Hola, welcome to A Mi Manera, Defining Your Success in Podcasting. I am Mónika. I am so excited to be part of the Latinas In Podcasting Summit. Let's get started. First, if you haven't already downloaded from the freebies, there is a workbook that goes along with this workshop. And in it, you will find lots of options to record your answers, to reflect, to set some goals about what success means to you. So I highly suggest you have that or something to write with. You can either go to the freebies section for the summit. You can use this QR code or you have the link. Come right here. All right. My name is Mónika Aldarondo Lugo. I have been podcasting since 2017. That top picture is me recording my very first podcast episode in my parents closet. That was for my first podcast, PSC Mami. PSC Mami was stories at the intersection of having the rare disease primary sclerosing cholangitis and what it means to be a parent. It was a collection of stories from other folks who had met within the rare disease community. PSC is something I have been diagnosed with, and I took the time after one of the things that PSC causes is liver damage, and I had to have a life saving liver transplant in 2017. So as part of my healing process, I learned how to podcast in order to create this resource for my community. It was my way of giving back, and I will speak more about that process as we go along. I did, launch it nine months after my podcast, so I felt it was like my second little baby. Our Latina Lens is my second podcast, which I released in late 2022, 2023. It is a collection of interviews and also sound produced vignettes about work, but produced by Latina and Latine photographers in the United States. It's all about elevating their work and stories. And I also am a podcast development consultant. I have been called a creative doula because I really help people with their ideas. and getting started with their podcasting. A couple of things about me before we keep going. I'm Boricua, all of my grandparents were from Puerto Rico. My parents are New Yoricans, both born and raised in New York, in Brooklyn. And I'm a military brat. So I've lived all over and feel connection to many places. I'm an unschooling mami. I have a nine year old who I homeschool, in addition to being a photographer and podcaster, and we live in the San Francisco Bay area. So if you're in the area, please do reach out. I love to connect with folks. So we're going to be talking at its core today about what does success mean to you in podcasting. And in order to get to that, you really want to think, answer this question. Why am I creating this podcast? If you have the workbook out this is there with some spaced journal. Why am I creating a podcast? Why am I creating this podcast? So all of this pre work, they say your pre work should be two thirds of the work before you even start recording your first episode. And in order to think about why you're creating a podcast it might be really helpful to think about what is your overall goal. And there are many goals that you could have that would lead you to create a podcast. So it may be, I just want to have a new hobby and podcasting looks fun. That's a great overall goal. I want to learn how to podcast. Maybe your goal is to generate more revenue in your business and you've determined that a podcast is one of the ways to do that. Maybe your goal is to have a media company and one of the channels that you will be communicating with is podcasting. So all of these are valid larger goals. There are many more. Those are just 3 examples. But think about what is your overall goal. And then related, how will this podcast reach your goal? So it may be that as a hobby, this podcast is my learning one. It is the one where I'm just going to learn the basics. Maybe this, I have a hobby that I want to learn how to interview better, or I want to learn how to speak better. This could be part of your overall goal. If you were trying to increase revenue from your business, it may be that this podcast is how you communicate with your clients. All right. What do you want this podcast to do for you? So this, again, I'm going to say this over and over again. There's such a wide range. There's no right answers. If you came here to get one list, here's the list of things that you can do to be successful in podcasting. This is not the workshop I'm going to be telling you over and over. You get to decide. You get to define success. For those of you who are raised in an educational system or in households where it's like, this is what you do to be the good kid, it is really difficult. But in truth, you really do get to decide what your podcast gets to be. So here are just some options. It may be that your podcasting journey is about developing your voice, becoming a better storyteller, building confidence, taking up space. That is an amazing goal for a podcast and something that it can do for you, even if it's doing other things. Maybe your goal or what you're getting out of it is gaining a skill or building authority. You are creating a library of information for your clients or generating revenue. All of those are valid. For me, in my second podcast, I will say I had a very clear goal as part of that journey of becoming a better audio editor. I wanted to learn how to incorporate sound and music into my interviews. I wanted to learn how to edit a story in a more cohesive way, even if it didn't follow the original path of the interview that I did. So, a lot of editing and a lot of education. I took classes. I consulted with others around those specific skills. For my first podcast, it was definitely about generating a library of information, not for my clients, but for other patients. When I asked for folks to share these very vulnerable stories about what were the questions they asked around having a rare disease and deciding to become parents or not to become parents or how they parented? Those vulnerable stories I was asking to share, the purpose was so that other young women, other young folks who were diagnosed early, like some of us were, had those answers that our doctors really couldn't give us. They could tell us the medical aspects of our disease, but they couldn't tell us, how do you decide if you have a family or not? They couldn't tell us what it was like to parent and occasionally be hospitalized, right? So my goal was really for someone who was in my shoes when I was twenty nine, diagnosed with a rare disease that on paper is a middle aged white male disease, that I could have searched and said, can I start a family? And up pops a podcast with stories of different people's experiences of what it meant. So that was a goal. That was something that I was trying to get out of my process. You just, you may want to just research an area of interest. You have a lot of information. You have a deep interest in some area and you want to share that with others. And it could be related to job or career, but it just could be related to something fun. Maybe you really love birds. Maybe you really love a turn TV show and you just want to share your love for that hobby, that interest and find other people who have that interest and love as well. This could be its own workshop. This could be a whole day of workshops thinking about your premise. And I will say we won't spend too much time on this, but I would feel irresponsible to not say, your premise is one of the most important things of your show. And your premise is when I work with folks on their podcast ideas, it's the thing that we massage and look at the most. And shifts and changes the most. Because this is the, as it says here, core idea, the essence from which everything else flows. Podcasting has been around for a really long time. And you both get to take up space however you want to, and if you have certain goals, if you have certain listenership goals, if you have certain metrics of success that you decide you want to reach for, knowing that the, "all my friends are super interesting. I love them and everyone should hear their stories" framework has been done many times. So what makes your podcast interviewing your friends different? What is the intersection at which that sets? What's the theme? How are you engaging with them in a different and interesting way? All of those things are going to be part of what your premise is. And there's some really interesting shows out there now. And I do believe that within the Latina, Latine, Latinx space, there's so much energy and excitement right now for some new, creative, innovative kind of podcasts that we don't have in the space yet. And that we can have in this space. And it's really exciting time with so many folks being excited to start their podcasts. Take what Juleka Lantigua, who is a OG in podcasting. She has her own production company. She's an amazing Latina leader and leader in general in the podcasting space. She talks about having to have an intersection of ideas. So talking about medicine is sort of one. I'm going to do a podcast about medicine. Okay that's all right. I'm going to talk about medicine as actually LWC Studios has a podcast out where they're talking about the health of Latinas and we're following them every year from birth to year 100. In Chicago. That is a much more specific, interesting, oh, there's something there. I want to listen to that more than if I just saw here's a podcast about the medical field or health. So thinking about how does your premise really stick with people? What makes it multidimensional? What makes it something that someone's going to say, "hmm let me press play. Let me keep pressing play." Also important to ask is once you have your premise, why a podcast? Podcasts can be audio first. That's how they started. There are still purists. There's still, and I'm a little bit in this camp where I love audio podcasts. I love the sound engineering. I love the creativity that folks do with an audio first format. And it is in itself a craft. There is also a space where you have the video podcast, where you have a video component, where you're showing what's happening and incorporating video editing elements. Is your podcast audio first? Can it, should it have video? And as you think about your premise, as you think about your goals, is it even a podcast? Should it be a book, a blog, a series, an IG series, a workshop? Really make sure because podcasting always is more work than people think it is. Make sure that it actually should be a podcast. With my first podcast, PSC Mami, people were asking me this, why a podcast? And I thought that I wanted to tell these stories. I wanted to make them accessible. I wanted to include the emotion in the stories that you couldn't get necessarily from a blog or reading someone's stories. I always keep in the pauses, the hesitations, the little laughter or the, when someone holds a second before they tell something that's very emotional, I think that's a really important part of the storytelling, especially in that context. And it's something, again, that we wouldn't be able to get from our doctors. And I did not think it should be video because most of the people that I was interviewing were not content creators. They weren't folks who were trying to be on video, trying to be in a public space, and they were telling very vulnerable medical stories. And for most people, when you put a video camera, or say you're recording them, you get a different energy. You get a more guardedness unless they're really used to being on video. So for me, it was very clear that was an audio first format. All right. So we talked a little bit about what are you getting out of the podcast project? And it's really important to also take some time to consider what is your listener getting out of your podcast? What are they walking away from? Some of the podcasts that I love most are the ones where I have to stop and put a note in my phone or write something down like, "Ooh, that's a good one!" Or, in some of the podcast players now you can actually have clips, which I love. That you can say " Oh, that was a great quote. Or I want to remember that." What are those moments that you're creating for your listener that makes them not only pause, but then come back for more. So whatever realm you're in and whatever way, and this can happen so many ways. I'm not saying there's one way to do this. Again, depending on your genre, depending on your structure, who you're speaking to, your audience, how are you engaging them and giving them information, story, something to listen to that is really adding value to who they are. And that might also be entertainment. It might be a laugh. It might be something that allows them to disconnect from their everyday life. So it doesn't always have to be like a to do or here's this actionable item. It can also, sometimes we need those spaces to relax and just be. So thinking about, in your writing, and you guys can be pausing as you listen or come back to these in your journal or in the workbook. What is your listener coming back for? All right, so here's the heart of the workshop. 15 minutes in, we are talking about now that you're sure that it's a podcast and you have your premise, you have this really strong foundation for your podcast. Often when people will start at these things, but really you need that foundation in order to then build these elements that are what you might measure for success. So we're going to talk about structure. We're going to talk about cadence, length, and longevity. We're going to talk about metrics. We're going to talk about external factors, and we're going to talk about intangibles. So structure. Often in beginner forums, I'll see right after what kind of mic should I buy you, and you'll notice I have one of the, it's the AT, ATR, what is it, 2100. It's one of the basic, not very expensive mics. I've loved it. You don't need super fancy equipment. The equipment just works. But after people ask those technical questions, where do I record? I record on Squadcast. You know, what kind of mic should I buy? Then often it's how often should I publish? How long should my episodes be? Those kinds of things. And these are parts of your structure and there are many different kinds of structure. And think about who's gonna be in your podcast. Is it just you talking? Are you talking to someone else? Is that a co-host? What is that energy like? Are you doing a panel or a round table, or are they certain people who are constant in that round table? Is the round table itself constant? Or in larger podcasts with bigger teams like a Futuro Studios or a LWC studios. Do you have a reporting team who's then creating your episodes? What you're doing with the folks who are in it can also vary widely. These are not exhaustive lists. These are just the ones that I came up with off the top of my head from podcasts that I love. A very common one is the interview structure. Again, if you're interviewing folks, that is a skill. How are you developing your interview skills? How are you engaging in a way that is interesting and compelling for your listeners? What are you trying to elicit from your interviewees? Fictional storytelling Ochenta Studios does a great one called La Cabina Telefónica, which is a really fun fictional story telling podcast about one of the old school I think it might even take place in the 90s where they're calling their families and all the chisme that happens in the cabina. So there's really fun podcasts like that. You have your non-fiction storytelling ones. Futuro Studios is incredible at the non-fiction storytelling. La Brega is one of my favorite podcasts that they have put out, but they have tons of other ones. When we talk about Latina led production media companies and production houses. You can have commentary reaction. Maybe you're talking about things that are happening in the world. Futuro Media has In The Thick, which I also love, but you could be talking about shows. You could be talking about world events. You could be talking about things that are happening in your industry. Repurpose content is when something is already being produced and then you use that audio or video as a podcast to think of, if you've ever heard the Moth Radio. That is a storytelling show, a live show, but they record it and repurpose that content as a podcast. Folks who do live podcast recordings, that is, or if you are recording a concert and then putting that into a podcast. And then how to's or tutorials, instructional kind of podcasts are also what you could be doing with all these folks. And then you could also have different things about like how you're engaging with these structures. You could have Q and A's, live streams. I've heard some really interesting folks experimenting with just voice memos. Their podcasts are really highly produced, but then they insert these really personal updates or here's this idea I've been contemplating. I just wanted to tell you guys on my walk. How they're incorporating voice memos. You could have a whole podcast that has a voice memo. There are podcasts that are engaging, great content that people record on their smartphones and just upload. And it is that simple. But the content is compelling enough that people come back for it. Games are a super fun way. I've heard some really fun folks either incorporating as segments or having the entire show be in the form of games and taking their premise and putting it in a game format. So again, any of these doesn't have to be all one episode, any structure can also be segments. Any structure could vary. So, I love the Trevor Noah show. That's not a Latina podcast, but I love his show and he has interviews. He has roundtable topics. He has roundtables with guests. He does one on one interviews. They vary their format a lot, but their audience at least I can speak for myself comes along, regardless of the format because of the engaging content. There's lots of ways to engage your listener voices as well. So think about these and then brainstorm your own. One of the most exciting things about being in podcasting is that not all the formats have been tried yet. Not all the things that can be done have been done, and you might have a really great, innovative way to structure your podcast that engages your listeners in a new way. So think about what that might be. All right. Cadence, length, and longevity. Like I mentioned, people will often ask how often do I need to publish? How long each episode and how many episodes? This again is up to you. There are some industry standards. There are some things that if you have certain kinds of goals, there are best practices, but that doesn't mean that if you're not aiming toward those goals and you don't do those things, that your podcast is any less valid. That is a trap I fell into at first because my podcast was an occasional podcast. It was very specific. I was very clear on my goals. But when I would go into podcasting communities, everyone had a weekly show. Everyone seemed to be caring about download numbers. I was talking to a , rare disease community. I was never going to have 50,000 downloads. There aren't 50,000 of us in period that have PSC. There's no way that I would get that kind of numbers. What I've learned over the years is that there are other voices out there. They're just not as loud. They're not the ones pitching their programs. They're not the ones positioning themselves as podcasting experts, getting all the results and monetizing and making the money. So they're quieter voices. So you really do get to decide. Do you want to do a daily podcast, a weekly podcast, and every other week podcast. Monthly, once every six months, occasional, cuando te da la gana. Like you get to decide and really the most important thing is that with your audience, with your listeners, you're setting an expectation and then meeting that expectation. That's all consistency really means is saying, are you consistent with the expectation that you've set for yourself in your audience. That's very freeing. If you think about it, in this world of produce content. How long each episode, I'm sure it's not gonna surprise you. I'm gonna say you get to decide. For the most part, most podcasts are 20 to 40 minutes. One of the reasons that I've heard for folks that they say 20 minutes is about the length of a commute, but obviously people have lots of different lengths of commutes. Think about when you listen to podcasts and what you're doing while you're listening to them. I often listen while I'm cooking, cleaning, driving. So thinking about the space that people have to listen. But if it's a good episode, and it's long, I'm coming back to it. I'm going to finish it. You think about, again, your goals, your content, your audience, and what works. How many episodes? This is a space where I think it's helpful to set a goal and try to meet that goal or renegotiate for yourself. So some people might say, I want to produce 12 episodes and see how it goes. I want to, you know, if you're further along, you might say, I want to make it to a hundred episodes. You might say, I want three seasons. I want two seasons. I want a trial season, and then I'm going to try to refine, by 10 percent better in my second season. You get to define all of those goals and when those goes out. There's no set, like if you have a seasonal podcast, when that needs to come out. There are folks who will produce four seasons in a year. There are folks who produce one season and the next season is three years later. All of those are valid. You're really thinking about what is your capacity. Especially if you're a one person team or if you're a small team, what is your desired production level? If you are just record, not just, if you're recording in Zoom and putting it up with with an intro and an outro, with minimal editing, that's going to be really different than if you're doing, trying to match a full production, fictionalized story with sound design and sound effects and all of those things, actors. Thinking about what is the desired production level that you want is also going to determine what you're able to do. And finally, resources. As a one woman show, I know my capacity now and what it means to create a podcast that is a little simpler, that is an interview base, that is once in a while. And a more highly produced, 20 to 40 hours of production per episode and what that means for my seasons and when I can produce a season. You might say, okay, I can do the interviews, but I'm going to outsource editing and marketing and all of that stuff. Or you might bring in a whole team. I know that there are teams in the summit that will do this production work for you. So depending on your resources, you might set your goals, how it is. So write in your journal, write in your workbook, what is it that you're thinking? What are your goals and why? Again, always go back to your why, always go back to how does this help me meet my goal. Metrics. So, at the top of this one, I put, remember, always go back to your goal because as a analytical, numerical, achievement-based society in the U.S., things like numbers become the holy grail that we are trying to achieve. But you don't want to place this one as your top measure of success, except for in certain instances that I'll talk about in the last category. There are metrics that you'll hear a lot like downloads. And anyone who spent any time in the podcast industry knows that downloads is a very problematic measure, but it's the only measure that people have, so they use it. Just because someone downloaded an episode on their phone, doesn't mean they listen through it the whole thing. So it doesn't really give you a lot of information. There are places where you will need it. Listen through rate is how far into your episodes, the percentage of how far people got into your episodes. That can be a little bit more helpful of a measure. You can think about ratings, reviews, follow, subscribes, but I always remind myself how many of my own podcasts that I love, have I not gotten around to reviewing and starring? Sometimes I try to make the effort and say, you know what? I'm going to go over, review some podcasts and give them some ratings because they're the ones I listen to. But as a person who doesn't use Apple podcasts or a platform that allows me to easily rate and review, it is an effort to go and rate and review my favorite podcasts. So I remind myself just because there aren't ratings and reviews doesn't mean people don't love it. There are podcasts I have recommended to all kinds of people and never rated and reviewed, but that is one measure that you could have if you encourage that from your audience. Engagement is, people say, a much better way of measuring your audience's connection to you, how loyal they are. Putting out surveys, there's lots of information, how to do podcast surveys, even again, knowing that there's a fairly low response rate. But still, it can be helpful to have that information. Comments on social media. Web traffic, if you're directing them to certain places, or if you have links in your show notes. Those are all can be metrics and levels of success. And then again, depending on your goal, there could be revenue goals. There could be number of sponsors. It could be sales of merchandise. Or maybe one of your goals is I want to show people who I am as a speaker, my energy, my vibe, so that I get more speaking gigs. So again, let's go back to your goal. And then decide, do any of these actually help me decide if I'm meeting my goal? If none of these help you, you don't have to pay attention to any of them. Even if everyone else in the forum is talking about downloads, if downloads don't help you get to your goal, we don't care. All right. External measures. So here's a place that sometimes downloads do matter. Let's say you've set for yourself a goal of network qualification. You want to be on a podcasting network. You want to be on HubSpot. You want to be on Latina Podcasters. You want to be in one of those networks. Some of them do have download qualifications in order to meet their sponsorship requirements for the sponsors that they work for. So this is a space that if this is your goal, then paying attention to your downloads is something you want to do. Another thing is podcasting newsletter features. So there are folks who will put out newsletters that highlight podcasts, either in playlists by theme. Here's some interesting podcast episodes this week. If you have a goal of getting one on one of those, subscribe to those newsletters. Take a look at who it is that they feature, how they choose. They might talk about where they find their podcasts and you can help position yourself in order to get there. There are many podcasting conferences, the big huge ones, Podcasting Movement. I believe I heard Third Coast might be coming back. I'm not sure. I personally loved and went to Resonate, which is in Richmond, Virginia at their Art Institute. Fabulous, really focused on the craft of audio. If you are interested in that kind of measure of success that you are presenting, then looking out for those speaker calls when they put out their calls. And then another measure for folks is awards. Awards you have to apply for. Often there are fees. So I did put a little note in here to check out Podcasting Seriously Fund. This fund is meant to support BIPOC, queer and trans folks in podcasting. And I'm not sure if they actually pay the fee, or if they reimburse the fee. When you submit to awards like the Ambies or any of those other awards in podcasting, they really wanna see more folks in the bipoc, trans and queer community get awards, but we can't get awards if we're not applying for them. So there is a Latinos Podcasters Award ceremony that you can apply to. So if awards is a goal of yours, then there are avenues and systems that you want to be aware of. Just a note before I go on Podcasting Seriously Fund also supports education. So if you take certain classes, qualifying classes from certain spaces, then you can submit for a reimbursement, for your education. So it's actually how I took an audio engineering class was because of Podcasting Seriously. So thank you LWC studios for that. The fifth category to think about your success and how to measure your success is the intangibles. Are you having fun? That's huge. That's huge. Are you having fun? Are you building confidence? Are you learning the new skills that you're aiming to learn? Are you creating relationships? I mean, I definitely have closer relationships with folks that I have interviewed in both of my podcasts. And in the podcasting communities where I have connected, asked questions, gotten involved and engaged. Are you being of service in a way that you want to be of service? For me, a huge sign of success for PSC Mami is when I go on to our patient forum and there's a young woman who is scared, who's just been diagnosed. She wants to know, should she start a family? And someone else recommends my podcast to her. Like that is that's all I need. That's all I need to know that all that work that I did to learn how to podcast was worth it. And it may just be, I want to complete a goal. I want to put out 50 podcast episodes about my favorite show or my favorite hobby and I did it. And I completed that goal, and that was what I wanted for the year. So whatever your heart, your intuition tells you, what at the core, what serves your humanity, what makes your soul happy? What about that can be listed in your areas of success, that when this gets hard, and it will inevitably get hard. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of tedium. Especially if you don't have the resources to outsource, then what, where are you going back to, to say, you know what, I have met these intangible goals that don't have any numbers attached to them, but I know that podcasting is serving me in this way. So definitely take a moment to write those in your journal and your workbook so that you can come back to that. And even though it's the fifth area, is definitely something I would put at the top of your list when you, if you make a checklist for what your top measures of success are. All right, so just wrapping up for this workshop, remember that you decide what success is. And that sounds super obvious, and yet it is so easy to get caught up, especially if you go to one of these big conferences where other measures of success, other people's definitions of success are really loud in the room. So set your goal. What is it that you are aiming to do with your podcast? What are you aiming to get out of it? What are you aiming to give? And then go into these five areas and say, Where am I seeking my goals and my success? Again, my name is Mónika. My company is Laancla Creative. I am a branding and portrait photographer is my main gig, but I love podcasting. I've been super involved in the podcasting world behind the scenes. In addition to my two podcasts, I love talking about podcast ideation and I love connecting people to resources. In these seven years, I've learned a lot of stuff. And I always joke, I would love to share that with other people. So if you want to consult with me, please, these are my superpowers. I love podcasts. I listen to a podcast every single day, I'm pretty sure almost every day. And I want to listen to yours. So please do make sure to share your podcast with me. If you've downloaded the workbook, you'll get an email from me, hit reply. Tell me about your project. Here's my website and also my Instagram handle. If, when you download the workbook and I have your email address, I can also send you some examples of some of my favorite podcasts that use some of these different structures and measures that we talked about today. So we can continue a conversation about what are the different ways that success appears in podcasting? Muchísimas gracias. I hope you enjoy the rest of the summit.