What’s on my podcast playlist? Here are my favorites.

(Got your own questions for the show? Ask ‘em here!)

Hey again, Michelle MacPhearson here! It’s another episode of the Michelle MacPhearson show. And in today’s episode, I’m going to talk to you about podcasts.

You probably, since you’re watching this, know that I do a podcast. There’s this one, and I also do another one with Justine Brooke called Marketing Con Queso where it’s  he and I going back and forth about marketing topics and giving our opinions – which do not always line up.

Podcasts are a great vehicle to get your message out to an audience. There’s something very different about people reading a blog post versus people hearing your tone and inflection, and knowing you at a much more intimate level when they can hear your voice. Podcasts are an important tool in your marketing kit.

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite podcasts that I actually listen to. I’ve been asked before what I think the best ones are. I don’t know about the best but I’ll give you the ones that hold my attention.

So on the non-business side of things; I’ll get those out of the way first. I have Welcome to Night Vale which I enjoy listening to with my 7-year-old because it’s kind of creepy and spooky and weird, and he likes that. I also listen to Roderick on the Line which is hysterical because John Roderick  is a male Alaskan-born counterpart of me. So there’s that. I listen to This American Life for it’s good story telling. I listen to The Moth, which has the same thing, good story telling. Those are the ones that are purely for enjoyment.

On the business side of things, I listen to The Dave Ramsey Show. I consider that to be something that I listen to more on the business side because I really love his model of a call-in Q&A show. That’s one of the things that we do here too with the Michelle MacPhearson show, is actually take your calls via the plugin at michellemacphearson.com. You can call in, you can ask a question and then I can respond to that. So I really love how he does that and that is where I would like to get eventually is to where we can do something live like that from time to time.

And I think his way of giving advice but being able to put it into actionable nuggets, is a really great skill for anybody in information marketing or advice-giving or blog post writing business like we’re in to make the content that we create actionable and simple. So that it’s easy for people to grasp on to. So I admire what he does in that area. That’s a business podcast that I listen to.

I also listen to the School of Greatness. That is Lewis Howes, formerly of “how to use LinkedIn” fame, he has now branched out into an overall “business success” kind of brand. I was kind of like, “Eh,”, when I heard he was coming out with the podcast, but when I started listening to it, I actually think that it’s one of the best business, inspiring, motivational, Q&A type of interview shows out there because he asked a lot of questions that other folks are afraid to ask, and because he brings in a different kind of guest. So it isn’t the normal circle jerk of internet marketing folks, all being on each other shows, that is a self-perpetuating machine. He doesn’t always pull guests from that crowd. And I really appreciate that and enjoy his show because of that.

I also listen to the Bulletproof Executive Radio. I listen to about half of their shows. I think that the show is good. It’s a good example of having a few things that are your principles – like his Bulletproof coffee, and like you don’t eat this, and you do, do this. And reminding your audience of those principles, time and time and time and time again, every single week. I think that show comes out twice a week. Even when you disagree with your guests, as he does from time to time about certain topics, he doesn’t play nice with it. Like, “well, I mean, you know, okay we can both agree to disagree.” He’s not mean about it by any means. But he sticks to his principles. He has again, kind of like Dave Ramsey with those nuggets of things that say, “this is how we do things.” Building a brand, building an audience, building a community around those kinds of tribal messages is super powerful. So I enjoy listening to his show because of that. And then also, health and wellness is a topic that personally interests me. So we got both sides on that.

Let’s see what else I’ve got. Back to Work, classic Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin, talking about productivity, communication, organization, fear, anxiety, depression. They actually range topics from very practical kinds of stuff, how to organize your iTunes to those deeper things that I mentioned. Merlin Mann can get a little bit self-indulgent from time to time. But gosh! I just love Dan Benjamin. I stopped listening to the show for a while because I was like, “Merlin, I’ve had enough of you.” But I came back because I wanted to listen to Dan. So it’s a good show, in the end, to remind you to focus on the things that are important to you, to stop wasting time with the noise, and get down to what actually produces results in your business. So I do enjoy it for that but I also enjoy the camaraderie between the two hosts.

I listen to James Schramko, SuperFast Business podcast. I became a member of James’ Mastermind, the Silver Circle, once I decided to take my business from being sort of a one-man band plus an assistant into actually building a full team. That was something that he has done in the past, and I do believe in getting advice from folks who’ve been there. When I decided to expand my team and build out my services business, I did want the advice of somebody who has already built out a large team in a different services business. It’s been invaluable in helping me grow that team and deal with HR and hiring and those kinds of decisions over the past year. And I listen to the podcast of course, so that I can keep an eye on what he’s doing because I think that he’s really great at what he does.

I also have in here, Marketing Con Queso, big surprise, and the Michelle MacPhearson shows so that I can check up on my own stuff and make sure that my podcast are coming through like they should. And it gives another download count into the iTunes store.

If you are publishing a podcast yourself, downloads do matter in terms of your ranking in the iTunes store. The other thing that matters when people are searching for a topic whether your stuff comes up:

1. Downloads: iTunes is going to look at, is your podcast already popular about a topic? And if so, they will put you closer to the top when somebody searches for that keyword.

2. Keywords: is that that keyword that the person has searched for is in your title, your description of that episode and of your podcast as a whole. So keywords are important as well when you want to rank in the iTunes store.

But downloads are good, so subscribe to your own podcasts. It’s like voting for yourself. If you don’t vote for yourself in the election, how can you expect other people too?

So I hope that has given you a little bit of insight into how my mind works and what kind of information I like to feed myself every week as I download and listen to those podcasts. And I hope that you are able to find one or two new things to listen to yourself from that list.

So if you’ve got any questions, head on over to michellemacphearson.com and thanks for listening. Bye!

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