There's nothing more uncomfortable than being a guest on a podcast. And then there's this expectation to promote the episode. This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network, and net worth. Hear from exciting guests, and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster. Let's talk some do's and don'ts of podcast interviews, I thought I would list some general best practices that I think we should all be aware of. These are also things that I don't see talked about a lot and some things that I've had to discover the hard way as a host of a podcast. Also, when I'm editing podcasts, take these and apply them to your own unique situation with most things slowly incorporating these things. And learning from your mistakes will not only make you a better podcast host, it'll provide a better listening experience for your audience. First things first, do introduce your guests when you have a guest on unless you have like Tom Cruise on your podcast, which even then it would be fun to introduce Tom Cruise, do introduce your guest, whether you do it with them on your podcast, or you record it afterwards and then edit it in introductions are a good idea. Don't spend forever on the introduction, you want to get to the meat of the episode, you want to get some value going. If you spend too long on the introduction, you're going to bore your listeners. And that's no fun. So do introduce your guest. Don't spend a long time on the introduction, I think just a few sentences is good enough. Do think of what you and your guests can talk about before you jump into the interview. I know that a lot of people listen to Joe Rogan most popular podcasts out there. And there is something about watching how Joe Rogan does it. And he's done, I think almost 2000 episodes now. And something about like the freestyle natural nature of his podcast leads a lot of podcasters to believe that they can just kind of freestyle it a little bit. That's not advised in the beginning, it's just not going to set you up for success. And your listeners are going to appreciate any work you do before you jump into the interview, the more prepared you come to an interview, the more listeners are gonna appreciate and respond well to that. So do you know kind of have an idea of what you want to ask your guest? You don't need to plan it out so that there's no room for some natural conversation. But take a minute and just kind of think about like for myself, I always frame like, what would I talk to the person that I'm going to have on my podcast about before I even invite someone on my podcast? I think of questions that I could ask them. If I can't even think of questions, I asked them before I invite them, then I know that the interview probably won't be that interesting, not only to me, but for the listener do give your guests room to talk. Now. I can tell you firsthand, I've been on podcasts where I don't get a lot of room to talk. And it's weird because I'm like you invited me on but then you're talking the whole time. And it's just something that I don't think podcast hosts are aware of. If you use a transcription tool like otter.ai, it creates an automatic transcription of your podcast, it'll show you the percentage of how often someone is speaking on the podcast. For most of my interview episodes, I would say I'm doing around 25% of the whole episode talking which you have a thing introduction, promos that I insert in there, the guest is doing 75% of the talking. Now, again, this is not a hard, fast rule. It's not going to be the exact same for you. But just think about are you inviting this person on so you can talk or are you inviting them on so you can extract and just have a really good interview with them, I find that a lot of podcast hosts feel like they don't get enough room to talk. So they feel like they need to interject. So all I'm saying is give your guests room to talk Don't talk over them. There's nothing more annoying than two people talking over themselves on a podcast. So just don't talk over your guests. If you find your guests is talking to over you and you're not sure what to do just kind of ease back a little bit you might be too reactive to the words they're saying. So give your conversation a little bit more room to breathe. Hey there ever notice how I don't run any ads on Digital Podcaster. It's because I want you to have a great listening experience. No sponsors. This is completely self funded to do want to ask for one thing though, if you know anybody who could benefit from listening to the show, please share it with them, message them, tag them in a post, take a screenshot of this, put it in your stories. Wherever you share your stuff with the world with people that you care about. I want to provide as much value as possible to as many podcasts as possible. So your recommendations go a long way in helping other people become better podcasters as well, which is the only reason I do this. All right, so appreciate you and let's get back to the show. Do give your guests promotional assets for your episode before it comes out. Don't rely on your guest to do any of the heavy lifting don't even have expectations on them to promote the episode. Your Podcast is your platform and you building your community. It's not on your guests to promote that podcast episode just focus on making a quality podcast that will thrive on its own. Whether or not your guest promotes the episode, there's nothing more uncomfortable than being a guest on a podcast. And then there's this expectation to promote the episode. And like, I know, you went through all this work of editing all these things, that's great. But at the end of the day, your branding is on these promotional assets, your clips you made, that's great for your stuff. But the expectation to promote an episode multiple times, I just don't think should be there. I think it should just be whether or not I decide to promote, it shouldn't dictate the podcasts plan for their own promotion as a guest and not expecting them to promote the episode in any certain way. I just think removing the expectations altogether, you can only do what you can control, you can't control whether a guest will promote the episode or not. So just remove that expectation, make it available for them, but not the expectation for them to promote. I like just saying, hey, here it is just for your records, zero expectation, whether you want to or not, I find when I also approach it from that angle. Most of the time, I never have anyone that doesn't want to promote it on the other side of when it's like, hey, promote this then people are like, Wait a minute. So there's a few do's and don'ts of podcast interviews. There's more but I want to keep it concise. I hope that helps make not only you a better podcast host but a better podcast listening experience for your audience, which will help grow your podcast. I'll see you in the next episode.