Podcasting with Zuri Berry

I spend a lot of time talking with clients and potential clients about how to make compelling podcasts. We review the structure, music and storytelling to ensure they're gonna deliver something of extraordinary value to their audience. That's my happy place. That's where I'd like to spend the bulk of my time.

However, I don't spend enough time talking about podcasting the news and why that's also important. So today I feel compelled to discuss why fitting the news into your broader marketing strategy could benefit you. This obviously follows a major news development that reminded me why podcasting is so important and why content publishers should react to the news more.

Hi, my name is Zuri Berry and this is Podcasting with Zuri, a show about the craft of audio storytelling and how you can use podcasts to enhance your brand.

As some of you may know, Silicon Valley Bank headquartered in Santa Clara, California-- beautiful place-- failed after a classic bank run. Think, "It's a Wonderful Life."

It was the 16th largest bank in the United States and the second largest bank failure in the country since 2008. The financial press has covered this major news with all of the importance it deserves, but it's also worth noting that podcasters have played a significant role here. And so I spent the weekend searching for episodes that cover the fallout with the importance it deserves.

What I found was both major publishers, that's the CNBCs and the Financial Times and Wall Street Journals of the world, as well as savvy individual content creators were all over it explaining the effect on SVBs customers, which are predominantly VCs and tech startups, what contagion means, how SVB got into this mess. You know who might be going to jail? We all want to know.

Let me point to NYU Professor Scott Galloway as one content creator who stepped up this weekend. Professor Galloway has made a name for himself as an incisive voice on business and marketing. He's got two podcasts focused on the subject, the Prof G Podcast, and the Pivot with Kara Swisher, the famed journalist.

He's also an adviser and investor with companies at SVB and runs his Prof G Media company out of the bank as well, so he's got a lot at stake. On Saturday, he dropped an emergency pod on his namesake podcast and followed with another emergency pod on the Pivot Sunday.

Obviously, Professor Galloway understood the assignment. Not only was his timeliness important, but also his responsiveness to his audience, which was egging him on to produce an episode covering the fallout. His listeners have come to rely upon him for his ability to explain the markets and talk through strategy. If you're a wonk, I highly recommend his shows.

I also found some new podcasts while searching for reactions to the bank's collapse. Thanks to some clever titles like this one from the Financial Samurai podcast. Why would Silicon Valley Bank buy 10 year treasury bonds at the top of the market? I think we all want to know why now that I've been looking into this.

This brings me to my point, which is podcasting the news is important for brands to educate potential customers and clients. The big emphasis here is on education. News events can serve as opportunities to educate and demonstrate your expertise. If you've been on a call with me, we've discussed demonstrating your expertise on multiple occasions. There's no better way to do that than by podcasting the news in your industry and educating your audience.

I'll give you an example I hope to see reflected by some of the online business owners, coaches, and consultants I follow. I'm recording this obviously in March 2023, so this will change but I don't feel pressured to use this by any means is just an example.

So Stripe, the San Francisco based payment processor is raising fees for international transactions for US businesses. It will no longer return dispute fees to customers even if they win the dispute. This is in the event of a chargeback. So here you have a, a news story that affects businesses of all types, especially online business owners and freelancers with an international clientele.

Should business owners swallow these new costs, what are the alternatives to Stripe? How much of a headache is it to switch payment processors? What is a dispute fee?

I mean, a good coach or consultant is answering these questions and communicating how these changes might affect their clients.

Communicating and educating sounds an awful lot like journalism, and that's partially true. As content publishers, there is an unspoken promise to your audience that you'll provide something of value to them, whether that's information or entertainment, just like journalistic institutions.

Double points if you can do both.

Because Sam Dogen, the Financial Samurai podcast host, put together such a well done episode. Now I'm gonna follow his podcast and I'm gonna look into his book. But prior to this weekend, I had never heard of him. But he asked a good question in his episode title, had great audio, and demonstrated his expertise over the course of 10 minutes.

Isn't that the outcome you want?

If you wanna podcast the news, you just need to react to the most important matters to your audience. But you can only do this if you know what they care about. And in the case of business owners, the pain points your customers are experiencing. For example, I know a coach who put together a list of 40 episode ideas.

Based on surveys she conducted with her audience, including clients and potential clients, the list was full of evergreen content that would last a year and reinforce her messaging. Good, good, good. It was a good content plan.

But when I looked at the list, I saw opportunities for the podcast to expand in a way that could make it more timely and noteworthy. And that's what I want you to focus on when you consider integrating the news into your podcast, you need to consider the following: timeliness. Is this important to my audience now? If you don't communicate with your audience in the first 24 to 72 hours of a news event, will you have missed an opportunity to provide a valuable service with your expertise front and center?

If the answer is yes, act accordingly.

Utility. If something can change how members of your audience function in their day-to-day lives or businesses now, it's your duty as a trusted expert to communicate that with them as soon as possible. Can you accept that responsibility?

And three significance. The more significant the news event, the more important it's to react quickly and be visible to audience members who rely on you.

The other thing to consider is your nimbleness. Can you digest the details of a news event, go to your studio space, connect with your co-host and record something intelligible in a couple of hours?

Only some people have the skill or the resources to work on the fly like that, but if you do, you can take advantage of news events in a way that is advantageous to you, your business ,and your brand.

Lastly, if you're accustomed to writing a script for each episode, a news episode can easily throw you off kilter.

You can quickly adjust by using bullet points with key facts and topics you want to talk about. If you're running solo, I suggest writing those points down as a question so you can answer it them for.

Most importantly, don't overthink it. A shortened episode with a few thoughts to share on a major development is better than ghosting your followers.

Podcasting the news can only help you. It helps build effective relationships with your listeners. Increases the trust between the listener and the host, and is a cost effective way to educate your audience on an ongoing basis.

So much of podcasting is about likability and consideration. You know, regularly reacting to news items your audience is discussing and worried about is a great way to build a relationship and keep your brand top of mind when it comes time to sell something.

Podcasting the news also helps fill the gap when you're not creatively inspired, when your evergreen assets need further development, and helps round out the monotony of the interview podcast format.

But to do so also requires a general awareness of news events and commentary as it's happening in real time and some nimbleness to address the news and deviate from your current content plan. If you can pull it off, you'll have a more dynamic, engaging, and resourceful podcast. But most importantly, you'll have your listener's ear when it matters most.

That's it for this episode of Podcasting with Zuri. As always, I hope you found some value in it. Please let me know if you did by leaving a comment on this episode in Good Pods or on YouTube. Just search for Podcasting with Zuri. If you're trying to take your podcast to the next level, get in touch with me by visiting zmcpodcast.com. That's zmcpodcasts.com. Thanks for listening.