Intro: Hey, Joe Casabona here, and I'm just letting you know that How I Built It is now Streamlined Solopreneur. So if you're seeing a new artwork and a new name in your podcast player, that is expected and by design. The new name better reflects the mission and really what has been the mission of this show for the last few years, and I'm really excited about it. All the links in the show notes and [howibuilt.it] will still work, but the show also has a new home over at [streamlined.fm] if you wanna check it out. Thanks so much for listening.
Greg Wasserman: I think someone the other day was working on a book. They spent 12 days and wrote a 22,000-word book using Castmagic literally all through just their thoughts and coming up with prompts to make it sound like themselves, but extracted so that it would be written into a book format.
Joe Casabona: I have strong opinions about that. I don't wanna derail this conversation, but I do wanna ask about the, first of all, I love the prompts idea. I think that's really interesting. I have said that using AI to write your book is kinda like saying I used a car to run a marathon, but that's a conversation for a different day because I do wanna get…
Greg Wasserman: Oh, but remember, it's their words. So she's literally speaking into her mic going, like, I'm rambling, rambling, rambling, organized that into a chapter for me. No different than you taking these podcasts and go, like, how do I write a book about podcasting based on the 500 episodes that you've done? Right? So it's just organizing what you've already said, your thoughts into something cohesive.
Joe Casabona: I wanna remain consistent in my view, so I don't wanna, like, blindly and I don't wanna agree straight out with this, but I think there is, there's more to writing a book than just organizing thoughts.
I'm currently reading the book, Stories That Stick by Kindra Hall. In it, she mentions that the word story has become such a common term that people use it for everything even if it's not a story.
I feel the same way about the term repurposing. See, when you repurpose something in the real world, you take it, you make some changes to it, and you give it new life. You don't just lop a piece of it off and say you've repurposed it. But that's what many people consider repurposing in content creation. I'm going to clip 1 minute of this 60-minute conversation, and I'm gonna call it repurposed.
That's why I'm excited to have Greg Wasserman on the show today. He is the Head of Relations at Castmagic, which is an AI repurposing tool, and he helps us reframe the term repurposing and talks about how AI can help us repurpose properly. And while I don't agree with everything he says, I'm very AI hesitant. I do like to explore different ideas on this show.
So look for these top takeaways.
- Repurposing content isn't just turning current content into other content. It's doing things like taking conversations and turning them into content products and more.
- Get creative! Greg uses his coaching calls and repurposes them into courses. How can you take conversations you're having and leverage them to get something tangible for your business, tangible and valuable?
- When it comes to leveraging AI, consider your creative comfort. Some people are more comfortable writing. Some people feel better talking it out. Integrate AI into your current and best process.
And I should say here at the top of the show that AI is not a replacement for the human being. You can't just say, summarize this call and turn it into a course or a book, or a blog post. You need to put effort into it. You need to make something worth consuming. And I hope that comes through from both Greg and me in this conversation. I'm really bullish about that, and I think that's gonna be the thing that differentiates the true creators who use AI as a tool versus the people who are using AI to try to lazily get their work done.
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I hope you enjoy this conversation. I'll also say that this is the first official episode where How I Built It is now the Streamlined Solopreneur. So all of the old links will work, but the website is now [streamlined.fm]. If you are seeing new artwork and a new name, don't fret. These things are just better aligned with the new mission for the show, the one that's really been the mission of the show for the last 4 years.
Thanks so much for sticking with me all this time. But for now, let's get into the intro and then the interview.
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur. A show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy. So let's get started.
All right. I am here with Greg Wasserman, the Head of Relationships at Castmagic. Greg, how are you today?
Greg Wasserman: I'm amazing. I get to speak to you, get to talk to a great audience of solopreneurs, and I'm just happy to be here.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I am psyched too. So the listeners will have already heard this over the past couple of weeks and in the intro, but we're officially, we, the show is officially Streamlined Solopreneur now, which is very exciting. I'm excited to kinda kick that off with you. I think that what we're about to talk about is in line with the show and the show's very stated mission at this point.
So, for anybody listening, you can head over to [streamlined.fm] to see the new website and branding. You'll see everything from how like, I didn't rebrand How I Built It, but, like, the older episodes, but the new episodes starting today will be over at [streamlined.fm].
So, Greg, thanks for being the inaugural guest for Streamlined Solopreneur.
Greg Wasserman: I'm honored. And as you said, I think today's topic is a perfect one.
Joe Casabona: Yes. Awesome. So let's dive right into it. I have as the heading in our document here, what is content repurposing? I think people listening probably know on some level what that is. So I'd like to get, like, how do you view content repurposing? Let's start there.
Greg Wasserman: Yeah. I like to think of it in two different ways. It's because it isn't just, like, as you said, like, people know, but, like, most people think of content repurposing is, like, how do I take something and build it into a blog, a newsletter, a LinkedIn post.
The way I always tell everyone here is content repurposing is how do I take a conversation, how do I take a piece of content and turn that into not only just a blog and newsletter but something else. Like, good example is, I take my coaching calls and I turn that into a course. And I'm like, hold on, I'm now leveraging conversations I'm having with a client, and how do I now take that consistent conversation we're having week on week on and go, hold on, how do I just build a course out of this and help my business? How do I monetize more? And so it's thinking about all those different avenues besides just a title, show notes from a podcast standpoint, like, how do you leverage whatever you've got from a conversation, audio, video, and turn that into, in a sense, gold. Right? Magic.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I love that. Right? Because we've talked about a couple of things that you've mentioned on the show before. Right? Most recently, I talked to Georgiana Laudi about kind of having good conversations and doing customer research. That's over at [streamlined.fm/412]. But the fact that you're doing this thing where you're taking your coaching calls and repurposing it them into a course, you're killing multiple birds with one stone. Right? You're, like, doing the research to understand what people are asking you and then you're taking those things and you're turning them into content and products and things like that, which is really, a really smart approach, especially for solopreneurs who are trying to properly leverage their time.
Greg Wasserman: I mean, a 100% agree. As a solopreneur, you're, like, even if your business is not course creation, your business is ultimately, how do I think about other ways that can make money? How could I be using my time better? Well, I'm now literally having these conversations, and I'm able to use technology to help me turn those conversations into a course that I can go monetize, which probably is in line with my overall business, and you're working smarter instead of harder. and that's what we all wanna do. Right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. For sure. And I think that if people are hearing this and they're like, how can I possibly do that? I give a discount on certain coaching calls if they will let me live stream it on YouTube. That livestream turns into a podcast episode, and then I take the questions that they ask and I can turn them into a blog post as well. So, you know, similar to what you're doing, I'm testing this thing where I see if more people bite on the coaching call to, if it's like a little if there's a slight discount to it. It's a little experiment I'm running right now.
Greg Wasserman: It's interesting. So, like, the way I've been looking at it is, like, record the call, and so, like, I use our platform, Castmagic, to share the content that I would want with them. So I'm, like, great. You hired me for whatever reason. You thought I would be a good coach. Right? And part of that is I give you now the recording. I'm, like, look, you wanna go back and listen to what you said, what we talked about. Here you go. Here's the recording. But also, here is all this content that I've extracted for you, whether it's a worksheet, a blog post, a journal entry, a quiz, like, anything that we would want to go ahead and automate.
I'm able to do that using the technology of, like, Castmagic, and now I can give it to them. So, it's like, there's value for them, and then the value for me is then, alright. How do I take all that conversations and turn it into gold and leave out who that person is that I'm coaching but ultimately take the content that got. You can do that with meetings. You can do that with so many other facets.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And we'll talk about this later too, but one of the things that drew me to Castmagic above some other similar tools, it's versatility, especially the coaching prompts, I guess. Like, there's, like, different types of content, and the coaching one is really like, wow. That's impressive. So we'll talk about that more later, but I like this view of content repurposing because I think it's you're, not just like I recorded this video. Now, I'm gonna chop it up and turn it into clips. You're taking the conversations like you said.
So I think we've kinda touched on your approach a little bit here, but I'm curious. When you go into one of these calls, are you thinking ahead of time, how can I repurpose this? Like, are you, like, leading the conversation in such a way or is it just like, real? Or do the ideas kinda come up as you're having the call?
Greg Wasserman: I guess we don't know each other well enough to go, like, that is too much planning. I'm a planner, but, like, to think about that, I'm, like, no. I mean, I guess the only way you could think about the “planning section” would be is if, like, yeah, you're doing, like, a meeting and you're just like, you have an agenda. Right? You go into a podcast, you have questions, there's an agenda to it. Like, that would be the piece, but am I going into this thinking about, like, oh, what are the quotable pieces I wanna make sure I extract from this? I'm like, no. That is just too much of a control of a conversation. You really wanna just have, like, that free-flowing, like, whatever. It's a coaching, a meeting, a podcast, or a sales call. It's, like, oh, what could I do with it thereafter? I don't even wanna think about what could I do with it thereafter. I'm letting the software kind of guide me on that and pull it out. I'm, like, oh, I didn't even know those were things that we could work through. So we have our own form of thinking of strategy, but I just also rely on the AI to help me with it because I wanna work smarter, and I wanna be working harder, and spending too much time on over analyzing and planning and everything else.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And that's a really good point. Right? Because, like, you don't, you want it to be good and helpful. And if you're trying to kinda steer it in one way or another, then it could be more helpful to you than to the person you're talking to. Right? And that's…
Greg Wasserman: Right.
Joe Casabona: So that'll negatively impact that.
Greg Wasserman: I mean, look, when you're doing a podcast right now, you're gonna ask a question. Maybe you have a series of questions, like, oh, how do I stumble my guest? Or how do I get a controversial comment? Or how do I do that? Like, yeah, you're doing the planning there, so, like, great. I got my snippet there, but that's probably also your style in the first place. So yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Exactly. Right? and it depends on your style. I'm not like a nail them to the wall kind of guy. I always, long-time listeners will know that, like, I break these up into, like, a 3-act story, and act 2 has to be the conflict. And so I always ask, like, the interviewee, right, the guest knows the conflict ahead of time because they share the document and we talk through it. And that's pretty obvious, right? when we get to act 2 because it's also right after the sponsor break, so people usually know we're about to get to the conflict. But, yeah, I'm not, like, looking to nail people to the wall. I want this to be organic with a little bit of preparation, so I like that a lot.
Something else has worked for me that I really need to leverage more is I will, when I do a webinar,first of all, webinars are a good place to have content that you can plan out a little bit more if you wanna repurpose that. But I always ask, like, what question do you have? It's just super open-ended because those questions become, like, Livestream or podcast episodes or blog posts. And I feel like that's, like, kind of based on how you frame repurposing here. That's repurposing. Right? Like, my attendees are asking me questions, and I'm getting ideas on how to answer those questions. I usually answer them at the end of the live stream. So I get my kinda gut reaction to the question, and then I can finesse it a little later with the help of AI tools.
Greg Wasserman: It's funny you bring that up. So thinking about, like, who's listening right now, are you, all of you are solopreneurs? Like, maybe you're not a podcaster. Maybe you're one who's, like, I have a voice for radio, I don't wanna be on video and I'm not the kind of person. But, at the end of the day, whatever your business is, right, like, go ahead and do a Google search and go figure out what are the questions that people are asking that you as an expert, whatever your business and your field is, would want to answer to help you from an SEO standpoint. You can go ahead and then actually answer those questions. Like, record yourself answering those questions, and that's gonna give you all this content that you're able to repurpose. Don't even think about the audio, don't even think about the video component, but you can just go, like, great, this gave me all the blog posts I would need, This would give me all the article content I would need, and you're just building it out that way. So once again, how do I repurpose content? Great. I just figure out what the SEO questions are that I need to answer to get more business, to sell my business, record that. Once again, using AI tools to help you then extract it and you've got all this content that you can always repurpose.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I like that a lot. And, again, like, listeners know kinda how I feel about AI doing all of the work for you writ large. We'll talk about that later. But I do wanna get into, I think, a big question that people have about repurposing content. But first, we do need to take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Joe Casabona: And we're back. So, Greg, there are people on the Internet who will tell you, yeah, record your podcast, make clips, post them on social, grow your podcast. Will repurposing content get us more downloads, views, and customers in the traditional way if we haven't defined it? Right? Again, most people view content repurposing as I have a video or I have a podcast. I'm gonna chop it up into 60-second things and post them on the Internet. Is that how we get more downloads?
Greg Wasserman: I mean, I guess this is the controversial piece of the answer is I hate that question. I disagree with everything in that question. So I used to run to give you context, my background is I used to run three podcast listening platforms. The three questions that usually all come up from podcasters are, how do I get more distribution? How do I grow my audience? And how do we get more downloads? Or I shouldn't say, how do I monetize? And the problem with those three questions is they all think about podcasting as just a one-trick pony. I can only get downloads. And it says, all or nothing. You're like, hold on, I will never, I will never listen to all 400 episodes of yours, Joe's, but I could get your blog. I can get your website and read the content there.
I can see you on LinkedIn and get your 32nd spiel on there. I can consume a newsletter. There's so many ways I can engage with you as a brand to force me to spend 40 minutes, half an hour, whatever your podcast is, and go, my downloads aren't growing, therefore, I am not growing as a business, is the wrong way to think about it. So cutting it up is great, but you should be looking at just those cut-ups, not as the download factor, going, like, did those cut-ups drive more downloads of my show? No. Did those cut-ups get me more views? Did I get more engagement? Meaning, I got people looking. You can take a sum of all that now and go, great. I have built a community. My community either is watching my shorts, they're listening to my show, they're reading my newsletter, all those little touch points.
As I say, all the little tentacles in your octopus. Right? Like, all those components help you then build your brand. And so when you start thinking of yourself as a brand, and not thinking about, I want downloads for my podcast, you'll actually start making more money, and you'll find more success. So I would say from your answer to your question, hate the question. I disagree everything with it.
Joe Casabona: Love it. That's usually the answer I get. Or, I mean, I'm saying the quiet part out loud. Right? But, like, I assume the answer to this question is, like, absolutely not. Right? Like and I love what you said about, you know, people thinking that podcasting's a one-trick pony. Right? You have audiences in a bunch of places. We do cover this in episode 335 with Tom Schwab where he says, like, a 40-minute interview can get you, like, 20 or so pieces of content. I forget the exact numbers as I'm saying it now, but a bunch of content. Right? Video, audio, written stuff. It's a gold mine.
And this was something I was just saying to one of my coaching clients actually when I, when, you know, she was like, well, you know, how do I record so I can repurpose? And I'm like, well, let's stop right there. Right? If you are repurposing to grow your podcast, that's probably not gonna work. Right? Every social network wants you to stay on the platform. But if you are using your podcast to grow your authority, the number one reason I think people in my audience at least should have a podcast, then definitely repurpose. Right? Use that content, like you said, to build a community around the things that you're saying. I don't expect and I know, I mean, I have the data. People are not gonna listen to every episode. They're gonna listen to the ones that probably help them solve a problem they have right now. Right? And they're like, oh, man. I just heard about jobs to be done or, oh, man. How do I use AI? Right? How whatever I'm gonna title this episode, everybody knows better than me at this point.
So, I really like your approach. And you did answer this a little bit, right? But let's kinda get into the spoiler alert for those listening. We'll talk about Castmagic a lot in a little bit because I am a user. I've had other people on the show, Deirdre Tshien from CapSho where we touch on this a bit, but, you know, I've used Castmagic at this point the most. But how can we leverage repurposing to grow our business is the question. I think you answered it a little bit, but let's get into some practical advice. Right? Are you gonna ask me for this interview, right, for this video when we're done, or is that something that you generally don't do, for example?
Greg Wasserman: As a guest, of course, I am.
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Right. That was my expectation. That was the expected response. Right? So how are you going to use this, for example, to help grow your business or at least grow your audience, let's say?
Greg Wasserman: Oh, men, I'm gonna turn this into a LinkedIn post. So, being a guest of a podcast who also works in podcasting, like, I know the value of, like, hold on, a host wants your guest to go ahead and share because that is part of the authority that they're building on. What I love is, most hosts that I go on their show, they never give me the content and they're like yourself, they use my product and I tell everyone, you could automate the content for your guest using Castmagic. No one's doing it. And I'm like, you guys literally just give me a still image if I'm lucky, and here's the link, and I'm like, alright, I gotta go run that in there.
But to answer your question, for me, yeah. I'll turn this into multiple pieces of LinkedIn posts. So literally thinking about that this morning, I'm like, you know what, I've been on all these shows, and I always just do one post, but if I want it, I can go back, like, as we all know, people don't remember what I posted 4 months ago, maybe probably 3 weeks ago. So this is all evergreen content. I just have to change the format. Wait, I've got a tool that literally will create multiple pieces of content for me, so I don't even have to go and say, like, what work do I have to come up with to create a new LinkedIn post? So I can do that.
Part of what I'm doing from an authority standpoint is starting to build out my brand. So build in blogs and so forth, but I'll take these and build out a course going, like, great, what did Greg say on five podcasts I was on? And there's my course, or how do I extract it and go, like, what could I give better value to my coaching clients? Because Joe's giving me his views and his knowledge. So, like, let me strip down what Joe said. Like, oh, I like that. I agree with that, but he worded it well. So how do I use that in my incorporating, incorporate it in my own vernacular speech?
So, like, there's so many ways that I'm using this beyond just the goal that a host has from having a guest going, like, hey, how do I grow? How do I get Greg's audience to pay attention? It's like, you may or may not find that valuable, but, yeah. So many different ways.
Joe Casabona: This is brilliant and got me thinking. Right? Because when I go on a podcast, I do exactly what you've done. I have a branded website for my podcast content called [podcastworkflows.com]. And when I go on someone else's podcast, I usually just link to the podcast and say, like, what we talked about. But people are having me on the podcast to talk about the things I want to get more coaching clients or customers or whatever in. And I could definitely turn what we talked about into a blog post, which I haven't, I know, I guess I've always viewed it as well. It's their content, and so I don't wanna, like, step on their content. Your reaction's excellent there. But I guess if I'm, I guess as long as I'm not just, like, wholesale, like, copying it and publishing under my channel, right, no harm, no foul.
Greg Wasserman: I mean, at the end of the day, you're both doing your own blog post. So what I wrote as my blog post and what you wrote as your blog post, even if there's similarity into it, we both had the same conversation, like, this is we're not stealing each other, we're having a conversation. It's not likea comedian who is taking someone else's joke and going on stage and sharing that joke, it's like, no. We're having a conversation. We are aligned on what the conversation is. Like, why wouldn't both of us be able to put a blog post and use that? That's what I would plan on doing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. I'm giving you my thoughts. Right?
Greg Wasserman: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Love that. Okay. So let's get into, like, the big I said act 2 is usually the conflict, but I suspect that as we get into the actionable advice, maybe we'll have some differing opinions here. I'm very bullish on using AI. Right? I'm like, AI hesitant. I don't think using it to wholesale repurpose content yields good results. Right? I've used, you know, oh, here are clips. The clips are usually just kind of like random time stamps. It feels like I'm very particular about the way I word and write things, and so I don't think I've ever gotten something from AI that written that I feel like, oh, this is, yeah. This is ready to go. So I guess, first of all, do you agree/disagree? And how should we approach using AI to repurpose content?
Greg Wasserman: I agree that it's not gonna be a 100% accurate. But as I've seen from our community, from over 1400 people in our Slack community coming up with prompts and figuring out, like, how do I get this to match my tone and the things that we've got, like, yeah, I'm definitely able to come up with words, a structure, something that would sound like me because it is my words. And as I tell everyone, if I can get you 80% of the way there and create 50 pieces of content that are 80% and all you have to do is now edit it, then that saves me so much time and that's what I love to do. It's like, great. How could I take this conversation that you and I are having, Joe, and go write me all the pieces of content, now I just have to read it, review it, edit, maybe stitch things together, and add a little more like Greg esque to it, you know, but, like, for the most part, that's gonna be good, or you can also choose, like, what persona, right? Like, I talk, or I write like I talk, but maybe I'm like, I should be a little more professional.
So, I'll let the AI make me a little more professional so that, it's not. So let's go grab beers with Greg kind of conversation and I'll let it do that. So I get to kind of choose it, but it's fully editable, so that's where I'm fully bullish on, like, yes, AI is allowing me to still keep my words, keep who I am and write so I don't have to.
Joe Casabona: Gotcha. And I guess it's a little different from, like, just having ChatGPT invent a blog post out of thin air. Right? You know, if you train something like Castmagic, which I guess, like, maybe we should start there. Can you train Castmagic or is this more like, you're feeding it the content and it'll kinda learn off of that?
Greg Wasserman: So it's not so much training, but there's a couple ways that you can do it.
A: It's only using the recording you're giving. So if I go to, like, ChatGPT and ask, write me a blog post about podcasting or a good example, give me, write me a blog post about breaking the 4th wall, which is what I tell people as podcasters, like, that's something you should be doing. Right? I can go there, it's gonna be writing me this whole thing or what I did is I took our app, recorded my thoughts for 2 minutes and my ramblings, it then wrote me a blog post.
Now, it's literally using what I talked about as the basis and only using that as the content. And then you can use content samples, like, well, let me feed it stuff I've already written so it's got a better understanding of kind of what I write and this is what I want. So if you're like, I've got a newsletter. I've already got this written style. I paste that into there, I create the prompt, and write me a newsletter in this style. It already has my format of a style because I've already written, and now it's just using my recording. So it's not so much training, as much as giving it the guidance.
Joe Casabona: Gotcha. I think that's a really good approach, especially using your own source content. I think I'm still really, there are some things that AI says that it's like a dead giveaway. It'll be like with a plethora of tools for using AI repurposing. We're gonna go on a journey to take the closest look at whatever. And I guess that's where the editing you mentioned comes in. Right? Where it's like, alright. Well, this kind of sound, this sounds like AI.
So I guess I don't I don't have like a question at the end of this sentence. I'm just kind of thinking out loud about kind of the the blend of adding your own like making sure you get a good finished product, right, out of what AI gives you.
Greg Wasserman: Look, I use Grammarly as a plug-in. There you go. Use an affiliate link and give Grammarly some love. Right? I use Grammarly as a plug-in for my writing. Right? And if I write like I talk, it is nice to have Grammarly go like, Greg, this is not the most grammatically correct sentence. Let's instead of, like, I'm not sure, it likes to change it to unsure, and so, like, I'm, like, okay, how do I make it more clear and concise? I am a storyteller. I will continue to ramble. It's great to go, like, let's make it clear, concise, and Grammarly is going to help me.
Well, Grammarly is just ultimately an AI tool in itself. So, I'm just figuring out how do I use technology so that I can talk, write, and move on.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That makes sense. I like what you're saying here, generally speaking, and I think it really depends on the comfort level. Right? If someone's comfortable writing, then great. If they're more comfortable talking, then great. I feel like I ramble. I mean, I feel like the last few minutes of me talking on the show have been me trying to coalesce my thoughts into something good whereas sit me in front of a cursor and I will, like, I use Ulysses, big fan of Ulysses, I'll bust out a blog post with, I think, like a better version of my thoughts, but…
Greg Wasserman: And that's why I just talk into the app and I'm like, alright. I will walk around my apartment or you go walking the dog or you're walking with your kids. Right? Like, whatever the kid you're driving. You're, like, I've got thoughts. How do I sit there and type it? No. I can't do it. So, like, let me just speak those thoughts, and I'll let the AI help me organize that into whatever content back to your first piece repurposed I wanna do.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I do, I use the iOS app. Big fan of it. I'll do exactly what you said if my kids are, like, playing in the yard and inspiration strikes. I'll kind of just, like, ramble into that app so that it's at least a place for me to get those initial thoughts and maybe organize them a little bit better versus, like, dictate.
I used to dictate text in a shortcut that would just dump it in Ulysses, but then later, like, will lose the thread and be like, what was I really trying to say here? Or I think Castmagic or some other AI tool does do a better job of keeping the thread or at least remembering the thread.
Greg Wasserman: Or at least going back and relistening to it going, like, what did I mean? Where is my thoughts going? Like, okay, at least it's there. But, yeah, I mean, if we go back to the basis of, like, everyone listening right now, like, how do we work smarter and not harder? How do we ensure that, as you said, if you are a speaker, great. Let's leverage that. If you're a writer, then you're probably gonna go, like, no. I'm a copywriter. It's, like, fine. Even if you're a copywriter, do you want to write 20 pieces of content? Probably not because you don't have time to sit there and write 20 pieces of content. So if I can go ahead and use your copywriting skills to edit 20 pieces of content and just let the AI start for you, then that is a better use of time, and;
B: you're gonna get more content. You're like, I wish I could do x, but you don't have the time to do x because you're so much of a perfectionist. You're so focused on it sounds too much like AI. Great. Edit the AI. That's easier to do.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It does. I mean, it's also good for other perspectives. Right? Like, what am I missing here, for example? And, I guess, this brings us to kind of the last piece is some ways AI can help us save time in repurposing and promoting, question I get all the time, but I wanna start that with Castmagic is a, it'll repurpose video and audio content. Right? It'll take that, break it down. But, I think one of the cooler things that I alluded to earlier was it's got these kind of different content types you can choose. So can you talk a little bit about that, and then we'll kinda get into the repurposing and promoting portion?
Greg Wasserman: Yeah. So, I mean, the way we like to think about Castmagic is how do we take any conversation and turn into content like magic? And we've built eight different profiles. You've got coaching, podcasting, YouTube, sales, courses, meetings, and so we already know if you have a meeting, you're probably going to need certain content created for you extracted from that meeting, or in this case, as a podcast, you already know. You're gonna need titles. You're gonna need a speaker bio. You're gonna need time stamps. So we already go ahead and go, great. Let the AI build all those content blocks and pieces for you based on the different profiles and that's where I'm able to go ahead and say, like, how do I take a coaching call, turn it into a course, and then load that recorded course into the course section and create me a worksheet and quiz. So I am able to work smarter, not harder. I'll keep saying it. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That is, I think, my favorite feature. Right? Because that coupled with, I think, another really good feature that Castmagic has, I think, makes it the most versatile, and that is these kind of community prompts. Right? So you have a set of prompts. What I really, I don't remember seeing this in competing products. You can reword or modify the prompt. Right? And so, like, if I get something that I don't like that much, I can modify the prompt that's already there or I can download these community prompts. So it's I think is which, I think is what makes Castmagic maybe the most flexible of the tools out there.
Greg Wasserman: The way I like to look at it is back to the we know that you need these certain prompts, or most likely you're gonna want these prompts. Great. If you don't like the prompt or you don't like the output as I tell everyone, I'm like, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a result. So if you're, like, I keep trying the same prompt over and over, I'm, like, write me 10 titles, write me 10 titles, and it's not giving you what you want, then, like, then come up with your own prompt and say, like, write me 10 titles in this format. Great. You have the ability to go into Castmagic and extract now that style that you want, or as you said, the community prompts. We've got a community that is literally building all these other prompts that they're testing, and then you're playing, you're like, I didn't even know to ask that. I didn't even know how to word that. So how do I leverage the community as a whole to help you guide you on what you're trying to accomplish?
Greg Wasserman: I think someone the other day was working on a book. They spent 12 days and wrote a 22,000-word book using Castmagic literally all through just their thoughts and coming up with prompts to make it sound like themselves, but extracted so that it would be written into a book format.
Joe Casabona: I have strong opinions about that. I don't wanna derail this conversation, but I do wanna ask about the, first of all, I love the prompts idea. I think that's really interesting. I have said that using AI to write your book is kinda like saying I used a car to run a marathon, but that's a conversation for a different day because I do wanna get…
Greg Wasserman: Oh, but remember, it's their words. So she's literally speaking into her mic going, like, I'm rambling, rambling, rambling, organized that into a chapter for me. No different than you taking these podcasts and go, like, how do I write a book about podcasting based on the 500 episodes that you've done? Right? So it's just organizing what you've already said, your thoughts into something cohesive.
Joe Casabona: I think there's, I wanna remain consistent in my view, so I don't wanna, like, blindly and I don't wanna agree straight out with this. But I think there is, there's more to writing a book than just organizing thoughts is my general feeling on it.
But that said, alright, I do wanna, we just, like, teased this, we teased this thing. This is the question I get most from podcasters, especially. How can I improve my process for promoting and repurposing?
So I think this is probably one of my favorite uses for a tool like Castmagic. I mean, we touched on a lot, but let's put like, a 1-3 actionable tips here for the way people can use Castmagic or another AI repurposing tool to repurpose and promote the content they're creating. We don't have to just lock it down to podcasts.
Greg Wasserman: I mean, look, turn into, so, yeah. We've kinda talked about it. It's like, how do I turn into the social post that I need. Right? How do I turn into a blog, a newsletter? As I always tell people, like, stop trying to force a person to just listen and start thinking about how do I use AI to expand my brand, which goes back to I think what I loved about what you said the authoritative piece that we use as podcasts. So like, you are trying to build your authority. Your authority comes from the conversation of your podcast disseminated into all these other little tentacles, blogs, social posts, newsletters. So use AI to do what you are, like, I don't have the time to write a tweet thread. I don't have time to write a LinkedIn post. This will create that format for you, five different ways to Sunday if you want, and that's a great way.
The other ways I would look at it is think about your business, like, what are other aspects? As I said, I take my coaching calls and I leverage pages to create a course for me. So is there something of value that I could use maybe from meetings to repurpose? Because I'm extracting that from sales calls, from your podcast to create something else that builds your brand. If you are trying to get speaking engagements, great, like this is a great way to do it. So I'd say using AI to repurpose your content. Go beyond just the downloads and go beyond just the business that you're working through, and think about how to expand and monetize other ways. In this case, a course.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I like that a lot. Right? Because it is more than just saying, like, watch this clip on my show and then go listen to my show. And I'll say, like, one of the biggest time savers for me, thanks to Castmagic and the custom prompts, is the top takeaways. Because at some point, right, I take notes during the show. You've probably noticed, right, because we're on video. But I wanna be more engaged and something that Castmagic has really helped me with, like very impressively helped me with is I don't have to take as many notes, right, during the show. I'll kind of just write a couple of words or the edit points. Right? Because those are, like, the things that I wanna make sure I get. Maybe a cold open, but I've even stopped doing that now because Castmagic gives me quotes. Right? Like, interesting quotes and interesting places. But in every episode description, there is the story I come up with to intro the show, and then there's the top takeaways. And I used to just pull the top takeaways from my notes, which were sometimes incomplete. Now I have a prompt that's, like, come up with, 4-7 top takeaways, and then I pick the 3, I think are the best. And because I feed it other top takeaways. Right? There's, like, the give us sample content. They sound really good. Right? Like, this bulleted list, I'm like, I can more or less wholesale copy this and put it into the show notes. And that honestly, it's a big time saver because now I'm like, what do we talk about? What are the best parts of this? And that's been a really big time saver for me.
Greg Wasserman: I mean, I love that. But, yeah, I always tell people, like, I don't use threads by Instagram. I don't use Twitter, but I keep those as actions in my content because it'll give me a quick little sentence, and I'm like, oh, I love that. I'm gonna paste that up into my LinkedIn post that it wrote for me and go, this is a better sentence or better sentence structure, and I can just edit, and I'd rather have everything I could edit as opposed to me trying to think about a structure of all these different styles.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Love that. Awesome. Well, we are at the end of our conversation, Greg. We've talked a lot about Castmagic and repurposing in general. This has been really great. If people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
Greg Wasserman: As of right now, I live on LinkedIn. So, every Monday, I post 3 podcasts that I think people should listen to. If you're always looking for recommendations or if you have a show that you want me to listen to and maybe make it included in there, you know, reach out. But I'm always posting content about podcasting, and partnerships because that's what I live in a lot. But right now, yeah, LinkedIn's the best place to find me.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. Well, I will include that and everything we talked about in the show notes over at [streamlined.fm/415]. That's [streamlined.fm/415]. Greg, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Greg Wasserman: Hey, Joe. Thank you once again for bringing me on. For everyone that listened, I really appreciate you guys spending the time and listening to what we had to talk about. Hopefully, you found some value there.
Joe Casabona: Thanks so much for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. Be sure to check everything out at [streamlined.fm]. And until next time. I'll see you out there.