What Did We Learn From Podcast Day 2014? - The Podcast Report Episode #17

So what did we learn from the first annual Podcast Day? It's the podcast report, episode 17. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Hey. This is Paul Calligan, and this is the Podcast Report. We are one week past the first national Podcast Day, and I had a fun time. I got my podcast transcripts from the first 15 episodes of this show out as a Kindle book. Sold a whole bunch of them, gave away a whole bunch of them. We did the live event, which is still up at YouTube. I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to Podcast Day next year. Now, one of the things I really stand for on this show and one of the things that I really hope you stand for is getting better. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to look at what I learned from this year's Podcast Day and then maybe offer some ideas of some things that we can do about next year's Podcast Day in it. Let's do this. If this is the first time you've ever listened to the show, My name is Paul Culligan and this is one of my podcasts, the Podcast Report, where we go deep into the world of podcasting. What's going on, what's working, what isn't working, what business models should we embrace, that kind of thing. If you want the dialogue about where to host and what microphone to pick, there are plenty of other podcasts about it. This is the business of podcasting. This is the reality of podcasting. This is the podcast Report. I've been in podcasting since almost the very beginning. I have the business podcasting bible. It came out before there was the iPhone I booked. Podcast Strategies was number one in seven countries when it was released. I've been at this a long time and just thrilled to be part of the industry. And I do this podcast. Yes, there's some revenue generation behind it and there's some strategy behind it, but it is much about my love for the industry as it is anything else. The episode transcripts are yours if you send Ep 17 as an Episode 17 to the show hotline at 503-897-1290. You can also leave a voicemail if you'd like make a comment. I'd love to play voicemails on shows when they come in, but yeah, if you send EP1725, 0389-71290, we will get you the transcripts from this episode. With that said and done, let's talk about Podcast Day. What I learned. Number one, Going live is getting easier all the time. In a previous episode, I chatted with Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting about going live with Spreaker and actually getting yourself on the iHeartRadio app. And I'm still pondering the implications of that. My strategy's almost done. You'll see the results of that very, very. But last week I did a live event on YouTube and what was funny was somebody asked, hey, how's Paul doing this? And then another person said, oh, he's using this software that's not that. Not affordable. The funny thing was I was using Wirecast and Wirecast. I was using The Wirecast for YouTube Edition, which is free. Yes. I had a high definition video stream to the Internet free on YouTube's backbone for free, using free software, using free transport, the whole nine yards. Live is getting easier and easier. And yes, podcasting is not live. The podcasting, I'm sorry, live is not podcasting. But live is a great way to get your content done. You know, I knew that a bunch of people would be on the line Tuesday night when I did the event and I prepped. It was a great time, it was a great show. And what's fun is, of course, many, many, many more people have viewed the video content later and will continue to view it. And I will put a link to last week's broadcast if you missed it. If you go to thepodcastreport.com as in episode 17, I'll have a link to that. But because I was live and because it was so easy, I want podcasters to consider this opportunity for creation. On the live side, I think there's so much to be said there. A great deal of content was created live that day, and it might be something we want to think about more and more because it helps us expand our reach. If we do live audio, we can get onto Spreaker, we can get onto, you know, iheartradio. If we're doing live video. And it wasn't that exciting live video at all to watch. But we can get on, well, you know, YouTube and getting. Going live is getting easier and easier all the time. I want every podcaster consider it. That's number one of what I learned. Number two, we need to stop preaching to the choir. It was fun to see all the podcasters excited. It was fun to see everybody get all thrilled about the event and what it meant, where it was. But they were mostly podcasters and it was podcasters talking about podcast podcasting to other podcasters. I mean, all the comments that were made inside of my live event. By no means is that the entirety of the event or the entirety of the people who attended, but it was all podcasters. There's people really, really interested in podcasting. And there were so little questions about tech. One guy was complaining because of the numbers, and they're just the real numbers that I was giving about Android. We need to move away from the tech. We need to move from preaching to the choir. The most exciting thing I saw from podcast day was an article in Chicago Tribun about smartphones ushering in the golden age of podcasting. I've got a link to that again, the podcastreport.com 17 as in episode 17, the Chicago Tribune was reporting on smartphones, which everybody's excited about, not podcasting, was reporting about smartphones and that they were bringing in podcasting. And he spoke to National Podcast Day. And honestly, it's the only piece of national press I found about podcasting. There were a bunch of blogs and there were a bunch of tweets and a bunch of things, but this is the only piece of traditional media I saw about it. And, well, you know, well, it's partially our fault. Podcasting is bigger than the tech. That was one of the things I said at the live view then that resonated with a bunch of you, and I made a fun little picture of that. And that's been floating around the Internet. We've been having some fun there. But a couple of new thoughts for you. Number one, podcasting is channel and format. Both have their own message. Podcasting is channel and format. Both have their own message. Delivering your content by podcast is what the radio stations are doing, and those are the top rated ones at itunes. I mean, let's admit it. This American life and npr and these guys are killing it right now in podcasting. Why? Because podcasting is both a channel and a format. Public radio, radio is using it as a channel. Podcast day tended to be mostly about podcasting, this format. And we need to tell both stories. It's really, really important because I'll tell you, it's much easier to get someone who's excited about catching NPR on their ph listen to my show than somebody that I have to listen to podcasting about. So channel and format both have their own message. Let's make sure that we as an industry share that and push that and encourage that, because it's pretty, pretty huge. Here's the other thing. It's kind of a two part to that first part I mentioned earlier. Podcasting is bigger than the tech and when we make podcasting about the tech, we lose the very audience that needs it the most. Going to say that again because it's so important. When we make podcasting about the tech, we lose the very audience that needs it the most. It's not that I have a podcast about X, it's that if you are interested in the topic of X, I have a way that you can get that anytime, any place, anywhere, on your own terms. That's the message of podcasting, that the content is available. Not that there's this tech that Adam Curry started. Thank you, Adam, for starting it. Thank you, Weiner, for starting it. But the power of this is in the fact that anybody, anytime, any place, anywhere, can grab it. And when we make podcasts about the tech, we lose the very audience that needs it the most. So next year, if you're involved with Podcast day, and please do so, make it about the audience that needs it the most. Make it not about the tech, and I think you'll see incredible, incredible growth. The third thing that I saw inside a podcasting day, and this was fun. This was exciting. People are excited about podcasting. I've never seen a medium that gets so many people thrilled. You don't see web developers so excited about their medium. You don't see bloggers anymore. Really so excited about their medium. You don't see social media people anymore so excited about their medium. Podcasting has an incredible, incredible, incredible, excited base, doing all sorts of wonderful things about it, really, really promoting it. Well, I was overwhelmed with the amount of support that the podcast community gave me for my live event and for the, the promotion, the promotion of the Kindle book and these types of things. And I definitely want to give back to that. I definitely want to do more of that. I'm definitely going to speak to other podcasts in what I do. The very first thing I want to do is I want to give you an introduction. Right now, I would like to introduce you to my audience. And what I'd like to do is let's make it easy. At the beginning of this, we've got that NPR public radio type of intro. You heard it. The piano music doesn't need to be that. If you've got a podcast, please make an introduction for my show. This is so and so from the so and so podcast where we talk about X and your listing, the podcast report with Paul Colligan, some variation of that. Record me a high quality version of that and I will start inserting those into the beginning of the shows. Obviously, I won't do a bunch of them. I'll do one per show and I'll do a link to your podcast inside of mine, I think inside my show notes, that'll be a ton of fun. So the email address for the show is the podcastreportoutlook.com Again, if you just give me an intro. This is so and so from the so and so podcast where we talk about X. And here's Paul Culligan for the podcast report. Don't make it long, don't make it a commercial, but make it an intro. And that and the link for my website hopefully will help give back to the community some of the promotion that I have gotten from you, received from you. It's neat to see how much the podcast community realizes how powerful this is. And I think if we take that excitement and we take away the push and the pull for the tech, and I love the tech and I enjoy the tech, but that's not the power of it. When we as a community pull together and help the disenfranchised, when we help people with a message, actually get their message out to the world. And it doesn't have to be disenfranchised. It could be popular authors. It could be. I helped J.J. virgin the health. She's got an amazing book coming out, the Virgin Diet. She's got a whole bunch. She's amazing. Helped JJ reach her audience in a way she never could have reached her audience before by doing a short inspirational podcast. It wasn't about the podcasting for her. It was about reaching her audience who knows her, who likes her, who trusts her. So out of what we think of traditionally with podcasting, it wasn't about a TV show, it wasn't about gear, it wasn't about tech, it wasn't about what's latest with the iPhone or that kind of thing. It was about real connecting and real people doing real things. And I think we could do more and more of that. And I would like to see us do more and more of that as a community. So we're excited about the podcasting. Let's direct that excitement towards reaching the people who need to know about podcasting the most. And we will do great. I will promote you here on my show. I would love to do so again. Send your intro to the podcast report@wlook.com let's as a community, let's, as the next podcast day, raise the tide, rise the tide, whatever the right term is, and bring people into this in some really, really cool, exciting ways. All right, enough the big three were going live is getting easier than ever before. Number two, we need to stop preaching to the choir. And number three, people are excited about podcasting. Let's continue to promote each other, but let's rise the tide. All right. Not just about me. I want to know what you learned. I put a link inside of the podcast community over at Google. I started a thread on what did you learn from over Google? Actually, what did you learn from the podcast day? And I've got a link to that in the show notes. If you go to the podcastreport.com 17, that'll take you to that. I will be reading that. And if there's anything that we need to comment on next week's show, I will definitely, definitely do so. I think it'd be fun to expand, make this bigger. It's not just me. It's what we all learned. If you want to make a comment right here at the website, you know the podcast report 17, I'll take it. If you want to make a comment at Twitter, it's podcast rpt. I'll take it. If you want to make the comment at Facebook, it's Facebook.com the PodcastReport. I'll take it. But I consider going to the community. It's about the community and it's pretty, pretty cool. All right, you've been listening to Podcast Report with Paul Colligan. This is a podcast. This is not an individual audio blog. It's there. It's an audiobook. But if you've clicked play at the website or you've clicked play somewhere, you've missed the power of this. The power of this is subscribing. The power is following. The power is getting these episodes delivered to you as they come out, when they come out. So definitely consider subscribing. If you are an iOS user and a good chunk of you are thepodcastreport.com iTunes if you don't like Apple for whatever reason, don't like the iOS client, maybe you're on Android, you can go to the podcastreport.com stitcher. It'll take you right out to Stitcher. If you are on a phone platform that doesn't support support Stitcher, I just recently learned that Windows Phone doesn't support that word Tunein. You can go to the podcastreport.com tunein. Again, the social was the podcastreport.com Twitter or the podcastreport.com Facebook will take you there. I would love a visit to the site again at 17. We've got links to everything I mentioned links to the Kindle book, the article in Chicago Tribune. It's all there. Would love to have you on a future episode. Episode. Thank you so much. I'm curious to read about what you learned from this year's Podcast Day. Talk to you next week.