It’s a podcast you can create for your community—about your community.
- Make connections with others.
- Share good news for a change.
- Build up your community by supporting each other.
Learn more about what a local podcast is and what it can do for the place where you live.
The local podcast difference
In some ways, a local podcast is like a local radio or television station.
Unfortunately, many local radio stations are focused on playing the hits, which can be easily listened to on-demand with services like Spotify.
Many local TV stations are focused on the latest “news,” which tends to be fires, crime, and traffic accidents.
Sure, a local podcast can share the news and be journalistic.
However, a local podcast can be very different.
You can highlight great things happening in your community. You can interview business owners, artists, writers, and civic leaders.
You can find out what churches and non-profits are doing to improve quality of life in your community.
The first rule in podcasting gives you the freedom to create a podcast any way you want. That rule applies to local podcasting too.
The only difference is local podcasting has a few extra restrictions that make it truly something that can have an impact on the place you live.
Defining “local” podcasting
There are three aspects of a local podcast. Two are required. One is optional. However, if you can create a podcast with all three, you can be a major influence in your community.
A local podcast has a geographic niche
It is primarily focused on a specific area, which could be your state, city, region, county, parish, or neighborhood. Even podcasts created by local churches for their congregations or podcasts about local sports teams could fit this category.
Your community is your content
You have to podcast from some location, but if your location has nothing to do with your show, then that’s not a local podcast.
For example, if you living in Seattle but only talk about Microsoft products, that’s not a local show. What you talk about has to be related in some way to your community.
So, a local podcast is about the people, places, and things in your community.
This next part is optional, but consider it.
Your community is your audience
A local podcast is about your community—and it’s for your community.
This makes it distinct from a tourist podcast where the primary audience is for people who don’t live there.
A local podcast is a show that tells the stories of your community to your community.
To me, this is what makes local podcasting important. Even within your own community, most people will not hear all the stories of your community (unless something bad happens and national news crews fly in to report all about it).
But you can tell the stories that matter to your community.
You can create connections and help build up your community through podcasting.
A local podcast that’s focused on telling the stories of the community to the community is a way to pour back into the community and invest in the city.
With a local podcast, you can actually contribute to making the place you live a better place to live.
Are you ready to
Podcast Local?
Check out PodcastLocal.com for a free guide with 10 ways you can make a local podcast.
You can also listen to past episodes of the Podcast Local podcast featuring interviews with local podcasters from the US and the UK—plus tips and advice for telling the stories of your community.
