Podcasts have become a widespread medium for sharing knowledge, stories, and experiences. It's a platform that allows you to connect with your audience on a deeply personal level while also showcasing your professional expertise. Whether you're an experienced podcaster or just starting out, the potential for impact is boundless.
In this episode (and article!), we explore the power of podcasting as a tool to build your personal and professional brand. Using examples from Joe Rogan, Glennon Doyle, and Dax Shepard, we discuss how podcasting from home can transform your reach, establish trust, and foster deep connections with your audience. With podcast listenership growing rapidly, it's still early days for podcasting, meaning there’s ample opportunity for growth.
BTW, if you’re wondering who I am and why I’m writing this… I'm Jamie Kennedy, the Executive Podcast Producer behind Brave Moon Podcasts, and we help health and fitness professionals build successful podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about…
How podcasting from home can transform your personal and professional brand.
How notable podcasters like Joe Rogan have turned their shows into powerful brand-building tools.
The 5 hacks to build your brand through podcasting, including embracing quirks, inviting influential guests, and consistently releasing episodes.
Transcribed Podcast Episode
No one that’s actually famous podcasts from home, right? Wrong.
[snips of Glennon Doyle, Joe Rogan, Dax Shephard]
If you recognize any of those voices, it’s more than likely because you’ve heard of them before. You just heard Glennon Doyle in her podcast We Can Do Hard Things, Joe Rogan from the Joe Rogan Experience, and Dax Shepard from Armchair Expert. And one thing these people all have in common besides being famous? They podcast from home.
Don’t believe me? Joe Rogan often shared early on that he was recording home. And just do a quick Instagram search and you’ll see Glennon and her wife still recording from a bedroom, and Dax and his co-host Monica recording from what I can only assume is an attic because of the slanted walls? Anyway, the point is. These people are podcasting from home. And you can, too.
And the question we’re honing in on today is, can podcasting from home build your brand? Let’s review some stats…
Before Joe Rogan ventured into podcasting, he was primarily known as a stand-up comedian and actor. While he had a successful career in comedy, his brand was primarily associated with his performances and appearances on television shows like "Fear Factor" and "NewsRadio." He had a fan base but was not widely recognized as a thought leader or influencer in specific fields.
But after he started "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, Joe Rogan's brand underwent a remarkable transformation. The podcast started garnering millions of listeners per episode, offering Rogan the ability to connect with a much larger and highly engaged audience. His brand started to extend well beyond traditional entertainment. The long-form format of his episodes allowed him to have genuine, deep, and unscripted conversations. This authenticity became a hallmark of his brand, and he was celebrated for his thought-provoking discussions. Also, by featuring guests from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and perspectives, Rogan's brand became associated with diversity and inclusivity. He also clearly turned his podcast into a successful business venture. Exclusive licensing agreements, like the one with Spotify, brought significant financial success and highlighted the podcast's role as a business platform.
This shift in his media presence significantly expanded his brand in so many ways.
You’ll find similar stories from so many podcasters, who significantly impacted their brand by starting a podcast - or being featured on podcasts.
For example, jumping deeper into the health and fitness industry - Ben Greenfield. Before launching his podcast, "The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast," Ben had already established himself as a respected figure in the health and fitness industry due to his background as a personal trainer, nutritionist, and author. He was known for his expertise in areas such as biohacking, exercise science, nutrition, and optimizing physical performance. He had also written books on these subjects.
However, it was his podcast and online presence that significantly expanded his reach and made him more well-known in the broader health and wellness community. His podcast allowed him to share his knowledge, insights, and interviews with experts in a long-form and accessible format, attracting a larger and more diverse audience. This increased visibility helped solidify his reputation as a thought leader and influencer in the health and fitness space.
Now before you say it’s too late because these people started podcasting when it was unsaturated… Let me be the first to tell you, it’s not too late. Okay, I’m just going to share some quick math with you, because I think it might help better understand just how unsaturated this medium is.
There are roughly 3 million podcasts out there - this is give or take podcasts you’ll find exclusively on one listening platform or another. 21% of those podcasts have posted an episode in the past 90 days. Which means 630,000 podcasts are posting episodes consistently.
Now let’s compare that to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. YouTube has 38 million active YouTube channels posting consistently. Instagram? There are 95 million photos or videos being posted daily. And TikTok sees 34 million videos posted daily. DAILY.
To compare, there are only 630,000 podcasts that post daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly… and yet every other channel has millions of people posting regularly.
And yet, podcast listenership continues to rise - and is, in fact, considered to be the fastest-growing medium in the world. In 2019, there were 275 million podcast listeners globally. In 2023, that number shot up to 464 million. That's a massive audience, my friend, and it's a prime opportunity for you to connect with your audience on a personal level.
The point is… Podcasting is not saturated. You’re still in the early days. Remember how you wish you could go back to 1981 and buy Apple stock? This is sort of like that. Invest your time in a podcast in 2023, and it will pay in dividends.
Thank you for joining me today. I'm Jamie Kennedy, the host behind Brave Moon Podcasts. I started this podcast to show you that creating your own podcast is entirely achievable. With just my Rode Podcaster mic and a cup of black tea, I bring you the best tools and techniques I've meticulously researched and tested, ensuring no guesswork on your part.
My goal is to set you up for podcasting success, whether you're a creator, a small business owner, or a wellness enthusiast. For a comprehensive list of the equipment and software my clients use, head to my website and grab the free Start-a-Podcast guide. I've condensed months of research into this guide, offering you the industry's best choices. Download it today; the link is in the show notes!
Now, let’s jump into it: how to build your brand by podcasting from home.
Picture this: you're passionate about health and fitness, and you've got a ton of knowledge and experience to share. You want to help others achieve their health and wellness goals while building a brand that reflects your authentic, open-minded, and supportive self.
So, what is a brand? And why do you need to find ways to build it? Perhaps in the past few years, as well, you’ve been hearing a lot about why you need a personal brand and a professional brand. I mean, what happened to the good old “just being myself” sort of thing?
I think the reason the word “brand” has become such a buzz word, is because with so much online presence, we now have to present ourselves in two lights: in real life and online. And let’s face it; what you see online about someone tends to be the highlight reel, am I right? But not only that, online you can really highlight certain aspects of your personality.
Let me give you an example: when I started my career, I worked at The North Face in wholesale sales. I sold jackets to Nordstrom, who then sold it to the masses. So yes, I started my career in sales. It wasn’t until I was 30 that I made a career change into marketing, which has ultimately led me to teaching you how to podcast and market your podcast. But if you scroll back through my Instagram, you’ll see very clearly that I used to only talk about yoga and wine (both passions of mine) and never talked about podcasting. So someone who followed me might have thought that I was all about yoga and wine. But really that’s not true, is it? Because we’re all so multifaceted with many different interests and passions. So now when you look at my Instagram toward the top, you’d think I was all about podcasting and marketing - which let’s face it - a huge portion of my life is about that now, but that’s certainly not all of it.
All of that to say is that our online presence becomes our brand. It becomes who people view us as, and what people respect us as. Our brand is still us, it’s just a more condensed version of us, isn’t it?
So I could go into the intricacies and the psychology of how confusing that must be to our psyche. But instead, let’s focus on the positive aspect of online branding. Because having an online presence has expanded our networking capabilities tenfold. And therefore, our ability to sell online to more people has grown immensely. So let’s review and identify what a personal and professional brand are, how they are related and how you might present yourself in different aspects of your life.
A professional brand is the image, reputation, and expertise that you or a professional entity cultivates and presents in a work or business context. It is how you or your business wants to be perceived within yout industry or career.
A professional brand is tightly aligned with your career, business, or industry expertise. It includes factors like professional qualifications, work experience, skills, and industry knowledge. Professional brand is often cultivated to advance your career, attract clients or customers, and establish credibility in a specific field.
A strong professional brand can open doors for career opportunities, establish trust with clients or customers, and differentiate you or your business from competitors. It can also help you become recognized as an expert or thought leader in your respective industries.
Now let’s talk about a personal brand. A personal brand, might focus on your identity outside of your professional life. It includes elements like hobbies, interests, personal values, lifestyle choices, and social interactions. Personal brand is about how you present yourself on social media, among friends and family, or in personal relationships.
Building a strong personal brand can help you connect with like-minded people and build meaningful relationships in your personal life and online. It can also influence how you are perceived by your peers and how you relate in real life and online.
So here’s what makes podcasting so exciting. Podcasting gives you an opportunity to build both your personal and professional brand, all at once. It opens doors for career opportunities, establishes trust with your target audience, helps you become recognized as an expert in your field, plus it makes you more relatable through sharing your personal stories and struggles, interests, hobbies, personal values and lifestyle choices.
So when you’re podcasting, it’s important to recognize that you’re not only building your brand for monetization opportunities, you’re also allowing people to connect with you on a personal level. That’s really something special.
So, let's talk about what podcasting is not: It's not just about promoting your services, courses, or products. Spending your episode talking about your various offerings will not build your brand; in fact, it will deter your potential listeners.
Instead, podcasting is about sharing valuable information your listeners will love. It’s about sharing your expertise and bringing new thoughts, ideas and reflections to your target audience aka dream listeners.
And podcasts are prime for showing your expertise. After all, 75% of people tuning into podcasts want to be educated. On a podcast, you’re just not just another voice in the crowd, or a quick 30-second attention moment as they scroll through their Instagram feed. No, they’re selectively choosing your episode to help them better understand a topic you or your guest are covering. You’re a destination for them, meaning they’re showing up to listen to you proactively. Not reactively like they would be doing if they were scrolling through instagram feed.
And the reason they’re so willing to do this, to find you on the podcast listening apps and press play is because you’re providing them incredible value. And that’s the sweet spot for building your brand.
Because ultimately, when you bring value to your audience, your audience grows quite fond of you! They rely on you to provide them with education in their field of interest - which just so happens to be your field of interest and study. A win-win.
The reason this works so well in podcasting is because podcast listeners are highly engaged. More so than most other mediums! According to a recent study, 80% of podcast listeners listen to all or most of each episode. And we’re talking podcast episodes that average 27 minutes in length! That's an incredibly captive audience for a long period of time that's eager to hear your message. Compare that YouTube’s average engagement time of 2 ½ minutes, and we’ve got a clear winner.
The key takeaway from these examples is that podcasting can be your platform to shine. Whether you're a nutrition expert, a fitness enthusiast, or a yoga instructor, you have a unique story to tell, and there's an audience waiting to hear it.
Let’s jump into the 5 hacks that will help you build your brand through podcasting.
You should embrace your quirks. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been embarrassed and a little ashamed about my quirks over the years. Some I try to hide from the world, like the fact that I’m a control freak. Or some I get embarrassed about and always go home after a social event shaking my head, like the fact that I always seem to interrupt people and realize it too late. Or honestly? My weird laugh. But when I really think about it, these quirks are REAL, you know? They’re relatable. They’re what makes us human. So, what are your quirks? Examples could be physical, like that you always crack your knuckles, or you talk with your hands. Behavioral quirks like always being late or that you are super competitive. Or a mental quirk like having a dark sense of humor or being obsessed with a topic like Harry Potter or boy bands - both of which I can relate to, by the way. The point is this, figure out your quirks, write them down, print it and laminate it, I don’t care. Share them when you podcast! If you love coffee, share that you always have a cup of coffee in your hand when you podcast. Or talk about coffee breath, I don’t know. The point is, you’ll know and you’ll find a beautiful way to relate to your listeners that they will love.
Go deep into your niche. You know that finding your niche is a huge topic for me. More so than any other medium, finding your podcast niche is a must. And if you need help with that, I offer a brainstorming exercise to figure out what yours is. So specialize in a certain niche that aligns with your brand, then work to attract dream listeners that will love your unique insights into that topic. This will set your brand apart and make you stand out, which is exactly what you want.
You can build your brand through associating yourself with other important brands. What this means is, you should invite influential guests in your industry onto your podcast. By bringing them onto your podcast, you immediately associate your podcast with their brand. That can be huge for you. Their presence will also introduce your podcast to their audience, expanding your reach and credibility.
Consistently and faithfully release new episodes when you tell your listeners you will. Just this simple act of being there for your podcast listeners when they expect you will build respect and loyalty for you and your brand. Your listeners also feel excited to share your podcast with their friends, because they know you are someone their friends can rely on, too.
Promote your podcast episodes online. In episode 10, I explained about the podcast marketing funnel and everywhere your podcast should be on the internet. Because it’s not just the listening apps that people should find you and your brand. You can, and should, use social media to share your podcast episodes, engage with your audience, and create a community around your brand. If you’re struggling to know where, have a listen to that episode because I think you’ll find some value there.
So there you have it: 5 hacks and some solid reasons why a podcast will help you build your personal and professional brand.
And remember that building your brand with podcasting is a journey. It's a journey of growth, connection, and transformation. You're not just selling products or services; you're shaping your personal and professional brand narrative.
Thank you again so much for joining me on your podcasting journey. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you enjoyed this episode, pretty please leave a 5-star review.
Until the next episode, keep those conversations flowing, and keep being the amazing powerhouse that you are. And as always, remember to stay consistent, keep promoting that podcast of yours, and most importantly, keep it real.
Ready to start podcasting for your brand right from home?
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Listen to the full episode for the complete deep dive.
Happy podcasting!
