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Taking time to build a recognisable personal brand is a wise move for any entrepreneur or industry thought leader. And podcasting is one of the best ways to do it. Why?
The answer is simple - because there are few things more personal than the sound of the human voice. And podcasting for personal branding creates a uniquely intimate connection with your audience. Listeners feel like they know you, even if you’ve never met in real life.
Of course, there are other ways to grow your personal brand. Blogs, public speaking, and social media are great too. But we’re going to explore why podcasts stand out from the rest as the most intimate and consumable content medium for personal branding.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
Before getting into podcasting for personal branding, first let's look at what the term “personal brand” actually means. While there is no official definition, how Forbes describes personal branding sums it up well:
“A personal brand is the acknowledged public perception of an individual, while personal branding is the deliberate process of creating that impression.”
To elaborate further, your personal brand is how you present yourself to the work world. It’s where your experience, skills, and personality converge to make it clear who you are and what you’re about.
If you’re in the public domain, you have a personal brand. You can think of it as similar to your reputation. But without care, your personal brand could be doing nothing for you. Or worse - it could be detrimental to your prospects. And with this in mind, it’s imperative to take control of it.
Having a strong personal brand brings benefits that shouldn’t be overlooked. These include:
Now we know the benefits of having a strong personal brand, let’s take a look at how to create one.
The most effective way is to create great content. The kind that makes people sit up and pay attention. But in our increasingly distracted world, that’s difficult to do.
Social media is now awash with slapdash and forgettable personal branding efforts. You probably know the type. Self-recorded phone footage of an ad-lib monologue that fails to communicate anything of real substance. At best such content is boring, at worst, it’s actively harmful to your brand.
The situation is understandable. People hear personal branding is important and quickly start churning out content for the sake of content. But that’s a bad idea. Truly impactful content needs to be considered and planned. Not rushed out the door.
Great content requires planning
Even if you’re naturally eloquent and witty, you still need to think carefully about the message you want to deliver. What are you going to say? How are you going to say it? Which phrases will best get your point across? These are all important things to consider.
When building your personal brand, content should help highlight the unique things you bring to the table. For thought leadership, your content should provide value, insight, and direction for your peers. And for potential clients, your content needs to demonstrate why they should choose you as the only solution to their problem.
To put what we’re saying into practice, here’s an example of a podcast we recently produced in partnership with Dr. Felix Bertram (CEO and founder of SkinMed - the largest and fastest-growing clinic chain in Switzerland).
Aesthetics & Biz is a podcast sharing experiences working in the aesthetics industry, and the ins and outs of building a successful aesthetic business.
From the first episode, Aesthetics & Biz conveys Bertram’s expertise and thought leadership in the cross-section between aesthetic practice and its commercial side. The intentions for the podcast are crystal clear from the trailer (see below), too: Bertram will share his insight to help other aestheticians build a successful practice.
As we can see from Aesthetics & Biz, how your content looks and sounds matters. It has to compete with other well-polished content for a start, and it has the job of showing your professionalism. Sloppy content only lets your personal brand down.
By concentrating on raising the bar on quality, your content will have a much better chance of standing out from the crowd.
As mentioned previously, there are lots of content formats you can use to engage your audience. So, why choose podcasting for personal branding? Well, there are five main reasons:
The podcast industry has experienced a boom in the past few years, and it’s still growing. According to Edison’s 2024 Infinite Dial Report, 63% of the US population had listened to a podcast by 2023. But as of 2024, that’s risen to 67%, or 193 million people. And the average US listener consumes 8 episodes a week.
Listeners can tune into your show from anywhere around the world, making them the perfect tool for reaching new audiences. To put this into practice, at a networking event you might walk away with 10 new contacts. But with your podcast, you could reach hundreds of people, every episode. And the episodes don’t go anywhere, meaning once you’ve recorded and distributed your show, it could be expanding your client base while you sleep.
At Cue Podcasts, we know how to harness SEO for podcasts to reach as many people as possible. If you’d like to learn more, check out the article below.
10 Best Practices for Optimising Your Podcast SEO
Podcasts are much easier to consume than text-based media and video. To read something, you need to sit still and focus attentively. Watching videos takes less concentration, but you still need to be still. In contrast, podcasts can be easily consumed while multitasking.
Everyone is pressed for time. Most of us don’t have the luxury of setting aside a couple of hours each day to read blogs and watch videos. But thanks to smartphones, people can listen to podcasts anywhere and everywhere - during their commute, in the gym, while doing housework, or even in bed at night. According to a 2019 survey published by Edison Research, more than half of all podcast listeners multitask while listening.
By creating your own podcast, you’ll make it easier for your audience to fit you into their schedule and familiarise themselves with who you are and what you’re about.
This is where podcasting for personal branding really shines. With podcasts, once you become a regular listener, you start to feel as though you actually know the host. You learn their tastes, their tics, and the phrases they overuse.
Audio is the medium humans are most naturally wired for. We were listening for thousands of years before the invention of reading and writing. So for us, listening is effortless, soothing, and comforting. In addition, it gives us access to more nuance and depth than writing ever can.
When we listen to a podcast, subtext and unspoken emotion add layers of understanding which further deepen our relationship with the host. And it’s through this intimacy that your podcast listeners will get a good sense of what you’re like and what you stand for. Our favourite podcasts become our favourite because there’s a genuine personal connection there.
Needless to say, the essence of podcasting is talking. This means there are endless possibilities to dive into your skills, expertise, and thought-processes - without sounding like a sales pitch.
Instead, all of your personal advantages can be framed within the context of a podcast episode. Podcasts allow you to talk through your journey in much more depth than a typical pitch or curriculum vitae (CV), making them an effective way to communicate your strengths and distinguish you from competitors.
For example, in the below episode of Aesthetics & Biz, Bertram asks his guests what they do to ensure patients have an extraordinary experience at their clinic. Bouncing off their answer, Bertram reveals how his clinics set out to ensure patients feel at home, which has been crucial to boosting client retention rates. Listen to the episode below:
Ultimately, this information comes across as authentic, and demonstrates Bertram’s care to his patients while giving actionable advice to his peers.
Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, has certainly done his fair share of work promoting the importance and value of personal branding. If you’re on social media, you’ve probably come across him at some point. Love him or hate him, he’s everywhere. In large part because he practises what he preaches.
But his content empire includes more than short video clips and inspirational memes. Gary also hosts his own successful podcast aptly named The GaryVee Audio Experience. Here’s what he had to say on the subject:
“I believe that podcasting is grossly undervalued, and I think all of you should start a podcast in the same way that all of you are starting vlogs. Go do it, figure it out. It’s even easier, it’s your voice. You don’t have to be handsome.”
Jimmy Jacobs Doesn't Know is all about trying to answer life's big questions. How can we find our purpose? What gives life meaning? And what's the best way to use the limited time we have on earth? In his ongoing search for answers, Jimmy talks to friends, experts, and other interesting characters he's met along his journey:
The raw openness and honesty of Jimmy's podcast has clearly struck a chord with listeners, attracting thousands of subscribers since its launch in April 2019. This points to a key aspect of personal branding. Listeners want realness and authenticity.
You shouldn't pretend to be something you're not on your podcast. People are able to see (or in this case, hear) right through that. Instead, your personal brand should be an accurate representation of your genuine self. Listeners can sense authenticity and podcasting is much easier when you don't have to put on an act.
This is what good personal branding is all about. Pinpointing the unique value you have to add to the universe, then executing a professional and planned strategy to share it with the world.
Even if it’s something you haven’t given much thought to, your personal brand already exists. It resides on your LinkedIn profile or Facebook page - it’s your digital footprint.
If you don’t make an effort to choose your own messaging and your own values, you’re leaving the door open for others to do it for you. So it’s important to use your voice and let people know who you are and what you stand for.
But a note of caution before you hit record on your first podcast - it’s wise to get some help. Those who haven’t done much personal branding before often think “Well, this is something I can manage myself”. Theoretically, yes, you could.
You could also do your own plumbing repairs if you wanted to. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The reality is, it takes a lot of work to grow a personal brand. People like Aubrey Marcus and GaryVee have entire teams of people around them, constantly working to keep the wheels of the content machine turning.
All business owners and thought leaders are extremely busy people. They have value to add to the real people in their lives, not just the online audience who would like to follow along. So dedicating large chunks of time to content creation just isn’t feasible.
This is why having a personal branding partner makes all the difference. It allows you to stay focused on the bigger picture tasks, while they handle the rest, building an online presence that reflects the work you’re doing offline.
At Cue Podcasts we’ve created a service specifically designed for business and thought leaders who’d like to build their personal brand through podcasts. The process is managed from start to finish, with your own executive producer to oversee the whole campaign.
Check out some of our work in our showreel below:
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