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(upbeat music)

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Welcome to Podcast Answers,

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the show where we help people start and grow their podcasts

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by answering any podcasting questions along the way.

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We are so glad that you are here with us today.

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We are back for live.

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Last time, last week, we did not do it live.

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We were, I was out of town and I actually brought my stuff

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with me and recorded in a hotel room, but did not do it live.

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But you know what guys, it's back.

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We're live, streaming audio and video,

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video on YouTube at youtube.com/@podcastanswers

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or in any new podcast app that supports live,

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like Podverse, Podcast Guru, Podcast Attic,

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and or Curio Caster.

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And like I said, we love doing that.

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We love getting questions from you guys live

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Because we are live, we're doing this live.

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It's like no other.

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So if you've never joined us live,

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make sure to subscribe to us on YouTube,

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youtube.com/@podcastanswers,

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or again, any podcast app that supports

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the live podcast format.

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So podverse, podcast guru, podcast addict,

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or CurioCaster.

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So today we are gonna be talking about podcast formats.

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So there's so many different ways

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that you can do a podcast, including, you know,

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I'd say there's so many things you can do,

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including the interview podcast format,

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the solo monologue podcast format,

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conversational co-hosted podcast format,

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the panel podcast format, non-fictional storytelling,

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and produced theater podcast.

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So which format is right for you?

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So let me say this up front,

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you should pick a format and stick to it

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so that people know what to expect

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and they have a constant listening experience.

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Now that doesn't mean you can't switch occasionally.

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And I'll give you the, except, you know,

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the way that I do that.

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So for my other podcast, the Dudes and Dads podcast,

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I, ours is mostly an interview show.

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And so what we do is we, I have a co-host

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and we do an interviews and most of the time

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it is just us and one other guest.

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But sometimes guests fall through

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or we don't get a chance to schedule a guest.

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And we want to talk about a topic,

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just the two of us. And so we do that. And then that becomes a just essentially a solo

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or co-hosted conversational podcast format. Most of them, though, were guests. And so our people

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have come to us, come to know that we do podcasting. And we do it with a interview most of the time,

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because again, we like that it brings in new people to our show. So let's talk a little

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bit about the podcast formats. So the end again, this is totally up to you. All of these, these

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formats work, they all, they all are going to be able to produce good shows for you. You just need

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to kind of decide what format your show is going to be. Now again, this is a format. This is not

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necessarily segments. We're not talking about like interview, you know, a pop quiz questions,

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things like that. We're talking about strictly about the format of the show. So the interview

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format is when the host asks questions, the cool thing about this is guests do most of the talking.

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And so you don't have to, as a host, do a lot of talking. You have to prepare. It takes a lot of

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time to prepare and ask good questions, get questions that you that are going to get your

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guests talking and wanting to share. And so you need to have come up with a lot of good

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interview questions, but they do most of the talking. You can just interject with a few questions.

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You don't need to keep the show necessarily going.

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You gain a new audience because many times the guests are going to share that they were

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on your show to their following.

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You may gain guests.

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The downside of that is your guests may not stick around depending on what kind of content

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you're doing.

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If you're doing a mixed bag of content, you may be talking to interview guests one time

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that's an expert in foster parenting and then the next time an expert in something else.

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Your guests may bring different audiences to you, but your audiences may not stick around

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because your guests are going to have a different feeling for them.

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They're going to have something different that may or may not be something that people

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are going to want to stick around for.

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The other option is what I'm doing right now with this show is a solo monologue podcast

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format.

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This is best if you have a lot of knowledge on one topic.

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For me, that's podcasting.

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is what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about podcasting. And so for me, this is the

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best as a solo show. But I have already interviewed somebody and I have plans to interview somebody

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else because sometimes in this medium, I want you to hear from other people. I want you

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to hear what people, other people can bring to the show. But for the most part, this is

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a solo show. I'm talking to you about podcasting. I'm talking to you about what I know about

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podcasting. And so it's really best if you have good knowledge on one topic. It's really

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easily because there's no scheduling of guests. It's just a get on the microphone, go if it,

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you know, your time doesn't work if you're not, especially if you're not doing live. But if your

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time doesn't work for you, then it's easy to just go, I'm going to record this at a different time.

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And it doesn't necessarily have to be the same time. And then if you, the thing that can get hard

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about this though is that sometimes it can get hard talking to yourself. And so for me, this is

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something that I wanted to do more of when I started this show. I wanted to be able to do a solo

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show because I wasn't very good at doing a solo show and I'm hoping I'm getting better. I'm hoping

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that it's not a bore to you guys. But I in the past had done a show with a co-host and that's

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completely different because with a co-host, you're able to interact with them and you're able to

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ask them questions and volley things back and forth. But when it's just you on the show,

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you're talking for the 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes, however long your show is by yourself. So you

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kind of have to get a good feel of being able to talk to yourself by yourself. For me, I just

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imagine that I'm talking to a group of people on stage. I've done that before. I've had a chance to

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to talk with people on stage. And so for me, when I do a solo podcast, I just act like

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there's a crowd in front of me, there's people in front of me that I'm actually talking to.

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And so that way, I kind of imagine myself in a more conversational state, as opposed to just

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doing talking to a microphone, because I can get hard and it's a lot harder and people are a lot

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likely more likely to give to give in and stop doing the podcast because it can get hard doing

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doing the solo monologue podcast format.

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Conversational co-hosted podcast format.

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This is much like the interview.

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You don't have to do all the talking.

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It's kind of easy to prepare for.

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In this case, you have a co-host,

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but you're not taking in guests,

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but you're talking back and forth about topics.

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And that becomes really easily because it's easy to say,

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"Okay, we're gonna talk about this topic."

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And then a lot of times, especially if your co-host

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is in the room.

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So my co-host for my other show is in the room with me.

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are talking face to face. And so really it is like we're sitting down for coffee and the podcast

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audience is just here for the listen. And they're not actually, you know, it's easy because I'm

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talking with my co-host and it's really, really easy. There's not a lot to prepare for. You don't

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have to schedule guests, so that's really cool. But it is interesting. Now, the panel podcast

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format, this is really similar to the interview, but it's with more people. So I don't know if you've

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you've ever been to like a conference or something like that where they have a panel, they have

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let's say two, three, four people up on stage and then they have a moderator who, this in

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this case would be your job to moderate as the host.

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But the moderator keeps the conversation going.

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They have to keep people from talking too much because some people talk a lot and won't

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shut up.

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And some people don't talk enough.

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So as the moderator, it's your job to keep the people moving, keep them talking but not

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talking too much, but it's similar because you're in it's similar to the

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conference interview the interview mode because you're letting the guests do the

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talking all you have to do is kind of moderate between okay now I want you to

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answer this question I want you to answer this question how about this

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question what do you think about this you know to different people and so again

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you're doing some talking but you don't have to necessarily put your input in on

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the topic that you're talking about you're just kind of there to moderate to

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keep the flow of the conversation going, not talk too much to people, not have people talk

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too little. So in that case, it's really easy. The hard thing about the panel podcast format

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is finding guests because there's a lot of scheduling involved in that. You have to

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bring more people in, you have to have guests scheduled, and it becomes really kind of a

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bear when you're trying to manage three people schedules plus your own.

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It's hard enough sometimes just to get one solo guest to come on to your show because

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of the time it takes to commit and try to schedule things like that.

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But when you try to add three people plus you to that, that can sometimes become a nightmare.

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The next topic, the next format is non-fictional podcast, non-fictional storytelling podcast.

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And this is when you're telling about real life events.

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Think, you know, murder podcasts.

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Think, think things like that where you're telling real life stories.

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You're, you may be going out and getting the facts, putting the story together, but you

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are doing the telling of real life stories.

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And the nice thing about this is there's so many stories to choose from and you can do

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it with sound effects.

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You can get real production heavy on this type of a format where you're adding in sound

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effects and drama and music and things like that.

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But it can be, that can be a lot to deal with.

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It can be a lot to produce.

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The good thing on that is it's just you,

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you're doing all the research,

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you're doing all the talking,

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you're putting the show together.

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And there's not any guests that you need to get on the show

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and make sure that you're scheduling guests

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and things like that.

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Now you can, if you wanna interview maybe somebody

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during the storytelling,

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that maybe the somebody who was a witness, you could,

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But you don't have to.

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The last type of format that I would suggest

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maybe doing is produced theater podcast.

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So this is like something that's scripted, it's produced.

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You have to get actors for this, but it's a story.

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It's like a, you know, think of an audio drama.

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Think of a radio drama before the days of television,

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before the days of all of the things where you can see them.

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Think of the audio dramas that you listen to.

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It would be similar to that. You'd have it scripted. You have a story. It's very highly produced music beds sound effects

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You have to get actors the sound has to be really good

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It takes a lot of work to do that

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But but those are high quality shows those are high a lot of times that big big production companies are doing those shows

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And so you can definitely stand out with doing those because you get it's a lot of it's a lot of work, but you can do it

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well

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So those are those are some some formats that I would suggest for you

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You do have to choose a format don't just go willingly where you're doing one thing one week one thing the next

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but the nice thing about doing that is that you

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You can do deviate a little bit from that like I said in the beginning

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You should choose something so that your fans your listeners know what to expect every time they get on they know exactly

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You know what kind of show that they're gonna be listening to

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But you can deviate a little bit again as an example when I do my other show most of the time

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We're doing guests because that's kind of show we are that's the kind of show that we are

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But occasionally we do a single show without

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You know without any guests. It's just me and my other co-host

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so

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pick a podcast

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Format if you need help doing this. I am available for one-on-one

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Contact I one-on-one you can contact me by going to podcast answers comm slash contact. I

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I'm on one-on-one. I can I can help you through this. I can help you start your podcast. I can help you grow your podcast

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I love to help people do that

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So guys yeah, I would suggest going out and subscribing to our YouTube channel or Facebook Twitter

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We're everywhere. We love answering questions for the podcast

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So if you want to go to podcastanswers.com/contact and you can ask me a question

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And I can answer on the next episode of podcast answers guys. So with that, thanks guys

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We look forward to you next time

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