An influencer, according to dictionary.com, is, “a person or thing that influences another,” or, in terms of marketing, “a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.” The top 20 Instagram influencers include a smattering of pop stars, soccer players, and Kardashians (for the most part). So, you’ll forgive me if I vomit a little in my mouth at the idea of being an influencer. However, if you are a podcaster, it would make sense that you are at least trying to have an influence. You may not be actively selling products on the strength of your celebrity, but you must be trying to influence someone if only to entertain. Otherwise, why record?

So, assuming that we podcasters are, indeed, influencers of some sort, the question begs to be asked, “Whom are you influencing?” And, perhaps more importantly, “To what end?”

I got cussed out today by a big, angry biker. I was on my way to pick my son up from his job at Chik-Fil-A and there was road construction. Three lanes collapsed down to one for a short distance. There were several stop lights in a row because there’s an interstate exchange there. Being familiar with this stretch of road and the lane closures, I was in the left lane and prepared to let other cars over. As I pulled up to a red light with a couple other cars in front of me (already stopped at the light), I left enough room ahead of me for the car on my right to pull in front of me when the light would turn green. 

Now, I had my windows rolled up and I was listening to an audiobook when I heard a very loud and angry voice cussing somebody out behind me. So, I glanced in my mirror to see a rather red-faced, bearded, surly biker shouting in my direction. “Huh,” I muttered, as it occurred to me that this angry biker was cussing me out! Apparently, he was quite displeased with my attempt at courtesy (letting someone in front of me). I continued to watch him in my mirror as I contemplated the situation. Eventually, having exhausted his (I can only assume) rather limited vocabulary (given the repetition of a certain four-letter word that he sometimes stretched to six letters and attached to the end of another word), he paused his tirade. The light turned green and I let the car next to me go in front of me and then I moved forward, only to be stopped by another red light about fifty yards ahead. 

At the new red light, the irate biker pulled up next to and slightly ahead of me so he could resume his doctrinal defense of his thesis that I should get my bleepity blankin’ bleep out of his way because the good people of the road behind me would like to go, too. At this point, I rolled my window down enough to properly engage him in conversation, should I so choose, but not far enough that my face would be a target he could reach should he choose to raise the threat level of our little chat. I considered, briefly, several possible responses and dismissed them all in rapid succession. When a person is that angry, Ain’t no sense in reasoning with him ‘cause reason done left the building.

In retrospect, I really wish I had snapped a photo of him, but I didn’t think of it until later. A selfie with him really would have been spectacular, but the odds of it going the way I imagine are pretty slim. So, it’s probably best it worked out the way it did. I said, “God bless you, Sir! Have a nice day!” To which he replied with another string of expletives, including several iterations of his favorite word, as he drove away. 

What does this have to do with podcasting? Well, it’s a fun story and story-telling is a great way to connect with your listeners when you podcast. 

Also, did you notice what I didn’t do? I didn’t respond in kind to this Tasmanian devil. Don’t get me wrong. Part of me wanted to cuss him out (or worse), but it was strangely liberating to watch, in almost detached curiosity, as this person had a king-sized two-year-old hissy-fit on the road. As he cussed me out, everyone in the intersection could hear him. And, he wasn’t telling them anything about me. He was sure telling them a lot about himself, though. Again, what does this have to do with podcasting? Well, if you’re going to put your voice out there (through podcasting, blogging, or just posting on social media), eventually someone is going to hate you — actively hate you. They may even try to cancel you. But, you know what? You don’t have to care. You don’t have to engage them at all. You could even bless them in their crazy rant, or simply ignore them. Like a fire deprived of oxygen, they’ll eventually burn out and go away.

Today’s topic is Making Money Podcasting (Part 3). If you didn’t hear parts 1 and 2, they were several episodes ago (episodes 003 and 004 of the show). In those episodes, we talked about making money through having clients, sponsorship, crowdfunding, memberships, coaching/consulting, and selling your own products and/or services. Today, I have a few more ideas for making money podcasting that I’d like to share with you.

First (and I can’t believe I forgot to mention this before) is affiliate marketing. If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing, it’s the process of recommending/selling other people’s (or company’s) products, for which you receive a commission. So, if I recommend the Shure SM7B microphone and I post a link to buy it on Amazon (assuming I have signed up for Amazon’s affiliate program and used their specific link associated with my affiliate account), and you click through my link to buy it, then I get a commission from Amazon. I believe it’s still true that if you happen to buy a bunch of other stuff on Amazon at the same time, I get paid for the other stuff as well because you used my affiliate link. So, if you feel like doing all of your Amazon Christmas shopping through one of my affiliate links, I would certainly appreciate it. ;)

You can also use affiliate marketing as a means to sell your own products through other people. Some marketers are recommending selling products through affiliate relationships with influencers that have large (or just different) audiences as a primary sales strategy. So, let’s say I launch my podcasting course, but I don’t have a huge tribe with an email list of 100,000 people to market it to. If I can get a couple of influencers to try out my course and recommend it to their tribes for an affiliate commission, I could sell a lot more and increase my own tribe significantly. This is (potentially) huge! I’ll let you know how it goes.

The next money-making strategy podcasters can employ is syndicating your show on YouTube. This is one I have not tried yet, but it’s in the plans. I haven’t bothered yet because I like audio podcasts and, frankly, my basement studio isn’t pretty and I don’t love the way I look on video (Ah, Vanity, thou art a heartless wench). However, I really don’t have a good excuse because I could still just put my audio on YouTube with a still photo of my logo as a video. As an aside, if you have a podcast, you may want to check YouTube occasionally to see if some scammer has taken your audio and posted it to his YouTube channel with a still photo as if it were his content. This is a real thing. It happens.

Another stream of podcast income is public speaking. You can book yourself on the public speaking circuit on the strength of your podcast. If you have a decent-sized podcast audience and you’ve been posting episodes consistently, you will likely be recognized as an expert in your subject matter and you could get paid to speak in public at conferences or online, etc.

Lastly (I say “lastly” but I may come back to this topic again if I find more good ways to make money podcasting), you can repurpose your podcast content and sell it. For example, if you have written transcripts of your episodes, they can be used as articles for online magazines, blogs, etc. You could package them together and sell an ebook. You could use the audio to create an audio product that you sell. As I’ve said before, the possibilities are endless.