Podcast Help Desk

Today I talk to MacKenzie Bennett from The PowerPress Podcast about her journey in podcasting as a beginner. MacKenzie is the Affiliate and Services Coordinator at RawVoice Inc. and Blubrry Podcasting. You can contact MacKenzie at [email protected] or on twitter @MacKenzieB6

I also went on another rant about Feedburner and the few podcast "gurus" out there that still say you should use feedburner.

If you would like a free month of Hosting or Stats at Blubrry.com, use the promo code HELPDESK at checkout.

Don't fall for the HYPE out there about podcasting and iTunes New & Noteworthy. it's all hype. Just post your first episode and go from there. There is no need to "LAUNCH" with more than 1 episode.

Just make content, do your own thing and promote it. The rest will come.

Rebranding your show is something you can do as a podcaster if your show changes topic a bit, or you just get tired of the name. This podcast was rebranded with this episode. It's not Podcast Quick Hits - By PHD. It will likely just be Podcast Quick Hits soon, but that's what I did here.

I changed the artwork int he feed, and the title of the feed and it took about 8 hours for iTunes to pick up the change. And I'm going to watch the other directories and see how long that took, but I figure in 3 days, everyone will have the change.

I got to chat with Gary Leland from, originally, Podcast Pickle and a bunch of other sites, podcasts and businesses in the Dallas / Fort Worth area of Texas. We also got into a lot of the "back in the day" about podcasting and generally have a great conversation.

You can find out about all that Gary does here: Gary Leland dot com

Also here: https://fastpitch.tv/, Fast Pitch Radio Network and a few other places found on GaryLeland.com. It was a fun conversation.

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Check out my other podcasts.

Podcast Quick Hits

Mike Dell's World

Geek of the North

Traverse City Podcast

In this Quick Hit, I talk about Streaming vs. Downloading podcasts.

Downloading a podcast and listening to it "streaming" on your phone (or pressing play on the player above) are really the same thing.

Also, check out this video of Tom Webster talking about podcasting for the next 10 years.

Today I talk about podcast directories and how you should be everywhere. Not just iTunes.

For 100's of podcast directories, check out Podcast Places

Since episode 2 of Quick Hits, things have changed in the category podcasting world with PowerPress.

I've changed my tune a bit and think that Category Podcasting is OK now. Still not as easy as single site / Single podcast podcasting, but very useable. If you want to have more than one RSS feed from your WordPress site, category podcasting is now the way to go.

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Happy International Podcast Day!

For IPD, I thought I would put out a Quick Hit on the regular PHD feed. If you would like to continue to get these short 1 topic episodes from time to time, subscribe here. They are normally 5 minutes or less and a single topic of interest to podcasters. I only put them out when I have some news or a topic that is getting on my nerves. Could be a lot some weeks and maybe not so much other weeks.

This quick hit is about dangerous web players. I have a client who put a SoundCloud Player on their company website and when the audio of the podcast was done, the player kept playing random stuff from SoundCloud. Some of that random stuff was heard by this person's boss and they were nearly fired. They came to me to move to the Blubrry platform only after I convinced them that Blubrry (and all the other reputable podcast hosting companies won't do that). So beware!

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I’m back after taking the summer mostly off and I have a lot of news in this episode along with some things to think about when you are doing your website for your podcast.

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NEWS

IAB Podcast measurement guidelines released

Overcast Ads?

Patreon Launches Private Feeds

International Podcast Day

IPD Gratitude Awards

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Website website website! Do you need a website for your podcast? YES!! Here is why:

* 1. Google - People can’t find you on Google or Bing if you don’t have a website.

* 2. Having a central place to find your show and you is essential if your podcast hosting service of choice goes down or you want to move.

* 3. It’s just cool to be able to make the site look the way you want it to rather than how the podcast host’s listing looks.

* 4. Own your own brand. It’s important to have your own domain that is your brand for your podcast. Using someone else’s brand to promote your show, promotes them, not you.

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Blubrry Tip of the Week

Blubrry Listings are not automatically populated from your Blubrry hosting account. Follow the video below to make sure your listing is in Blubrry.com’s directory:

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Bad advice PowerPress vs. Locked in services

It’s just RSS. That is all you need. iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Tunein Radio and all the podcast apps are using RSS, Not RSS + something magic that only company X can give you to list your podcast. Locked in services want you to use their RSS feed instead of your own RSS feed because it’s easier for them to support their own system and it gives them exposure by having THEIR domain name in your feed address and on THEIR player. With PowerPress, the RSS feed is the RSS feed that everyone looks at and it has YOUR domain in it (if you choose). It works for Google Play, Itunes and every other podcast app that allows independent podcasts in it.

So many new podcasters want to start a NETWORK.

My suggestion is to get your first podcast going and get good at it before committing to do a bunch of snows or even a second show.

This is the first episode in this feed since April 2015... See what I mean? :)