🚩 Use Your Voice [Podcasting] - TRUST-able #31 - Apr/May 2024

The role of voice in building trust. Key podcasting benefits. Is podcasting or you? Podcasting formats. Production advice. Storytelling strategy.

Hello,
welcome to a new edition of TRUST-able.

This newsletter focus is on how to build trust.

The people I write it for are independent online entrepreneurs, creators, experts and authors.

The focus of this issue is on how to build greater trust through voice/podcasting.

The content and the specific advice I provide here is the exclusive fruit of my experience and know-how.

I do not use AI to write any of this content, nor will you find most of the principles, advice and guidelines I am sharing, by asking AI.

I hope you find it useful.

If so, please do let me know by placing a like or a comment at the end.

Robin Good

In this issue: *Use Your Voice*

1. The Role of Voice in Building Trust

2. Key Benefits of Podcasting for Building Trust

3. Is Podcasting For You? - Evaluation Checklist

4. Non-Obvious Podcast Production Advice
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5. Trust-Building Podcasting Formats (Premium subscribers)

6. Trust-Building Tone of Voice - Key Traits (Premium subscribers)

7. StoryTelling Strategy (Premium subscribers)
   

1) The Role of Voice in Building Trust

What role does voice play in building trust with others? What are the characteristics of the human voice that make it such a powerful trust-building tool?

Here the key traits that I believe make voice such an impactful element in building trust:

• Uniqueness
  Each voice is unique and humans are geared to easily recognize the specific sounds of people they like and trust.
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• Emotions
  Voice has built-in emotions. Voice can communicate feelings better than images or body language.
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• Authenticity
  The way you look, dress, move and act can hide or cover-up who you really are. Not your voice. Your voice, his tone, pitch, cadence, accent, volume, speed and rhythm say much more about who you really are than any other signal. Voice offers the listener the opportunity to feel like he’s getting to know you personally.
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• Culture
  Through voice you can sense someone else origins, culture and status, making you - as a listener - feel closer and better equipped to tune-in to what he/she has to communicate.
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• Intimacy
  Voice provides an intimate communication channel with each one of your listeners. It makes them feel as if they were sitting and having a conversation directly with a friend. Voice makes your listeners “feel” you.
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• Empathy
  Voice, unlike looks, allows you to transmit how much you “feel” for others. How empathic you are. If you see things from your audience viewpoint, your voice can help your listeners feel it. It can communicate that you care and that you can relate to their situations, thus building connection and rapport (trust).
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• Transparency
  Voice, more than written text, makes you vulnerable. It shows who you are. It’s like being a little naked. This is why many podcasters read from scripts. They’re afraid to speak with authenticity because they’re not confident they can appear as they would like to. Who reads from a script is essential hiding, putting up a facade.

2) Key Benefits of Podcasting for Building Trust

How does podcasting help you build greater trust with your audience? Which are the key trust-building benefits that make podcasting such an interesting option?
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• Consistency
  Regular podcast episodes establish a consistent communication channel with your listeners, demonstrating reliability and commitment over time, which can enhance trust and loyalty.
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• Companionship
  Podcasting facilitates bond-building because audio can be listened to while doing other things. This is not possible with writing or video. Podcasts can be consumed on-the-go, making them highly accessible to busy audiences who can listen while commuting, exercising, or doing chores, increasing the frequency of interaction and thus the trust-building opportunities.
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• Ease of Access
  Podcasts are easy to access. Can be downloaded and listened to even without a connection. Podcasts can be paused, rewinded, fast-forwarded and searched. Podcasts can be listened across devices and easily shared. Such flexibility guarantees longer and more frequent contact with audience. Trust benefits from this because trust gets built by extended contacts and exchanges over time.
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• Extended Time Exposure
  In a time where people watch 30” long clips, read short news briefs that summarize everything in half-a-page of one-liners, or where articles beyond 1000 words are considered long, having the attention of a person for 5, 10, 15 minutes or more is a rare opportunity and one worth gold in terms of relationship and trust building.
  

Research Studies

Scientific studies have highlighted the significance of the human voice in building trust. 

Research indicates that the human voice plays a crucial role in social judgments, with voice-based assessments influencing perceptions of trustworthiness, competence, and warmth. 

Anna Oleszkiewicz, Katarzyna Pisanski, Kinga Lachowicz-Tabaczek Agnieszka Sorokowska. “Voice-based assessments of trustworthiness, competence, and warmth in blind and sighted adults”. Psychon Bull Rev. 2017; 24(3): 856–862.

A. Elkins and D. Derrick. "The Sound of Trust: Voice as a Measurement of Trust During Interactions with Embodied Conversational Agents." Group Decision and Negotiation, 22 (2013): 897-913. 

Scotty D. Craig, Erin K. Chiou and Noah L. Schroeder. "The Impact of Virtual Human Voice on Learner Trust."Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 63 (2019): 2272 - 2276. 

Bryant, Gregory A., and Daniel M. T. Fessler. "The Sound of Trustworthiness: Acoustic-Based Personality Judgments." Evolution and Human Behavior (2016).
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N.B.: Studies have also shown that individuals tend to judge voices with lowered pitch as more competent and trustworthy.

3) Is Podcasting For You? - Evaluation Checklist

How can you tell whether podcasting could be a good trust-building communication strategy for you to adopt, if you have never done it?

Podcasting is neither easy nor too difficult. It all depends on who you are.

For some authors / entrepreneurs podcasting is perfect, for many others it’s just not viable.

To help you answer the opening question I have put together a very simple evaluation checklist, that can be of assistance in better understanding whether podcasting should be an a trust-building option that you should seriously consider or not.

(Score 10 points for matching each one of the following points with a YES. See what your score translates to at the end of this section.)

Are you a…?

1. Story Gatherer
   You have stories to tell that relate to your interest area. These can be success stories, failures, serendipitous discoveries, insightful exchanges. You have many of them and you continue running into new ones.
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2. Observer - Note-Taker
   From time-to-time you have the time to relax and to look at reality as if you were an external observer, seeing unique patterns, interesting stories, anecdotes and rare gems. You like the idea of taking notes when these happen, so that the emotions and facts don’t escape your memory even after days or weeks.
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3. Critical Analyst
   It is enjoyable for you to find a morale / lesson-learned in each story you share. Even when there’s not an evident one. You like to look beyond the surface of things and ask non-obvious questions to truly understand how things are.
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4. Extroverted
   You have no problem telling your stories as if you were talking to a friend. While many podcasters use scripts and force their tone to appear more professional and hip, they’re leaving on the table the best opportunity podcasting offers: to be truly authentic and to make others feel it.
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5. Driven To Share
   You have a compelling desire to share what you learn and discover. You feel this is a mission in your life. You do it not for profit but because you truly believe that sharing is the way to build a better society.
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6. Passionate
   You are truly interested in your area of specialty. You believe you serve a higher mission than simply creating profit-making business. Profit for you is a natural consequence of passionately serving a specific need and audience
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7. Skilled Communicator
   You have trained and developed strong in-presence communication skills. You’re not someone who likes a lot to talk nor someone who likes to talk a lot. You are someone who is particularly good at articulating ideas and at communicating complex concepts in simple words.
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8. Committed - Consistent
   You are in for the long-run. You know and have proved yourself that you can deliver content on a consistent basis without dropping the ball along the way. What you start you finish. What you say, you do. You don’t skip a beat. You don’t take breaks or pauses until you get where you wanted.
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9. Open To Learning
   You don’t get scared of learning a new app or having to follow a few video tutorials to learn something new. Using an audio recording program is not an issue and learning how to make little audio edits, or visual covers doesn’t scare you.
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10. Able To Follow Structure
    You are good at establishing proper content structure and at presenting stories and ideas in an orderly fashion.
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11. Able To “Cut To The Chase”
    You’re good at zeroing in and at going straight to the point without losing yourself on too long an introduction or on small little sideways.
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12. Experience in Radio, Theater or Performing Arts
    You have practiced professionally how to speak, how to convey emotions and how to engage the audience in many different ways.

Scorecard

100 points or more
You can definitely be (if you’re not already) a good podcaster.

60 to 90 points
Podcasting is a possible medium for you, but you will need to be invest and improve in those areas where you did not have a match/yes.

Under 60 points
I would not suggest you use podcasting as one of your key communication channels to build greater trust.

4) Non-Obvious Podcast Production Advice

Having studied and worked with professional audio since the early ‘70s and having been podcasting on a weekly basis since 2018 (6 years), I have some practical advice to share.

My audio experience includes DJing, setting up audio systems, FM-Radio DJing, Studio Recording, Audio Editing, Field Recording.

In my early years online (2000-2010) I have also produced and published a few hundred videos, mostly interviews, tutorials, recorded lectures and explainers that helped me tremendously share what I had been learning while getting me some visibility and attention.

Thanks to this experience I have approached podcasting without too fears or negative prejudices. I bought a USB-microphone and I started experimenting.

This that follows is a selection of the most important practical tips for podcasting, I have learned over these years.

I would recommend taking good note of them to anyone wanting to start or improve on their podcasting path.

• Use a decent/good USB microphone (avoid using your computer built-in one or your smartphone integrated one). Quality in audio, makes all of the difference.

• Buy a windshield for your microphone. This inexpensive device keeps your spoken “P”s and “S”s from distorting and when you record outside it will avoid wind sounds getting in the way.

• Record in high-quality using a dedicated podcasting app/tool (Audacity, etc.)

• Do not record in an audio compressed format like .MP3.

• Record always in full quality (.AAC, .WAV, .AIFF, .FLAC, etc.) avoiding “lossy” audio file formats (.M4A, Ogg Vorbis, .MP3, etc.)

• Record in a small room (possibly with lots of furniture and clothes/drapery so that the sound of your voice gets dampened and your voice has no echo/reverb).

• When recording, turn off all your other computers, smartphones and digital assistants (Alexa, Echo, etc.)

• When you can’t turn them off, put their volume to zero / silent-mode

• Turn off all of your notification systems

• Restart your computer / device before recording

• Do a test run - record 15 seconds of audio and check the quality before proceeding.

• Write down what you want to communicate before recording. These are reference notes for you. Not a text to be read aloud.

• Rehearse. Try, do dry runs, put yourself out there. The more you try before recording, the better the recording will be.

• Do not try to be perfect (a little stomp here and there makes you more human, more authentic) (remember we’re looking to build trust)

• Do not read off a script (except for unique needs like ads or people’s intros, etc.) (would you trust someone who tells you things by reading them off a script?)

• Avoid making noises while you’re thinking (mmmmhhh, eeeehhmmm, etc.). Those sounds after a while become unpleasant. Just think silently. There’s no rush or premium for going faster during a podcast.

• Access

  • Create a topic-based archive of your podcasts (to complement the default chronological one)

  • Distribute across all major platforms (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Youtube)

• Promotion / Distribution

  • Signal and distribute via email
    Use your newsletter to grow your podcasting audience. If you don’t have one, here’s a good reason to start it.

  • Get reviewed by others
    Review others first and invite others to review you

  • Get Recommended
    Reach out and recommend other relevant podcasts and newsletters. This will give you visibility and will prompt other authors who like your work to recommend it.

  • Get Listed
    Make sure your podcast is listed inside all the main podcast directories.

  • Interview
    Invite and interview many important, knowledgeable people in your space.

  • Curate
    Curate other voices / podcasts in your space. (see HarkAudio)

• Podcast Notes

  • Make the best of the notes associated with your podcast. 

  • Provide a comprehensive synthesis of your episode and/or its full text transcript. Use AI tools like AudioNote or Podsqueeze to facilitate this task.

  • Add links to relevant sources that you mention in the podcast

  • Give credit to your image and background music sources

  • Provide links to related episodes

In the Premium Section

5. Trust-Building Podcasting Formats (Premium subscribers)

6. Trust-Building Tone of Voice - Key Traits (Premium subscribers)

7. StoryTelling Strategy (Premium subscribers)