By East Coast Studio
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The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.
We're back with another selection of podcast picks from our current portfolio of projects.
You'll hear extracts from these shows: YAWN The Podcast On The Mark Snack - Season 2: Queensland Positive People Strength In Numbers Deep Resilience Snack - Season 3: Ethnic Communities Council Of Queensland Bloodlines To Country Tech Mirror This Week In Digital Trust
Podcast produced by Martin Franklin / East Coast Studio
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Everyone will tell you that your life will change when you have a baby. But for most people, this doesn't include gaining a Facebook community with half a million members. For Camille Jaramis and Phil Chester, that's exactly what happened when their Baby Sleep Training Tips & Help group hit the sweet spot for parents all over the world.
As their group grew and evolved they found that they were providing a real time support for thousands of desperate parents around the world, with a team of professionals providing free advice. Finding a way through the mass of information in the posts and comments presents a problem for navigation and filtering. A problem, that can be solved by the friendly, linear format of a podcast.
We caught up to speak about their experience in building and running the group and their next project: Yawn, the baby sleep training podcast.
Outline
We talked about: How did the Facebook group start? Camille’s strategy for getting more people to join the group. How the growth of the Facebook group exploded and the need for additional moderators to manage the group. How professionals in the group answer the 'what', but are not giving the 'how'. The geography of the group members has changed at each stage of growth. An anonymous post that validated that we’d done the right thing first. How they are going to kickstart the podcast and leverage the audience on Facebook.
LINKS
Yawn - The Baby Sleep Training Podcast Baby Sleep Training, Tips & Help (Facebook)
Transcription
MF 1:03 I was trying to find sort of a clever way into it, but I couldn't. So so the obvious thing is you have a Facebook group with 552.9 thousand people in it. I checked today
PC 1:16 We do. Yeah.
MF 1:17 And it says it was created a year ago.
CJ 1:20 That's right.
Phil 1:21 Yeah. Have we started? We have? Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay. We're cool. Yeah, sorry.
MF 1:31 That seems pretty phenomenal. So can you? Can you tell me like, how did it start?
CJ 1:37 So the reason why we started the Facebook group was, Phil and I both had our kids during lockdown. And in Australia, you get a mother's group, which is a really fantastics concept, which means that you get connected with a bunch of other new parents, usually new moms. Now it's got a parent group, I think, but largely, it's called a mother's group. And you get connected to a bunch of new parents who are in the trenches with you and kind of going through the same experience at the same time as you and it's really helpful way to create a community, I found out that doesn't exist internationally, in a lot of countries. In the UK, you often have to pay for membership to a group like that. And I don't know about the US, but it sounded either incredibly uncommon or not existent at all. And so that was the point of creating an online community because we are so not alone in the experience of being in those trenches.
PC 2:31 Absolutely. And I think, you know, COVID kind of enhanced that for so many people as well. But that feeling of being alone and not feeling like you had that support network. So I think it was just the perfect time, the perfect storm of just what all these new parents were looking for. What would I need, what would other people need?
MF 2:51 That's amazing. So you just kind of identified that need, really and thought, I know, let's let's try and make a sort of open group on on Facebook to see if other people share the same interest
CJ 3:04 100% I just gone through a certification to become an internationally certified baby sleep consultant, not because I want to change careers, but because I wanted to understand what was what I was in store for for the next couple of years with my own child. And now I have two kids. So it was definitely worth the money to become certified. But that was the catalyst essentially that's why babies sleep and that's why it was a tips and help Facebook group was because I just done the certification and therefore was able to add that layer. And Phil comes from a background where he works in marketing, so he understands how to bring people together in a community.
PC3:38 Yeah, it's a really it's an interesting topic to have a Facebook group about an hour podcast and stuff because it's, it can get quite opinionated it can get quiet, you know, everyone has their way of doing things everyone thinks they know what's best and every baby is different. And I think that when you look at the metrics of will matter now. You know, one of the things we get flagged the most by meta is just people offhandedly saying, oh my god, I could kill my husband because he can sleep through the night. My metaphor to us and goes this is against our terms violence and Yeah, exactly. So you have this this what's become this hugely supportive group that can potentially get shut down if we don't monitor it carefully. So So
MF 4:21 Camille was it was your training in the baby's sleep just to kind of something that preceded the group would you already had that idea before you did the training?
CJ 4:31 You're right. No, it preceded the group I I did the course. I've got the expertise. Now I can add value and that's actually
MF 4:38 Alright. I'm sorry. I want to be a little bit chronological here, which is something I often criticise my podcasters for in their interview, like don't do the kind of "how did it start?" type of thing. But I just find this so fascinating that over the course of a year, you grew that that big of a group, your Facebook notifications must have been growing out of control.
CJ 5:00 Facebook is no longer for social. Just this post needs approval, this member was trying to join the group
Martin Franklin 5:08 Did you have like a strategy for how you how you're going to reach all those people?
CJ 5:12 Originally, what I wanted was to create a place which added a lot of value, which would drive people to be able to come to the group or to want to come to the group, which I think has added to the growth rate that we've experienced. And so I would start by posting things that I knew people wanted, like routines and different methods. And if this is happening, then that's happening, which got people coming to the group in the first place, which started to, I suppose growth begets growth, I don't know if it fits as part of an algorithm or if it is just the appetite of people who are looking for something.
MF 5:48 Yeah, that's one of the things I was interested in. Did you did you have a kind of watershed moment where suddenly, things really exploded?
PC 5:58 Yeah, it kind of I think the growth of the group went from sort of 100,000 members, which sort of blew everyone's minds, but the the, the change from 100,000, to where we are now with 550,000, that was almost really quick. So the first 100,000 took months, and we're, you know, it was really slow. But since then, it's kind of I mean, I think it's just word of mouth, it's now obviously Facebook, sharing it, because we have run it in a way that keeps it a really supportive community. So Facebook is really pushing it to new parents as well as part of their algorithm. So yeah, it's just that that first 100,000 was sort of the hardest slog, and then when you get to that 500,000, period, it's kind of, I mean, that happened in this matter of almost a month or two,
CJ 6:44 I'd also add to say, the first 5000, were really hard to get, like we worked hard to post and to give those gifts of information to really make it an attractive place to go. But as soon as it started to hit 5000, next minute, it was 23,000. And we had people knocking on the door, to engage with us to try and try and be the face of the Facebook group. And then from 23,000, which sticks out for me up to 100, it got easier and easier. And then it felt like it was overnight.
MF 7:12 That's really interesting, because I do a little bit of work on on YouTube, and I've got some of my podcast is here on YouTube. And we've had a little bit of a taste of that sort of effect of when you get when you get the algorithm working on your behalf and it starts to recommend you, that's when you really sort of feel the growth start to accelerate.
Phil 7:34 Yeah, and that's where I suppose the the link is, I mean, Camille's husband, Ray and I are best mates. So you know, when Camille started this, I was really just there as a sounding board, like I'm, you know, can be able to I'm doing this, we're great, you know, try this, try that. And then it really snowballed to Camille's credit with the amount of work she was doing. And that's when it sort of became apparent that we need to work with mentors, algorithms now. And we need to work with their backends to ensure that the, you know, the group is safe from you know, just being shut down for I want to kill my husband.
Camille 8:12 Just a sentiment that a lot of people can resonate with. But I also think it's the name. So it's called baby sleep training tips and help. And I don't think that you can get a more perfect name for what people are actually looking for who are searching for it. So that was a very thoughtful and deliberate decision to grab that I couldn't believe it was still available. I feel like we're in a golden age where that might be also, you know, a URL that you could grab, you know, all of these things still exist. And I feel like the time is running out. So I grabbed that one the minute that we saw it.
MF 8:42 Yeah, I was interested in that because, and sort of how it relates to podcast titles and episode titles and that very sort of comprehensive way of titling things, because there are other baby sleep advice groups. But what differentiates your group is that you have the tips and help absolutely appended to it. So it's kind of like extra value being suggested just by the title.
Phil 9:14 I think the important thing to note as well is that it's now obviously, it's gotten to a point that it is, you know, so much bigger than I think anyone expected,
Camille 9:24 I would have been happy with 5000.
Phil 9:27 But I think that, you know, we also have essentially a team of volunteer moderators that mostly our sleep consultants and stuff from around the world that have reached out and said, Can we help with this group? And so we have, I think we're at about 12 moderators now that sit there in their own time and and and they approve posts and they comment on posts and they help people through and they've been a huge part of growing the group and really making it not just a discussion board. It's now it truly is it's tips and help they it's not just a forum where you go in and you go I, this is what's happening and something that happened to me, you can actually get feedback and responses for your questions.
Camille 10:05 That was also a condition that I put for this, like consultants in the group was before, before they can offer their services, which were comfortable them doing because you have to make a living before they can offer their services, they have to answer the question first, which means that they're giving value, which drives the value of the group for both the member but it also is a good place to get business for people who do need additional one to one help. And so I think it's a win win environment for consultants to play and also members to benefit.
MF 10:35 Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I had two questions that that quickly connect with that both those points there. So I'm guessing at some point, you really found a need for additional moderators to just manage that number of people,
Camille 10:50 They reached out, they DM us to offer which is really surprising. I think we've only asked for more people to volunteer once or twice, but largely people will say Do you need more help, or they spend a lot of time in the group and they want the ability to block people who are who had been nasty, that's how we keep it a supportive place, we are pretty, pretty heavy on the ruthless logging.
Martin Franklin 11:13 I think this is like really well known as soon as you you know, you hit a certain threshold, you'll find people's opinions aren't necessarily kind of harmonious and someone needs to play that the parent role and moderate the nice, nice behaviour for the grave.
Phil 11:31 Absolutely. And every single post that goes into the group has to be approved by either Camille and myself or one of the moderators. So by doing that we keep out a lot of the spam, we keep out a lot of the, you know, the bot sites that just come on to try and promote because it's really hard to pick them up when they're joining the group. But then when they post, you can just filter through and you can see, okay, this isn't adding value to anyone, this is just offering a discount somewhere. So we've been able to keep the group really genuine, and it's genuine parents all trying to help each other. And we're starting to see now success stories coming from the group. And I think that's been the most amazing thing.
Martin Franklin 12:09 So that point you made about people offering services to the group, what how did you sort of evolve your policy around, you know, whether that's permitted or or not?
Camille 12:21 From the beginning, we've allowed sleep consultants to offer their service because they answer the questions first. So it's not that they get business for nothing, they have to work for it.
Martin Franklin 12:31 And you just sort of rolled with that and thought, okay, they're contributing to the community being helpful. Let's let
Camille 12:37 We want them to. Absolutely. The group, you know, operating. And I think that that's what's contributed to the growth has been that, as I said, it's not just a forum of parents all talking their opinions, there are actually hundreds, I mean, that we've got, as I said, we've got the 12 to 15 moderators, but there are hundreds of trained sleep consultants that are in there, offering their services and offering their thoughts and helpful people so you can get, you know, help that would normally cost people, hundreds, maybe sometimes 1000s of dollars, just to ask a simple question. And you can get that essentially through our group. The trick is they're answering the 'what' they're not giving the 'how'. So what's happening is this, they're not saying this is how you can fix it. That's where you would engage with their services, which is why they are incentivized to engage with the group, instead of giving all the information and then getting nothing for it. They're just answering the 'what'
Martin Franklin 13:29 it sounds like, you know, you've really just kind of hit a bit of a magic formula with how you you know, how you started the grip, and the naming and the and the and the need. So what what kind of time impact does it have on on you guys?
Unknown Speaker 13:45 Like it does, it does take a lot of time. I think, again, the moderator, the moderators do a lot of the work, which is fantastic. But now that it has gotten to that point where it is one of the largest groups on Facebook, the back end of it, and you know, the admin support that we have to offer. It does take a lot of time, as I said, there's close to 1000 posts a day, I think going up and each one of those needs to be improved. On top of that, we've got the podcast, we've got constant advertisers and stuff that want to work with us. But again, it's all about that original founding that Camille started. It's supposed to be a community, it's supposed to be somewhere where you can feel safely, you know, uncharged and go and get advice. So the last thing you want to do is jump on that. And the first thing you see is 50,000 advertisers throwing, you know, throwing their products at us. So it does take a lot of work to filter them out.
Martin Franklin 14:40 You've got the advertisers happening, as well because of that organic growth that has just explained. So just skipping back to that time impact question. I mean, how much time does it take?
Camille 14:53 I spend less time in there than because we work because we have the moderators and they're incentivized to be A moderator, not just because they volunteered, but we also allow them to post a feat featured post each every week, they mostly don't, which is fine. So our Featured Posts aren't spammed. But they're, they're able to do that. And so they're incentivized to do a lot of the work and because we have them around the globe, but it's not like you wake up in the morning, and you've got 1000 posts to approve, they're just coming in constantly and being approved constantly.
Unknown Speaker 15:24 I'm probably spending a bit more time on the back end. So I'd say roughly about an hour a day. But yeah, I think it's also you have to remember, we are a year into it when it was 5000 members. And just Camille, I mean, it was probably 15 hours a day almost like you know, in terms of approving everything yourself, coming up with the content, trying to span through it has in the nature of the beast in that it has gotten bigger, and we do have that support, it then inherently means we are able to automate a lot more things and meta and Facebook, messenger and Facebook, same thing. They are really good at offering admin assistance, and a lot of this stuff is automated.
Martin Franklin 16:00 Now, I was just interested in the geography of your members, did you find that the geography shifted at all, you know, at each different kind of stages of growth? Or where are people?
Unknown Speaker 16:12 The biggest area for the group is the States. We're at about 185,000 members. Oh, wow, is that today? Well, there you go. So we're at 193,000 members in the US. And that's followed closely by the UK. And I think that's just the nature of the per capita. But also, you know, the fact as Camille said that they don't have that mother screws to support like, we are so lucky that now we discover we're so lucky to now have in Australia.
Camille 16:39 Plus, I think sleep training is more of a western culture thing. I do see a lot in Africa that that is increasing the number of members in Africa who are joining. And I don't know what the cause of that is. But that has been an increasing trend over the last couple of months. Still as a percentage tiny, but in terms of in terms of engaging in joining with the group, it's increasing. So I'm not sure what's happening there. But they're obviously looking for a bit more hands on helping the way that we provide it and need it, you know, cultures here as well.
Phil 17:09 We've also had to keep that in mind for the Moderator. So we have moderators based in the US based in the UK based in Belgium, Canada, because people are posting at specific time zones. So you know, and when it's almost like we actually ended up offering a lot of help to the US. And so because they're posting it to in the morning when their baby screaming. So that's when we're online and we're awake, and then vice versa. So yeah, we've you know, we've planned that out with the moderators, we have on board.
Martin Franklin 17:36 If people are in that in a bit of a crisis in the middle of the night that there can be somebody there. It's like amazing 24 hour helpline, do
Phil 17:45 you have social media?
Camille 17:46 The group has actually saved a life. You know that? I did not know that. Yeah, I got I ended up private messaging with the person. But they posted up and they were, it was a, it was an anonymous post. And so most people can't see who it was. But as the admin we can because we approve the posts and the person. I approved it anyway, even though the content was a little bit distressing, because it sounded like the person really needed other people to be there with them. In that moment. They just lost a baby to SIDS. And they were in the hospital. And I got shivers Yeah, they were the post was really, really distressing. They're obviously incredibly sad, the babies just died. And the first thing that they did was come on to the Facebook group, which tells me that they don't have anywhere near the community that we have, or even I mean, that person may not have had the friend group to be able to connect with or they may have just needed a place to go that was anonymous and private. And so I ended up speaking with the person and they Yeah, they were having horrible suicidal thoughts, because it was such a such a distressing time for them. But also, it really validated that we'd done the right thing, firstly, by making it and focusing on having it as just a community, not trying to monetize it in any way, in those early in those early stages in the first couple 100,000 You know, like just making sure that it was the right place.
Martin Franklin 19:03 So you mentioned the podcast, just a little while, while back. So we should get on to that, which seems like a really exciting next step or additional step for you to take. Have you got any thoughts about how you'll connect the podcast with the group?
Phil 19:21 So I mean, this is this is where I come into it. This is what I do for a living is sort of digital marketing and cross platform transformation. And so it came up in a conversation with Camille and I, when we were talking about the group and where it goes to next. And as I said, one of the things that we noticed was people are posting, you know, we get posts all the time. It's like, hey, moms, I'm sitting here, it's two in the morning. I don't know what to do. And one of the things we thought is well, potentially what we can do is we can take this discussion and take these, you know, the learnings that we have from the group and all the input and put it in an order To format so that parents can, when they are sitting there at two in the morning, potentially rocking their baby to sleep, throw some headphones in and really engage with the audience on a different level. It's also we had the opportunity to post anonymously. But we both get a lot of private messages from people really intimidated about doing that, really worried about their friends or family that are in the group judging them for something. So I suppose the podcast also adds that other bit of anonymity where they can reach out and we can discuss it and talk to other guests and other C consultants about their issue, and they can listen to it without having to put their name and their baby and whatever else out there.
Camille 20:40 Yeah, there's a lot of information to take in when it comes to baby's sleep as well. And I think, personally, that I mean, that's why I did the course in the first place was to arm myself with information. And if there's an opportunity to share that other people and arm them with information so that when they're dealing with something, they've got this whole, you know, toolbox of different things that they could try or do differently or stop doing to help their baby. I think that's a really powerful thing. So that's a big motivator for me and doing the podcast is giving that giving that information and finding another platform to share it beyond just more posts or answering questions that kind of a kind of thing to Phil's point, and audio versions.
Phil 21:18 Plus we have great voices. People need to hear these voices and faces for radio. So
Martin Franklin 21:24 coming from a digital marketing background. Phil, have you got any thoughts on how you're sort of kickstart the podcast and leverage that that audience that you got?
Phil 21:33 Well, look, I think the the biggest thing for us in the way we're structuring it is people aren't going to potentially listen to this in an episode by episode format, like you normally would another podcast, it's potentially not your drive to work podcast this is you have a specific problem with your baby or a specific want and need to know. So each episode will be formatted around different techniques, different questions, different subjects to do with sleep training. So hopefully, it becomes almost like an audio format encyclopaedia for sleep training, and you can come online, my specific issue is co sleeping so I can find the co sleeping episode. And you can then jump on and listen to him. I also
Camille 22:14 think it would be like those goosebump books where you go to a chapter and then it takes you to a different chapter, you know, my problem to your point is co sleeping and then it takes you to a thing about, you know, dark rooms, and then it takes you to a thing about a week windows, you know, you follow the rabbit down the hole for your particular issue. I think that will be how people would digest the podcast. Yeah,
Martin Franklin 22:33 I wonder if there's a way we could set up some kind of signposting for particular topics. So if you've got, say, three episodes that cover, you know, one thing you can you could do something where maybe there's a kind of edited highlights or
Phil 22:49 what Absolutely. And as Camille said, I mean, when you get into, as she mentioned, the rabbit hole that is sleep training, you can go okay, one solution might create five or six other tunnels. So that can often be one of the issues that we find in the group is that, you know, people will ask a question, and because of the sheer size, but within minutes, it has 50 comments on it. And they're all different. Exactly. So to digest that, and to you know, when you are exhausted, and you are tired, and you know, scared, and all these things that you go through as a new parent, to sit there and read all of these comments. And you know, it's all people just trying to help you. But it does sometimes as well. It can be mind boggling. So hopefully the the podcast is a way to digest it a little bit easier for those who are just in sheer exhaustion.
Camille 23:37 And understand why people said that, why people have commented that oh, that's why they've said that. Because this, like drawing a link, it'll be
Martin Franklin 23:45 perhaps a little bit more of a linear explanation. So easier to follow the that sort of thread. Yeah, that'd be really interesting to look at the stats, once they started merging of, do people cherry pick the episodes? Or are they in for the whole, the whole journey.
Camille 24:03 And there's definitely going to be people in both camps. But I know already, whichever. So I've already got a list of the ones that are going to be massive, because they are the most frequent topics that come up, or the ones that are the most controversial or challenging as a parent. And I know that they're going to be huge. And so I know that we're going to have to be really thoughtful about if we engage with another sleep consultant to bring another set of information or perspectives into the room. We want to make sure it's the right person for that topic, because it's going to go it's going to like the four month sleep regression is absolutely going to be the most listened
Phil 24:35 series on that alone.
Camille 24:36 It really you really could. But it is the most common question that comes up because everything falls apart and people don't understand why. And it's like topics like that. How do we make them digestible? And how do we make people comfortable as they work their way through all those different Warren's in that rabbit hole that they'll never tably find themselves facing?
Martin Franklin 24:55 That's amazing. Phil and Camille, thank you so much for talking to About this and you're on the podcast coming to your ear pods saying, hey, yeah,
Phil 25:06 well, thanks for having us. So we're, I mean, it's been great. And look, you know, we're really excited. We hope that, you know, this podcast can be as, you know, helpful as the group has been, and it just becomes an extension of that community.
Martin Franklin 25:20 Yeah, yeah. Amazing. All right. Thanks, guys. That's I'll yeah, I'll make something out of this conversation.
Phil 25:26 Thanks so much.
Podcast produced by Martin Franklin / East Coast Studio
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A Producer + an Editor = A Preditor. Two discrete roles got combined through circumstance and technology into one efficient super-being working alongside its predecessors. But don't be afraid, there is another new skills hybrid emerging to enter the battle for podcast production supremacy. We hunted, and bagged some of these different species and got their views on what they do best - and what's coming over the hill.
On behalf of creators becoming potential clients, we asked 'Which combination of skills do you need in your producer? What are they ? and how to work with the right person'.
In this episode we cover:
What does a producer do? What does the client bring as a starting point for a podcast? What should potential clients expect from their podcast producer, and what’s their remit?
Lead Producer, Martin Franklin from East Coast Studio gets some quality Zoom-time with fellow producers, Courtney Carthy, Nick McCorriston, and Louise Poole to explore the different dimensions of production on Planet Pod.
Links Courtney Carthy (Linkedin) Nick McCorriston (Linkedin) Louise Poole (Linkedin) Independent Music Podcast (Apple Podcasts) State 51 (WWW)
Transcription
Martin Franklin Hi, Welcome back to Metapod. This is Martin Franklin from East Coast Studio. And we are still deep diving into the world of podcasting and finding our things tick. So my question for this episode, what does a producer actually do?
I noticed that there's quite a variety of approaches to production within the podcasting world. And I was kind of curious about how different people do it. I wanted to produce some sort of guidance for people who are perhaps thinking about producing a podcast or appointing a producer to produce their podcast, so that we just had a little bit of an overview of what what could you expect and the different approaches that different people take to, to do that work.
Once again, I canvassed, the Australian Podcasters group, and I had three sterling individuals step forward, willing to talk to me and just share their thoughts in a conversation. So in this episode, I'm talking to Courtney Carthy, from Nearly Media, Nick McCorriston from Sound Boy Audio, and Louise Poole, from Welcome Change Media. And I'm really happy with the conversations that we had, because each of them takes a slightly different approach to the craft of being a producer, which is shaped by their background and their particular aptitude and take on what they what they do best. So we get into what's next for podcasting, music, copyrights, content strategy, and a whole load of other stuff, which, honestly, I hadn't expected to talk about before I hit record on the conversations.
Courtney Carthy - Hearing the Potential
Martin Franklin 2:07 So let's jump into the first conversation I had, which was with Courtney Carthy from Nearly Media, he's got a really strong radio background, spending almost a decade as a producer for ABC, he very kindly squeezed this interview into his journey from one place to the other in his car. So you will hear the sound of the car in the background. And I did think I could spend a bit of time cleaning up the audio and removing the various traffic noises that are in the background. But actually, I kind of like how it, how it sounds, he's in the car, and he's talking to me through his Airpods. And this is what it sounds like:
Radio Production
Martin Franklin 2:50 I know your background is originally as a reporter, and then producing in radio, I wonder if you could just give me your take on what's involved in the producer role for for radio.
Courtney Carthy 3:04 It's basically everything but speaking on air, is how I used to think of it. So I didn't sort of get myself boxed in about, you know, what was or wasn't part of my job. I think before I worked in radio, I really didn't appreciate or media, you know, Southern first media sort of, like, role that I had was student radio. But I never appreciated how much work there was outside of the final product. And whenever I hear producer, I just think, you know, like, the person that does everything that knows what's going on everywhere. You know, that can that can yell at someone, not that I yell at people, but you know, that can identify, can see the end but knows where to start?
Martin Franklin 4:02 Yeah. So in terms of the shows that you worked on, could you just kind of go into what's involved in from a production point of view?
Courtney Carthy 4:14 Yes. The bulk of my time at ABC Radio, and, you know, radio in general, was as a live radio producer. So that would be like, you know, finding stories briefing, the host briefing the talent, deciding how we were going to cover a story. So, you know, effectively acting like a bit of an editor you know, sort of more like a newspaper editor, not an audio editor. And then, you know, pushing the boundaries of, you know, what, sort of, you know, angle we might take or, you know, how we respond to something or what the audience might like, and thinking about how that fits into the overall show in the overall context of, you know, where we were, you know, broadcasting.
It would be physically, you know, physically getting on the phone, calling people, you know, as fast as you can, so that you can get people booked on that show, either the same day or the next, you know, couple of days. And then live producing the show. So that would be directing the host, updating the host, managing guests coming in and out. Cutting audio, getting audio, dealing with technical problems, answering the phones, pushing the buttons on the desk, sometimes dealing with legal issues, choosing music. You know, there's a whole host of stuff that goes on, as you know.
Podcast Context
Martin Franklin 5:52 Yeah. So that's, that's great. So can we move on to how does that roll transfer into the world of podcasting, as far as how you do it?
Courtney Carthy 6:02 Well, the ability to conceptualise and then conceptualise audio, and hear it before you've heard, it is probably the biggest thing, I spent so much time explaining what shows will sound like and show formats, how they'll run to clients or, you know, just people, you know, that don't work in podcasts. But you know, we'd like to have a podcast made or, you know, helping me with a podcast show.
People can't perceive what it'll be like, you know, if you say, you know, we'll have a cold open where you're speaking for maybe 30 seconds, and then we'll hit some music, and then that'll fade out into a second introduction that's got, you know, the proper sort of show, you know, theme and this and that. And then that'll go into the interview. And then we'll do a little bit of voiceover in the interview, you get through all the details, and people just can't hear it, like people that work in you know, radio, or podcasting or audio production can hear it
Martin Franklin 7:05 With you taking such experienced role in shaping the podcast, what did the clients bring to you as a starting point?
Courtney Carthy 7:15 They usually want a story told or a message conveyed. So they want they want to tell people about how, yeah, their customers that had a great experience, or that they're, you know, Senior Manager is really knowledgeable about something or update their staff on, you know, weekly things. Often, it's something that they're interested in. And you know, that's, that's fine. But it usually often often has to be shaped a little bit to make it interesting beyond their immediate team. And, you know, what's interesting in one context is absolutely uninteresting in another context. And that's, that's not saying that any context is better than another. But podcasts traverse, you know, several contexts, whether that's online, somebody's listening, you know, privately or, you know, you're trying to get listeners publicly.
Martin Franklin 8:22 You know, a few years ago, I worked in the culture sector in the UK, and for one of the organisations that I used to work for, we had a media company come in to do some consulting on a project. And they started saying to us, "you need to find a preditor" to do a particular role. And this is the first time I've ever heard this amalgamation of two roles. It's producer, editor, so someone who can conceptualise your content, and then actually create it and edit it gets you from the start right to the finished content.
So we've heard from Courtney Carthy, who I think is very much coming from the producer direction. And now we're going to hear from Nick McCorriston, and then coming up after Nick, there's an indication I think of a fourth roll, which is somebody who can do that end to end production, plus, do a little bit of strategy around it as well. And it's probably one of the things that we do here at East Coast Studio.
Nick McCorriston - Game Community
So let's jump into the interview with Nick McCorriston. When you popped up on the Facebook thread, you kind of introduced yourself as an engineer and editor. Yeah. And I know I've just had a quick look on your, your website and you've got production duties as well. How do you see the difference between those different roles?
Nick McCorriston 9:50 It's interesting because I do generally prefer the editing side of work. I like the that's the where I feel skilled. And that's where I feel creative. I feel as though in the industry these days when a company says they're looking for a producer, they're looking for someone who's a script writer, they're looking for someone who is ready to write copy that is ready to churn out more of a commercial, the commercial end of a product, as well as have some skills in digital editing and in in, yeah, digital production and, and generally, some sort of an idea of how to make something sound good. But that's definitely not a priority.
So I tend to step away from jobs that pitch specifically as looking at looking for a producer, I like to focus on making the shows that I work on sound good and consistent, rather than sort of focusing too much on an aspect of the shows that I'm not very skilled in and that I'm not confident in Yeah, achieving an end goal with so yeah, like, for me, editing is about Yeah, providing the best experience for a listener that they can consistent experience for a listener. And that's through you know, conforming to loudness standards, so that shows generally sound all the same and sound consistent so that listeners don't have to grab for a volume knob every time they switch your show.
Martin Franklin 11:33 Yeah, it's that real sort of technical production level. So when you take on clients, what do they what do they come to you with as far as their their podcast goes?
Destiny Community
Nick McCorriston 11:45 That's a wide range of stuff. I mean, I've worked with a number of different people over the last five years, I've kind of been working in podcasts in the last five years, I started on a more of a twitch panel show, so focus specifically on a video game called destiny. So it was a podcast called The Destiny Community podcast, and we'd have four or five hosts, and then a guest on top of that. So we'd have a lot of audio that would come in each week.
Martin Franklin 12:14 It's a lot of editing, when you get more than three people, it into a whole other level
Nick McCorriston 12:18 Well, it becomes it becomes about priorities, then and the show would run for two, two and a half hours. So the priority wasn't necessarily editing anything, editing people's ums and ahs and stuff out of it, it was really just making sure the product was produced and ready to go and ready to be published. Then I started putting the audio on on the video content side of it as well and pushing that out, and that kind of gave me my my my leg up in getting things going. And then from there, I've really only sort of had people contacting me in regards to my skills in the last couple of years really, up until then it was me chasing work and me, essentially looking for listening to podcasts and loving podcasts and enjoying podcasts and identifying the shows that I thought that I could improve on. And then contacting them directly, just cold messaging them saying I think I can do this for you. I can do X for you. For this much. Is that amenable to you? And they'd say yes or no? And then we'd go from there. So
Martin Franklin 13:23 Yeah. So from a practical point of view, when when you get a client who says yeah, I, you know, I'm sold on having you work on the show, what are they? What do they sort of supply with for you.
Nick McCorriston 13:35 It varies from person to person and content to content. I work with a couple of content creators at the moment who are primarily focused on YouTube these days, but they have podcast sides of their content. Jared Kimber is my main client. He's a cricket journalist, who's based in Australian based in the UK. And we started by him, essentially, just servicing me with a couple of audio files that he recorded with with the guest as an interview. Mostly Zoom calls just like this.
I take the good quality audio recording of jarred and clean that up, and then take the Zoom call of the guest and essentially run that through processes to just try and clean that up as best as possible. And make that sound not as harsh as a Zoom call might make something sound sometimes. That's kind of where I got a lot of the basis from my work was sort of doing that and people spotting spotting that. And sort of Yeah, but my pitch is that I can make better audio sound good or more listenable? So that's kind of what I pitched to people is that
Martin Franklin 14:45 yeah, and you find people are responsive to that idea that if they sound better?
Nick McCorriston 14:52 Everybody's been on Zoom a lot the last two years and everyone knows what that sounds like. And you want to try and avoid that as best as possible. Because it's an experience that a lot of people have day to day still going into gym calls and meetings and having to put up with with the sound of people's rooms over and over again. So yeah, it's it's definitely something that that's been attractive. And yeah, my business or an uptick in, in business over over COVID just meant that I was more consistently working from home and just meant that more people had time to create content. And so that's, that's, that's been the base of the business.
Independent Music
Martin Franklin 15:33 I had a look at some of the shows that you you produce, and funnily enough, I've just, I just followed one of them today, which, which was the Independent Music Podcast. I absolutely love the sound of that. And funnily enough, you've got the latest episode embedded on your site with a little sort of ticker of the title or something. And one of the artists who's released gets covered in in this episode is an artist who I used to work with the UK. Yeah, great. Janek Schaffer. And he's just got a, an album released with a collaboration with William Basinski. Yep. Amazing. So yes. 'Oh, yeah. Janek', gave a quick listen to it. And I thought, yeah, I, I really liked this. And what I wondered if you have any kind of guidance on his that use of copyrighted music in the show?
Nick McCorriston 16:32 Right. That's it's an interesting topic. It's something that I've thought about the independent music podcast quite a lot. They specifically don't pursue any licencing deliberately, that they offer the show as a service. And so any of the independent labels that they work with or speak to, they have a almost an unspoken agreement that it is essentially just a free promotion for them. So they get all right, they get companies, contacting them, essentially asking them to play them on the show. It's not unlike a radio station, essentially. I
t's operating as though it's a free promotional service, essentially. And so that, yeah, they don't necessarily pursue any of that. They haven't had any issues with it so far. I've been with them for close to 200 Odd episodes, I think. And 150 Odd episodes. And they did. Yeah, about 200. Before that. So yeah, they've they've everyone's been mostly just really warm. They mostly play labels that they know, Anthony Chalmers is? Well, both of them are former record label owners. Anthony Chalmers, runs Baba Yaga is hot in London, which is a booking, live concert booking agency. And so he runs the Raw Power festival in the UK. And so they both got pretty deep connections to independent labels.
They have a sponsorship from the State 51, who were independent label that they play a lot from as well. So yeah, they have close relationships with the labels that they play.
Martin Franklin 18:21 Thanks to Nick there for the information and the excellent sounding audio. So stick with me now, because we're going into the web of content with Louise Poole.
Louise Poole - The Content Web
Martin Franklin 18:33 What should potential clients expect from their Podcast Producer? And what's the kind of general sort of remit? Because different people kind of do it differently? So I just wonder, What's your take on the producers role?
Louise Poole 18:49 Well, podcasting isn't radio. So that I suppose that's always important to realise from a production point of view, and from a listening point of view, as well. As when you email me that question about what does a product producer do? I actually thought maybe the question should be what doesn't a producer do? Because it's like everything in a way, depending on how much people want to invest with us in terms of time.
The biggest difference between, say coming from a radio production background and taking on clients as a Podcast Producer is when you're in radio, you often are removed from the client when you're making stuff up, someone gives you a brief and so you don't have often have that direct interaction with you with them. And so talking to clients so much of it is less about the skills and more about being a bit of a life coach like a bit of a counsellor or a manager you it's a kind of it's it's coaching the performance out of them but also helping them overcome nerves and and helping their guests overcome the nerves as well.
Coaching & Air Checks
Martin Franklin 19:56 I really like that approach. Could we just talk a little bit more about some instances of that, that that you've encountered where you need to actually work with the client in order to help them deliver what they want to
Louise Poole 20:12 We have a wonderful client who actually helps people overcome impostor syndrome, and is the first to admit that she suffers from imposter syndrome herself. And I'm constantly telling her, Don't give away the farm, you don't have to give everyone everything for free to prove to yourself that you are valid, which is always really interesting, because this is exactly the kind of stuff that she would say to other people to like, if you listened to any of her work her courses, she'd be telling people that as well.
So it's, it's often I'll get a text message from clients where they, they might be having a bit of a, we got a record day set up on Tuesday, and it feels really overwhelming. And so it's talking through that, let's calm down. And let's we've got these steps. If we just achieve this, you don't have to worry about the big picture, we're just going to focus on this thing for today. That's all you have to focus on. It's my job to worry about the big picture for us. So I think there's a lot of that, and a lot of, and it seems to be something I would get in radio all the time where listeners would say I hate the sound of my own voice. And we never really hate the sound of somebody else's voice. But when you hear yourself, a lot of people don't like how they sound. And so there's a lot of reassurances that you do sound good, this sounds great.
Martin Franklin 21:31 You've got a bit of a USP of having been an announcer yourself at some stage. So do you do you kind of use those skills in the coaching phase with clients?
Louise Poole 21:42 Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, teaching them how to present ways to improve, you know, one of the things that we actually do offer ease with the clients that we have is we do do regular kind of regular airchecks of people's productions. So we put it together. And then because I do full service as well, whereas a regular producer might not necessarily take it all the way to the post production stage. I can tell them, Okay, well, here's all the crutches that I've edited out. And here's where we can improve on that, uh, you know, if you pause before this if we do a bit more research on this. And I think that's really quite valuable actually, to come at it from not just a technical point of view, but actually a performance point of view.
Martin Franklin 22:24 So when when clients arrive at your door, what do they typically sort of bring with them as far as the podcast that they would like to have produced?
Louise Poole 22:35 They have ideas, and I think they have a lot of dreams and visions. And what we do is to take all those ideas and put them into a tangible, workable strategy to bring what they hope they want to make to life, in a practical sense, as well. So and also fitting within I suppose the budget on that too, because, you know, everyone tells me they love true crime podcasts. But the amount of production that goes into a true crime style podcast is not necessarily accessible for most people who want to start a podcast. Yeah, so it's sometimes having those conversations.
Content Strategy
Martin Franklin 23:11 The other thing I was curious about is you mentioned about content creation, do you get involved in that side of things as well? Or like, helping people to produce content to promote what they do?
Louise Poole 23:22 Yeah. So that's, that's the actually. And I probably would say, we have more clients, in least in the early days, because we've only been running the business out for a year that are coming from a more of a spinning of content side.
So lots of things to do with social media videos, article writing. So we design this concept called the the content web where we see content, whatever that piece of content is, whether it's a podcast, or whether it's a course that you've written as the spider in the middle, and you can spit it out to all these different places on the web. And you know, that that 130 minute podcast could become five different articles on LinkedIn, it could become, you know, 10 different static posts, it could we could turn it into, you know, those three minute long minimum Facebook videos that fit the algorithm and Reels and, or YouTube.
And then all those bits are also interchangeable, like because the content feeds itself. You could then say, well, from that podcast episode, maybe that's the start of a micro course. But then if we move it around the micro course have the spider in the middle could then also shoot out the podcast. Yeah. So we really work with people on repurposing, and that's probably a big thing that came from as an idea from my radio background repurposing, and recycling because people don't listen to all the thing all the time in radio. That was a very good way to put it, but you could run the same break across three different days of the week, and it's not the same audience listening at the same time.
And social media is a bit like that. as well, because the algorithms only push out your content to a certain percentage of people. So repurpose recycle, and you save yourself a lot of headache.
Martin Franklin 25:08 Yeah, I have a similar similar concept that I tried to promote to a lot of my people, but I find even people who are marketers, kind of seemed to sort of struggle to adopt that. Sometimes I wonder whether they sort of see your podcast as something which is isolated, you know, in itself, it's just like, oh, we'll do this extra little thing. But the idea of integrating it into a whole cycle of messaging seems to be something which is kind of harder than it should be. I don't know, hahah
Louise Poole 25:46 No. No, I know. Like, we actually think of the idea. Do we call it a podcast? Like what we're doing? It is a podcast. And that's how people no it but I also think there's this perception that people have a podcast is two dudes sitting in a closet talking shit. And that's not necessarily what it is either. It can be a really powerful branding tool to integrate into your whole strategy. And yes, yes, definitely, in getting people to understand that it is it's a powerful thing that is part of a whole, like, I don't think that you could just have a podcast for your business. And that was the only way that you marketed.
Martin Franklin 26:25 But so you're talking about content strategy, really, aren't you?
Louise Poole 26:29 yeah, I am down to content strategy. So I know we were talking about what does the Podcast Producer do that but I suppose a really good Podcast Producer was thinking of the whole picture. How do you make this work for the person that you're trying to help succeed?
Podcast produced by Martin Franklin / East Coast Studio
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How long does it take to plan a podcast ? What is better, fun or educational topics ? Should I add my podcast to YouTube ? Top 3 things a successful podcast should have ?
These questions, and more followed my talk for Hub Australia on 31 August 2022. Connecting from co-working locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide the attendees watched a 45 minute lunch-and-learn presentation that I called "Podcasting - What, Why and How".
This was intended to be an overview which covered some basic technical points, case studies of how some podcasters use their show in their marketing mix, plus practical pointers on how to start podcasting.
The Q&A, led by Hub Australia Brisbane's Customer Experience lead, Val Dubishkina followed the presentation. We uncovered some really informed, useful questions from the audience and these are the sections that I decided to capture for this podcast.
• Download the "Podcasting - What, Why and How" Slide Deck
TranscriptSpeakers: Val Dubishkina (Hub Australia), Martin Franklin (East Coast Studio)
0:15 VAL: All right, let's start. First of all, I would like to say that Hub Australia acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land in which we live and work. We recognise the continued connection to land, water and community and pay respects to elder's past, present and emerging. I'd like to introduce you to our wonderful presenter today, Martin Franklin, who launched his first podcast in 2006, eventually bring in his own show to become a weekly broadcast on radio. His business is CO studio and produces top 10 podcasts and support podcasters to launch from a simple idea to successful seasons. First of all, I would also like to remind you that if you would like to speak, you can raise your hand. Also, please make sure that you make use of our q&a box and utilise the chat function. So Martin can answer all of your questions. And just the friendly reminders about that today's session will be recorded. So if you miss something, you'll be able to go back and watch it again. And it's all over to you, Martin.
1:18 Thanks, Val. Thanks, everybody for joining today. You can ask me some difficult questions, if you'd like to now over to hit me with some questions.
VAL: Hey, Martin, we already have one question and keep an eye box if he wants to open it up, but I'll read it out loud. What are the average and good podcast targets to set per episode?
Yeah, the super popular question. I read something while I was researching for this talk, which was a blog article by a podcast hosting platform that basically said, if you're getting 50 listens to a podcast episode, you're already in the top 50% of podcasts that they carry on their platform. I think we hear a lot about big, big numbers. And people quote, quoting 10s and hundreds of 1000s of listens. But those people are a super tiny minority. And actually, when we evaluate whether our 50 listens, is adequate or not, if you were to think about those as real people in a room, and you know, I'm talking to 20 your view now.
But you know, you're 20 real people, and you'd be you'd be a room full if you were in my house. And I'd be really happy about that. So if I had 20 listens to my podcast episode, that's 20. That's 20 people. So that's what I gotta say about listens.
VAL: And we have another question in the chat box: producers, what are the standard rates when it comes to costings
What kind of rates? Yeah, we're kind of in a space where there's not really a standard rate as such, I think you could probably make a parallel with, say, graphic designers or, you know, individuals who, who price their services, depending on what, what they want, how much money they want to make. But you know, the quality that they feel they they offer. So it's very hard to, to answer that. But I price projects by the project or by the season. So I don't charge myself out on an hourly basis.
But I think a good way to think about it is what do you earn per hour. Add a little bit extra on top of that, because you're probably working with a sole trader. And that that could be the sort of price, you might multiply that hour by three hours to produce an episode. And that would give you a kind of incremental costs that you could expand out through a through a season. Yeah, tricky to say.
VAL: Awesome. Two more questions: the first one is "What's your preferred hosting space to distribute online?"
People seem to get very enthusiastic about podcast hosting, but it's a very, it's a very technical requirement, really. And it's fundamentally simple. You're just putting files on a server, and the server just has to stay switched on, and do you know and give you some kind of nice interface and access to analytics. So there's not a lot to distinguish podcast hosts and I think this is an issue which podcast host businesses are finding now. How do they differentiate?
The things that you might look out for the podcast hosts would provide are transcription, some of them have a kind of inbuilt transcription service, which might be a kind of white labelled otter or sort of AI based transcription service,
5:12 They might have access to an application called headliner, which is something that lets you produce those little, quote, videos yourself quite quite easily. And then it's kind of all down to that like bandwidth, how much download Are you allowed per month. So a lot of similar stuff that you'd encounter with a with a web host.
5:37 I host all my podcasts through Omny Studio. So clients who work with me, are hosted in a kind of enterprise space that I've got on Omny Studio. And I'm really pleased with what Omny Studio offer particularly in the area of analytics, because I definitely advocate for podcast creators to become really aware of their analytics. And one thing which has been missing for a long time in podcasting is an audience retention measure.
So you've always been able to see download numbers and those kinds of big, big sort of headlines. But we've never been able to answer the question of how much of my podcast is listened to by the audience, you know, there's still that little niggling doubt that people may have, you know, subscribed at some point. And it's their, it's their app, which is downloading in the background, but they haven't never listened to it, or, you know, it's too long, and they never get time to finish it. So, I've definitely seen some analytics on a show that I produce where the host is very keen on the kind of long listen approach like 45 minute to an hour show, which I always felt a bit sceptical about. But now I've been able to look in the analytics and see 50% of the show is is not listened to, or is listened to, it's going to be half full about it. So then, it'd be much better for in that particular case for the Creator to do two half hour shows, or 220 minute shows same effort, and it would fit better with their listenership, because it's all about fitting into the pockets of time that people have available. So we have to, we have to work with the audience and getting that analytic data on how audiences consumed the shows is valuable. So good analytics, and if they've got this audience retention measure, that's awesome.
7:44 VAL: All right, awesome. Another question we have for five more to go hopefully, we have enough time for that. "Hi, Martin, I have a strong desire to do one season about fatherhood, to start with six episodes over six months, and reassess after is it worth, in your opinion, six episodes?"
So like a monthly show for six months? Yeah, definitely. Because, you know, the, the idea of a pilot is, you know, is pretty well known in the world of television, you need to do something in order to get that feedback from your, your listeners. And I'm always absolutely convinced that there's an enormous amount of learning that happens in those first seasons for for the creators of the show. Because fundamentally, you're developing all of those kind of professional broadcast skills of interviewing people, how are you going to do your interviews? And there's a world of detail in there. Do you script it? Do you have bullet points for the questions? Do you give your questions in advance to the guests? What if you've got guests who won't stop talking? How do you you know, how do you deal with that, there's a whole lot of learning that that needs to happen before you are able to perhaps, arrive at the show that you've got in mind.
So I definitely think there's a value in in doing a six month pilot of a show, because then you've got like real world. It's not just in your mind anymore. You've got real world data to then move move forward on and and you'll you'll improve and learn heaps in the process.
VAL: So thank you, Martin. "What are the top three things a successful podcast should have?"
9:35 Yes, somebody asked me this just the other day there was they called it the soup of success. What ingredients would we have in the soup of podcast success? I would say.I mean, it's the thing is, it's all about your relationship with your audience. So it's very, very hard to kind of have a blanket like just do this.
You know, I could sell that as a sort of premium service, if I could answer it effectively, so it's it's that meeting point between what do you want to talk about and what your audience wants to hear.
So I think consistency is something that I would say there's all the questions around frequency of podcasting. And should you do weekly? Is fortnightly, okay? Is monthly, okay?
10:23 So I think, whichever publishing format you choose, you've got to be consistent with it. And you've got to develop some sort of messaging around that. And there is actually some data coming out. Now that says, show I almost don't want to say this, because it's quite a thing to have to take on. But there is some evidence that sort of saying weekly shows get a higher percentage of each show is listened to, and are able to sustain growth over a longer period.
But producing a weekly show is a real hustle to do, it's probably better to do in, in batches. So you, you kind of blitz it over a few weekends and record like a season's worth. And then all you got to do as they start to come out is the promotion. And the posting about them. Doing week to week, if it's a weekly show is, it's all it's just so absorbing, it's hard to do anything else around that. So consistency is good.
And I think being being willing to look at the data and change from it, I definitely find myself in a position sometimes of having to show people the data of how their podcast is working, but sort of telling them things they don't want to hear. So you have to be willing to change and respond to the audience and try different things, look and see what other people are doing and sort of adjust your format a little bit. The marketing piece around podcasting, like any marketing, you can never do enough. So having a bit of a strategy about where are you going to promote the show, it's kind of that thing of, you know, people, I think we're probably a little over it now. But people who over the years have kind of gone "Oh, I'm not gonna go on Twitter. It's just like self promotion", or "I'm not going to connect with people on LinkedIn, because you know what use is that?"
12:33 And when you want to reach an audience, it's too late that because nobody's there. Whereas if you have adopted that approach, and you've got circles, and you've got networks, then that's the framework of your audience that you're going to put your show into. So make sure you're not shouting into the void. I guess it's the but on the other hand, if you want to, then, you know, if there's something you're passionate about, and you want to do, do it. Don't worry if no one's listening, just do it.
That's what I do. Well, yeah, I've done.
13:08 VAL: Next question, what tends to do better, more fun, or funny, or more specific educational podcasts?
Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. I think you. So I've got a number of shows which are about, let's say, industry updates, and the currency. So it's either, you know, updates in in legal matters, or updates in property matters. And you've in that case, you have kind of societies or you have membership bodies, so you know, that people are, they're going to be interested in staying current and staying up to date with that information. Whereas I think, probably entertainment based shows are probably more tricky to get it right. Because it's about there's a lot, there's a lot more chemistry in there. So if you want to be entertaining, it's like, are you entertaining? You know, not everybody can do a stand up comedy set or be entertaining on the microphone. So I think it's harder, you know, you can work at it, and you probably could, you know, develop a framework that supports you to be entertaining, but I I think it's harder and evaluating the need in the audience is probably harder to do so. Some people some people do it. So I guess it's it's just establishing, you know, what, what particular area of entertainment can you fit into obviously the, one of the the biggest difference, or one of the biggest, certainly, categories in podcasting is True Crime. So entertainment if you like, but in a sort of radio drama format,
15:06 Huge, huge listenership for that stuff. But it's very, very time consuming and quite costly to produce that that type of stuff because it's such detailed work, and you need so many, so many talents in order to pull it off.
So information seems like a safer bet. Entertainment is exciting, but harder to do
15:34 VAL: well it's already 1:30 Martin. Do you have enough time to answer three last questions? Or would you like for everyone to just flick you an email with a question?
15:44 Well, yeah, I do. I do. I mean, I'd love people to email me, you know, with offers of work, and large sums of money.
VAL: Let's answer the last three questions. But who everyone who wants to jump off when they have to run off for lunch, just a heads up that will be sending out post eventemail to us so you can rewatch this recording? And so you can also reach out to Martin, if you have any questions for him.
Yeah, and Martin, one of the last three questions: "In your experience, how long does it usually take to plan to start a podcast setting goals, audience content, tools, etc?"
But that's a great question. I think the planning stage can be done quite quickly. Because you probably already have an intuition on you know, what you what do you want to do? If you just asked yourself that question of why am I doing this? And you know, arrive at that answer, and then work out? What's your sign of success from that? You can you know, that, that's just, I think something you could do, quite quickly, what I hear quite a lot, which is a time consuming part, part of it, that is easy to underestimate is, is curating the guests, if it's an interview based show, wrangling diaries, and getting the dates in place, when people are available to talk and creating all of that, that content before you actually get to the recording, that can be quite time consuming. But, you know, once you once you've arrived at that thought, you know, and I think I'd also say,
17:41 I see a lot of people who perhaps come from a more commercial way of viewing things, where they're kind of taking a research led approach to saying, Well, you know, look on Google Trends and find what search terms are, you know, are peaking and find an or find a niche, which is not being served, and, you know, target them...
18:06 I just, I just don't buy that stuff. I think you have to be authentic to succeed in, in podcasting, you can't just decide, oh, there's, you know, there's these people who aren't being talked to a lot, I will just become an instant expert, and start talking to them, and they will love me.
18:24 You know, I think given that you'd be playing on your strengths, you just got to decide, why am I doing this, and it doesn't have to be that you want a big result at the end, you know, it can be it can be research, it can be that, oh, you know, I want to produce some content that I can then write blog articles about and sort of increase my visibility just through, you know, having more content available. I don't know how long it will take. I can't give you a short, a short answer. It might take an afternoon for you to go through the mental sort of process of working out your measurement and, you know, some kind of strategy to disseminate the podcast.
19:06 And then let's say you, you spend spent for a fortnight let's say you spent two weeks arranging a calendar of of guest interviews, you blitz it over a couple of weekends, and then you've got your first season's content. So let's say within a month, you're ready to launch.
19:26 And then the hard work begins off promotion
VAL: Awesome. Another question, "What are your thoughts on recording and uploading the podcast on YouTube? Do you find that brings it more clients putting a podcast on YouTube?"
19:43 I definitely would would say that's a great idea. And my thought about it is because of that, that mechanism that we talked about earlier on whether the audio podcast has a particular app and the way it's delivered, it goes straight to the listener without them having to, you know, even be in a browser. Whereas there's an enormous audience, on YouTube for people who are on YouTube. So there's no reason why you shouldn't put your podcasts up there. Even if it's not video, I've got a client who we did that. And we just did like a simple audio sort of waveform animation. But it was fundamentally audio. And every single one of his episodes gets an additional 200 views or listens on on from people on YouTube. And one of the things that YouTube has the edge on over all of the podcasting applications is search. It's super discoverable.
20:51 And because it's kind of it's built on, you know, Google's thinking, the idea of the presence and visibility of search on YouTube is much higher. And that's what people are more inclined to do. So you're much more discoverable, I think, on YouTube.
21:13 And the absolute sort of latest news is YouTube themselves, obviously not unaware of this trend. So they are now kind of beta testing is probably more than beta testing. But there won't be a podcast section in YouTube. There is if you're in the USA now. I guess they'll keep an eye on that, and then potentially roll it out through interfaces everywhere. So that bodes quite well, I think for visibility of podcasts on YouTube. So yeah, it's easy to do. So a lot, a lot to be gained.
VAL: Awesome. One last question. "Do Spotify and Apple podcasts have backend analytics built in? Or do you use a third party data tracking platform?"
22:03 Oh getting technical! They do both have built in analytics, that obviously talk about what's happened on their platform. So what what I think is probably, and they are really good. One of the fantastic things you can get from Spotify, which you can't necessarily get in other places is demographic information. Because Spotify is inherently account based, you have to sign up and you know, deliver some of your information, your gender, and your age bracket and this type of thing.
22:39 So you get a better sense of your audience from YouTube, because you can see demographic information. Plus, you can also hear what music your listeners like. So, so from looking at Spotify, data on the REIQ podcast, I can give you some pretty good insights into what your real estate agent likes to listen to. So yes, they're very useful. Individually, Apple stats are also great. And they they have their own, they call it engagement metric in in Apple site gives you a percentage of how much your your show has been listened to on Apple. So there are, those are the two big ones.
23:32 But having a third party host or third party stats, tracking will perhaps give you more kind of cumulative view because there's a load of smaller podcast directories that all together are worth, you know, worth getting us a sense of. And it's kind of easy to to arrive at that at that data. But yeah, there's superstars from Apple and, and Spotify, but your host will give you kind of more holistic presentation of the data. What some thank you so much.
24:07 VAL: Thank you. Wonderful webinar. I think all our members and visitors today have learned so much. And I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day. And thank you. Thank you so much. There we go.
I hope that was a bit of a whirlwind of interest and you are now the office podcast expert for this afternoon. Bye. Thanks, everyone. Bye.
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Here's a short pick-and-mix of some of the podcast projects that have featured in our production portfolio over the most recent period.
We've covered business challenges, motivation, mental health, law and property industry, coaching, parenting and rural matters. We have a real cross-section of contemporary topics. And while the topics may be diverse, they're all meaningful content made by creators with deep knowledge and worthwhile missions to make an impact in their respective industries. Load up this mix and you'll hear extracts from these fine podcasts: Troubleshooters The Messy Middle Meet Q The Callover REIQ Property Brief Society of Construction Law Australia INSEAD In Conversation with... Co-Parenting Kids Land Life Women In Cybersecurity Parents In Tech
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Set your goals and motivations before getting into any other areas of starting a podcast. Once you "find your why" for the podcast, you're set to tackle the work of recording, producing, distributing and growing your podcast.
Once you begin planning your content, understanding your audience is a key advantage. Doing something that you love is a great way to guide your thoughts. Is the listener like you? Do you share a common interest ? Why are they listening? If you can get to the heart of that topic, then you will be getting off on a good footing.
This podcast episode is the audio companion to the blog article "How To Start A Podcast: Goals, Topics and Motivation"
Episode Transcription0:14 This episode is the audio companion to a blog piece called How To Start A Podcast goes topics and motivation. I have to admit, I blatantly wrote this blog post in response to search queries, which were coming in and drawing people to my website. So I thought, Okay, if that's what people are searching for the "How To Start A Podcast" bit, I'll share what I think about how you should start a podcast.
DIY 1976I always have two kind of competing drivers when I'm writing these sorts of things. So the first one is a little bit historic; it's the punk rock era where there was a saying, and an illustration, "here's three chords, now form a band"
It sort of got latched on to, in retrospect, to something which really typifies that kind of punk rock era of - here's some building blocks now go off and do something even bigger. There's probably lots of parallels around that now. But that was like 1976, or there abouts. And it I think it really resonates like, let's do the show here. You know, just however, you can do it, if you've got something to say, find a way to say it.
So, I have that point of view, which kind of says, Alright, if the best you can you can muster is a recording on Zoom, then go for your life. But on the other hand, I've got my sort of audio snob point of view of going? "Well, of course, you could do that. However, your audio would really be communicating a sort of lower view of your brand." Which you probably would but at the end of the day, the basic choice is do it or don't do it. So doing it wins every time.
Love Your TopicHere's my take on getting into some of the nitty gritty about it.
Love your topic, before you get into any of the sort of technical stuff about how you're going to record it, how will it be produced? How are you distributed and promoted and grow the audience? We need to identify at the core, what is your content. Now I've seen a lot of advice from internet experts about researching niches and approaching the the topic of your podcast from a strategic point of view. And of course, there's nothing wrong with doing research. But my view of podcasting as a medium is that it excels at authenticity. So whatever it is that you talk about, you should love that topic. Because that will come through in your voice.
It might be that through researching, you can discover a niche that has less competition or a commonly searched problem that needs to be solved. But there's not really a practical way that you could jump on that and sound like that, that you really have a passion in in that area. And it's another sort of feature of podcasting because generally speaking, people who are hosting and speaking on podcasts are not trained broadcasters, but they've got their finger on the pulse of a community, or they have an enthusiasm about a certain topic, or they're an authority on a certain topic. And that's where the real juice is, in podcasting. It's actually people who are letting their passion speak.
So you may have used Google Trends to find something that's a popular kind of SEO Term of the day. But I don't recommend that that is your guiding light. So if we were to condense it down, it would be choose a topic you love. And ask yourself, How can you be useful to the listeners who share the interest in that topic. And I think that second point, be useful to your listener is key in in lots of respects.
So keeping the listening audience in mind in in all of your decisions will be a really valuable guide as you build your show. Knowing what it is that you're offering them will guide your choice of topic and of guests and the line of questions that you take and the whole general sort of vibe of the show. So coming back down to something which anyone who's had any business mentoring, as I have recently gets asked is "What's your why?", why are you doing this, this thing and what does it give you and what does it give the people who you're hoping to offer it to?
MotivationI sort of break down my clients into a couple of different areas when I sort of tried to work out, what's their why, so that I can offer them a better, better service that that caters for their why. So it usually breaks down into reputation building for them, or their, or their business, engagement and promotion of those same things, or more broadly, a kind of strategic content marketing strand where they're engaging with the industry that they are a part of.
5:41 Producing a podcast is not a small undertaking, and that the relentless promotion that's needed to grow an audience is definitely not something to underestimate. So why are you why are you doing it? If you don't know that all of that time and effort and workload gets pretty overwhelming quickly.
80% of all podcasts started in the last 12 months, never get past episode six. And this is why it's people discover that there's not an automatic audience for it, and you need to make time and possibly your Sunday afternoons for forevermore are gone while you work on all of the details of the podcast.
Ask The InternetI kind of have these impressions and opinions that I get through working with the clients who come through this case, Julio. But I thought I would road test that thought a little bit. So I went on to a couple of Facebook groups that I'm a member of and pose that that question to the group, What's your why? What's the goal of producing your podcast for you?
I got some really interesting responses, which I'll share with you here. There's two groups, actually one of them is based in Australia, and one of them I think, is probably more US-centered.
So from the Australian Podcasters, the responses of 'what's the why" came in like this.
Well, it's mostly to have fun, and probably socialize and make professional relationships to help promote and service heavy music to the masses, because mainstream still consider it a niche market.
Right, amen. I'm behind you with that
I've heard a bunch of people say, and I agree that if you find what you do to be of service to your audience, you will never struggle to stay motivated.
Kind of philosophical sounding take, which I agree with, I think the key to that will be how do you know whether what you do is of service to your audience, I think it's a great motivation, to be of service. So I guess it sort of indicates maybe this podcaster has a really good feedback loop with his with his listeners, and kind of gets a good sort of gauge on whatever he's talking about. And how that's how that lands with the listener. Here is another one,
to share something myself and my team love gaming and storytelling.
There we go, you know, find your passion, do something that you love. And there it is. He's using the very words as well share something that you love,
it's just for fun. We love sport and talk sport. So why not record it and see if people like it? We have a small audience, but honestly, we do it for our enjoyment.
Yeah.
Networking, get to meet a lot of interesting people and hopefully make a bit of coin from it once we build an audience.
Yeah. Why not? Good luck with making the coin. But I wouldn't put that in the why not unless you've got a whole other sort of support network around you about commercial, podcasting.
Share my passion with the world. All of my other work is focused on highlighting other creatives and their passions. So my podcast is for me to share mine.
Intriguing Jamie apps. I wonder what? Maybe that's the that's probably the answer, which kind of begs kind of "ask me more".
Maybe I'll get Jamie Apps on on this podcast, I will talk about that.
Now I thought the US-centric group might just kind of give me a little little contrast or, you know, I don't know I just thought maybe this will come up with some some sort of different angle on that kind of "What's your why?". So here's a few of those.
I started my show for increased visibility and to provide a resource that would help end shame and stigma around my topic area.
Yeah, so it's the same kind kind of thing, someone articulating something that they have an interest in and kind of exploring that,
To carry the message of 12 step recovery to those who still suffer. My podcast is called fragmented to whole life lessons from 12 step recovery.
Good one, Bob, getting the name of the podcast in the response, that's something that I would try and do as well. But yeah, it's another kind of life, you know, core sort of life experience thing that someone's exploring and communicating here.
Here's an interesting one
Generosity, I want to help people and meet people to expand my network in order to help more people.
My sister and I started our show, because one like it doesn't exist. We both have a four hour round trip commute and found ourselves talking a lot about the crazy things we witnessed or experienced on the road. And that's where the idea sparked.
Yeah, that's, that's, it's almost it's, yeah. I think my podcast, which has become a podcast about podcasting is not alone in its topic now. But podcasting about commuting for people who commute is similarly like really good, but convoluted as well.
I used to have a four hour round trip, commute, actually. And it was a killer. It was a real killer. By the time I'd done that for just over a year, I was very ready to stop doing it and move to the other side of the world. Which, which is how I came to be here in Australia, not exclusively because of the commute, of course. But it's, it's tough. It's really tough. And it depends on what modes of transport that you have. The train network that I was using, was very frustrating, and a very poor experience.
Anyhow, yeah. So that's the responses from I would say, from the US end of podcasting. Yeah, I think it's probably I one point, I thought, Oh, well, they were they were different. But that's kind of the same in the motivations, really. Some people doing things that are very personal to them, and others doing it for that reputation enhancing kind of piece.
Tony Moon, Sniffing Glue and SideburnsSo moving on, Punk Rock DIY, "here's three chords now form a band". Yeah, when I was doing this, I, I had that little saying in my mind, and I thought, I wonder, could I look this up? And what's you know what's behind that because all I had, I knew it occurred in a punk rock fanzine like a homemade little magazine. I thought properly, it seems to have been incorrectly attributed for much of its life to being published in a fanzine called sniffing glue, which is one of the more famous punk fanzines actually was not published in Sniffing Glue. The editor of Sniffing Glue is now kind of vocal. It's saying, "Hey, I didn't publish this".
But I researched and I put a link in the end of the blog article to a gallery, which is publishing a signed edition of that, that page. And it's basically a diagram of three guitar chords. "This is a chord, this is another this is a third now form a band". It's by a writer called Tony Moon. And I'm not being critical here, he's making a bit of money out of it right now, which he never most likely would have done at the time.
So you can buy that and have that on your wall, I'm pretty interested in getting that assigned a number as well. I'm always a sucker for signed and numbered. And let me just tell you, just for the sake of completeness, it was in our there it is, it was in a magazine called Sideburns. Not Sniffing Glue at all. So there we go, Punk Rock.
However you are doing your podcast, whether you're recording your chat on Zoom, or whether you've got a little bit more refined and higher quality, audio production. This piece about goals and topics I think is still really valuable. And it's really good for you to get that down - why are you doing it and if it is to make a bit of coin or to grow a network or grow an audience.
You might need a few other bits of strategy around that which you can then sort of hook into the into the promotion. You might have some other URLs or the content even, you might have some other ways that you want to engage and sort of collect your audience together so that you can actually convert them into whatever useful conglomerate you wish to.
So anyway, let's not get distracted into other things. Here's three chords. Now form a band.
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Leveraging your podcast to supercharge a content strategy and get the maximum efficiency for your messages.
Each individual podcast episode can be used to create a whole wave of content. This can be pushed out across all of your channels. Then, it’s not just the immediate audio listener-ship that generates the value for you. All of the subsequent readers and viewers who are touched by your content across all platforms will benefit.
Think of it like a theme - whatever you're discussing in your podcast becomes the theme that you share in your other messaging. If you think of it systematically, you could consider what values you want to represent. How you want audiences to see you? What topics do you want to highlight?
This podcast episode is an audio companion to the blog article "Extending the Content Conversation"
Episode Transcription0:21 Hi, this is Martin Franklin. Welcome to Metapod. This episode is an audio companion piece to run alongside a blog article I wrote called Extending the Content Conversation. There's often a sense that podcasts are separate entities that sit outside of an organization's wide communications or content strategy.
Viewing your podcast as an integral part, if not, the actual hub of your messaging, will let you maximize the potential to bring your key topics to life for your audience. We're going to look at a few examples of using a single podcast to create the audio content, or blog piece, or pre episode social post or post episode social post, a transcription and a video.
1:03 So the real watchword for this way of thinking is economy, you can make the effort that goes into producing your audio episode, work that much harder and traveled that much farther, with only a small amount of extra resourcing. So each individual episode can be used to create a whole wave of content that can be pushed out across your channels.
Ducks In A Row1:25 When I talk to people about more kind of broader digital strategies, I often use this idea of identifying each month, what are the key topics they want to talk about. And it's usually connected with a product or a new new announcement that they're making. And so that makes it easy. So if they've got a new course coming out, or a new book coming out, or any sort of key event like that, then it's easy to say, Okay, this month, that's what you talk about, you don't talk about anything else. It's about your core piece of content, and anything that sort of surrounds that. So in the same way, you can be using a podcast to expound different kinds of details about something which is either a value use support, or a feature that is connected with one of the products that you roll out, or something which is sort of connected with brand new, or any of those sort of distinguishing things, and you just pick one, and then decide - okay, this month, we're going to have a number of responsive slots where we can sort of interact with things that are going on around us and maybe comment on those. But then in terms of our actual content that we're pushing out, it's going to be about this and there'll be a podcast, and then we'll do a video version of that podcast. And we'll do a blog article that quotes from that podcast. And then we'll pick out a few headlines. And we'll spin those out as as graphic tiles.
AudiogramsSo right away, the popular short audiogram videos give you a new piece of content for your social channels. This can either announce the new episode, or feature a little bit of that episode in there, along with some eye catching visuals, super common, I know. But it's just saying this is a thing that you could be doing, which uses the same piece of podcast content, but takes a little headline out of it and a little tantalizing grab.
3:17 Here's a couple of recent ones that we produced here. First one is from the REIQ's Property Brief, hosted by Rob Dorey.
"G'day I'm Rob Dorey. Join me this week for the latest episode of the REIQ Property Brief podcast.
I went to Butterfield Street, Hurston which is a CBD location, one or one and a half k's out of the city. It was pitch black and literally it felt third world I didn't even recognize the street, a street that I've kind of lived around for years. Most of those streets are still without power. A lot of people have been eating canned food for the week because they don't have power. They don't have a car. And yet just because the street looks clean and clear again, we forget that there's still trauma there."
Sarah Butler, REIQ Property BriefThis show's actually paused at the moment, but I still love it. It's the Fintalking podcast.
The accumulation phase whilst it's pretty new, it's pretty robust, but the D cumulation phase yeah is a is a bit more challenging. And she had likened it to a half built car, and then sort of saying what we're asking people to do then is to then finish building it. Here's the spanner here's the wrench Go Go sorted out that really resonated with it. I heard this years and years ago but it just to me that visual image of that half built car and the poor retiree trying to build it to have a really happy and fulfilled and financially sort of healthy retirement is a big undertaking.
Erica Hall, FintalkingSo these grabs have accompanying bits of animation and video to go along with them: You can post them as native content directly into your LinkedIn into your Facebook. And then they become searchable on those platforms,
Whatever you do, don't put them on YouTube, and then put a link in another platform, because people won't go off platform to watch this stuff, it has to be in the feed that they're scrolling at that moment.
AI Transcriptions5:26 So, next piece of content, and it's really, my thought is kind of, you can get two pieces of content out of this if if you've got the resources to do that. So the no-brainer piece is the transcription of the podcast, you can get an AI transcription, which is 90% accurate at this point in 2022, probably in 2023, it'll be 95 99%. Accurate, who knows?
There's a bit of variability with accents and the quality of audio recording that it's being uploaded to the AI transcriptions at the moment. But it's, it's easy, and then that gives you an absolute flying start. If you want to go through your transcription and correct the names and any of the technical terms which the the AI didn't get, right. That's it. Put a couple of subheadings in there to help people understand what it is that they're reading. And you've pretty much got an article right, right there - super searchable, and you can publish that alongside the podcast release.
And the other thing that I think is, anyone who's got an interest in the topics under discussion, will have some sort of reflections after they've had the conversation about that topic in their podcast. So it wouldn't be that much work to then summarize your response and your feelings and the highlights that you the kind of takeaways that you got from the conversation, I guess. And then intersperse that with a few a few quotes and make that another standalone blog piece.
All of it kind of has a nice synergy. They also mutually support each other.
Here Be Treasure - Easy ArticlesHere be Treasure. That's a great sub-heading. Now I'm going through my blog article, (it's really interesting to contrast how you write things with how you say them). In this point, I'm trying to convey where there's value, I guess. So gaining an expert opinion, from the guests on your podcast through conversation, and allowing them to voice a novel thought is a huge win.
So that's the point - that if you get someone who's an expert in their field, then quite likely will have said what they say a number of times, probably on a lot of the other podcasts which they speak on. And maybe they've written about it, people do this, they have these little snippets that they sort of store away, and then they'll just retrieve those and roll them out every time something kind of needs illustrating in that in that field. But if your interview technique just has a little bit of flexibility, and a little bit of ability to dig deeper, and ask those follow up questions and tease out some kind of novel thought from that expert, then there's your treasure, there's your gold nugget, because they've said something on the spur of the moment that they haven't said before, and possibly haven't even thought of before. There we go. That's podcast gold dust, when you get that stuff. You can make that a headline or quote, run with it in your blog articles, because you've actually done a unique piece of journalism there.
8:41 I've got another example of this in the article which once again, it comes from the Fintalking podcast who on their website, they've created a section called insights, which I quite like. It's drawing stuff out from the podcast and running alongside other finance related articles, which is the theme that they generally explore in the podcast.
Graphic Small Bites9:06 Graphic quotes are a good one. I've got a couple of examples here from the Net Positive podcast, which we produced is run by a company called Upflowy in Sydney, and features conversations with pretty well established product marketers, and product developers who work in the digital space. So they've got people from Atlassian from Canva, pretty big names, that they they get on to talk about some of the mechanics and the sort of insider stuff in that industry. So what they've done after that is do a series of both video grabs, but also just graphic tiles, which just have like three or four lines that the guest has said with a bit of attribution name and company name.
10:00 It just gives another kind of easy piece of content not really like fancy design or anything. But it's another easy piece of content that's drawn out from the podcast and kind of create that wraparound effect. What I've got here, I've got another great example here from one of my favorite podcasters Anna Dower, The Uncool Designer.
Anna wrote a blog post and simultaneously released her podcast episode titled "The Uncontrollable", both of those pieces of content approach the same topic, but in different formats. It's like an opportunity to read a book or have 20 minutes with the author of that book, both valuable but different experiences.
Hello, welcome to the uncool designer, it is Anna here. And I'm finally finally diving into 2022. I know it has been hard to get this year started. I know, I've been listening to designers who are all struggling to jump into the new year, I feel exactly the same. I'm here today to talk about when life gets in the way of business, and motivation, and how we deal with that. And I'm going to also talk about how to set goals for the new year that you can actually achieve. If you are on my email newsletter list, you would have received an email from me talking about how I haven't worked in my business for the last two months. That's probably the biggest break I've ever taken from my business. Even when I've had babies. I don't think I've ever done that. And it wasn't something I planned. I definitely didn't have control over it. And it kind of sent me into a spiral of stress, anxiety and guilt, all of those really shitty emotions that are not productive or motivating at all. So I want to talk about that.
Anna Dower, The Uncool DesignerAnd this topic of the uncontrollable was basically exploring this theme of how you can be sort of motivated and continue to progress your career or your your self employed business while navigating through the sort of uncontrollable currents of life when stuff just happens around you. And how do you deal with that, you know, if something is happening in your personal life, which takes you off the roadmap that you had to kind of release your new product or just kind of advanced things so that you're delivering projects and earning money. How do you how do you cope with those things?
So yeah, it's really nice blog post and podcast episode.
Video VersionSo we're already kind of talking about this idea of multi-platform use of our content, and lots of podcasts are already doing this and already kind of rolling with it. But converting your audio into video is also not that hard. Obviously, you've got two approaches, one of which is to actually video, the recording of the podcast with cameras. And in the case where you've got multiple people talking, you know, sometimes that's actually not not a small undertaking to produce video.
But with a heap of people now doing remote interviews, you've got your recorded Zoom chat, or Riverside FM chat, if you're using a more high quality platform. That gives you something which is, you know, more or less, it's kind of 80% there already, you might want to do a little post production to it just to kind of up the quality of the video. But either doing that, or creating some kind of simple animation and then using that to support the audio, exporting it as a video and putting it on YouTube is the other. The other approach. My feeling is that a YouTube audience is a different audience to your podcast listenership.
14:35 It's that sort of difference between audio and video and the kind of levels of attention that each of those mediums ask of us. Audio is much more relaxed, it's happy to sort of sit, sit back and let you come in, but equally, if you're doing something else at the same time, that's okay. Audio doesn't mind. So it has a whole have different sort of emotional and practical considerations around it. Whereas video, you might as well think of video, like TV, you have to be static. And you have to be looking at a screen. In order to experience video.
I guess you could sort of say, well, if the if a video is playing, and we're not watching it isn't that kind of just like audio, and you probably have a point. But if we're going to the trouble of creating a video and putting it on a video platform, I think we can assume the audience that gravitates towards the video platform is there because they like watching stuff.
15:41 And there's a fun and a sort of entertainment in seeing things, seeing what people look like seeing the expressions on their faces, seeing how they engage with each other. So if you're producing multi camera video of your podcast recordings is definitely giving a different dimension to the show. But from my point of view, with that content economy idea, it's the same conversation, it's being captured at the same moment. So in terms of your time, and the time of your guest, that's it and you're absolutely super maximizing the potential of that by recording the audio really well, sticking up some kind of cameras, and doesn't necessarily need to be really high end production.
So I've got clients who recorded podcasts using iPads, the camera in your iPhone is a really great camera, it's more than capable of capturing something like this, and you can get the video out of it, and produce some kind of edit out of it. And as I said, if you're recording on Riverside FM or an online platform anyway, you can just download either the individual streams or that kind of to up create view of the conversation.
WrapSo there you have it, really that is extending the content conversation. It's just something I felt like needs to be pointed out because you're either doing it already, in which case, you know, you can, you can pat yourself on the back, because you're there already, but if you're not doing it already, it's not that far away for you to be able to maximize what you're doing with the podcast, and then spin it out into some other assets that you can cascade through all of your other platforms.
So there you have it. Good luck with extending the content conversation.
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These words need to count, so don’t waste them. Discover my favourite DON'T and your show notes will be better right from the get go.
These few simple tips will help you avoid the obvious pitfalls and make the most of the critical text in your podcast show notes. These are the hooks which contribute to wooing listeners to your podcast episodes, so making them count is important.
This episode is an audio companion to the blog article "Writing Effective Podcast Show Notes" (https://eastcoaststudio.com.au/how-to-write-podcast-show-notes/).
Episode Transcription0:24 This episode is the first of a short series we'll be doing, which are audio companion pieces to run alongside some blog articles that I've been writing about the world of podcasting. So in this episode, we'll be looking at the topic of how to write effective shownotes. For your podcast, I've got a few simple tips to help you avoid the obvious pitfalls, and make the most of this critical text in your show notes. This text provides the hook which will contribute to wooing listeners to your podcast episode and then hopefully, subscribing and following you for the journey. First of all, let's have a look at the context in which your text will appear. The browsing environment is absolutely critical to understand the user experience is the canvas and also the constraints that we have to work within. So most likely, this canvas will be an app or a mobile phone screen, maybe the desktop app on Mac. The limited space that's available for your text means only a small part of the description that you write is actually visible at all when people are casually scrolling by.
These words need to count.
1:36 I'm looking at the Apple Podcasts, desktop app here to illustrate some of the points. But in the article, we've got some good screen grabs from the iOS app that probably is the most useful gauge of the environment that your text will appear in.
1:56 But regardless of that, these same principles apply to any other podcast app, because none of them were showing through your description text in its entirety.
Good Example Show Notes2:06 So first of all, I just started to sort of pick out a few things to use as current illustrations of what I think is really good. And in the article, I've got, like, a little list of importance for each of the items here. So the way I break it down is your title. The title of the episode is really important because that has to communicate to the listener, the what and the why, for that episode, what are they going to get out of it, the first line of your descriptive text will always be there, at least the first, whatever it is, I can't, I'm gonna have to count the number of characters to be able to to tell you accurately. But to me, it's something like first time words is guaranteed, maybe first 20 words, if you're lucky. So that is very important that the following paragraph, I would say is important. But in order to read that subsequent paragraph, your your your reader or your your browser, the person has to actually act, they actually have to sort of click into it in order to be able to access the further information. So really, I think we can sort of discount anything. Beyond that we're looking at good title, really good first line. And that's that's the best shot that we've got.
Ted TechSo a couple of examples which I didn't produce. Just just browsing here is the TED Talks always seem to sort of smash every kind of media which they put out there. So savvy, their latest episode of the TED Tech Talk is "Six big ethical questions about the future of AI". Slash Genevieve Bell says everything that you need need to know it's got the topic. It's got the the author who will be presumably guiding you through that topic, and gives you that sort of orientation and motivation... Well yeah, I want to know what the ethical questions are because I want to know what I need to look out for.
There's another good one here, let me see was this Q Podcast these are based on my subscription so far, and Apple's just put this in the More To Discover category.
Q PodcastSo I've got one here, "How Elon Musk can promote free speech without turning Twitter into one big dumpster fire". I really liked that because it's got a little bit of personality in there. The line that follows it, of this is Quillette. Okay. The line that follows it is "veteran technology expert, Jim Ron tells Quillette podcast..." something something so that that first line is failing a little bit really because veteran technology expert, Jim right, okay is establishing the credentials of the guest I guess in this case, he tells Quillette podcast, whatever. Presumably he tells Quillette podcast how Elon Musk can promote free speech without turning Twitter into one big dumpster fire. But but we don't know because the remains of that sentence are under the under the fold. I can't see that unless I click click into it.
So, as I'm talking about first line, let me just go back to that first episode, the TED Tech podcast "Six big ethical questions about the future of AI", Genevieve Bell. Firstline "artificial intelligence is all around us. And the future will only" dot dot dot. I'm kind of intrigued I sort of am aware that artificial intelligence is growing around me. But I like things that it's that sort of like future gazing look. So that word future that personally that appeals to me. Let me see if I got any other picks for you. And there's another one. Just in my search subscriptions. I subscribed to a lot of music, podcasts as well as talk but so they don't always have Reno titles which work in the same way.
Ted Talks6:17 Ted Talks Daily, new show out today, "The crime fighting power of cross border investigative journalism, Bakhtawar Iskender", first line: "organised crime operates across national borders". Brilliant, that tells me a whole lot in a very short space of time. So I think all of these things are, the sort of guidance that I'm that I'm getting is that title has to give the reader as much information as possible about what is the subjects of, of the podcast, in this case, there are Talk Talk podcast. And ideally, if you can inject a bit of personality and a bit of motivation in there as well, then we're looking at something which has a bit of a compelling effect on the reader.
How We Write Show Notes7:12 So my examples, which I've put in the blog article, writing effective podcast show notes, are some notes that we wrote for a show, which launched at the beginning of 2022. Called parents in tech. It's a series of interviews with mainly female tech, business people who also have kids. So that's the whole sort of thrust of off the show is exploring how to parent and also build a build a career, particularly in the tech sector. So my example, from one of the early episodes, is baby tech quality time and asking for help with Dr. Petty. First line. As a working parent, life becomes easier when you know and make use of the resources available to you.
8:07 So let's say that's all the reader will see what we've actually done. Beyond that, the second paragraph talks about the guest, Dr. Betty, who she is what what's her professional credentials. And then the third paragraph goes into a little bit more detail about the content of the show, followed by paragraph of links for getting in touch and further further follow up. So we're kind of using that same sort of ambition that the headline says, who is the speaker? And what are they speaking about with a bit of insight into the actual detail of the conversation?
Favourite DON'T8:54 So this brings me on to my favourite don't when writing these, these podcasts, China's I see this quite literally all the time. Which is exactly why it comes in mind number one, for don't do this.
9:14 So here's the sentence of your description, which I would love you not to write.
"In this podcast episode, the host, talks to the guest...." Blah, blah, blah. So the reason I am not advocating that sort of obvious approach is I guess it's another example of that sort of linear thinking where you're trying to sort of set out everything and give the reader a full orientation and background or something. But we we can take for granted the fact that the reader will know this is a podcast episode because they're looking at it in their podcast app, presumably looking for new do podcasts sign up to subscribe to or making that decision about whether they actually want to listen to this show in your podcast. So they know it's a podcast episode. And that's your first four words, just wasted hostname. Again, very, very popular.
Yes, hosts are very important. But your name as the host will most likely be present in a few other levels of the podcast, you might be on the artwork, you might have your picture on the artwork, the name of the show might include the hostname. So we know the host net, the host is named. So we don't need to do that in the show notes.
10:45 Similarly, although perhaps not quite sort of pushing it, to that degree, the guest name in that first line is sort of it's sort of good, I tend to take that approach, if it's a guest that people may know of, or it may have some sort of search value, let's get them in that title. Because if you are aware of web structures, we have a body text of pages, but we have a heading text. And the headings have a rating from one to six, in terms of their importance to the hierarchy of the document, it says with a web page being in the being the document, but the h1 rating is still there for podcast episodes. And that being the title is the overall little piece of text, which describes everything that follows after it. So it's, it's important. And it's given that importance in search.
11:48 So if your guest is someone who may well be searched or have have a bit of value in that respect, let's get them in the in the title of the show.
11:58 Otherwise, if they're not, obviously they need to be acknowledged and referenced in in the notes. But they're not necessarily bringing any extra value, if the reader doesn't know who they are so better to you to be a bit more descriptive earlier on, and then have a full biography of the guests in paragraph two or two or three, so that we're sort of ticking that box. And there's that extra bit of information there that might be useful later.
12:29 This is basically it. So it's a one shot choice that that you've got here. In this sort of hierarchy of information. We've got podcast artwork, title, first line. And those are the chances that we have to grab people's attention.
12:48 So don't kind of waste it just by waffle.
Take Away12:55 So in essence, what I'm suggesting is that we just reconsider the use of text for our episode titles and descriptions and make sure that they are motivating pieces of text, we want to encourage an action from the reader. If we don't encourage an action, our efforts are wasted, we might as well not have anything at all. So in summary, podcast episode title should contain some kind of topic hook, which makes the listener click through to hear more. And my suggestion, also the name of the guest, or maybe the organisation that's being talked about for extra kind of search value.
13:35 Following that, let's just focus on that first line of the description text. To give a little bit of extra depth to the topic. Don't worry about telling people, it's a podcast, don't worry about telling people who the host is. And possibly don't bother telling people who the guest is. If people are hooked by the theme that you're talking about, I think it's okay to push the push the guest down a little bit. But if there's a bit of value in name checking them or maybe you want to sort of give them a bit of credit and support them by putting their name in your title, then obviously, you can do that. Beyond this, you're absolutely free to elaborate on any of the details in the podcast. Add links to further information, because you can use HTML in podcast description so you can then link to people's LinkedIn, you can link to the articles that you reference or any other kind of resources that are involved in the podcast. And that's about it really. So good luck with writing your podcast, stay focused, make sure you get that motivation in there. And everything will be better
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What can podcasters learn from the world of tech startups ? Forbes 30 Under 30 listee and successful startup founder, Qin En Looi dives in with his new podcast project, Parents In Tech.
Speaking at the very start of his new podcast, his topic stems from life experience for Young Guns in the startup world when children come along. We talk about how being open to learning and developing skill as a podcaster fits perfectly with Agile approaches to developing a startup business.
"podcasting also helps me train and develop Active Listening. Because it's not just about a set list of questions, and you rattle it off like a checklist"
Based on an enthusiasm to tell human stories, our conversation takes in preparation, research, and delivery of a new podcast.
Links:Parents.FM Qin En Looi (LinkedIn)
TranscriptionMartin Franklin 0:18 Welcome, and thank you for listening to Metapod. We're out of the walk-in 'robe for this episode, and I'm talking to a new podcaster. Qin En Looi, based in Singapore, Qin En is a successful startup founder and venture capitalist. So the question which I'm really posing to him in this interview, is what can podcasters learn from the world of tech startups? That's a pretty interesting thought. And a lot of startups, as you may know, employ Agile methodology. So that means they don't over invest in one thing before they know whether or not the audience would like it. So I'm giving away one of the tips from the interview before he even heard it. So how's that for value? The other thing, which I think really defines this interview is I have my kind of questions prepared a vino, what I thought I might dig around for answer and try and get some good responses from Qin En. And as we talked, another idea emerge, which is one of the amazing things that always happens in this type of interview. And that was this idea which everyone who has started a business or certainly attended a business planning workshop will, will be familiar with this idea of find your why if I Why you doing this new project, and what's good about it. So let's think about that and apply that idea to podcasts as the real kind of kick off, find your Why. Why are you doing this? And then build your idea, once you know that answer? And hopefully your answers a good one, and you'll get a fantastic podcast. Enough of me freestyling on this. Let's jump into the interview.
Martin Franklin 2:18 All right. Welcome, Qin En. Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about your forthcoming podcast. So I wanted to ask you a few questions about where the idea came from, how you've scoped the project and where you think the podcast will be in nine months time. But first, before we get into that, Forbes 30, under 30. Tell me about that.
Qin En 2:48 Thanks for having me on the show, Martin. And yes. So in 2017, I was very fortunate to be recognized on Forbes 30, under 30. Back then, I was building my company cleanse, which was a tech recruitment platform. And I would say, being on the Forbes 30, under 30 list was always my dream. It felt like a mark of recognition. But the funniest thing was after I got on the list, I was like, Oh, okay. And it didn't feel particularly great. I mean, of course, there was celebration, and there was the press around it. But I think at the end of the day, I realized that, hey, you know, this is just one of the many lists that are out there that provide some form of external validation. But at the end of the day, what really mattered was the impact and the business Dallas creating. So yeah, when these days when some of my peers do ask, Well, what it's like to be Forbes 30, under 30. I'd like to tell them, hey, you know, Forbes 30, under 30. It's great. But at the end of the day, you really got to focus on what matters and what creates value for your users or your customers.
Martin Franklin 3:55 Yeah, so yeah, although you get the recognition, it's still on you to drive your business and build, build what you want to build.
Qin En 4:03 Exactly, exactly. And I think at the end of the day, these awards should be a reflection of the work you put in, it shouldn't be a goal unto itself.
Martin Franklin 4:12 Yeah, absolutely. So that was 2017. When you're a young gun, starting your business, having success, and now we come to the concept of your podcast, Parents In Tech. So life has happened in the meantime. So you've got your your startup experience, and then the family experience has just landed on you. And you've had a kind of aha moment of "let's make a podcast about this". So tell me about that concept.
Qin En 4:46 So about a year ago, I was very fortunate and blessed to welcome my first daughter into the world Gabrielle and the past year has been an absolute roller coaster journey. I think nothing really prepared me for this trip. Are parenthood while also trying to balance and juggle my career ambitions and aspirations. And I think as I went along this journey, I realized that I'm not alone, right? There are many dads and moms out there who are striving to achieve that balance that integration of what they want out of their family, as well as what they want out of the workplace. So I thought, what better than to create a platform where potentially I can talk to other moms and dads who are going through this journey, I can learn from them. And at the same time, share this with the other mums and dads who might be key. And I think Parents In Tech, it's something that it's close to my heart, because I think many tech companies, whether you are a founder, whether you're an investor, whether you're a leader in a tech company, there's always this sense of a very dynamic, very intense culture. And there's also almost this culture always being on working long hours, keep hustling. And that can sometimes take a toll, especially once you are a parent, you realize that you have other priorities. And it almost may seem like, Hey, maybe I am less committed to the company than my other colleagues who are non parents who can stay to the office to 10-11 work to the weekends. And so I think that can and should need to be a huge change around this. So I'm hoping that parents attack, it's that small part in contributing to that movement and to that change.
Martin Franklin 6:28 Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I, you know, I've heard a lot of talk recently about the the post COVID Great resignation, where people are reevaluating, you know, their their work life balance, and you know, whether they are really getting value from the amount of commitment they're putting into the work place. So it does seem very much in tune with something that's, that's in the air. And so I know you've moved on now from your, your first startup company. But so how are you finding that impact of having a newborn child or in your own work life?
Qin En 7:07 I'm still figuring it out. But I think a big part of it, it's about learning to set boundaries. And the past, I would say those boundaries were a lot more negotiable. When it was just me and my wife, right? It was two adults who could talk to each other who could work things out. And you know, she understands what it takes get busy. But when you have a new board, when a new when she's hungry, which is uncomfortable, which is sleepy.
Martin Franklin 7:31 Yeah, they don't understand, they just want exactly what they want right away,
Qin En 7:35 Right? It's not like I can, it's not like I could tell my newborn, hey, give me two minutes to send an email. That doesn't work. And I think that really helps to put things into perspective on where priorities need to be, and also how to go about managing my schedule well, so it's almost a point where I need to, and I have learned, for example, the sleep schedule of my daughter, and I've learned to schedule meetings around that. So that I am available to put her to bed at least. And when she's sleeping, I can I can get on with her. So I think it's really a journey that has been, I would say not easy. And it's always like I feel I'm always learning, my daughter is also growing. So her patterns change along the way. But I think what I want to really share and hopefully due to this podcast, it's to create a sense that, hey, you know, you might be going through a tough time as a parent, maybe as a new parent, as a parent or with kids who have grown up. But you aren't alone in this, right? There are other people who have faced such challenges. And most importantly, it's to hear their stories, and to be inspired, but not necessarily feel like you have to copy or compare with them. Right? There's this idea where, you know, we always compare whether or not we are giving our children the best whether we're being the best dad, the best mom, I think that's that's not really what we're going for it the idea is to to crowdsource the different ways that parents have raised their kids have balanced their work, and create options, ultimately, for our audience to think about, hey, this is something that I think it's going to work I'm going to try out, and hopefully it does for them.
Martin Franklin 9:09 It sounds to me like you've you've thought about this concept, you know, really well and in some good detail. Could you talk a little bit about the market research that you've done? That sort of led led to the start up of the of the podcast,
Qin En 9:26 Well, truth be told. It wasn't really a market research. It was on a Friday evening, but I was just brainstorming of what I could do. And really the idea just popped up
Martin Franklin 9:35 But you've documented it really well, it looks kind of like it looks like a really well documented brainstorm.
Qin En 9:43 So I think the origins of this came about when I was inspired by some of the great podcasts that are around in Southeast Asia where they talk to entrepreneurs, investors and tech leaders. And I was really inspired after listening to some of them. But then as I thought, okay, What can I bring to to the podcasting audience? What can I bring to the Southeast Asia community? I felt like we do not need yet another podcast to just talk purely on how to build a company how to grow a company, right? There are people who have done that doing an excellent job at that. And then I go on the other side and look at what are the parenting side, because that's something I'm trying to learn. And I realize, hey, so many podcasts out there, around parenting and family are actually created for, I would say, the American audience or the European audience, right? Now, parenting styles differ very differently, like in Asian and Western, but even within Southeast Asia itself, it just so many ways, so many nuances. And I thought, what if there's a way for, for, for me to kind of like, bring this together and create conversation on not just about how to be a better parent, not just how to be a better entrepreneur, investor or tech leader? But how do you do both? Right, and, and, you know, when you're good at one, I strongly believe that it helps the other.
Martin Franklin 11:03 So it's very much drawn out of your own experience, this kind of fusion of family and tech startup business life. You mentioned, you know, some of the other business leaders in Southeast Asia, what have you got a sense of what is the the trend in podcasting in Singapore, or, you know, or wider,
Qin En 11:26 I noticed that many of the podcasts in Southeast Asia are actually interview based, which is quite interesting, because when I think about some of the podcasts, the popular podcasts, when I heard, let's say in the US quite a number of them are, for example, the talk shows - Joe Rogan is one of the best, of course, he does have guests on, but I think virtually all the podcasts in this region are interviews. And I think that's really because there's so much interest in the human stories of what people go through. And I think the ability to be able to capture some of those emotions through an interview. That's, that's odd in audio, as compared to, let's say, a written interview or an article, it's really quite unique and distinctive. And I think that's really where the beauty of magic of podcasts, at least in Southeast Asia comes by, is because when you hear the voice of someone whom you highly respect, I think that just creates a sense of intimacy and connection, that it's very hard to hard to replace.
Martin Franklin 12:25 So we're just kind of in the the warm up stage of just doing this the setup for the podcast now. And I've been really interested by some of the ways you've approached your decision making. And I was curious about whether there are any learnings that that you've had, from your experience of the startup world that you've applied to this as a project
Qin En 12:52 very much what I learned at a startup word, it's, it's that the lean methodology, it out, don't think too much get a product, that's, I would say, like a minimum viable product, get it out, get feedback, and see where we go from there. And that's really how I would say this ParentId tech podcast came about. In fact, I think it's only less than a month since the idea was formed. And here I am, just yesterday, doing my first interview recording, hopefully to launch it over, I would say the next one to two months, I think the idea is, I want to start small, try to get it out as quickly as possible. And I love to say that I heard when I was building my company, right? If you are not embarrassed by the first product you launched, it's already too late. I think there's a grain of truth in it. So it's almost like I know, it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be 100% polished. I'm not a professional podcaster. But I think I want to get started as quickly as possible, and see what my audience has to say about that.
Martin Franklin 13:48 Yeah, I always say to the podcast, as I work with it, there's a massive amount of learning that will happen in that first season. And it's useful sometimes to think exactly like that in a way that that first season is, is a pilot, it's it's a place where you can experiment and you can learn and develop your own technique as a host and find, you know, what is the sort of sweet spot for you? So yeah, it's interesting to use that minimum viable product terminology. Out of all the people that I've worked with, it's really interesting for me to hear the the timescale that you've you've worked in for this project, because you strike me as being like, super well prepared. And, and, you know, everything is documented and accessible. And, you know, there's, there's a plan and it's really, it's really impressive. So I just wonder, have you got any preparation tips that you could share with, you know, people who are thinking about coming on this same journey?
Qin En 14:59 I think what One of the things that I really learned, it's ultimately, why should people listen to you? And to answer that question, in an honest and truthful way, right? I think I the way I think about it, it's, you don't, you don't have to be the most impressive, the most accomplished person to start a podcast, I think you just got to be real and genuine to yourself, right, and to find a topic that is close to your heart, and you yourself are passionate about, if anything, I realized over this past one month of preparing for our podcast, it is a lot of work, right? It is a lot of work to think of the content to invite guests the schedule to set up your podcast, just so many things. And that's even with your help parted. So I can imagine, try to do this alone. But But yeah, I think there's just so many things that it at the end of the day, it really has to be something that comes from the heart, something that a topic that you are passionate, and you genuinely want to learn more about, right? So almost, for me, sort of like the selfish motivation in inverted commas. It's for me to learn how to be a better husband, how to be a better father, and also how to be better at the workplace, right. And the best way I can do that, it's by speaking to people, the podcast is is almost like a documentation a record of the conversation that we have. And so that's really what inspires me. To start this, even as I thought about what would go into my first season, I thought, what better way to stand to speak to moms who work in technology companies, because my wife is someone who works at a technology company, right? So it's about understanding who is the audience that you have. And working with that in mind,
Martin Franklin 16:39 I completely agree with your point about, it has to be something that you personally have a passion for, and the topic resonates with you. So were when you were doing your research about what, what other podcasts were doing? How did that influence your decision making? Or did or did it at all?
Qin En 17:02 I think to a certain extent, I was a little nervous to be honest, because I saw that there was so many great podcasts out there, even within the southeast Asia region. And so it was a matter of, Hey, man, I, I have so much respect for these people. How do I create additional interesting content and bring value to the audience? Right? I don't want to be, for example, interviewing the same set of people asking the same set of questions. And then it's kind of like that was really the struggle and the and the nervousness that I had. So I think a big part of it was trying to figure out, okay, what is something that's slightly more unique, and what's different, and ultimately would justify someone taking 2030 minutes of their time, even if it's in the midst of a commute to to listen, and to participate?
Martin Franklin 17:52 So being really sort of mindful of that, what's the benefit for the listener? To spend that time with you? Yeah, it's it's a little bit like, I've experienced recently, some business, mentoring. And one of the classic questions that the the mentor presents you with is about finding your why find your why, why are you doing what you do? And then when you can say that in one sentence, then that's the building block that everything else goes on? It seems so simple, but actually, it sort of needs a little bit of formality around it to actually arrive at that answer. Like, you don't always just know what What the Why is, you know, it does need a little bit of reflection sometimes. Yeah, totally agree about that. We're just getting into this kick off phase. And you've you've recorded that, that first interview, how did you how did you find that?
Qin En 18:52 I was nervous how it's a I remember, usually, you know, for meetings, I would just go into the link a minute before it's scheduled. This time, I went in 15 minutes had to do all their sound checks and make sure I was recording. And I would say it's a little nervous, right, especially when it happened. So but I think it's once again, a kind of thing that I believe to practice and by doing, I'll get better. But even in this first interview that I had, I mean, I just felt so inspired with, with the mom that I was speaking to. She has three teenage children, and just hearing how she was able to evolve a parenting over the 20 years of being a mum. I think that is something that's inspiring, and something that gives me almost like a glimpse into the future of what life would be like for me 1020 years from now. And I think that's really the interest and the power of of these stories that I'm really excited to take and share with my audience.
Martin Franklin 19:50 When you launched into that first interview. What kind of preparation did you do?
Qin En 19:56 I think it very much about of course, understanding where my guests professional background are. But I think even before the interview, just also understanding a bit more about her family. What were some of the lessons that she learned as a parent, and thinking about maybe the one or two key things that I really wanted to do to share in terms of the perspectives and her uniqueness. That was really what I was keeping in mind. And then as the interview started, it was pretty much free flowing. But I think podcasting also helps me train and develop active listening, right? Because it's not just about a set list of questions, and you rattle it off like a checklist, I think they're served to be a very boring podcast. But it's really about having a conversation, right. And maybe there's certain bits and pieces that were completely unexpected. But also being able to kind of grab on that and develop that during the actual conversation.
Martin Franklin 20:53 So you did a bit of research into the guest and their, their situation. So did you have any prepared questions?
Qin En 21:02 I did. I had three prepared questions.
Martin Franklin 21:05 And then you just freestyled around that?.
Qin En 21:08 Yeah, exactly.
Martin Franklin 21:10 I liked that. I liked that approach. So it gives you a kind of bullet point direction of where to go, but also lets you be responsive and natural too.
Qin En 21:20 Yeah.
Martin Franklin 21:21 That's a great approach. When you think about Parents In Tech, in a year's time, where where would you want the podcast to be?
Qin En 21:31 I would love the podcast to have shown and capture a diverse set of perspectives from moms and dads who read it the technology company leaders, their entrepreneurs or their investors, but to capture the richness of parenting in this region, as well as the challenges of you know, being a parent and striving towards career ambitions. I think there's a lot of these that we can learn. And ultimately, I hope that my podcast can be a source of support, and a source of ideas for parents who are out there, and who might be going through a similar life stage as some of the guests that I'll be interviewing.
Martin Franklin 22:08 That's beautiful. So yeah, just as an ambition to just make some great content, make some great stuff that has value. Exactly. It's got to be a foundation that's worth building on. With the experience that you've had to date. Do you have any, any tips that you'd like to share for aspiring podcasters?
Qin En 22:29 I would say just get started. There's always 100 reasons why you should not do it. 100 things that could potentially go wrong. For example, not hitting the record button just before you start a podcast interview.
Martin Franklin 22:41 It always happens at least once
Qin En 22:43 Exactly. But as then just get started really
Martin Franklin 22:45 not more than once
Qin En 22:46 pick yourself up and move on from there.
Martin Franklin 22:49 Brilliant. Okay, so I know from a conversation that we've had previously, that you can absolutely nail an elevator pitch. So if we wanted to encourage people listening here to subscribe or give give parents in tech a lesson. How would we How would you pitch it to the Sure.
Qin En 23:09 So Parents In Tech. It's a place where parents, entrepreneurs, investors, AI technology, company leaders could come together and discuss real stories on the challenges of work life integration, and how to achieve their family aspirations with career ambitions.
Martin Franklin 23:28 Brilliant. Thank you, Qin En. So Parents In Tech, it'll be on every podcast platform that we can possibly reach. Thank you, and we look to speaking again.
Qin En 23:41 Thanks so much, Martin.
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First of a series of interviews talking to new podcasters about their preparations, plans for marketing, and measurements for success - just before their new podcast goes live.
For people unused to creating and publishing media, let alone recording and presenting, creating a podcast can have an overwhelming number of tasks to cover. Working with a professional producer can be a great boon, and in this episode we talk about the preparation process and launch plans for a new project by family mediator, Kirsty Petersen. Also, importantly, we talk about the place of a podcast within the context of a small business
Kirsty uses her skills as a former radio scriptwriter to nail her trailer episode and along the way gives an exemplary illustration of how a sole trader can think about a podcast in the content mix.
Pro-tip: The low tech tip for this episode is the super-simple method of auditioning music tracks by recording a live vocal while the music plays and capturing the results using online recording tool, Loom. You can them listen back to the music in context, before making a decision on which piece to license for your show.
Links Kirsty Petersen / Co-Parenting Kids Loom
TranscriptionMartin Franklin 0:21 We're back! with a new episode of Metapod. If you've listened to the last two episodes of the show, you might remember that each of the two guests gave their own tip for a great recording technique that they both used. And that is recording their show inside there walk in robe. So I thought, I'll have tried that. And I am speaking to you right now, from my modestly appointed wardrobe.
Martin Franklin 0:47 You can just hear the clothes.
Martin Franklin 0:53 This episode, I'll be speaking to family mediator, Kirsty Peterson, who is about to launch her new show, co parenting kids podcast.
Martin Franklin 1:02 I'm always amazed by the clever things that people do that I wouldn't have thought to suggest myself. So before we get to the interview, I wanted to share with you this pro tip for trialing theme music for your show.
Martin Franklin 1:14 I talk to my clients about music in terms of the tempo, the pitch, the density, and each of those things, making it suitable accompaniment for their voice and the speed that they speak and the kind of intro that they want to give.
Martin Franklin 1:29 But I'd never thought of this genius simple technique, Kirstie had her selections down to three tracks and use loom to record herself speaking her show intro over each one to help with the decision.
Unknown Speaker 1:46 Lo fi examples of test recording
Martin Franklin 2:29 you'll find out which was the successful choice if you listen to the CO parenting podcast. But now let's talk to Kirstie
Martin Franklin 2:38 Kirstie Peterson about to launch the CO parenting kids podcast thanks for coming, having a chat with me about it pre launch so we can get a snapshot of where you are now with it. What I wanted to do was ask a couple of questions about the your goals for the podcast now and then come back sometime next year. And see how have they have they been been met? I think that you've been planning this for some time. Is that is that correct?
Kirsty Peterson 3:10 Yes, a very, very long time. It was like a brainchild brilliant idea that I had sort of five years ago. Let's do a podcast I said to one of the people that I was sort of CO working with at the time.
Kirsty Peterson 3:23 And I was very excited and I fleshed out all the episodes and and then I didn't do anything about it. And then early last year, I used an online program a platform to
Kirsty Peterson 3:37 I suppose you would say launch the podcast. But it sounded horrible and I didn't like it so I pulled it and thought you know what if I'm going to do this, I want to do it properly. And that's when I found you and how grateful and happy and excited Am I to have a producer like you oh thank you so I get a lot of validation from my my my guests who always seem to appreciate what I do. So that's that feels really good. Well, that's because you're the expert and we're the newbie and we have no idea we're floundering around and you just sort of say Oh, do this or use this or this is the answer. Kirsty it's like Yes, sir Martin Thank you.
Martin Franklin 4:15 As some of the listeners to this show, will be podcasters or aspiring podcasters themselves. Could we name names about what platform you used initially that didn't quite hit the mark for you.
Kirsty Peterson 4:29 It was anchor. Oh, okay. And it wasn't I don't think it was anchor it was totally Kirstie.
Kirsty Peterson 4:39 Because when you just use your computer and your you know your little $5 headphones from the servo the quality isn't going to be that great. It's gonna be a $5 servo podcast.
Kirsty Peterson 4:52 Yes, but look, it served its purpose really because it enabled me toflesh it out to start with to get used to. And not that I wasn't necessarily used to it, but to actually start recording something. But to put it out there and be able to be proud of it was not a step that I really considered, I thought I'll you know, put my podcast on anchor and everything will be great.
Kirsty Peterson 5:20 And then I listened to it and thought it's more than just getting over the sound of your voice and the breathing mistakes or any of those sorts of things.
Martin Franklin 5:29 Well, that's really interesting, because five years ago, you would definitely would have been ahead of the current boom that podcasting is going through. So yeah, had you started, then you probably have quite a big audience now.
Kirsty Peterson 5:42 Yes, oh, my fear would have been revealed. And I would have run out of content, because that's the thing that sort of has stopped me this whole time. It's, you know, I felt like I could do a few episodes. But then what would I talk about? So doing the anchor podcast enabled me to sit down well forced me to sit down and say, Well, what am I going to talk about and, and flesh out some ideas? And then how is that going to apply to my business? How is it going to be relevant, and see that that I had so much that I could talk about? Because I went through content that I'd written, I went through my blog posts, and all those sorts of things, looking for ideas of what to talk about. But this time around, I've been much more strategic, I wanted to dive into both of those angles a little bit, if I could, so So you've already done it in a way, like a sort of pre season planning, you know, through your initial project five years ago. So how did you approach planning out the content for your season? Yeah, this time, it was very different. I started a new program this year, it's my flagship group coaching program. And so I've really tried to tie the content of the podcast into the content of the group coaching program, so that there's some relevance there, but also, so that I'm taking listeners on a bit of a journey, because developing the Change program was really quite a different experience for me as well, I've created a lot of content over the last seven years, but there's never really been any strategy to it. It's just sort of what am I gonna, what blog posts will I put out this week, you know, random, what they say, throwing spaghetti at the wall a little bit like my socials, it's like, oh, that's pretty old post that today or not been a lot of strategy.
Kirsty Peterson 7:26 So that was really important for me this time. And having done the anchor podcast really enabled me to say the difference between what it feels like to have something that goes together, and that what I'm talking about this week, builds on what we talked about last week, and those sorts of things, versus the anchor podcast that really was just spaghetti on the wall, because I just went through blog posts or, you know, social content and just talked about different things. But then when I listened to it, I was like, well, this is just random information. You know, there was no journey. I do sometimes kind of talk to people who haven't quite got a clear idea about their format, or the duration or frequency of their show. And I kind of talk about things in terms of a pilot season, because sometimes until you try it, you don't know what feels right, and what your audience will, will respond to. So I think it's in a way the spaghetti on the wall sort of that
Martin Franklin 8:24 Yeah, there can be a bit of value in in that. I just want to come back to that sort of business connection, which I think is really important. They have give us a good a good context. So how does the podcast in your mind connect to your your wider business? itself? I guess you because you mentioned the Change program. So perhaps we ought to actually do a little preamble out what is your business?
Kirsty Peterson 8:52 Oh, right. So I work in family law as a mediator, which is quite sporadic work. It's a lot of it is referral. And then I do some Google ads and a little bit of Facebook marketing, to get leads. Facebook isn't necessarily about mediation.
Kirsty Peterson 9:09 But the area that I'm really focusing on a moving towards is much more providing programs and work well. I used to do workshops, pre COVID, I had a suite of workshops. So I have moved them across two courses. And I had a one to one coaching program.
Kirsty Peterson 9:29 Which in my marketplace I find difficult because families don't generally have a lot of money and if you've got families who are embroiled in court battles, then every single cent that they've got is being funneled into paying for their lawyer. So being able to enter the goal is to help as many people as possible it's to, for people to be able to say, you know, I know I've got this problem and you're the one to be able to fix it for me. So it's about getting like all of us getting in front of enough people who are the right ideal customer to be going, you know, it's like you were me, I watched your, your video series, I googled podcast producers, and I watched your video series and I went, Martin is the man, you know, he knows what he's talking about. He's talking about equipment. He's answered all my questions, he's the expert, he's the one that can help and, and you're in front of me when I need to do. And so hopefully, the podcast will help, you know, with that, for me, it will just get more eyes on what I offer. And because it's a very targeted program, it's not just a general mediation program, or a conflict program, it's, it's a very targeted program. It's supporting people who are co parenting with people who behave differently or have narcissistic traits. So it's a very targeted program. So hopefully, it will help broaden my audience and help me with my change program. There's an important role that a podcast can have as almost like a first a first contact where people can just hear you and and, you know, sort of get a sense of what it might be like to to work with you before they, you know, make any any big decision. So I think that could be really interesting. And I think one of the things that really surprises me, every time it happens is when people have found my website and read lots and lots of my blog posts. I haven't blogged for a couple of years, but I have a truckload of blogs on my website that I sort of forgot about.
Kirsty Peterson 11:36 And certainly, since I've been focusing on more digital marketing things, I forgot about content marketing, which I used to do quite regularly. And people read the blogs and think they know you, they really develop a relationship with you before they even pick up the phone and say, Kirsty, I need help with my co parenting or my, you know, my, I need immediate mediator. And so that relationship building happens because they listen to you. And, you know, there's there's somebody that I'm following on socials at the moment. And I really feel like my great friends, I've never met her, she has no idea who I am. But I've read a blog post, I've listened to a podcast, I follow her on social. So I see her life on Instagram and I in her content marketing on Facebook. So I really feel like we're great friends. And that's the huge value of these sorts of platforms is being able to invite people into your life and into your business. So that like you just said, they get to know you and they they value your opinion, and they know what you can offer and they know how you can help them. The next step is just for them to reach out and say, Kirsty, I've got this problem and and you're the one I want to fix it, please. Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Yeah, I think that bit of early research is very valuable. I'm always sort of really keen to say to people who talk to me, Listen to what I do. You know, here's a few examples. Here's the show reel, because this is what you know, this is what I would deliver for you. And surprisingly, very few people ever do. Oh, really? That Yeah, they're happy to get on the phone, and they have no idea what comes out of the studio. Maybe that's where my experience differs, because I had had that experience with anchor and the quality with anko. I knew very much about what I didn't want it to sound like. So when I listened to your reel, looked at your reel, it was like yes, that's what I want it to sound like. That's how crisp I would like it to be. That's how clear I want to sound. I know I need to practice my enunciation. But yeah, that's the quality that I'm looking for.
Martin Franklin 13:36 Can I ask you because the I, we although we haven't launched or, you know, we are about to produce some episodes for you. You are very good on the microphone. Have you had any experience of of this previously?
Kirsty Peterson 13:50 Not directly, I worked in radio for a while, but as a copywriter, not on out on air. I like to sing so I do a bit of karaoke, but I've never done anything like this. Okay, well. So working in radio is a fairly good qualification, you know, for the enterprise that we're announcing today. Just to go back for a second. I also want to add that that the greatest value, I think of a podcast is being able to add another suite of free resources for people and being able to reach people across different platforms, because not everybody wants to sit and read a blog post. Some people want to watch a YouTube video, some people just want 15 minutes in the car show or in the shower or whatever, to listen to a podcast. So it's about being able to provide as many people as possible access to the free resources and the free information.
Martin Franklin 14:45 Yeah, and I quite agree, I think there was a sort of guidance about web design, look, you know, a long time ago, which was Don't make me think, you know, make it make it easy, and make it straightforward for people. So now we've entered this era of story where people like to be told, and they like to watch, you know, more so than read a guide or, you know, download up, ebook or whatever. Yes, yeah. So how did you find the recording process for the initial things that you've done so far?
Kirsty Peterson 15:19 Oh, look, I was really daunted doing it with anchor. And that was probably the most simplistic process possible. But you have made this high tech, high quality process. So simple. I bought what you mentioned, you didn't necessarily recommend it. But you said, these are some things that I've used. And I went off and looked at three products. Instead of doing a Google search for podcast equipment, which I had done previously, you know, I've been, like I said, this is a five year thing for me, this is not the first time I sort of sat down and thought, What do I need to buy, I found some good deals as well. So it wasn't as expensive as other times that I had looked, it wasn't $600 for a mic, it was, you know, $400 for my understand and accord, I got my zoom recorder 50% off.
Kirsty Peterson 16:06 So I found some really great deals, but also because I knew what I was looking for I was I went and I looked for the zoom h5. And then compared where I could buy it, it wasn't, again, just a random Google search for recording devices, and then trying to figure out, so just having the support. And again, I mentioned, this is free support, because it's in your free video course,of being able to just have that support and know what to look for. And being able to purchase the equipment. It's two pieces of equipment. It's, it's so simple, it's not daunting, it was totally daunting. When I took it out of the box and looked at it and thought, oh my god, what is this thing? And how do I use it? But you helped me with that, you know, you talked me through it like a baby,
Martin Franklin 16:52 I think I was there on the on the video call.
Kirsty Peterson 16:56 You told me you know, then it was simple. Turn it on. This is what this means. This is what that means. And so I didn't have to sit and I had looked at the instructions. But there were six books in that box, one in six different languages was like, oh my god.
Kirsty Peterson 17:12 So it was very overwhelming. But you just made it so simple and easy that you took the overwhelm out of it. You didn't have to learn new technology, because you taught it to me in 10 minutes. It was just yeah, once it's connected, and you've got the settings down.
Martin Franklin 17:29 Yes, yeah, it's pretty reliable. All right. Well, that's that's good to know. So I think we are within a few weeks of launch of the show. Do you have any plans of how you promote it? Once we go live?
Kirsty Peterson 17:44 Yeah, I'm going to check it out into all the Facebook groups that are member of, it'll probably get deleted from half a dozen of them. But I'm not worried about that. If I can get just a couple of people and then they listen and they share or any of those sorts of things. I'll push it out on all my socials. I've already started alluding to it in my email campaign, you know, I'm doing something really exciting that I've been thinking about doing or wanting to do for five years. So building some interest around what is Kirsty up to that she's wanting to do for five years that she's finally doing?
Martin Franklin 18:16 This is really important because he that that actually you've already done you know the legwork to build that those social accounts and you know, you've you've got a bit of audience there already.
Kirsty Peterson 18:29 Yeah, look, I haven't done a lot of socials for probably a year I haven't focused on at all i got a bit overwhelming with Corona last year and sort of March and I pulled back from social media and got really lazy with my content marketing and I think I got a bit overwhelmed. I've got four different Facebook groups in three different pages and thought Yes, there's just too much.
Martin Franklin 18:57 So what is your hope for what the podcast will be doing in nine months time,
Kirsty Peterson 19:03 the dream the fantasy and then there's the reality the reality probably is that there'll be a few listeners who are there for the free information.
Martin Franklin 19:12 Now go for the dream have the dream,
Kirsty Peterson 19:13 the dream is that it will go totally gangbusters. Everybody will love it. I'll you know do two more seasons this year. I know maybe not this year, but you know, two more seasons in the next 12 months. Yeah, there'll be 26 episodes across the 12 month period. And it will help fill my change program it'll lead into a one to one coaching and maybe even support my mediation practice a little bit because I'll Chuck into mediation relevant information as well. And I think the thing that makes me feel more confident that that's an option. Not a reality, but an option is that I feel like there's some strategy around it. It's not just spaghetti on the wall. It's targeted information with a purpose, and I learned that from other podcasts that I listened to, I listened to a couple of digital marketing podcasts.
Kirsty Peterson 20:07 So being able to listen to one and say, you know, this is pretty random, I think they make this episode topic up as they go. And they just chalk a call to action at the bottom of whatever it is that they're doing right now, versus, you know, digital marketers who have really short episodes, five to 10 minutes, but it's quite targeted to whatever it is they're launching right now, but not in a salesy way. So that's the goal is to be able to share information.
Martin Franklin 20:33 Yeah. and have it be relevant to something that's going on in the background, that you can also promote that sort that spot on that that approach of just being being visible and useful, but not not going into like a salespitch, necessarily.
Martin Franklin 20:49 Okay, so, elevator pitch for your for your podcast, why should people listen?
Kirsty Peterson 20:55 Because it's a short version of a really long blog post. It's distilled targeted information, tips and tricks for how to co parent successfully with somebody who is has difficult behaviors and narcissistic traits, it's being able to get that practical support with an actual roadmap of, of targeted information. If you have this specific problem, then here are some ways to resolve that. It's it's not just a general podcast with lots of co- parenting information or interviews where people just blather on for an hour that it is there's a targeted reason to listen, and this is what you'll get out of each episode is quite clear at the beginning.
Martin Franklin 21:39 Yeah, the Co-Parenting Kids podcast and you'll be on- You'll be everywhere on Apple podcasts and Spotify and so on. So that's a good good search or you have a website as well. Do you not?
Kirsty Peterson 21:51 Yes, co parenting kids.com.au.
Martin Franklin 21:54 Awesome. Thanks, Kirsty.
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The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.