Is Mastodon the New Twitter?

With Elon Musk as the new sole owner of Twitter, some users are jumping ship and taking refuge on a new platform: Mastodon. Well, it's been around since 2016, but it's seeing a wave of incoming users in light of the uncertainty of Twitter's future. Before Musk's deal closed, Mastodon had fewer than 400,000 users, but early in the week of November 7, the platform surpassed a million users. Such a big jump begs the questions: what's so great about Mastodon, and is it becoming the new Twitter?

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon was created back in 2016 by German software developer Eugen Rochko. The platform brands itself as free, open-source decentralized social media. This means it's not just a single website, but a decentralized network of thousands of servers that reach across the world. It's also open-source software, so anyone can create their own server to host users. This unique feature means that no one person controls the whole network.

When you first create an account, you choose a server to join. This creates your profile address, but it doesn't stop you from also communicating with users on other servers.

The thousands of servers to choose from include groups for music lovers, technology students, animators, climate justice activists, and so much more. If you're interested in it, there's probably a server for it. The servers can be run by individuals, groups or organizations, and each one creates its own set of rules for joining and moderation policies.

Create an account and check out the servers for yourself here.

How does it compare to Twitter?

Disillusioned Twitter users are flocking to Mastodon, but how does it really hold up against Twitter? Let's look at some of the similarities and differences between the two platforms.

Similarities to Twitter

Like Twitter, Mastodon is a platform where you can share your thoughts with your followers, primarily in the form of short text posts. Mastodon's equivalent of tweets were originally referred to as toots, but many users are now just calling them posts.

Also like Twitter, you can reply, like, bookmark, and use hashtags. The equivalent of a retweet is called a boost.

Differences

Mastodon doesn't support the concept of quote tweeting, because the creator says it encourages users to talk at their audience, rather than with the original poster.

In addition, you can't directly message someone in a private inbox.

There are no verified check marks on Mastodon, although some servers have their own methods for proving legitimacy. A server for scientists, for example, may restrict its users to those who can prove they have published their own research.

Comparing Demographics

When it comes to age and gender, the distribution is uncannily symmetrical between Twitter and Mastodon. The 25-34 age range is the most prominent on both platforms, and both platforms skew male. Check out the charts below, courtesy of our awesome analyst. (Thanks, Brandon!)

As far as browsing habits go, News & Media holds the top spot on Mastodon, just above Computer Electronics and Video Games. The top industry on Twitter is Adult, followed again by Video Games and Computer Electronics.

Is Mastodon a viable replacement for Twitter?

An important note is that it isn't built nearly as well as Twitter. With such a decentralized network, it's hard to ensure that quality is consistent across servers and locations.

On the other hand, Mastodon is much more customizable by nature, and you can join communities based on your interests and personal preferences on moderation policies.

Lastly, even after hitting one million users, Mastodon's audience is still a tiny fraction of that on Twitter. This could be great for you, though, if you're looking for a social platform that allows for more constructive conversations and personal connection.

Is Mastodon good for brands?

So what now? With the uncertainty of what lies in Twitter's future under its new ownership, should brands start following users to Mastodon?

Firstly, Mastodon doesn't allow for paid advertising. With only a million users spread across thousands of servers, there's no way “ as of right now “ for brands to reach as wide of an audience as they're used to on other social platforms.

And in such niche communities on Mastodon, it would be difficult for brands to join in on conversations organically. We're not sure Mastodon is the right place for brands to insert themselves just yet. But if its exponential growth continues, there could soon be room for brands to dip their toes in the water. We'll be keeping an eye out!

Want more advice on your brand strategy and what platforms to utilize? Reach out to us below to get in touch with our social media experts!

What Social Media Analytics Tool Should I Use?

So you've created your social media strategy, posted your content, and engaged with followers. What's left? Perhaps the most important part: analytics. Without looking at the concrete numbers, you'll never fully know how well your campaigns are performing. Join us as we break down some of the most popular analytics tools and whether or not they're worth your time. Plus, get additional insights from our very own Social Media Analyst, Brandon!

Agorapulse

One of our favorite tools at Random is Agorapulse. It's a full-service program, with capabilities for publishing, social listening, response management, and reporting.

Its analytics tools are extensive, with interactive graphs on audience growth, engagements, impressions, brand awareness, hashtag interactions, and more. It also has a built-in comparison feature that tells you the percent change in metrics compared to the previous month.

For Instagram and Facebook, Agorapulse also shows the demographics of your average follower, as well as the top cities, countries, and languages of your audience.

Last (and maybe the best) is the feature that shows when your users are most actively engaging with your content. This is super helpful if you're wondering about the best times to post your content to optimize reach and engagements.

Pricing

Agorapulse has a free version that supports a maximum of 3 social profiles and a single user. This is perfect for anyone looking to track the most basic metrics for their personal brand or small business.

We think the best deal for agencies and teams is the Premium account for $200 a month, which allows up to 20 social profiles and four users. Have more than four people on your team? No worries! You can add more users and social profiles for small additional monthly charges.

Brandon's Insights

One of the biggest benefits in practice with Agorapulse, has to be its user-friendly layout to read analytics. Between audience visualizations, listed content, and even data on competitors, you can access everything seamlessly within a single interface. Although a lot of the basic social media metrics are available for your posts, you may need to utilize the platform in conjunction with native analytics to retrieve more involved variables such as engagement rates and click-through rates. Otherwise, Agorapulse is a great starting point for parsing your social media platforms.

Sprout Social

Sprout is another full-service site for scheduling posts, social listening, and tracking performance. Unlike Agorapulse, Sprout allows you to create highly customized reports and dashboards.

One of the best features is the ability to add multiple profiles to a graph to compare performance across platforms. Sprout also reports on both engagements and engagement rate. You can even connect ad accounts to track performance of paid campaigns.

Finally, a unique feature on Sprout is the ability to look at the posts and performance of competitors of your choosing.

Pricing

The cost of Sprout is quite pricier than Agorapulse, with the Professional plan for 10 social profiles costing $149 per month per user. The Standard plan is only $89 per month per user, but it only allows five profiles and doesn't include paid campaign or competitor reporting.

Brandon's Insights

In the way of reading analytics, compared to its competitor Agorapulse, Sprout Social offers a more extensive way to analyze the performance of your content. One of its stronger features includes the sorting tools under 'Post Performance' which allows you to filter content through hundreds of different metrics (easily thousands of possible combinations to sort your content). These can include more advanced metrics such as post engagement rates, CTR, and many more. As a result, many first-time users may find the platform much more difficult to navigate and newer users in social media analytics tools will require a more involved learning experience.

Later

While other analytics programs can seem a little overwhelming with the amount of data to sort through, Later is more limited but simplified. With the free plan, a profile summary of total posts and followers is pretty much the extent of what you can access.

The paid plans, however, allow you to see engagements, impressions, audience growth, and more. For Instagram profiles, there are even dedicated tabs for tracking Reel and Story performance.

A unique feature of Later is the Linkin.bio extension. You can create your link and connect it to your Instagram profile right in Later, as well as track its metrics like views and click-through rate.

Pricing

Later is a great option for individuals or agencies on a budget. The Advanced plan is $80 a month for six social profiles and six users, and you can add extra users for only $5 more a month. If you're a bigger agency handling many brands at once, they also offer higher price-point Scale plans that are still more affordable than Sprout's intermediate plans.

Gain

Gain is one of the best publishing platforms, especially for content that needs a chain of approvals. They've recently added analytics capabilities to the site as a beta feature, and we're hoping they'll continue to expand it.

For now, you can see metrics such as impressions, engagement rate, and clicks for each post across all your platforms. Similarly to Agorapulse, there is also a comparison feature that displays the percent change in metrics from the previous month.

Pricing

While Gain doesn't yet have extensive analytical tools, it has one of the best pricing systems across the sites we've covered. They only have one plan, and it allows for unlimited social profiles. For $99 a month, the first 10 users are free and additional users after that are an extra $10 a month. Are you a non-profit? Gain offers a 50% discount on its subscription for verified non-profit organizations!

Native Analytics

Finally, using social platforms' native analytics tools is always free. Meta Business Suite is known for being difficult to use at times, but it does have in-depth results for Facebook and Instagram content. Twitter has downgraded its audience analytics tools in the past few years, but you can still see metrics such as clicks, engagement rate, and impressions.

At the end of the day, any analytics tool you use is helpful for understanding what works well with your audience, what doesn't, and what you can change for the next content calendar. Social media marketing is all about analyzing results in order to adapt and evolve, after all.

What analytics tool do you use? Let us know in the comments. Need someone else to handle all the analyzing and reporting for your socials? Reach out to us below to learn how we can work together!

It's Time for More Diversity in Digital Marketing

Gen Z is the most diverse generation in American history. Consumers' expectations are changing and marketers who are slow to adjust will quickly lose market share. In a recent research study by Quantilope, Gen Zers made clear that they want brands to step up their efforts around representation. 76% of Gen Zers said they feel diversity and inclusion is an important topic for brands to address, compared to 72% of millennials, 63% of Gen Xers, and 46% of Baby Boomers who felt the same.

First, let's define it. What exactly is "diversity"?

At its most basic definition, diversity is the involvement of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. The value of diversity, however, is much deeper than that. It's about inclusion. It's about welcoming and celebrating the unique voices that have always been present and worthy of being represented.

According to HubSpot, racial and ethnic minorities make up 40% of the U.S. population, 4.5% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ, and more than 40 million Americans have a disability. Even with their significant presence and purchasing power, these groups are not represented equally in marketing.

What does successful inclusive marketing look like?

Inclusive marketing describes campaigns that embrace diversity by representing people from a variety of backgrounds. Some of these campaigns may have the goal of breaking stereotypes and making social commentary, but others just reflect the real world (HubSpot).

Many companies have implemented more inclusive ideals into their marketing in ways that successfully represent the diversity of voices in their audience as well as boost their brand.

Brands can grow financially while promoting positive and affirming representation of diverse groups of people. It's a win-win, friends.

One example of successful inclusive marketing is Microsoft's We All Win ad.

The video features kids with physical disabilities as they play video games with Microsoft's adaptive controllers. Microsoft is effective at emotionally connecting with the audience and depicting the real-world stories of these kids with disabilities, while still promoting their brand.

Another example is Google's The Picture Perfect Life ad.

https://youtu.be/k4z7D1ap9WI

The ad gives tiny glimpses into the lives of real people. Google features individuals from a variety of ages and races and challenges viewers to question your lens, because one picture does not tell a whole story.

Why should brands care?

More and more, consumers are expecting companies' online marketing to be diverse and inclusive. Customers are actually more likely to support and be loyal to brands that promote diversity.

A 2018 study from Heat Agency analyzed ads from 50 brands and scored them on their diversity efforts. The research found that the brands that scored the highest had an average of a 44% stock increase over the previous two years and were 83% more likely to see a boost in their brand reputation scores.

When brands commit to their diversity efforts, it benefits the brands and the consumers. Again, nobody loses here.

Inclusion in online marketing is even more essential than in traditional marketing as younger demographics are the primary audiences for many digital advertising campaigns. As kids and young adults are finding their places in the world, it is so impactful for them to see themselves represented in the content they view online, even in the ads they come across.

Brands have to improve on inclusion in their digital marketing in order to keep up with the growingly diverse consumer market and truly connect with their audiences.

How can brands take a step in the right direction?

Showing genuine stories is essential. A great first step to take is reaching out to real customers and even employees with unique stories and backgrounds to learn what your brand means to them. This will provide insight into the diversity of people that exist within your audience and inform ways to emotionally connect with them in your marketing.

No matter what, keep your customers or clients at the center of everything you do. This is a good rule for every aspect of your business, not just marketing. Without customers, brands would not exist. Seek to understand your customers' unique stories and struggles, and search for ways your company can celebrate those stories and ease those struggles.

Diversity and inclusion in marketing require direct action and deep transformation of brands' current marketing strategies. But it is worth it to equally and accurately represent the diverse communities that exist in our society.

If you are ready to transform your digital marketing strategy and boost your brand, contact us today to learn how our team can help you.

Tips for Going Live on Instagram

It might seem a little intimidating at first, but using the Live function on Instagram is perfect for businesses wanting to engage more with their audience. It's also a great way for followers and customers to hear directly from a brand they love and see a more authentic side of the brand. According to Animoto, video is consumers' #1 favorite type of content to see from brands on social media. And there's only one thing better than video”live video! We've compiled the best tips for before, during, and after going live on Instagram.

Before Going Live

1. Double check lighting, audio, and location.

Set up for the Live in a place with plenty of natural or bright lighting, and make sure there won't be any distracting sounds coming through in the video.

2. The 3 Ps: purpose, promote, practice.

Purpose: Define your purpose for going live. Is it to show off a new product or service? Make an exciting announcement about your business? Host a Q&A session? Figure out the point of the video even before promoting it.

Promote: Once you know your purpose for going live, spread the word! Post on your Instagram story and feed or other social media feeds to let people know the details. They can't show up if they don't know it's happening.

Practice: Plan out the structure of your video. Going live on Instagram obviously isn't as formal as a webinar, but it's still wise to have an organized flow with clear beginning, middle, and end segments. And don't forget to practice what you're going to say! Even if you only have a small audience, you want to sound like you know what you're talking about (because we're sure you do).

During the Live

1. Let the audience participate in a Q&A.

During the live broadcast, invite your audience to submit questions. Click on the question mark icon at the bottom of the screen to see viewers' questions, then answer them live! This is a great way to engage with your audience and be able to give information about your company or product directly and in real time.

2. Shout out audience members.

This one is simple but important”greet your viewers by username as they join and comment. Audience members love to be acknowledged, especially by their favorite brands and influencers. Even if they don't comment with a question to be answered, let them know you appreciate them watching and thank them for joining.

3. Go live with other participants.

The Live Room feature was just introduced earlier in 2021, and it allows you to go live with up to three other people. Utilize this to invite guests such as industry experts, company partners, or other Instagram creators to join your broadcast. Having others with you in the live video can be more engaging for the viewers and helps expand your reach and audience. Click the video recorder plus-sign icon at the bottom of the screen to invite your guests into the Live Room.

After Going Live

1. Save and share your video.

Once you end your live broadcast, make sure to save it to your camera roll by clicking Download Video on the pop-up screen. From here you can also add your video to IGTV. This allows your followers to go back to your profile and watch it whenever they want. Once you have the video downloaded to your camera roll, you could edit clips from it and post to your feed.

2. Take note of what can be improved.

Did your guests in the Live Room not work well together? Was there distracting noise in the background? Maybe you got off-track while you were answering questions. Find ways to fix the issues you encountered, and plan for your next Instagram live to be even bigger and better next time!

How to Start Building an Email List for Your Business

Read Having an abundant email list for your business is a powerful form of owned media that you can leverage to create more loyal customers and increase sales. Social media is important to creating brand awareness, but having an even more direct way to communicate with both your potential and existing customers is essential. An email list allows you to have a list of potential leads to turn into loyal customers or followers of your business. The ROI for email marketing is actually the highest out of all the marketing platforms; the average ROI is $40 per $1 spent. If you haven't worked on building your email list yet, here are four ways to get started.

Require emails for access to offers or resources.

We're sure your business' website is chock-full of valuable educational resources or sales and offers”require an email sign-up for individuals to gain access to those resources! And if you don't have any yet, create them! Your website visitors and customers are looking for good deals and answers to their questions, so they're willing to take a second to input their information in order to get to them. Here's an example of what this could look like:

The key here is to understand your website visitors' needs and offer content directly targeted to those needs. You'll then be able to gain and retain individuals for your email list.

Create a call-to-action for each landing page on your website.

Your site's landing pages are perfect opportunities to create unique call-to-actions to entice individuals into signing up for your business' email list. Hubspot found that personalized calls-to-action have 42% higher view-to-submission rate than ones that are the same for all visitors across the site. Whether it's your Contact Us tab or a product page, you have as many opportunities as you have landing pages to get visitors to sign up for your email list. The calls-to-action could sound like anything from Click here for an exclusive 20%-off offer to Subscribe to our newsletter for more social media marketing tips. You can totally get creative with the CTAs here! These could be fixed messages on the webpage or they could be pop-ups to get the visitors' full attention--see the examples below! Either way, creating personalized CTAs for each landing page on your website will have you well on your way to building a robust email list.

Offer events with required email registration.

Another way of gathering email addresses for an email list is to offer events exclusive to those who sign up with their email. In the age of COVID, businesses and organizations have had to adapt by holding their events virtually, but this actually works well for building an email list. Hold an online event like a livestream or a webinar with required email registration. Your business' events should be relevant to participants' wants and needs, so they are more inclined to register and attend the event. If your business happens to be able to safely hold events live and in-person, you can even collect attendees' email addresses directly while they are there.

Here are some more tips on how to conduct a successful virtual event:

Host giveaways.

One last tip for starting to build your email list (and perhaps a fairly simple one) is to host a giveaway! Giveaways are perfect opportunities to get more traffic to your website, collect emails for entries, and get your product into new hands. If your business doesn't offer a product, you can still host a giveaway for a free or discounted service you do offer. We've learned that people are more likely to give their information if they receive something valuable in return. It's essential to understand what your potential customers see as valuable and provide that to them, then collect email addresses along the way.

Here's a great podcast episode with more email list-building strategies:

With these four beginner strategies, you're ready to start building your business' email list. Good luck!

How to Increase Your Instagram Following

There are currently over one billion active users on Instagram. Whether you're running an account for your small business or for a large company, the question is this: how do you stand out and gain followers? Of course, having a ton of followers doesn't necessarily guarantee more engagement or loyal customers, but naturally building your presence can help you get there. We've compiled the best tips on how to organically grow your Instagram following.

1. Post consistently.

If an account rarely posts, it doesn't matter how great the content is. Having a regular posting schedule allows more opportunities for people to see your content. It may not seem like it would make that much of a difference, but users will notice and follow accounts that are a great source of consistent content. According to a Tailwind study, accounts that post every day gain followers more quickly.

Keep in mind that quality of content is still hugely important, so work to create a balance of quantity and quality.

2. Use hashtags.

Being thoughtful with the hashtags you include in your posts can be a great way to gain followers. Use hashtags relevant to the content so your posts can be discovered through the search tab. Users can follow hashtags, so your posts might show up on their feeds even if they don't follow you yet. You can include up to 30 hashtags in a post on Instagram, and we recommend putting these at the bottom so they don't clutter the rest of your caption.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr. William Li (@drwilliamli)

There's plenty of hashtag-generating tools out there, like Inflact, that can generate hashtags based on keywords, photos and URLs.

3. Engage with your audience.

Engagement is one of the most important aspects of growing your Instagram following, and it goes both ways. Get the audience to engage with your content and then engage with your audience. There's lots of ways to connect with your potential followers: responding to comments, answering questions in DMs, using the interactive Stories features. When users see that an account is responsive and welcoming, they'll be more likely to follow. Building up your community is essential to gaining more followers, but just remember to be authentic.

4. Experiment with different content.

Instagram has come a long way since it's launch in 2010. It has become a lot more than just posting photographs; the platform is now a hub of IGTV videos, Reels and Stories. If you take a look at the Explore page, Reels and IGTV videos are displayed larger than photos. Instagram likes to push the newest features, so take advantage of this by experimenting with these features. Creating different types of content can help you reach a wider audience, and having more than just still photos for users to explore on your profile will keep potential followers engaged and interested in the content you're posting.

5. Use paid ads.

Lastly, think about utilizing paid ads on Instagram. You can pay for ads to appear on users' feeds, as well as in Stories and on the Explore page. When creating the ads, you can target people based on location, demographics and interests. This is a great way to get your posts in front of people that don't already follow you but are likely to once they see your content. Paying for this space on users' feeds can help to increase your following and engagement.

Learn more about using ads on Instagram: https://business.instagram.com/advertising.

It's worth it to put in the work to grow your Instagram presence organically rather than being inauthentic or using the follow for follow method. At the end of the day, it's best to have the most engaged and loyal followers as you possibly can.

Why Your Business Needs Pinterest in 2021

Marketing strategies and advertising campaigns often forget about Pinterest, but it has the potential to be a more powerful tool for leveraging brand awareness and sales than the more popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Here's why you need Pinterest in 2021.

Pinterest is a visual-first platform.

Like Instagram, Pinterest is built for sharing photos and videos. But Pinterest is perhaps the most visual of all the social media platforms. The posts, called pins, are displayed on the home and search tabs to show the photo or video as the primary content. Pins can be given titles, descriptions and links to websites, but even those are not fully visible until the individual pin is selected.

Pinterest users are on the platform for this very reason; they are searching for visual inspiration, whether it be for a home DIY project or new recipes to try. This creates a perfect opportunity for businesses to promote their own products or services. There's much less pressure on writing captions and copy and instead letting the products speak for themselves.

Another aspect of Pinterest's visual-first platform is their visual search tool. This allows users to see other pins similar to the selected one not based on keywords or hashtags but its visual components.

Users can search for and save pins they like on their boards and even purchase products from the pins right on the platform.

Pinterest is shoppable.

Similar to Instagram's shopping capabilities, Pinterest now allows users to purchase products straight from the pins. The Pinterest storefront is a great place to increase product sales. While users are searching for visual inspiration for their wardrobe, arts and crafts projects, or any other imaginable needs, they can also shop.

The shopping is made easy, with the price and brand of the product displayed with the pin. Users can click the "Visit" button to access the browser where they can make the purchase.

The shopping capability of Pinterest is a prime way to make sales for businesses that offer consumer products, but businesses that offer services can also be successful on the platform. Tips, how-to's and recipes, for example, are valuable resources for users that can be created on your company's Pinterest page.

Pinterest ads go further.

Pinterest allows you to create ads and track analytics on your company's page, and their study found that ads on Pinterest created 2x higher return on ad spend compared to other social media platforms.

Organic posts can be easily discovered through the search tab and the visual search tool, but paid posts could increase brand awareness and sales even more. Another appealing aspect of promoting your pins is that they blend in to the other pins. This might sound counterintuitive to the purpose of paid ads, but if the promoted pins stood out from the rest of the page too much, users might intentionally ignore them.

Whether businesses decide to utilize organic or paid content on Pinterest, it's time they realize the unique social platform is not a waste of time or money. Pinterest is a powerful tool for growing your business and exposing your brand to new audiences.

5 Things Every Podcast Needs

In 2021, there are now 80 million Americans listening to podcasts weekly. There has never been a more optimal time to launch or revamp a podcast than right now, and it has never been easier to do so. Whether you're launching or revamping, there are five things every podcast needs. Of course, there are the essentials: high-quality equipment, energetic hosts, and something (interesting) to talk about, but aside from those elements, here are five more podcast basics.

1. A niche

So you have a topic to base a podcast on, but do you have a unique one? If you want to talk about financial advice, awesome! But there are hundreds of other podcasts out there with that same topic and some that already have large followings. A podcast needs a niche, then”not something so specific that it'll alienate the listeners, but specialized enough to bring in an audience that will come back for every new episode. Brands and businesses have unique selling propositions that make them stand out from the competition. A podcast's niche should be like that: an original idea or concept that sets it apart from other podcasts with similar big picture topics. It's crucial to find that perfect niche.

2. A consistent schedule

Once the niche audience has been discovered, the podcast needs to run on a regular schedule. If you release episodes twice a week sometimes and once every three months other times, there isn't consistent content that the listeners can count on. You have to focus on building up the audience and then retaining that audience. This is not to say all podcasts need to have daily or weekly episodes, but there should be a dependable schedule. People will fit listening to their favorite podcasts into their schedule, so the creators have to ensure there is a steady stream of content available for the listeners.

3. Storytelling

While audio on its own definitely has limitations in its narrative abilities compared to visual and audio content combined, podcasts present a great opportunity to get creative. Whatever industry or topic you're discussing, there has to be an element of storytelling. Podcasts are meant to be entertaining, after all. Storytelling doesn't necessarily mean crafting a work of fiction for the listeners. It is as simple as the word suggests: telling a story. Telling stories that relate to the topic of the podcast is essential to engaging the audience and making them feel like they are part of the experience, like they're just having a conversation with a friend. Storytelling also means having a logical structure to the podcast. Listeners need to be able to follow along and understand where the episode is going.

Read more about incorporating storytelling in your podcast: https://www.podcast.co/create/podcast-storytelling-101#scroll.

4. Great guests

You can have the most entertaining host in the world, but a podcast needs occasional guests. And not just any random guests, but ones that are experts on your topic and have something meaningful to contribute to the conversation. You shouldn't completely rely on high-profile, well-known guests to keep the podcast afloat in regards to numbers of listeners or viewers”they should be additions to episodes in ways that make sense. Welcoming guests to the podcast is necessary for a change of pace for the audience. It's important for the listeners to hear from someone other than the host in order to get different perspectives on topics and also to just hear a new voice.

5. Fun segments

Many podcasts already incorporate fun segments into each episode, but it's something every podcast needs. Whether it's a five-minute Q&A session where questions from the listeners are answered or a spotlight piece where a certain relevant individual or topical news story is highlighted, you should include at least one segment that elevates your podcast. And it shouldn't just be a time-filler. Having listeners send in questions, suggest episode ideas or ask for advice with a unique hashtag, for example, drives audience engagement. The segment should have a purpose, even if it's just to entertain. At the end of the day, podcasts need to give people a way to feel like active participants in the conversation.