Susan Bratton, author of Talk Show Tips, host of the Dishymix podcast and CEO of a publishing company called Personal Life Media that produces 40 different podcasts, is sharing some of her expertise in podcasting with the Digital Podcast fans.

In the Susan’s first guest post, we talked about various show formats that are possible with a podcast. In this installment, we’ll dive more deeply into Show Format, giving you an actual structure you can customize for your needs. This include some good language for intros and outros and commercial breaks.

Your Show Format
Once you know how long you think your show should be for your audience and your style, you need to plan for the intro, breaks (if any) and the outro. I recommend starting your show off exactly the same way every time, and ending the same too.

Every episode of DishyMix starts this way:

Welcome to DishyMix, This is your host, Susan Bratton, and on today’s show you are going to meet Clark Kokich, global president and CEO of Razorfish…

Sometimes I do a little “tag cloud” of subjects we’re going to cover. Sometimes I top line a person’s bio (if I think my audience would benefit) and sometimes I just jump right in to bringing them on the show if they are well known. “Welcome to the show, Clark!”

What I think is most important for my audience is for me to GET TO IT! I don’t dilly dally talking about the weather, we get right to our dialog. I respect them as busy people.

Dialogue versus Question and Answer Format
Speaking of dialog, one of the mp3 files you get with “72 Secret Master Talk Show Host Techniques,” is an audio lesson with Duncan Campbell, host of Living Dialogues, called “The Art of Dialogue.” Duncan has a very unique interview style he calls a “dialogue.” Where most talk show hosts ask questions, driving the discussion and expecting the guest to answer and be the expert, dialogues are a more integrated discussion between two parties.

You can hear this difference if you listen to an episode of DishyMix and then listen to an episode of Living Dialogues.

Living Dialogues Stream/RSS/Download
Living Dialogues in iTunes

Creating Your Unique Style
I like to take a few moves from Duncan’s playbook but still keep mostly to the question/answer format. Duncan’s approach gave me the courage to dialogue with my guests. Your audience consumes your content because of YOU, not the guests you have on. You are the central character in the lives of your fans. It’s your filtering, your curating, your questioning and what you get out of your guests they they come for. It’s ok to engage in a little “parry and thrust” with your guest. It’s actually predictably boring to settle too routinely into simple Q&A. I encourage you to mix it up. Get in there and get dirty. More about what happens inside the container of an interview is covered in Talk Show Tips.

Show Flow
Here’s an example of a typical single Host, single Guest Format, thirty minute show. You should create your own personalized version of your show flow using this as a guide and customizing it for your own preferences.

Start the Show with Your Personalized Opener
Welcome Guest Name
(hi, great to be here)

Give a quick overview of who your guest is.
Guest is known for:
Attribute 1
Attribute 2
Attribute 3

Establish the theme of the show.
I’m pleased to have you with us today – I think our listeners really care about xxx and want to know more about xxx.

Tell your listeners the “game plan” for the show today – format and theme.
Today I want to talk to you about:
Subject 1
Subject 2
Subject 3
Get right into the meat by starting the discussion.

Let’s start with a few questions about xxx.

Ask 12 minutes of questions here (see Do’s & Don’ts on questions, bridges and transitions in the main eBook)

Make sure you unfold a story and delve deeply into their particular expertise. What do they know that nobody else in the world knows? Unfold this revelation…

Go to Break if you want a mid-roll ad slot
We’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors. I’d like you to listen to these ads. These are ads created by my sponsors for my show and they help me bring my work to you. If you can support them, I’d really appreciate it.

This is Host Name and I’m with Guest Name and we’ll be right back to talk about “something intriguing.”

NOTE: To keep your listeners or viewers from abandoning your show at the break, tempt them just before the break with the most juicy content you are saving for the end of the show so they’ll be compelled to stay with you!

5 second bumper with show identity (I use only a music bed here)

Break (silence for the count of 5)

5 second intro bumper (again, a music bed)

Bring Yourselves Back Into the Show
We’re back and I’m your Host Name and we are talking to Guest Name about xxx.

House Keeping
This is where I let listeners know about the DishyMix Fan Club and any other actions, like listener surveys or requesting iTunes reviews.

Before the break we were talking about xxx. I want to ask you about xxx.

Another Cluster of Dialogue if your show is longer than 30 minutes.
Questions for 12 minutes
(Follow same format for break and return if you want more ad slots.)

Engage Your Audience
Ask listeners to send you email or call to leave you a message. (I recommend K7.net for a free voice mail box.)

Wrap Up
We are almost out of time but I would like to ask you one final question – ask something that is a benefit to the listener and leaves them with an inspirational thought or feeling. Or however you want to end your show each time.

Thank you Guest Name for joining us and sharing your wisdom/insight/etc.
(You are welcome.)

Sign Off
Address listeners: join us next week on Show Name when we talk to Guest Name or we’ll be covering theme.

That brings us the end of the show, thank you for listening. For text and transcripts of this show, and other shows on the Personal Life Media Network, please visit our website at www.personallifemedia.com.
This is your host, Host Name
Your signature close here

Show ID – Closer
Personal Life Media Bumper

You can reformat this show flow to work for your show. It’s a great help when you’re first getting started. I always follow the same format so my guests can just listen, rather than wondering what is going to happen with format.

Now you know about the myriad options for formatting a show and how to move through your show flow with ease. If you haven’t listened to my interview with Susan about Commercial Podcasting, click here now.

Don’t forget to sign up for Susan’s free Mini-Course called “Easy Question Generators” where she gives you ten tips for coming up with killer questions for every interview. And, if you’re impressed with this bit of detail excerpted from her training system, maybe you should just go ahead and treat yourself to Talk Show Tips right now.

Happy podcasting!

Susan Bratton, author of Talk Show Tips, host of the Dishymix podcast and CEO of a publishing company called Personal Life Media that produces 40 different podcasts, is sharing some of her expertise in podcasting with the Digital Podcast fans.

In this guest post, Susan writes about Show Format and how to use it to build trust and engagement with your audience.

Here’s part one of advice from Susan Bratton, author of Talk Show Tips:

Show Format
In order to create trust with your audience, you have to consistently deliver both in frequency and format. Once you pick a schedule, keep to it. (I work ahead 3-5 episodes so I always have a significant buffer to weather guest cancellations and my own busy life.) The same with a format – keeping it consistent pays off by generating a level of credibility, professionalism and certainty. Sure, you can morph the format over time. I’ve tried show highlights and removed them because of audience feedback that they were confusing. Choosing and sticking with a show format allows your audience relax into the content, rather than wondering what the game plan is for every episode.

The 5 Divas: Sharon, Suzanne, Carrie, Julie and Amy

Carrie Runnals, Words to Mouth

Ryan Oelke and Vince Horn, The Buddhist Geeks

On our network, we have many formats and lengths:

• The DivaCast and Business Success Tips are a group of hosts who convene to discuss salient issues. The DivaCast is five “forty-something” women discussing life. Business Success Tips is as many as six male hosts talking shop.
• Family History and Tantra and Kama Sutra are single host/guest format.
• Joy of Living Creatively, Inside Out Weight Loss and Your Purpose-Centered Life are single host spoken word shows with huge followings.
• Camera Dojo, Buddhist Geeks and Digital Photography Life are dual-host and single guest format.
• Music for Midnight is very lightly hosted and mostly ambient and lounge music.

Some of our shows are 8-12 minutes long, some go over an hour! Some are loosely formatted discussions and others follow very organized question/answer formats. There are hundreds of formats and styles successfully employed. Don’t just choose one of the styles we use on our network, choose the one that supports your content, personality and Persona. (more about Personas in the main eBook.)

There’s a style for everyone. Some people love the conversational nature of our multi-host shows. That drives others crazy and they vehemently reject it. You must develop your style and find your audience. Your future fans are out there, as long as you keep your show tight, the content valuable and you don’t waste your viewer’s time.

Your Show Length
First, select your show length and format. My weekly show is about a half hour. I’d like to do a twenty minute show, but I can’t get as deep as I want in that amount of time. A hallmark of my show is depth, so I need that extra ten minutes to fully develop the character of my guests. My audience gives me that time because they like that character development too.

I also need to have pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ad slots because a big part of my income is advertising revenue. Sometimes I run six or eight ads in a single show. (My audience is marketers and they understand the sponsorship model. I never get any negative feedback on this number of ads because my audience “gets it.”) To generate the revenue for my show, I need thirty minutes of content with a break fifteen minutes in. I don’t believe my listeners, who are busy professionals, have more than a half hour, but there are a LOT of popular shows that go longer. Some of the shows on our network are always over an hour. If you are working in video, your duration is significantly abbreviated — typically :30 seconds to 4 minutes… You have the luxury of overlay ads on your video, whereas audio is more linear.

So pick a length. Then stay within that by 20% every episode. Internet shows have the luxury of being approximate, rather that exact in length. But don’t take advantage of that and go off format. It’s sloppy and erodes audience trust. Ninety five percent of my shows are thirty-ish minutes long. A really long show I did with Tim Ash about landing page conversions recently was a show with a lot of listener questions. I got great feedback on that show from many people. But I like those “bonus material” shows to be the exceptions, not the rule.

On the next guest post, Susan will show you exactly how she handles her show flow and give you a cheat sheet for customizing it to your needs.

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Susan has launched Talk Show Tips: 72 Secret ‘Master Host’ Techniques as a training system for anyone who hosts a podcast, vidcast, radio or talk show or for experts who create information products that include interviews as material.