Ep 141 - The Art of the Guest: Securing Your Spot in the Podcast Spotlight

In today's digital age, podcasts have become a compelling medium for storytelling, networking, and brand building. But how does one make the jump from listener to sought-after guest? Dive in with us as we unveil the secrets on how to become a podcast guest.

Ronjini provides her top-secret tips used by the experts to secure a spot as a guest on your favorite podcast.  Get your pen and paper ready to jot down some notes.  Tune in now to learn more about taking the first step to become the podcast guest everyone wants to hear from! 

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 Do you still have questions about becoming a podcast guest? Check out our contact us page to reach out to Ronjini.   

Transcript

Ronjini Joshua: Hello and welcome to Episode 141. Sometimes I'm losing count here guys, we're getting deep into the hundreds, I love it. But today we're going to talk about how to become a podcast guest and so I'm sure you've heard some of the interviews that I've done and I've actually also been on several other podcasts. And been against myself and that's something that is increasingly becoming more common. and a key factor for thought leadership is to be on these podcasts that are relevant to your specific industry. And so today we're just going to talk about some of the things you might need to have in Definitely some podcasts placement agencies and they're fun. Basically, they are micro PR agency. Maybe they probably won't like me saying this, they're like micro PR agencies because PR agencies can do the same thing. They should be able to place you on podcasts but they're probably a little bit more.

Ronjini Joshua: Focused and niched on podcasts. Maybe no, the producers a little bit better, but all these podcasts have submission processes and it's all about,

Ronjini Joshua: Your clouds and kind of how visible you are. So when you're doing podcasts, remember not to just focus on doing podcasts but also writing and speaking in other places and being a part of conferences and doing webinars, all of that stuff is going to actually help you get more podcast placements. Because they want to know that your voice is Listenable, They want to know that you are personable on a podcast. You can kind of go back and forth and the way you speak really has to show that you have some kind of expertise and thought leadership. So, as you choose Podcasts to identify and be a part of, just remember that you're adding value to the podcast. Just like when we're doing contributed articles, you're adding value for that publication, just like when you're doing media interviews, you're adding value for the journalist, so make sure that you are adding value. So, the first thing I want to talk about is identifying the podcast. So,

Ronjini Joshua: This actually plays a huge part because you're really looking at your customer, Who is your customer who are you trying to reach with podcasts. So either, you're trying to elevate your industry voice. let's say, you're an engineer and you want to be on some engineering podcast, and you want to show that you have that expertise or you are trying to get a new customers finding podcasts that have your particular target audience as their customer base, or their listenership. And then you might just want to be kind of getting out there and talking about different parts of your life. Some people want to talk about entrepreneurship or they want to talk about their startup journey and that's just kind of establishing your personal brand, So there's multiple reasons, so you're establishing and elevating your professional.

Ronjini Joshua: Brand. As far as the company that you work with, you're establishing an elevating, your personal brand as far as yourself, right? And then the last thing was be expert thought leadership where you're really kind of fine tuning in cultivating, that expertise that you might have. Obviously, for me, it's public relations for somebody else. It could be like, AI or machine learning or it could be engineering or, we work with a company called Quad 9 so it could be DNS or cybersecurity. So things like that, really come into play. So make sure you understand which podcasts

Ronjini Joshua: How to choose podcast based on what target audience, you want to focus in on, So that's kind of how you start doing that. And another way to easily do that, a lot of ways we do that is using competitive analysis. So right? If you find a couple of your competitors or people that you admire, or people that you want to be like and you look up what podcasts they've been on. That's a really nice and easy way to kind of identify those podcasts. So identifying your podcast is the secondly you need to create a podcast profile so this is a little bit different than a bio and we have a special way of doing this. So it does include a bio of yourself and your background and expertise, especially as it relates to what you want to talk about. I always include a high resolution picture, which means, 300 dpi, or more and then,

Ronjini Joshua: I like to outline, maybe three to four topics that your championing that season, So about I really want to talk about climate change or I am really passionate about ESG and corporate initiatives, or I'm focused on machine learning and how it's impacting sustainable cities. So be a specific as possible in Three to four or five points that you want to champion. And I say these are the themes of what you want to talk about in each podcast and depending on which podcast, you're reaching out to, you're gonna put the ones that are most relevant to them at the top and maybe some other ones at the bottom.

00:05:00

Ronjini Joshua: pick some topics you want to talk about. That's Number three on your profile is having examples, so if you don't have other podcasts that you've already been featured on, maybe you want to add some of your writing, you could just record something as well. there you YouTube is amazing, right platform. So you could record a few pieces talking about different things in your company, different expertise that you might have different trends that you might have. But you can kind of point them to other places that you've spoken usually to include links. Here's an article, We wrote Here's another podcast, we were featured in or I spoke at this, so I like to have three to four references of where you've spoken or provided your expertise in the past to show that you have experience in that.

Ronjini Joshua: And that way, it covers all the bases, back about They know about what you want to talk about and then they can see where you've done that before. So that's really important. So this podcast profile is really like the jumping point to getting secured on any podcasts. So the next step is really finding the producer, you can use macrock, which is our tool that we use incision, but of course that's a little bit costly if you're not in the public relations field. And if you're just doing this on your own, So the other thing is, if you find a podcast, you can literally just say the book podcast r. I don't I am my own producer, me and Ben and Aaron. We work on the podcast. So,

Ronjini Joshua: So for us, it's really simple, and I always give you guys my email, so it's obviously good to listen to the podcast because they might give you contact information in there. but typically, if it's a bigger podcast, you can type in the name and Google and say producer, and you should be able to find that. If you can't find the producer, you can find the host. The first place I would go is a podcast homepage. So whether it's like for us, we are on buzz sprout, but then we're also on Apple or on Spotify, we're on Amazon and I think our contact information is pretty much everywhere. If it's not, it should be. And then I mentioned my contact and I mean, you can look me up and you could find me you could in the distance of throwing a brick, I'm here everywhere, but that should be a way for you guys to find who's managing the schedule. So it's usually the producer who's managing the schedule. Sometimes there's someone called the scheduler that person is doing schedule. Oftentimes like

Ronjini Joshua: Are dealing with broadcast, guest relations, could be another title. So these are all things that you can look for as far as finding the contact person and then the last step in this is pitching yourself. So obviously your profile is going to be one thing, but the pitch itself is gonna be something a little bit more specific and you could say, Hey, look guys Shelley. I'm just making up a name, I'm Shelly. I really love to be on the podcast. We are the future. And the reason I like to be on the podcast is because I love to talk about one of these three topics. If you sound interesting to you, I'd love to get on your schedule, attaches my profile. You can learn a little bit more about me there or here's my LinkedIn.

Ronjini Joshua: You can find something about and I would actually maybe even put your podcast profile uploaded to your LinkedIn as a document so that people can find it there too. yeah. And that's the pitch, right. You want to make it And personalized as well. You want them to know that who they are and what they talk about on their podcast. And I would do a follow-ups within a couple of