Today's episode is really going to tap into some of those things like I don't want it to just be a full blown ranty episode where I'm just complaining and just airing out all of my grievances. But some of those may come up because when it comes to creating and cultivating a community around your podcast, some of these things happen, because some people don't know how to behave in communities. We're gonna really dive
into that in a little bit. But I want today's episode to be an inspiration for how you can create an inviting community around your podcast. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launching 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?
So in real time, as I'm recording this episode, we're in the middle of the five day podcast challenge. So shout out to my challenge people. And if you're listening in real time, and you want to join us, go to Krystalproffitt.com/challenge, because we're just having a blast over there, and it's gonna be so much fun. But the reason why I wanted to bring up community today is because I have been wanting to run a challenge like this for a long time. Because I've participated in a few of these
challenges. And I have learned from other people in this space, just how impactful they can be. Whenever you cultivate a community around your topic, whatever, you know, whether it's your business, your podcast, your industry, but I have
found that community is everything. It really is whenever you can cultivate, whether it's, you know, a pop up community that lasts for a week, or for 30 days, or for a specific amount of time, I've been part of communities for courses for memberships, like there's so many different ways that you can create a community. But I think that what's often missing is the planning, like the behind the scenes that goes into really cultivating the culture that you want to see in
the community that you're building. So it's top of mind for me, because I did so much planning, and strategizing. And really trying to create this culture as I created this podcast challenge because this isn't a community that will be around forever and ever kind of like we have our Facebook group for the Proffitt Podcast, shout out to all of you all, if you're in our Facebook group, you know what's up and like, you know how much fun we
have in there on a regular basis. But I think that when you're doing a pop up group, which is what the challenge is, it's going to be open and then it's going to close because it will have served its purpose.
And I don't just want it to be this, this group or people are just running amok and breaking all the rules. And y'all know, y'all can tell those Facebook groups that you're a part of that have been abandoned by original founders of the group, because everybody is just a hot mess in there. They're promoting their own stuff. Everybody's being spammy people are dming people, like I run away. And I have, I was gonna say unsubscribe. That's not the right
term, because you join a group. So what happens? You remove yourself from a group? Is that what happened? I mean, that's what I do. I go in and I remove myself, maybe there's another term for all you group experts out there. I don't know what else you would say. But I have unsubscribed removed myself from a lot of communities online that either become toxic or spammy, or I just don't care about the content that's in there
anymore. So I wanted to kind of preface everything that we're talking about today with the idea of how you can create an inviting community for your podcast audience. Now. I've talked about Facebook a few times. I'm not saying that Facebook is the only place that you can create a community. I've talked about slack on here before you could do it in kajabi has, I believe it's called communities is it called communities on code jabi I don't I
don't use that feature. Right now, I have heard other people say that they've used it, they tried it. So that's another option. There's places like base camp, there's discord, there's just so many other ones that I probably have never even heard of that are popping up all over the place that are options for you to build a podcast community around. But I really think that it's important to think about, I'm creating this community, what am I creating it for? Why is it there? Is it fair for
you to promote your content? Right, I think that's where a lot of podcast groups come from, that's their initial goal is like, I just want a place to post my podcast episodes every week and tell people about it. That's a great marketing strategy. But you also have to, and we're going to talk about some of the the tips that I have for you if you're going to create a podcast community,
wherever you're creating it. But I think that you have to have a little bit more insight as to what you want this community to be long term, not just in the beginning, because yes, that mean, you can absolutely share your content. But then what do you want people to join your email list from there? Do you want other people to be able to share their content in the group, I know
buzzsprout. And I'm going to talk about Les Brown a lot simply because, y'all whenever I first started with my podcast, you probably know this. But I was very closely aligned with buzzsprout. Because of their Facebook group, that's where I made the initial connection with them. I think whatever I was in the group, there was around 2000 people. Now there's like 20,000 people that are in
their Facebook group. It's a large group now. But I think back to the beginning of being in that community, and seeing how people were supporting one another. That's why I wanted to be there. I was there to learn to understand more about podcasting. And I felt like it was a safe place to ask what I felt were dumb questions, right? When you're starting, you're like, I don't know how this works. I'm trying to set up Audacity. And I have no idea what these numbers at the bottom
mean, like, should I pay attention to? The thing that says hurts at the like, does is that important? Do I need to know that? So I think that when you're trying to create an inviting podcast community, you have to ask yourself, What am I creating this for, because you want to create something that's welcoming, not something that people are just gonna say, Oh, my gosh, like, I
just, I've run away from that group. Now, where I'm going to unsubscribe, I'm going to remove myself from this group, because it's just turned into a spam fest. And there's just nothing there for me anymore. And this, again, is not specific to Facebook groups, people can be spammy, everywhere, it's just where I happen to see it a lot more because I am in a lot of Facebook groups. Still, to this day, people will tell you,
Facebook's dead, like who's on Facebook anymore. I honestly don't do a lot of scrolling in my feed. Usually, when I go to Facebook, it's very intentional. And I'm going to a specific place for a specific reason and not just like hanging out seeing what everyone and their dog is doing. I am going to connect with specific people through the communities that have been cultivated really, really well on the platform. Okay, so there's like my, like, in a nutshell of what creating an
inviting community can look like. But I have a few podcast episodes that I'm gonna link to that we've already done on the show because I didn't want to like reinvent the wheel and restate things that we've already talked about in other episodes. So go to the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode283. That's the Show Notes for this episode. Because I have an episode from like, it's a throwback, y'all. I was looking at the date. And I was like, dang, that feels like
that was four ever ago. But there's one about podcast community, how to find yours. So it talks about growing a community establishing a community. And then I have one specifically about Facebook groups, like how to set up a Facebook group, the, you know, some of the processes I started, I looked at the show notes for these other episodes. And I was like, I think this is outdated. Maybe we need to do a date to some of the graphics because the Facebook groups have
changed. So so much like they're really fancy if you're in the challenge, you know, like I had to create a demo video just to walk you through like okay, here's the announcement. tab where you can see all the live trainings. And here are the guides where you can do some promotion. And we're going to talk about this in a second. Because I think setting the expectations for what people are supposed to do in the group are really important.
But I know that it's fun whenever I join a new program or new group, and everyone's like, Oh, look, you can go post your podcasts, you can go post your social media links, you can go post your email, or the website or your free resource, right? Who doesn't love growing their email list? So I wanted to have these opportunities for people that are part of the challenge to be able to promote their stuff, and cultivate that sense of
community. But have it done, I guess, the best way to say it is like in an orderly fashion, or people aren't just constantly saying, Listen to my podcast, my podcast is amazing. No, there's a time and a place to actually have that happen. So those are the two episodes I want you to go listen to that are in relation to creating and cultivating a podcast community. But I have five tips to share with you when it comes to creating an inviting podcast community.
So number one, like I said, set expectations. What is the goal that you're trying to achieve with your community? Set those expectations up front, like lay down the law, like there's a reason why there are rules for Facebook groups. Okay. And these could be like I said, this doesn't have to be solely based on Facebook. I have seen communities squad pod shout out the the community manager at squad cast Ariel, I always say her name wrong, Ariel, I'm so sorry. I totally
mispronounced your name. Ariel has done a fantastic job creating a community for the squad casters on slack. It's fantastic. It's so well organized. But she set the expectations up front that this is what this community is going to be used for. Then she set up like different parameters. There's different channels on the slack. Like if you're if you're not part of the squad pod, like I'm gonna link to it in the show
notes. So again, KrystalProffitt.com/Episode283, you're gonna find a link, if you want to join us over there. If you use squad cast, like, come hang out with us, because we have a lot of fun. But and I'm going to talk about strategic partnerships. That's coming up in a future episode, I'll be talking about buzzsprout and squad cast. So stay tuned for that there's a little teaser for you to stick around here. But setting expectations is
really important. And I think that that's the first tip that you need to know, you got to have expectations for what you expect for the people in the community and how you want them to behave.
This is actually number two is modeling good behavior. So you let people know like, Hey, we don't, you know, talk about other, you know, talk crap about other podcasters or other people in the industry who maybe we don't agree with or we don't, you know, align with exactly what they do. That's okay. But you don't have to talk crap about them. You know, it's almost like kids at this point, right? It's almost like you're a babysitter, if your community gets
out of control. And that's exhausting. It is utterly exhausting to feel like you're policing people. And you're just like, Oh my gosh, I just feel like a glorified babysitter. This is not fun. This is why I see a lot of people abandon their groups in their communities, because they're exhausted from them. But you have to set those expectations and model good behavior for how the community is supposed to operate and things will be so much more fun.
And then the third thing is let your community know what's in it for them. Are they going to get added value? Are they going to get q&a time with you? Are they going to have direct access to you? Are they going to be able to ask you questions? Are they going to be able to promote their podcast or maybe their content every once a while? It doesn't have to be all the time. But I do think a good promotional
thread. If you're part of our Facebook group, you know that every Wednesday, that post comes out that allows you to post your latest podcast episode. I think that it's fun to have that people get excited. And I love seeing when people comment and say, Oh, I'm gonna go listen to that episode today, or Oh, I just listened to that. That was a really good episode. So that's how you cultivate community. This is how you create an inviting community is letting people know what's in it for them.
And then the fourth tip I have for you is to just keep showing up, y'all my community was a hot mess, a hot mess. Whenever I first got started. I didn't post consistently I didn't really know what I was doing. I was like, should I go live in here? Do I need to go live every week to have to go live at the same time? Do I actually need to put post in here like, what am I even doing? It's okay if you don't know what you're doing. As you create your community, but
you do have to keep showing up. Because why would anybody else show up if you aren't there on a regular basis. So keep showing up, keep trying new things, keep experimenting, try to see what works best for you and what your community responds to. But just keep showing up, keep that consistency, because that's the only way that you'll find out what really works well for your audience.
So let's recap these five tips again. So number one, set expectations. Number two, you want to model good behavior. Number three, let your community know what's in it for them. Number four, keep showing up. It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just keep
showing up. And number five is cultivate the culture that you want to see, have a vision for where you want this group to go one day, because maybe you're starting at zero, you're like, I don't have anybody in any community anywhere. That's fine. I started at zero. I didn't have anybody either. But I slowly over time, started building a community that I now Love, love, love, love. I love to see the interactions that happen in our free Facebook group. I'm loving the energy
that I'm seeing in our challenge group. And I just, I love the fact that people who are excited about one thing can come together, share their ideas, share their passions and connect. I've actually connected with other people who I've gone on to do incredible things with. And we met in a free Facebook group, or we met in a membership group, or we met on slack through someone else introducing us. But the possibilities are endless.
Whenever you're creating a community full of people who are looking for the same things, they have those same expectations and they possibly have the same values and principles that you have as well. Because otherwise, why would they be in that community? So Oh, super passionate about this. This is a great topic.
So I hope that you found some valuable takeaways today, I would love for you to share them. Take a screenshot wherever you're listening to this episode, tag me on Instagram and say, Krystal, this was my number one takeaway from today. Or maybe you're like, I'm gonna go, like, stop what I'm doing and create my podcast community now because I don't want to miss out like, I need to do this. This has been on my to do list. This is your challenge to actually make it
happen. But create that inviting podcast community. And again, if you're listening to this in real time, and you're like, I want to see what she's talking about with this challenge and what it looks like. Come join us like it's not too late. Even if you're coming in after it started. Go to KrystalProffitt.com/challenge. This is happening from August 23 through August 27. And it's going to be so much fun. y'all so much fun. I
want you to join us. But go to the shownotes. It's going to have all the information about the other episodes that we mentioned here today. But y'all, this is so much fun. So if this is your first time tuning in, welcome, welcome to our podcast community. I'm so happy that you're here. Make sure you hit that follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast. And, as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.