Podcasting Has A Discoverability Problem. What Is Your Solution?" - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #96

Podcasting has a discoverability problem. What's your solution? It's the podcast report episode 96 show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 96 the Big Idea is this. If you're expecting them to find your podcast, you better hope that Santa comes too. My name is Paul Cullig and this is the podcast report. This is the show where we show you, the podcaster, how to reach more with your message and how to profit more with your content. This episode I'm actually cross promoting with my Thinking Out Loud podcast because it's issues slightly bigger than the podcast, but not that much bigger. So you are there as well. So if you're listening to this, I'm Thinking Out Loud. It's definitely a longer one, but enjoy it. And the podcast report isn't such a bad show in and of itself. Anyway, like I said, if you're expecting them to find your podcast, you better hope that Santa comes too. See, podcasting has a discoverability problem and podcasting has always had a discoverability problem. We'll chat on that later, but we need solutions. I found something interesting that I want to talk about that I'm examining, that I'm playing with and I want you to come on that journey with as well. But the bigger thing here, the bigger issue is that discoverability issue. What are we going to do about that? So a couple of things. What led to this? My Oman trip. Many of you know I went on a trip with the US State Department to Oman, teaching social media over there. Great country, great people, great food, had a really good time. What was interesting though, I had a day of speed consulting. Several startups, several incubators in Oman came in and every single session started with, well, I know I need to be on Facebook, but what else? Every session. Now I had done my research on what social media apps were popular in the network. What's going on? I wanted to be prepared to be the good consultant, if you will. But their question was I know I need to be on Facebook. What else interesting. This week I did a live cast with Luria Petrucci. You might remember her as Callie Lewis from the old Geek Beat and Geek Brief day. She's now doing Geeks Life. She's here in Portland, a one hour webinar on everything she's learned about video online in the last 10 years. It was absolutely fascinating. I will put a link to that in the show notes if you go to thepodcastreport.com 96 now what's interesting is looking at the stats for that episode, this recording, this webinar that we did, was discovered more than the average downloads for the show. Now, I had done a tiny little bit of marketing. I had mentioned in my weekly newsletter with a number of other things. If you know anything about Facebook Live, if you know anything about the nature of linking to something within, you can't give a link, you can't give a place. Basically, you have to tell your audience, be on Facebook around 6. So it's a pretty vague idea, vague concept. Yet I have more people watching this video than downloading probably this episode of the podcast report. Interesting. You see, Facebook is about discoverability. We were on for about an hour and 10 minutes, and over the course of an hour and 10 minutes, enough people logged on, came by, viewed, discovered this show. Interesting stuff. So what is discoverability? Well, discoverability is. And kids, you know, some of the kids listening might have to ask their parents about this. But there was this day when we would flip through the channels or we would spin through the radio dial, and sometimes it was digital, sometimes it was analog. But the fact of the matter was, when we didn't know what we'd want, we'd flip around, we'd poke around to find out what was out there, and we would discover shows that way. It wasn't that long ago at all. I actually discovered the new Battlestar Galactica about 10 years ago by flipping through the channels on my cable box. We used to find media by flipping through. We used to find media by going to a bookstore, finding a cover that was interesting, going to a record store, seeing an album cover that was interesting. And we used to stumble across media and it's just not there anymore. And yes, there's that website, StumbleUpon, but it's not the same thing. And I don't know if StumbleUpon is even alive anymore. It's hard to find a new audience for a podcast, and a lot of podcasters forget that. A lot of podcasters think, wow, if I get into itunes, if I get into new and notable, if I get into something like that, all of a sudden the world will come knocking at my door. Well, that's just not the truth. The fact of the matter is, audience hunting has to be part of your strategy, because it's not going to come by default. They're not going to find you. And see, here's the question for today, and we'll probably explore this in a future episode. But if podcasting doesn't provide discoverability, should we go somewhere else now? Yes, I know about Stitcher. We'll chat about Stitcher in a minute. But if podcasting doesn't provide it, should we go somewhere else to get it? So let's chat to the implications. First of all, yes. Big discoverability on Facebook. And I'm talking about on a podcast show. This is not a drop podcasting for Facebook. It's an entirely different medium. It's an entirely different audience. It's an entirely different purpose. This is not a new shiny thing. But the thing is, they're not going to find us. My audience is not going to find me. Your audience is not going to find you with the technology as it currently exists. I need a plan. You need a plan. And I'll tell you this. Facebook is worth exploring. The world is on Facebook, what, 1.6 billion people. And yes, you can tell me demographics that are on Snapchat and all these other places, but right now, boy, there's not much discoverability on Snapchat either. Facebook seems to be a really, really, really interesting place to do it. Now, I'm exploring that in a bunch of areas. The webc luria form the Cali Again, you can get that@the podcastreport.com 96. I'm working on a book on the Internet, Live broadcasting on the Internet. You can find information about that at the show Notes as well. This is a place that I'm going to be exploring, but realize that I'm going to be exploring it as an opportunity for filling audiences such as we do with podcasting here. Why? Because I want people to discover my show because they're not going to discover it any other way. And you want people to discover your show because they are not going to discover it any other way. So Facebook's worth exploring. Any form of discoverability is worth exploring. I'm going down that path. I welcome you to come down that path with me. So what do you do about this? Understand that your audience is not going to stumble on to you. Understand that your audience typically is not going to type in the keywords and automatically find you. There has to be a discoverability. Now, some discoverability is simply being on other shows in your niche with an audience that already likes what it is that you are examining and that type of thing. And certainly it's great if you can get discovered by being in a top 10 list in some magazine or something that has great oomph and emphasis and audience and that type of thing. And certainly if Howard Stern or Jimmy Fallon or someone wanted to call out your podcast is a thing to do. That's all fine and dandy, but they're not going to stumble across you, statistically speaking, at the very least. So you have to have a plan. You have to have a strategy that deals with that fact. Now, there are some options. Facebook's not the only one. But I want you to consider Facebook Live. It's just a really, really interesting place. If the option appears, do what you can so that they will find you. Facebook feels like it's appeared. It feels like it's an opportunity. It's not fulfilling the promise of podcasting. It's not a replacement, but it's a way for people to find me. Stitcher. There is the promise of Stitcher. The idea with Stitcher was that Stitcher, and if you don't know, originally Stitcher was supposed to be sort of the Pandora of podcasting, if you will. I could say I'm into business, I'm into politics, I'm into comedy. Then it would build a show for me, and I could give it a thumbs up and a thumbs down, and it would go from there. It just doesn't have the numbers. It just doesn't have the impact. And right now, a lot of stuff's happening with Stitcher. There was the recent acquisition. I don't think they're going this way at all. They just seem to be. The thing that everybody likes about Stitcher right now is the stats that you can get from the plays because it's basically a streaming platform. So I think the promise of Stitcher is dead. The reality of Facebook right now, at the time of this recording, 1.6 billion users who visit on a regular basis, who stumble across things, the numbers I'm seeing, you know, I did another live test. I took a webinar that I had marketed pretty heavily to my email list. I actually felt bad about how much I had marketed, but I thought it was a pretty fabulous product. I ran the webinar that I had, for lack of a better term, really over marketed to my group. I ran that webinar inside of Facebook and I made three more sales of the product, and I walked away with, you know, 300 more bucks. And, boy, you compare that 300 bucks to a $40 cpm. What? 300 by 40. Whatever the number there, it was a lot easier to run that webinar inside of Facebook than it was to get all those downloads. And it's just. It's interesting. We got to play with that. Stitcher has not delivered. Facebook has the potential to deliver. If there are other options out there, I'd love to know about them. If you are finding that your show is getting discovered some way, please let me know. I would love to chat about it. If you go to the podcastreport.com 96 comments to this episode is great. All the social accounts are great. ThePodcastReport.com Facebook ThePodcastReport.com Twitter that would be awesome as well. You got to understand your audience isn't going to stumble across you. They're not going to find you. They're not going to discover you. So you got to have a plan. There are some options, some have worked, some really intriguing. Would love to know what yours are. Regardless, just have one. Use it and get people listening to your show. Because you know what? It's worth it. It's a pretty good show. We'll chat next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Podcast Report. 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