You may already have a podcast, but have you ever considered starting a second one? I know lots of people who love podcasting so much that they've started a second show for all kinds of reasons.

Today's guest, Kirsten Hammond, is one of those podcasters. She is here to tell us about her experience with why she started two separate shows and some of the struggles that have come up along the way. Kirsten also shares some great tips for staying organized, how you can repurpose existing content, and more!

If you're thinking about starting a second show, we would love to hear about it. Tag us on Instagram @podcastingforeducators and @thesouthernteach, and let us know your plans!

⭐️ Resources Mentioned:

• Airtable
• Profit First
• Follow me on Instagram @podcastingforeducators 

🔗 Connect with Kirsten: 

• Listen to The Creative Teacher Podcast
• Listen to The Social Studies Teacher Podcast
• Check out her website
• Enroll in her branding and design courses
• Follow her on Instagram @thesouthernteach and @thesouthernteach.designs

🎤 Recommended Podcasting Resources:

• Hosting: Captivate.fm (Get a free 7-day trial!)
• Transcription: Otter.ai
• Project Management: ClickUp
• Private Podcasting: Hello Audio
• Podcast Playlist Toolkit - use code PODCAST to grab it for $17!
• Launch Your Podcast: Free Podcast Launch Guide & Podcasting for Educators Prep School
• Level Up Your Podcast: Podcast Like You Mean It
• Leverage Podcast Guesting: Free Guesting Planning Guide & Guesting for Educators Mini-Course

Show Notes: https://podcastingforeducators.com/episode159

Some links mentioned are affiliate links. This helps to support this podcast at no additional cost to you. 

Topics in this episode: tips for podcasters, educational strategies, marketing tips for TPT sellers, online educator tips

Sara Whittaker 0:00

Maybe you have a podcast. But have you ever thought of starting a second podcast? I know lots of people who love podcasting so much that they've started a second show for all kinds of different reasons. Kirsten Hammond is one of those podcasters. She has two podcasts, the creative teacher podcast and the social studies teacher podcast. And she's here to tell us about her experience with why she started to separate shows how she stays organized with all of it. What kinds of struggles have come up with managing two podcasts at the same time, and she gives some tips for any of you who who might be thinking about starting a second podcast. Kirsten is a former teacher and business owner. She creates resources and curricula for upper elementary social studies teachers, and also helps other teacher sellers create or refine their business brand. Let's go talk to Kirsten. Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whittaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. All right, good morning, Kirsten. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Kirsten Hammond 1:23

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Sara Whittaker 1:26

Yeah, me too. So we're gonna be talking about the fact that you have two podcasts that you manage. I have a couple clients who also have made the jump to two podcasts, I think you like kind of get bit with the podcasting bug. And there's lots of different reasons that that people might start to shows, and we'll talk about that. But I'd love to kind of start out by just hearing about your experience with podcasting. Like tell us a little bit about your two podcasts and who they're for. Yeah, so

Kirsten Hammond 1:57

Sara Whittaker 3:50

Awesome. I love how niche the social studies podcast is. Are there any other social studies specific podcasts out

Kirsten Hammond 3:57

there? No, I think the closest one would be I think it's like, based off of high school like secondary social studies. I think that was the only one I found a lot of the niche adjacent podcasts that I've seen are just basically upper elementary, so I'm kind of going even further and doing upper elementary focus and Social Studies at the same time. So yeah, I

Sara Whittaker 4:18

love it. I love a super niche show. That's so cool. Okay, wait, tell us a little bit more about the creative teacher podcast how you had like you kind of started out with a bunch of different content like you were you were touching on teaching topics, but also teacher seller topics. So do you still have all of those older episodes that were teaching tips? Like did you keep all of those episodes on the podcast?

Kirsten Hammond 4:43

Oh, that's a good question. So I actually did not I tell you those off, and I no longer counted it and like I'm almost at 100 episodes and it's not counted in there. Because I think it's important like starting off of course when you're first starting When launching a podcast, you're really just kind of putting things out there, especially if you're really, really new into podcasting to see what, what sticks. And I found within the first four or five months of starting the creative teacher podcast, that there were more downloads for the TPT, sellers, specific episodes than the teacher specific episodes. And then also, I came to the conclusion that I really need to do one or the other. It's not efficient to do both as much as I was like, envisioning, like, there's I know, there's plenty of TPT sellers out there that are like me, who also teach in the classroom. Because spoiler alert, I left the classroom. Yeah, at the end of that year that I launched it because I had a baby, and I just never went back to the classroom. So I, I was really just like, you know, what I need to think more about, like, if more people are listening and downloading these TPT, seller type episodes, I think I should kind of focus in more on that. And so that's kind of, I think, helped a lot more as far as content ideas. Because I was like, Oh, I can talk about like top business tools, or talking about product covers, and email marketing. And so and then that's where I was able to get in all these really fun guests related to TPT, like a lot of TPT sellers, and even my sister in law who was a teacher in the classroom like she came on. So yeah, I was like, just, I feel like, once I shifted into, like, fully like, this is a TPT seller podcast, that's kind of when the downloads on my podcast grew a lot more exponentially, and just more people sharing the episodes and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I think that's part of where my podcasts became more successful is when I kind of niched down in the type of episodes I was putting out there. Yeah,

Sara Whittaker 6:56

no, I love it, I love to hear that experience. And I love to hear that you looked at your data and like use that to help you make your decisions, I think, I mean, I always think if you can get your show really narrowed down in terms of audience, it's always going to pay off because then your people are then kind of know more of what to expect. And they're going to stick around longer. And I also think, I think your experience is good to hear. Because a lot of people got really super focused in the very beginning, when they're first starting their show on like, having their messaging be perfect, and their ideal listener be perfect. But just like you're talking about, like it's gonna shift a little bit, and you don't really know what's going to stick and what people are going to love until you get that content out there. So I think that if if anybody's listening who hasn't started yet, I wouldn't get like to obviously, you want to have a clear audience, but don't get like too hyper focused until you're in it. And you've got some episodes out, and you see what people are really enjoying. And now you've got best of both worlds, because now you've got your second podcast that is for teachers. So yeah,

Kirsten Hammond 8:02

exactly. Yeah, some of the content that I already had published from my No, it was initially on the creative teacher podcast, I've been able to repurpose that and air it on my social studies teacher podcast, because it is relevant to upper elementary teachers. And while it's not like some of the episodes are not super social studies heavy, I'm still in the beginning stages of this podcast. So I'm just trying to like still put out those feelers and all of that. But the bulk of my podcast content on my social studies, Teacher Podcast is, of course going to be social studies. But I also want to sprinkle in those fun, you know, like, relevant episodes that could be useful for any subject, but still in that upper elementary niche. So that's kind of where I'm at with that now.

Sara Whittaker 8:49

Yeah, and I'm sure that most people who are listening, if they're upper elementary there, a lot of them are probably teaching social studies, but also other subjects. So there's episodes I'd be,

Kirsten Hammond 8:57

and that's kind of the main thing is like, I know, they're very rarely are their upper elementary teachers who solely teach social studies are always, always going to be like, if there are people out there, that would be nice. I would love to just focus on social studies. So yeah, it's usually you have to teach science and social studies or ELA and social studies. So I know that, like, I want to put out those different and I know other podcasts who, you know, they do those kinds of things as well, where it's like, maybe they'll have an episode on classroom management, but they're mainly focused on literacy. So

Sara Whittaker 9:32

yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, one more quick follow up question when you kind of decided to go the route of focusing on teacher salaries for the creative teacher podcast. Did you make like a formal announcement to your podcast community like, Hey, this is where the content is going to be shifting towards or did you just kind of do it? No,

Kirsten Hammond 9:52

I just kind of did it. I was like, I tried. I didn't really know which way to go as far as like, well, I'm going to send out this mass email. Right Uh, hey, now we're doing mostly TPT. And just kind of it wasn't like a sudden shift like, you know, it was gradual. I think it the amount of teacher focused episodes got less and less until it you know, so it wasn't that I made an ad a huge hoopla about?

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so I can imagine that you kind of created two podcasts to serve two different audiences and to serve two different parts of your business. Is that right? And like, Are there any other reasons why other people might consider starting to podcasts.

That's exactly what I did. I kind of tested the waters with having two different Instagram accounts. Because initially, everything like my TPT, seller tips, and my upper elementary resources, all of that was all on one Instagram account. And I found that by creating a completely different account for my branding and design, business, it helps compartmentalize things a lot easier. It was just easier for me for my ADHD, brain or like self diagnosed ADHD brain, just to like, I'm focusing on this for this account and this for this account. And then last year, I did a separate website. So it's like, I'm just breaking things apart. So that it's not confusing, because that is one of the things is, I find that if you have too many different topics and audience like differences in who your content is, for a lot of people are going to really just be more confused than anything. It's like, oh, you know, you have all these really great tips. And then you're like, trying to also sell me a resource, like I'm not in the classroom, you know. So it's just a lot easier to focus more on what the content that I want to get out there, and just do it separately. So if, if you want to have more than one podcast, if you feel that you have completely different audiences, like, it could be like maybe TPT sellers, you have a podcast for that, versus Etsy sellers, or I don't know that, that doesn't make any sense. But you know, dinner is, is you have two different businesses or you sell things that are completely separate that probably, I mean, very rarely, it would overlap, it's best to, that could be a good reason to have two separate podcasts. The second reason would be if you want to compartmentalize the different topics that you want to talk about. So maybe, you know, maybe you're a mom, your work from home mom, and you have a lot of great toddler tips or something like that. And of course, that wouldn't really make sense if you sell like secondary resources in your TPT store to also have that on your podcast, like, Hey, want to learn how to, you know, clean up with your toddler and get them to actually listen, you know, something like that. So when it makes sense to have done that podcast, and then that would be another reason I would recommend putting two podcasts out there is just just to make it easier for your audiences. And to help you compartmentalize the different things you want to talk about. Because you can really want to like dig your little shovel into those topics, you can dig even deeper separately, and it doesn't have to overlap or anything, it just makes it a lot easier. And then another reason I have is that like, I would definitely not recommend having more than one podcast if you don't enjoy the one podcast that you've already have, like, yeah, if you're like, oh my gosh, podcast, got a record batch record or whatever you need to do. So if you enjoy making podcast content, and you're like, I love this, this is so much fun, like I want to do more, then I would recommend that you could be a good candidate for having more than one podcast. But I will say that, it's probably best to not do like it all at the same time. Like if you have not launched a podcast before, I would not recommend like going all in like starting two at the same time or three at the same time. It took me because I started 2021 It took me two years, two seasons, two full seasons of my creative teacher podcasts before I felt ready to even decide to start a second podcast. So I do recommend giving it some time first. So that's, you know, if you if you feel like you've had a good amount of time, and you feel like you can take on more things than I would recommend then to start up that second podcast. But definitely don't start up and say all at the same time. Yes,

such good advice. I've actually had people come to me and say like, I don't want to just start one podcast. I want to start two because I have two separate ideas. And I want to do it all at once. And I'm like, let's start with one because you're never really prepared for like, I mean, it's a lot of work and you want to get yourself on a schedule. And if you're already like scrambling to get episodes out. Let's get in a routine first and then add that second one in. But I think that's a really good point to about, especially with podcasts like Once you start one, sometimes people like to sprinkle in like personal things that they like, like the example that you gave about, maybe you've got a podcast for business owners, but then you also like you love talking about toddler tips and things about motherhood. It helps you kind of see maybe like a second business that you want to start or, you know, another podcast that you might want to focus on. I've had people I've had that happen with people too, because it doesn't. I mean, I think it's fun to like, sprinkle in personal stuff to your educational podcast, but sometimes it just doesn't make sense to do that all the time. So starting a second one is a a great idea. And like, you can always start it by doing bi weekly episodes. If you kind of want to jump on that second podcast, but not go in. Not go all in you said both of yours are weekly, right?

Mm, yeah, weekly.

Okay. So tell us, I would imagine that having juggling two podcasts at once does come with some challenges. So tell us what are some things that have been difficult managing two podcasts.

So one thing I quickly found is that it takes so much longer than you would expect, outlining and recording for two separate podcasts. And even though like one podcast is released every Monday, and then the other one is released every Tuesday, I'm always in badger. And it just makes more sense for me to just do everything at once I spend a whole week getting the content ready for the month. And it's already a lot to batch record for one podcast for the whole month. Like especially if those months were five weeks, and you have to have five episodes, I always have a content calendar, I have an air table base with ideas and like rough outlines. But when it is time to actually batch record my podcast episodes, I do like to actually kind of outline it out. And then the recording, it could take up to an hour or two or more. And that's just with one podcast. And so doubling that really has been a struggle, because it's just a lot. It's a lot of time. And then on top of that, before I hired a podcast editor who she edits and schedules my podcast, I was doing that myself for like, two, it was like two months went by and I was like, I know, I can't do this. Yeah, so yeah, it is, it was a lie took way longer than I would have liked. So the con, you know, having that content, ideas, that wasn't really the problem, it was just like the workflow and just like, I already underestimate the time that it takes for me to do tasks. So the fact that I was like, Okay, this is just going to take a day and it taking like two or three, and it's like, I don't really have this much time. And so I would say that would be a struggle. And then the other struggle, I would say is if you don't have like, if you're not having a lot of ideas, or you're not really sure what you're gonna, where you're gonna go with the podcasts, or what type of ideas you have for actual podcast episodes, that could be a struggle. And that's why I always recommend having some type of idea bank, in air table or wherever you like to keep your topic ideas and actually scheduling out ahead of time, what topic you're going to talk about, and when like, as detailed as possible with the date and what episode number and like applicable links and all that stuff that has like been my saving grace. And of course, it's not sometimes I'm like, I don't feel like recording an episode about this today. So I just Yes, we're gonna do that next month. I'm gonna schedule that later. So that would be like another struggle is probably coming up with content ideas for two separate things if, especially if it's hard, like if you're not really sure what you're going to be releasing for that next podcast episode. So

yes, I know, that happens to me all the time, I'll sit down and like I have all my ideas laid out on my content calendar. And it's it comes time to record. And I'm like, I don't know what I was thinking. I do not want to talk about this. But I have my brain dump list.

And I always think it's important not to force things like if, like, if you're not filling it in that day to talk about something like, don't do it. Yeah, definitely agree with you on that. Yeah.

And I find like, if I try to force it, it ends up taking me more time, because it's just the words aren't coming out. Right. And it's taking me forever to figure out my outline and all of that. Do you have any particular ways that you come up with content ideas? Or is it kind of just like, whatever kind of pops into your mind? Or do you have any kind of system for for like, generating those ideas?

So I usually it's Oh, it's always been a brain dump of ideas that I usually start with like, I actually recently recorded a podcast episode with my husband. He's going to be on my Student Teacher Podcast. Is that idea of having him on the podcast was like, I initially had that idea two years ago. So I'm in I have like ever flowing ideas coming out of my brain, I just put them in my air table base, my content calendar, I do spend usually before like, I usually have seasonal episodes for the creative teacher podcast, social studies, Teacher Podcast, I'm thinking is going to be just kind of year round. But I do take some time. Like, for example, before season three of the creative teacher podcast, I sat down and put in like, you know, different ideas for that whole season. So from August to, to May. So I have kind of a rough idea of which episodes are going to be published. And when I also will like, there was another time in earlier in the fall, I kind of did a call for guests of certain topics. And so that was another way like, and of course, you know, shuffle things around as the time comes closer. And I also the main thing is like this air table base is not just all the episodes for the two podcasts. compartmentalization is like the big thing. So there are two completely different air table bases, with the two podcasts so that I can go in, okay, this is the creative teacher podcast, air table base. And this is the social studies teacher podcast, air table base. And just laying it all out, having those ideas laid out ahead of time is one way to kind of not make it as confusing or stuff like that. Another tip I have is just if you can, or if you're able to invest in getting help editing your podcast, I think that like or I should say, because for me, it took me the longest to edit. And so that's why I was like, I need to hire someone else for that. So if you find that it's taking you way too long to like, edit the podcast or create graphics for the podcast, hire somebody out to do that for you, rather than do it yourself, like, kind of offload those tasks. Obviously, the recording part, you know, you can get that document, nothing you probably have to do. But it does, I think it is less difficult. If you have guests, I feel like it's easier in a way because I always say, like, you're having a conversation. That's your podcast episode. So that's why I like to have guests on more. So I try to do at least one every month on my creative teacher podcast. Another tip I have is if you already have a blog with a lot of content and blog posts, for however many years, maybe you've been, you've had your blog up for four or five years or whatever. You don't have to recreate the wheel with that you literally have a ton of ideas there that you can turn into podcast episodes like Don't be ashamed. Like, I know that she wrote a blog post on this. I'm not listening to this episode. Nobody has ever messaged now saying that like that. I mean, it'd be just silly, you know, people consume content in different ways. So it makes perfect sense to have blog posts that you've already written and maybe even have really good traffic, they have a lot of great traction, turning that into a podcast episode. There's your like, your blog posts, that's your outline right there. It's super easy for you. And you can even expand a little bit more with like, what I do a lot of the podcast episodes, I just kind of expand on what I was talking about in that blog post. And you know, if I think there's something in the moment, or if things have changed, maybe I I might have done that blog post two years ago, but maybe something in the education space has changed. That's always kind of great to add in, like extra insights with the podcast episode. And that actually kind of reminds me of I was reading Prophet first. I don't remember his last name, I forgot. But Prophet first, I was listening to the audiobook version of it. Basically, I had not read the actual book version. But apparently, I mean, according to him, like, it sounded like what was in the book, he was saying extra things like in the audiobook version than he was saying in his actual book. So that was kind of cool. And I feel like that could be the same thing. If you're using your blog posts and turning it into podcast episodes.

Yes, that's such a good tip. Same thing happened to me I was I'm blanking on the name. It was a business book that I'm in the middle of, and I'm listening to it on audio and it's the same thing he's doing like his, I think it's like his editor, or somebody is like interviewing him after each chapter to kind of like dig deeper into certain points from each chapter, which is obviously not included in the text version, which is really cool. So yeah, I mean, 100% Use your blog post, even like an Instagram post that you've done maybe two years ago that did really well or had really high engagement like that could be turned into a podcast episode. And things always come out differently when we're talking about it. And like you said, nobody's gonna hear your I'm sad to be like, Oh my gosh, she has a blog post on that. What does she do and make it a podcast episode about it. If anything, it's good to be talking about the same kind of topic consistently.

Another tip I do have in relation to that, let's say that you do have like you're really wanting to start a podcast for toddlers hits or something like that. But you have this other podcast with a lot of a backlog of blog posts that you could definitely turn in to podcast episodes. That could be a really great way to like as you're planning for the month, when you know that you have a backlog of blog posts. If you haven't, like hardly any content. For your toddler podcast episode, you might want to spend some months focusing more on like, Okay, I'm like doing from scratch these episodes. So I need to research, outline all that stuff and have that ready. But to make it easier for my other podcast, I can just easily pull up a few really great blog posts. And those are episodes for the month. So that's kind of what I do right now, as far as recording to make it easier. For my creative teacher. Like, for example, I recently recorded for the month of April, I did a lot there were more newer content, like more than typical like I usually have some guests podcasts, I'm not but more I have to actually do work and outline and record type of episodes. But then with my social studies teacher podcast, I tried to make it easier on myself. And just most of the ones I did were ones that I've either I already had published, like they were already episodes that were on the creative teacher podcast. So that was one week, I didn't have to record. Some of them were blog posts. So really, I think I only had one brand new baby podcast episode that I had to really do research on. So that really helps. As far as like, you know, I didn't have to do like too much work on both ends.

Yeah. Oh my God, that's absolutely brilliant. That's so smart. Especially to use your like past podcast episodes that you took down from the creative teacher. Yes, use use what you already have and pull like you can pull back a little bit on your prep and responsibilities for one and put more focus on the other one such good tips. Do you have any, any other tips that you want to share with us,

just to reiterate, if you really, really enjoy making podcast content, and you feel that you can take on like you have a lot of great content already for one podcast, and you have this really great passion for something else that you want to incorporate and get out there and share with the world. I definitely recommend, you know going and just starting a new podcast and think about how you can maybe even just start off easy at first like maybe once a month, test it out, see what happens. That could always be a really great way to like, dip your feet into more than one podcast.

Yes, yes. Great, great advice. And as you're talking, it made me think I'm thinking of a few people I know who have started a second podcast, and some of them. Their first podcast is they are the host, but then their second podcast, they've started with a co host, which I think is kind of cool. Because that also like you can kind of share the responsibility there and the planning and the production and all of that and the cost. If you're going to hire it out, you can split the cost of that. So yeah, so many good tips. This has been really cool to hear about one one quick question I have of something that you mentioned. So you do seasons with the creative teacher. So you said you go August to May?

Yes. So that's helped a lot for me is just taking a break. This is the third year I've done this. And from June, July and no Yeah, June, July, August, I take a break. And then September is when I started the new season. So that's kind of helped a lot like just kind of being cyclical with it, especially because I know, just based off of my want for not really putting out content consistently with that particular podcast. But with my social studies teacher podcast, because I know more teachers are likely going to, you know, listen, have the ability to listen more possibly, you know, just because it's summer break, and they're more likely to want to have new content out there. So I'm like I, I'm going to for now continue that podcast throughout the year. So that one's going to be around. Awesome.

That's what I was going to ask you. I'm like hope that I hope that she continues her teacher on over the summer because that can be because

yeah, for sure.

Yes. I love it. Well Kirsten thank you so much for coming on and sharing about your experience with two podcasts. Can you tell everybody where they can find your podcasts find you online, if they're not already familiar with you? Sure.

So my teacher cellar podcast is the creative teacher podcast and you can listen to that wherever you find For love listening to podcasts, and my Instagram handle related to that is the Southern teacher dot designs. And then if you are having if you happen to be a social studies teacher, who also is an upper elementary teacher, you can listen to the social studies teacher podcast and my Instagram related to that is the Southern teach. So that is pretty much that.

Perfect thank you so much, Kirsten, this has been really fun. Yes, thank

you for having me.

Thanks so much secure sim for coming on the podcast today. I know that I have definitely had ideas of starting a second podcast. If you are thinking about starting a second show, we would love to hear about it. Definitely tag us on Instagram. And let us know your future plans. I'll link everything in the show notes for you. And if you are a teacher seller, definitely check out Pearson's podcast, the creative teacher podcast. Or if you're an upper elementary teacher, check out her social studies teacher podcast. Thanks for spending time with us today and I'll see you here next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.