How Does Google Play Embracing Podcasts Change Things? - The Podcast Report Episode #70

How does Google Play embracing podcasts change things? It's the PODCAST REPORT Episode 70 show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 70. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Podcasts in Google Play is the new podcasts in Spotify. Hey, this is Paul Calligan, podcaster, podcast consultant, author of the number one top selling how to podcast series. I've been in podcasts since the beginning. I love this industry. I've loved this industry since day one. I've loved the podcasters and I've loved the podcast consumers, the listeners. But the avatar for this show, you are the person listening on the other end of these earbuds. Is someone looking to make your podcast a real business or do more real business as a result of your podcast? This show has never been a massive play, but it has been a deep one. You won't see me on any top 10 list of podcasts anywhere, but some of my top 10 favorite podcasters listen to the show the second it comes out. You know who you are, and I certainly appreciate it. Why this topic? Why Google Play? Why Spotify? What's important here? Well, let's first get to the news. Google Play, Google announced, or the Alphabet company, whatever it is, that they are now announced that there's going to be Google Play support for podcasting. For those of you not familiar with Google Play, Google Play is essentially the itunes for Android. It's where you get your movies, it's where you get your books, it's where you get your TV shows and your apps, and soon you're gonna be able to get podcasts. They have opened it up pretty generously. There's no slow drip like there was in Spotify or some of the other systems. They made it easy. The guys at Libsyn have made it easy. The guys at Blubrry, if you're using their PowerPress plugin, have made it easy. Google seems to be accepting everybody pretty, pretty quickly. When this goes live. We don't know yet, but it's gone very, very smoothly. It's easy to do, very, very comprehensive, and gosh darn it, downright impressive, you know, because it's a podcasting thing. There are some podcasters who've made some controversy about the end user license agreement and that kind of stuff, but it's nothing that I'm worried about. And it seems like that noise has died down pretty quickly. But the question is, of course, what kind of impact is this going to have? I mean, it's common Knowledge that the Android phone base is considerably higher than the iOS phone base. And once it becomes easy inside of Android, there are those who believe that will. Well, let's talk reality for a second here. First, you need to understand the Android user versus the iOS user. Now, I'm speaking in generalities here, but that's the way you need to speak when you're looking at large industries of people saying suddenly that, you know, Android users are all going to flock to podcasting. Now, that's in, you know, in the Google Play Store is just as general as anything I'm about to say. But basically, those who grabbed an iPhone, they paid a premium for it. Most of you listening to this, 83% of you listening to this are listening to this on an iPhone. And you grabbed an iPhone because you a premium delivery vehicle, you want a premium mechanism. You know what it is that you want. You paid for it and you got the game as a result. Generally, iOS users want a smartphone. They're expecting an experience. They're willing to pay for it. Generally, Android users want a free phone. Yes, I understand that there are plenty of Android users who have made a decision to be on Android because of choice or because of the ability to do more with it or that type of thing. There are certainly a group of people who grabbed it just because they hate Apple. But the majority of Android users, and this is the way Android's positioned itself, has been that these are people who want a free phone, those who walk in and go, I don't know what are my options? And, well, you need to think that thing through when you look at the numbers of iOS versus Android. The other thing you need to realize when you're talking about Android users, and there's plenty of podcast listeners listening to Android, many of you are Android users. Again, about 17%. But you're out there. And so what we need to look at is we need to look at Android users who are currently not listening to podcasts. There are two types of them. One, Android users who wanted podcasts, but who found it too complicated. Android, by its very nature, guys, is complicated. It's not elegant, it's not simple, it's not easy. The guys over at Blubrry created the whole subscribe on Android thing. There's obviously, you can go to subscribe on Android.com or you can head over to the show notes@the podcastreport.com 70. But yeah, so Android users who wanted podcasts but found it too complicated, how many of them are there? And then finally, Android users who will finally, now give podcasting a try. That it's easy. Let's admit it, that's minimal, that's small. The other thing you need to understand about Android is that Android has multiple marketplaces. In iOS, if you want to get an app, there's one place, the App Store. On Android, you can sideload things. There's the Google Play store, there are a number of other stores, there's the Amazon store, and there's lots of places to get your content, which is further splintered out the Android group. And it just needs to be understood then finally, of course, Android already has a mechanism in subscribe to Android, as I mentioned earlier, so the impact is going to have will be minimal. So what do we do with this? Do we ignore it? Do we run away from it? Well, no, just like Spotify, which is also minimal and very few of us have been able to get into it. Definitely submit yourself to, you know, the, the store. I think if anything, it's going to have a really interesting impact just on search engine optimization. We still want to be found in Google and being found in Google Play is going to be a very good way to do that. We definitely want to track download types because, well, it's going to be interesting if we're starting to be downloaded more. You know, if we start to pass 20, go to 25, maybe 30%, suddenly this starts to get really, really interesting. So we want to track that. Not just the amount of subscribes, but again, what devices are bringing that important stuff. The other thing, what I want to do with this is just, and I've been chatting about this for every single episode of this podcast and pretty much everything I've ever done. And if you've been list for a while, you know what I'm about to say and if this is your first time, thank you and please subscribe to the show so we can do this more often. But you definitely want to be everywhere. You want to be on every single platform that will take you. Your goal as a podcaster is not to pick how your customer consumes. Your goal as a podcaster is to be everywhere so that your customer can consume you wherever it is that they want to consume you. So definitely be everywhere and then just be happy that you are everywhere. You know, I'm only getting X amount of downloads from Y is a silly statement. It's. You're now getting X amount of downloads from Y, but then again, when all this is done, realize the minimal impact. So, yes, mit, track the download types, be everywhere. Be happy that you're everywhere, but then realize the minimal impact. Now, I want to take a second here because I want to examine some of the hysteria that has come from this. There's this thing where like, oh my goodness, this is going to change everything, or this is going to change everything, or this is going change everything. And next week we're going to look at the whole Pandora bring cereal issue and what that means is that going to change everything. Well, here's the deal. Podcasting is easy, marketing's harder. Maybe that should have been the big idea for all this. Podcasting is easy, marketing is harder. And there's this idea. And this happened in the beginning days of podcasting. You know, podcast your passion and the profits will follow. Well, that's not the case. You gotta market your show, you gotta get your show out there. And part of getting your show out there is being everywhere. But you know, the total amount of time I've spent getting me and my client shows up on Google Play is less than 10 minutes, you know, and that's about the impact that it's going to have on me. So when you're producing your content, part of the process should be how is this going to be marketed? Who is going to listen to this? How are they going to find me? All of these questions, that's. When you produce your show, you don't expect Google to bring you anybody, but then you get thrilled with the fact of the matter that Google is there to bring you to those people. I have dear friends who are musicians and independent film directors and you know, Google brings them a download every six months whether or not they need it and they're thrilled with it and they're glad to be in all the marketplaces and that's the exact same place we should be. I think I've probably sold a couple of dozen of my books on the Google Marketplace. That's it. Most of it has come from Amazon, the 800 pound gorilla, and then ibooks and Funn enough scribd and oyster and you know, those guys. Basically you just set yourself up with a system where you are everywhere, make it easy to be everywhere, be happy that you are everywhere, have a strategy for being everywhere, and then just don't assume that any one place is going to get there. So why do we get so excited about this? Well, podcasting is easy, marketing is harder. And we wish somebody would come and do all the marketing work for us. Well, dear friend, dear listener, it's not going to happen. The fact that you listen to the show and the fact that you're far into the show means that you're not one of the ones who thinks this. So there's a bit of preaching to the choir here. But I just want to remind you of the strategy, I want to remind you the purpose and I want to remind you what it is that you are doing and why it is that you are doing it. So here's what you do with Google Play. Number one, have realistic expectations. Number two, certainly sign up and I've got a link here in the show notes thepodcastreport.com 70 to the place where you sign up. It's painfully easy if you're on Libs or on Blueberry, you've probably gotten email notices on how to do that. Definitely sign up. But then again, don't expect much. And then think about Pandora's entry with serial and we'll chat about that next week. And I think that will be important as well. But begin to start building shows that aren't always going to be on iOS and aren't always going to be on platforms that call it podcasting and in some cases might not even be the download or subscribe thing that we were thinking about. That's the one thing we can do now. It's funny, it looks like Google Play is going to probably call it podcasts and treat it more like podcast of the other entities out there. But just begin to think bigger than podcasting. Have your podcast. Love your podcast. Just think bigger than it. Here's what I've done. I've signed up. I've signed up all of my clients, but I'm not expecting much and that's exactly what I think you should do. But think your show everywhere. Get excited about your show everywhere and take the next steps to what it means that your show is everywhere. And realize that Google Play is not going to bring you that audience that's going to make you rich automatically. You know, realize that Pandora or Spotify or even itunes new and notable is not going to bring you that audience that is going to make you rich automatically. That's okay. I'd love your thoughts on this one. I'd love comments right at the show website. Again, the podcastreport.com 70 if you'd like to hit me up on social, it's the podcastreport.com Facebook or the podcastreport.com Twitter, all the regular social places links at the show notes we've got a link to the how to Podcast book podcaster cart SMS to opt in. I've got a link to the subscribetoandroid.com Although obviously you could figure out that link as well as the podcast portal for Google Play. And then something I put up the Google communities about what impact Pandora is going to have on all this because I think it'll be interesting. And again, we'll be chatting about that next week's episode, episode 71. If this is your first time listening to the show, or if you haven't yet subscribed, do subscribe. That's the power of the show. That's the power of podcasting. That's the power of this entity that we're playing with, this idea that we can take an episode, release it, and then automatically people start downloading and start playing and start getting notified on their devices, be they Android or whatever. You can pick me up@the podcastreport.com iTunes or/stitcher,/pocketcasts, iheartradiovercast and soon, of course, slash Google Play. If you're listening to this in the future and Google Play is all set up, you can subscribe to me right there. If you want to send me an email, I'd love one. The podcast reportoutlook.com and if you want to review me and Google Play isn't live yet, go ahead and head out to itunes and do a review there. If you're an Android user looking to go someplace else, you can definitely review me at Stitcher or Spreaker. But there we go. Google Play is embracing podcasting. Google Play, you are welcome. But oh, podcasters don't think it's going to change the game. Chat with you soon. Next week, Pandora. Bye.