Thinking about starting a podcast?

One thing I discovered, in working through the process of planning a new podcast, is that it is good to spend some time coming up with a suitable name for the show. What I’ve found in a current exercise of this kind is that to my surprise it seems less about creative brainstorming and more about a systematic process to cover various aspects of how the name can contribute to audience building.

After all, a great name with no or few listeners is not going to be a good look, is it?

As the screenshot above from the Business category on iTunes Podcast section shows, people use a variety of approaches to naming their podcast, from naming after themselves, through addressing some need, to focusing on their product or service.

Six areas to address

I found there were six key areas or issues I needed to address and I phrased them in terms of criteria (in no particular order of priority) for choosing the name:

• appropriate to the focus and scope of the podcast
• not duplicating an existing podcast title
• easy to remember and share
• web domain available (not necessarily as primary url but at least for “insurance”)
• includes keywords likely to bring more traffic
• lends itself to good graphic – esp iTunes badge

If you are interested in knowing more about how I have addressed, and am addressing, each of these points, you might like to check out the longer post I’ve done on the topic on my Des Walsh dot Com blog, Naming a New Podcast.

And while I’m at it I should mention my current podcast, Linking Edge, a weekly show that deals with how to use LinkedIn more effectively.

Do you have a podcast you would like more people to know about? Or one you find particularly helpful, interesting, fun. Please share the address in the comments (usual caveat about appropriateness, civility etc).

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