Strategies for Making Your Podcast Stand Out Online | Ep 13

Welcome to this episode of the Big Vision Business Owners Podcast, where I delve deep into the topic of standing out online in today's competitive digital landscape. 

If you're worried another company in the same industry as you will take up all the space online, this episode will bring you insights and strategies to help you shine amidst the crowd.

I'm here to tell you that even in a crowded market, there are methods to use to stand out online like no other in your industry is doing right now to get more eyes on your business and to make sure you don't blend in.

Want to start a podcast? Download the FREE Podcast Starter Checklist, a 15-point guide created specifically for entrepreneurs, life coaches and course creators.

Music by Kadien: Instagram | Spotify | SoundCloud

Transcript

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When there's someone out there doing the same as you and then you see that they're having more success than you, we panic. I'm going to do posts like them because you copied their content that is not the way that you make content and it doesn't sound like you. We have got to find a way to speak to people in different ways that is saying something different to what has been said before.

Hello and welcome to the big Vision business owners podcast this is the place for business owners that have a message that they want to share with the world and we'll be talking on this podcast about how to get seen online how to raise your visibility and actually get your message out there so that you can have that impact on the world. We are all about creating a true connection with your audience building a community around your podcast what you do that feeds into to your business that can lead to growth leads and more sales and finally we're all about changing the world changing the way the world thinks by helping you to share your message so you can have that impact leave that lasting Legacy and be part of Greater change in the future and I'm your host Shantel Dyson who's here to do it with you along the way I'll be sharing my expertise and experiences with being a big Vision business owner with being able to create content online the clever way which means not having to spend hours on your phone and together we'll be looking at how we can raise your profile online to get your message seen and heard and with that let's get on with today's episode.

Hello and welcome to another episode of big Vision business owners we're going to jump straight into this week's episode where we're going to be talking about standing out online. I was recently at a mom's in business event in Romford and ili shout out to them I was talking to them all about content creation and one of the themes that came came up was like how do I stand out online when there are so many other people in my industry like maybe I'm a PT and so other the people how do I do that and there was um a printing t-shirt printing and they knew they were different because one did adults one did children but then even within their space you it's like well how do I stand out and there were some really obvious things that spring to mind so straight away there was kids and adults that meant that they are slightly different and that makes sense but what happens when there is that other kids one and then suddenly you do this thing that does make you stand out.

So in one case one of the companies did more like slogans and was thinking go thinking about going down the route of swear slogans which is cool what happens though when someone else starts doing swey slogans and quite often we hear online that I know that I'm going to be okay because it's me I am the difference in my business and I would love to say that me being as fabulous at teaching for example means that everybody wants to learn from me in terms of content creation and from podcasting and whilst I can detach from the outcome and go well hang on yes I'm fabulous at teaching and that's not me that's not me blowing smoke up my own ass that is me knowing that I got very good at what I did for seven years full-time in teaching versus another two years in Supply teaching which means I'm thrown in at the deep end teaching people plus very good at being thrown in at the deepend I've done assemblies off the car and content creation Club sessions always have plans but I don't know what business is sat in front of me and what issues they've got I'm good at responding to that so no matter what it is generally I'm quite good at being able to help whether that's coaching mentoring specifically teaching but that doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to buy from me.

And you'll know this if you have ever experienced and it's okay to feel this way but if you've ever experienced and you know that you're good at what you do but you know there's somebody else out there that doesn't have as good a product or as good a skill but they get the sale and you're like well what how they've got more they've clearly got more followers and people are buying from them more and sometimes they don't have more followers but you can just from what they're talking about they're making sales and they're mentioning on their stories and you're like wait a sec like why am I not like why are people not buying from me and but I'm I I I am me like people said that if I'm just me then people will want to choose me and you know we're doing the same thing so what is it that they're doing that I'm not that makes people buy from them more and suddenly we then feel this pressure to start questioning ourselves because we were told that it was us that we were the reason that people would choose us.

I don't want anyone in business to think that it's a direct reflection of them that they're not doing well in their business now twofold to that of course if you're doing a rubbish job if you're not delivering well you're only as good as your last job I mentioned that in a previous episode recently so yes of course words are going to get around if you didn't deliver on what you said you were going to do in your product or service that word is going to get around especially if it's early days and in Reverse if you do well people are always quite happy to shout your Praises share online go mad for you okay so that's fine you need to be professional but also we can be fair and say okay well hang on maybe this person has been in the business game for longer than me and whilst maybe I've got more experience of teaching and maybe my skill set is more developed actually they've nailed the business side they've nailed how to sell they've nailed their process their customer Journey their messaging Etc and they are better at that than me so it doesn't matter what quality our products are at what price points they're at they're better at business than me and so caveat that but then putting that to the side that's different cuz that's a skill set and that's a way that you have behaved but let's say you did do as good a service as one another your products are very very similar and you've had the same amount of experience in business and and kind of had that level then I don't want you thinking that just because you didn't show up in a more authentic way or something about you push more people away let's not feed that please let's start realizing that standing out online has a different way of looking at it when we talk about being authentic and there is a blend of understanding that there's psychology to understand beneath all of this and then there is also staying true to your values knowing business but knowing yourself self so quite often when people say be authentic online people kind of jump to just sharing their daily lives with people they will put everything and anything in their stories to show off all the good things that are going on and sometimes we get the other end of the spectrum where we see the very very difficult and challenging times about their lives now there is no harm in sharing some of those things sometimes but you do also have to think of brand image there is a way that we need to still stay professional online and I think being a teacher I'd always been made aware of this because we always have to be very careful of everything that's online you can get in trouble if pictures from a hen party are seen by a parent and they're not impressed by it it can lose people jobs it's a weird one but it happens so having this kind of conscious idea that we whilst we're being authentic we're putting this still this version out online that is authentic enough without being too much for people without going into drama I mean people love drama of course but do they want to buy from people that have drama I'm not sure people want to work with people that present in a particular way now that's not to say pull in everything about you being authentic online is not going to be the way that we stand out in 2024 by all means I'm I'm I'm not saying not to show the other size of you it's become very apparent to me that primary and secondary content is going to really matter in 2024 so if you don't yet know what primary and secondary content is messaging I've heard it twice from two different coaches in the space of less than a month um and I've been doing it for a long time but never spoken about it in this way but primary is all of the stuff related to your business so it's the post that everyone does it's the content pillars that you have and the secondary messaging is to do with sharing the things that matter to you Lisa Johnson describes it as the things that piss you off there just other things in your life that matter that you would care about or other sides of your life that you do want to share so I always reference dogs people love dogs put a dog on your story I'm going to probably like you suddenly a little bit more than I did before because I love dogs people that don't like dogs are going to be like a dog um and putting people off of you is just as important as letting the people that want to eventually love you love you um all the way through so coming up with these other things that matter to you are also ways that people show that level of authenticity they are the ways that people stand out online in some ways because they're showing a different side to things they are not just posting what they had for dinner that evening unless you've got a reason to if you're talking about um vegan diets you're trying veganuary because you want to try something that um is not into animal cruelty if you treat killing animals that way for food um or it might be that you're like me I talk about Gusto boxes quite a lot for me they're they they're great well you don't waste food it reduces UPF.

If you've been near me at any point in real life, you might have heard about my little thing about ultra-processed foods. I'm trying to reduce it in my life, and that might put some people off. I've probably even mentioned that, or people might be thinking, "I don't want to hear much about that." I haven't gone into it loads; I'm still experimenting with it myself. But that's the kind of secondary messaging that I've heard other business coaches talking about, and that's the level of authenticity that we talk about when we discuss standing out online.

That's quite a common theme that keeps coming up, and people think this is going to be really important in 2024. And that brings me to a little bit of a problem. What happens in our industry when we're trying to make the algorithm work, when we're meant to stand out online, when we're trying to do the things to get seen? We end up hearing the most commonly mentioned strategies, and then everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I don't know how I'm going to stop myself from being one of those people if I now give you a new message. But by all means, start sharing the interesting parts of your behind-the-scenes life—things both relevant to your business, things adjacent, and things that just matter to you.

But coming back to the first point and the idea that when there's someone out there doing the same as you and then you see that they're having more success than you, we panic. We go into this mode of not feeling good enough and thinking, "Oh God, okay, what can I do to be more like them? What can I do to make sure that I get the attention that they're getting?" And one of our instant thoughts is to think, "I'm going to do posts like them because if they're doing it, then it's going to work for me."

And this brings us in danger of copying their content—not in a way that is obvious. Obviously, you're going to change it into your colors, change it into your font. You're not just going to literally screenshot it and post it. But you kind of go, "Oh okay, well, they did a post like that, so I'm going to do a post like this. And they did a post like that, so I'll post like this." And it really still doesn't really do much better. And there's two reasons for that.

One is something I call the copycat syndrome or copycat method, which is where you've looked at someone else's, you thought it'd be a good idea, and you've copied it. And that can go wrong because either you have copied their content and so did so many other people, and now you're blending in in some way. And secondly, because you copied their content, that is not the way that you make content. And it doesn't sound like you. You're like, "But it worked for them." Yeah, but that's not you.

The thing about content and why I don't tend to talk about specific strategies per se is that everything that I ever do with content is an experiment. We're going out there and we're seeing what happens, and we're following behaviors. If you want to stand out with your content, we need to go into your content to see what made you stand out online before the most—what got the most attention, what got the most engagement, what got shared the most, saved the most, etc. Let's see if there's a couple of things that resonated, or if there's any common themes between those. And let's roll with that, and let's double down on that.

So then it's authentically aligned with the things that you were talking about anyway—that you thought were working for your business, that you wanted to talk about, that you were happy to make content on. And then we're bringing in the psychology of the audience's behavior to go, "And that's what they love. And that's the bit that got their attention. And that's the bit that I need to double down on. That's the bit that's going to help me stand out online." And you ditch the stuff that wasn't serving you, you ditch the stuff that wasn't really getting your attention, and wasn't making you stand out.

Brandon Lucero, if you've ever heard of him, a wonderful guy on messaging, he uses this, and I very much believe in what he says. He's been saying for ages that how-to content is dead. We're all blurring into the same thing. How many times do we need to know how to lose weight, to do a certain thing, to heal our inner child? We don't want to know how to. I could Google that. I could find a YouTube video for that. The how-to content industry, which was popular a number of years ago, is gone. You're not going to get attention online by doing a how-to.

Now, if you want to do a how-to one in every 10, 15, 20 posts, that's fine. But if you thought that your educational post, the third post probably that you were going to do every day for a while, was going to be how-to, incorrect answer. We have got to find a way—and Brandon Lucero speaks about this—to speak to people in different ways that is saying something different to what has been said before but still allows people to learn something, to find something new to do, to realize something that they didn't know before—that is as educational and possibly more impactful than telling them how to do something.

Because telling them how to do something is a list of instructions. It doesn't allow them to have any aha moments. It doesn't allow them to have any feelings. It's something they might save for later. That's about as good as a how-to piece of content is useful for. And it's all of these things that we need to think about if we're going to stand out online in 2024. And I am dedicated to it. I am dedicated to making sure that I stand out online because if I can't stand out online, I don't know how I'm going to teach you to stand out online.

But being able to really speak to your audience and understand where they're at—the frustrations—and not just do the same old content that everybody else is doing. And this is the kind of thing that we talk about in Content Creation Club because I can't always tell you exactly what to do without seeing what materials we're working with, what you think your aim is, and what you're trying to do.

And one of the things that I notice the most whenever I'm at Content Creation Club, talking at sessions, other people's networking groups, is the apprehension to really stick with one thing that you're going to do or one that you're going to stick with. And it's really hard for me too, right? Because I love content creation. But I know all of the coaches have told me, all of the people tell me, "Go in on one thing and get good at it. Get known at it." Which is why we're at podcasting. That's why we're at podcasting, guys. That's why we're there. Unfortunately, my passion for content just doesn't go far enough away from me, and people do still come to me for more generic content creation and content strategies. That's okay. That's fine. But mostly, talking about podcasting and things adjacent to that. At the very least, that's the big offer that's out there right now—the way that you can work with me. Podcasting prospects is available. So that's fine.

But when I speak to other people, they are apprehensive to lean into that. They are apprehensive to commit themselves to something. And I know what it's like because when I was doing single-life confidence, which is much less tangible than starting a podcast, like I don't, it'd be great to go back and think what I would do now. Now that I've really focused on messaging and being very specific, what would I do differently now if I was going to go back and revive Shantel the coach? We are worried about putting people off. I even started the podcast with "It's for women in their 20s and 30s," and it suddenly became 20s, 30s, and 40s because I realized that my audience was wider than that. And it shocked me because I wasn't really talking to the 40-year-old; that wasn't who it was for. I made a mistake there. And even when I was talking to the 20 and 30-year-olds, I attracted 40-year-olds, and that's it wasn't a problem. People ask the question, you know, what the sort of age group it actually turned out that most people were just my age or a little bit older. They were the late 20s, early 30s group. That's what didn't surprise me. That's who I was, and I was thinking of myself. So that came as no surprise.

But there was a fear in me that, "Oh God, like I've got 40-year-olds dissing. I should probably make sure that they feel included." And it came back to it's really difficult as well when you're dealing with women relationships—a predominant spoke from a heterosexual point of view. And I'm a PE teacher, right? We're thinking about being inclusive and making sure that people's beliefs, identities are respected and included. But from a marketing perspective, inclusivity is very difficult to make sure you include. 

And I was really conflicted about like, "But if I don't talk about relationships with women, with other women, then I'm kind of putting them off, and then I'm not being inclusive." And I'm really conflicted about that. And in hindsight, I've realized that I should have just stuck with my messaging and not, not to be inclusive—people that were in relationships with other women were fully welcomed, people that were in their 40s were fully welcomed. But when I was starting out in business, in all honesty, I needed to stick with something. And even if I wasn't then explicit about it, maybe I should have just in my head stuck to that and not made it explicit when I was talking about it. But it's very hard when you talk about dating because I'm talking about the boys, men do this, etc., and I'm making generalizations. I'm making statements, and you shouldn't do this on a date, you shouldn't do this because online we've got to have an opinion. 

We do have to have opinions in our industry and also adjacent to our industry—that is how we are going to stand out. Because if you regurgitate everything that you've ever been taught on your life coaching course, your therapy course, etc., as a way of showing your expertise, there's going to be no difference in you and the person next to you that also trained alongside you. That's obvious.

If you don't specialize your therapy treatment into something, then why are people going to choose you over anybody else? I'm a social media expert, content creator, and that means that I can get any inquiry left, right, and center if I pitch myself that way. And the minute that I have leaned into podcasting, I have become more elevated in my status. I get now more general inquiries about content creation than I did before.

And you can say, well, that is that not time and networking possibly. There's an element to play in that, but I am now getting tagged in more posts when it comes to podcasting. People are starting to associate me with podcasting, and people are going, "Oh, Shantos girl for podcasting, fabulous, that's what I need."

Not everybody that tags me in something that the poster wasn't actually a good fit, it might not lead to a s, it doesn't need to. The point is that people are associating me with podcasting, and then within that realm, I've got to think what is it about my practices that make me different to everybody else. I know there's some other podcasters out there, there's a real big one out there, but when they did their challenge it was how to make money from a podcast, and I thought, well, I'm not after anybody that just wants to make money from their podcast. I'm not dealing with people, if you heard last week, I'm not advocating for loads of sponsorships, feel free to do them by the way, but that's not my model. And so did you see what just happened there?

I went, "I'm not the person to advocate for sponsorships." I then went, "Do what you want if you want to do a sponsorship, but it's not for me." Look at how conflicted I still am in my messaging sometimes too, even me, what I really want to say is I'm not here for sponsorships, I can feel myself wanting to say, "But by always do it." But I'm not here for somebody that wants to do sponsorships on their podcast because the people that want to do sponsor on the podcast maybe they do make money quickly, maybe they do want to basically be an influencer and have hundreds and thousands of followers, and they want to get brand deals, cool, go and do it. I'm there for the people that want to build a podcast for their brand, for their personal brand, and they want to elevate themselves as an authority in their space, a thought priner.

And that thoughtpreuner is not thinking about sponsorship as their main form of income. That thoughtpreneur is thinking how could I one day write a book, and even then that probably won't make them that much money, but how can I write a book that elevates my status, how can I change the way the world thinks through what I do, and get paid a fair amount to do it, so that I can live comfortably, so that I can give to charity and other stuff. I know my message in and I get scared too, you've seen it literally just happen, and I've got to think how do I continue to share that message to share my methods such as content creation club. I'm not the girl that's going to teach you how to do a Content strategy for the whole year, what's the point if I've just told you that everything we do with content is an experiment, why am I planning an experiment that lasts 12 months?

I'm really sorry, but I can't get on board with any marketer that's going to tell me I need to plan my marketing for 12 months in the situation I'm currently in which is a solo preneur starting a business, naive right because I don't know what I'm doing in 3 months time. I'm the point of evolution and changing what you're doing is so high when you first start a podcast and the same go to your content what you are putting out there is going to be different to last month even if we have a nice quarterly set out sort of plan for okay you're launching there so we're going to do two weeks of sell in there so prior to that we're going to do four weeks of connection content and prior to that we're going to do 6 weeks of attention content fine that's a bit of an outline but what I'm going to post in a couple of weeks is responsive because I'm learning from my audience I'm doing constant market research I mean I'm evolving so that's another way that I can put people off so by communicating What You Won't Do and what you don't do and the reasons why you don't believe in certain things as much as this is giving me a little pedestal to talk about some of my things it's showing you the example of what you can do to stand out online.

I agree, I agree with Samantha Hearn, I agree with Lisa Johnson, secondary marketing is important and I think we should put our opinions out on those other things to help people get to know us, to understand what we used to do, to understand who we are as a person now, and you people feed off that energy. One of other comments I get, it was actually a lovely comment from the moms in business one, which was I saw your video and I just knew it was going to be a good session.

So I'd done a pre-session little introduction video of course because video is my format, it's how I communicate best I personally think, so people felt that and even someone said that at content creation Club this week as well, shout out to Bev Lovely Bubbly, she runs parties actually I decided she should call herself the queen of craft parties she does parties that are a mixture of fashion where you create your own t-shirt, bath bomb, stash, soaps, and there were a couple of others, um, but they were the two that we looked out for making content which is why they stick out, and she said said like I just loved your energy and you really spoke to me I could feel that in what you were saying it made sense to me all that kind of language is what I love when someone then decides bearing in mind that I'd never spoken to her before vaguely in the DMS but otherwise we hadn't really had an interaction and that was that she came along had a session absolutely loved it and that's the feeling I want I want those people to book I want those people to be able to work with I want to be able to help those people Elevate their businesses because there's a good energy match values match we're going to go away and get stuff done it's all this ecosystem and that can only have happened by putting myself out there in my authentic way and I don't want to force you to have opinions but I want you to think about the opinions that you have and there must be things in your industry that piss you off I'm so that there must be you saw me getting frustrated there it's not I don't have quite strong negative emotions thankfully teaching allows you to should just let things go but if I had to describe that's frustration you can't go around telling people that they need to be planning for a year ahead that's wrong I'm I'm I'm I'm really sorry you can feel it I'm not sorry sorry not sorry the people that I work with don't need a a marketing plan for the year I'm open to hearing why people think it might be the case but in my current situation I can I imagine planning for December now you're you're wrong you're wrong I can't plan for December now it's different if you're a big brand you have to plan months in advance because they have product launches they literally need to know what's going out where they need to book Billboards they need to book adverts different different but as someone that's in the online space building it up yourself you're learning how to do it we're being responsive we're testing we're constantly trying that's why I believe that so when you are thinking about how to stand out online this year think about leaning into you remembering you don't need to change who you are to attract the right people but that you do need to think about what makes you different.

And it's not just you, it's like how you present you just you being you isn't going to make people buy any differently how can you communicate those different versions of you that get attention online that connect with people online that therefore lead to more Sales Online that's what we're trying to do when we say show people that secondary messaging be more authentic and no copying other people's content isn't going to get you there now every now and then I will copy someone's caption structure I'll be like oh that's laid out quite nicely I like that but I take the whole thing and put my own words in it and there's a there's a sort of system to learning but if I do that with everything and I take it from one person well people are going to clock that within seconds I always worry when I do do the same structure someone else and that person likes I'm like did you know that I took your structure did you know that I made it look a little bit like one of your posts from before um it's fine to experiment just don't take someone's entire strategy and make it your own.

Or worse still copy theirs because they're in the same industry and they copying the same things as you no no no no make it your own at the very least even if it is how to content so that's how to stand out make sure you put your opinions out there in a fair way but a way that does put people off as much as it is also going to attract people in and get people to think the way that you if if they understand hopefully a number of you have listened to this and thought yeah I mean that is silly isn't it to think why would I need to think about October November December now where I don't really I don't have big launches and and yes okay I know I'm going to launch four times in the year but how I Market it then can't possibly be decided because I don't know how launch On's gone so some of you are going to think y she's right some of you are going to think I just don't think that's right I think you need an entire plan and we probably won't work together and that's okay or you might come come to content creation Club I want to have a discussion with me about that and that's cool too because I'm always open to hearing that doesn't mean I'm going to change my mind I'm not going to change your mind that's cool it's always a an interesting one to talk about opinions because internally we don't want people to say no to us we don't want people not to like us but we have to to have a successful business we have to realize that we aren't for everyone and doubling down going all in on the people that we are for is going to get us the better results go into one thing share it with people and find your people that match your energy match your beliefs and and fit in with your systems until next time everybody keep changing the way the world thinks one podcast at a time.