Why Better Production Doesn't Equal Better Podcasts

Well, each episode that they do, they learn a little bit more. They learn how to do a better production. They learn how to tweak the audio gear. They spend time trying to make sure that their lighting is better if they're doing video. And so over time, a podcaster will reach a, I guess, a perceived by a certain amount of people, as a high-quality piece of content, right? Because they've, they've over time, they've evolved themselves. But not everybody starts at the top, right? So everybody has to kind of learn and earn their, their audience, right? And that's why I also say don't start out with a bunch of episodes when you start a new show, you know, start out with one, you know, get out a promo trailer or something like that and then start out with one. And then each episode that you do after that, you improve, you learn from the last one. Maybe you get feedback from other people that are not your family, because oftentimes if you run your podcast by your family, they're going to either say they're not interested or they're going to listen and tell you what they think you want to hear. So, so I think that's, that's one of the, the challenges as well. So if you do want to start out with one episode, and, and you're not exactly sure, you know, whether or not you're hitting the marks and doing good, then find some people that maybe you don't have a relationship with and run the show past them and get their feedback. So, you know, people will tend to, if they know you, that it's not like they're going to want to be 100% transparent with you about maybe your show is, is really lacking in some area. And I think that's just human nature. I think most people don't want to insult other people, though I do wonder if we live in a world now where it's a little more acceptable to be brutally honest about things. And that may not necessarily be bad either, but you as a podcaster need to be, you know, a little bit of a, you know, thick skin about that, right? Um, you know, take that feedback. You don't always have to implement what that feedback is or, or follow what that feedback is, because at the end of the day, I feel this very, very strongly, is that, is that it's your show, it's your podcast, and for you to do it every week, it needs to be something that you look forward to and you feel responsible for. And, and if you're shifting that off to other people to take control of what you're doing, you're going to be running off in all these different directions and you may lose your track and your focus. And also, you know, content, type of content and the presentation of that content can also be a differentiator too that drives people's perception of quality too. You know, what are the topics? Are those topics reflective of your expertise and your deep knowledge about whatever that topic is? And how accurate is it? Like what I'm doing now in this episode is based on 20 years of experience in doing hundreds and hundreds of interviews and all sorts of different kinds of podcasts. And I'm not perfect, and I don't do a perfect podcast. I never have, and I never really expected myself to do a perfect podcast, because doing a perfect podcast is— may not, may not even be achievable. And to set that expectation for myself is, is really setting myself for regular disappointment, because something, especially when you do live like this, there's always something that's going to go wrong. I've been fortunate the last couple of episodes that it's gone pretty smooth and I haven't had too many problems, um, but I've been doing this show, it's like what I'm doing here, for 35 episodes now. So I've had time to kind of learn the tools and go through the, the process. And it is always more complicated to have a guest, you know. And, and I'm— I occasionally want to do these solo shows because it, it takes the pressure off of me somewhat because I, you know, instead of managing so much with the show, I'm actually able to just focus and talk about something that I have a deep knowledge of. And I think that that's important. Um, and it looks like, um, we got a comment here and I wanted to read through this. And, um, and let me pull it up on the screen. Uh, Photocaster wrote, um, I have learned finally that you have to, to be passionate about the topic, then you will improve with, uh, with self-critique. And I think that's, that's a good point too. Uh, thank you, uh, Photocaster for that, that comment. I, I think it is really important to have passion about whatever topic that you're talking about and have a deep knowledge of it. And then you're more willing to really kind of do deep self-reflection and self-improvement. And I think that's a big part of this process. But also, you know, about the The overall presentation too, the audio quality, the editing, the host delivery, and how a person actually does all those things, especially now in the age of AI, the audio quality and the editing and those kind of things can be managed in post-production. Now, if you're doing it live like this, you definitely don't have the luxury of using AI. I mean, turn the camera on and you're going. So it's what you do live on camera is a little bit more challenging because, you know, there are AI tools that can filter out things, but that may not be the right thing to do. So that's the other challenge here. But, you know, I think one of the really big things is the audio quality part and the visual quality if you're doing video. What's your resolution of the images? I know increasingly if you're doing things on YouTube, people are doing 4K, which really has crisp video and crisp, really crisp kind of visual experiences. And people have very elaborate backgrounds. I know I have a background that's aligned with the colors of the show, and I specifically built that because I wanted to do a lot of video. But not everybody has that. And, and actually, you know, if I had to do over again, I may wanted to just painted that whole wall green so I could do any kind of a background, right, with a green screen, right? I could overlay, put behind me all sorts of different kinds of backgrounds. And I do see podcasters doing that, and I could have a different background for every show that I do. I mean, I am trying to hack that a little bit with, you know, this, this green LED lighting that I have behind me. And that, that definitely, um, helps, you know, keep alignment with the show and hopefully give a perception that, you know, I have thought about this production and it is a quality show. So, and I, I would say, just to be transparent, I do care about that, and I do care about the perception that this show has, and all the shows that I do, about its perceived quality. But I'm also open to feedback on that too. I mean, I've, over the years, I've gotten a lot of seriously critical feedback on topics that I've talked about and maybe mistakes that I've made in the content that I've shared that maybe wasn't entirely accurate. And I, I do correct those things. And I think that's another factor in this around what people perceive to be quality content, or even going to another level, quality compelling content, right? So I think that's a whole nother level. I think in some ways this term quality is really kind of almost like a baseline, right, of what people expect. I think at the next level is engaging, compelling content is, you know, or shareable content is, I think, at the peak of all this is really the highest level of praise and the highest level of achievement is, you know, that's how these big podcasters got to be so big is because they had content that was, you know, had some viral elements to it. People shared the discussions or clips or whatever, and that can be the real power of doing these short-form clips and sharing them on the, um, on the vertical video platforms out there is if you can find some interesting clips, you can engage a different kind of listener to your show, but they have to be compelling, right? So that's the other piece of this. And, but I do think that there is some baseline, and I've mentioned this a little bit about audio quality, and I see that Jody Crangle has joined us and made some comments, and I'll pull that up here in a second here. And Proper sound levels are very important to podcasting, and I do believe it's important even on the video side. I spend a lot of time making sure that my levels are good. I have minimal background noise. I'm using a RODECaster Pro that has built-in compressors and noise reduction technology just to make sure that that quality level is up there. But I realize that not everybody has access to a RODECaster. They may have access to just, you know, like an SM or, you know, like a Shure, was it SM58 or something like that? There's just a handheld microphone or something like that, or they're doing it off of their computer mic and they haven't migrated to like an SM7B like I have here. So these can be very expensive. So budget is another factor that comes into play here. But it does— having a microphone like this does communicate to the audience that sees it. And this is probably the most popular microphone in podcasting today because I think it does communicate to the audience that I care about quality and I'm trying to do my best to get the best quality out there. And it my performance on that is what's important, right? It's not just a perceived thing. If I have an SM7B that sounds like garbage, that doesn't help my credibility and doesn't help the credibility of the program. But I also know that there's other factors that go into audio quality. So, you know, and people have preferences, you know, and that's the other part of it too, is is, you know, what's your presentation style? Do you have a conversational capability? Do you, or is it a formal tone? Are you trying to, you know, make a formal, like, PowerPoint presentation to people in your podcast? And some people do that. And I've seen very successful programs on YouTube that are like, you know, like what you would see at a PowerPoint presentation at a conference or something like that. And those videos get hundreds of thousands of views. It's like, you know, in those cases, I think what is most important is what's the credibility of the presenter, what's their background, what's their experience, and what unique perspective do they bring to a topic that people are interested in. And I think that's, that's another aspect of this that's so important. And And, you know, and are you using, you know, cultural or contextual references in your show that people can associate with? Are you using, you know, humor? Are you using language nuance and trying to keep people, you know, engaged? Are you moving in the image? Like, this has been a very static image, but I could change this to a full screen. I wouldn't say that makes this a better program by any stretch of the imagination, but just doing little things like that can be really, really good too. So, so I actually, uh, Jody Krangle posted some, uh, some comments in here, and she, she made a comment, um, about that helps keep you from podfading too. Yeah, I think that was in reference to an earlier part of what I was talking about, about making sure that what you're doing is relevant to you and important to you in, in your passion area, and what you're sharing with others comes from a solid base of experience. You know, and, and Jody also comments in here, knowing your why, it's a lot of work if you're not passionate about it. And it can also come across as inauthentic. It can also come across as, unless you're passionate about it and willing to put yourself out there and that, you know, take a risk, that maybe you don't know as much as you think you do. And that's one advantage of actually doing an interview program is that, and this is what I did when I started on the radio back in 1999, is that I didn't know anything about the topics I was talking about. I just went in and started doing a radio show about the growth and development of the World Wide Web and the internet. And back in 1999, it was still an early thing, right? Very few people knew much about what was going on with the internet and the web. And guess what? My— I had co-hosts that I brought into the show. I would bring in guests from all sorts of tech companies that would— I would just quiz these people and learn from them and pick up information. Then over time, I got seen as an expert in technology and the internet too. But that took, you know, I did that show for 7 years and And it got up on satellite radio. It got up on, um, on, you know, satellite distribution on the broadcast radio side. I think it was on close to 15 radio stations across the country and on the XM, uh, satellite radio network for 2 years. And but had a very large streaming kind of distribution for, for the show. And it was, it wasn't always a live show either. It was pre-recorded and redistributed because that was the best way to do that back then. But, you know, those kind of cultural factors and, you know, the timing of it, you know, I was also doing content that was related to people's interest in the growth of the internet and growth of the World Wide Web at the time. So I was tapping into trends. So really, you know, that was a big opportunity for me there on a national level. There weren't that many— there were very few shows talking about the internet and the web back then. So it was an open niche. There were computer talk shows that were starting to stray into the internet back then, but I was able to tap into a unique niche that I carved into, and nobody really had really a deep understanding of the broader scope of what was happening with the internet back then. So, so it was a very, you know, and I had to learn my way into it. I didn't have a huge audience when I started. I started actually, if you go to robgreenlee.com and go to the Web Talk Radio archive in there and go back to 1999. I have an old episode that you could go back and listen to, and you can kind of see where I started back then. And then over a period of years, created a much more elaborate, uh, radio show production. And that's what it was. It wasn't a podcast. Um, it, it really started out as a radio show that had multiple breaks and all this kind of stuff. But, you know, I think you run a risk sometimes with nuance too, you know, and I think people that create content, you know, kind of miss out on that opportunity to really get a niche on stuff. And also, you know, one of the things with the radio show that I did that was interesting in the context of this conversation was I got involved really in covering topics that were related to the culture of the internet, talking about cybersecurity and kind of hackers and had on like TV show actors and stuff from like the X-Files and things like that, that were talking about hacker culture and things like that, that was very much a part of that time period back then, when there was this mystique around, um, the internet, right, of the, of the, you know, and then with, um, The Matrix and all that stuff. That was back in that same time period too, where, where people were kind of like fascinated with this, right? And people didn't know about what it was. So timing is another important factor here too. So whenever you come up with a show topic or show concept keep in mind what the culture is. Keep in mind what, what is happening in the world and try and do something. And if you're lucky, your experience and your background kind of matches with some aspect of the cultural movements that are happening of that time. And you're going to be more likely to capture interested audiences. That's why I see a lot on YouTube, there's content creators that started on YouTube, and there's been a huge— and this probably isn't new to anybody— but there's been a huge growth of political type content, right, that's been put out there. And I'm not going to talk about politics from the standpoint of any divisive issues on this program, but needless to say, you know, politics is a very big topic in our world right now. And so these content creators have tapped into that opportunity that people are looking for information on this. It was the same thing that happened with me back in the early days with the internet, was people were looking for information. Actually, a great example of what I'm talking about is my— you'll never guess when my number one most popular day was for my, my radio show and my online distribution of my radio show, my streaming version of my radio show. It was on 9/11. People were clamoring to the internet to find out what was going on, and I was doing kind of like a streaming kind of news type of program around the internet, and people were just clamoring to my show, and my audience numbers just shot through the roof for one day. I mean, it never went up that fast or that high at any other point. It it completely saturated my servers 'cause I was actually serving my own content back then off my own servers and colocation facilities. And it just spiked everything beyond, you know, it actually probably briefly, it probably took the whole thing down because there was just too much, too many people looking for information right at that time. And so it really exemplifies the power of, current events and trends that you can tap into. Now, this topic is a little bit beyond what I was hoping to talk about on this podcast, but it does fall into this area of contextual factors, right, that come into play when you're creating a piece of content online now. And I think it's even more important now than ever. And, you know, niche content is powerful as well. Not every niche is going to be as popular, so that's what you have to evaluate. And what's the market? What is it crowded? And, and how you produce that is, is, is an important part of your perception of what quality is. If you're tapping into current events and current trends, that can be, that can be judged as a quality component too, but the quality is more about the content side than it is about, you know, what's the audio quality? Because once you really go after a relevant content area, I've seen in the past shows that have done very well that have weak content production quality. It's really, you know, some content areas are driven based on the content itself and the personalities, not so much the production. You know, you can build an audience with poor production, but a strong host and a strong topic. But you're, you're probably not going to build a strong audience with terrific production and terrific, you know, post-production around a, a kind of less than or poor host and poor topics. So or ones that don't match with what people are looking for. So I think, you know, that's the, that's the tension that we all face. And in some ways, you know, you can't really predict these things. And I think, you know, using this term quality as a, as a vector on this is, can be a little bit misleading. And then also one thing too is around metrics and feedback. And I, I had mentioned a little bit about feedback earlier on. But I also think that some people will rely too much on metrics, right? So if your numbers are going up, you must be doing something right, right? If your audience numbers are going up. But let's say your audience numbers flatline, right? Maybe that has more to do with your topics and your alignment with your with your expectation of your audience, as well as maybe you're not tapping into your true authenticity of who you are and what you, what your real skills are and what you're bringing to the table. And maybe there's a misalignment there, and that can happen. And it's not like it's a, it's a problem, but if you see your show getting a little flatlined, your listener retention or people are listening for a while and you can get this data in like Apple and some of the platforms where you can see kind of the flow of when people are dropping out of listening to your show and when you have actually more listeners. And you can see that with YouTube as well. And that can kind of give you a little bit of a clue, but you can't really rely entirely on that because it's only giving you a snapshot of what's going on. I think the bigger takeaway is really the engagement part of it. Are you keeping people listening over a period of time? And is there something about what you're doing in a transition or change in direction of the content that people are like going, "Yeah, I think I got what I was hoping to get from the show, and I'll just move on to the next program or whatever." And it is easy for people to just move on. So I caution the overreliance on metrics. And there is another aspect of that too, and that's around audience research. So you have that part of it as well, feedback, you know, which I've mentioned a little bit here in this segment too, is that audience feedback is important too. And there are ways of doing that., that, that are, are not really going to get in the way of your show per se. And that's, you know, the one of the oldest school ways of doing that is, is to do surveys. And you can just create a short, you know, like maybe 6-question survey in SurveyMonkey and then offer it up in your show notes and share it. You know, it's something that I should do with this show. I just haven't, but it's It's certainly something that can give you a better idea and just ask, you know, really basic questions about the show, who they are, you know, what's their age spectrum, are they male, female, you know, are they professionals in podcasting or are they not, or, you know, and then ask just some qualitative questions around, you know, the show and its production quality and are the topics relevant to them and things like that and just keep it really Simple. And you'll get a few people that will give you feedback on that, but it can help you kind of have a better understanding of who your audience is. And then, and then over a period of time, you know, you update that and maybe you put out another survey that asks a little bit different questions. And over a period of time, you've, you've started to develop a profile of who your, your listeners are. And increasingly, we're seeing content creators, you know, start their own private communities or, you know, bonus content like Patreon type of separate groups that people can get together that are fans of a particular show and want to have direct access to the, to the host to, to ask questions directly and things like that. And those kind of create a deeper engagement layer too that you can do. And I see more content creators doing that pretty much every day. So, um, and then, so let's see here what else I want to talk about. I know Jody's really asked a lot of terrific questions in here, and I would love to get to those. Um, let's see here. Um, yeah, I was just on Jody's, uh, Clubhouse room talking about AI technology and she writes, it's a lot like having Clubhouse rooms from the standpoint of, you know, it's another aspect of live. I think live is another way, if you can pull it off and you can have a good production, I think your perception of engagement and connection with audience can be at a much higher level. And, and that's what's great about Clubhouse. And I got involved in Clubhouse very, very early in its existence, and it's not a whole lot different than this except for it's a group discussion, right? It's not like me and a guest or something like that. It's actually, uh, um, it's, it's a true discussion, you know, where this is kind of like a solo thing and I don't really have, uh, anybody else talking. And it's kind of rare that I actually do this. I mean, I do have another show that I do called Trust Factor that I'm gonna I'm in the process of trying to get started up again to talk about trust as an issue. And I'm not quite sure how I got on that topic, but— and then Jody also writes, let's see, Jody also writes, she likes the green. And I don't know, I'm not a fan of green screens. Yes, well, I can see your point. I could put a green screen on this right now because I do have a lot of green, and it, and it would actually look, look, look pretty good. And I've actually used green screens. I actually have a really big one downstairs in my basement, uh, that I've used in the past. And I took a picture of my background, and it was when I was moving, and I set it up behind me, and, and I took a picture of my background, and I used it for a production before I had my whole studio built up. So it looked like I didn't, I didn't change places. So you can use it as a little bit of a tool to keep consistency in your program too. But it can look kind of cheap and it depends on your lighting, you know, and I know that this is a little bit of a tip show, but if you're going to use a green screen, you really need to have good backlighting. On the green screen. So you make sure that, you know, the, the edges around your shoulders and your, your face and stuff are crisp because you want to have a bright green color that can be filtered, you know, against you. And, and that's really the key. A lot of people don't do that correctly, and they, they wind up having, you know, like their, their green screen show up as their microphone or somebody or overlaid on the microphone, it's usually because they don't have adequate backlighting or they're not even using a green screen or a blue screen. They're trying to layer it on top of just a normal background and that oftentimes isn't going to work. So thanks, Jody. And that's another aspect of quality too is the use of those kind of things. You know, this is a real background. Actually, I own all the things that are in those little boxes back there, and that's what I wanted to have was really a real experience. And so let me— yeah, and I think another big thing about trying to propel your perception of quality is with your show, whether it's video or audio, is having clear objectives, you know. Try and do the best you can. It doesn't have to be this big formal thing on a spreadsheet and all this stuff like that. It can just be something that you create in a notepad or on your phone or something like that in Notes or something. And just create a, you know, a clear definition of what your mission for the podcast is. Is it to educate, entertain, inspire, and inform? I mean, come up with those things and then come up with an outline that delivers on that. And you can always change it. That's the key thing is nothing about this isn't changeable. So, but once you record something, you know, it's baked unless you edit it. So, you know, being clear on what your goals are and what your mission is for your show, what are you trying to accomplish with the show? And that can actually drive the quality of the show. Because if it's aligned with you and it's aligned with your goals and it's aligned with your passions and it's aligned with your skills, that will take you down a path that will more than likely get a much more positive outcome for you. It may take time, and I think this is the other thing, is that there are many shows that start out with people saying, that's not a very good quality show. But if they do it long enough and they improve every episode, guess what? Somewhere down the line, they're going to be seen as a quality program, no matter what the topic is, because they have cared about the program, they've improved the program, and they've dedicated themselves to the program over many years. And a lot of the biggest podcasters in the world did the exact same thing. I think that there's a perception that a lot of the big podcasters today, um, gathered that overnight, and that, that's just not, that's just not factually true. You know, I worked with Adam Carolla in the early days when he was just leaving broadcast radio. Now granted, he did have a, um, a boost being on nationally syndicated radio for many years,, and then when he left that, got out of his contract, he started doing a podcast. And it took him— I think he started back in 2009. It took him many years. And it's the same thing, that's about the same time frame that Joe Rogan started, was about 2009. And Marc Maron, I think, was more like 2008 time frame. Um, all three of those guys started out very humbly. Now granted, they all had advantages. And I, I want to emphasize that they were all known celebrities of sorts, some at different levels than others, but a lot of those guys were known as, you know, um, TV show hosts or, or, um, fighters, or they were known as, um, comedians or actors, right? So you had that component to it which definitely gave them a leg up. There's no question. But I also know a lot of content creators that started out, didn't have a reputation in that timeframe, and built their show over many years. And many of them are still doing those shows, and they have grown significant audience, and they're monetizing all this stuff. But guess what? They invested years of their lives and had modest gains over many, many years, and they've they've produced their show and they've evolved their show and they've, you know, the expectation of the audience, they've changed over many years. And that's, that's the whole thing around, um, consistency and experimentation. But you can't expect success. Like, like even with this show, I don't expect this show to be a huge program after 35 episodes. I, I just don't expect it because I haven't refined this show to where I'm happy with it. And I'm, I'm thankful for those that are watching this right now and, and appreciate you being here. And, um, but I also don't have expectations that, um, the topic of podcasting will ever be really a huge topic, um, that people, lots and lots of people, are going to want to tune into. So that's why in some ways, you know, I've wanted to take this show and make it a little bit more about video and make it more about kind of content creators just in general, because I think that there is a lot of people that are interested in being content creators. I just don't see as many people interested in just being a podcaster under the old definition of what a podcast is, of being just an audio creator. I wish that was the case, and that's been the case for many, many years, but I see the the market shifting and the market is shifting towards audio and video and creators are coming into the medium either primarily as video creators and then adding audio or they're coming in primarily as audio creators and then adding video to what they do. But they're primarily one or the other. I just happen to see more interest in entering podcasting from the video side now. And then adding audio. And so that's the other part of this too, is it challenges content creators now to basically try and navigate this stuff because there's so many additional options that video has. You know, audio has its own pieces that you have to navigate and get distribution for and promote and build those listeners. But video is a whole nother unique challenge. And it's hard. I mean, if you're a solo creator, it's really difficult to do both equally. And that's why creators tend to gravitate towards one or the other primarily. And I mean, if you're primarily doing video on, let's say, YouTube, you're really probably more focused on creating the video content production side and you're worried about thumbnails and you're worried about YouTube algorithm algorithms and you're worried about talking about, you know, hitting the like button and the subscribe button, you know, down below and stuff like that, which isn't really much of a factor in podcasting. So that subscribe button is sometimes not below, it's above. So when you're referring people to something below, that's a sign that you're not prioritizing the podcasting side. So, so, and that's, that's a challenge. Um, but I also think a big thing too is your format and also your ability to adapt to change. And I think that is really at the core of what I'm talking about here, of, of adapting to change. And the podcast industry has been a little slow to to come to the table on that because, you know, a lot of the infrastructure in podcasting has been built primarily for audio. And if we're pushing people towards video in an area that isn't as supported, then that creates, you know, a customer service issue for a lot of companies in the medium. And I think it's a fair concern. And there is a lot of examples of audio getting more listeners than video, especially if you want to be an audio creator primarily. You probably are going to get more audio listeners than you are on the video side. But if you're coming into podcasting now from a video perspective, then that changes the viewpoint, and the podcast industry needs to realize that, you know, that video side is a credible an important entry point for a certain set of creators. And those creators are viable creators that could be audio podcasters too. So, you know, that's where podcasting started. And I've said this many times on this show, podcasting started as an audio and video and PDF medium for many years. I don't know if Apple still supports it right off the top of my head right now, but Apple used to support PDF files as podcast episodes. So I'm sure there's many people who didn't realize that. And then RSS also supports video in Apple Podcasts. That's where this show is available. If you were to go to Podcast Tips in Apple Podcasts, there's a separate RSS feed in there that has a video version of this podcast. It's got the audio in there too. It's a separate piece of artwork, it's a separate RSS feed, because we have yet to be able to incorporate what's called alternative enclosures to be able to have one RSS feed that has audio and video in it, which is technically possible now. It's just that most of the consumption platforms for podcasting are not embracing this alternative enclosure tag, which would give you the opportunity to have an audio file and a video file in the same item in your RSS feed. And that would give us, at the listener level, the ability for the listener to choose, do I wanna watch the video or do I wanna listen to the audio? That's the key thing here. I know I'm getting into topics that are a little off topic, But, you know, so I'm going to move on here a little bit and talk, talk about a couple of other things too. Um, you know, um, you know, topics around authenticity and being, being real, um, can also be a big draw to, to listeners. Um, And being genuine, being honest, being true to oneself, being honest with your audience, um, sharing things from the heart, um, caring about your audience. And I care about all of you who are here and all those that watch this show as an audio and video podcast and in any kind of replay too. You know, I've been a member of the podcast community since it started, and, and I've always embraced this medium because of the people in this medium. Um, they've always been very, very good to me, and, and I've tried to be very good to everyone in the medium. Um, over, over the years, I've learned a lot from a lot of people, and that has helped me become successful in the podcasting medium over the years. Um, you know, not necessarily always as a podcast host or co-host, but as a consultant or a person that helps people create shows or hopefully grow their shows to some degree. And it's a little bit of the reason why, you know, I'm doing this show and I'm doing podcasts now, is that I feel like I wasn't doing as much with content, and I needed to learn more and to be able to learn the latest technology and to learn the AI tools and actually use them. So I can't really help others do this if I'm not doing it myself. And I do think that there's a lot of people out there that try and think that, you know, they've launched a podcast and had 5 episodes and all of a sudden they can now be a consultant to others in doing it. And I'm not always sure that that's going to work out well. Um, I think I'm not done learning, and I've been doing it for 20 years. I've been creating content online for 24 years, um, but I've got a lot to learn too. So, and doing this show has taught me a lot, and I just appreciate everybody that's, that's supported me and been involved with me and met with me at conferences and things like that over the many, many years that I've been at Spreaker and PodcastOne and Lipson and Podbean and, and all these, all these companies that have put me in front of so many, um, podcasters and content creators over the years and have created a lot of friends over those many, many years. And another aspect of quality content is your ability to storytell and to tell personal stories about yourself and, and sometimes about others that are inspirational. And there are certainly a lot of examples of people that have started out with nothing and have built themselves, you know, fantastic careers in podcasting. And, you know, those, those folks have some common characteristics. And one of the reasons that I'm such a firm supporter of the Podcast Hall of Fame is because the Hall of Fame gives a platform to those that have been through that same process and have started very humbly in the early days and have grown what they've done over many, many years. And they have a lot to share about how to actually do this and how to actually grow a show, how to adapt, how to— and how they actually did it. And oftentimes that's what they get up on stage to talk about, is what that journey was for them and how inspirational that journey was in other people that help them along. And I think that's, that's a huge part of this podcasting space that I think we all need to keep, keep our eye on, uh, is that this medium exists because of people's willingness to help others and to, to be supportive of each other. Um, and I'm a little bit concerned about some of the divisiveness that I see in the medium, um, now, and it tends to follow around political lines. And I would just wish that we could get to a point where we can look beyond that and look to others as just other human beings that have a common interest that we can be supportive of and not draw lines. And I didn't intend for this to be any kind of a political discussion. It's really just a human to human feeling and outreach based on what my experience with this medium has been, and hoping it continues. And also, podcasting for many on this spectrum of quality, um, is a creative expression. You know, there are very creative, um, expression focused individuals that are attracted to this medium and that are important for this medium. Because guess what? They drive a significant amount of change and a significant amount of new ideas and new ways of doing things. And that's always been, been the case. I mean, even a good example is a, like a John Lee Dumas. With the, the, the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. I had a hard time getting that entrepreneur out, but, um, he was a change agent in the early days of podcasting. And over, over the years, I've, I've gotten to know him, um, John, and he's, he's a, he's a terrific guy. And but there's plenty of other examples of people that have been inspirations to many out there. And, you know, your creative expression includes, you know, your episode structure. Are you doing things that are a little bit unique? What's your theme music? How did you come up with your theme music? What are your kind of unique promotional strategies? What's your visual branding? These are all important components of doing a successful podcast. And, and I think it's— that's what we as a, as a community need to get back to, is focused on, you know, folks that are doing things that are new and interesting and reinforcing those folks and looking out for people that are doing those kind of things and learning from them. And then those people being willing to, to share too, um, getting on a podcast and talking about it and sharing those, those new ways of, of doing things. And I do think that there is a certain amount of competitiveness that's come into the podcast medium, that people have the— have these ideal strategies and they want to, you know, offer them in a paid program of some sort. Um, and I totally get that. Motivation for doing that, especially in this tight economy when people are looking to, you know, pay their mortgage payment and keep their, their lights on, that, that is kind of what's going to happen. And, and I think it's okay. So I think, you know, the thing that we need to do is just keep our eye open for those people out there that are doing unique things. And be open to that and trying them yourself if it makes sense for you. So anyway, I think, um, I was gonna take a few more questions here. Um, so Jody has another question in here too. I know she's asked a lot of questions. Jody Krangle writes, I love interviewing folks, it's a discussion, and I'm curious And that's, that's great. Uh, I think that's a great motivation for doing discussion podcasts, is your genuine curiosity and not getting all your answers answered before the, the show, so you can ask genuine questions and ones that are really coming from the, the heart about I want to discover what the answer is to that from this person that's an expert in this. Um, you know, so Jody says she's not putting herself out there as an expert. Um, I get that, but I think you have to walk a line there. Uh, Jody, is my, my feedback to you is that over a period of time, you will be seen as an expert, and people in your audience will start to expect that you have an opinion about things and you have something to share. And I do believe that you do have a lot to share. And so entirely making your content about your guests may be shortchanging yourself to some degree. So I would, I would do— and this is up to you, this isn't mandated or anything like that for me— but, you know, create those conversations less of an interview and more of a a group discovery process. And that's what I try and do with the shows that I have. I mean, I, I don't have— it's like the episode I did last week about podcast advertising. I've got a lot of experience with podcast advertising, um, but my guest Glenn Rubenstein had— he has a lot more deeper, more practical everyday experience. In podcast advertising. So, you know, there's, there's power in that. So I can learn from them, the audience can learn from them, but yet I'm going to share my perspective on what I think is going on in the industry that may be different than his perception, because he may be seeing a kind of like a bubble of what's going on in the industry and not necessarily the whole picture. So that's That may be your opportunity, Jody, is to maybe at times challenge people on those topics that they talk about just based on your own experience, and not so much from an argumentative perspective, but more, you know, raise these angles that make them, your guests, go a little deeper on the topic and explain to you why that maybe is the way it is. That may be being seen as something different. And so I see Sonya is here too and says, good morning, Rob. And Anita also writes, or Sonya writes, the green there looks good for your branding. Well, thank you so much. I've had this as my branding since I started doing this show. On the StreamYard channels. So, and, and I'm no longer with, uh, StreamYard now, so, so I'm kind of out on my own, um, but I'm still using StreamYard to produce the show. It's just I'm not, um, doing it on the StreamYard kind of like YouTube channels and stuff like that. Um, so it looks like, uh, Photocaster writes, uh, you need to get the audio side to a good and great standard. Know your topic and deliver and plan 3 months at a time. Well, I think it's good to, to do all those things, Photocaster, and I think it's always great to plan months ahead, but the problem with planning too far ahead is that you can plan too much, and maybe you might miss opportunities that may come up along the way. So, and it's not to say that you can't change course on that 3-month plan. I think you can, but don't get too locked into a particular plan that takes you out of the realm of being able to adjust. So, but I do like the focus on the quality of the audio and things like that. Um, so, uh, Sonya asked, uh, yeah, so how do you create the goals for your podcast? Well, I think it really gets back to what you want to accomplish with your podcast. What are they? What is the reason that you're doing a podcast? And focus on, on how that reason for doing a podcast kind of synergizes with either your life goals or your professional goals or, you know, a particular area that you want to become more of an expert in or more seen as an expert. You know, those goals— now, goals can be very specific or they can be broad. So the goals that are very specific can be, well, I want to I want to achieve, you know, 1,000 downloads in the first 50 episodes per episode. Or it can be I want to achieve 5,000 episodes per— or 5,000 downloads per episode after 6 months or something like that. But what you're going to find is that where you start and You may or may not hit those goals, but you have to be open to come, you know, adopting or adapting your strategy that you have to change based on that audience research that you've done, based on your focus, based on what the perceived quality is of your podcast. There's a lot of factors that go into that judgment of very specific goals.. But I think the broad goals are much more achievable because you can, you can set, you know, like, especially if it's content-driven goals or if it's distribution-driven goals, or if it's, if it's elements that don't involve someone else doing something, right? If they're goals that are related to what you as the podcaster do, then that is more actionable by, by you, but they always have to be evaluated as you're going down that path to make sure that they're, they're the right thing to do. So, uh, Jody Krangle also writes, um, hi, definitely takes time— this is to build a podcast— I'm heading into my 5th year of doing, doing your show, right? And that's That's not an unusual story. Um, I did my radio show for 7 years, um, and it, it wasn't very big the first couple years. Of course, it was on a local radio station up in the Seattle market is where I started it. Um, and then I started making it available online as a streaming, um, kind of experience on some big platforms on the streaming side. So this was a few years before podcasting started. And, and so, so it does take time to build a show. That's why I said earlier in this show that, you know, doing this show for 35 episodes, I feel like I'm still a baby in this. I'm not really have found the right niche for this show, or even if I honestly want to continue this show. I may want to evolve into something else. So you have to be always evaluating what you're doing. Um, you know, and, you know, and Sonia's question, how long does it take for most podcasts to take off? Well, you know, I think it depends on the show. It depends on a lot of factors that are hard to, you know, really say. But I would say, you know, for a lot of shows, it's, it's really a minimum of 6 months or a couple years. That you have to be consistent with it and improve and get better. So, you know, that's, that's a lot to ask these days. People need to earn an income, and if they're— if they do have a full-time job, then I'm sure that their work is being very demanding of them, and it's probably difficult for them to devote the time necessary to a podcast in addition to a full-time job, and especially if they have a family. They have to, you know, there's only so much time in a day. So that's why we're seeing a lot of people that are professionals out there that are hiring help for their podcast, help on the marketing side and help on the production side to help them have time to actually focus on the content and not on the technical deployments of the program itself so they can have that time that they can devote to their full-time job that's actually earning an income until they can build that show big enough till it's earning an income too. And then they can— I think the goal oftentimes is to quit the full-time job. So that's a great question, uh, Sonia. Um, it looks like, uh, Photocaster writes, I have a podcast, only episodes now. As well as video. So he's got audio and video with what he's doing. I'm curious, Photocaster, how's the video side doing versus the audio side? And do you emphasize the audio in your promotion and your marketing over the video side, or are you evolving that right now? That would be a question for you. And then Chris Stone actually asked a question. Well, he says, agree, Rob, lines are blurred between audio and video podcasting right now. And it's increasingly becoming that, Chris. I agree. I think that there's a lot of folks in the podcasting space that have resisted it. But one thing that's very unique about me in this perspective is that I came out of the era when video Like, I used to work for Microsoft and I worked on the early Zune portable media player, and that portable media player supported a large screen. And so I spent a lot of time working on the video podcasting side of this medium back in 2008 through like 2011 and '12. And, and there was a lot of video podcasts back then. I mean, a true RSS-based video podcast. And, and YouTube launched and siphoned off a lot of that content over into YouTube back in the, back in that time frame. And so my background is working very heavily on the video side of podcasting, not as a creator. I was pretty much audio only for most of my career, but was actively involved in promoting and bringing visibility to video podcasts on the Zoom platform at Microsoft because I actually built a Zoom video podcast app for Windows Media Center for televisions back in the 2010 timeframe, back when people were using Windows computers with their big screen televisions to bring in, you know, online video, right? This was in the pre-YouTube stage when YouTube wasn't available on televisions. So that, that experience is in my background, and that's why I, I was more easily gravitated towards getting involved in video at this level. And, and, um, that's, that's why you see what I'm doing right now and talking about right now, is that it comes from that base of experience. And Chris Stone also writes, uh, with either medium there are still, you know, elements like clear audio, valuable content that serves its audience. Well, that gets back to what I talked about earlier in the show, is the— this is such a subjective requirement, right? What is content that serves its audience? How do you define that? And how do you translate that into what you as the creator is offering? How do you know what that audience wants from you and sees as valuable? That is your magic formula that you have to solve. Is it trying to discover what that is that that audience will engage with based on its demographics, its interest areas, and its, um, willingness to engage, and do you have the personality to connect with a community that has that passion for that, whatever that topic is or that area, and that's a little bit like thinking that you can contrive a successful television show, right, is it possible for You know, I think that there's examples of, you know, like the Batman TV show or the, the Monkees or whatever. And, and some of these TV shows you may not have ever heard of before, but many of them— or even Star Trek, the, the TV series started out its first 2 years with nobody watching, but yet over a period of years it turned into be an iconic famous piece of content, right? Because over a period of time, it discovered its audience. Maybe it was too early to that market, and I think it was. I mean, I was an early fan of Star Trek, the, the early TV show with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy and all that stuff like that. But a lot of the early couple years of that series, they almost canceled it. Because it wasn't picking up audience. So it was too early to the market. And the same thing can happen with a podcast. It can be too early to the market and it takes time for the show to evolve to be relevant to the market. And that's one of the core challenges. Yeah, Jody Crangle also writes, Rob, you could be talking about the voiceover community, a lot of similarities. So, you know, she could be talking about the voiceover space. I'm talking about Jody's podcast, but you've been more broad in talking about podcasting and, and trying to cover a lot of topics, uh, where maybe if you focused on the voiceover space, um, maybe you might be able to build that audience a little more solid on that side. Now granted, how many voiceover artists are there in the country is the, is the next question. And I don't doubt that you could create a podcast that would appeal to that community at a very deep level, and you may already have significant amount of that community already listening to your podcast. So it, it wouldn't be a surprise to me to think that you would be able to appeal to that. Um, so, and Jody also writes, uh, that's, uh, really a big part of why I love the podcast space so much. I think this was in the, the section of the show when I was talking about the community aspect, um, and how good people are in this industry and how their talent for communication and their friendliness and their, their energy is generally always positive and, and supportive, and people working together and people doing shows together, and there's this collaborative environment. And I think, Jody, that's what is attractive to you, is because you're like that, you know, you have that foundation to your your personality and your talent as well, is that you like to help others and you like to connect with others and you like to bring people into your, your world and embrace them. I mean, I've seen it repeatedly over the years of your effort, and it's greatly appreciated. So thank you, Jody, for all your comments. I, I, I know there's more here, but, um, Matt Uh, Medeiros writes, hoping to say hi at Podcast Movement in a few weeks, Rob. Um, it's still a little bit up in the air if I'm going to Podcast Movement. Um, I'm— I may. Um, so there does seem to be some plans starting to fall together, um, that I might be there. Um, so I'm hoping to because This would be the first podcast, the full Podcast Movement that I haven't been to since the, the conference started back in 2014. So, so I, I hope to make it down there. It's not too far from me here. I'm up in Connecticut and it's down in Washington, D.C., so I hope to make it down there. So, and then let's, uh, yeah, thanks, Matt. Yeah, I I look forward to meeting you too. So I'll, I'll be posting online if I'm going or not, and we can certainly catch up. And, uh, Jody also writes, uh, that's what's happening. Yes, just by virtue of having a show about a particular topic, after about 150 episodes, I have started to learn a bit. I would tend to— I'm, I'm sure you have, Jody. I think you've learned probably much more than you probably realize. So let's see here. I think we're getting through all the questions in the Q&A section of this show tonight, and I know we're getting towards the, the end here. Um, so it looks like, uh, Jody has someone I'd like to ask, I like to ask the questions though that I think my listener might like to know the answer to. And I think that that's an important piece. And that's also you saying that you're, you want to ask a question that you want to know the answer to. And I think that that is an interesting synergy, Jody, that you're talking about there, is that what you think your audience might want to know, how much does that align with your own curiosity to know the answer? And, and are you asking questions that you already know the answer to, or are you asking questions that you only think the audience wants to know the answer to? It's okay to do a little bit of both. I'm not saying you have to be one or the other. But I think if you're going to get something out of doing the interviews and these conversations, I think you have to ask the questions that are burning in your mind. And because then you're going to grow from that and your audience will grow from it too. But also, you know, if you can think of questions that you already know, but the audience may— you think the audience may not know, I think that's valid too. So, and that's why you feel like you've learned a bit over the years is because you've probably done that. So Sonya writes, Jodi Krangle is absolutely an expert, no question about that. She's also the Taylor Swift of voiceover. So So, Sonya, that's a— that's a— I guess that's a great compliment for, for Jody. I don't know what you think about that, Jody, but I would say that's a great compliment given the scope of popularity of a Taylor Swift. And let's see, I think we're getting towards the end here. So the questions have really come in here the last last half hour here. I, I certainly appreciate it. And let's see here, um, okay, here's a question from Photocaster. It says, I wish there was a hosting company that helped new podcasters market their shows, um, within their platform. No one helps with how to get your show to market effectively? Well, um, that is a challenging question for the hosting companies. You know, I've worked for lots of hosting companies, and, and I do know that, uh, Blueberry, Todd Cochran, my co-host of the, of the other show I do called The New Media Show, does have a, a marketing and promotions kind of program inside of their company to help, help podcasters with that aspect of it. So I think that there is a, I guess, a recognition in the industry that there is a need for this. I think what, what they struggle with is, is that sure, there's base level of distribution, right, where they can get you into all these platforms, but to effectively promote your show externally typically is being done by third-party AI tools or third-party kind of social media management tools. And so a lot of the podcast hosting companies have felt that anything that they do in that area will be duplicative to what's already being offered from third parties outside of their platform. And what they want to focus on is just the core part of the distribution metrics and hosting of the, of the media. And so, so I, but I do know that they're under a lot of pressure to do like what you're talking about here. And like I said, Todd, Blueberry has kind of moved in that direction, and there has been some efforts even at Lipson to have a, like, a marketing arm inside the company to support certain shows that have deeper relationships with the platform. And, and I, I'm sure other, other platforms like Spreaker and Buzzsprout and whatever probably have certain internal initiatives that can help podcasters to some degree with tools to get their shows promoted. So, um, so you can, uh, let's see, Jody has another question. It says, um, Buzzsprout actually does allow you to advertise within their network. So I think the minimum is $250, but that's pretty low considering the other methods that are out there, you know, like the Overcast, um podcast listening platform has an ad buying network built into it too that you can buy campaigns for your podcast to Overcast users for a certain, like, monthly fee for a certain amount of impressions, things like that. It can be a little expensive. It can range anywhere from $200 to $1,000 or more a month to, to promote your show on just in Overcast. So, so there are efforts being made out there to offer that kind of stuff. It's just, you know, a lot of people just don't have the budget to be able to afford to do this. And, and a lot of big podcasters will actually run campaigns on, on other big podcasts, just like, uh, like a, like a BetterHelp would or somebody like that. Or, you know, an AG1 or something like that would run a campaign on a, on a big podcast. They— some of these big shows will, will run an ad for their podcast on these other big shows. And what they see is, if it's done properly and it's targeted properly, they see a higher listener gain than the investment they spent. So then they can charge more for advertising on the other side if they can grow the audience. So it can work out pretty well. So, so anyway, and it looks like, uh, thanks Jody for that question. And Jody has another one here. You don't have to be hosting in Buzzsprout to do it either. I've done it and it did pretty well, she said. So I think doing it may be kind of the why we're seeing bigger shows get bigger, and bigger shows that typically have budget that they can invest in somewhat buying advertising to grow listeners is a, is a powerful tool now. It's a way to differentiate and stand out because a lot of the podcasts listening platforms don't really do a good job of podcast organic discovery, right? They don't do a good job in search. Typically they don't index all the metadata. Even Apple Podcasts, from what I gather, and maybe this has changed to some degree, that now they're indexing transcripts from some shows, but for many years they only index the title. Of the, of the episodes or the title of the series in their search results. But I do know that Apple shifted over to promoting episodes, which is what YouTube does very, very successfully. And so, you know, even, even YouTube, I'm not sure does a terrific job of, of search, but certainly they do much better job than than any of the podcast hosting— or not, not hosting platforms, but the podcast listening platforms. So, so anyway, I think I'm going to— I would say thank you so much for all the terrific comments, um, in here tonight. And I think I'm running out of time here, so I usually only go for 90 minutes. And I really appreciate you all being here, and thank you so much for for all of the comments and questions. And I really tried to make this show kind of like a real, real discussion. And, and hope that you come back and check out the, the show next Thursday, and then also my new media show that I do with Todd Cochran from Blueberry on Wednesdays. So Wednesdays at 3 PM Eastern, noon Pacific, and that's at newmediashow.com. And, and thank you, um, Photocaster, for, for being here with me tonight. Uh, Jody, thank you so much for all your terrific questions and comments. And, and Anita, uh, thank you so much for— or Sonia, thank you so much for being here as well. And, um, have a, have a wonderful evening, and thank you so much. And go check out the audio and video podcast for this. I've got 35 episodes. I've had many terrific guests on this program that have talked about very important podcast topics and issues over, over that period of time. So thank you. Good night and have a wonderful evening, and we will hopefully see you next week. Thank you so much.