Podcast Pontifications

There’s way too much stress in podcasting. Stress brought on by speculation of coming changes that podcasters have little control over.

Take the reports from Apple Podcasts beta testers that there’s a new “frequency” badge coming. What does that mean for your show, and what can you do about it? You don’t know, and nothing. In that order. The same goes for whatever else Apple might announce regarding podcasting tomorrow. I assure you that you will not need to take immediate action.

Just like you had no control over Apple Podcasts’ “Hosts & Guests” section. 

Just like you had no control over how Spotify mangled your carefully crafted episode details displayed in the app. 

Just like you won’t have any control over Facebook’s new discovery and distribution service in conjunction with Spotify rumored to be announced today. There’s nothing for you to do ahead of that announcement! So don’t work yourself into a lather just yet.

As proof that there’s no need to panic or do much of anything, I remind you that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of valid podcasts in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and every other directory that haven’t been touched in over a decade. No one has logged in to their hosting companies to take advantage of any new tags. No one has logged into the shows’ dashboards on any app or directory to do any futzing at all. 

Yet all those shows still play fine. Each of them is easily discovered by searching for their name. They work. Your show will continue to work too, even if you choose to completely ignore these pending announcements and do nothing—if there’s anything to do at all.

Whatever Facebook announces today and whatever Apple announces tomorrow, don't sweat it. Whatever Amazon Music announces after that and whatever the next big service announces after that; don't sweat 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/reducing-your-anxiety-around-big-podcasting-changes

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 Dorota Dylka 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.

Spotify has made their podcast ranking charts available via a public webpage. Spotify tells us that a show’s follower count and user play activity are used in determining which podcasts and episodes appear on their refreshed-every-24-hours charts. Which makes sense. Shows with big audiences that get a lot of recent plays are exactly who should be there. 

Spotify is hoping (strongly suggesting might be more apt) you’ll spend considerable effort convincing as many people as you can to follow and listen to your show on Spotify. 

I predict three quick actions to come on the heels of Spotify’s announcement. 

1. Show ALL the charts! - I expect more (most? all?) apps, services, and directories to publicly display their own top rankings of podcasts built from usage stats from their platforms. Because why not? 
2. Chart-monitoring dashboards - Possibly before the day is out, someone will have found a way to scrape Spotify’s public page and add the data to the rank-monitoring dashboards for their clients. 
3. “I get you ranked on Spotify’s Top Podcast Charts” spam - Scammers who already have stacks of mobile phones with cheap data plans gaming Apple Podcasts’ charts will do the same for Spotify, gaming these quite-easily-gamed algorithms just to stroke the egos of podcasters who weren’t hugged enough as a child.

With absolutely no disrespect to the amazing shows that make the kind of content that attracts huge audiences necessary to legitimately gain a top ranking on these charts; these charts don’t mean much to the rest of us.

But if you’ve a marketing plan with several tens of thousands of dollars or more dedicated to promoting your podcast, then you should absolutely get in touch with Spotify and share that plan with them. They’d love to help you with very specific actions on how you should spend your several tens of thousands of dollars to promote your show with some Spotify co-branding. 

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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/is-a-top-placement-in-spotifys-podcast-charts-worth-the-price

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: Spotify’s Podcasting Charts

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.

Recently I’ve been thinking about what’s happening in my listeners’ lives when they aren’t listening to my podcast, and how much they are impacted by the seasonality of the world around them. Should I consider that seasonal/cyclical nature when I’m planning episodes? More to the point: should you?

But before you make the assumption “Nah, bro. I’m evergreen and I’m good,” take a moment to read through these possible examples and see if your opinion changes.

If your podcast is about a topic—sport, TV show, etc—that is highly seasonal in nature, why not plan your show around the season, going so far as to change your episode format and release frequency to match the changing appetite of consumers of that topic? 

If your podcast is about a particular location, why not bring those actual seasons into your episodes? The way you experience your location is seasonal, so why not give your listeners a glimpse of what it’s like to do your thing in January vs July? 

There’s a very good chance that even your show that you work hard to keep evergreen might be more impacted by seasonality than you think. You could take advantage of your hosting provider’s dynamic content insertion capabilities, which more and more are adding all the time to drop in seasonal bits while the season is active, and then later take them out when that season is over. All without impacting your main content.

Or maybe you should produce a full episode (or series of episodes) dedicated to that particular season, but designed to be short-lived. You could pull them from your feed after the season is over, relegating the content to a “bonus” section on your site or available on request. This keeps your feed evergreen. No speedbumps after the season is over!

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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/have-evergreen-podcasts-gone-out-of-season

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 Xiaolong Wong 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.

It's too easy to gloss over the difficult parts of podcasting that, when done right, help make a show truly outstanding and remarkable. 

If you think about the process you go through when making an episode of your podcast, you’ll find some of them are less easy than others, possibly even difficult for you. Being a podcaster requires a variety of skills. It’s the rare superhuman (whom I’ve never met) who’s skilled in all aspects required to make a great podcast. Everyone struggles to complete at least one aspect of the podcasting process. Probably a lot more than one.

Perhaps there’s an area where your skills are lacking and you need more training. Or maybe, thanks to the realities of time, you have to take shortcuts. Perhaps you’re just going through the motions or one task because a self-purported expert said you should. Or maybe there’s a speedbump in your process that you absolutely loathe. You do it, begrudgingly, but you hate it. 

Now choose one of those difficult things and give yourself 30 days to make that difficult task less difficult for you. Yes, a month. That’s probably enough time to address this single difficult concern and make you significantly more competent in that aspect of podcasting.

Remember: that one difficult thing we’re doing poorly probably has an outsized impact on the listener experience. While your biggest fans will always forgive you for some muddled-through steps, not everyone is in that camp. And if you want your show to grow, you should always be thinking about those who have yet to listen. If there’s a difficult step your doing poorly, that might be getting in their way.

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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/choosing-the-difficult-path-to-making-podcasting-easier

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 Michał Parzuchowski 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.

When the pandemic just getting started almost a year ago, an existing client introduced me to an associate of hers who was looking for a production partner on a new podcasting idea she had. While the company already had some internal competency in podcasting, two things were  clear: 

1. The standard business podcast format wouldn’t be sufficient
2. I’d need some help! 

So I reached out to Sam Walker, veteran podcaster with BBC chops who moved to Phoenix literally on a whim two years ago. We presented an idea that didn’t perfectly fit the “branded content” mold either. We knew the branding would be incredibly light, but we knew the success of the show would ultimately be graded on its ability to drive business outcomes. We also had a strong mandate and an opportunity to make a show that would be appealing well beyond the target demographic. So we crafted a unique approach that would bring compelling stories to the episodes and a narrative arc to the six-episode first season in such a way that the secondary and tertiary demographics—people who are customers of and have experiences with companies, so that’s kind of everyone!—would be intrigued and might sample. 

We also knew we needed to approach perfection in the quality of that audio, a lofty goal made more complicated by the pandemic and a guest list that demanded the most out of in-home recordings. So I turned to exceptional sound engineer Marcus dePaula, who I’d been wanting to work with on a project for more than a year now, for the incredibly important yet often overlooked task worthy of a podcasting project of this scale: mastering. 

Marcus took the commissioned theme music and added it to the mix, using isolated riffs and secretions from the trucks and building loops to create give character, texture, and emphasis to the spoken words, drawing the ear’s attention back to the main points made by the guests and host. And he worked hard—like, incredibly hard—to clean up some 20 different less-than-perfectly-recorded conversations with people (not podcasters) all around the world so that the natural differences in those recordings weren’t so noticeable to put casual listeners off the show.

And wow, did that work pay off! 

Without further ado (because that was a lot of ado), I present to you season one of ExPEERience, hosted by Paula Hanson, Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Customer Experience. 

I hope you’ll give it a listen. I think you're really going to appreciate what we accomplished from a content-creation point of view as a podcaster. But I also think you’ll like it as a listener. It’s packed with solid insights we can all relate to as customers. And you’ll probably find plenty of takeaways for how you might improve the listener experience of your own podcasting efforts. 

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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/making-bigger-better-podcasts-by-sharing-the-wealth

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 Chang Duong 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.

The phrase “authentic voice” is very overused. But when it comes to the voice listeners want to hear on your podcast, your “authentic voice” is absolutely the right terminology.

But a quick caveat and a recognition that not everyone's authentic voice is a match for their authentic self. If the voice that comes out of your face does not match the voice of the person you are in your head, then please understand that I am in no way suggesting you get over it and deal with what you were given.

But if that’s not you and you’re instead just minorly annoyed with certain aspects of your voice, I have some very good news: perfect voices are not required in podcasting

If your accent is a part of your authentic self, then I assure you people will be perfectly happy to listen to you on your podcast sounding the way you sound. And for those who are turned off by your particular accent… well, they probably aren’t the right listener for your show anyhow.

Your speech pattern is yours. The aforementioned caveats aside; don’t try to hide it. When it comes to catchphrases or odd mannerisms that are uniquely you, I say leave ‘em in. 

There is no ideal rate-of-speech delivery in podcasting. And every podcast listener has speed controls at their fingertips. So speak the rate at which you speak. Let the listeners decide if they want your words faster or slower.

While I am encouraging you to keep and embrace the natural “flaws” in your voice that make you uniquely you, I am exceedingly intolerant of fixable flaws in your recording environment. 

Those hardwood floors that cause all sorts of unwanted sound reflections to come back into the microphone and annoy my ears? Your idea of placing an omnidirectional microphone in the middle of a big room and having all your buddies shout towards it? The noise from your overworked refrigerator, the roar from the heating/cooling system you’ve decided to sit directly under, or the whirring of air purifiers you could turn off for the 30 minutes you’re recording your VO parts…

Those noises are not the authenticity listeners want. They’re getting in the way of your authentic voice. If you’re serious about your podcast, I recommend investing in iZotope RX, either as a plugin or a standalone app. And then you need to learn how to use it, either by educating yourself or taking a class offered by Marcus dePaula. He’s a wizard who will blow your mind with the garbage you can remove from your tracks with just a few clicks.

Your listeners will appreciate you for getting rid of all of those fixable bits so they can really enjoy your true and authentic voice. 

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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/podcasting-like-a-pro-when-you-dont-sound-like-a-pro

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: Bermix Studio 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 fresh news that Amazon Music/Audible has quietly launched a podcasters portal, I expect they’ll soon join the ranks of Apple, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, probably disappointing podcasters when it comes to our data needs.

It blows my mind every day that in the 16+ years podcasting has existed, we still can’t answer the most basic question every podcaster wants to know: How big is my audience?

Spotify’s Podcaster Dashboard has a metric they call “Listeners”, even though it’s not listeners. It’s the number of unique users on their platform who started an episode. Apple Podcasts Connect provides “Devices”, which is a much better name, IMHO. Google Podcasts Manager, won’t tell you the total number of unique Google Podcasts users who’ve played an episode of your podcast. 

I don’t know what data Amazon Music/Audible will make available on their podcaster’s portal, but it could be better. And for some of the smaller apps, making their own portal for podcasters and giving us better data could be something that sets them apart. 

Because we have questions. And they have answers.

Questions like:

• Which in-app discovery channels are bringing listeners to my podcast?
• How many listeners come back for more of my podcast?
• How many of my followers swipe left and dismiss some of my episodes?
• How is my show ranking/charting?
• What’s the listener flow like for my podcast?
• What’s the demographic makeup of my podcast’s audience?

Podcasting apps aren’t markedly different from one another. But I do think the podcast listening app that gives podcasters the most useful data could get a big boost as we’d all happily promote the heck out of a listening app that gave us more insight into actual listening data. 

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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/unlocking-podcast-listener-data-without-being-creepy

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: Immo Wegmann 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.

There’s no doubt that we have, indeed, build a real economy out of podcasting. And I’m thankful for that, as podcasting is my only job! But some things about the podcasting economy we’ve built are still dumb. And I hope it doesn't take us another 16 years to stop doing some of those dumb things.

1. Smart Speakers still suck for listening to podcasts. I lay a lot of the blame at the non-existent feet of voice-powered AI in its current state. Most of us are used to using our voice as the primary way we interface with other humans. But all of that comes crashing down when we’re just trying to tell our AI to shut off the lights in the master bedroom and have forgotten the highly specific incantation to achieve that bit of magic.
2. Podcasting data is still untrustworthy and obfuscated. When one podcast hosting company claims more people use Spotify to download their content than any other app, a claim that flies in the face of every other podcast hosting company including yours, then it’s no wonder all download numbers are treated with suspicion.
3. RSS feeds still suck. Why can't we yet name a season, include credits much as we see at the end of TVshows and movies, or reference other episodes to encourage threaded listening, rather than forcing listeners to follow a linear path? 
4. Podcasting is still terribly under-monetized. A billion dollars is still tiny when compared to other ad-supported mediums. Because Better Health aside, It’s hard to buy at scale. It’s hard to see returns at scale. So the bulk of advertisers still look at podcasting and give it a pass. 

A a realist, I have to point out that every issue raised above is solvable. More to the point, I think all of those issues will be solved. And I don’t think it’ll take another 16 years. That’s exciting to me. Because once we get those issues resolved, or at least edge them closer to perfection, podcasting will be made better.

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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/four-dumb-things-about-podcasting-we-still-havent-fixed

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: Sarah Kilian 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.

Today we’re going to finally pay attention to that nagging suspicion that we often have when listening to the final mix/master an episode suggesting to us that maybe, just maybe we could make it better. 

What’s missing that might make your podcast episode better? Maybe one of these five things.

1. Is a segment missing? Are you including a wrap-up section? Do you need a “good news” segment? Should you mention other takes? 
2. Does this episode need internal guideposts? Adding in “here’s what’s coming next” content can keep retention rates high and your content engaging. 
3. Would sound design help keep the listener engaged? Done well, music can help to underline, emphasize and accent the spoken word just like good typography can do on the page.
4. Do I need to add a new voice? Hiring a professional, semi-professional, or just swapping services with another podcaster can add a bit of variety to your episodes and keep you focused on what you do best. 
5. Did I need to say all of that? Sometimes the best way to keep a listener engaged all the way through an episode is to give them less to chew on. Giving your episode a solid edit on paper can have a huge impact on your episodes’ retention rates. 

Which of those five things—either singularly or in combination—are missing from your episodes that you could add in if you had the time? It’s probably hard to answer that from the inside. But I bet your podcasting peers have advice for you.

Share this article with them so they know the five possible missing pieces and then share your most recent episode with them. Ask which of the five they’d like to see you incorporate, and then work on doing that. A second friendly opinion is always a good idea.

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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/five-additions-to-move-your-podcasts-episodes-from-good-to-great

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: Tony Hand 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.

You probably saw the announcement yesterday that AdvertiseCast had been acquired by Libsyn. This isn’t about that. It’s about a possible dystopian future when all podcast hosting companies have such an easy-to-use monetization engine that they require podcasters to use it.

I think most podcasters would switch. No money out of pocket and a steam of revenue coming in? Heck yes, most podcasters would say yes.

But such an action would have other unintended consequences, and I loves me some unintended consequences. The arms race among hosting providers would accelerate, changing how they operate. Several new business models for podcast hosting company would rise out of the rubble, leaving us with this possible (not that I’m predicting) dystopian podcasting future filled with:

• Free media hosting providers that require ads - Think YouTube, only more distributed and potentially more or less annoying.
• Cost-prohibitive luxury hosting providers catering to a select few - Think big book publishing or enterprise-class services.
• A fractured system of paywall providers - Think today’s streaming TV providers today, only more of them.
• Paywall aggregators - They works with all (or some) of the paywall providers, but take their own pound of flesh.
• Software as a service-specific media hosting bundled together - Think Adobe Cloud.
• Scrappy hangers-on who find a way to make the legacy $20 a month hosting model work in a vastly different future.

Part of my job as a digital strategist is picturing the bad along with the good. Sorry if you find this potentially frightening. Welcome to my brain.

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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/will-the-race-for-podcastings-profits-drive-our-dystopia

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: Denys Nevozhai 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.