Audience growth is only the beginning

Is audience growth really your biggest podcast goal OR is there a bigger networking desire nestled in your podcast outreach? For me it’s the latter and that’s why I love connecting over content conversations. 

In this episode I’ll show you how I network after an online event to make one-on-one connections. Building these one-on-one connections can do more than just grow your audience, they can grow your network as a whole in a content space you’re genuinely passionate about. Think big, network small:)

Libsyn AI video talked about in this episode (it's really good!):
https://www.youtube.com/live/VMRSKg9Rsvc

Transcript

So you've gone to a live online event or maybe even an in person event, and there's a message area or a list of people that were there, and you're like, oh, it was great to see everybody. That was really interesting. I'm definitely going to go to more events.

But wait, don't stop there. There's a really fun way that you can connect with people from that event that's not creepy or intrusive and that can expand your network in that content area and possibly grow your audience. Hi, I'm Steph from Coffeelike Media, and I do have a cold, but I am trudging on because I am determined this month during Coffeelike Media's audience growth month, to get two episodes a week to you, as well as one winner each week for the first four weeks of July in the free podcast audit giveaway.

I will have links wherever you're consuming this for you to go and check out what that is all about. So go check that out and enter. If you have a podcast, you are eligible.

It's that simple. Here's what I'm going to talk about today. I love meeting new people.

I love meeting new people who like geeking out about the same things I do. And over the years, I've learned some tips and tricks on how to follow up with people I've met, or at least were in the same room, virtual or otherwise, during events in my topic area. So I need to show you this.

Cause this is a visual. If you're following along on YouTube, well, like the video, subscribe to the channel if you're listening to this. Naudio, don't worry, I'm gonna visually walk you through everything I'm doing because this is a multimedia experience and I'm going to use an example on something I literally just finished watching.

So I just watched this video put on by Libsyn Elsie Escobar was hosting. Yay. And Christopher Penn from Marketing Over Coffee is the name of his podcast.

And he's also, he's got a long history with AI. And they talked about, as you can imagine from the title, AI in podcasting, the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's a lot to unpack with this, and I'm not going to go over all of this.

Actually, I'm going to unpack one particular moment from all of this in my AI and podcasting newsletter at aiandpodcasting.substack.com probably next week. Coming soon.

Coming soon. But right now, what I want to focus on is over there on the right hand side over here in this chat room. I already watched this, so I'm at the end of the video.

But see if you start at the beginning of the video, do you see on the left hand side? There's no chat yet. You want to be on YouTube, you want to go to not just top chat, but live chat replay. Then as the video goes on, and many of you know this, but as the video goes on, you'll see more and more chat in there.

What I like to do is go all the way to the end, but not to the end while it's playing. Cause then it'll go to the next video. And then over on the right hand side in the live chat replay, you can see the names of people that are chatting.

Now you'll see Libsyn at the end a lot because they're dropping a lot of links on things they've mentioned. So go up from there so you can see doctor Katrina Burruss, Leslie McGilroy, Paul Culligan. Screens in focus.

So sometimes people's screen names can help you find them on the social media platform that you're on. So this is a bit of work, but I promise you, if you screenshot either the video, because this is all available online, this is not behind closed doors or anything. Right now I'm screenshotting the video and the live chat room and I'm saving it with a name that I'll remember.

And then when I contact the person on whatever social media platform I contact them on, I'll dm them with a picture of the video and I'll say, hey, I saw you in the, in this case it's a virtual event, so I'll say, hey, I saw you in the chat room. I liked what you were saying, would love to connect and geek out about this or follow what you're doing with it. Or maybe I'll ask them a question.

If what they're saying in the chat room leads to a question I genuinely have, I'll just ask them a question, hey, I saw you in the chat room, curious about this. And then I'll ask the question. If it's more of just that they were in there and they were commenting that they really enjoyed it, I'll be like, hey, saw you in the chat room, curious what your biggest takeaway was or something like that.

Let me show you how to do this. I am mostly on LinkedIn with little bits of Instagram. You need to actually connect to them first.

Can I add a note? I can. For the audio listeners. Let me show you what I'm doing, I said, saw you in the chat room of Libsyn's recent AI live event with Christopher and Elsie.

Would love to geek out about AI and podcasting. Steph, I'm told if you leave a message, people are more likely to connect. I haven't had that many people connect on LinkedIn, to be honest.

So I'm not too worried about that. But just in case, I left a message. If I wasn't doing this while recording, I would look at what they wrote more and connect it to what they wrote.

But I'm working a little fast right now because I like these episodes to be short and practical. So clearly this is a two parter, right? You have to go in there and first connect with people, depending on the social media platform that you're using. And then step two is to remember to go back and see if they connected with you and then send them more of a message.

But if you're sending a message in the initial connection, like I'm doing here, generally people will reply back when they connect, but it really depends on the platform that you're doing this on. So read through the comments a little bit more. When you leave a message, initial message with them, connect it to what they wrote.

Leave, if you can, the attachment of the event because people recognize it and go, oh yeah, I really like that event. Unless they didn't, in which case they'll be like, man, that was terrible, and you still have something to talk about. These live chat rooms are amazing because there's people in there that leave comments all the time, and you can follow up on the comments, copy and paste, and try to find them elsewhere.

Oftentimes podcasters use the same username in multiple places, so if you can't find them in a social media platform, just google them. Sometimes they'll use the same username in different places, but not necessarily all of them, so you might be able to find them. Sometimes I've even done like, the username that they had on YouTube in that chat room and then podcasting after that just to kind of narrow down the search.

Also do that with someone that has a common name that I'll narrow it down so you can google who they are and find them. Podcasters are pretty easy to find, to be quite honest with you. We want to be found, you know this.

So it's not that hard to do this with people that have podcasts. I'm sure in other industries it would be a little more difficult to find people, but in podcasting, we live to be found. So this is not that difficult.

So again, depending on the platform that you want to connect to people on, it could be a two parter for me on LinkedIn. It definitely is. And so I'm going to put a note in my calendar like say three, four days from now, maybe the end of next week, because this week's a little busy for me.

So at the end of next week on Friday, I tend to do a lot of networking stuff. So I'll go back in on Friday, see if they accepted my connections. Then I'll start seeing if I can get a conversation going and just chat as normal, start to talk about the conversation.

If they mention anything connected to my AI and podcasting things that I've done, I might drop an episode. But I'm definitely not going to start with that because I'm not there just to get listeners, I'm there to talk about the content. And then if they happen to be interested in that, then that's, that's fine too.

Of course. I mean, I'm here to grow my audience, but bigger than just growing my audience, I'm here to grow my network. I'm here to grow my community of people who are talking about the same things.

In the case of this example, it's about AI and podcasting. Using AI within the podcasting space, that's that particular realm of folks that I'm trying to get connected to. I never want to be super pushy with them and make them listen to my stuff because that's not what the podcast is there for.

That's a little honey pot that'll attract a different group, group of folks, and it's always in my profile. So if they look at my profile before they connect with me and they think, oh, that sounds interesting, they're going to go to it anyway. So, generally speaking, the conversations I have in the DM's that come from these kinds of outreaches generally revolve around the content area.

And then they'll, they'll see my link and stuff anyway. So I don't usually have to actually share a particular episode or a newsletter or something like that. It usually comes out organically.

Once somebody connects with you, they'll generally kind of be keeping an eye out for your posts for a while and go, oh, okay. And they'll see your posts and your posts will lead to the different things. So I like to kind of let stuff organically roll out.

I like for people to see my stuff as I create it more so than just do my first outreach of hey, you should listen to my podcast because I don't know if they should. I think they should be the deciding person in that it has a long tail that is at absolutely gorgeous. And the connections, because they're not pushy, are more real because they are real because I'm genuinely interested in the things I'm connecting to them about.

So this is my way. This is the way that I prefer to connect and network with people. As with all the tips I'm sharing this month and any time of the year, of any year of any given century, do what's comfortable for you.

This is what works for me. This slower, one on one networking is what works for me. If you would prefer to reach out to people at the beginning, when you find them in chat rooms and send them a message, then send them your link at the, at least at the bottom of the message.

Don't have to be the only thing you send them. That's my one request. You can be a little more upfront about your podcasts, but by all means, please don't lead only with listen to my podcast because there's no connection.

There's no motivation to want to know more about your podcast just from a link. A link tells almost nothing. So, yeah.

All right, well, I hope this helped you figure out for events that you're going to online or in person how you can use the shared areas that show who went to follow up and find people online, connect with them and start having one on one conversations with them to grow your network, to grow your audience, to grow your content connections within a space that you're already deeply passionate about. How do I know that? Because you're listening to this. And that's what Coffeelike Media is all about.

It's that relaxed, deep intensity and passionate desire to learn more about a specific content area, skill or knowledge base. And there you have it. All right, one more winner and two more podcast episodes at Coffeelike Media.

For all the information on the contest as well as the episodes and so much more, you can go to stepfuccio.com and that has all the information for you. Thank you so much and I will see you in the next one.

Bye.