Commitment to Community: How Danny Peña Grew His Podcast Audience

Danny Peña got his first video game console from his Grandmother and his life was forever changed. Little did Danny know (who goes by the name of Godfree on his show) that he would someday be getting paid to fly around the world and play video games on his podcast Gamertag Radio. Did he think he would end up working for CBS and be featured next to podcasts like 60 minutes on play.it? Probably not. Today you will learn how Danny started building his audience before there was podcasting. Danny continued building his audience before there was iTunes. Through everything he does, Danny cares about one thing: the audience.

There are sooooooo many lessons to be learned today.

Interview starts at 3:38

Free Doesn't Last: Danny got his first check from mp3.com a site that was "Too big to fail" just like MySpace (and who knows some day Facebook?).

The party of the year took a year of planning: You don't get these kind of results by "winging it." Check out this video of the party and you can read how the Miami New Times called it the Best Super Bowl party in South FL.

Know more about your audience than their age and sex: Danny brought in musicians who his audience liked. The musicians brought in their audience who probably liked to play games.

Be straight with your audience: Any perks Danny and his crew have received has always been communicated to their audience.

TRUST is everything: It takes a long time to earn it. It's very powerful, and can be lost with one bad decision.

Let your audience be part of your journey: Anywhere Danny goes he invites his audience to come along.

Ten years to get on CBS Radio: Patience ins a virtue, and it took Danny 10 years to get to where he is. He took advantage of every opportunity he saw.

Time Management Tips: Set a schedule and stick to it. Danny has a full time job, a girlfriend, and his podcast.

Having the right people on your team is essential and keep everything transparent so you are all on the same page.

Danny is real. When Danny says, that's a good question, that's because its a good question. Some people on my show do it just to stroke my ego.

Danny's Community Created Events That Drew the Attention of Main Stream Media

Check out Danny's Commercial on the Discovery Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5oKqp-sZA0

Watch his acceptance speech as he is inducted into the Podcaster's Hall of Fame

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K64TXMuYNlY

Here, Danny made the news by accidentally spilling the beans on the Microsoft release.

In this article, Gamertag radio is mentioned in Forbes magazine.

Save $40 Off Podcast Movement

If you plan on attending Podcast Movement, you can save $40 off your ticket when you use the coupon code sop40.

This is THE podcast event. I will be holding a Q& A session and I am really looking forward to it.

Coming Next Week

I have a on of people ask me about Podcast Interview Wizard from Jim Edwards. Well I'm going to buy it and play with and let you know what I think. If you want to check it out, go to schoolofpodcasting.com/piw (affiliate link)

I will also be talking about the Cool Cast Player which makes really pretty players for your website