Is Podcast A Format Or A Channel? - The Podcast Report Episode #9

Is podcasting a format or a channel? You're listening to the podcast report, episode nine at thepodcastreport.com nine show hotline is 503-897-1290. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. All right, I actually have to start this episode out with an apology. If you have tried to text the show before. Well, I wasn't giving the right number. Everywhere I went. Some areas of the show had the number correct, some didn't. Most of you went to the blog, and some poor gal here in Portland, Oregon has been getting a lot of your texts. So sorry about that. The official show number is 503-897-1290. I went back in, had the editor re edit all the episodes so they are fixed now. But if you've been listening to this chronologically, might be the first you've heard of it. If you send the hashtag ep9 hashtag ep9 to 503-897-1290, I will get you everything that we've done so far and catch you up and go from as well as the transcripts and the mind map from this episode. So you know what I learned from this one. Well, gosh darn it, if you know something should be working and it isn't, you might want to check out why I was looking at my numbers for the last episode and why we weren't getting the calls for the transcripts. And lo and behold, it was my fault. Oh, the things we learn when we podcast. All right, let's get to the big idea of today's show. Podcasting is two things. It is a channel, it is a way to distribute content, and then it is a format. The podcast format is a fun one. It's one that I enjoy. And there's some shows out there that really could come as podcast. So it's two things at the same time. But here's the deal. If one is better than the other, we should probably leverage that to our benefit as we go strategically into this world and we try to take podcast into the next step. You know, we got to think about that. So a couple of big ideas for you. Number one, content will always be more important than format. Number two, a show delivered by podcast is always better than just a podcast. And number three, if I'm in show business and podcasting is but a channel, if any of these resonate with you, I'd love a tweet. You can head out to the podcastreport.com 9 we've got links to tweet each of these ideas. I think they are important ones. But anyway, let's get to it. The Podcast Report. My name is Paul Colligan. I'm the author of the Business Podcasting Bible and the number one top selling podcast strategies of podcasting since the beginning. I love this industry. I love the people in it. I love what we're doing, I love where we're going, and that's a lot of fun. So I decided to do this show. Two audiences to the show. Number one is the podcaster. And it's been fun to see some old friends in the game respond. Voicemail, comments, Facebook. That's been a blast. But also, those of you thinking about getting into podcasting as podcasting has, you know, it's not a rebirth because it was never dead. It's not a renaissance. It's almost a second coming or a second attention. I want to have the opportunity to have the content that's important. Not just what microphone to buy and what place to host your media at, but what are the big ideas here? So the podcast report is not a massive play, but it's a deep one and it's one near and dear to my heart. I hope you can be part of the conversation. Thank you for listening. All right, the topic, knowing what you're building is really important. A lot of people in the early days of podcasting, I would get a call from somebody. This is back when high definition cameras were expensive. Hey, Paul, I just bought a $5,000 high definition camera. What should I podcast about? Well, obviously knowing what you're building is really important. And gosh darn it, if it stops and it ends with a podcast, well, you need to know that. But you need to realize that's very limiting. Not everybody consumes podcasts. The numbers are getting bigger and bigger every day. But my mom to this day, and I joke about it, but there's real truth here. She doesn't listen to what I do because she doesn't have an ipod and she just doesn't do the Apple thing. If it stops and ends with a podcast, that's pretty limiting. Now, I personally, I always saw podcast as a delivery mechanism from day one. I didn't see it as RSS and XML and all these nerdy terms, but I saw it as a way to get my content out to all the devices. Audible actually was my model. I had met with Don Katz in the past. That's another story for maybe another episode. But I always saw podcast as delivery. Now, not everyone agrees with me, there are some very smart people in this place who see podcasting more importantly as a format. Let's take a look at both. Let's start with format. I always loved the freedom of the podcast format. You know, you could make whatever content you wanted, you could choose whatever was important to you, and you could speak to the length that made sense to the topic at hand. If you had a five minute topic, you could speak for five minutes. If you had a 20 minute topic, you could speak for 20 minutes. And people who come to me and you know, Paul, what's the ideal length for a podcast? My answer was always a bit snarky, but deep in truth here. Well, as long as it needs to be and not one minute more. So you could choose the selection, you could choose the length. And there was a lack of censorship that was extremely appealing. I had started the process back in college of getting my FCC license and all the things you could do and couldn't do. And whereas that was just a bit too much at the time, podcasting has let people say what they want to say and do what they want to do. Now, some have used this opportunity, this freedom to go extremely blue. And that's not my style, that's not my choice. And I think in a couple of cases, it's actually done some damage to the industry. But a lack of censorship is a good thing. Freedom of speech is amazing. So in the formatting freedom, the universal nature of podcasting was always great. It went everywhere. Any device that stored media files stores the MP3 file, and the fact that it could go anywhere was great. The machines didn't matter. Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, whatever, these things worked and that was beautiful. Then there was a bit of a pioneer nature in all of podcasting. Blazing new trails. And there was a show called the Source Code. Adam Curry. It would basically be every day, here's what's happening in the industry, here's what we're doing, here's what people are playing with. And it was a ton of fun. The podcast format, very, very exciting. But I would hear people say things like, well, if they don't listen to it by podcast, I don't want them to listen to it. Are we that limited? Now, let's talk about the channel. I saw it as channel first, and as I mentioned earlier, it was audible. It was the influence of Don Katz. I always saw this as a way to get my content out. The opportunity. When you position a podcast, it's incredibly viable for people who know what a podcast is. Anyone who listens to podcasts consumes podcasts. It's great for you to get your content out there. But those who don't know what a podcast is, or those who are overwhelmed by it, or those who think it's too techy, or those who think that it's only Apple or whatnot, they can't get your stuff. It's only a podcast. Now, yes, you can train them and you can walk them through it, but gosh darn it, there are some easier ways to do this. I remember in the early days, the first show I did marketing online live with Alex Mendozian, way back in the early, we had a survey. We had people email in. You know, how are you listening to the show? How are you consuming the show? And one person emailed in, I kid you not. Mr. Johnson has me burn the podcast as CD. Then the driver plays it on the way home. Now, I don't know who Mr. Johnson is. I don't know what he did, but the fact of the matter was he wasn't able to use a podcast, but he wanted the content. So positioning is huge and profiting. You know, if it's a channel more than it is a format, you're not limited to the models in podcasting of CPM insertions. I go crazy when I hear people speak to podcasting as if the only way to do it is to put in an ad and collect $40 every time a thousand people download your show. In some cases, that makes a heck of a lot of sense, but in some cases it makes no sense at all. But if you're only doing a podcast, well, then you really are limited yourself. And then the other thing is, there's that which the podcast limits, but then there's that which not being a podcast and just having content distributed expands. If you have 10 different options, 15 different options, 20 different options for your content, of which podcasting is one, and you make a little bit from each, it starts to get really, really interesting. The numbers get very, very cool. Some of you are listening to this as a podcast. Some of you probably listening to this at some point on a prerecorded media player. Some of you are possibly reading this right now in a Kindle book, or maybe it's a printed book, or maybe it's a digital book on some player device that I don't even own. But because I've distributed it everywhere, I'm in a good place. The opportunity for profiting from your content is considerably bigger than the opportunity from profiting from podcasting. So think about that. And then of Course, there's just the reality that everybody else is doing it right now. If you look at itunes, the top shows, both in podcasts and in episodes, are radio shows that decided, hey, heck, we're going to distribute ourselves via podcasting as well. It's gotten so interesting that there are, you know, our public radio stations and the big towers and the big broadcasters going to go away because so many people are listening to it by podcast. I think we're going to see that in the pretty immediate future. So the channel, I always saw it that way. The opportunity to channel is exciting, but the reality of what people are doing with the channel kind of dictates that we go there as well. So what do you do with this? What do you do as the podcaster, either existing or coming? Well, question number one. Are you limiting yourself? If you have been looking at the entirety of your revenue, opportunity and impact, opportunity and reach opportunity for podcasting? Only from podcasting are you limiting yourself. What would happen if you took your content and you made it available in other places and in other ways? If you're doing this only for podcasting, you're obviously doing this for passion. You do this because you got a message that you want to get out. And have you been limiting yourself? If you've been limiting yourself, well, gosh darn it, stop that. Stop limiting yourself. Of course. What are the new options? If podcasting is just one channel of what you're doing, what are the options? If you could put this in a whole bunch of other places, that makes the game bigger. That makes the game much, much more exciting. Now, I'll be honest with you. Everything that I do is a channel. I don't think about a podcast. I don't think about a blog. I don't think about a YouTube video. I think about a channel. I think about content distribution that I want to get out as many ways as is possible. Now, sometimes one format makes more sense initially primarily over another. This one, the initial concept is the podcast that I'm recording from a mind map down here, my home office. But sometimes it's a livestream video, sometimes it's a book. Everything I do is a channel. And it has enabled me to pay the bills, quit the day job, do all those things, and it might be something that you want to consider. I know my audience, podcasters who want to take things to the next level, and I know that podcasters who want to take things to the next level. I know that they read, I know that they watch video. I know that they look at blogs. I know they listen to podcasts. I know they do these things and as a result everything I do is a channel. I'd love your thoughts on this one. I'm at Twitter odcastrpt podcastrpt. I would love a follow and I'd love some conversation. Let's chat about this as well. If you wanted to, you could head to thepodcastreport.com 9 and share your thoughts on this one. We were also at Facebook at the podcastreport facebook.com thepodcastreport if you'd like to get the mind map and the transcript for this episode, go ahead and text Ep. 9 to 503-897-1290. You can go ahead and leave a voicemail message there if you'd like and we will make sure to respond to it. As I said earlier at the beginning of the show, our switching of numbers resulting in some poor gal getting a lot of texts from you. We will in episode nine mail you all the back catalog of stuff as well. All digital, don't worry and you'll be able to go from there if you'd like. If you'd like, leave a voicemail message. I love interaction. This thought of podcasting this channel or format is a really, really important one and if you want to work this out, leave voicemail. That would be great. I have no voicemail for you this week. Last couple of weeks have been interviews, but if you've got one in you, go ahead and give us a call. 503-897-1290 this is the podcast report. We are at thepodcastreport.com itunes thepodcastreport.com stitcher thepodcastreport.com pocketcast tunein we are at all these places still figuring out soundcloud and there's no direct link over to Overcast but we are in their directory as well. I would love us to subscription to the show. Yes, you can listen to these as individual episodes if you want, but one of the powers of podcasting is that when you click the subscribe button, the episodes come to you automatically and the second they are released they come to your device. You don't have to look for information. You don't have to wait for spam to get lost. It's great to go. Next episode will be episode 10. That's going to be kind of fun. I'm really, really looking forward to that. I've got a couple surprises for you. The blog is up coming away on episode 9 here@thepodcastreport.com 9 I'd love a review if you got one at iTunes thepodcastreport.com iTunes. Email thepodcastreport@outlook.com. i would love any comments you have. Thank you so much. Talk to you next episode. Bye.