Jeff Spenard | How to Host a Talk Radio Show

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Bringing Back the Frequency!

Jeff and Ryan are back in a big way for 2018! Listen in as they talk with the winner of the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio contest. Shannon D. Hughes, Author, speaker and life coach will share his experience and how he found his frequency. Jeff and Ryan will also get in the Spot Light with Tony DUrso. Tony is a Best selling author, speaker,entrepreneur, and host of one of the largest listened to shows on the new VoiceAmerica Influencers channel. Tune in live or on-demand on the VoiceAmerica Variety channel.

Shannon D. Hughes

Born and raised in the great city of Chicago, Shannon D. Hughes has become an Entrepreneur, Real Estate Investor, Author, Life Coach and Public Speaker. While growing up, Shannon took the time to participate in sports and music. In high school Shannon continued to expand his musical talents by joining the choir. In addition to playing the trumpet, he added the French Horn. On completing his high school education, he went into College to pursue his love for music and psychology where he majored in the two courses and added public speaking courses. In 1996, Shannon became a trumpet instructor, a job he took voluntarily. While volunteering he learned to play the drums, adding that to his teaching talents. He has been teaching for the past 21 years. He also taught musical reading workshops to both kids and adults that wanted to learn how to read music. In 2005 Shannon went to study acting for 3 years at Actone in Chicago where he excelled in Improv Comedy but choose to study further in Drama and Monologues. In 2007 Shannon became a sales rep for a major merchant processing company and later adding Real Estate as a whole seller in the year 2010. In 2014 SD Hughes Enterprises was born combining real estate and merchant processing and adding health and wellness. Shannon became an author and Life Coach in 2016-2017. His first book called Your Motivational Manual Vol. #1 was released in August 2017. In 2018 two books more books will be released. Volume #2 will hit the stores and his 3rd book If This Idiot Can Do It So Can You will soon follow. It will chronicle his childhood and his ups and downs to becoming a SOLOPENUER. In 2017 Shannon began motivational speaking to support groups and to motivate and uplift those in need. Also started him on the path to share his message to the world.

Tony DUrso

Tony Durso was born in Sicily, Italy and came to the U.S. at age three. At five, he operated a paper route boy in Chicago and for ten years gave every penny to his parents to help support the family, and to pay for his education. At nineteen Tony made his way into the business world and learned through the school of hard knocks. He made impressive, record-breaking sales forays into real estate, collectibles, insurance technology, and other varied industries. His accomplishments include raising $3.25 million in a six-month period for a start-up business, among many others. Tony’s latest and 4th book, Elite Entrepreneurs topped the Amazon Bestseller List at #2 on it’s first day debut.

Guest Sharon Lechter

Join Jeff and Ryan and their guest Sharon Lechter as they discuss family, finances and the future. Sharon Lechter is an international best seller and credited as the creative force behind the Rich Dad series and now with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Sharon has authored over 15 best selling books and is an expert in financial management and wealth creation. Her passion for helping families and entrepreneurs create and preserve wealth is unprecedented. As the Founder and CEO of Pay Your Family First, a non profit dedicated to financial education and mentorship, Sharon helps thousands of families achieve their dreams.

Create a Radio Blog

Create Radio BlogMy friend , a real estate guru, asked me the other day if we could create a “radio blog” for him to offer up all of the different interviews on shows, local radio interviews and his own show.

It’s funny that no one really called it a “Radio Blog” before.  Video blogs have been around for 10 years, even before YouTube became well known, and internet radio and podcasting pre-dated video.

So here’s some easy steps to take your audio files and create a radio blog.

(1)  Make sure your audio files are in MP3 or better format.  Goto http://www.online-convert.com — this place is great if you’re not a audiofile or have a wide skill set in formats.  The service is free and quick.  Not only does it convert your audio files, but video, images, documents, data, even ebooks.

(2)  Setup a self-hosted WordPress blog/website.  You can either do this on a new domain or on your current website.   If you don’t run your own server, or spend a lot of time as your web admin, check with your hosting company.  Almost all them have a one click install for WordPress, the most popular online publishing platform.

(3)  Install a “podcasting” plugin.  There are a variety to choose from at WordPress.org for free, and some paid.

(4) Load up your audio files.

(5)  Pay close attention to the data fields that are available and to your Schema as Google, Facebook and others are now cataloging audio files based upon this data.  See my article on Configuring Schema for Audio Files.  This will help your  be properly indexed by the search engines and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and boost your Search Engine Optimization while generating more listeners.

(6)  Images — if you don’t have images to go along with each individual broadcast consider making them up yourself with a free tool like www.canva.com.

(7)  Promote your new “radio blog” — put a link to it in your Email Signature, put a link on your website, promote it on social media and list it a the top podcasting directories.

There are a lot of other tips and tricks, but this will get you started leveraging your existing audio content in a new or existing “radio blog”.

How to Generate a Better Response Rate on LinkedIN with Publishing Guidelines

Using LinkedIN to promote your broadcastLinkedIN is the leading Professional Social Network with over 400 million users.  If you haven’t joined up yet with LinkedIN now would be a good time to do you if you are interested in generating new leads and relationships with social network marketing.   

Joining LinkedIn is a free, although depending upon your needs, there are a series of valuable and affordable add ons and advertising options that might be useful.  You can sign up here using your email or signup with your Facebook credentials.

Images

Rich media has proven to increase reader engagement by at least 2x.  Images are much more likely to make readers click on your post; choose a strong image that represents the message of your post and put it at the top of your post.  It’s best to avoid using images that contain a lot of text, i.e. Memes.  A slogan or your corporate watermark is fine, but you really want the reader to actually read your post and get to your clickable Call to Action versus walking away thinking they got the “whole story” simply from the image.   Here’s an article about places to find free images for your posts, social media and websites.

Headlines

Make sure headlines are clear and compelling.  Choose clarity over cleverness.

Value of authenticity

Make sure that your posts are authentic, not simply sales copy or advertisements.  This helps to creates human appeal and yields trust among readers overtime by positioning you as someone other than just a shameless self promoter.

Keys to authenticity

  • Have an opinion – whether you are writing a product review, an editorial about the economy or simply commenting about an industry trend, your opinion matters and your readers will continue to “tune in” to read your perspective, assuming that you aren’t wildly obscene or become known for factless blathering!
  • Use personal anecdotes – How to Win Friends and Influence People or Chicken Soup for the Soul – these are perfect examples of using personal anecdotes to add perspective and readability to your posts.  Personal anecdotes add a human side to sometimes seemingly boring post topics.  Customer success stories are another great example you can use, think “mini case studies”.
  • Create insights and share knowledge, tips, tricks and easily implementable strategies are a great way to build trust and continuity with your posts that keep your readers selecting your content to consume versus your competitors.
  • Set your post up with a clear intro, and explain your terms – don’t try to cover everything in one post, but also try to avoid drawn out “series” – example:  if you have 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (sorry Paul Simon) put them all in one song, not across 10 songs on the album!
  • Steer clear of jargon and acronyms – especially in the technology and marketing worlds we love to shorten things to KPI, KEI, ROI, ANSI, LAMP, SSL, etc.  Just because you know what the acronym stands for doesn’t mean your reader is always up to speed.  Make sure to spell out and explain the acronym BEFORE you use it in your postings.
  • Write in a way that starts a conversation.  Ask for comments and feedback to engage your audience, but make sure that you respond to these comments at least with a “thank you”.

 

These are just a few strategies you can deploy to improve the response rate and engagement of your LinkedIN posts.  There are many more available, but these are the basics.  Please comment and let us know of your strategies or tips on using LinkedIN.