Podcast Pontifications

In which I reflect back on the 123 episodes of Season 3 of Podcast Pontifications I’ve produced thus far, to examine the changes I’ve put in place for myself. Because if I’m not taking my own advice, how much is that advice worth?

Here’s a non-exhaustive list:

1. Inside-out episode planning

2. New branding

3. New website design

4. Corrected transcriptions

5. New PPIYI provider

6. I switched to Sanka tea

7. I hired a vocal coach

8. Audio engineering skills up-leveling

9. Re-worked episode details

So yes, it does appear that I’m practicing what I'm preaching. For me, that’s fairly easy, as changing things up from time to time is part of who I am. Which is a good thing, because changes in podcasting aren’t going to stop. Ever. 

Links mentioned:

Nik Gill, Graphic designer - https://www.nikpixels.co.uk/

Steve Yong, UX designer - https://www.steveyongcc.com/

Allie Press, production assistant - http://www.alliepress.net/

Ruchi Kapila, vocal coach - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchi-kapila-m-s-ccc-slp-she-her-they-them-66518721/

Marcus dePaula, audio engineer - https://www.meonlylouder.com/

Membership fueled by coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/evoterra

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-process-of-changing-your-podcast-is-well-a-process

https://twitter.com/evoterra for more podcasting insights from Evo Terra as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at https://BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit https://Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about. Subscribe today at https://PodcastPontifications.com

Image credit: Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

A little digging into your podcast’s stats will show a good number of your listeners are… well, fickle. Before you can convert them to loyal listeners, you have to get them listening to more episodes.

Busy People Listen As Busy People Listen

Harsh reality time: A good percentage of your listeners don't and will never listen to every single episode you publish. If you’re wondering why your stats are different from episode to episode, this is why.

We podcasters have two different tools that we can better employ to ensure that these fickle listeners don't really miss out on an episode of ours that they would have loved to have heard.

Those two tools: the title of your episode and something called a cold open.

Two Rules For Podcast Titles

1. Make every character count

2. Give them a reason to hit “play”

Use A Cold Open To Keep Them Listening

If the first seconds of your podcast episode clearly spell out the intent of the episode and set the hook, the fickle listener who is hearing your episode on autoplay will know exactly what they’re missing if they swipe it away. If they just hear your standard opening, even if it’s only 30 seconds, that still 30 seconds of the FOMO part of their brain telling them to swipe away.

Links Mentioned In This Episode

• Betty Dannewitz https://www.linkedin.com/in/ifyouaskbetty

• The podcast If You Ask Betty https://ifyouaskbetty.com

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/getting-fickle-podcast-listeners-to-listen-more

https://twitter.com/evoterra for more podcasting insights from Evo Terra as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at https://BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit https://Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about. Subscribe today at https://PodcastPontifications.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Will Facebook become the home of social audio for podcasters? We’re told Facebook will soon end its prohibition of audio stance, finally allowing podcasters—and anybody else, really—to share full episodes of podcasts as audio files in social posts.

As a working podcaster, you should be thinking about what happens to our world when your podcast episodes can finally “go viral”. 

And if social media can actually start driving meaningful, socially boosted attention to a show in a way that the show actually sees real growth and not just vanity metrics… it’ll change how podcasters think about success. And when podcasters start thinking about success differently, that will, in turn, change how podcasters optimize our podcast episodes to get more of that success.

If you notice your retention/completion rate is slipping, you may blame it on the length of your content or the frequency of your episodes. Reducing one or both may boost your completion rates, but it may also cause your paying members to see less value in your content, so they stop paying. But maybe those who appreciate the shorter/less frequent episodes decide to become a paying member, making up for the shortfall.

If you’ve optimized your episodes to get the most shares by saying dumb things just to get attention, you may alienate your most loyal listeners, causing your retention rate to plummet and your paying members to flee. But what if getting tons of shares makes your download counts skyrocket to the point where you can sell advertising against your inventory, exceeding your prior revenue milestones?

All of this is wild speculation on my part. We don’t know what's going to happen when podcast episodes are granted the power to be shared on social. We don’t know if any of them will “go viral”. But it's going to be a fun time as we once again see a redefinition of what it means to publish a podcast.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/getting-your-podcast-to-go-viral-a-healthy-move

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Lopez Robin on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Seasoned podcasters have learned to expect a delay between time-of-publish and when the latest episode will publicly appear in various directories. But we’ve assumed that subscribers/followers bypass the public directory update so our episodes arrive on the devices of those listeners within minutes of publishing.

We’re wrong about that.

James Cridland of Podnews has an excellent breakdown of the infrastructure change Apple has put in place that exacerbates this problem for podcasting. 

Specifically, Apple is determining which shows are worthy of lighting-fast updates, and which podcasts are not worthy. Surprising absolutely no one, podcasts with much larger audiences that publish content on a very frequent basis are deemed by Apple as more worthy of more rapid updates than the rest of us plebes. 

If you are as troubled by this as I was troubled by this when I learned of it, you’ll be more troubled—as I was—to learn this is how just about every podcast directory works. It’s not just Apple. 

Podcast directory developers write algorithms to evaluate the worthiness of each show in their catalog based on a variety of factors to determine the optimal update frequency for that show on their platform. If your podcast isn’t deemed as worthy, your episodes will take longer to get onto the devices of your listeners who use that directory. 

In hindsight, I think we all knew something like this was happening in podcasting. Many of us didn’t give it too much thought because we wrongly assumed we could bypass the slow lane by getting our listeners to subscribe to/follow our shows. 

But we can no longer safely assume that.

The reason we can't trust podcast directories to deliver our content in a timely fashion is because it’s not a one-to-one relationship. We think it is, but it’s not. The directory sits in the middle, and they control the terms of the relationship. Not us. Not our listeners.

But email is a one-to-one relationship.

Yeah, I know you don’t want to listen to a podcast in Outlook. Neither do I, so I’m not suggesting you stop publishing an RSS feed or anything resembling that behavior. 

Instead, I’m—once again—suggesting you start establishing a one-to-one email-based relationship with as many of your listeners as you can. 

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/pondering-podcastings-partiality-problem

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Ussama Azam on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Can you breathe life back into one of your podfaded or inactive shows? Better yet; can you use your podfaded or inactive show as a power source for a different podcast? In my experience, I’ve found that a significant number of people don’t bother to unfollow or unsubscribe from a podcast that stops publishing new episodes. 

Before you ask how can you tap into that power, you first have to figure out if it’s worth the effort. The answer to the question lies in one of the most elusive metrics in all of podcasting: how many people are following/subscribe-to this feed? 

But there’s a simple way to find out: drop an episode.

Count the downloads over the first day or two and you’ll know how many devices automatically download episodes or how many of your followers will play the episode when it shows up in their listening app.

If the number of downloads to that dropped episode looks attractive to you—whether it's dozens, or hundreds, or thousands—consider redirect those subscribers to a different podcast, instantly increasing the size of the listening audience. That’s power!  

Putting a 301 redirect in place is extremely simple in most podcast hosting companies. It’s oftentimes simply a field on a form to fill out, and they take care of the rest. And once that redirect is in place, 99.999% of the subscribers to that faded, inactive show will be subscribed to the new show. Instant additive audience! 

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/tapping-into-the-power-of-podfaded-podcasts

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to refactor some Ted Lasso wisdom towards podcasting with this proclamation, which I hope doesn’t offend David: 

Success isn’t about building a big podcast. It’s about being proud of the work you do as a podcaster.

Are you proud of the work you’re doing in podcasting right now?

The concept of pride is a tricky thing. Are we supposed to be proud of the state or country we were born in simply because we were born there? None of us had any control over where we entered the world, but many of us are fortunate enough to have control—agency—of how we conduct ourselves as podcasters, and what work we put into the world. 

We can’t control podcasting’s macroeconomics. We can’t control human behavior. All most of us can control is the effort that goes into the shows we make. We can change the efforts we put into our shows and episodes. And those changes will, if we’re doing it right, change who we are as people, even when we’re not sitting behind the microphone, the DAW, the text editor, or whatever interface we use to proudly practice our craft as podcasters.

Thanks for that reminder, Ted. I know I needed it.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-proud-way-of-finding-success-in-podcasting

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Blake Weyland on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Yesterday, Roman Mars announced the sale of 99% Invisible to SiriusXM and Jay Acunzo sold his podcast about podcasting, 3 Clips, to Castos. I’ve dutifully added those moves to the Who Owns Who In Podcasting? Airtable that Anne Baird created to keep track of…well, who owns who in podcasting, as it’s becoming quite the tangled skein! 

If someone were to come knocking on your door with an offer to buy your podcast, should you sell it? My answer is an enthusiastic but qualified YES! 

Anytime this question comes up, I’m reminded of the wise words of my friend and podcaster Dave Slusher of The Evil Genius Chronicles: 

There's no such thing as selling out. Only the possibility of selling too cheaply.

Both Jay and Roman will continue to be very much in charge of their podcasts, using their voices and creative vision. This is the kind of deal I think most podcasters would be foolish not to at least consider, and I can sum up why in three points:

1. Cash! - Anyone selling their podcast needs cash. Roman’s deal was healthy enough to allow him to donate $1 million dollars to PRX over the next four years. So he’s probably not worried about paying his mortgage for at least that time.
2. Focus! - But because of the cash, you can afford to let other people do the tasks necessary to keep your show running that you’d really rather not focus on so you can double-down on the aspects of making the show that you love. 
3. Future! - It’s common for the seller to agree to continue performing duties for a set number of months or years. Knowing that your departure is already baked in can help you better understand your accomplishments thus far and allow you to start having serious thoughts about your next project.

But it’s not all roses. Remember, when you sell your show, however you sell your show, you’re no longer the sole decision-maker. When you sell your show and stay in the hosting seat, you get a boss or partner in return, and they’d like to be clued in on things. And have more than a little input, if only to protect their investment.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-art-of-selling-and-keeping-your-podcast

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

In an odd twist of irony, I'm about to have a chat with Mark Asquith from Rebel Base Media entitled “Creating Experiences that Inspire Loyal Communities”. It’s one of the first sessions happening at PHX Startup Week, and it's going to be very hard for me not to use Apple Podcasts botched Apple Podcast Subscription rollout as a negative example.

If you’re still basing your assumptions on podcasting experiences before 2018, your assumptions are terribly antiquated. And not in a good way.

When I talk about the experiences of podcast consumers, please understand I'm not just talking about their experiences with the audio they listen to. Yes, that’s highly important to get right, and it’s critical to provide a good in-ear listener experience. But you also have to pay attention to the full podcast consumption experience! 

Podcasting is going through another inflection point right now, and that means all of us in podcasting—podcasters and service providers—have an awesome responsibility not to cock it up. Again.

Though it’s still too damned hard, everything about listening to podcasts is a lot easier than it was at the beginning. Which means that switching costs are super low. At the risk of offending your life coach; it is unlikely that your podcast is irreplaceable, regardless of how hot your take. Seriously. Search on your topic in PodcastIndex.org and see how many other shows look and feel similar to yours. And probably sound similar too. Undifferentiated, perhaps, in the listeners’ minds.

How To Relentless Focus On Podcast Listening Experiences

• Start with the in-ear listener experience but don’t stop there!
• The in-app listener experience matters.
• Their experience with your website is important
• You’re responsible for the experience of your socially shared content, even if you’re not sharing it socially!  
• Focus on the listener experience of your online community, your emails… and in-person events (when we can again go). 
• Consider collaborating with a podcasting peers to do some reciprocal auditing of one another.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/updating-your-podcast-listener-experience-assumptions

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

With the new Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, Apple sees a significant revenue opportunity for them, so podcasting is finally getting the attention it deserves. 

Seamless Podcast Listening Worth Paying For

At its most basic, Apple Podcasts Subscriptions allow for a frictionless way to let listeners pay for podcasts without having to manage multiple shows, feeds, etc. But I don’t think Apple is directly going after the premium/private podcast market.

Thinking Like A Podcast Developer

But developers think a little differently than podcast publishers, if only because Apple makes money—a lot of money—from the efforts of developers. An Apple-incentivized ecosystem for podcasts has many benefits, from solving that “discoverability” problem too many podcasters gripe about to new revenue models that go beyond paid subscriptions.

And remember that Apple made $15.8 billion on services in the first quarter of this year. It's projected that Apple will see $89 billion of annual revenue from services by 2025. That’s less than four years from now.

It’s not a stretch to see Apple maximizing their revenue by promoting podcasts—heavily—to exploit a brand new revenue stream

Apple Brings The Power Of Apple

No, none of the prior attempts to paywall podcast content have been breakout successes. But Apple hasn’t been behind any of them. Imagine the full force of Apple’s marketing machine working hard to re-introduce that little purple square to every iPhone user.  

Are You Ready To Make Money With Apple Podcasts?

I highly recommend you set aside an hour or so to pore over the info pages Apple has already created that detail all the current options available with Apple Podcasts Subscriptions. If you read those pages carefully and try to think more like an app developer, you’ll discover plenty of intriguing items.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/whats-apples-motive-for-apple-podcasts-subscriptions

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Image credit: Apple Podcasts Subscriptions

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

I spend a great deal of time talking about the need to make podcasting better, not just easier. But candidly, I'm more than a little concerned that the message received is “don’t do easy things”

So let me be clear: the majority of the work you do as a podcaster should be easy.

Imagine a piece of paper divided into four quadrants. Let the line that goes across the page represent difficulty increasing to the right. Let the line that goes from the top to the bottom of the page represent quality, with higher quality on top

Now think through and add the various tasks you have to do during the course of your job as a podcaster. You’ll see tasks fall into one of four quadrants, which we’ll name as:

• Staples (upper-left) - Always easy to do and always with at least good quality
• Solo (upper-right) - Always somewhat difficult to do with at least good quality
• Aspirational (lower-right) - Always difficult and always below-average quality
• Inexcusable (lower-left) - Always easy and always less-than-acceptable quality

It may seem counterintuitive, but the goal isn’t to move as many tasks as possible into the Solo quadrant, where we find the highest quality, most difficult tasks. I agree with The Toyes that hard work good and hard work fine, but too much hard work can be difficult to stick with. For both sides of the equation.

The quadrant you should (eventually) have most tasks in is the Staples quadrant. Better-than-average to great quality work that doesn’t take a huge amount of effort. Not from you to make. And not from your audience to enjoy. 

You should never be afraid of doing easy things when the quality is high.

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-easy-way-to-make-a-great-podcast

Follow @EvoTerra on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Evo Terra produces Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about.

Photo by Ignacio Amenábar on Unsplash

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.