Should your podcast have inside jokes?
Thank you for joining me for the Audacity 2 Podcast.
I'm Daniel J. Lewis.
Inside jokes can offer fun potential for your podcast, but also have some potential costs.
So here are some brief things for you to consider as you engage with your podcast audience.
And keep those words in mind. Engage with your audience.
In my signature fashion, when I started preparing this episode, I was making a whole list of
pros and cons and some big thinking on inside jokes. But it's really not that complicated.
An inside joke is some form of callback, a trope, or a catchphrase, or similar that only
those in the know will get and enjoy. Because of this, inside jokes can be hilarious, but
only for those who actually get the jokes. Inside jokes can be a sort of reward for your
loyal audience but can alienate your new audience. I've heard some people advise against inside
jokes exactly because your new audience won't get them, but that seems overly focused on
the new audience at the cost of engaging your existing audience and making them feel special.
I think it really comes down to this simple guidance.
Avoid inside jokes with your co-hosts and guests (because your audience won't get those)
but embrace inside jokes with your audience.
So where do inside jokes come from?
First some examples of inside jokes that I've heard from various podcasts.
There's "Lemons Lemons" from That Story Show or "Hit in the Mouth" from No Agenda, "Catakai"
from Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, Super Easy, Barely an Inconvenience from Pitch Meeting.
Now that's a series on YouTube. So it's not a podcast.
I'm pausing for everyone to go, "Did he just say that?" Yes I did. I'll do a separate
episode about that sometime later. There's also Mail Kemp from Serial. If you've been
a loyal follower of any of these shows then you're probably familiar with and know exactly
what these jokes are about. Or you can at least laugh at them every time you hear them.
So where do these jokes come from? Well, when a joke really loves a joke. No, no. Some jokes
will arise naturally as your audience essentially feeds the growth of those jokes. That's what
I've seen from inside jokes from That Story Show, No Agenda, and Serial, where the audience
really takes something and runs with it and it becomes an inside joke because the audience
made it an inside joke, while other things become inside jokes because of how often the
host or multiple hosts of the show use those inside jokes, such as the examples from Conan
O'Brien Needs a Friend and Pitch Meeting. It's the audience-fed jokes that I think
you should work to embrace the most because they will more deeply reward and engage your
audience. That's not to say that inside jokes that you come up with within the podcast
should be completely abandoned, but definitely focus on the ones that your audience is feeding.
So what about the new listeners then? There are three approaches that I've seen and
experienced with podcasts regarding inside jokes. Number one, letting your podcast audience
eventually catch on with your inside jokes, even if they might not even know their origins.
Number two, occasionally, not every time you use inside jokes, but occasionally explaining
or pointing to the origins of those jokes.
This gives you a great time to call back to previous episodes and link to those previous
episodes in your notes for your current episode.
Or you can point people to the name or number of those past episodes to look up.
And number three, making a glossary of inside jokes.
This could even be a supporter exclusive or email opt-in incentive for your podcast.
Your goal should be to both engage your existing audience and make them feel special, and to
create an environment welcoming to your new audience.
This comes from having a good balance so that your podcast is not overly filled with inside
jokes, but it does mature with loyalty.
As people stick around for the podcast, they start to appreciate it even more.
Like a good marriage or a good friendship.
Think of inside jokes just like extra seasonings for a meal.
They can add something special and especially be appreciated by your insiders and celebrated
when your new audience gets in on the inside jokes.
And I think there is something special like a sort of leveling up when your audience becomes
familiar with your tropes, catchphrases, and inside jokes.
Then they'll feel like one of the cool kids when they can throw around the inside jokes too.
And that's a precious moment for them to step up to that next level.
Maybe you even celebrate it if you want to.
And speaking of celebrating, you can even turn your inside jokes into swag. Especially
when your audience starts using your inside jokes too. Or they are feeding those inside
jokes with the content they give you. Like the lemons lemons thing from that story show,
I don't know if they really intended it to be that much of an inside joke, but then the
audience started feeding into it and it's a running joke now that comes up every now
and then for that show. And the loyal audience knows what's going on. And what they did with
that joke and several of their other inside jokes is exactly this. They turn those jokes,
and you can do this too, turn those inside jokes that your audience loves, that's the
big key there, that your audience loves, might not even be the ones that you love, turn those
into swag that you can sell or give away. Like you could put them on t-shirts, posters,
stickers, and more. And if you want to be really cutting edge about it, maybe you could
even turn those inside jokes into NFTs, but don't go crazy there. But there is some potential.
You could think about that, but just don't expect to get rich. Just expect to have a
fun time with it.
This was a very short episode, I know, because this is really a simple thing and it does
come down to this one simple concept. Avoid the inside jokes with your co-hosts and guests
Because your audience wouldn't know those and might never know those.
And they might just wonder, "What are you laughing about?
I don't get it."
But embrace the inside jokes with your audience.
The ones that, yes, they can laugh with you because they were there for it.
Or they can go back to be there for it because they can listen to those older episodes and
appreciate them.
Those are the good inside jokes.
Embrace those.
away the ones that do actually exclude your audience, no matter where they are in their
listening history with your podcast.
If you'd like to share this super brief episode and article, then go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/insidejokes.
Let's also take a brief visit to the community corner. Thanks for the streaming Satoshis
from Dwev, that's how I'm going to pronounce it until I'm told otherwise, Dave Jackson
and Brian Insminger. And thanks for the 5 star review from John Moore on Podchaser.
John said "I've listened to just about every episode of this show over the last year. Excellent
content and advice. I particularly like his SEO episodes." And thank you very much for
that kind review John. And there will be more podcast SEO content in the future and some
cool tools coming to Podgagement. And speaking of Podgagement, if you want more tools to
to help you engage your audience and grow your podcast,
try Podgagement over at podgagement.com.
You can track all your ratings and reviews.
You can get a nice landing page
to help you collect more ratings and reviews,
collect feedback from your audience,
even recorded voicemails from your audience,
which can be all kinds of fun to use in your podcast.
You can do more like discover networking opportunities
for your podcast,
collect ratings and reviews directly from your audience
so that they don't have to sign up for an account anywhere.
and there's so much more coming to Podgagement.
So check it out over at podgagement.com.
And now that I've given you some of the guts
and taught you some of the tools, that's not a joke,
that is my catchphrase,
it's been that way since the very beginning,
it is time for you to go start
and grow your own podcast, passion and profit.
I'm Daniel J. Lewis from The Audacity to Podcast.com.
Thanks for listening.
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