Podcast Pontifications

There was a time when all a podcaster had to do was launched, publish, and a podcast would find its own audience. 

But today there are millions of podcasts and some invest jaw-dropping sums of money to get all the discovery attention. To rise above the din, you need to do the boring things. Here are five:

1. Better In-App Episode Details (Show Notes) - This remains one of the biggest areas of neglect in podcasting. Which means if you do it right, you can get a quick win.

2. Find Time To Experiment With New Podcasting Services - Tech moves pretty fast in podcasting. Find the time to do boring research and see what tools you should adopt to improve your show.

3. Clean Up Your Podcast Website’s Copy - Your website will be visited by people new to your show, either recent followers, searchers, or those doing their due diligence before following your show. 

4. Review Your Podcast’s Competition - With millions of podcasts, you need to keep your eyes ears what other shows listeners are listening to. Even beyond your podcast's genre or category. 

5. Continuing Your Podcaster Education - Subscribe to podcast newsletters. Take podcasting workshops. Attend conferences, either in-person or online. I have to constantly work at keeping them current, and you probably need to do that as well.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/5-boring-ways-to-keep-your-podcast-fresh

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: Matthew T Rader 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.

Podcast producers who don’t leave things to chance often fall into one of two camps: architects or gardeners.

Architects must understand the client’s (or their own) vision for a podcast and give it all the structure and materials necessary to bring it to life. Large amounts of up-front planning, which can go on for weeks and or months.

Part of that time is spent detailing the arc the episodes will follow and sketching out the segments that will be used throughout the show. Then comes the scripting of episodes—sometimes a dozen or more—in detail, using the actual, real words said during certain segments when possible.

Architects will also build a slate of templates for episode artwork, in-app episode details, on-site episode webpages, newsletters, social sharing cards, video assets, and more.

Yes, all of that is done well before a single episode is dropped. 

Podcast production isn’t all that much different or gardeners. They also start with the very foundations of podcast creation. Maybe not quite as much planning as the architect, but still quite a bit.

They too plot out the arc and define each segment of the episodes. But with less rigidity to allow for rearranging of segments or episode order as needed without fear of the whole thing collapsing. 

Gardeners still rely heavily on templates for artwork, episode details, the website, and more; but with a bit more fluidity built in to easily adapt to changes as they come. And sometimes, if the foundational planning is extremely solid, gardeners can skip the script and rely on a listing of topics and angles to explore for the next few episodes.

Both can—and do—make amazing shows. Because most of us podcast producers are a little bit of both. Which are you?

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/growing-your-podcast-like-an-architect

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: Kelly Sikkema 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.

Marketers ruin everything and it's difficult to have a conversation about personalization in podcasting without drawing some well-deserved side-eye from privacy advocates. (Hi, Andrew!) 

Stripping away all the negative connotations and possible/probable nefarious behavior, most reasonable people would prefer a more personalized experience for many things they encounter in their daily lives. Think instead about what a more personalized listening experience might be if we abandon the one-size-fits-all approach. Like:

• A personal feed of my show that only sends down episodes on the topic of Listener Experience (the topic of this episode), Future-Forward Thinking, and maybe Perspective Shifts
• A custom-assembled episode for a listener who wants more funny and less knowledge-based segments from The Geologic Podcast
• A QCODE show that won’t send me files of their great serialized podcast fiction until the series is at or near completion so I can mainline the content

All of these listening experience-enhancing things are possible in podcasting. And none of them creepy or privacy-invading. Stepping back from podcasts for a moment and looking at trends in the larger world of CX—customer experience: This is the direction in which the world is headed.  

Once the benefits of personalization are made obvious and demonstrably better to the customer, people will have no trouble sharing more info—but just the right info—necessary to deliver that personalized experience.

Not just creepy ads.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/taking-the-creepy-out-of-personalized-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.

Image credit: Aimee Vogelsang 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, I unveiled a new website. It showcases the design talents of graphic designer Nik Gill and hired UX designer Steve Yong. But a lot of credit goes to Juergen Berkessel and an idea/template he now calls the Conversion Optimized Podcast Homepage. 

My first ham-fisted attempt to follow his guidelines is preserved for eternity via Intenet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Not long after, I made another not-very-pretty attempt at building it better, and it worked. Really, really well, as you’ll soon see. 

Most podcast hosting companies will create an automatically-generated website, using the contents of the RSS feed to create a web presence for the show. And if not, various 3rd-party services will take a bit more info from you and crank out a website using nothing but your RSS feed.

None of these auto-generation solutions are good enough, because the information they have to work with—fields inside a podcast’s RSS feed—isn’t detailed enough. Because a podcast’s RSS feed wasn’t made to populate a website. It was made to update podcast directories and apps. That’s it.

Strangely, most people who consume my content aren’t listening to my content. Instead, 57% of the Podcast Pontifications content I produced in February 2021 was consumed by people reading the text. Only 41% listened to the audio files. That clearly shows a bias toward reading.

I remind you that my show, Podcast Pontifications, is only ever about podcasting. Every word I speak or write is only of interest to podcasters. And podcasters, generally speaking, like to listen to content. 

Apparently, my audience is made up of podcasters who also like to read.

Also, thanks to my website before the prettying-up, I was seeing 72% of my website's traffic coming from organic search. And that’s with less than 3% searches for “podcast pontifications”. Nearly three out of four visitors have no idea who the hell I am or even knew I have things to say about podcasting. That’s net-new audience right there.

So yeah, your podcast needs a website.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/finally-a-podcast-website-that-doesnt-suck

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: Steve Yong, UX designer

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.

Being a podcast producer sounds like a fun job. Hey, it’s my job to produce podcasts on other people’s behalf and I can tell you that yes, absolutely, it is fun. And yes, absolutely, I love it. Most of the time. Other times, it’s just a job.

There's a conflict between creators like you and me who want to create amazing things and those who we create for. They’ll tell us they want the same thing we want: to create amazing content. But what they really want is to make money. 

In most companies, most podcast production will be seen as a cost-center, not a revenue-driver. And cost-centers always face pressure to either lower costs or increase efficiency.

If podcasting is not core to the business that’s paying you to make a podcast, then it’s highly likely that your boss (and your boss’ bosses) doesn’t even listen to podcasts. Not even the ones you produce on their behalf.

If you’re being paid to produce a podcast for someone else, you need to prepare yourself for the reality that, at some point, that’s going to come to an end. 

Do and document your best work - Take screenshots, grab source files and save them outside the work environment. Caveat: Don’t violate any contracts you may have signed. I’ve usually found it simple enough to “sanitize” assets so they serve my purposes without crossing any confidentiality lines.

Get credit for your work - Ideally, the place for this credit is in the in-app episode details. If you’re worried about pushback, play the best-practices card and give your boss Executive Producer credit while you’re at it! They’ll probably love the idea and will be happy to have you listed there as well.

Build your credibility - Start talking about you, the podcast producer, in the podcasting industry. Update your LinkedIn profile by listing each of the podcasts you're working on/have worked on as a project, detailing specifically what your role was/is on the show. 

-----

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-perilous-life-of-a-podcast-producer

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: Magnet.me 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.

Remember surfing through TV channels or scanning through radio stations, stopping when a show or conversation sounded interesting? Or skimming the sections of a newspaper or randomly flipping through a magazine?

For many, this opportunistic style of content consumption is rather antiquated. Interactive TV  guides, podcasts piped through our car radios, and news delivered to our news apps. We’re choosing the content we want to consume, often when we want to consume it. Just like podcasts.

Podcasting sucks for the opportunistic listener for all the reasons I listed above. But the rise in drop-in audio apps and live recording sessions streamed to social platforms is changing that. The opportunistic listener uses these services with little or no intention of being social or engaging with the creator. They just want to lean back and listen/watch. And they are. 

From the creator’s perspective, we may see dozens or more people commenting on our “lives”, boosting our streams with hearts, or raising their hands to get on stage with us. But what we’re not seeing—simply because we’re not looking—are the hoards of silent participants doing none of those things, content to listen to or watch us do our thing.

Conventional wisdom tells us to create content specific to the strengths of a platform rather than the lazy method of repurposing content to another medium, shoe-horn style. I may have been complicit in that wisdom. On more than one occasion.

But maybe it’s time to rethink that position. Maybe we should look less at making an engaging social-worthy experience on those platforms and just give the opportunistic consumers what they want: a lean-back experience of our content as we’re making it.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/solving-podcastings-opportunistic-challenge-today

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.

Courtney Corlew 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 first mass-circulated daily newspaper was launched for about $10K in today’s money. 15 years later, those costs had shot up to $2.5m.

Podcasting is a little over 15 years, and our costs haven’t increased 250x. Or have they? For most podcasts, that’s true. But the cost to make a mass-circulated podcast that becomes a household name? That’s different.

15 years ago, podcasting was small potatoes in both show selection and audience size. But soon there will be millions of podcasts listened to by hundreds of millions of Americans. Which means the cost to actually reach them has increased. Big time.

The harsh reality is this: There’s competition at the top. A lot of competition. A lot of expensive competition. So while there’s a chance that a pitfall-free, high-quality podcast in 2021 and beyond can still become a breakout success that achieves mass circulation, the odds of that happening are dwindling. Rapidly.

Today, and certainly tomorrow, a third step is required: promotion. Marketing, advertising, PR… all those “dirty words”. How big are you thinking about your next show? Are you ready for an extensive promotional plan? How are you going to fund that? How much risk are you willing to take if you really do think your podcast should reach everyone? Are you up for that?

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/reality-checking-account-for-your-big-podcasting-dreams

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.

Macau Photo Agency 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.

Do you want accurate stats that count every single access made to your audio files? Or do you want actionable data that inform you how your audience is responding to your podcast and your podcasting outreach efforts?

You can only choose one, it seems.

Overcast, a privacy-focused and quite popular iOS app that even I use on occasion, recently announced and implemented—and then quickly retracted, but the day is young— a change that would have blocked data intelligence services like Chartable and Podsights from seeing any activity from Overcast users. 

That move effectively shut out the visibility of that download to the intelligence providers employed by the podcast publisher. 

Yes, most podcast hosts are IAB-certified and provide accurate (?) download statistics. And if that’s all you need, then that’s all you need.

But I’ve seen the insights provided by data intelligence providers. My clients have come to depend on having deeper insights around the interplay between episodes, the knowledge of which social media tactics provide the best results, and how their paid media efforts are paying off with real results. Neither I nor they want to go back to the one-trick-pony that is counting downloads.

For now, the change has been rolled back. But for how long? And if something like this is again enacted, how long will the trick to skip the hops work when the data intelligence providers change how they handle redirects, potentially causing download requests to completely fail? 

Do we lobby the analytics providers to work directly with privacy advocates like this to demonstrate their not-creepiness and get back in good graces? I quite like that notion, but also recognize it’s hard to change the minds of fundamentalists of any stripe. Still… one can dream.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/would-you-prefer-accurate-or-actionable-podcast-metrics

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.

Silvan Arnet 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.

I'm not so sure that bonus content for podcasters is the best thing. As uncovered in this year’s Infinite Dial 2021 report, the average weekly podcast consumer only listens to eight episodes per week. And only 19% of weekly listeners said their number is 11 or more.

Offering additional episodes to consume when their listening cup already runneth over seems like a bad idea.

Also, the thought of making an additional episode spikes many podcaster’s anxiety levels. And what about your friendly neighborhood podcaster who already puts out a daily show? More Monetization Options For Podcasters On The Horizon

It’s widely anticipated that Apple will soon roll out ways for podcasters to get paid by their audience, directly in the Apple Podcasts app. Twitter is also exploring ways to funnel direct payments to creators. One of them is called Super Follows, a “paid perk” that establishes a more direct connection between payers and the creators they choose to follow.

And that got me thinking about ways podcasters could provide something worth paying for that doesn’t require making another episode or locking up their previously-free content behind a firewall. I’m just spitballing here, but I came up with:

• Priority access / fast lane to you - An easy and accessible way for listeners to bump their questions, comments, or ideas to the top of your queue.
• Inner circle exclusives - Maybe special events, behind-the-scenes access, or a p controlled-access social feed
• Less content as a proxy for more - A “cut” version for busy listeners, or those who are willing to pay for certain curated content from you.

While I don’t believe there’s a definitive answer to the question of “how can I get paid without making more podcast content?”, I do know you should not ask your fans what they want. If you ask your fans, the ones that respond are likely to all say the same thing: more. And this is about not doing more. At least not more podcast episodes.

-----

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-paid-for-your-podcast-without-podcasting-more

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 via Thought Catalog 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’s episode covers the key podcasty bits from the Infinite Dial 2021 report from Edison Research and Triton Digital. Here are the choice bits:

• 222 million Americans (78%) are familiar with podcasting
• 162 million Americans 957%) have listened to a podcast
• 116 million Americans (41%) listen to podcasts monthly
• 80 million Americans (28%) listen to podcasts every week

For the purpose of the report, Edison creates three buckets based on the age of respondents. Here’s how the estimated size of the listening audience has increased in the last five years:

• 12-34 year-olds - 65 million today, compared to 28 million in 2016. Nearly 3x growth.
• 35-54 year-olds - 34 million today, compared to 19 million in 2016. Nearly 2x growth.
•  55+ - 24 million today, compared to 10 million in 2016. More than 2x growth.

Analysis: podcasting is healthy and growing. But it’s more important than ever that we each keep up that pressure. 59% of the US population didn’t listen to a podcast at all in the last month. And 73% don’t have a weekly podcast listening habit. We should all assume that the person listening on the other end is either brand new to podcasting or a casual podcast listener, and we need to hook them in with great content they can’t get from any other medium.

-----

A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/unpacking-podcastings-growth-seen-in-edisons-infinite-dial-2021

 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.

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.