(upbeat music) Welcome to Podcast Answers, the show where we help people start and grow their podcasts by answering any podcasting questions along the way. We are so glad that you are here with us today. We are back for live. Last time, last week, we did not do it live. We were, I was out of town and I actually brought my stuff with me and recorded in a hotel room, but did not do it live. But you know what guys, it's back.
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So there's so many different ways that you can do a podcast, including, you know, I'd say there's so many things you can do, including the interview podcast format, the solo monologue podcast format, conversational co-hosted podcast format, the panel podcast format, non-fictional storytelling, and produced theater podcast. So which format is right for you?
So let me say this up front, you should pick a format and stick to it so that people know what to expect and they have a constant listening experience. Now that doesn't mean you can't switch occasionally. And I'll give you the, except, you know, the way that I do that. So for my other podcast, the Dudes and Dads podcast, I, ours is mostly an interview show. And so what we do is we, I have a co-host and we do an interviews and most of the time it is just us and one other guest.
But sometimes guests fall through or we don't get a chance to schedule a guest. And we want to talk about a topic, just the two of us. And so we do that. And then that becomes a just essentially a solo or co-hosted conversational podcast format. Most of them, though, were guests. And so our people have come to us, come to know that we do podcasting. And we do it with a interview most of the time, because again, we like that it brings in new people to our show. So let's talk a little
bit about the podcast formats. So the end again, this is totally up to you. All of these, these formats work, they all, they all are going to be able to produce good shows for you. You just need to kind of decide what format your show is going to be. Now again, this is a format. This is not necessarily segments. We're not talking about like interview, you know, a pop quiz questions,
things like that. We're talking about strictly about the format of the show. So the interview format is when the host asks questions, the cool thing about this is guests do most of the talking. And so you don't have to, as a host, do a lot of talking. You have to prepare. It takes a lot of time to prepare and ask good questions, get questions that you that are going to get your guests talking and wanting to share. And so you need to have come up with a lot of good
interview questions, but they do most of the talking. You can just interject with a few questions. You don't need to keep the show necessarily going. You gain a new audience because many times the guests are going to share that they were on your show to their following. You may gain guests. The downside of that is your guests may not stick around depending on what kind of content you're doing.
If you're doing a mixed bag of content, you may be talking to interview guests one time that's an expert in foster parenting and then the next time an expert in something else. Your guests may bring different audiences to you, but your audiences may not stick around because your guests are going to have a different feeling for them. They're going to have something different that may or may not be something that people are going to want to stick around for.
The other option is what I'm doing right now with this show is a solo monologue podcast format. This is best if you have a lot of knowledge on one topic. For me, that's podcasting. is what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about podcasting. And so for me, this is the best as a solo show. But I have already interviewed somebody and I have plans to interview somebody else because sometimes in this medium, I want you to hear from other people. I want you
to hear what people, other people can bring to the show. But for the most part, this is a solo show. I'm talking to you about podcasting. I'm talking to you about what I know about podcasting. And so it's really best if you have good knowledge on one topic. It's really easily because there's no scheduling of guests. It's just a get on the microphone, go if it,
you know, your time doesn't work if you're not, especially if you're not doing live. But if your time doesn't work for you, then it's easy to just go, I'm going to record this at a different time. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the same time. And then if you, the thing that can get hard about this though is that sometimes it can get hard talking to yourself. And so for me, this is something that I wanted to do more of when I started this show. I wanted to be able to do a solo
show because I wasn't very good at doing a solo show and I'm hoping I'm getting better. I'm hoping that it's not a bore to you guys. But I in the past had done a show with a co-host and that's completely different because with a co-host, you're able to interact with them and you're able to ask them questions and volley things back and forth. But when it's just you on the show, you're talking for the 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes, however long your show is by yourself. So you
kind of have to get a good feel of being able to talk to yourself by yourself. For me, I just imagine that I'm talking to a group of people on stage. I've done that before. I've had a chance to to talk with people on stage. And so for me, when I do a solo podcast, I just act like there's a crowd in front of me, there's people in front of me that I'm actually talking to.
And so that way, I kind of imagine myself in a more conversational state, as opposed to just doing talking to a microphone, because I can get hard and it's a lot harder and people are a lot likely more likely to give to give in and stop doing the podcast because it can get hard doing doing the solo monologue podcast format. Conversational co-hosted podcast format. This is much like the interview. You don't have to do all the talking. It's kind of easy to prepare for.
In this case, you have a co-host, but you're not taking in guests, but you're talking back and forth about topics. And that becomes really easily because it's easy to say, "Okay, we're gonna talk about this topic." And then a lot of times, especially if your co-host is in the room. So my co-host for my other show is in the room with me. are talking face to face. And so really it is like we're sitting down for coffee and the podcast
audience is just here for the listen. And they're not actually, you know, it's easy because I'm talking with my co-host and it's really, really easy. There's not a lot to prepare for. You don't have to schedule guests, so that's really cool. But it is interesting. Now, the panel podcast
format, this is really similar to the interview, but it's with more people. So I don't know if you've you've ever been to like a conference or something like that where they have a panel, they have let's say two, three, four people up on stage and then they have a moderator who, this in this case would be your job to moderate as the host. But the moderator keeps the conversation going. They have to keep people from talking too much because some people talk a lot and won't shut up.
And some people don't talk enough.
So as the moderator, it's your job to keep the people moving, keep them talking but not talking too much, but it's similar because you're in it's similar to the conference interview the interview mode because you're letting the guests do the talking all you have to do is kind of moderate between okay now I want you to answer this question I want you to answer this question how about this question what do you think about this you know to different people and so again
you're doing some talking but you don't have to necessarily put your input in on the topic that you're talking about you're just kind of there to moderate to keep the flow of the conversation going, not talk too much to people, not have people talk too little. So in that case, it's really easy. The hard thing about the panel podcast format
is finding guests because there's a lot of scheduling involved in that. You have to bring more people in, you have to have guests scheduled, and it becomes really kind of a bear when you're trying to manage three people schedules plus your own. It's hard enough sometimes just to get one solo guest to come on to your show because of the time it takes to commit and try to schedule things like that. But when you try to add three people plus you to that, that can sometimes become a nightmare.
The next topic, the next format is non-fictional podcast, non-fictional storytelling podcast. And this is when you're telling about real life events. Think, you know, murder podcasts. Think, think things like that where you're telling real life stories. You're, you may be going out and getting the facts, putting the story together, but you are doing the telling of real life stories. And the nice thing about this is there's so many stories to choose from and you can do it with sound effects.
You can get real production heavy on this type of a format where you're adding in sound effects and drama and music and things like that. But it can be, that can be a lot to deal with. It can be a lot to produce. The good thing on that is it's just you, you're doing all the research, you're doing all the talking, you're putting the show together. And there's not any guests that you need to get on the show and make sure that you're scheduling guests and things like that.
Now you can, if you wanna interview maybe somebody during the storytelling, that maybe the somebody who was a witness, you could, But you don't have to. The last type of format that I would suggest maybe doing is produced theater podcast. So this is like something that's scripted, it's produced. You have to get actors for this, but it's a story. It's like a, you know, think of an audio drama.
Think of a radio drama before the days of television, before the days of all of the things where you can see them. Think of the audio dramas that you listen to.
It would be similar to that. You'd have it scripted. You have a story. It's very highly produced music beds sound effects You have to get actors the sound has to be really good It takes a lot of work to do that But but those are high quality shows those are high a lot of times that big big production companies are doing those shows And so you can definitely stand out with doing those because you get it's a lot of it's a lot of work, but you can do it well
So those are those are some some formats that I would suggest for you You do have to choose a format don't just go willingly where you're doing one thing one week one thing the next but the nice thing about doing that is that you You can do deviate a little bit from that like I said in the beginning You should choose something so that your fans your listeners know what to expect every time they get on they know exactly You know what kind of show that they're gonna be listening to
But you can deviate a little bit again as an example when I do my other show most of the time We're doing guests because that's kind of show we are that's the kind of show that we are But occasionally we do a single show without You know without any guests. It's just me and my other co-host so pick a podcast Format if you need help doing this. I am available for one-on-one Contact I one-on-one you can contact me by going to podcast answers comm slash contact. I
I'm on one-on-one. I can I can help you through this. I can help you start your podcast. I can help you grow your podcast I love to help people do that So guys yeah, I would suggest going out and subscribing to our YouTube channel or Facebook Twitter We're everywhere. We love answering questions for the podcast So if you want to go to podcastanswers.com/contact and you can ask me a question
And I can answer on the next episode of podcast answers guys. So with that, thanks guys We look forward to you next time [MUSIC PLAYING]