Arroe Collins Pod-Crashing

Why podcasting is beginning to crack concrete and slip beneath the door. It’s your voice. Your emotions. Your interests. Your drive to push a conversation further than the typical Tweet or Facebook Live post.

There’s a lot to be said about listening to a conversation that isn’t connected to facial features. I get it. I like videos just like everybody else. If we’re comparing a podcast to Facebook Live quality plays a huge role in how it’s getting to your ears.

I love Suzanne Summers and totally dig how she cooks from her kitchen via Facebook Live but 80 percent of the time the acoustics are in sad shape and my eyes see more of the story while my ears have tuned out.

Who better to know the podcast vibe than FOX’s Proven Innocent? Nikki M. James is Violet Price. She podcasts directly from the law firm in what’s been dubbed the Fish Bowl. Taking your business to an entirely new level of connection. With a solid mission to keeping the community up to date with situations where your voice can be heard over and over again.

For businesses. Receiving a new product and sharing it with others with the same interests can lead to sales. Videos have been doing it a long time. So what makes podcasting different? You can’t watch a video driving in traffic or sitting at your desk at work.

I was with Brian Lamb from C-Span the other day. Dudes been interviewing people on the network for 30 years. He spoke highly about their podcast department. We covered two incredibly important points. With one hundred thousand podcasts available now how do people find you?

I thought for sure he was going to say it’s time to thin the herd. He went the opposite direction with we need two to four million podcasts. It’s giving the power back to the people.

But how long will “The People” keep up the power? Somewhere along the road someone decided to introduce the idea of creating seasons. Ten to twelve shows then we’ll see you down the road. How’s that podcasting? In radio if we didn’t show up for our daily shift he was shown the door.

We hate it when Netflix and Hulu do it. Why are we playing the same game as podcasters? It kills me to hear someone brag about how great their show is then follow it with “We have a new show every Thursday.” What? Let me put your show down on my Google calendar and hope to God it vibrates when your show drops.

Podcasting isn’t an overnight fad. It grew from blogging and will continue to evolve into areas of huge chance taking. But it’s going to require a lot of elbow juice to keep it on a long term highway.

Six years ago my coworkers thought I was insane that I was putting so much drive into developing a platform. Some saw it as a way of keeping a former drive time talent busy and not complaining while others stood by with hopes that it would move a little faster than it does.

More today than any time I talk with celebs that do nothing but listen to podcasts. Comedian John Caparulo totally digs them but won’t take the leap of faith and start his own. He says he’s too far behind and by the time he catches up he’ll still be too far behind.

The moral of today’s story is simple. Podcasting is happening but it’s not going to take over the world. It’s just another platform. Like bowling and riding a bicycle everybody can do it. Those that stick with it develop incredible connections with listeners as well as PR people paid to get their clients air time.

You’ll never hear me say don’t do a podcast. It’s your voice. It’s your emotions. It’s your connection and can make you more popular than the popsicle man selling ice cream on a stick on a 110 degree day in Carolina.

Stick with it. Don’t do 12 shows then run to another church. Put up with the pain it puts in your trunk and deal with having horrid nightmare analytic numbers and then something catches and you feel like Bradly Cooper singing at the Oscars.

The one thing I’ve learned about being a published author is that when the bug bites the desire to write intensifies.
Hosting a podcast is no different.
It breaks down into shows, not channels but shows with episodes. Coming from radio I program 9 shows with exclusive features that draw listeners closer to the content driven connection.
It is my daily goal to never host the same episode twice. The push is to be faithful to every listener. I know the niche. Originality feeds the niche.
Every morning Monday thru Friday I pop open the microphone at 5:30.
I’m on a mission. I have to figure out how I became infected by this podcasting disease.
More importantly I’m taking you with me.
Listen, I’m no expert on this new age of sharing conversations. But I’ve the experience to always backup what I’ll be bringing to every show.
This is Pod-crashing

Anywhere we can, we as a human race or just another a member of the animal kingdom will endlessly seek new places to create and share conversation. It’s who we are and it’s never going to change.
Hats off to the chance takers of the late 1980’s that took on the road by developing what was first dubbed Audio-Blogging. Thanks to the creation of the broadband internet and iPod the physical movement of Podcasting didn’t seek a purpose of being greater than a hobby until 2004.
By 2017 forty two million American’s ages twelve and above were doing podcast shows at least once a week.
I feel like a pig. A total sleaze, hooker of the digital airwaves.
My three most listened to shows Unplugged and Totally Uncut, View from the Writing Instrument and The Choice each get five new episodes per day.
I program them like a music director at a radio station. There has to be flow. Nothing can truly have something in common with the next episode airing every three our period from 7 am til 11 pm.
People want content! Look at the way we treat Google. Birds that belch. There has to be something out there about that.
That’s how I treat my shows and the episodes given birth.
You don’t need to be an expert at anything to have a decent sounding Podcast. Just do your homework. Show prep isn’t winging it.
I’m not saying that’s wrong. Talking about nothing gives me every reason to kick you off the speakers.
I heard a show the other day from a couple of pre-teens whose vision is to talk only about what they’ve got to deal with daily at school, home, with friends and at the local mall.
I loved the show probably because it was edited to keep each subject tight and not drawn out like two parallel lines sickened by the idea they’ll never meet so they keep going.
Every town, city, state, country and gambling casino has content. Pay attention to what people are talking about. Do a little research and pop that monkey on your digital platform.
I’m not saying it’s going to work. Keep practicing until you begin to grow your numbers.
Search for book promoters needing to get their clients free airtime. Say yes to everything. It’s practice. The person that tells me they’ve got a great Podcast is telling the rest of us how comfortable they are with the sound of the show.
It needs to evolve. To be found. Dropped then started all over.
Create shows with episodes that cover the subjects. This way the episode has a bigger reach without offending the people that like only purple pigs. I said something about BBQ so it can go on the cooking show too.
Every interview I prep for, I know what my shows can get away with. I creatively dive into the subjects then use brilliant keywords to direct new listeners to land their ears on my air strip.
I get huge guests and I always say yes to the nobodies. Just because you may not know the book, songs or YouTube feature, they’ve got a fan following. The best way to negotiate them to my side is to protect the people they love.
Sharing famous people conversations is a fun feature but it’s not my homerun hitter. That honor belongs to the episodes that are lifestyle driven. How you live and survive is a show! Just don’t let it go to your head. The real life will switch gears and you’ll be the orange thing with a fanned tail in a fishbowl.
The moral of the story? Have a game plan. If in 2017 forty two million people were podcasting weekly, what do you think the numbers are today? How do you expect to get your mother to listen if she’s addicted to Howard Stern’s talk and talk about a book that isn’t even released yet? Cuz he’s utilizing the energy of satellite radio and the XM App. He knows how to wiggle your moms chain.
Study his behavior by mastering your performance.

You’re already hired…

I’ve said it a few hundred times, “You have the power of choice in your heart. Compete with an unheard of list of unemployed radio and television people for one or two jobs or pick up pod or pad-casting.”
If that becomes the next step in Broadcasting your real job isn’t hosting the show, it’s running the operation.
You’re the talent, head of promotions, program director, general manager, sales staff and production guru.
All with no budget and no monetary pay. At least for now! But maybe one day.
If you want it. You’re hired!
By far that’s the reason why most podcasts end up on that list of things you once did. From booking guests, to hosting interviews, producing shows then social networking the presentation, a lot of time has been lost without making a living.
I laugh when Howard Stern blisters the ears of pod and pad-casters, “If you aren’t making a decent wage don’t call yourself a Broadcaster!”
In 2006 my journey into the digital world started out as a Blogger. The station Operation Manager angrily scorned his on-air staff, “You complain about not getting enough time to talk on the air. Now that I’ve given each of you a webpage, none of you want to say anything.”
I raced to that computer and sat there doing absolutely nothing. Now that I had an open field what was I going to say? I’d start. Stop. Start again. I wasn’t into sports. The world had too many music writers. I can’t stand local and national news! Crap! I’m a failure!
It was that moment in a very dark hole that a new found energy pushed itself beyond my fingerprints straight onto a big ole ugly thick computer screen. I was going to be real.
What exactly does that mean? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I had to get onto this blogging kick and make it quick.
Before Spreaker, Libsyn, SoundCloud and Podomatic, the only place I could put my physical voice that silent screen was to attach an mp3 file. Double click and you heard the radio guy trying to be something he was a long way from becoming.
Even radio talk show hosts go through a growing period. There’s something about being live that fine tunes the craft of a communicator. Recording it for later use becomes a mastered art.
Getting to that comfortable position requires a great deal of self-discipline. Knowing when too much has been said. Even worse, when what you’ve produced doesn’t scratch the surface of good content. It sounds no different than two bored pigeons sitting on a powerline.
The moral of the story is simple… If you want to play radio get into the race and hope to God you not only land the on air position but you keep it longer than six months to a year. There are too many unemployed people willing to always do your job cheaper.
With podcasting? You’re hired! Find every business hat you’ve got and put em on your head. It’s show time! Not just today! Everyday! You can’t build a solid army of followers laying down one show a week or jamming ten shows into a season and we’ll see you in six months.
Work your fingers into those digital vibrations. You’ll see in no time the real payoff has nothing to do with cashing checks.