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Hey Reader! - It is officially the second day of summer, and the sun is shining, which means two things: Trying to record when people aren't cutting their grass. And I'm going to manage to have my pizza garden party at the weekend. Swings and roundabouts. I'm excited to bring you today's issue, enjoy.

How To Use the Fame Economy To Grow Your Podcast

Once upon a time, celebrities were movie stars. Then TV came along, and TV stars became celebrities, too.

Now, anyone who creates content online can be treated like a celebrity, and that includes…

Podcasters.

That’s right. You are a celebrity to your audience. No matter how small or large your audience is, there are listeners who are too nervous to come and say hi if they see you in the street.

You are officially part of the fame economy, and I’m going show you how to leverage that to grow your podcast.

The fame economy is simply the marketplace of fame, where people trade fame for money or status and vice versa. They say everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame; that’s people who want to join the fame economy.

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“This Is Wild! It’s Like We’re Meeting Celebrities!”

These were actual words uttered to my wife and I when we met up with a couple of our listeners for lunch. Our podcast was getting around 3,000 downloads per month when we were contacted by a family who were coming to Scotland on holiday.

They asked if they could take us out to lunch, and after some deliberation over whether this was genuine or not, we said yes. When we went to the (public) meet-up spot, the strangest thing happened.

The family saw us, and huge grins spread over their faces as they rushed over to introduce themselves. They were nervous, briefly star-struck, and told us they felt like they were meeting celebrities.

This seemed way over the top for a podcast that we were making for fun, but that is the power of the fame economy.

Encourage Meaningful Interactions With Shout Outs

My local breakfast cafe has a sign-up saying the Beatles played a concert there “before they were big’. They are using that status with fame to raise their own status. You can do this for your listeners.

People love getting shouted out and acknowledged by their favorite celebrities. The whole basis of the website Cameo is that you can pay for a video message from your favorite celebrity.

And I’m not saying you should start your own Cameo account (although feel free), I’m saying it will be meaningful to your audience if you mention them in an episode.

You can use this to your advantage by shouting out people who leave comments, send in emails, or leave reviews. Whatever interaction you’re trying to build, you can reward those who do it by shouting them out in your show.

They are delighted by the mention, and you get more interaction on your show, which in turn helps it grow.

More Public Interactions Build Social Proof

Cal Newport does a great job of this with his podcast, Deep Questions. Each episode features listener questions, a recorded listener call with a question, and listener case studies.

These three interactions with listeners does two things:

1) It builds the relationship between him and his audience, making them more loyal.

2) It builds social proof. When you listen for the first time, and he mentions 5 people who have written in to engage with the show, you realize that other people are already listening, and so you go, “Oh wow, this is a big show! It must be good!”

Those two work together to create momentum and growth in your show. Existing listeners might tell their friends they were shouted out on a podcast, and new listeners are more likely to stick around.

This Compounds Over Time

Getting this started can be hard. But it can snowball the growth of a show.

When you start shouting out, more people will want to be included, so you’ll get more interactions, which will grow your “fame,” leading to more interactions and shoutouts.

And the more your fame grows, the more impact these will have making the relationships with your listeners deeper and so they are more likely to spread the word.

You can use calls to action to ask for those first comments and reviews. If you want people to do something, ask them to do it.

Audiences Build Person-by-Person

An audience is just a collection of people who like the same thing. You build an audience by connecting with each of those people in turn.

Share the love, share your fame, and grow your podcast.

Community Wins

If you have a win you want to share, hit reply!

How I Can Help You

1) ​The Template Vault ​– Learn how to grow your podcast on autopilot. Get fill-in-the-blank templates to set up your podcast foundation for growth, success, and making money. $15 for the first 15 customers

2) ​Work with me 1:1​ – Book a chat with me today, and we can discuss how we can work together to grow your podcast!

2) ​Recommended Tools​​ – These are the tools I use to grow my podcast. I focus on tools that improve quality and save time.