Is Your Podcast Ready for Summer? Tips for a Successful Content Schedule
Is your podcast ready for summer? Whether it's poolside relaxation or vacation adventures, maintaining your podcast through these leisurely times can be a challenge, but it's certainly not impossible. I'll share some heartfelt insights and strategic advice on keeping your content fresh and your audience engaged even as you take that well-deserved break.
Summer typically sees a dip in podcast downloads, but don’t let that discourage you. Instead, consider this an opportunity to rethink your recording schedule and content strategy to fit your summer plans. We discuss a variety of approaches, from batch recording to leveraging popular replays, ensuring that your podcast continues to thrive during the vacation season. In this episode, we explore practical tips and personal experiences to help you stay connected with your audience while enjoying your summer to the fullest.
Plan Your Podcast Schedule Early
The first step in managing your podcast during the summer is to plan your recording and publishing schedule in advance. Use a calendar to block out your vacation time and any other commitments you have that could interfere with your usual podcasting routine. This might mean recording episodes in advance or even deciding on a lighter publishing schedule during the summer months. Communicating these changes to your audience is crucial; let them know when they can expect new episodes and assure them of your return to the regular schedule post-summer.
Utilize Batch Recording
Batch recording is a lifesaver when it comes to managing a podcast during busy times. By setting aside one or two days to record multiple episodes, you can secure content that will last throughout your summer break. This approach not only helps in keeping the podcast alive during your absence but also reduces stress by freeing up your schedule for spontaneous summer activities. Plus, pre-scheduling the release of these episodes ensures that your audience receives consistent content, keeping them engaged and subscribed.
Engage with Replays and Highlights
Summer is a great time to revisit and repurpose your most popular episodes. Replaying fan favorites not only fills the content gap but also introduces new listeners to valuable past episodes they might have missed. Consider adding a fresh intro or updates to these replays to contextualize why they're being featured again. Highlighting these episodes can rejuvenate interest and provide continuous value without the need for new content creation.
Keep Your Audience Informed and Engaged
Communication is key during the summer months. Make sure to keep your audience informed about any changes in your publishing schedule. Use your podcast's intro segments, email newsletters, and social media channels to communicate upcoming breaks or schedule changes. This transparency helps in maintaining trust and keeps the listeners looking forward to your next episode. Additionally, encourage listener interaction by asking for feedback, suggestions, or questions they'd like covered in future episodes, which can be a goldmine for content ideas when you return.
Promote Across Multiple Channels
While your podcast might be on a summer siesta, your marketing doesn't have to be. Continue to promote your podcast on social media by sharing clips, quotes, or key insights from existing episodes. Creating engaging content like infographics or audiograms can also help in catching the eye of potential new listeners. Utilize your time off to reflect on marketing strategies and perhaps brainstorm new ways to enhance listener engagement and grow your audience.
By implementing these strategies, you can enjoy a relaxing summer while keeping your podcast productive and engaging. Remember, a little planning goes a long way in ensuring your podcast thrives, no matter the season. Enjoy your break, recharge, and come back stronger with fresh ideas and content that your listeners will love.
The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
182: Is Your Podcast Ready for Summer? Tips for a Successful Content Schedule
[00:00:00] Is your podcast ready for summer? Vacation and pool days are upon us. And you may or may not feel like keeping your podcast recording consistent. So, what can you do to keep listeners engaged and keep that circle of content going? Well, let's chat about it.
[00:00:17]
[00:00:58] Hello, [00:01:00] welcome back to the podcast.
[00:01:01] Holy moly. This week has been so nuts. I'm in this like crazy moment of expansion in my business. And when I say expansion, I mean finally realizing a lot of things. Coming up with some new offers and I'm really excited about. Uh, my confidence has grown. I can't even explain to you. It's just been like expansion everywhere. And I am so tired. I am so exhausted. Which is a good thing.
[00:01:28] Like it's a good, tired, it feels really good. Everything that's happening. I'm super excited about. And this episode just feels really timely for me personally, because. I have been working on so much behind the scenes and I am tired and I'm ready for a little bit of a break, but I want to share, what's keeping me going through this crazy time. And this really is the problem that I solve this week, because. One of the things that I have been trying to do on top of like all this [00:02:00] expansion going on in my business. And with my mental health and with my parenting and my marriage.
[00:02:07] And I mean, just, everything is kind of going through this crazy. Moment of transition and expansion and not improvement, but fulfillment is what I want to say. Like, nothing's changed so much. I mean, the stuff in my business is huge. But I've changed so much. And how I approach my day in my life, all the things.
[00:02:28] But I knew that, you know, just doing therapy, just, you know, doing all the other things I'm doing meditation, like. That wasn't going to fix all the problems. I needed to work on. My mindset and how I'm showing up for myself and my clients during the day. So here are just a few things I've been doing.
[00:02:48] This has also helped with like extreme exhaustion. So I turned 40 this year. And I'm definitely just really feeling it. I'm tired all the time. , so here's some things I've been doing. One is [00:03:00] getting more sunshine. You know, we work from home. We homeschool, my kids play outside. But usually I'm inside all day.
[00:03:09] And I didn't really realize how much I was inside. And how much of a detriment this was to. My mood and my overall health. And I've been trying to get some sun every day, whether I go outside in the morning, go for a walk or just walk outside and I feel like it makes such a huge impact. I have started doing yoga again. So for a really long time, I had focused. Like on doing like extreme kind of cardio. You know, for weight loss. That kind of thing.
[00:03:39] And I still want to do that, but it's been a lot harder for me since my hip surgery. Like I can do it and I'll feel really good for a few days. And then I'll have a lot of pain and discomfort. So I actually fell down the stairs. Last month. And hurt my ankle really bad. And I was like, you know, maybe I should try getting back into [00:04:00] yoga first, before I start the other stuff. So I have been doing yoga. A couple of times a week, three times a week or so.
[00:04:08] Oh, it feels so good. Like I can feel my body just improving in strength and flexibility. So that's also been huge. I have been meditating. So I started doing this towards the beginning of the year. And specifically I have been doing meditations that focus on various shockers, depending on what's going on. So a really good example is yesterday I had a workshop and I was nervous.
[00:04:36] I was tired and I just kind of fell off. So I lit my wisdom candle that. Is made by a mentor of mine and I did a throat chakra meditation. And it was so incredible for setting me up. Before that workshop. And I thought that workshop went really well and I felt really good about it felt super confident. [00:05:00]
[00:05:00] And I just don't think that would have happened if I hadn't stopped and taken that moment to do, that meditation and have that like moment of Zen before we started. And then the last thing I've been doing this, maybe a little odd, but I thought I would share it because I think it's, it's always good to hear what other people are doing. I have been trying to decrease my coffee intake.
[00:05:22] I know collective gasps across all the podcast apps. If you know me, you know that I am a multiple cups of coffee a day kind of person. I just love coffee a little, the way it tastes a little, the way I feel when I drink it. But I could tell that it was affecting me negatively. So I have been replacing my afternoon coffee with an adrenal mocktail.
[00:05:43] If you haven't heard of these, I'm going to try and remember all this stuff and Link it and the show notes. But if I don't DM me on Instagram and I will send you an account of somebody. Who, teaches how to level out your cortisol levels and things like that. And she makes these adrenal mocktails.
[00:05:58] I've been making one in the afternoon and then I've been [00:06:00] making one in the evening and it sounds really silly, but it really has made a huge impact. On my hydration and how I feel. In fact, I'm going to go make one right after this. Podcast recording. So. All that to say.
[00:06:14] When we go through these crazy moments in life and business is really important that we're taking care of ourselves the same time.
[00:06:20] And I mean, I don't necessarily want to be like self care here, but I do want to say, like, it has made such an impact incorporating these things. Into my daily schedule. And so if you want to try any of them, I highly recommend all of the above, but especially sunshine and meditation. If you. Are having trouble feeling confident when you sit down to record that meditation has been a game changer for me and I will, like I said, link it in the show notes.
[00:06:48] I shared it in my membership. The after the first time I did it because it was so impactful and I just know that it will help you as well. And that's the problem I solve this week.
[00:06:57] Okay, listen. We deserve a [00:07:00] break. We really do. And it can feel like we have to constantly be podcasting, constantly putting content out. But things are going to happen. You may have a super busy week or heaven forbid you go on vacation and as we enter summer, I want you to have a plan to build those breaks in.
[00:07:19] Okay. Now we've talked about like scheduling and putting these breaks on your calendar for the year. But especially in this moment, I want you to sit down and think about. What your summer is going to look like. Downloads do typically go down during the summer. So just to get into a little podcast, knowledge and strategy. We definitely do see downloads decrease. But that doesn't mean that they go away completely.
[00:07:43] And that doesn't mean that you should expect them to go down. And it also doesn't mean. That you should decrease the quality just because you think nobody's listening. It's really, really important that. We are continuing to engage with [00:08:00] our listeners in some capacity. And that's what I'm going to talk about today.
[00:08:04] So I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. But the first thing I want you to do is block off your time now. And decide how you're going to handle it. Like when are you going on vacation when you need breaks for kids activities? I know that for me, like I'm going on a couple of trips. You know, to see family and things like that, and I'll still be working. But there are travel days in there. My kids are going to camps.
[00:08:29] And so my schedule is going to be different on those camp days. Cause I'll be driving them to and from camp. So like, I need to take all of that into consideration when I'm thinking about my business schedule and also my podcast schedule. Right. And there are some options for how you can handle these vacations and these breaks. The first one that I want to share with you is to just take a break and just take a break.
[00:08:51] Right? You are allowed to take a break, but here's the thing. Just let your audience know what you're going to be doing. Don't just [00:09:00] disappear for a few weeks and not say anything about the fact that you're taking a break. I am actually going to be taking a break this summer. I have a couple of weeks blocked off where I will not be releasing an episode. One because I need a break, but two, I also want to build in a little bit of time so I can get back ahead.
[00:09:18] Cause I have been just, my recording schedule has been just so crazy again, I'm in this like crazy moment of expansion. So I'm working on. A lot of things. And it just, isn't leaving a lot of time for recording podcast, episodes and scripting and all that kind of stuff. And I've been doing it very last minute, which I don't love.
[00:09:36] And so my solution to that was, you know what, I'm going to block off. I need a couple of weeks in the summer anyways. So I'm going to go ahead and block off a couple of weeks where I'm not going to be releasing episodes and it's already built into my calendar. Like I've had this plan for a months. So, what I will be doing though, is letting you all know when that time comes.
[00:09:56] You know, I'm going to mention it in the episode. I'm [00:10:00] going to talk about it on social media. I'm probably going to send an email. The point is, is that I'm not just going to disappear. I'm going to talk to you and let you know. And that's so, so important. Like we need to keep our audience in the loop. The other thing that you can do is batch record and pre schedule. So if you're able to know, like ahead of time, because we've mapped out what our summer is going to look like. And we know when we're going to be on these brakes.
[00:10:25] Okay. How can I get ahead in my recording schedule and go ahead and schedule all of that. So actually had somebody who was talking to you the other day, who was launching a podcast in the fall. And she is going to be taking a big vacation or something. So she knew that she wasn't gonna be able to record in the fall.
[00:10:42] So she is batch recording all summer. That we all fall, her episodes can just release. Now I know that doesn't work for everybody, but it is a good idea though, if you don't want to completely go off air. And you want to have some new content that's still going out to help you with your [00:11:00] content in their places. Then batch recording may be a good way for you to do that.
[00:11:04] And it doesn't have to be like 10, 20 episodes if you're just taking a couple of weeks off. Just set aside a couple days in the next few weeks. And no I'm going to record two episodes that day. I'm going to record to that day. And now we're ahead. Right? So batch recording, pre scheduling. Just taking a break. Another option is replaying your favorites. So if you have episodes that were super popular, or maybe you just want to share again, because it feels really timely. You can absolutely do that.
[00:11:36] And there's a couple of ways you can do that. Now. One is you don't necessarily have to actually republish it. You can just. Market it again. And share it again and link back to it. But if you're wanting something to actually go live on your feed, to keep your subscribers and followers engaged. What you can do is either. I'm going to give you a couple, a couple of examples of how those can work [00:12:00] really well. One of my favorite things to do, especially because I have a library of so many episodes and I did this recently. For an episode, I just was so behind and I just needed something simple for that week. So I went back into my archives, which are pretty extensive because my I'm on episode 182 now, which is crazy. And I'm able to go back in my archives. I find an older episode, like I'm talking like in the nineties, like a hundred episodes ago.
[00:12:27] I can't believe I can say that looks insane. And I will actually take it. Re-edit it. Make sure it's up to date, which is really fast, cause it's already edited. So I just have to cut, do a quick, listen through, add my new inter outro and then just mention in my show notes that it's a new episode. I could also possibly record an intro to put in there and just say, Hey, I'm so excited to share this with you.
[00:12:50] It's an older episode, but it feels really timely. So that's one way you can do it. So taking it. And re-purposing it really taking that audio and [00:13:00] recreating it into a new episode. Another thing you can do, which I've done with several clients and it's been really successful. Is it just take the episode as is. And record a blanket intro.
[00:13:12] So, hi, this is so-and-so. I am going to go on vacation for the next six weeks. And so I'm going to be playing for you might top six episodes of the year. Starting with this one. Or, you know, my top six episodes of the year. I hope you enjoy. So that intro, I'm just going to put on top up at the front of each of those episodes. And republish them as new episodes. And you don't even have to number them, especially if they're replays, you don't have to put an episode number on it.
[00:13:44] And usually for the title, we will put like best of. Podcast favorites replay. We'll put something that just indicates like, Hey, this is an older episode. The cool thing about that is you don't have to read you the show notes. You don't have to redo the blog posts. Any of that. You can [00:14:00] just link right back to the old stuff. In that newly published episode.
[00:14:04] So that's two, couple of ways to do replays, which is a really good idea. If you're just like really wanting to get something out. But you don't necessarily want to reinvent the wheel. And then I'm going to share with you one of my shine members. So if you ever hear me talk about shine members, these are people who are in the strategize and shine membership. Which is my place to come and get support and tutorials and all the things you need to keep your podcasts going and keep it successful. She did this the other day and I had to shout her out in the membership because I'm on her email list.
[00:14:38] And so I got her email. And her email is like, oh my gosh, I wasn't able to get an episode out this week. This is the first time this has happened in forever. But, instead of not sharing anything with you here are my top five episodes from this year or something like that. And then she linked to them and I thought it was so smart because a, she was like, [00:15:00] Hey, I know there's one episode.
[00:15:01] I know, you know, there's one, an episode. Let's talk about it. So this goes back to how I said, you need to engage with your listeners. If you're going to take a break. And she did this in such a really well thought out way. But I just loved that. She shared older episodes too. And so one of the things that I will also like really encourage people to do is if you're going to take a break. And even if you are. You know, scheduling new episodes or replays, whatever the thing is, we want to stay engaged with our audience.
[00:15:34] We want to make sure that they know that we're coming back. We're still here. And one of the ways to do that is through your email and social media, right? So you want to make sure that you pre schedule everything before you go on vacation. Preschedule those emails. You know, make sure that they're still getting something with you with some kind of interaction, some kind of content. If you have a private community, same thing, make sure you preschedule [00:16:00] all your posts in that.
[00:16:01] And you're keeping those listeners engaged. Right? The other thing I have this thought is if you're taking a break. You can create a playlist of episodes for your listeners. You know, you can do this in Spotify. And, share it that way. Or you can even, some RSS feeds will allow you to create playlist or give some episodes tags, and then you can create playlist from those tags. What's really cool about this is you can post it in a blog post as well as send it in an email. And now you've created a light playlist for them to listen through while you're taking a break. So there really are options here.
[00:16:38] Like you can take a break, my encouragement to you though. Is, if you are going to take a break. Take it with intention. Make sure that you are staying engaged in some way. Don't just disappear. Right? And really think about what needs to happen during that time. And also think about your summer promotions. What do you. [00:17:00] Have going on in the summer.
[00:17:01] Are you running any promotions? Is there anything specifically that you want to sell? Are there a dynamic ads that you need to record beforehand and preschedule, or have somebody on your team schedule? So not just thinking about the episodes, but also promotions and sales. We don't want to just skip town and miss out on opportunities. Right. And if you are planning in such a way that you know what your year is going to look like. You've been planning your content quarterly. Because you're in my membership and you're coming to the quarterly planning sessions. This should be really easy for you because it should already be in a spreadsheet and really accessible.
[00:17:37] And so definitely have a system because it makes such a huge impact. The goal of all of this is to give us space. Right. So you need to do what feels right for you and what you need to do. And while I don't recommend. Going off the grid for the whole summer. There are definite ways that you can build in time and space for drinks by the pool [00:18:00] without feeling tied to your podcast, calendar.
[00:18:02] And listen, I am all about sitting by the pool. Having a frozen all day. , that's where I'm at in the summer. Although, I will tell you that's super hard to do in Colorado. So when I go to Texas where it's over a hundred degrees, that's where I do my frozen all day. And I just, before I let you go, I want to tell you about a super cool opportunity I have.
[00:18:24] So I have been working really hard behind the scenes for the last few months. Developing a new program. To help you launch your podcast. And if you're listening to this and you've already launched your podcast, you might know somebody who really wants to launch a podcast and you've been telling them how great it is. And how they should definitely do it, but you know, as well as I do that, you hit so many roadblocks during a podcast launch. I have been helping people launch podcasts for about eight years now.
[00:18:53] And I can tell you that every launch I do there is this moment that we hit, where we have to work through some things. [00:19:00] In order to get to the next step. But here's the thing, getting that one-on-one personalized support can be so expensive. And so I wanted to create a way to help people launch. With that support without it costing an arm and a leg.
[00:19:14] And that is why I have created the podcast launch accelerator. I am so excited about this.
[00:19:21] So the podcast launch accelerator is your ultimate podcast blueprint to getting your podcast funnel launched and working for your business. This is a six week. Laser focused program designed to help you launch your dream podcast that is built to support your business. We use something that I have created called the quick launch kit, which makes all the tech easy. And uses AI to help you get through these launch pieces a lot quicker than they would, if you were trying to Google late at night at 2:00 AM or anything like that, figuring it out by yourself is really hard.
[00:19:55] There's also live calls and then a community to give you a support. [00:20:00] And this just launch, we're going to be starting in June with the first cohort. I would love to have you. So head to wild home podcasting.com/launch. And if you have any questions at all, you can email me or DM me, and I will help you figure out if this is right for you.
[00:20:17] So I'm so excited. Again, moment of expansion. There's so many cool things going on in my business. So I'm probably going to be talking about them a lot, but more than that, I am just so, so excited to help more podcasters empower their voice. And start sharing their message in a way that's going to have an impact for their business. So, thank you so much for being here and I'll be back soon with a new episode.
