Why you can’t just copy and paste your words into a podcast
Have you got a mountain of written content and you want to turn it into a podcast?
Repurposing existing content from a blog or book is a great idea. But if you want to build an audience of highly-engaged podcast listeners (you do!), reading your content isn’t a good way to go about it.
A podcast is a show, not an audiobook so here’s what to do if you want to make your written content work as audio…
Why reading on your podcast is a bad idea
Reading is one of the quickest ways, as a host, to disconnect from your audience.
When you’re trying to grow your podcast and encourage people to share your show you have to deliver high-quality, engaging content and there’s nothing engaging about listening to somebody read.
Why? Because to capture someone’s attention you need to be talking directly to them.
But if you’re reading your content you’re talking to the page, not the people listening and that means you’ll likely sound disinterested, disengaged and disconnected.
If you sound that way you won’t be able to hold the attention of your audience which means they won’t stick around.
Why having a lot of written content can be a great thing for your podcast
One of the reasons most podcasts podfade into oblivion is they realise coming up with content every week is a lot of work.
If you’ve already done the hard yards and built a library of content on another platform and you know there’s an audience for it, this is a great position to be in.
But that doesn’t mean the hard work is over.
Just because your content worked on another platform doesn’t mean it’ll work in audio.
So if you want to get your content in front of people’s ears as well as their eyes you have to turn it into something that works for them.
How to turn written content into audio content
This can be as simple as going through your blog posts, lesson plans or book and transforming the content into a series of bullet points you can deliver to your audience naturally.
Bullet points are great because they give you a structure to follow for your podcast without the plan being written out word for word.
If your content is based on your expertise you shouldn’t need to write things down in a lot of detail because you know everything already.
Ideally, you want a few short sentences in front of your to trigger your brain to present your content in a natural way that sounds like it’s coming off the top of your head.
A bullet point list will give your brain everything it needs to present naturally so you can speak directly to your audience instead of speaking to what’s written in front of you.
Think about whether presenting solo is the best option
Just because the original source material was written by you doesn’t mean you need to present it on your own.
When you go through everything you might realise you’re better off nutting things out with a co-host.
Or bringing in a guest every week to interview about the topics you cover on your blog.
This can be a much more engaging way of delivering content so think about whether you can take what’s written down and fashion it into discussion topics or questions.
There are a million different ways to put a show together so think about who you’re talking to because an audience who likes to read content can be very different to an audience who wants to listen to it.
To really capture people’s attention and make your content work as a podcast you need to make sure you’re making the show for your listeners, not just regurgitating content that was made for someone else.
Want to start your own podcast but need a little help? Download my “How To Start A Podcast” guide or sign up for my online podcasting course, PodSchool.
