Swearing on your podcast

To swear, or not to swear...that is the question.

At the end of the day, it's always going to come back to your personal preference.

You make up your own rules when it comes to the content that you distribute on your podcast, but there are certain things to consider when it comes to using profanities in your show.

Who is your target audience?

What industry are you targeting?

Is there a specific niche that you need to be considering?

Do you have a sponsor relationship that may not take kindly to having their brand associated with a bunch of expletives?

If swearing is a part of who you are (ahem...Gary Vee) then it makes sense for you to keep the swears in there. It would almost be weirder not to.

Just make sure you've considered why the swear words are there, and whether they're necessary.

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod should you swear on your podcast? Look, we have clients that swear like troopers. Absolute Truth is every second word seems to be some sort of profanity flying from their mouth. Then we have the other end of the spectrum, which is, you know, clients that don't swear at all. And in my case, I mean, I'm not really a big Swearer, I say ass sometimes. But I wouldn't really consider that to be a profanity. That would be something that I would list to say that it's a exclusive content type episode.

But there are some reasons why it's a good idea to know whether you should actually swear on your podcast. First off being if your podcast does have profanities in it, expletives. Swear words, naughty words, however, you want to say it, if your podcast has those in it and you haven't ticked the explicit content, there's like a little button on most platforms I believe most hosts like, and I spoke about my favourite host in a previous episode Buzzsprout, blueberry Libsyn, whoever you're with whoever you're hosted with, there is an option to tick for every single episode, whether that episode has explicit material in it. So that can be obviously swear words, or that can also be, you know, just content that might be sensitive to naive or young years, anything like that. So there is a little tick that you have to tick when you are using lots of swears and using doesn't have to be lots you know, if you have some swear words in there, then you need to explicit like, tick that little explicit box there. Because if you don't tick it, you can be kicked off Apple podcasts for having explicit content and not making that clear. So that is number one thing to know that if you actually do use swear words, you need to make sure you tick that little box on the episodes to make sure that people know that.

Now, if you're going to swear, that's fine. Be who you are, talk as you normally would. A great example of that would be one of our clients, the queen of confidence, she swears a lot like that's who she is, though, it would be weird to listen to a podcast episode that she has done and not hear her swear, because that's how she talks. So it makes sense for her to use that language because that is who she is. And also her audience is used to hearing that kind of thing from her. If you follow her on social media, you'll be very aware of that kind of thing, how she talks and what language she uses on there. So her audience expects it, and is totally fine with it. Her podcast is massively popular.

It really depends on the type of audience that you have. Like if you have like a marketing podcast, or a business podcast, investment podcast, spiritual podcast, perhaps it might not make as much sense for you to use a bunch of swear words in a podcast like that. And also, if you don't need to use them, then don't like if you feel like, you know, you could just cut one out if you let's say you say the F word. But you don't say it all the time. You know, just remove it like, you don't need to prove that you're super cool by swearing. It means that you don't have to tick that explicit box. And then it means that you can reach a wider audience. If you're like a comedy podcast or something like that, then people just expect that there's going to be profanities in there. So that would be fine. If you use a lot of swear words in your general life and your podcast is like a personal journal or something to do with you personally, then it makes sense for you to have the swears in there because that is who you are. If it is a podcast where it's more business related or like nutrition advice or anything like that, that's more industry specific, then really just consider not using them or bleeping them out. Although bleeping kind of feels a bit weird, I would probably just edit them out if you say it by accident, because I really don't see the value in using a bunch of swear words, if you don't need to in the podcast because it means that you don't have to check the explicit, it means that you can reach a wider audience.

The other thing to note as well is really consider who else might be listening and I know that's not on you to like censor yourself for other people in the room that might be listening, but do consider that a lot of people and certainly a lot more these days are listening to podcasts on their smart devices like You know, their Google Home devices, Alexa, those sorts of things. And they could be listening to them while making dinner and that sort of stuff. And their children might be around. And if you don't want to be the person that is firing out a bunch of swear words, and their children are hearing them, then maybe just consider, Hey, maybe I don't really need to be using them. It's definitely a personal choice, though, right? It's still ultimately up to you. There's nothing wrong with swearing in your podcast, but do consider who you're targeting.

The other thing to note is just to make sure you consider if you have sponsors, just consider them. So if your sponsors, don't use a bunch of swear words, in their marketing, if they don't have a lot of profanity, and they will probably guide you on that anyway. So you'll know pretty much straight up as to whether your sponsors will accept swearing or not. And if you're the kind of person that uses swear words all the time, and you have had a sponsor approach you then that is something you could say to them as well, FYI, I do swear in my podcast, that is part of my MO, that is who I am. Does this align with you from a sponsorship perspective, that kind of thing. So it definitely needs to be a conversation that you have towards the beginning before you start a sponsor relationship, to make sure that you guys are on the same page as to what they feel aligns well, and whether you want to censor yourself just to have a particular sponsor in your show. So just be aware of that.

Overall, it's a personal choice, you can do what you want, it is your podcast, just make sure that if you do swear, you mark the explicit tick box, so that you don't get yourself kicked off Apple podcasts. Please, please don't do that to yourself. And just go for it. You'll know pretty quickly, if your audience doesn't like it, if you use a bunch of swears, they're going to tell you, it's going to be in the reviews, they're going to reach out to you and say, hey, you know, I'm really offended by X, Y, Zed. And then again, you can make the personal choice to be like, well, this is who I am, I'm not going to censor myself for you. So not that you would say this to them. But you can make the decision as to whether you want to stop the swears or not be aware of who your industry is whether you need to swear, whether it's something that you can easily edit out.

And that's my take on whether you should swear in your podcast. If you want any other tips, you can go to Bamby media.com. Go to the podcast section in there. I have a bunch of other episodes that are all about podcasting and things like that. Superduper fun. And if you want to know how to work with us, there's a whole bunch of things on that website as well that you can go through and you know, find out more about whatever it is that you're after. You can also head to our Instagram, Bambi underscore media where I share a bunch of IG TVs and other things that are little tips and all that sort of stuff as well. I hope you've had a lovely day and tune in next time for more podcast related tidbits.