One of the biggest frustrations for podcasters has always been NOT knowing how many people follow, or subscribe to, their show. Finally, that's about to change...

James Cridland broke this in PodNews this morning. Next month, Apple will begin to add follower counts to your Apple Podcasts Connect Dashboard.  (Remember, podcasting switched from "subscribers" to "followers" because susbscriptions often cost money.) Previously you had to guess at your number of followers, based on how many downloads when you first released an episode.  This will be extremely helpful to podcasters who want to know how many people are actively following their show.  Since Spotify already does this, you'll now be able to add the two numbers and see how many followers you have on the world's two biggest podcast platforms.  Hopefully that means the smaller ones follow suit.  And ideally, maybe your podcast HOST can aggregate all the numbers together at some point in the future.

My other main topic today - when you should you leave the "ums" in your podcast? This is very subjective - and I explain a challenging edit I had - on a Ukrainian refugee.

6 Reasons Why You and Your Business Need to Leverage Podcasts https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/414029

According to PodNews, only 1% of podcasts included a transcription in 2021.  This needs to change - podcasts hosts will let you add transcripts, but they don't display in podcast player apps.

BetterHelp is still the #1 podcasting advertiser - went from $7.2 mill in Jan to $7.8 in Feb.  We need to take care of our mental health.

Find jag on social media @JAGinDetroit or online at JAGinDetroit.com