3 Ways Today’s Podcast Content Can Serve You In 3 Years - The Podcast Report Episode #48

Three ways today's podcast content can serve you three years later, it's the podcast report, episode number 48, show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 4 8. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. We start with the big idea. Evergreen content is a better monetization strategy. What are you talking about, Paul? Who are you, Paul? What is this? Hey, my name's Paul. Paul Colligan, podcaster, author. Right now, how to podcast 2015 is doing well in the stores, but I've been part of podcasting since the beginning. Love this industry. I have since day one. The avatar for the show, the audience for the show, the listener. You podcaster, looking to make your business a real podcast or do more real business because of your podcast? The podcast report has never been a massive play, but it's been a deep one. I love my audience. They're extremely passionate. They are the podcasters that make the industry go around. And it is a thrill, a kick in a pants to do this show. So, quick update on Patreon. I started a Patreon experiment and I've got a link for it in today's show. Notes thepodcastreport.com 48 A number of you have joined. It's gone some interesting ways. I the final report that I'm going to do for everybody who jumped in is going to be interesting, to say the very least. There's some stuff I learned, some stuff I do differently, some stuff I do the same, some stuff I didn't expect. All those good stories are there. I will definitely, you know, keep trying. If you're listening to this, after podcast movement 2015, when I do the grand reveal, I will keep the Patreon account open. Most probably. It doesn't seem to do any damage, doesn't seem to do any harm, and it's very, very interesting. Probably won't promote it as much in future episodes, but there we go. All right, this topic. Why this topic? I had four really interesting things happen to me over the last couple of days that kind of changed my scope, changed my attention and my point of view on a couple things and I just wanted to share them with you. So I was going through Facebook today. It was one of the few times when I was actually looking at the Facebook feed and I'll tell you why I was doing that in a minute. But I noticed that Seinfeld is coming to Hulu and I found out about that because of Facebook. Now I've heard stories about Seinfeld coming to Hulu. And I looked it up and I've got a link to the article in the show notes here. But seinfeld is getting $875,000 per episode. This show is decades old and they're getting $875,000 per episode. Now they've got 180 episodes. So go ahead and do the math on that. A piece of content created by Jerry and the gang. He didn't even know that Hulu would exist later. He didn't even know that this was an opportunity. But he's getting $875,000 per episode. Phenomenal. By the way, DVD sales are still going to happen. All the other options are still going to happen. Just that One Hulu acquisition. 875k. Amazing what happens when you've got content that enters into a new marketplace. Yeah, podcasters should be thinking about that. Speaking of Facebook, the reason I was at Facebook, I was looking at the stats for my site, my personal one, Facebook. Well, paulcolligan.com Facebook will take you right there. And I was looking at the stats and what was interesting was in the last month, I have seen more clicks from a 2009 blog post by Tim Ferriss that I've seen from my entire website. Now, I'll say that again. I've seen more clicks from a 2009 post from Tim Ferriss that I've seen in my own website. Now I. Back in 2009, I did this Facebook bankruptcy thing. It caught Tim's attention. Tim wrote a blog post on it. And among other things, right now, if you type Facebook bankruptcy template, his article comes up, which, which leads out to mine. It was a. It was a kick in the pants. It was, it was a blast. It was a lot of fun. Tim is a great guy. I've got to hang out with them a couple times. Nothing major, but it was great. And Tim's impact is tremendous. And if you guys don't know Tim from anything else other than podcasting, he had some other things he did before that. But the fact of the matter is, you know, something, almost six years old, it's bringing me more clicks than my own website that I updated and modified today. Interesting. A phone call earlier this week. A decision I made for my business 15 years ago. Okay. A decision made 15 years old before my kids. Actually. No, this was before. Yeah, this was right before, man. Still paying my mortgage. Software has been dead for 12 years, but the decision made. Still paying my mortgage. Phenomenal. Didn't think it would go this long. Had no Idea had no comprehension of things going this long, but it did. And you know, the house that I'm recording this in thanks you for it. And then I've got. There's an article and I linked to this in the show notes, the podcastreport.com 48 Spotify, which I chatted about last week. And if you missed last week's episode, definitely jump on board that. That was interesting. It's created a lot of attention and action and good stuff. There's an article today and I've linked to it again in the sites. Basically somebody saying, hey, is, is Spotify going to be the way that, you know, all of us podcasters make our money? And. No, I don't think so at all. But what's interesting is, you know, Spotify comes into the game and Spotify has podcasters starting to rethink models over again and rethink ideas over again and go, you know, could the same content that at one point didn't can it now? And that's the power of podcasting. That's the power of content that lives longer. You know, I listen to podcasts all the time. I listen to new ones, I listen to old ones. You know, and whenever I listen to a podcast that says today is April 25, you know, 2000, whatever, or a specific date or that type of thing, my heart always goes out for them a little bit because they're not doing the long term, they're not doing the long play. And I realize some have a strategy for that. You know, Tom Merritt has a daily tech news show. Obviously you can't have an evergreen daily tech news show. Leo laporte the same. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of podcasters are reporting on what's happening this week because they kind of thought that was the model. And if there was a long term play here, if there was an attempt to make content that served you longer, things might change. So the idea here is we don't know the long term implications for our content. We don't. Seinfeld didn't see Hulu coming. There's no way he could have. Back then, I never realized that, you know, me being Facebook would send, you know, me doing Facebook bankruptcy would send this long flood of content to my site because of another blogger. I didn't realize that a decision made 15 years ago would still be paying my mortgage. We don't always know what's going to happen. So my question is, you know, we're building these archives, we're building these legacies, we're Building these, you know, podcasts. And what are they going to do for us in three years? What are they going to do for us in five years? What are they going to do for us in 10 years? And, you know, if it's report of what happened in the news this week or, you know, the latest episode of the Bachelor or the Bachelorette or that type of thing, not going to do much. But if you changed a couple of things, you could have content that might have a longer reach. And I've got three ideas for you. And gosh darn it, you might have more ideas of your own. So reach out on social, reach out at the website again, the podcastreport.com 48 if you've got some other ideas. But I got three options for you. Three things that you can do right now in constructing your podcast to just start thinking about the long term. And I know deep in my gut and logic and history and all those good things show us you do these three things, your podcast could be serving you very well in three years. Talk to any podcaster who's been doing this for a long time, who doesn't do a news show, who doesn't do a this weekend kind of situation. You know, people go back to episode one over and over and over again. So anyway, the three options, option number one in your podcast, begin to teach principles, not specifics. Look at that. I almost said that wrong. Teach principles, not specifics. And I'll tell you a really interesting example of this is my very, very, very old book, the business podcasting Bible. Now, for different legal and contractual issues, the book's still out there. Personally, I don't recommend that you buy it. It's fine. Actually, I'm surprised at how good it is this far along. But the thing was, it was all about principles of podcasting and what do we do with podcasting. And so, you know, there's no screenshots, there's no software recommendations, there's no things. And I did that because I knew it would change a bunch. But what's funny is the book still sells and I'm still getting emails from people saying, hey, I bought your book. I like your book. What about the iPhone? Well, this book was written before we even knew the iPhone was going to exist. You know, just like Seinfeld, before we knew that, you know, Hulu was going to exist. So if you teach principles but not specifics, your stuff can have a lot, lot, lot longer of a shelf life. And as you look at your podcast and look at that, I want you to Consider that number two, are you constructing your content for other media types? And for other media types, I'm not just speaking to non audio or non video recording types, such as a book, although that's good. I mean, if your content, you produce great audio content and it can become a book pretty quickly and pretty easily. So you definitely want to think about other media types. But even other non traditional trans media, whatever the right term is here, the stuff that people don't normally think of when they think of a podcast, are you constructing for that, but also just simply, are you constructing for people who might be consuming this audio in a way that's not the traditional podcast? I mean, would your podcast make sense if they were listening to it on cd? Would it make sense if they were listening to it on a portable media player? Would it make sense if they listen to it, you know, on Spotify? And that's the third one. Remove the word podcast. I tell you, there is no benefit, there is nothing out there that gives you the benefit of calling a show a podcast anymore. Now, of course, this is coming from the guy who has a show called the Podcast Report. And yes, there's definitely some realization of the irony there. But I'll tell you, I cannot think of a reason why calling your show a podcast has a benefit anymore. And I think that's going to be less and less and less in the future, you know, you know, we used to call it online video. We don't, you know, when we go online to see video, we're not called online video anymore. The online's gone away. It's just video. And I think podcast is going to be the technology, but it's not, you know, and in some ways it's going to be the format, but it's not going to be important. And it is going to prevent us in our transmedia opportunities. So go to three options. Teach principles, not specifics in your podcast, construct your podcast for other media types, and then simply number three, remove the word podcast. You know what a Spotify listener know or care that it's a podcast, when some listening in their car media center know or care that it's a podcast. Anyway, I've had that enough. Get rid of the word, embrace it, love it. Still go to things like podcast movement, but it isn't important inside of your content. Where am I going with this, Paul, Mr. Podcast report himself? Well, I'll tell you one thing. I am going to make some big changes to the show. Episode 50 is coming very, very soon. As you can tell here with recording episode 48 making some big changes that I'll be announcing soon. We're going to take on some of these issues and that is what I recommend that you do as well. Take a look. If you've been living entirely in podcasting and thinking you, you know, the majority of your audience is on iPhones. Yeah, they are. But the opportunity for that is really, really interesting. The majority of people who read Tim Ferriss blog are Tim Ferriss readers. But man, the spinoff that came from that for me has been really interesting and really fascinating and I just recommend that you do the same. You don't know what decisions you make today are going to have an impact 5, 10, 15 years later. But I'll tell you, if you do things that make sure that they don't have an impact 5, 10, 15 years, then you know, I don't know. I believe you shot yourself in the foot. So that's my thought here. Would love your thoughts on it. We're all over social. You can go to the podcastreport.com Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, it's all there. Have fun. You can also go to the podcastreport.com 48 if you want to make a direct comment. If you Want to text EP4 8 to 503-897-1290 that's the show hotline. I will get you the transcripts and the mind map for this episode. Again, the links at the podcast report 48 is a link to the podcast book. My new one, how to podcast 2015. Not not the business podcasting bible, the whole Patreon thing. You can take a look at that. An article from Variety about the Seinfeld deal. Boy, that'll make you hungry. The Tim Ferriss piece from 2009 and then that article I spoke to about where our money Spotify is where our money is. It's an interesting article and again, I think the article is completely and totally wrong. But the fact that Spotify represents a new consumption model that we weren't necessarily thinking about that long ago, even though I did speak about it on an episode previous a while ago here on this show, it's still interesting. We don't know what's coming next and I think we want to prepare for it. If this is your first time listening to the show or you've hit play somewhere, thank you. I appreciate it. I'd love you to subscribe because what subscription does, it's one of the big things about podcasting that makes it so cool. You click the subscribe button or the Follow button or whatever your thing does. And then every time a new episode comes out, I think it's Spotify, they call it Follow. And then what happens is every time a new episode comes out, you get updated, you get to consume it. And if you like this episode, if you're this far into this, you like where we're going with this show and you want to take more of it. So you can go to the podcastreport.com iTunes if you'd like to do the itunes things. Stitcher, if you're one of those Android users or you just don't want to do the itunes infrastructure. Slack Pocket casts works both iOS and Android. It's a great one. Word Tunein Word slash spreaker word iheartradiovercast. It's all there. Haven't done SoundCloud yet, but that's getting to be fascinating. Do you want to email me? It is the podcastreportoutlook.com and if you'd like to leave a review, you can do that over at itunes or Stitcher. Those seem to be the two big places where reviews matter. Other than that, click on the links, think about it, make an impact on your show. Start designing for content. 3, 10, 15 years later, and I think your podcasting game will change. Thank you so much, everybody. We'll chat next week. Bye.