Behind the Scenes: Planning Podcast Content for Q4 of 2021

So I'm going to take you behind the scenes, and we're gonna have a full blown content planning session, and I'm going to show you what that looks like. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the profit podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal, Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the

time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?

was so ugly, I just threw it in the trash. And now I have a mouse. It doesn't bother me because usually just me right? I'm the one that hears it. But I just thought about you may hear me dragging my mouse all across my desk. So that's what it is. You're gonna hear lots of different noises today. But it will all be worth it because I have so many good things to share with you today. So what I have open in front of me is my Asana because that is how I bring these podcast episodes to you all

like I will plan an episode in a sauna. I used to do this strictly in a notebook. And then I would just have my notebook in front of me, y'all know, like, I'm famous for having my notebooks all around. And I still do actually, I have a notebook right beside me as I'm recording this. But I have gotten a lot more used to doing all of my brain dumps and planning an entire podcast episode in Asana. So I have that open, I also have my buzzsprout, my YouTube and a lot of Google Sheets,

I have a lot of Google Sheets open. And that's because that's where my content calendar lives. It's where I also keep track of some really important information that we're going to talk about today.

this certain thing every single week. It's more of me saying, These are the deadlines that I've set for my content in myself. And it's how I'm able to stay so consistent. I've talked about this before that consistency is one of the values of my company, and how I do business. And it's just, it's what I live by. It's what I stand for, like I love being known as being consistent. And so in order to do that, I have to set goals and deadlines around my content. And I do all of that

in Asana. And here's another fun fact behind the scenes before the beginning of a month. And typically I'll do this at the very beginning of the year. So I have the whole year ready to go for a content calendar. But at least every single month I sit down and I create kind of a project plan within Asana. I mean it's it's not a brand new plan every single month. It's a running. This is my 2021 content calendar. And I go in and I write up okay, how many podcast episodes am I

creating this month? How many YouTube videos Am I committing to creating? Where are my Monday Motivation post or Monday mindset are my Tuesday tips. If you're in the Facebook group, you know, I'm talking about the plug your podcast on Wednesdays Thursdays is storytime and Friday are usually action items. So I have all of this content, I have my weekly email, hang on, let me list out all the pieces of content, I create that we have the potty report episodes, like, I have

this on a regular basis inside a sauna. And this is how I know, for the entire month of September, these are all the things that I committed to creating. This is my secret sauce, okay, this is the reason why I'm able to be consistent with everything that I create. It's because I am planning to succeed with my content creation. And then on top of that, I have a few other one off

things. Some of them are things that I have to do every month, and some of them I will do maybe in September, but not in October, and then I'll do them in January, but not in March. Like it just kind of depends on what's going on. And we're going to talk about promotions and launches and all that in a second. But if you've seen my content calendar on my YouTube videos, I'm actually going to link to these in the show notes. There's a lot I've talked about content a lot.

There's a reason. There's a reason why we talk about content so much around here, it's because that is what we're creating. We are creating content on a regular basis, whether you're posting a brand new podcast episode every week, you're just able to do it once a month, like whatever consistency looks like for you. We are creating content. Maybe you're thinking about content, you're planning content, you're batching content, you're promoting your content, like we are

constantly talking about content around here. And I thought, you know what, I am literally doing this inside all of the facets of the content that I create on a weekly basis that I thought well why don't I just share it with you. So everything we talked about today, anything that I referenced are going to be in the show notes. So KrystalProffitt.com/Episode293 is where you're

gonna find everything. But we are going to go kind of on a deep dive into what I'm doing behind the scenes for my next content planning, Sprint four, quarter four of 2021. Because that's when I'm recording this, I'm recording this right before we go into the last quarter of the year. And I'm actually doing a really big workshop on planning every quarter of the year, later on in December of this year. So stay tuned for that workshop, it's going to be all about podcast planning one on one

how to be strategic. But today's episode is kind of a little glimpse into what I do on a regular basis to show you how you can be successful not overwhelmed, not freak out every week and say, What am I supposed to talk about? No, we're not, we're not doing that anymore. Okay, we're not being reactive to our content, we're going to be proactive.

them right now. Because I'm not finished. I don't consider my content planning session over until I have an entire quarter planned and a quarter of the year is three months, right? So I want to have the next three months of content planned. This does not mean that it's all recorded. It does not mean it's all like SEO, like keyword ID. And it's like perfect that the title that I put on, this is going to be the title of the thing, or that I have all the guests lined up. It doesn't mean any of

that. It simply means I have an idea. It's a plan. It is me putting on a scratch pad in pencil, but this is what I'm going to be doing. We're not writing anything in permanent marker that we can't change later. Okay, I wanted to make that very clear that when you're doing this and you're sitting down for a strategic planning session, just give yourself the grace to say, this is what I'm thinking about doing. It may or may not work

out, but at least I have a plan. Okay, that's really how I approach content planning, which is why I use so many Google Sheets. Okay, well, they're really honest, because it's easy to change things in Google Sheets. So the first thing that I did, and there's a very specific reason why I did this first I needed an updated version or database, if you will, for my SEO and keywords. Now I'm gonna link in the show notes to previous

podcast episodes that we've done. I did one with Ryan co Tei, like where we talked about ranking on Google and what that looks like. I'm gonna link to another one about blogging with Chelsey Clark. That was a fantastic episode, just about like how website, keyword research, all that stuff really works. And then I have another older episode that I created all about SEO for podcast and what that looks like, all of these are still very relevant episodes. And if you're like, I don't really know

anything about SEO, what are you talking about? It is search engine optimization. If you don't know what it means, go listen to those episodes, and then come back to this one, because I'm not going deep into what it is how you use it, how you can rank on Google, but it is something that is very top of mind. For me, especially because I needed an overhaul and an updated version of my top

keywords. I don't do keyword research. every single week, when I create a piece of content, I don't even do it every single month or every single quarter, I usually do a really big deep dive every six to 12 months. And I hadn't done this in a while simply because with YouTube, I do use YouTube. There's a tool called two buddy I'm

gonna link to in the show notes. But when I do my YouTube, there's a few built in aspects of Tube Buddy that helps with the keyword research and making sure you're putting the right tags and you're labeling like you're titling it like YouTube is a different story. And I also have Yoast on my WordPress website, y o a s t. I hope I spelled that right. Yeah, why Oh, a St. My spelling skills are definitely I would not win the spelling bee. Well, let's just say that I heavily

rely on autocorrect. But Yoast is a tool that I use for my SEO and keywords on my website. So I highly recommend using tools to your advantage. And then I use keywords everywhere as my main SEO tool, and I've used that one. Gosh, I want to say, maybe going on three years now, I've been using keywords everywhere. Back when it was totally free. Now it's like they get paid $10 every quarter or something. It's not expensive. It's

definitely not expensive. But it's worth it. It is worth it worth every dime, because it helps you understand what people are searching for. So like I said, I needed to do a deep dive on keywords. And I'm moving my mouse around here. So what I did is there were three specific keywords that I wanted to know more about because I hadn't done this. Like I said, for several months, I hadn't looked like a deep dive into what are people

searching for right now. And there is a sweet spot of what kind of keywords you want to write like right before So here's an example that was the three words, I use podcast that I used solo podcast, and then I used interview podcast. So let's say someone's listening to this and your keywords might be for fitness. So maybe you have worked like postpartum workout, or working out over 50 or workouts for working moms. I don't know

I'm just totally making this up. But you want to have at least three keywords that you're going to do a deep dive on. And they can be similar like like everything that would be under the umbrella of your topic like mine, podcast, solo podcast interview podcast, because what happens is when you go and you use a keyword research tool, y'all I got 1000s 1000s upon 1000s of results for all

three of these terms. But I know my little bitty website that gets moderate traffic is not going to be the top ranking website for podcast, just the word podcast. So I go into it with the mentality of I'm not trying to rank for the word podcast. But as I like scroll down. I look at all the data so it'll tell you the search volume. It'll tell you like how likely are you to rank it'll tell you the different trends like this goes back over a

year. So I can see from September 2020 to September 2021 has Any of these keywords increased in popularity? And if it has, and I have to ask myself, okay, why, like what's really going on. But what I've done is I took the information. So in any of these keyword research tools, usually it'll spit out a whole bunch of information, a whole bunch of data, like what I just said, the

search volume, the competition, the trends. And then I exported that to a Google Sheet, to where I could see everything I can sort it, I could, you know, if I'm like, okay, it's ridiculous to think that I'm going to rank for the term podcasting, which has over 300,000, monthly views, our monthly searches, 300,000, y'all, this is why I said, it's not likely, I'm going to rank for just the word, images types podcast in Google, I'm not going to rank at the top, because there's so many people

searching for it. And there's so many different, I guess you could just call them algorithms involved. And my podcast website does not rank at the top of those. But there are some other keywords, where I wouldn't be able to rank, like the term solo podcast or podcast topics, or talking about podcast content, or podcast artwork, like the more specific you get, and this is where we get into more of the keywording, the more likely it is that I could rank for those things.

And I know this because people have told me, I found you on Google when I searched for. And they will tell me like one particular thing. And we'll talk about your numbers here in a second. But one topic in general that I know that I will show up for in Google is explicit podcast content. And that is because I've created a podcast episode and a YouTube video about explicit podcast content. And that is just so happens to be something that not a lot of other people who do what I do, are

creating content around that. So you want to find keywords that, you know, you can rank for things that, you know, that people are already out there looking for. And there's not a ton of competition. Now I have to tell you, SEO and keyword research like this is the long game, okay, you're not going to put one post out on the internet, and then all of a sudden jump to the top page, the top spot on Google because of one piece of content that you

put out there. But over time, SEO has worked in my favor for my podcast website for my YouTube channel, and even my podcast just on buzzsprout. Like even if I didn't have a podcast website independent from what I'm provided on buzzsprout, some of those podcasts will rank in Google, it just depends on what people are searching for. So that was kind of the deep dive on SEO and keyword

research. But anytime I start feeling like my content needs like a creative, like judging up or a creative makeover, this is what I do first I go to do I need to refresh my SEO and my keywords. And what is something that people are searching for right now that not a lot of people are talking about? Okay, so that is the the 10,000 foot view of SEO and keywords. But if you want to learn more about it, I'm gonna link to some other episodes that will be great, great for you. So that's

number one. Number two, because the original question is where do you find your content ideas, number one, SEO and keyword research.

information. I have a few YouTube videos on looking at your buzzsprout stats like what do they mean? Which ones are the most important, which one should I look at, but what I like to do whenever I'm specifically looking for new content ideas, I like to go all the way over to all time. So I'm in my stats I click on all time. And then I go down to my top episodes. And I look at what's funny and we talked about explicit content y'all This is

number one, too. This is my fourth most popular episode across my whole podcast is, what is explicit content for a podcast? What does it mean? That is the title? There's a reason why it is the most popular. It's not because people are finding my podcast and going back and they're just enamored with this one topic. It's because this specific episode ranks in Google, because not a lot of people have used the term explicit content for podcast in their podcast titles. Okay, so this

is super important. And it makes me think, Okay, well, what are other spin off pieces of content that I could create about explicit content? So there's my content ideas that I can use for my content calendar in planning out the next few months. So look at the last six to 12 months of your podcast episodes, if you have a YouTube channel, like what is performing the best, and

yes, you can look at overall for your podcast. But for YouTube, I like to look at the last six to 12 months, simply because YouTube is more of the Evergreen, right? So people may have found a video that you publish about 12 months ago that's still popular today. It just depends on your topic. So there is a specific video I'm thinking of right now that went semi viral, I say that in quotes, I

have my air quotes up. And it was about I did a video all about Apple podcast and the changes that were happening when all that went down in April. And that one was something that I won't be able to replicate that because now there's a lot of other content out there. Like it was one of those like, you got to get on it, you got to create it, it was hot news, it was a hot topic. But I'm not going to try to create content that's just about Apple podcast. For one that doesn't sound fun to me,

really does it. But to I just don't think it's going to get the same kind of traction unless something else new and trendy like comes up. So I am looking at trends. But I really like to look at the historical data of what's going on, on my own platforms and what's being created so. So look at your podcast episodes, look at your YouTube, look at your social post to see which ones have gotten

more traction than others. So I know that there's a lot of y'all I've seen experimenting with Instagram reels and with tik tok will, are there specific ones that have really taken off? And then are there carousel posts that you've done on Instagram, or maybe a soundbite or something that you shared that you got so much engagement, right? People are commenting people are liking it, people are sharing it, look at your social post and ask, why is this being you know, something that people

are really interested in? Why are people engaging with this piece of content? And then say, How can I replicate this? How can I create something similar to this in the future, so use that information as you plan out your content calendar. And then the last place I want you to go look at your numbers is in your email service provider. So I use ConvertKit. And I will often go in and kind of look at my last five to six emails to see which ones are getting more opens or which ones are

getting more clicks. And I like to ask well, why was it was I more honest, in this email? Was I being funnier? Was I sharing like a bunch of tips and strategies right in the email? Or was it just a really good story? Because that's going to tell me that people are engaging with that type of content. And I said that was the last one but I actually have one more that I did not put on my

list. But look at your Google Analytics. If you do have a website that's independent from your podcast host like you have your own WordPress or Squarespace website, look at your analytics to see what are your most popular pages? Or you could even look at your downloads of your free resources right? Do you have a free lead magnet that you have that is performing better than others? Like

don't don't leave any stones unturned? You all you got to look at your numbers to see what is performing the best and then ask the question why? Why is it performing? And if you don't know you need to ask your audience Okay, and we're gonna talk about engagement and all that stuff here in a second but Alright, let's go into the original question is where do you find your content ideas? Right. The first one was SEO and keyword research.

The second way is looking at your numbers, all the data that you have.

happening. The first one is podcasters kit, which is an affiliate promotion that I've done this week, my second year, so my second or my third year, it's a fairly new thing that they only do once a year. If you learned about me from BC stack or you're familiar with bc stack, then you know, it's it's very similar to that except for it's just for podcasters. So this is an affiliate promotion that's happening in October. So I have to ask myself, okay, what pieces of content do I

want to create around this affiliate promotion? Am I going to create podcast episodes, am I going to create YouTube videos Am I going to write emails, and when I know when it's happening, and when I need to promote, I throw those into my content calendar. Now, let's go back to what we talked about at the top of this episode. We don't have to have all the titles, all the exact topics figured out, I will literally go in and just write the word podcasters kit on my podcast calendar, or

podcasters kit on my YouTube calendar. That way I know, I don't know what I'm creating exactly for that day, I just know, it needs to revolve around this promotion, because that's when it's happening. So you got to be looking at your calendars, you got to have your promotional calendar set up like right next to you, and then your content calendar to really know that everything is going to be aligned with when a launch is actually happening. So this is gonna be

really fun. Like, just stay tuned for that. Because this year for podcasters kit, I'm creating a workshop that's all about self sponsored ads and how to create your own like we're doing a deep dive into self sponsored ads. So that's going to be so much fun. I love talking about self sponsored ads almost as much as I love talking about content creation. Like it's just it's one of those things. I love it. I love it. So the other thing we have going on in October is I'm speaking

at xi podcasts live. And I'm really excited. It's going to be so much fun. I already know I'm going to walk away from this conference with lots of content ideas and possibly some podcast interviews from some of the ladies I'm really excited to meet in person and have coffee and conversations and dinner dates and it's just it's gonna be a lot of fun. So this is my first ci podcast live and it's going to be so much fun. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes for you to grab tickets again. Go

to KrystalProffitt.com/Episode293. I'm not an affiliate for them or anything. I'm just really excited to speak on stage. And I would love to see you in Arizona in October, it's going to be so much fun. Okay, November, I am doing some live workshops in November. And this isn't necessarily going to all be about promotion. But I will need to talk about these live workshops as they're

coming up. So knowing that they're coming up in November, I'll probably set aside either some dynamic content space, or some emails or something promoting these live workshops that I'm doing at the end of October so that people really know

about them in November. Okay, so this is another way I want you to look at your promotional calendar is how can I promote what's coming up in the next few months by backtracking into the content I'm creating a few weeks before y'all This is not rocket scientist, rocket scientists always say that wrong. This is not rocket science. There we go. I'm not a rocket scientist, obviously. But this is how you backtrack into a successful launch. Okay, this is like I told you all I'm

giving you all some secrets today. This is my secret sauce. And people ask me Well, how are you ready for that launch? And how do you make it look so easy, and you just always seem like you have your content aligned? This is what I do. This is literally what I do. I know that my live workshops are coming up in November. So in October, I will look at my calendar and say, Okay, I need to promote it in these two episodes, or I need to create these two YouTube videos about my workshops

because then I can promote it. I can write an email about it, all the things. Okay. Very basic, very important. Alright, so the last month in December. This is usually the time when people are winding down for the holidays. And that's totally fine. I love checking out that no December is actually a really, really busy month for our family. We have my birthday, we have my son's birthday, we have my niece's birthday, we have my

nephew's birthday. And then on top of that, we have all of the traditional holiday parties and Christmas and just shopping. Like all the things, December is always a crazy, crazy month for me. But I know that coming up in January, that will be right around the corner with some bright eyed and bushy tailed podcasters, getting ready to launch and I'm actually launching a brand new program in January. So I'm going to be doing some light promotion for that in December to get people ready

to purchase this brand new program in January. Do you hear what I'm saying you'll It's September when I'm recording this. This is in September. But I'm talking about a program that I'm launching in January, and I'm going to start promoting it in December. This is how you stay on top of your content. This is how you prepare for things that are coming down the road, you have to start thinking about them a lot sooner. And again, I don't have a solid plan. I don't have the exact

dates that I'm launching this yet. I don't have all of the inside information that I need to promote everything. But I'm going to be looking at everything over the next few weeks to really see what I can do. Like what how can I bake this in? How can I organically talk about this? Where does it feel awkward and weird? Just like I've done in today's episode? Did y'all hear what I was talking

about? I'm talking about a promotion that's coming up next month I'm talking about me speaking at the podcast live, I'm talking about some live workshops. I'm talking about a brand new program like y'all, I have done a lot of mentioning of little things in today's episode. But I'm not selling anything. I'm not selling anything right now that it's going to be like pertinent for you to know right at this moment. I'm just telling you, this is how I know what's coming up and how

my content is all going to be aligned. So on the outside, it looks like Oh, she just kind of threw everything together. And it all magically happened to land in the right spot. Nope. I've been thinking about this honestly, since August. So I love planning. I love seeing things ahead. And you can only do this with practice and knowing what to look for. And so in all the things that we talked about for October, November, December, I'm also looking at how can I repurpose some of this

content? Right? Because in December, I'm going to want to take some time off for my family. And so I'm looking at Okay, can I use some of the information from my podcasters kept promotion? Or can I use some of my talk from she podcast live to repurpose it and use it in December? Or maybe some of my live workshops? Like I'm already looking at the content that I'm creating? How can I repurpose it? How can I use this to really make sure that I have a content calendar that is taking me from now

September 2021 into January 2022? That sounds really weird to say, but it's the truth. Okay, that's the goal here. And then the last thing that I want to mention is where do you find your content ideas, right? We've talked about seo keyword number two is looking at your numbers. Number three is my promotional calendar. And then number four is very basic. But it's just it's the ultimate way for you to make sure you're providing valuable content. It's your Facebook group

answers. It's the questions you get asked on a regular basis.

at 10am Central. So if you've never joined us for one of my live trainings like live Hangouts, you need to come hang out with us. But so much of it is me asking questions and answering questions in these live streams. Whether it's just saying hey, let's talk podcast. That's actually what I call it. It's let's talk podcast. Bring your podcast idea. Bring your podcast questions, I will answer people's very specific questions. And then I'll kind of zoom out and say, How can I apply this to

the bigger population of podcasters? in our group? or How can I do like a spin off piece of content, that's actually something I've said a few times here, I have a YouTube video about spin off pieces of content that I want you to go check out because I think it's really helpful when you do have a really successful piece of content, or a great post that goes viral, or a really good conversation. Ask yourself, how can I create a piece of spin off content, but you just gotta pay

attention. And you have to have a system in place. And I've shared my system before, but I have a YouTube video I'm gonna link to I use Google Sheets and Asana. Both of these are free. Both of these are free, I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on my content calendars. I'm literally you can do this in a notebook. You could literally do this in a paper planner that you have. But you

have to start planning your content. If you want it to feel more effortless, if you want it to feel like creating your content isn't as much of a strain on you. I get people that come to me. They're overwhelmed with our content. And then when I ask them about a plan, they're just like, What plan? We're supposed to have a plan? Yes,

yes, because it makes it easier. It doesn't have to be a perfect plan, y'all, you should see how sloppily these Google sheets are thrown together whenever like they don't look all fancy and beautiful. Actually, I need my husband. He's like the king of spreadsheets. And I need him to like beautify these and make like pivot tables and do all the fancy things. He I don't even know how to do all that stuff. I literally will export into a Google Sheet and I do some highlighting and some

sorting. And I hide a bunch of cells. Sometimes I delete them, but it's very simple. And the reason is because I don't like to be complicated. I like to keep things simple, because it helps me execute more effectively, every single week. So that's all I have for y'all today, y'all. This is a really fun episode. I love talking about content creation. So if you have any questions, please reach out to me. And I'm really looking forward to

quarter four of 2021. Like I said, I've already been thinking about this and planning this for a while. But I thought I would share with you the behind the scenes of what it looks like to be prepared. And to actually have a content calendar and have a plan for how you're going to promote your products, your promotions, or just freakin create content. That doesn't stress you out. At the end of the day. If that's your only goal.

That's a good goal to have. Okay, because I'm all about podcasters that actually enjoy podcasting and look at it as something fun that they really enjoy doing. But like I said, Go to KrystalProffitt.com/Episode293.

me what you're doing. Show me what you're creating, show me what you are planning but share with me what you're working on because I would love to see it. But that's all I have for you today. So as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.