff. But if you and I, 298 - > if I fly home. 299 - >

Speaker 4: In two days from now, something major happens that we're like, 300 - > we should probably do an episode on that. We're not 301 - > gonna wait, We're gonna do something fast, because it doesn't 302 - > necessarily matter that everything is as polished as the next piece. 303 - > It's what is this content demand from us? So what's 304 - > interesting about this the way this would apply here, I 305 - > would say we are I don't know exactly where where 306 - > we are somewhere in the middle here because this is 307 - > a raw idea that we literally just started talking about 308 - > a few minutes ago. 309 - >

Speaker 1: But we're in a very polished environment. So from a 310 - > quality perspective, like the set that we're using, we're in 311 - > the creator house, it can that from that side of 312 - > it is very polished. So if you look at our 313 - > outline right now, it looks very different than what the 314 - > app Now, we still did an outline. 315 - >

Speaker 4: Yeah, we could have, just like this outline doesn't make 316 - > sense to anybody except for us because it's just notes. 317 - > But at the same time, yeah, I love that your 318 - > set could be polished or raw, your content could be 319 - > polished or raw. You'd get to decide on both of those. 320 - > And again, if you're doing it with intention and it's 321 - > serving the audience, just do it. That's what's important. So 322 - > I think that one's great. The next one on here 323 - > is pacing of the conversation. We don't need to camp 324 - > on this one too much, but I would just say 325 - > sometimes in our episodes when we did talk about like failures, 326 - > the pacing was pretty slow because we were letting each 327 - > other tell pretty deep detailed stories versus right now, I 328 - > think we're both so excited that we're just like boo 329 - > boo boo boo boom. 330 - >

Speaker 3: Pacing is an active decision, yep. 331 - >

Speaker 1: This next one transparency versus curation. The way you've named 332 - > this is kind of. 333 - >

Speaker 2: Weird to me. 334 - >

Speaker 3: I don't thanks chat GPT for this one. 335 - >

Speaker 4: Okay, here's why I put this one in here, so 336 - > you can go behind the scenes versus all the way 337 - > to like I'm showcasing someone else's content, So you could go, 338 - > this is how we're thinking about doing X thing within 339 - > our content, and this is what we've done for clients. 340 - > You're peeling back to curtain and you're going like, look 341 - > at how exactly we do this under the hood all 342 - > the way to crank that to the opposite side, where 343 - > it's like someone posted on LinkedIn yesterday and we're curating 344 - > their thoughts for you. 345 - >

Speaker 3: So what's your default? Is your default towards. 346 - >

Speaker 4: Like internal type, which I would I would advise against that. 347 - > If you're trying to grow up audience, I wouldn't go 348 - > completely internal. But as you grow an audience, people get 349 - > real curious about behind the scenes, so then you could 350 - > start to showcase that a good way to grow an audience, 351 - > but not necessarily a great way to have original thoughts, 352 - > is just to say here's five things that happened in 353 - > my industry today. So if you need to get your 354 - > content engine moving, you might crank all the way to curation. 355 - >

Speaker 3: So I agree with you. 356 - >

Speaker 4: If I was renaming this, I would probably I would 357 - > change this. But the idea here being you can go 358 - > all the way from what other people are doing, and 359 - > I'm just commentating on all the way over to behind 360 - > the scenes. Here's what we're well, we're thinking about trying 361 - > do yep, I like it all right level of controversy. 362 - > So in a world where spicy takes rein supreme, I 363 - > think I. 364 - >

Speaker 3: Know where you're going with this one very easy. 365 - >

Speaker 4: I do this in host training with every client that 366 - > we have that I love doing host training with people, 367 - > and this one for business leaders is often the hardest one. 368 - > There are outliers who just have the takes ready and 369 - > they're ready to sit behind a mic and look into 370 - > a camera and tell you exactly how they think and feel. 371 - > Most people need some training to go, hey, it's okay 372 - > if even us working for the same company have some 373 - > different varying thoughts on media. That's a pretty weird thing 374 - > for some companies because they think they have to get 375 - > an exact line. 376 - >

Speaker 3: But if you can go. 377 - >

Speaker 4: For most episodes, we tend to be agreeable. But for 378 - > this episode, we're going to go really heavy into controversy, 379 - > to the point where we may title this episode different. 380 - > We may give each of the co hosts some specific 381 - > way that they should present themselves as far as like 382 - > this is your argument, almost like it becomes debate class. 383 - > Those episodes are so fun because you get multiple sidekank 384 - > design and. 385 - >

Speaker 2: What's great about this. 386 - >

Speaker 1: You can literally go and ask You can ask CHAGPT, 387 - > hey give me twenty segment ideas. Then allow us to 388 - > dial up controversial takes on our show, and they will 389 - > give you a bunch of different segments. Put those segments 390 - > in your bank and go, hey, this we've got We've 391 - > got to take on this particular idea. Let's work this 392 - > in as a segment into this particular episode. The segment 393 - > then allows us to give this spicy take in an 394 - > environment where it makes sense in a more entertaining format. 395 - >

Speaker 4: And if you're trying to dial in what you actually 396 - > think about something, you could use the voice feature on 397 - > chat GPT and say, this is what I'm thinking about this. 398 - > Poke holes in my argument. 399 - >

Speaker 2: You've done that? 400 - >

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it is wild. 401 - >

Speaker 4: You're like, I've seen people debate philosophy with chat GPT. 402 - > There are people using it for mind blowing ways. This 403 - > is not the episode for that. But if you think 404 - > about how do you want to become a more well 405 - > rounded human, think about the way you think, and then go, 406 - > what if I ask someone to just. 407 - >

Speaker 3: Poke holes in it. 408 - >

Speaker 4: Most of us are maybe a little too prideful to 409 - > want to know the holes, but it will make you 410 - > a better marketer if you're like, hey, here's my plan 411 - > and like, what are the holes in it? So anyway, 412 - > that's a side tangent. Let me give you another one 413 - > here we have well, we already hit on recur segments, 414 - > so let's just end with this one. Actionable takeaways for 415 - > philosophical discussion, good timing thought being. Here, let's say you 416 - > over index typically on actionable insights. Most B to B 417 - > shows tend to do this, where they're like, at the 418 - > end of each episode, we want to make sure people 419 - > know what to do. I think we have over indexed 420 - > in that direction, particularly in a world where that type 421 - > of educational content is being commoditized by AI. By the 422 - > second Yeah, and I want to go to do something 423 - > I can put in I mean you mentioned this earlier. 424 - > I can put in chat GPT and ask how to 425 - > do the thing so that I yeah, I do agree 426 - > that we've gone way too hard on that and it's 427 - > and that's going to backfire in a big way as 428 - > AI gets better and better. 429 - >

Speaker 3: At It's the same reason why if you. 430 - >

Speaker 4: If you were to look up running a marathon, the 431 - > SEO blogs all say the same thing. If you go 432 - > to YouTube and you go like watch me train for 433 - > a marathon. That video is so compelling. And guess what 434 - > in that vlog style video you learn what they ate? 435 - > You learn of course that it drinking water is super important. 436 - > They probably had to wake up early, all the stuff 437 - > the SEO blog said. But now it's personality led in 438 - > a video format like a vlog. So I say that 439 - > to say like, there is actionable insight, as in you 440 - > looking into the camera and telling someone exactly what to do. 441 - > And then there's when I was in X situation, let 442 - > me get into how my brain was thinking about this. 443 - > Let me share this story with you, and that becomes 444 - > a really amazing piece of content. That is, it sounds different. 445 - > It honestly most of the time feels it more like 446 - > you're talking to peers instead of telling people that are 447 - > behind you how to do something. So both valuable. Know 448 - > where you index as a show, and then pick for 449 - > that specific episode what you want to lean into. 450 - >

Speaker 2: I love it all right. 451 - >

Speaker 1: Remember, whoever has the audience has the leverage. Commodity content 452 - > is the enemy, and personality led media is the way