Lessons Learned In 50 Episodes - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #50

Lessons learned in 50 episodes of the podcast report at the podcastreport.com Episode 50 thepodcastreport.com 50 it's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul what the audience expects, what the numbers tell you are not always the same thing. Hey podcasters. This is Paul Culligan of how to podcast 2015 and of course, the show you're listening to right now, the Podcast Report. I've been doing this since the beginning. I love this industry. I love you podcasters. I love doing this show. I've been loving it since day one. You are either a podcaster looking to make your podcast real business or looking to do bigger, more real business because of your podcast. The Podcast Report has never been a massive play, but it has been a deep one. And for those of you who love this show, thank you so much. For those of you who've listened to been on this journey of 50 episodes, we what a thrill. What a kick in the pants. A quick update on Patreon. We're trying the Patreon thing. It's been interesting. The results have been fascinating. Thank you for those of you who've joined. For those of you who haven't yet, you can visit patreon.com PaulColligan or of course we have links in today's shownothpodcastreport.com 50. I'll probably keep it going Past Podcast Movement 2015. Would love to have you inside. I have been hinting to a big announcement, was hinting that it might come out at episode 50. Well, I'll tell you right now, it's not coming out at this episode. So if you were listening to hear the big announce, you might have to wait an episode or two. But this is episode 50. This is a cause for celebration and I want to share with what I've learned. And of course to share what I've learned. I want to share with you what I was trying to do and maybe we can all learn from it. So why did I launch the Podcast Report? Well, I launched it for a number of reasons. I've been in the podcasting space podcasting since the beginning. I took a bit of someone called a break, someone called a vacation, whatever, from doing my own show because I was doing the executive producing of a bunch of other shows, been in the game the entire time, don't worry. And, but you know, the voice had to come back. My thoughts needed to be shared. And as podcasting just got easier and easier to consume, the show made sense. So I did it for Three reasons I did it for credibility. You know, when you get introduced on stage, being introduced as the executive producer of X doesn't just do well. And the fact that one of the main reasons to do a podcast is because of the credibility that comes with it. And of course, the credibility that comes with things like more than 50 episodes and that kind of stuff is there. Also did test test. I've been testing a number of things this show. Some of them I've shared with you, some of them I haven't, some I'll share with you the results in the future. But it's been phenomenal to get the test. The results have been interesting. And then finally I did. Just because I love podcasting, getting in front of the mic is just a blast. And knowing that podcasters everywhere have me plugged in on their run or in the car or on the way to work or whatever it is, it's just been a blast. So we're 50 episodes in and gosh darn it, I want to share with you what I've learned and maybe you can take away some element of what I've learned and do better with it. So the first one, this one is is, you know, tale as old as time. But I picked I wanted to do the podcast report because I wanted to do a report on podcasting. And at the time I chose this show, there was a show called Podcast Report. My buddy Cliff Ravenscraft was doing it. It was an association with nmx. At the time, the show was a couple years old with no new episodes. The future of NMX was. Was questionable and I just kind of assum going to die off. So grabbing the podcast report when podcast Report was no longer an entity was just a domain trick, one of the domain tricks they teach you to do. But here's the problem. Podcast Report never died. NMX came back. And most unfortunately, the way iTunes SEO works is you got to have the word the in there if thus in your title. So people go to itunes to type in podcast report, don't get my show, which is ridiculous. Now they find it, they can type in me and that kind of thing, but oh my goodness, that was a mistake. Please learn from that one. Never put the word the in your title. It just doesn't work with itunes. So there learn from that one. Number two, and I've kind of hinted to this, and this might give you a sneak preview of maybe where I'm going here, but I'm beginning to realize just fundamentally that doing a show weekly, you know, having to plan a time every week to record your show. At least with the way my mind works and with the way my schedule work, doesn't always produce the best content. You know, you enter into the week and like, oh, man, I got to record the show. Do it. Especially if you're not doing a news cycle show. If you're doing something more like what I'm doing here, the chunking thing that I spoke to last episode might be something that you want to consider. I'm certainly not going to be producing weekly. Now, publishing weekly is an entirely different story, but producing weekly is something I think I'm going to be pulling myself out of pretty quickly because just gosh darn it, it doesn't produce the best content. Now, another thing I've learned, and we'll put this at number three. Numbers tell the true story. Not things you've heard. Not communities, not status, not stock reports, not whatever. Numbers tell the true story. You know, there's a player out there called Spreaker. And Rob, if you're listening to this episode, congrats on the new gig. And you know, Spreaker, many podcasters kind of poo poo it, kind of toss it away. But, you know, last week's episode, I had more listens at Spreaker than I had at Stitcher. You know, Stitcher is the company, you know, tied into all the cars. Stitcher's the company with all this future Stitcher, Stitcher, Stitcher. And lo and behold, Spreaker was sending me more listens. And the funny thing is, yes, they're tied into iHeartRadio, but that was a small part of it. A good chunk of people, just the straight Stitcher numbers were better than. I'm sorry, just the straight Spreaker numbers were better than Stitcher. And I don't want this to be an issue of Spreaker vs Stitcher vs TuneIn vs Whatever, but the fact of the matter is the numbers tell the story. And if you as a podcaster are not looking at the numbers, man, don't do that to yourself. I was at a meeting with one of my clients and we were chatting about numbers, and he said, how come I haven't heard these numbers before? And the fact of the matter was, the reason he hadn't heard these numbers before was his show was originally on a podcast host that, although a very large marketing budget, had not spent any of their budget on analytics or that type of thing. And I simply had to tell him, look, you didn't have the numbers before to look at. Response was, well, why in the world. Did we do that? And the funny thing is, is a lot of podcasters are doing that. We're not looking at the numbers, and the numbers tell the true story, and look at the numbers, figure out the true story, go from there. And some audience expectations are bigger than the numbers. And we'll chat about that. Well, no, let's chat about that right now. I did an episode a while back on why the podcast is more important than the website, and it's still true. For every 60, 70 people who download the show, only one of them download an episode, only one of them goes to the podcast. And the fact of the matter is, I should be spending them 60 to 70 times as much on the show as the website. But the problem is there's a certain expectation from some podcasters that you're going to have a website and they want to see what you're doing there. And there is some dismissal that can happen. So even though the numbers aren't there, you want to realize that expectations sometimes are just bigger than numbers. And so have that fine line, know the numbers, know the specifics, know where you need to focus your time, but at the same time, know the expectations of your audience and what to do with that. And that's a fine balance that I think all podcasters will probably be playing with for the rest of their lives. Now, here's funny. I'm looking at the stats, looking at the numbers, my prediction show and the episode I did with Ed Rush on buying an audience were the two biggest episodes by far for the show. Now, the prediction show that could be partially blamed isn't the right word. That could be partially associated with the fact that I took a couple of weeks off after the prediction show and so it had a longer time to listen. But even if you look over time, even if you take that out, the prediction show was still there. And then the one on buying an audience, number two, very, very easily. And it's interesting because you. I've realized in comparing the shows that did well versus the shows that didn't do well, which is again, part of understanding the numbers, you know, I've realized that my audience, you guys, the podcasters, you are extremely forward thinking, which I love the idea that it's not, you know, here I am saying this is not the show about hosting battles and microphone choices, but the show about what do we do. Look at that. Lo and behold, my stats are showing that. So a lot more forward thinking coming. What's interesting, of course, if you look at your best shows, you want to look at your least best shows. Well, the Lessons Learned From Podcast Day was my least popular show by far, which is interesting. I don't necessarily know what to think of that because it got listed in a bunch of highlight lists from Podcast Day and it got a lot of attraction. I'm still going to get involved with Podcast Day this year, actually. I have something very, very cool planned, but it's pretty fascinating if you think about it. I don't know what it means entirely, but it's again to that forward thinking nature of you and where you are going and how cool you are as a result of that. The thing that really spoke to my heart, the thing that I loved, was that the Twitter bombing episode that I did was also really, really low. And it's neat that while there are some podcasters out there who are bickering and complaining and trying the sleazy, my audience not only is not doing the sleazy, but they don't even care about the sleazy. You know, if I do an episode called Twitter Bombing ain't the most of you probably realize, yeah, it ain't. And therefore you ain't need to listen to the episode, which is, I don't know, the implications of that are fascinating. So it's cool that you are forward thinking, that you are not sleazy, that you are progressing ahead and looking ahead and that's very cool. The other thing I've learned about my audience is that they are extremely socially quiet. Now what's interesting here is that's fine. That means you're podcasting, that means you're getting the job done. That means that you're also promoting your own show, which I appreciate do promote your show. I promote my show, so I totally understand it. What's interesting is you're a little bit socially quiet in terms of shows you like and love, but at the same time you're extremely passionate and I really, really love that. Daniel J. Lewis's audacity to podcast. Daniel picked up a segment from one of my episodes and chopped it up. I've been remixed, which is amazing. I never thought I'd be remixed one of my episodes. And DJL did that. Put that on Clamor. And by the way, if you don't know what Clamor is, it's an interesting little beast. I've put a link to his glamour in the show notes at the podcast report.com forward/50. But he did that. Didn't ask him to. Hopefully it struck a chord with them. Very, very nice. Appreciate that, Daniel. Just the Fact that you're listening to the show, I really, really appreciate, you know, so my audience, socially quiet from largely promoting their own shows, but extremely passionate. What I want to do is I want to tip into that passion. I want to tap into that passion. And part of that tapping in is going to be at Podcast Movement 2015. If you're listening to the show after Podcast Movement 2015, don't worry. Listen to a more recent episode and we will definitely have other meetups that we're doing and I want to have a great little meetup. I've mentioned this in previous episodes, but I'm going to say this again here. We're going to quantify the meetup a little bit because I want to do some very specific things with it. So if you want to come to the meetup, I'm asking you to put in five bucks. You only have to do it once, but put in five bucks at Patreon and join at the $5 level. And we're just going to. We're going to quantify it a little bit. And don't worry, the money will be made back in what we're doing with the meetup and should have a good time. The link to Patreon. No, not should. We will have a good time. The link to Patreon is at the show notes the podcastreport.com 50 or@patreon.com PaulColligan 5 bucks or more. And you' definitely get an invite to that. But I think a passionate audience should do well there. I had one gentleman, and I'm not going to say his name. Don't necessarily have permission for this, but who doesn't necessarily do online transactions, but actually physically sent me a check to make sure that he secured his slot at the meetup at. At Podcast Movement, which is very, very, very cool. And you are in, my friend. You know who you are. I'm not going to cash your check. We haven't figured out the online side of this yet, although we'll have some answers to that soon. But that's a whole other story. But very, very cool. So, audience socially quiet but extremely passionate. Your audience might be socially quiet but extremely passionate. Just because you're not getting tweets, because you're not getting Facebook or that kind of stuff doesn't necessarily mean that they're not there. They don't love your show, they don't share it other ways. There we go with that. I'm sure I'll probably get some social comments on that one, but there we go. The next One is really interesting. I was looking at my reviews earlier today as I was prepping the show notes for this one to just kind of get what it is that people like about the show. And what's amazing is I'm getting a lot of the comments that I get are the very things that I've tried to do. I've tried not to try to get these shows done, just as much time as is needed. I don't try to ramble, I don't try to tell you what I had for lunch last week, that type of thing. But I have shared with you a little bit of my life. Last week's episode I spoke to my fondness for the show Battlestar Galactica, but how it integrated with podcasting and what was fun was I had a lot of interaction with you based on my enjoyment of that show, my appreciation of that show. And there is a delicate balance of the sharing of your life with the over sharing of your life and the integration of the content. Myself as a podcaster and you as a podcaster. If we have something in common outside of podcasting, the connection becomes tighter. But then at the same time, if I tell you what I made for breakfast this morning, maybe that's too much. There's a delicate balance of sharing your life that you want to play with with. So those are the lessons learned in quick review. You know putting that in the title is a bad idea. Weekly doesn't produce the best content. Numbers tell a true story. Some audience expectations are bigger than numbers. The prediction show and buying an audience for my two biggest shows. Meaning you're forward thinking. Lessons learned from podcast episode was the least one. Don't know what to make of that. If you have thoughts, please let me know. Twitter bombing is not the problem. That one was really really low, which is great. You are not worried about Sleazy. I love that you are socially quiet, largely from promoting your own shows, but extremely passionate. We saw that in DLJ's clamor. The meetup at Podcast Movement should be fascinating for there and finally the delicate balance between the sharing of your life and the producing of content. So where am I going with this? What happens after episode 50? I got a couple of surprises. They will be slowly linked out between now and the Podcast Movement event. More coming. Very, very cool. Very very exciting stuff. Stuff. That's all I'm going to give you this episode. Sorry about that. What you can do. I always like to leave this with what you can do. These lessons are pretty solid and they're all things to ponder. At the very least, how much of your life should you share? Do you want to get reviews that say X goes right to the point that you are right down there? Think about it, ponder it, go from there. Would love to Hear your thoughts. Thepodcastreport.com if this is your first listen, thank you so much. We are on social media despite the fact that you might be a little bit quiet on social thepodcastreport.com Twitter, the podcastreport.com Facebook they're all there. The blog is up as well. Thepodcastreport.com Episode 50 if you want a transcript and a mind map of today's show, go ahead and text EP50 to 503-897-1290 the links for today's show are at the podcastreport.com 50 I've got a link to the book how to podcast 2015, the Patreon option and then a link to Daniel's clamor, which again was interesting, passionate. I appreciate that buddy. If you have listened to this because you went to the website or you clicked somewhere and clicked play, the real power of podcasting is of course subscription or following and getting the content pushed to you as it comes out. So ThePodcastReport.com iTunes ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher, PocketCast, TuneIn, Spreaker, IHeartRadio they're all there. If you want to follow up. It's great when a new episode gets released to just know that it's going to come to you automatically. If you want to email me, I'd love an email. Lepodcastreportlook.com if you're one of those who loves the review, I always love reviews. You can do it at itunes. That's always great. Stitch reviews are fun as well. It is episode 50. Expect a lot more. Please join us for the meetup at Podcast Movement. If you happen to be going between now and next week, keep podcasting hard. Talk to you soon. Bye.