Has Social Media Killed Consumer Trust?

This week, Robert and I put on our commentary caps to take on subjects that have been in the news. Plus, we reveal what’s in the very near future for Rainmaker.FM (think big).

The main story this week is all too familiar … short-cut marketers are the reason we can’t have nice things. Now, apparently, they’ve destroyed trust in social media, as consumers assume everyone is on the take.

As you might expect, we have an answer for that one. Plus, we talk podcasting for content marketing, revenue models for podcast networks, and heartily agree with some advice given by Gary Vaynerchuk.

In this 39-minute episode Robert Bruce and I discuss:

• The big, new project that we’ve been hinting at
• 3 business benefits of producing a podcast
• Revenue models for your podcast
• A key content marketing trend we’re riding
• How marketers have destroyed social media
• The second coming of word-of-mouth marketing
• How to grow your audience when momentum is flatlining

The Show Notes

• The Rise of Podcasting: The Ultimate On Demand Content [Infographic]
• The (Surprisingly Profitable) Rise of Podcast Networks
• “EGC” is the Key Content Marketing Trend
• Social Media Has Killed Consumer Trust
• How to Scale Your Content After Your Numbers “Peak”

Has Social Media Killed Consumer Trust?

Robert Bruce: Now last week you said something about coal mines or salt mines. No, you said, salt mines.

Brian Clark: No, I actually meant salt mines, but I said coal mines, I think.

Robert Bruce: Have you ever been down the coal mines of Copyblogger, Brian?

Brian Clark: Yeah, I started them and I used to live there by myself.

Robert Bruce: Oh, you actually built them?

Brian Clark: Yes. Of course.

Robert Bruce: Right. I should have thought that Brian said that.

Brian Clark: But the point being, you were busy.

Robert Bruce: Yeah.

Brian Clark: In fact, you are actually still busy.

Robert Bruce: Thanks for acknowledging that. I appreciate it.

Brian Clark: Yeah. Well we were both so head down the whole month of January, which started off at full speed and we haven’t really looked around.

So this episode, we are looking around, seeing what’s happening out there and we are sharing that valuable news insight, and specifically yours.

Robert Bruce: Yeah, we’ve got one, two, three, four, five articles that we are going to talk about this episode. A little bit different to what we normally do but we have done this before. And yeah, taken a look outside.

A couple of these things apply directly to what we are doing, what I have been busy with and why everyone has, which is coming. I think by now you have said it a couple of times but we are building a podcast network, right?

Brian Clark: Well go ahead and just come out and say it in plain English. Wow. I was going to have some more fun being stupidly vague.

Robert Bruce: Just drag it out a few more episodes.

Brian Clark: Only fun for me.

Robert Bruce: Yeah. Well a couple of these articles apply to that but they will of course, as always, apply to you out there dear listener as well. And then Brian, you’ve brought in a couple of interesting things that are related but before we get into that, this episode of Rainmaker.FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. It’s the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs.

Brian, we took a look with Mr Garrett this week at one component of the Rainmaker curation suite, which was the RSS reader. What do you think about that? By the way, it is coming soon. What do you think of the first look?

Brian Clark: It’s pretty sweet. Also a new and improved set of podcasting tools that you and I are also very excited about.

So yeah, this 2.2 release should be out in February and it’s pretty exciting. It’s the next level. We were already talking about how we would make it even better as we go forward. So there is never an end point for Rainmaker but the cool thing is, depending on what package you end up in, and this is all standard package, you get the benefit of all of those improvements over time. You never have to upgrade anything, you don’t have to touch anything and you don’t even have to pay attention. They are just there when they are ready. And of course we let you know so that you can go and play with them.

Robert Bruce: Yeah, and it was funny on this call. Chris Garrett was taking us through the features step-by-step. What it looked like and what it does. Several times you said, “Hey, it would be great if … What I really want is …” and you were particularly talking about Further.net. “This feature, or that feature.” And every time Garrett was like “yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s coming. It’s on the list. Don’t worry about it. It’s coming.”

Brian Clark: For the first time ever, I just feel like I don’t have anything to do anymore. They are already a step ahead of my demands now. Although I did have that one request that is key to publishing Further and Nick built it that day. He got it into the release, which is just so awesome.

Robert Bruce: Yeah.

Well if you don’t have enough to do, hold on, let me bring up my list here. I’m happy to give you a couple of items, if you need a few things for this week? Is that what you are saying?

Brian Clark: Erm. Ugh?

Robert Bruce: Find out more about the Rainmaker Platform. This curation suite that is coming. The podcast network feature that is coming. A lot of these things that are on the way. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at RainmakerPlatform.com.

3 Business Benefits of Producing a Podcast

Robert Bruce: Okay. Like we said, we’ve got five different articles here. I’m going to just jump right into these Brian.

The first one is from Social Fresh at SocialFresh.com. Nick Cicero writes this article entitled “The Rise of Podcasting: The Ultimate On Demand Content (Infographic).”

This is a topic that I don’t think you can get online without seeing somebody talking about the rise of podcasting. Everybody is talking about Serial and everybody is talking about the massive wave of interest in podcasting that’s going on. And that’s fine.

In a lot of ways, this is a really basic article but there are some good numbers in here. I think it’s good to think about because podcasting as content marketing, and content creation, is an extremely viable way to build an audience. Later on, we will talk a little bit more about conversion.

He goes over some basic stuff and there are a couple of interesting highlights in this article. Number one, the general focus of it is on mobile. And the application of podcasting to mobile devices and people on the go with their mobile devices. It says, “80% of the world’s population owns a mobile phone.” It breaks it down even further. “1 in every 7 people on the planet.” I should say that this was written at the end of November 2014. So some of these numbers are going to be bumped even further by now.

“Between 2009 and 2012, smartphone ownership almost tripled in the US. Nearly two of the five billion mobile phones worldwide are smartphones.” He lays out these three benefits of podcasting and these are things that we have talked about before too.

I think anyone listening to this and is possibly thinking about starting a podcast, or thinking about audio content in any form, is to take a look at these three benefits and let them sink in.

Number one, you can listen on demand. The audience can grab your content anytime they want, 24/7, which has been true of the Internet for some time but a lot of these tools related to podcasting, even more so, as time goes on.

Brian, you and I have talked about this dream I’ve had of the push button subscribe. When somebody invents the simple way to listen, and you can already see this in cars.

I think it was an NPR that I heard, that by 2016, or maybe it was 2017, that all new automobiles will be installed with easy access to podcasts. I don’t know if they are going to do a deal with iTunes. Obviously there is CarPlay but it’s just going to become easier and easier.

Right now that barrier to entry for the normal person is a little tough. You’ve got to get iTunes, then you’ve got to subscribe and then you’ve got to download the episodes.

Brian Clark: Robert, no, no, no.

Robert Bruce: Yes, disagree.

Brian Clark: Okay. Let’s look at the evolution. The format was named after the iPod. And again, when you and I first met, that’s what we talked about. We talked about podcasting and that was in 2006. And yet, as we know, that year was the first VC funded podcast network that Scoble was involved in.

And then of course you had Adam Curry, the old VJ on MTV, the Podfather and all of that stuff. Then the problem was, it was too hard. When you have an iPod, it’s not smart. It’s a music holding receptacle.

So it’s funny that Apple, you know, we call it podcasting because of an Apple product, which is bizarre in itself but it was another Apple product in it’s evolution, the iPhone, that really made it easier and then the ubiquitous Bluetooth. And then the podcasting app that Apple ships with everything now.

I do agree with you that it could be easier and it will become easier but I think there was a huge intersection in the last 4 years but mainly last year, of it being easier for most people, maybe not my mom, but non 73 year olds, and content.

There was content that people wanted to listen to and before Serial and before StartUp and all that, it was the comedians really that drove the adoption. Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Marc Maron and all of those guys. Those shows became big because they are entertaining to listen to.

So I agree that it will become even easier, but I think the tipping point happened.

Robert Bruce: Yeah. I would definitely agree with that. But there still is that reach and maybe it’s just a thing of the 73-year-olds, and certainly there is many of them that do, and it’s no problem getting podcasts and subscribing. You reach out and you touch a button on your radio and it’s on. You tune it. You do this and that but basically it’s a one button thing.

Brian Clark: What’s a radio?

Robert Bruce: Yeah, right? And you and I are in our 40’s.

Brian Clark: The kids are like, “Dad, play that song again.” I’m like, “I can’t. It’s the radio.” “What? What’s wrong with you old man?”

Robert Bruce: Yeah. Right. When it becomes that easy for this stuff, for on demand content, that’s what I am talking about. And it will. I’m convinced that it will.

Brian Clark: And I think even beyond the ease or the relative easierness of accessing podcasts, it’s the on demand thing. Like when podcasting first kind of emerged, again, back in 2005/2006, we didn’t have that. Well, was Netflix around then? I don’t remember. But the whole concept of on demand, binge watching or listening, we’ve seen a huge shift in consumption preference among people to where they are like my kids, who don’t understand broadcast technology that’s not on demand. And now, people like you and I expect to be able to have it on demand.

I mean, I have cable so I can watch the on demand versions of movies and shows because I don’t have time to be at a certain place, at a certain time because you decide to put something on. With the exception of sports, right?

Robert Bruce: Yeah. No, this is huge.

Tony brought up Person of Interest, which is a show on CBS that I tried a couple of years ago and then just kind of fell away, but he and Garrett have been talking about it for a long time and I thought, “Hey, I am going to try this again.” And CBS in particular, I don’t know all the details and all this but maybe it’t available on Hulu or Hulu Plus, but they are famously one of the networks that has not joined everyone else in this idea of doing deals with Netflix. Or doing deals, I think even with Amazon for purchasing episodes.

So I go to the CBS website and at a glance, the last season of Person of Interest was available on CBS.com. I didn’t really have an interest in watching it there, plus I wanted to catch up with season two. Of course, there’s going to be ways to get it but they don’t make it easy.

Brian Clark: Yeah. It’s ridiculous.

Jerod was tweeting about Better Call Saul, which is the Breaking Bad spinoff show and it turns out it sounds like it’s going to be solid, which gives everyone a collective sigh of relief. But I think I call it the Breaking Bad moment when things change.

It seemed like everyone you knew was catching up on Breaking Bad. They were trying to get there before either the final season started, or at least before the final episode, right?

And again, other than sporting events, that’s really the last collective media thing that I felt I shared with a ton of people.

Now, compared to the old days, you know, the 70s and the 80s when everyone watched The Cosby Show, All in the Family. We are never going back there.

Robert Bruce: Yep.

Brian Clark: But Breaking Bad was an on demand transitional moment, where it seemed everyone was desperately trying to get caught up so that they could watch the last season and then the last episode in real time.

Robert Bruce: AMC is an example of a forward thinking network. They are doing a deal with Netflix. They are doing deals with Amazon. It’s easy to get into this “on demand” kind of philosophy. So we could talk about this for about ten years straight, but the number one benefit of podcasting is this idea of on demand for the audience.

Brian Clark: Yeah. On demand and mobile, I don’t want to steal the thunder but I can tell you why audio is… Yeah, go ahead.

Robert Bruce: We’ll cover it and then we’ll talk more. But number two, you can customise your content. To me, this is related to on demand anyway. But you do select the exact shows and exact episodes that you want. You are not stuck to a network schedule like in 1996.

Brian Clark: It’s a playlist.

Robert Bruce: Right. And if one show comes up that you don’t like, I do this all the time, I delete it and I go looking for something else. Exactly. A playlist is the way to look at it.

And number three in Mr Cicero’s 3 benefits of podcasting here is, that they are portable and free.

Brian Clark: Yes, that’s the key.

Robert Bruce: Yep, you can take this anywhere. On a walk with your dog, in the car.

Brian Clark: Well it doesn’t require ocular attention, to say that you don’t have to look at it. I mean video as popular as it is, you still have to look at it. The whole Internet. You know, the valuations of BuzzFeed and a lot of these text heavy are shifting now. I mean, every time I go over the Huffington Post, it’s like they are doing a video thing now.

Robert Bruce: Yep.

Brian Clark: So they are shifting and yet it’s the audio content that’s portable anywhere and from an educational standpoint, from a productivity standpoint, the fact that you can learn something or ingest some information, or just be entertained while you are doing something else at the same time, you can have it on in the background. I mean, hey, it’s radio but it’s better than radio.

Robert Bruce: Yep. And we’ll touch on the free, the advertising and revenue model thing in just a second but in the interest of moving this along, there are a couple of more interesting numbers. As of November 2014, nearly one in three of American’s have listened to a podcast. That is astounding. 15% of American’s have listened to a podcast in the past month and again, this is November 2014.

Apple just surpassed one billion subscriptions. That’s billion with a ‘b’. It’s a podcast via the iTunes app, so via other apps it could be a much larger number. And then another couple of numbers here. One in three American’s already listen to a podcast. Even with these technological barriers to entry that we talked about before, already one in three have listened and then the one billion subscriptions number is just astounding to me.

So in one sense, this is stuff that a lot of you have already heard but it’s good to kind of take a moment and look at some of the reasons why I think we are doing this, and why you should seriously consider doing it for your business.

Anything else on this Brian, before we move on to the next article?

Brian Clark: Yeah. Looping full circle back to the failure of podcast networks in the early days and now they are the darling, I find from a business standpoint that’s what gets my brain in gear.

Revenue Models for Your Podcast

Robert Bruce: Well here’s the thing, and this next article is from Fast Company. Rebecca Greenfield wrote this nice little piece about “The (Surprisingly Profitable) Rise of Podcast Networks” and what you just said to me is kind of the cornerstone of this idea, that even now, even though these podcast networks are rising, people are still asking the same questions. And they are still locked into this idea that it has to be ad supported or venture backed, as we see with Alex Blumberg and Gimlet Media. But it’s not the case, and by the way, it’s not how we are going to do it.

Brian Clark: But at the same time, audio ads at least of the direct response variety, where you are telling someone to go do something now, or giving them a phone number or a URL or something, those work. We’ve known that, before anything about podcasting. So even with an advertising model, I think the brands and the advertisers are saying “Yes, sign me up.”

I was talking to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing and he recently fired back up a podcast but he’s said that he is getting interest from all sorts of major brands to advertise on his podcast. And you know, he’s not Serial or even StartUp but, I think it’s because it works and when you look at online advertising, which doesn’t, right?

I mean video advertising pre-rolls generally work. I don’t know what the latest data is but if you make it through the ad, that’s sufficient for people to do that but again, you’ve got this entire realm of portable on demand content that’s mobile. It’s moving around and it could be walking down the street, and you could probably geotarget some really precise advertising. There’s a lot of future in advertising on podcasts and that’s how it always works online. It’s always advertising. You know that.

I mean even I, 16 years ago started off with that in my head, but, what about a podcast network used for content marketing? I mean we see people doing it. But it’s funny to me that even our friends in the content marketing space like Joe and Robert over at CMI and Jay Baer, who just launched a third show, they are going for sponsors.

Robert Bruce: Yep.

Brian Clark: It’s ironic.

What if you launched a podcast network purely from a content marketing space, meaning you’re your own advertiser and what if, what was being advertised is the very platform that the podcast network is built on?

Robert Bruce: Yeah. Or, if you are in another space, it’s content marketing for your other type of product or service of course. Whatever it is that you do.

Brian Clark: Especially services.

Robert Bruce: Service is huge, right.

Now this is interesting, where Miss Greenfield talks about the struggles that StartUp and Blumberg are having reconciling some of this stuff and as he famously does on his show, which we talked about earlier. “Podcast ads generate ridiculous levels of engagement. Internal Midroll surveys of 300,000 listeners found that 63% of people bought something a host had pedalled on the show. Because of that leverage, Midroll charges a lot, actually” for podcast ads, says Sachs. Midroll is a podcasting advertising company.

Brian Clark: Right.

Robert Bruce: That 63%, as you said, the engagement level there really is clearly insane.

Brian Clark: It is, because the old Paul Harvey was the master but it sounded like he was talking to you, not pitching you something.

There are some guys on ESPN radio that are great at it. Colin Cowherd is a guy there. He’s got a great style. My wife actually listens to ESPN radio and not me. Believe or not. I’m not kidding. But yeah, I kind of got hooked because I am so interested in audio and presentation style.

Robert Bruce: How they do it.

Brian Clark: Yeah. Voice, cadence, all this stuff. So I started listening to Colin Cowherd because of his delivery. He’ll take these very deliberate pauses, and yet he’s a complete pro in his delivery and he’s pretty amazing. But then he’ll just launch seamlessly into Paul Harvey and you are like, “Wow, I just listened to an ad and I didn’t even mind it.”

Robert Bruce: And that’s the thing. Again you mentioned earlier, we are not flying blind here. We’ve got decades and decades and decades of actual real-world cases to look at and learn from. From Paul Harvey to the giants of talk radio, these days and in decades past.

None of this is new. The medium itself maybe newish, even though 15 years old but all of those concepts carry forward. And yeah, you need to talk to your audience. You need to think about how you present this stuff to your specific audience but if you are getting engagement like 63% for advertising, think about.

Now back to your point Brian, if you did this in terms of content marketing for your own business, your own products and your own services.

Brian Clark: Well generally speaking I figured out in 1999 that you’ll make more money if you have something to sell, other than advertising. And you know for businesses trying to create content, let’s segue a little into something I found interesting and related in that “Okay, maybe let’s start a podcast network. How we are going to do it? And I don’t mean by we, I mean that in the general sense, but also us in that what we have been working on for the last couple of months.

A Key Content Marketing Trend We’re Riding

Brian Clark: Jay Baer wrote an article about EGC (Employee Generated Content). We have all heard of user generated content, which Facebook, Twitter, you know, all the social networks built themselves off of but now it’s tapping internal resources. Internal voices know the products and services. They know the customers, you would hope, and instead of sequestering them away from public, which is traditional enterprise thinking, because “Oh my gosh, they may say something real.”

Instead the trend is you’ve got to let those voices out and what better than a podcast, and/or multiple podcasts. And really that’s the premise on which our upcoming podcast network is built. We’ve got a lot of smart people in this company. They are Internet celebrities in their own right. Brian Gardner, Chris Garrett, Pamela Wilson, Sonia Simone, Jerod Morris, Demian Farnworth. So for us, yeah, that’s an obvious place to start.

Robert Bruce: Yeah, and it’s big because for instance, not only expertise in terms of reaching into your own company and finding people to do this but it’s also personality.

So for instance, a lot of these shows are going to be covering things. They are all going to be related to what we do and what we talk about generally but some of them are going to go to the outer reaches of things that you and I would never talk about.

So for instance, we were just talking to Chris Garrett and Tony Clark and they are going to do this nerd fest of the intersection of marketing and technology. They’re going to bring their sensibility to it and their expertise with these tools and how to apply them to real-world marketing stuff. Conversion, split-testing and data. Things that you and I touch on all the time but particularly as it relates to nerdery in general, you and I never go there. We would be laughed out of the room if we tried.

Brian Clark: Well it’s just not our thing but you and I are media nerds. We just talked about Breaking Bad and we’ll probably drop a reference to The Wire by the end of this. So to each his own.

But yeah, it’s letting people be themselves because that’s what the appeal is. And out of 8 to 15 shows that we have got in production, who knows what the breakouts will be? We have some guesses but they could be completely wrong because you just never know, and to me, that’s what’s fun about this. I haven’t felt this much giddy anticipation since the early days of Copyblogger, when I would write on a topic that I had never written before and wondered whether it was going to be a hit or not. You know, that’s fun.

Robert Bruce: Jay makes one great point here. You can read the article obviously and I’ll have all of these linked up in the show notes. Under his “4 Tips for Harnessing the EGC in Your Company” number one he says, “You are Simon Cowell. Make them American Idol.” And really this goes back to the old thing we have been talking about for years, the production company.

Brian Clark: Yes. Absolutely.

Robert Bruce: It’s a good way to look at it. It’s a good metaphor.

Brian Clark: And we are acting as Simon Cowell because we’ve already told people that if their numbers don’t fly, they are cut.

Robert Bruce: Right. And we’ll talk more about this as time goes on. We’ve got some leeway because in our case, we’ve got the servers but if you are paying in another situation, you’ve got to make those decisions.

Adam Carolla tells a great story. I think is was last year. His dad started a show on his network and it was great and things were going well, but it just kind of flatlined and he fired his dad. He cancelled his show. He was like, “I’ve got server costs. I’ve got to pay for this stuff. This isn’t a hobby.”

Brian Clark: That’s awesome.

How Marketers Have Destroyed Social Media

Robert Bruce: Okay. So the last one and this is also one that you found from Sam Fiorella at Sensei Marketing, which has a nice headline, “Social Media Has Killed Consumer Trust.” What’s he talking about here?

Brian Clark: I think it’s that marketers screw it up for everyone, and I’m not ashamed to say that as one because they do. And, I wouldn’t say it’s our particular breed of marketing, trying to put value and useful content first, which has worked out great for us. It’s just the shortcut mentality and the propensity I think in virtual environments to astroturf stuff, which means fake influence, fake social proof, fake endorsements, compensated endorsements without disclosure.

The point of the article is basically that no one trusts what anyone says online, or on their Twitter account, or whatever because everyone thinks that everyone is on the take. So this article could be read as “Well, the parties over” but no, it’s always been this way, which is why we say “demonstrate authority, don’t claim it.” And that can be interpreted in a broader sense but let me give you a great example.

Everyone just threw a fit when we deleted our Facebook page and one guy, Jon Loomer I think said, “Well it looks like Facebook is your second biggest source of traffic, you are going to lose all that.” Wrong. You know where our Facebook traffic comes from? Other people sharing our content on Facebook.

Us sharing it on a Facebook page because of the algorithm or what have you, did nothing. So, instead of us doing the promoting of our content, we put it out there and it’s the people who share it that get the traction and send us the traffic.

So the ultimate point of this article is that people will only go back to trusting people they actually know and what they have to say. But what does content marketing accomplish, Robert? It gives you a legion of real people, who share and recommend to other real people, and that’s been the point all along. That’s why we lead with content instead of some BS influence or marketing play, where we paying off Kim Kardashian to say nice things about Rainmaker. Not that that would work anyway. What do you think about this Robert?

Robert Bruce: He makes a note under the sub-head of the same thing as his headline. He says, “Clearly the pendulum swung back to traditional word-of-mouth and away from “the wisdom of the crowds.” The wisdom of the crowds is a whole other thing but I think it’s right.

Brian Clark: He kind of mixes some metaphors there.

Robert Bruce: Yeah, right. Right. But I think it’s as simple and complicated as that first word in social media, which is “social.” You know, thinking about things like, “How would you treat your customers in a real-world situation? How do you treat your friends? How do you treat your family? These are social relationships and that’s a little bit different of course, when applied to business, but it’s relatively the same thing. You treat them as good as you can. As well as you are able. You treat them with respect and you give them what they are asking for, as far as you are able. So in one sense it’s really simple that way.

Brian Clark: Yeah and I think it ties back into what we have been talking about with the power of podcasting because of the ability to hear someone’s actual voice and get clues that you don’t get from text and things like that. I have heard it called “the warmth of podcasting” but it’s a real person, hopefully sharing real valuable information. And again, some of the podcasters that have the most loyal audience that anyone has ever seen and it’s kind of amazing.

So it’s content that gets distribution and you did promise five articles, so we are going to touch on that topic real quick, right at the end. But content gets distributed, which leads to trust in the content brand and the authors of that content.

You know, Google may have killed Authorship but the fundamental principle of it is sound. People want to hear from people, and they want to feel that it’s an authentic exchange, as opposed to trying to figure out what the motive is. So as opposed to objective journalism, content marketing is inherently biased and you should just be loud and proud about that because at least I know where you are coming from. You are not pretending to not be a human being. We all have biases one way or another, whether we are even aware of them.

How To Grow Your Audience When Momentum is Flatlining

Robert Bruce: All right. Yeah. Last one. Let’s touch on this really quick. This is super simple but I like it because it throws a little salt into the stew.

Gary Veynerchuk writes this great article, “How to Scale Your Content After Your Numbers “Peak”.” And he goes through a little bit of an intro here but his answer to this is distribution.

Brian Clark: This is what social media is for. I mean, conversation, yes, customer support, by necessity, because people use it that way, but for content products, social media is distribution. Gary has a couple of answers here that echo what we have been saying on this show for years.

Robert Bruce: Yeah. How do you get that distribution? Maybe things are going well but it’s just kind of flatlining and two really simple answers that are both related.

We’ve talked over and over again about guest posting and writing guest articles for other sites related to your thing. Related to your audience. Borrowing another site’s audience. But one little tweak here, Gary says, “You reach out to the top 100 podcasts that you can get on and promote the show.” Meaning your show, if you have got a podcast. The same applies for your website or whatever it is you are doing online.

But this idea of media tours, which is a simple idea and it’s been around forever. Contact the top 100, or the top 50 or 25 podcasts related to your thing and become an interviewee on those shows, depending on what they are doing. Are you going to get on all of them? Absolutely not.

If you build a relationship with these show hosts over time, your chances are better. If you are doing great stuff, your chances are even better. But for those who write a ton of guest articles as distribution, becoming an interviewee and getting onto other podcasts is a great way to do it. Tell your story that way. For all the reasons that we just talked about, not least of which Brian mentioned as people hearing you. Hearing your actual voice.

Brian Clark: Well the interesting thing for this is, in the last few episodes we have been talking about curation and tied to my new email newsletter Further, and I have yet to do any guest posting. I’m really too busy to even think about it and yet something odd happened, you know, I go on other podcasts and do interviews and what not, and something I hadn’t factored in is, that everyone wants to talk to me, at least in part, about Further. So we talk about it and there’s the link in the show notes. And I’m like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool” and that’s not my main goal here. My day job is the main goal here. You know, promoting Rainmaker, talking about Copyblogger, talking about content marketing but yeah, that’s been a nice thing.

Then of course, AWeber did a nice write up about the Rainmaker Platform and the integration with their email service. Hunter Boil mentioned Further as an example and the people over at Buffer added it to a list of curated email newsletters. So some of this, I am fortunate that people already know who I am but it is a nice kind of thing, in that when you do go and do an interview, people want to know what you are working on. If you can add value to someone else’s show, because who isn’t looking for guests? You know.

Robert Bruce: Yeah, just like a blog looking for articles.

Brian Clark: You just have to focus it on what’s in it for them. I’m always reminded that Seth Godin and Hugh MacLeod, I don’t remember who said it first, but it was basically, “No one is going to link to you if there is not something in it for them.” It’s the same thing. You know, what’s in it for them to have you on their show? What value can you bring to their audience? You can figure that out. I bet you are going to be more successful getting on shows than you think you are.

Robert Bruce: Yeah. And you are maybe thinking, “Yeah, well no shit guys. This is obvious.” And it is obvious but think about this. 25 years ago you needed a publicist and an agent to get onto bigger television or radio shows. That middle man was always there, that you either needed to pay or build a relationship with over a long period of time. Now you can go direct to these people, in some cases, who have massive audiences. And you know, it doesn’t even matter if it’s a smaller audience for a podcast. Getting on their show, delivering value like Brian said, is an amazing opportunity. So as simple as it may seem, don’t discount it.

Brian Clark: Yeah and another thing that I want to say is, if you are sick of hearing about guest posting and outreach and relationships and all that, you know, you are looking for the latest silver bullet, wake up. There is not one and if you are complaining that you have heard this all before and you are not doing it, come on now.

Robert Bruce: I’m going to leave it at that because I can’t think of any better way to close this episode, than with that advice.

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As always, thanks for listening everybody and Brian, thanks for bringing your wisdom to these five articles that we covered. I’ll see you next week. Well know, I won’t see you next week, maybe?

Brian Clark: Maybe. Back to the salt mines with you.

Robert Bruce: Great. Here we go.