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You may have a thriving podcast, and if so, you probably reap a lot of benefits each and every month. However, if you’re looking to up your game, one of the challenges that you might come across is finding and selecting a suitable guest who’ll actually bring value to your listeners.
Finding suitable guests may be the most daunting and overwhelming task that you’ll need to go through, mostly due to the fact that there are so many things that you must determine and consider. To help you make the right decision, here is our list of the best eight tips that you should remember when searching for a podcast guest that’ll bring value to your listeners:
1. Firstly, Think About What Type of Guest You Need
Before you move on with our list, the first thing that you must consider and decide upon is the type of person you need for the episode. What does this mean you should do? Well, for starters, consider the episode you’re recording, and then, think about what type of people will fit the theme the most. For instance, if you’re doing n episode on the advantages of sports, you cannot really ask a public figure to appear on your show, instead, you may want to opt for a coach, trainer, or, perhaps, an athlete.
The easiest way for you to determine whom to invite to your show is to answer a few basic questions. Firstly, consider whether or not you’ll require a professional in a specific industry. Second, determine are you looking for someone that has a specific point of view on a topic. And third, you should consider whether you want someone who has a strong opinion. By determining these things, you’ll be able to easily go through the rest of our tips.
2. They Should Be Appealing to Your Listeners
You most likely have a targeted audience, and if so, you must determine whether or not the person you’re considering inviting to your show will be appealing to them. Hence, it’s important that you consider the demographics – age, gender, economic state, walk of life, and so on – of your niche. By knowing your audience, you’ll also know what topics will be interesting for them, thus, it’s going to be simpler for you to find someone that could discuss a specific topic.
3. You Must Take a Look at Their Online Accounts
If there is one thing that you must take away from this article, it’s the fact that you must take a look at the online accounts of potential guests. Why do you have to spend time doing this? Well, it’s easy to understand – by learning more about what content they’re sharing, their comments, interests, and background, it’ll be easier for you to create questions for your podcast, meaning that you won’t have to go through the daunting process of guessing what they like.
4. Learn Whether They Have Speaking Experience
This is another important factor that you must consider. When looking for podcast guests, you must ensure that the conversation goes smoothly and naturally, hence, you’ll want someone who has some type of speaking experience. Hence, it’s important that you do some digging on the individual and see whether or not they were already guests on podcasts or shows, or if they created some content on their own where they spoke about specific topics.
5. There Are Agents That Could Help You
Though a lot of individuals don’t realize it, there are actually podcast agents that could help you! By choosing to hire organizations such as norrinradd.org, you won’t need to worry about finding suitable people for your show, instead, they’ll do everything instead of you. Naturally, these services come with a price tag, but they’ll ensure that you obtain a suitable guest, so, consider hiring such organizations. If not, you’ll want to move on with our list.
6. Ensure That They Could Discuss The Topic You Opt For
One of the tasks that you cannot skip is to ensure that the individual you invite on the episode can discuss the topic you opt for, instead of going off-topic and speaking about other things. Naturally, you and the guest will at some moment stray off the topic for a while, however, if they continue promoting themselves, their services/products/company, and if they spend most of the episode speaking about their achievements, you may want to opt for a different person.
This is why it’s important to check whether a particular individual was a visitor on other podcasts so that you could learn how they behaved throughout the filming. Your listeners might lose interest in the episode if it doesn’t revolve around the topic, hence, if you don’t want to lose listeners and if you want to ensure that they really have fun when listening to you and the person you invited, guarantee that they don’t utilize the time on the episode to speak about their achievements.
7. Ask Potential Candidates If They Like Answering Questions From Your Audience
Your podcast might include segments where you answer questions from your audience, and if so, it’s important that you ask the guest whether they’re willing to want to do this. There are individuals that don’t feel comfortable doing so, which is why you must ask them if they like doing it. You must remember that it’s always better to speak to someone who wishes to engage with your listeners as well, and by doing so, you could ensure that the discussion is so much more interesting and fun.
8. Ask Potential Candidates Whether They’ll Post The Podcast to Their Social Media
Last on our list of advice, but definitely, something that we must mention is that you need to ask the potential candidates whether or not they’ll share your podcast episode on their social media pages. If they wish to do this, you’ll gain so many benefits – including new audience members and followers – however, if they don’t, you must be prepared to publicize and advertise the episode by yourself, which is something that could be a bit daunting.
Conclusion
As we noted at the beginning of our article, finding a podcast guest isn’t an easy task, however, it doesn’t need to be like that. And if you opt for following most of the advice we’ve mentioned above, you won’t only make the entire process easier, but you could ensure that you choose suitable guests that’ll be appealing to your listeners.
Since you’re now well aware of all the tasks to do and the things that you’ll have to consider, you may not want to lose any more time on reading guides similar to this one. Instead, you may want to go back to the beginning of our list and start with the first tip we’ve mentioned, which is determining what type of guest you’ll have to invite.
