The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

How to Book More Podcast Appearances and Build Authority

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 55

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In this episode of The Social Media Takeaway, I sit down with Liam Austin, co-founder of Talks.co and Entrepreneurs HQ, who has helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs grow their businesses through digital media. 🚀

We uncover:
 âœ… How to create a standout speaker profile that gets you booked.
 âœ… The secret to finding the perfect podcasts for your expertise.
 âœ… Using AI to craft compelling content and boost your visibility.
 âœ… Strategies to promote podcast appearances and maximize reach.
 âœ… The truth about paid guest spots when (and if) you should charge.

If you want to build credibility, expand your audience, and attract new business opportunities through podcasting, this episode is a must-listen! 🎧👇

SHOW CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Liam Austin 
00:34 Creating Your Speaker Profile 
01:27 Maximizing Your Podcast Matches 
03:01 Optimizing Your Speaker Profile 
09:42 Leveraging Social Media for Podcasts 
12:01 Monetizing Podcast Appearances 
13:21 Future of Podcasting 
14:54 Exploring the Talks Platform 
16:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Connect with Liam Austin:
LinkedIn

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to my podcast because more like this is on the way!

If you'd like to book a call to see how I can support you head over to my website here. www.sellonsocialmedia.academy/hello

My 2025 Social Media Content Planner & Guide is now available! Packed with 400 content prompts, expert tips, and $377 worth of free resources to help you save time and get results in 2025.

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Louise McDonnell:

So today I am delighted to be joined by my guest Liam Austin. Liam is the co founder of Talks. co and Entrepreneurs HQ, an online business veteran, having made his first sale online in 2001. After educating over 100, 000 entrepreneurs to start and grow their online businesses, Liam now focuses on helping entrepreneurs spread their message through digital media. You're very welcome to the show.

Liam Austin:

Louise. Yeah. Thanks for inviting me on.

Louise McDonnell:

So for anyone tuning in here, the same goodness gracious, maybe I want to pitch to, I want to be on more podcast shows. What should they do?

Liam Austin:

Yeah, so we've got our tool talks. co. So definitely check that out. And it's very simple. You can put in some information about yourself, just upload it to the tool and it will automatically create your speaker profile from that. And your speaker profile is like your speaker one sheet. And this tells show hosts event planners that You are an expert, you've got skills, knowledge to share and you're available to speak on this topic across various stages. And really that speaker profile, your speaker one should really scream to event organizers or podcast hosts. You have to have me on your show for X, Y, and Z reasons. So creating a speaker profile, I think is really important so that you can share that with shows that you're pitching to, you'd love to be on their show but also to be discovered. That speaker, one sheet. And once you create it on the talks platform it's discoverable via the search engines as well as AI but then just on our platform as well, we've got thousands of people jumping on and looking for guests as well as looking to be a guest on the platform, so they'll be able to discover your profile and there's the opportunity for you to actually Be on a show now once you get invited onto your first show through the platform It's quite simple once you've created your profile as a guest but once you've created your guest profile, you just go to the matches section and the Ai will actually suggest recommend to you ideal shows for you to appear on based on your profile and the show's profile. If I'm a show host, I'll see the guest's profile, and I can say, yeah, this guest is someone I'd like to have on my show. I show interest in them. And once you've been matched, great, you can move forward with confidence, knowing that the other party, the show is interested in having you on board, or at least having a discussion about bringing you onto the show. And you can move really fast to a recorded episode. It's a good fit for me I've already shown interest. So let's go ahead and just move forward to recording the episode as quickly as possible.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. I suppose the difference is your platform is that the people that are, registering because they want to be a speaker and the show hosts are there because they're looking for speakers. Whereas, yeah, we're getting those emails. Oh, I was listening to your conversation with, and I found it very insightful. And it's every single one of those pitches starts exactly the same way. And I know your platform helps them to do that, but like what information should they be thinking about having prepared before they go to do that either on your platform or whether they just wanted to create it themselves.

Liam Austin:

Yeah. With AI helping us create content. Now it's as simple if you're a speaker and you've got a LinkedIn profile you can just grab your LinkedIn information. You submit it into the talks tool and the talks AI will actually create your speaker one sheet, your speaker profile instantly for you. And then you can just go in and tweak it and edit it make any changes just to personalize it yourself. That you've written from on LinkedIn when you created your profile there, but you might need to update it or tweak some things or just change things because your talks profile, your speaker profile is very different to your LinkedIn profile. There's different things that you might want to fill in there, which is a little bit about you in terms of your bio your image your photo, your headshot why, what makes you a great guest maybe some past episodes that you've been on, or even stages that you've spoken on. If you pay to one of the upgrades, you can upload some videos and there's some extra features that you get access to, such as when you're considering deciding whether a show is right for you or not you can actually jump in and have a look at their audience size. So for us, we are able to see right now on the talk platform as a paid member. The email list size the number of downloads a podcast may have, or if it's a YouTube show, how many subscribers they have. And then also the number of followers they have on social media, because some people are all about social media and they may not have an email list. And, that's okay. It's all about audience sizes and you really having to look at, okay, based on all this information, is this show worth my time to be on based on, the impact I want to make?

Louise McDonnell:

And , obviously you've got to have something that's topical, something that's relevant right now. And how often should you change that? So should you every season, every year, should you have, this is my go to topic, right now that's working. So how often should you update that?

Liam Austin:

Yeah, that's a really good question. I suppose you can think of it like if you're thinking like LinkedIn, you might be updating it every time you, you change jobs, right? You, okay. Now I'm currently in this role but potentially you might be changing and switching careers completely. And then that's the same with your talks profile. If you want to be considered to talk on maybe current affairs or things that's happening right now in the world, you might want to be going in there and updating it even more regularly than other people who maybe have more evergreen based topics and content to talk about. There's some little things that we try to do to automate things, make it easy for you. We're trying to automate and people to make it easier so you don't have to be showing up all the time because we launched this only really a few months ago now and we've had some great traction already. We do want to make it even easier for you, even simpler for you to get booked on shows, to record episodes. And so if we can, get you to a booked interview as quickly as possible, almost without too much effort, like simplifying it on your end, and you feel like it's a perfect match that's our North Star. That's ideally what we're aiming for.

Louise McDonnell:

So I presume like if somebody's going in and they're starting, let's say there's going to be different levels. So somebody who's haven't been on stage, they haven't been a guest, maybe they don't have a huge following on social media themselves. So I presume. That you're going to match them or the system matches them with maybe a podcast show hasn't got a million listeners a week or, so somebody who's maybe a similar audience, maybe it's quite small, which is totally fine if everybody, if people are starting off and then if you have somebody coming and they're a really high profile with maybe they have 20, 000 connections on LinkedIn, are you then connecting them with a podcast show, which has an equivalent, they both are interested in each other.

Liam Austin:

Yeah, like the idea is we wanna make every match into a recorded episode. So every match that you get is okay, perfect. We should be recording something. Let's get it done. And you both feel great about it. That's the ideal scenario. And yeah, if you're matching someone who's a beginner with someone who's maybe had a show with hundreds of episodes, tens of thousands of downloads, and they've been doing it for years, like maybe that's not the perfect match. You want the match and every match that you have to ideally have a recent episode they want to be currently looking for guests for their shows and they want to be recently active on the platform. And I think those are most likely to end up with a result that you're looking for.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay. So somebody listening in here, unmotivated, always wanted to be on podcast shows. So they go and they set up their profile and then they get a match and off they go and they record the episode. How can they be a good guest afterwards?

Liam Austin:

Yeah so that's interesting, right? So one of the questions we have on the speaker profile is why should I invite you on the show? Sell yourself into this show host. And a lot of guests talk about their experience, their knowledge, their skills, and how they're going to be a great provider of content to the show. And so that's one way that's great. But how else can we be helping this podcast or this show host in their goals. So it may be that you're going to come on the show and you're going to provide some great content. Great, number one. Number two I'm going to promote the show number three, I'm going to recommend your show to some other experts and influencers that I think would be great guests for your show that I'd be happy to introduce you to. You want to be looking just outside just the content and the delivery of that, like what are the motivations of the show, of the host? What are they trying to do? They're trying to, yes, share. Information and content, but it's not just that they're trying to build their audience, build their following, build the amount of downloads to their podcast build their own authority influence in the marketplace as well. So how do you help them do that? And maybe just ask them as well. One of my favorite questions is what's the most important project you're working on in the next 12 months? And if you can ask that to influencers in your marketplace, they're going to open up and tell you about the most important thing that's happening in their business or their life at the moment. And then it's about you figuring out how can I help them with that? And this is how we build deeper relationships and partnerships. A good strategy for bringing guests onto your show is not just for the content or to get in touch with our audience, but this could be a potential partner for me. How can you be a great guest and great business? Let's stay in touch with them. What was their biggest project that they're working on? How can you help them? Maybe over the next weeks and months, maybe provide some introductions, maybe just do a post on social media weeks or months after the show actually happened after they had the discussion. So just, delight people, surprise people. And especially if you want to build these deeper relationships with influencers through tough times, through good times, asking questions, creating masterminds, maybe promoting each other when there was a right fit. But just having that network I think is, one of the biggest benefits of being a host of your own show summit podcast.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. And one of the things that I was thinking myself was, see I think that I love the connection between podcasting and social media. I love the fact that this podcast show will, anyone who's connected with me on social media, you're going to see. What we believe is the most compelling teaser from the show to put out there, we'll, you'll also see like my link. I have a LinkedIn newsletter and we'll take, so the topic for this show will be all about being a podcast guest, cause that's what we've discussed and there will be really good information in that for my audience who may not know anything about it. So that connection with social media. I think is something that other podcasts, maybe hosts don't use enough. And the other thing that I don't think they use enough, this is just me, just, I was trying to bring my unique experience to it, is those teasers on social media, you can put like, Spend some money and really get some really good exposure for your guest. I, just to give you an example of what you can achieve it was actually on TikTok, this one of the shows. And. I was doing it very quickly on my phone because I just needed to do it in a hurry. And whichever way my phone was, I couldn't move the dial where I wanted it to go. So it would only spend three euros for me . That was the budget. I was like, if that's all it was gonna let me do and I was in a hurry. I just pressed it boost and off I went but like I think I got about 13 000 views for the three dollars and I was like there's the value you know so sometimes if you're evaluating the reach of a podcast and the podcast may not have hundreds of thousands of followers, but if your teaser's excellent, and if your teaser's really interesting and you put it in front of the right people sometimes people don't even actually need to consume the longer form content. They may never listen or watch the podcast or the long video. But if they get the teaser and they like the person and they connect with them, that's to me a huge benefit of podcasts that I don't think people actually think about.

Liam Austin:

No, like there's some really exciting ways to repurpose your content, across social media, but then boosting it, like doing a bit of ads, like the ones, if you're sharing some reels or shorts and you're seeing it get a little bit of traction, maybe more than the others, then maybe spend a little bit of money on that because that's your best performing. Piece of content or maybe there's a piece of content that seems to be driving a lot of leads for you. So okay boost that one spend a bit of money maybe even move it onto another platform and see if it works better over there and different platforms, you know have different algorithms and so one that works on one may not work on the other bit.

Louise McDonnell:

Exactly, one of the questions I have here do podcast guests actually get paid? Does that happen or is it all, how does this industry work then?

Liam Austin:

Yeah, so yes and no. Most podcast guests don't have to pay to be on a show. However if you want to get on, the Joe Rogan show or, those big podcasts then sometimes there are requirements to pay for those. There was a Bloomberg article a couple of years back where someone was paying 50, 000 dollars to be a guest on a podcast. So there's some big money out there if you do have a big show, if you're big, have, it's all about having a big audience, right? Having that influence. And then you're thinking of, the most recent US presidential election, like podcasting was a big part of that. And I'm sure there was some kind of deal happening there in the background, whatever that looked like. But typically for the everyday person who is just a coach, an author, a speaker, an expert or leader in any shape or form that wants to share their message on a show, typically you don't have to pay. You don't have to pay although there are, just know there are shows that require payment. If that's not for you, you can just skip that.'cause there's most, probably 80, 90% of shows don't require payment. It's only the small amount the two.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. You could offer the opportunity to people to sponsor the show and say if you want to sponsor it, that money will be spent pushing the teasers out in front of more people. So where do you see it all going then?

Liam Austin:

I think, as I said, like podcasting as a media is new. It's just at the beginning. It's been around for years. So it's like people are paying attention to this now. So now is a great time to start a podcast, to start a show, to start a YouTube channel, to create your own stage. I think that's really important. So you control the narrative you control the topic, the guests, who you want to invite onto your show and then the audience that you serve, how do you want to serve them in the best possible way? And I think, there's definitely the combination of being a host as really important to just look after your audience in the way that you want to but then also getting in front of new audiences by being a guest on other people's shows is just. A really simple and easy way to grow your list, grow your influence. Want to get more followers, more email subscribers go on other shows you talked about, like lead magnets before, make sure you've got a lead magnet that you can share so you can drive people into your audience or onto your show. And what we've seen on the platform as well this is a bit of an insight. But when show hosts are looking for guests to be on their show, they actually are looking a lot of the time or prefer to be to invite guests who have a podcast because they know they've got a similar audience and they can maybe bring some of the audience onto their podcast, onto their show, but potentially as well, they might be invited onto. So you never know what could eventuate out of these relationships. But it all starts, it all sparks from, inviting them onto your show, inviting them to do an interview with you or Yeah, being a guest on their show.

Louise McDonnell:

Fantastic. So if people want to check out your platform, how can they find it?

Liam Austin:

Yeah, just go to talks. co, T A L K S . co, and you can create a free account, create your free speaker one sheet, your free show profile, and then just go through the matches. If you want to upgrade, there's the ability to upgrade, but all of that kind of thing's free. And if you upgrade, you're able to get insights into, email list size, audience size of guests or shows on the platform. It boosts you as well. So you get seen more, you get more visibility, you get shown at top of search results, you get more opportunities to be interviewed or to find the right interviews for your show.

Louise McDonnell:

And if people want to connect with you, Liam, where can they find you?

Liam Austin:

Talks. co forward slash Liam is the best place if you want to invite me on your show. I'm also on LinkedIn. Those are probably the two platforms I spend the most time on. Entrepreneurs HQ is My coaching business where I help people coaches authors creators to create their online business and it's all about okay make sure you've got the right offer. You're targeting the right audience. You've got a unique USP and then alright, let's go out there and position you as an authority as an expert so sales become easy because sales isn't always super easy or it doesn't come naturally for a lot of people. If you can show up as a guest on other people's shows, be recommended to other people's audiences, it makes it so much easier for you to generate clients and make sales.

Louise McDonnell:

Thanks so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to checking out your platform again. So talks. Co. Thanks so much.