Last week, we had an introduction to what Podcasting is all about and how pretty easy it is to set up one of your own.

I also outlined the critical and important things you need to get started. Nothing fancy, just what is required to get you started quickly. So, without wasting much of your reading time lets continue.

But before we continue, In Case You Missed It; Heres part 1

Recap on Part 1

Just to bring back my outline, here are the important things needed.

1. Your Idea and goal (topics of focus)
2. An audience (those who are interested in your topic of focus)
3. A “radio broadcasting” platform
4. Recording and audio editing tools
5. Promoting and monetizing your “radio show”

 

Today’s Focus

 Today, we will be focusing on, your Idea, and your goal.

Before jumping into creating your first podcast to the world, you first should decide what topic you want to focus on.

You can easily come up with this by outlining what areas of law are of interest to you or you are an expert in. You don’t have to be a guru or a professor emeritus on the topic or area but you should be quite knowledgeable about it.

It’s important that whatever area or topic you are picking should be something of interest to you. Why? Because to stay the long haul on this, you need to focus on something that excites you or something that you are passionate about. I promise you there will be days you won’t feel like coming on your show or there will be days when your expectations will not be met based on the targets you have made for your show. These are the days where your WHY would push you through.

So let’s quickly come up with our areas/topics of focus.

 

Area/Topic of Focus Exercise.

1. What areas of law are you an expert in? Write them down
2. What other areas of law are you interested in and you are quite knowledgeable on? Write them down.
3. At this point, you should have somewhere between 2-5 or more topics. Great!!!
4. Next, write out sub-topics for each of the areas of law or topic you have written in 1 & 2.
5. At this point, I assume you can see where I am going with this, we are actually streamlining the topics you are going to focus on, and we are already building (on paper) your content for your show. Fun right?
6. We are not done yet, you know you are not restricted to just areas of law you are acquainted with. We started with that just to make it easier for you to kick start your podcast.

Now you can write out similar or complementary topics to what you have written down in 1 & 2. Though you are not an expert on these topics, you can invite guest speakers who are experts in these areas to come on your show and speak on these topics. I hope you weren’t thinking you would be the only one running the show. Naaaaa. There are creative ways you will employ to make your show an interesting one to follow.

 

Your Audience

 Now, we are done with the idea or goal, let’s move on to our second item on the list. Your Audience.

To get anyone interested in listening to your podcast, it’s important you give them what they want to hear. Simply said whatever topic your show will be covering should be of value, entertaining and informative.

How do you know what content will be of value to your audience? It’s easier than you think.

You know the topics you are covering right? So next we go to where people who have an interest in such topics gather. I have a full article explaining how to do this here. Go ahead and read it.

 

Let’s illustrate this, so say one of your topics/areas of law is domestic violence. Next, we need to determine who will be interested in discussions or info around domestic violence, e.g. wives that face physical assault from their partners or vise-visa, kids facing abuse at home, house-helps facing abuse at home and the list goes on.

 

Find out where such people gather on the internet. Google is your best friend. There are social media communities where these people gather, join these forums, see the questions they ask, see what they complain about. This gives you a very good idea of the kind of answers they are looking for. This will be important in making up the content you will share on your show.

 

Keep in mind, these forums and communities you will discover will be the same you will target when we get to the point of promoting your podcast/radio show.

Let me quickly recap what we have discussed today.

1. How to come up with the topics that will be featured on your podcast and what your show will be centered on.
2. The audience your podcast will be targeting and how to find out the answers they are looking for and what they will be interested in.

Let’s go to our to-do’s for this post.

1. Follow the exercise to come up with your topics and areas of focus.
2. Follow the exercise of finding where your audience gathers. Also, read this post as many times as needed to help you go through this process properly.

We are done for today, got any questions? Just put it in the comments section and I will be happy to answer them.

To Continue this series, Check Out part 3 here