“How to Become the Center of Influence Through Comedic Podcasting” with Nick Scopoletti and Comedy DJ TheGregalicious of The Mangina Dialogues Podcast
As part of my series of interviews about “How to Become the Center of Influence Through Podcasting”, I had the pleasure of interviewing stand-up comedian Nick Scopoletti and Comedy DJ TheGregalicious host the top-ranked comedy interview podcast The Mangina Dialogues. The show’s unique variety of content covering all aspects of pop-culture including comedy, the music scene and professional sports offers hilarious, insightful, and thought-provoking content featuring an array of refreshing personalities.
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Can you tell us the “backstory” about why or how you got started as a podcaster?
This perfect partnership was born when fate connected TheGregalicious with Nick, who was his personal trainer at the gym Equinox. During their training sessions, Nick mentioned that he was also a stand-up comedian. TheGregalicious promised to come see his act, which prompted Nick to scoff, “no you won’t, everyone says that.” But TheGregalicious did indeed attend one of Nick’s open mics. To his surprise, and utter dismay, TheGregalicious found Nick to be the most talented of the night’s lineup.
Over the next several months TheGregalicious continued to see Nick at open mics and eventually proposed they started a podcast together taking TheGregalicious’ background in magazine publishing and interviewing, and Nick’s experience podcasting and marry them together. After the name The Mangina Dialogues came to TheGregalicious in the shower, we knew we were onto something special with this bold play on words. We had no choice but to start and see what shakes out.
Can you share a story about the most interesting thing that has happened to you since you started podcasting?
I think the most interesting, and unexplainable thing is how we have been able to go from a brand-new podcast only 4 months old, to being a top-ranked podcast in the very competitive comedy category. I wish I could pinpoint the secret sauce. It all boils down to having some interesting people on doing great interviews and taking a different approach to the comedy category.
Can you share a story about the biggest or funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I think the biggest mistake we made was thinking we could just turn the mics on and start talking and we would wind up putting out a good product that people would want to listen to. It is not that easy! There is a significant amount of “freestyling” with our interviews. We learned very fast you need to do prep work in advance of any interview, or episode even if it is just the two of us recording.
You have to be ready to pivot at the drop of a dime. If you are not adequately prepared, the flow will suffer and ultimately you would put out a poor product and people won’t hang in there with you. Finaly, we learned very quickly that we need to come into every episode with well thought out ideas, even if they are just a handful of bullet points to keep the show on track.
How long have you been podcasting and how many shows have you aired?
Only 4 months — we started July 4th weekend 2019 and have aired 15 episodes.
What are the main takeaways or lessons you want your listeners to walk away with?
We want our listeners to walk away feeling like they know the person we just interviewed well enough that if they bumped into them in a social setting, they would be able to have a conversation like they were their friend and they were catching up. But since we are a comedy show, of course, we want everybody to laugh throughout each episode and have a good time. We typically do about an hour show. The one thing we are told over and over is that the time flew by. That’s the biggest compliment we can get.
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Nick Scopoletti and Comedy DJ TheGregalicious!
Podcaster Influencers, Nick Scopoletti and Comedy DJ TheGregalicious of The Mangina Dialogues Podcast share the best ways to:
1) Book Great Guests — There are so many different forums to join, from Facebook Groups, to Reddit, and many others. You need to join them all and engage in real conversations. Join groups within your specific category as well, and just start talking. Guests will come. There are also groups like radioguestlists.com you can join to look for guests. The biggest way to find guests really, is to just talk to other podcasters and build relationships with them. You go on theirs, you get to have them come on yours… If you have a budget, I recommend hiring a publicist who can help connect you with media outlets to get exposure. The more exposure, the easier it becomes to get great guests.
2) Increase Listeners — promote promote promote. Much like the above, join as many groups as you can and start engaging everybody you can. Hire PR to go and look for exposure through media hits. Use all of social media as your friend. If you are proficient in Instagram, use it. Start conversations with as many people as you can. Word of mouth is one of your best assets.
3) Produce in a Professional Way — use good equipment. Invest in the best stuff you can. I highly recommend the Rode Podcaster Pro soundboard. It is the easiest way to do phone-in interviews, super easy to use, and has more simple features you need. Get good mics, and record in a good quiet location. You don’t need to break the bank on any of this. There are so many great articles out there to read up on equipment at all levels. Find the best host/publisher for your podcast. We use Podbean as it was very simple to set up. Took less than 1 hour to go from nothing, to up and running.
4) Encourage Engagement — If you do interviews, make sure the people you interview will reciprocate the promoting on their end. We send a lot of direct messages on social media and to our email contact list to make sure people know we published a new episode and ask for their feedback on it. Calls to action always get a good amount of responses. People felt involved with a feeling of ownership in your product.
5) Monetize. We do not currently monetize our podcast, but we have been in conversations with potential sponsors who have approached us for a variety of opportunities. We expect to be monetizing in the next few months. Stay tuned!
What makes your podcast binge-listenable? What do you think makes your podcast unique from the others in your category? What do you think is special about you as a host, your guests, or the content itself?
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Nick Scopoletti and Comedy DJ TheGregalicious!
