Podcasting Facts, Fears and Fiction - The Podcast Report Episode #100

Podcast facts, fears and fiction. It's the podcast report episode 100 show notes, links, conversation, and more@the podcastreport.com 100. It was a good goal. It always is. I was going to do the podcast report 100 live in front of an audience at the Portland Podcast Cooperative Meetup, stream that out to the world, make that the content for episode number 100. The timing on that was fun. You know how plans go. That didn't work perfectly. You can head out to the podcastreport.com 100 and see a sort of back of the room, cheaper iPhone type of recording of it. But it's certainly not what the audience deserves, certainly not what you deserve, and certainly not what I want to do for episode 100. So we're gonna go over this today. I'm gonna go over everything that I covered, not necessarily the Q and A, but I'm gonna go over the content and you're gonna get a little bit of commentary on why I went the direction that I did. Should be fun. The topic was Podcast facts, fears and fiction. As you can tell, the last couple of episodes, I've been trying to kind of bring sort of the state of the industry together. And by looking at these three things, I thought it would be fun. The audience was fascinating. There were some people, all sorts of different walks of lives and different podcaster types in there, and I think the content went well. I'll give you the content. I'll also give you a few thoughts on what's going on. The first fact was that mics are only part of the story, and I joke about this a lot in other podcast episodes. Everybody thinks once you have a microphone, you become a podcaster. That's like once you have a knife, you become a great chef, or once you get a top typewriter, you become like Hemingway. Mics are only part of the story, and they're a small part of the story. What I suggested were seven. And this whole thing was to get people kind of in the mood, let them know that the picture is bigger. But I had seven things you wanted to think about. Number one, room noise. Stuff's going on in the background. Doesn't matter how good your mic is. Number two, content. Fact of the matter is, if you got a great mic and a great voice, but nothing to talk about, it's not going to do well. The purpose of your podcast was number three, what are you trying to accomplish? The plan to accomplish it, the audience service, which is a big key thing. And finally, the marketing room. Noise, content, purpose, plan, audience service. And marketing are all more important than a microphone. And that obviously has been a theme of the show for quite some time. What are you trying to do? Big picture, this is not the Kevin Costner. If you build it, they will come. This is what is your purpose, your plan? I've spoken to the fact for so long, the four M's of podcasting. What is your market? What is your message, what is your money? And then finally, does it make sense for you to use podcasting as the media? The next piece of fact that I chatted too. And if you head out to the podcastreport.com 100, you can get access to the slides for this presentation. The next fact was there's plenty of room for the little guy. Now, what was fun was when I did this presentation on Wednesday of last week, Tuesday, the day before that, I had taken one of my clients all the way up to number eight in all of itunes. This guy beat out the journalist Rogan experience. This guy beat out hidden brain. This guy beat out Radiolab, npr, Freakonomics radio, all of them. And now, don't tell Tommy I said this, but Tommy's a nobody. I'm a little guy, little independent, little small business trying to help out people in the recovery space. But by targeting and by being strategic, we got Tommy all the way. He was number one self help. He was number one health and he was number eight all of iTunes. And there's this idea, these podcasters I hear all the time, the big guys have taken over. The big guys have taken over. Well, you know, Tommy made it to number eight of iTunes. What can you do? The next fact was it's still a great time to start. And that fact really goes back to the Tommy. I had a picture of the same slide as well. Tommy started, for all sakes and purposes last week and Tommy was a number one podcast in two categories, number eight, all of iTunes. By just starting last week, if you have been at a point where you're not quite sure, you can start now, just start now. Now, Tommy knew exactly who his market was. Tommy knew exactly what his message is. I was able to work with him on monetization and then from there expanding his media out into the podcast made a heck of a lot of sense, but fact of the matter is still a great time to start. And those were the facts. We then moved into fiction. Fiction. Number one was it's all about new and noteworthy. Now, I've chatted to this in previous shows. There's this idea that new and noteworthy. Is it new and noteworthy Is it? And I'll tell you, these last two people that I've launch, it's really funny because both of them have been inundated by folk in the know, consultants, friends, people in the media who've all said, you got to get into new and noteworthy. You got to get into new and noteworthy. I even had one actually on both sides, both clients, people internally were like, well, when are we going to make it to new and noteworthy? When are we going to make it to new and noteworthy? Because that's what matters. That's what counts. Well, here's the funny thing again. I show back the slide. You know, Tommy made it to number eight in all of iTunes. Tommy made it to number one in his two categories. Still haven't hit a week later. New and noteworthy. I think this is key, and this goes into the other fiction of leadership. There's this idea that there's this hidden force running podcast, and some people tell you that the hidden force is itunes. Some people will tell you that the hidden force is the New York contingent, all the radio shows that are doing that. Some people tell you that the hidden force may be the people behind some of the big podcasting events, podcast movement, that type of thing. Here's the deal. And I spoke to this on a previous episode. There's no leadership in this space. Nobody has clearly taken the reins and taken this forward, and that is frustrating, but that is the reality. And part of why there's no leadership is because there's not really money in being the leader. You know, if. Yeah, it's an interesting place. Don't know what to do about that. But the fact of the matter is, if you're thinking you have to make a certain group or certain contingent happy, that's not it. There is no leadership to make happy. This is the wild, wild west. You go out, you name it, you claim it, and you'll be at a good place. Now, the next piece of fiction that I spoke to, and this is key, this was definitely the room that I was dealing with a lot of aspiring podcasters, which many of you might be. And again, if this is your first episode, this is not the normal format for this show, but I wanted to share with you the presentation. You can go back to previous episodes, but there's this idea, there's this piece of fiction that your audience will grow with you once you get on itunes, and once you do new and notable, and once you do these things, then the audience is going to grow with you, and it's not going to happen. The audience is not going to grow with you if you don't grow the audience. It doesn't happen by default. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens because you have a strategy and a purpose and a process to make your podcast happen. It's complete and total fiction that there's leadership that you have to deal with and work for and make happy. It's complete and total fiction that your audience will grow with you. You are on your own. Then the next piece of fiction that I dealt with is this idea that the money is in the ads. Now, I'll be honest with you. In the room were people who had told me, looked me in the eye, and had believed with great tenacity and great intent that the money's all in the ads. But then I broke out this slide from Rob Walsh over at Libsyn and thank you so much, Rob. Sorry about that. Podcasting stats for April 2016. Now, Libsyn runs a tremendous part of the podcasting universe and we'll chat to that in a minute. But if you take averages, things get a little bit tweaky inside of itunes and podcasting because you have these rare outliers that get millions and millions of downloads. But the fact of the matter is, if you look at the median and look at the averages, here's the interesting thing. In the median of Downloads, IBSYN is 169 downloads per episode. That's it. The median of all podcasts hosted through Libsyn is 169 downloads per episode. The top 20% gets more than 1300. The top 10% gets more than 3800. The top 8.3 gets more than 5000. Top five more than 9600. Top two more than 27,000 and top one more than is 52,000. Well, what does this mean? Well, let's go to the ads. Okay. And this was the next slide. And again, you can pick this up@the podcastreport.com 100. If you want to make $2,000 an episode and you figure a weekly show and you figure $2,000 an episode gives you a six figure income every year. About the type of thing that I think people are looking for. To make $2,000 an episode, you need 50 or you have to be in the top 1.5%. It's doable and there are shows that are doing it. But it's not that easy. And what I've suggested that night, what I suggest here, what I've suggested in previous episodes of the podcast report, is it is a Lot easier to truly serve your audience and truly give them what it is that they need and truly give them what it is they're willing to pay for, either through your own delivery of this or, perchance, strategic partnering than it is to get 50,000 downloads. Something to think about. The next fear Live is killing podcasting. You know, now, it was fun. I did this presentation live, and, boy, it didn't kill the podcast. It didn't even make it to the podcast. I had to rerecord it for the podcast. I've been in podcasting for over 10 years, and I keep hearing all the things that are going to kill podcasting. At one point, I even heard somebody tell me that MySpace was going to kill podcasting. So there's that. There's just been this idea that live is going to kill it, and it's not. Live is one medium. Live is a video. Now, yes, podcasts can be video, but it's mostly audio at this point. Live is people who want to be plugged in right now, immediately. I know a tiny part of my audience wants live. Because you are podcasters. You are doing this right now. You might be in the studio or you might be working with a client, or you might be building content. When I go live, you won't be able to get this at the time, the place, the device of your choosing. Live's not killing podcasting. It won't. The next big fear was that the big guys are killing us. The idea that the. The New York players are coming in and taking over and they're unduly influencing itunes, or maybe the John Lee Dumas of the world, or the different people who are coming in and killing us, that's a fear. It's an unreasonable fear. And what's interesting here, and this is a quote directly again from Rob over at Libsyn, and all the downloads from npr, wnyc, this American Life serial, how stuff Works, all of the CBS podcast, Roman Mars, the Moth, all of the Twitch shows, wbur, all the gimlet shows, combine them and double them, and Libsyn is still bigger. See, the big guys aren't killing us. The big guys are still the big guys. And they're getting crazy download numbers that we're all salivating at, but they're not killing us. That's a beautiful thing about podcasting. It's not a situation of people having to choose one over the other. If we want to, we can have both. If we look to things, we can do both. And that's the power of all this. And the funny thing is I don't need NPR's numbers to make a profit. I don't need twits numbers or this American life's numbers to make a profit. And if you do it right, and if you think it through, gosh darn it, I don't think you do either. So don't worry about this fear. The big guys are killing us. Don't worry about this. The next fear, and this is the big one, automation is going to kill the jobs. You know, it's funny, you take something like a cooperative, you take something like a medium, you take something like a group. There is this whole feeling that this is artisanal and this is handcrafted and this is the type of thing that you have to do step by step, piece by piece for yourself. Or else maybe something is getting in the way of the purity of it all. You know, we take a look at the NPR who has these editors, these full time editors on time making our podcasts and well, the fact of the matter is automation is not going to kill our jobs. Automation is going to make podcasting possible. On the slides I showed three organizations. Organization number one was Appointlet is a Portland company. The CEO was there. It was fun to have them there. And Appointly is an organization that makes it possible for people to schedule with you syncing up with your Google Calendars. The thing about appointment is it works better than a receptionist does, it works better than a handler does. And nobody has to go in and do that. Appointlet Zapier Z A P I E R API in the middle. It's this whole system for integrating things. Your podcast comes out automatically announced it on Twitter, your podcast comes out automatically announced on Facebook. Maybe wait a day and then put it over at Pinterest or something like that. Zappy or incredible automation, the type of thing we used to pay people to do. And then of course, one of my favorites, the Level 8R Levelator has been around almost as long as podcasting is. And it's software that levels everything and makes things clean. It brings you up to the same level now. Yes, artisanally, you know, from the eargasm type of approach to podcast production and direction, it's not going to be as perfect as what a pro editor is going to do. But you're not podcasting for the pro editing. You're podcasting because you've got a market, because you've got a message, because you've got something to tell the world. And those three apps, and I've got links to them at the show notes the podcastreport.com 100. Those are only the beginning of all the apps you can integrate into podcasting, all the automation you can integrate into podcasting. If you pick up how to podcast, book any of the series, either the ones now or ones to come. I speak to a company called Daphonic that is the backbone of my podcasting organization. The tools are good. Automation is not going to kill jobs. Automation is going to make podcasts even more powerful and even more popular. So then the summary, and the summary was this. There's still room to rock it if you think it through and implement correctly. It's not podcast your passions, the profits will follow. It's not if you build it, they will come. It's not grab a mic, quit your day job, tell the world it's think it through, implement it correctly, and you can do incredibly powerful. This is a platform. This is a media. This is an opportunity that most people don't have and something that you have and something that you can make use of. And don't let the fiction, don't let the fears get in the way, focus on the facts and you will be at a great place. So that was the presentation. I obviously did it differently. If you head out to the podcastreport.com 100, you can most certainly see the bad iPhone video that was made of this, see the Q and A that came from it. But the fact of the matter is, I want you to think through this. The slides for everything I did, again, are@the podcastreport.com 100. You can pick that up. Look to podcasting with focus and attention and desire and purpose. You will do, and you will do really, really well. This is episode 100 of the podcast report. I remember starting this back in the day with the idea, you know, I've been podcasting quietly since day one, but it's mostly been clients. It's mostly been associates, people I'm working with, projects I'm doing. And I knew as we started to see kind of this new wave of podcasting, that the podcast report, that I needed to do something. And the podcast report would be fun. I'll tell you one thing I haven't shared yet. There was the podcast report by Cliff Ravenscraft, which is part of the whole New Media Expo thing, which was obvious even a couple of years ago. The whole thing was imploding. And so I wasn't worried about taking that name because that name wasn't being used. But the fact of the matter was they, they kept it up, not necessarily sure why. And here's the thing. Itunes search the doesn't bring up anything report. Everybody has that in their name podcast. There wasn't anything necessarily significant for SEO there. And so the Daniel J. Lewis is the world definitely laugh at me and want to go from there. Getting 100 episodes is further than I've gotten with any other show and that's been fun. And don't worry, this is not the I'm bowing out of the podcast report. I am going to take a couple of weeks off. I'm going to re dream up a couple things. I don't know. It might get a name change just from the SEO opportunity that's there. But I'll tell you, those of you who listen to this, thank you. Those of you who've reached out to me and said, hey, the most recent episode really touched me, made me think. Thank you for the phone calls I've had, the coffees I've had, the beers I've had, the meals I've had at different events. Based on what we've done on this, thank you. This show has been a pleasure to do. For those of you who have hired me, those of you who have come inside of TheColgan.com family as a result of this show, thank you. Has been an absolute, absolute blast to do. I will keep the subscribers. I doubt it's going to change much format wise. I think we're still going to keep this short, still keep this what it needs, not waste your time. What it looks like, where it goes, not quite sure. Should be fun. You'll see it in a couple of weeks. I definitely want to keep this episode over. Under 20. Not over. I want to keep this one under 20. So there we go. 100 episodes. The podcast report. Let's see what happens in the next hundred. You have been a fabulous audience. I thank you so much. More chat in a couple of weeks. Bye.