On Monday, I wrote about spending your time wisely; I don’t think I’ve been doing that with my podcast.

I’ve been more focused on “parking lot” stuff, to use the analogy from that newsletter:

1. Episode numbers
2. Making sure the YouTube playlist has perfect parity with the audio feed
3. Whether or not my audio notes should be their own feed or part of the main show
4. Should I put my shorts on the podcast YouTube channel or my main channel?
5. Should I even have a separate YouTube channel for the podcast?

It’s perhaps stuff that I should think about over the long term.

But it doesn’t solve my immediate problem, which is that my downloads are way down.

So what should I be focusing on? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not tactics.

In 2018, Seth Godin said podcasting is the generous act of showing up.

And while his last book is the worst business book I’ve ever started to read, he’s still right about this.

Reflecting on this got me thinking, “Have I been showing up in the best way?”

Tactics are not Strategy

Yes, I’ve been publishing every week. I’ve been thinking about the content. And I’ve been sweating over episode numbers, audio notes, and YouTube.

But as I said earlier, these are all tactics, not strategy.

I’ve talked about the importance of having a mission statement for your podcast…and I think mine has led me astray.

I think part of that reason is I outsourced some of the thinking of my show to AI. It helped me come up with problems an AI-generated avatar had, and use that as the baseline for my content.

As AI advocates like to remind us, AI will give us the most statistically likely response…but that doesn’t mean it’s the right response for me and my audience.

So, how am I going to fix it? Well, I need a strategy.

My Podcast Should be my Content Linchpin

I wrote in my notebook that my podcast should be the linchpin of my content strategy.”

That means focusing on creating good content for my target audience. I need to do what I did when my podcast first launched as How I Built It…solve problems.

I was really clear on my audience in those days: Independent WordPress Developers who were trying to build a business.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve gotten clear on my audience again: busy solopreneur parents who want to stop checking their email at the playground.

And if making my podcast the linchpin of my content is the strategy, I need to talk to them. And I need more of them to discover me.

YouTube can help with discovery…but not in the way I originally thought.

YouTube’s official guidance is that you should probably have a separate channel for your podcast, with a “podcast” playlist that exactly mirrors your podcast’s audio feed.

But when I was talking to my friend Jay Clouse (who’s done a great job of straddling the podcast/YouTube line), and he gave me much needed confirmation: the YouTube audience is SO different from the podcast audience.

Demographics, psychographics, habits…everything.

So while just putting my podcast on YouTube is a tactic, it’s not a strategy.

Which brings me back to Godin’s point: I need to generously show up.

How I’m Showing Up Better

The main way I’m showing up better is by understanding my audience’s problems better. I couldn’t do that without getting specific about my niche. I am a solopreneur, but so are lots of people. I can’t possibly talk to all of them in a way that resonates.

I am also a busy solopreneur parent. I can speak authentically about that.

Instead of wondering what tactics I should employ for growth, I’m implementing a single strategy: show up generously, where my audience lives.

Of course, I still need the tactics. I’ll be covering them on Streamlined Solopreneur. I encourage you to subscribe.