Nour Monday Monologue [MM]: Crafting Your Podcast Niche

This episode emphasizes essential steps for successfully starting a podcast, especially in the MENA region. We explore niche identification, the importance of storytelling, production practices, localization marketing, and monetization strategies. 

• Define your niche with a regional angle 
• Emphasize storytelling to build audience connections 
• Start production without perfection 
• Market your podcast tailored to the MENA audience 
• Understand monetization and develop your unique selling proposition 

Make sure to subscribe, like, and comment. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to the Curation, a show for the culturally curious. This is your host, noor Hassan. Each week, I'll guide you through a curated edit of the finest in art, fashion, design, culture, luxury, wellness, tech and more. This is your go-to space for discovering trailblazing ideas, untold stories and meaningful conversations with innovators and creators who are shaping our world. There's no gatekeeping here, so sit back, tune in and let's discover only the best together, together.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Hi guys, I'm Lene A and I get a request from one of my lovely followers and I would like to ask you if you wanted to start a podcast today, if you wanted to start a podcast today in the MENA region, in Middle East and North Africa. What do you do? And I was thinking a lot. I said how do I do this episode without being biased, without not knowing, without telling you that the topic is really, as a disclaimer, not easy, but I decided that I will try to explain to you as much as I can what are the five points that I feel are essential if you want to start a podcast today, and we want to be a successful podcast, something to stand out. This episode is unedited, it's uncut, and hopefully you'll benefit from it, hopefully you'll learn something and I don't want to start start a podcast. I just want to say I wish you the best of luck. It's an incredible field, but it is still a new field, so the topic is still new and we still don't know where it could go. Okay, these are the five points when I start a podcast in 2025.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Number one define your niche. Okay, these are the five points when I start a podcast in 2025. Number one define your niche with a regional angle. What does that mean? Right now? There are a lot of topics. A lot of people are watching podcasts these days and, honestly, I watch the show and I don't know what the topic of the show is. I mean comedians, for example. I feel that it's great to be funny, but, for example, do you talk about something specific? Do you have a specific topic you want to explain? Do you want to stay in a specific niche? Because every time you choose something fashion, art, style, whatever حاجة specific كل ما you'll stand out فلازم تعملوها بطريقة زكية. تختاروا topic محدش بيكلم فيه بطريقة محدش بيكلم بيها. يعني أنا, مثلا, في the curation, أنا غيرت الاسم ليه لأن هو ده اللي.

Speaker 1: 3:02

ا's what we do. We curate, we choose the things that are the best thing, from each topic, from each industry, from each field, and we present it to you. Or the best person, for example, does certain things. In Arabic, the word curate is called taqeem that you or you rate something. It's similar to rating. You give something a rating from similar to rating. You give something a rating from 1 to 10. So our selection of the curation is always 10. Out of 10. Okay, and that's my niche personally.

Speaker 1: 3:36

The second thing, the second point, is that content is king, but storytelling is queen. That's the typical idiom we always hear. But what does this mean? It means that the content is really important, but you I don't know how to say this God, share your story. Understand who you are. Speak your way, for example, bilingual تفهمونا انتو مين تتكلمو بطريقة بتاعتكو مثلا البايلنجول الفكرة انتو تكلمو عربي او انجليزي, or the two. The idea is that you make some content in Arabic and some content in English. All of this makes me understand who I'm listening to. I mean, who is the person I'm listening to? Because, as I always say, the host is 60%, 70% or more than the success of a show. Okay, and this is a very important thing, you need to show us the personality ofية.

Speaker 1: 4:35

بتاعت الهوست, بتاعتكو انتو, لان انا مش هسمع البودكاست دي عشان اسمها, مثلا نور talks. انا هسمعها عشان نور اللي بتتكلم, بس مين نور. واسألوا نفسكو are you willing to share about yourself? And this is something I really struggled with for a long time do you want to share more about yourself? Because, by nature, having a podcast means that you will have to share more about yourself, about who you are. I'm not saying that you don't have to be a level of privacy, no but you will have to give the audience a little bit more. That's my second point. My third point is production without perfection.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Here I will tell you a story about how I started podcasting. I was in 2020, before the corona. I was sitting with myself and suddenly I got the idea. I thought to myself what is this? You need a podcast, noor. I don't know why, but I felt that I urgently need to start a podcast, and that was a very strange feeling and to this day, I don't know what inspired me to do this. Subhanallah.

Speaker 1: 5:48

But I did something I've never done before, even though, even though this is my personality I got down and I got two mics and an interface and I grabbed the mic and I started recording and I taught myself how to audio edit and I taught myself how to share the podcast online and how to do everything, and I built a platform for myself, honestly, in one night, and this is what I want to tell you the first podcast, the sound, of course, wasn't right, the editing wasn't right. There were a lot of friends, they took the risk and, honestly, they're amazing and they agreed to be some of my first guests, but I started without perfection. I started before the product was finished and this is something Really, really, really. These days, we feel on social media that it's impossible. We have to start with everything perfect. All the production, styling, hair, makeup All of this will delay you. It will delay you to no end Until you finally start. So, of course, now I have my own production team. I don't need to do everything, but I'm going to start.

Speaker 1: 6:59

In the beginning, it was me, two mics and my laptop, and that was it. So the third point is production without perfection. Start with what you have. Start with what you have right now, okay.

Speaker 1: 7:14

The fourth point is marketing for the MENA region and standing out. I mean, look, I'll explain something to you right now, and this is something I wish I could understand better than this. You have to market your podcast to the audience around you. At the end of the day, algorithms are based on the location where you are sitting, where you are based. I am based in Cairo, between Cairo and Dubai, so this is my audience core. Although I have a lot of listeners, many people hear from America, uk, europe and on the contrary. Actually, because I talk on international topics, I have an English accent, so basically, people understand the podcast, they can tune in, but at the end of the day, my audience is regional and I was very confused about this topic and in the end the day, the audience is regional and I kept fighting this topic a lot and in the end I told myself okay, noor, talk to them about the topics they want to hear about. No matter how old I was and I felt westernized. You need to give yourself a reality check and know where you are and who is the audience and what they want to hear.

Speaker 1: 8:27

The last point is monetization. Everyone asks me do you make money off the podcast, etc. Etc. And I will tell you honestly yes, I do, but it took years for that to happen and it is not my main objective. But at the end of the day. This is what will happen.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Only if you build a brand that has strategy, that a brand that has a strategy, that has differentiation, that has you're not afraid that if I don't have enough followers or there are a million podcasts, then I'm done. I'm done with the Moga or whatever. You have a first mover advantage. If you started years ago and that doesn't go away, I'm alone. I do not care about competition.

Speaker 1: 9:06

I don't look left or right عندي advisor, زي بتاع الكامل ده ولا الحصان and I don't care. I know the quality اللي أنا بقدمها, بالprices that I ask for, بالaudience caliber that you will not get anywhere else. وده اللي أنا بخش. That's my USP. But what do you have? You have to think, because today the currency is not the followers. The currency is who follows you, who are your followers. You can have 10,000 followers from the strongest people in the region and you can have 1 million followers, a luxury brand, if دل your goal.

Speaker 1: 9:47

مش عايزين يوصلوا لهم. مش التارجت بتاعهم أصلا أنا. I'm a niche show and I want to stay that way. مش عايزة معص. مش عايزة تعامل بالمعص. مش عايزة أمثل إن أنا معص. فهي دي الفكرة. وكل ما تزيرو ان تعرفوا ايه الUSP, الunique selling proposition. بتاكو كل ما فعلا your show will stand out. فthese are the points, and my biggest advice is if you want to start, do it as fast as you can, because the minute you start you hit the ground running and you just have to keep going, لأن في حاجة اسمها accountability فبست of luck. لو عندكوا أي أسئلة على كلمت علي دلوقتي, please ابعطولي and, as always, make sure to subscribe like comment. Dm me أي أسئلة عندكوا and make sure to listen to next week's episode of the Curation. Thank you, guys. Talk to you soon.