Starting a Local Podcast

Having a podcast show isn’t unique but producing a show that’s focused on a local community is something a little different – and something you might consider doing for your local community. Sacramento podcasters will tell you that everybody loves talking about their home town.

By Starting a Local Podcast You Will:

Build Goodwill in Your Community
By building a local following, showcasing local leaders and businesses, you are creating a lot of goodwill in your community.

Build Authority & Credibility
Starting a local podcast will make you a go-to authority in your city/town/area.

Spend Quality Time with Influencers
Because you’re offering a chance at exposure, getting face-time with previously out-of-reach influencers in your area now becomes a reality.

Grow Your Influence
You’ll know all the ins, outs, & happenings in a community because of your new involvement and spotlight. Now when you walk down the street, people know you, who you are, and what you’re doing.

Learn what business owners need
By listening to business owners, you begin a relationship. That share their challenges and needs — and that creates opportunities for you to solve their problems.

Form Advertising Partnerships
When you own the local podcast, you can offer lots of exposure to companies in your area. This opens up the doors for a lot of strategic partnerships; build your podcast with the help of a partnership with another company or business.

Tips for Getting Started Successfully

1. Invest in Decent Equipment
While you don’t need to blow a few thousand dollars on state of the art recording equipment or software, you should at least have a decent microphone to start with.

Having a decent microphone, a headset, and some basic audio editing software can make huge difference in how your podcast audio sounds.

2. Choose the Right Theme

What it means is that you should pick a theme you can commit to for the long haul.

Being genuinely informed and interested in whatever you choose to talk to will keep your audience engaged, and they will appreciate you for it.

Stick to something you know and love.

The people listening will always be able to tell the difference.

3. Come Out with Quality Podcasts

It may seem easy, but unless you are an experienced media veteran with years of broadcasting under your belt, your first few podcast episodes probably won’t be very good.

What you’re listening to today is 10 years’ worth of experience, learning, and practice.

4. Find the Balance

Podcast audiences don’t want to listen to pushovers. They want real, hard-hitting podcasting.

Have an opinion, and a solid identity your listeners can slowly get to know and enjoy.

This isn’t to say that you should completely ignore what your listeners want, however.

5. Make Your Podcast SEO-Friendly

While there are other great posts that cover Podcasting SEO in-depth, it would be impossible to create a ‘how to create a successful podcast’ article without mentioning SEO.

Most people probably don’t realize that iTunes and Google Podcasts are actually search engines.

Given this newfound information, it only makes sense to sneak in a few keywords in your podcast’s title and descriptions, if only to give you a little boost in the rankings.

6. Get Great Guests – and Be a Great Guest

Guests can be an incredibly valuable factor in the success of your podcast.

An expert guest will not only have intelligent and interesting things to share on your pod for your listeners, but they will also most likely be bringing in plenty of their own followers.

7. Be Consistent

Like everything in life, consistency is key when it comes to having a successful podcast.

Find a schedule you can commit to, and commit to it fully.

Your listeners want to know they can rely and depend on you to come out with a podcast on a regular basis.