5-Minute Podcast Vetting: Get On Shows That Matter (Fast!)

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host and better half, Tracy Hazzard. And today we're going to talk about five minute podcast vetting. Get on shows that matter fast. And I have to say, Tracy, and.

Get guests on your show that matters because this one goes both ways.

Oh, well, that's a great point. And I have to say, Tracy, I don't know and I truly, even with all the podcast customers we have, I don't know anyone who's been a guest on more shows or interviewed more people on their show than you. I really don't.

I don't know. I think Scott Carson probably gives me a run for my money on the Note Closer show. He's done a lot of podcasting. And Mark Hirschberg, who's been on my show the Binge Factor as a serial guest, he was my 99th guesting set that he had done since done another couple hundred. So he's probably done the most on a guesting side where I've seen it be successful. So there's definitely those episodes that we can refer to. And for those of you who are usually in our group who is on Zoom at the same time that we're live streaming this podcast or you're listening to this on it, you're not getting the benefit of the normal quick links that are happening in the chat and so they will be in the blog post for this episode@podcasters united.org you can absolutely count on that. We will get them there. So make sure you go to either the YouTube video and or the podcast blog and you'll be able to get those links because those episodes, Nazanin will link them up for us. She's amazing at that. And she's off today, which is much deserved. But it's suffering from our like quick linking that we normally do.

Yeah, usually we don't even have to mention anything. We mentioned something. She's researching it and putting the link in there. But anyway, like you said, they will be by the time this is airing as a podcast And a polished YouTube video, all those links will be there and the blog post, of course. So for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. So you want to go check those out because Mark Hershberg specifically talks about how he built his list and did things together. And he did like a five article series that I've linked through some of those podcast blogs that really give you an idea on how he really did it. So if you are looking to do like a guesting series, like where you're going to guest on a bunch of them to market your book or market a product launch or something like that, you definitely want to do that.

And.

And then what I'm gonna suggest is that you really do a good job of vetting that list that you're given. Cause there are lots of companies out there, lots of VAs, virtual assistants, people who can pull a list together for you. But whether or not it's worth your time, give it five minutes per person, per show.

All right, so let's talk about that. Yeah, you get a lot of solicitations, Tracy. You get a lot of people soliciting you, wanting you to be a guest on their show, or they're trying to pitch you to be a guest on your show, and you have actually have a process on the binge factor and you have a form that they need to fill out and apply first. Because we want to make sure they meet certain minimum criteria as a podcaster before you have them as a guest. But I'm curious to know. You don't have a lot of time. Your time's very valuable. So this five minute podcast vetting, how are you doing that in five minutes? What's your secret?

Yeah, so I'm going to share that with you, but I want to share with where it starts. Usually I get an email or a direct message from someone. Right. And I've got one that I'm going to use as my example today, because I got to vet them. So I'm going to vet them with you right on the air. But I got this one. And honestly, if I wasn't doing this for you, I probably would have just discounted them.

Well, that's okay. But you're going to show us maybe why, right?

Yeah, exactly. So I get this very short, sweet. Which I appreciate a short, sweet message. I do. I appreciate a short message. This one's a little vain. So that's the problem is it's little too much about him and not enough about the value. Right? So he says, as a podcaster for just over five years, I have a few achievements under my belt from the Top Apple rated, top 1% of podcasts worldwide. You know how much I hate that? Because everyone who keeps podcasting can be a top 1% podcast. Acquired a global audience of 147 countries, 2,900 plus cities, multiple PR awards for frequent PR guest speaker. Okay, that's it. All I know is the podcast is called the Public Relations Review Podcast, by the way. So that PR makes sense in there, but that's it. Like, it's all about him. It's also stuff that pretty much I am in the know. Every podcaster has. Everyone makes Some chart, has 147 countries. Like it's nothing new.

Was there anything in that email now? We just heard it.

Yep.

But what I want, I'm curious, is was there anything in that statement that was about what's in it for your listeners or for you to have him on your show?

No, but the last sentence he had for me because this went to Podcasters United, was, how can I participate in this organization? He didn't ask to be on my show. He asked to participate in Podcasters United.

So this wasn't a pitch for him to be on your show?

I think he probably, what, like, uses it that way because it's all like, bold and stock. It looks like copy and paste. Right. But the question wasn't. And so that was the only reason that I. And because I had this episode today. This is the only reason we're vetting him today. Otherwise, like I said, I would have completely ignored him. Because nothing there is original. Nothing there is about what value he's bringing to my show. Except that he'd been podcasting for five years. That does meet the profile of my show. Right, right. And he's a public relations expert, which we could use talking to one now and again because every podcaster would like some publicity. So the topic hit me as of interest. So those are the only two reasons I'm giving him a second look. Right. So now once I see that, if it's worth a second look after the message that they send, then the first thing I do is I look at the show on the podcast. So I'm gonna share my screen because I prepped him up here, I'm gonna share my screen. And so I typed in his podcast episode in here. And what I really like about what I'm seeing here is he's dominating the top results.

You're searching in what? Apple podcasts.

Yep. Public Relations Review Podcast. That's the name of his show.

Okay, so this results is giving you episodes up top and Then shows next.

Right. Now watch what happens when I remove the word review. Okay. He's still there. Yeah, so he's still there as a top result. So that's a good sign to me. Okay, so now I'm gonna click and check out his show. He published an episode two days ago. He's already meeting my criteria. Cause he's gotta be actively publishing. He's got a bunch of episodes. He's got 150. Okay. He's well over my threshold.

They're also all five star reviews, which when you have 150 is pretty hard to do.

Yeah, but there's only five reviews, so there's not that many.

No, I thought it was. Oh, it's 150 episodes. I'm sorry, only five reviews. My bad.

Yeah, yeah, not only five stars out of five reviews. Not a big deal. But I don't really care about that because those are so easily bought. Right. So the next thing I do is I usually will just very quickly look at this. The about section.

Now, Tracy, unfortunately, when you share this way with Zoom, that about doesn't show us.

Yeah, so it's this part that says, an award winning podcast with Peter Wolfer discussing public relations topics, issues and mores with public relations professionals, educators and vendors. That sounds pretty good. Like it's very topic focused. It does mention the host name.

Is that the entire about.

No, it's a little bit longer. It's probably 400.

400 characters maybe.

Characters? Yeah. It's not super, super long. Unfortunately, everything after that first couple of sentences, which is fabulous. I mean, because it's really talking about. What it's for is everything that was in that email he sent me. And so to me I'm like, hmm. So I'm questioning right at this moment in time whether or not this podcast is a vanity piece for, for him or is actually in service to his audience. I'm questioning that by this description. So now I gotta dive deeper because it wasn't really obvious to me that he's providing tremendous value. Right. So now I'm gonna just do a quick glance down to his topics. He's obviously doing interviews. Controlling your media interviews. That's a good topic. PR Professional's Guide to Ethical AI. That's a great topic. Mastering Data Driven Public Relations. All of the topics sound really good. The, the shows aren't very long. I could take a listen if I wanted to. But somebody who does 150 episodes, they're not novices. It can't be junk. And so it's just not worth my time to take to listen to it right at this moment in time. If I was gonna be a guest on his show, I would take a listen because I'd wanna know what the show style is about. But I'm inviting him on my show. I control the narrative. Right. And I control everything. So it's not as necessary for me here. But if you're going to go on their show, take a quick listen. Make sure the sound quality's good. Make sure it's everything that you want it to be.

Okay? So those of you listening on the podcast, remember that Tracy was sharing her screen and that's in the video. So when you go to the blog post on podcastersunited.org, you can either watch that video or you may be able to see some screenshots of some of the things that Tracy shared.

Yeah, absolutely. But you can do this yourself. Just hop on your favorite app. I usually do it on my phone. I was showing it to you on my desktop, but I usually do it on my phone. So it's really quick and easy to just hit play and listen to something and check out the sound. And usually I will listen to the intro outro if I'm undetermined about whether or not the show fits my criteria. Because if they have a really long intro or a bunch of ads at the beginning, it will have immediately told me that the show is all about them and all about their purposes and not about mine. And so it will make that choice for me. So it is worth a listen up. Then we have. I'm going to go to the next thing that I do, which is basically check out the Google it. Right? Like, I mean, that's really what I'm going to do. I'm going to Google them, I'm going to check them all out, and I'm going to do it first from the show and then from the host if I need to. So just to keep that in mind, that that's how I do that. So the first thing I do is I Google public relations review podcast. It's right up at the top. So he's done a good job of getting his podcast placement. You'll see Apple, Spotify, Music. I'm going down below that because I want to make sure that he has a website, which he does. I want to make sure that he's also featured in other places. So related searches is where it usually ends up after all of those. Because when you're a syndicated show, all of the places people can find the show are listed you're going to be below that. So then this is among the top. Like March 26, 2024 public approvations review podcast among top one. Whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. That's current. So it's good. It's not old information. Same thing with the top public relations podcast for PR professionals. I mean, this guy is a PR professional. If he's not doing a good job of getting his podcast featured, then why do we want him on the show? Right. Like I question that. 70 best PR podcasts you must follow in 2024. Again, current information. So all of a sudden I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. Okay, I don't need to actually check out his name because I'm going to go to his website and that's going to tell me all about him. So this is the tab for his website. So I'm looking at it. It's a podcast focused website. It's not just his business site. That's a good sign. That usually means that there's a blog there. So I'm going to check this out. I am going to check out his about page because I do want to just make sure that he's someone of interest to me. Right. So here he is. Okay. That he looks pretty interesting. He's got professional credentials, 25 years in public relations. He's from Washington DC. I'm looking at those. I'm also going to click whatever he has on his about page or on at the top of his website is his social media. That's going to be one of the next things I check out. So typically I'll usually click it right now and open it in a separate window. But one more thing. Before I leave the website, I'm gonna check out his blog. And the reason I do that is because if there aren't blog links, it's not of tremendous value to me. So if somebody doesn't do any blog from their podcast for my particular purposes, I'm not gonna get the great cross links to my website that I'm looking for. So I just wanna double check and make sure he's producing some kind of blog. And wow, that looks pretty good. It's not long, but it's there. I don't see anything about particularly out.

Interesting how he doesn't have a player.

Yeah, these are not his podcast interviews.

Well, that looked like it because it had the logo for the show.

Yeah, but I don't see any of the interviews. Here we go. Here's one. So I want to check out one with an interview.

Wow. He doesn't feature the guest and no links to that. That's a bad sign.

Yeah. So this would be one that I would be like, hmm, do I wanna have him on my show? He's not gonna create a top level backlink for me. I typically would walk away from this, but he asked for a partnership and there's an opportunity for me to educate him on how this could be so great and him coming into our community and from us could be really good. So from a sales funnel perspective, he might be a really good prospect for what we do and definitely learning about what we do. So I'm not gonna rule him out just yet. So now remember, after I go to the website, I'm checking for the sales focus on this website. I'm checking. So if it's too salesy, too much of a funnel, really a landing page and not a website, then I'm gonna rule it out and I'm checking for that blog. If there's no blog at all, red flag, I'm gone. If there's a blog but there's no connection to your guest, I'm going to question whether or not it's worth doing. It may still be worth doing because the show association may be worth it or a potential partnership conversation. So the conversation you have after the podcast could be worth it to you to have to continue on. But I'm going to make a call at that point. If it's a no, I'm done. If it's a yes, I'm going to go on to the next thing. Remember, I saved their social media, so the next thing is I'm going to check out LinkedIn. I want you to click. If they've got like every social media under the sun like we do on ours, click the one that matters to you. If Instagram matters to you, if LinkedIn matters to you, click the one that matters to you the most to make sure that the connections to the audience you're looking to achieve. So if he had had Instagram, he only had Twitter and LinkedIn. But if he had had Instagram there, and I'm looking to grow my Instagram audience, then I want to click through and check out his Instagram. But I'm comfortable with LinkedIn. It's where we get our most clients from. If there's promotion happening on LinkedIn, great. It's doing a good job for me. Fantastic. I'm going to click there. So that's what I'm going to check out. Because I'm only going to spend Time on one social channel. I'm not going to check them out everywhere. I'm trying to do this quickly. So Peter's got a decent looking. He's got 1300 followers, 500 plus connections. That's good. He's got more followers. He's got a good amount of followers, which means that they aren't necessarily connected to him. I'm going to go down. He's got like white papers and stuff that's pretty interesting. That shows some amount of kind of in that education piece that he's doing. That sounds really good. He's showing off his episodes in his posts. That's great. He's showing off his episodes. What do you think of this podcast? He's asking questions. He doesn't really tag properly here, but it's not bad. And you could certainly make a comment back if you were the guest and start to keep it moving and do things like that. So I'm not seeing a lot of engagement on it, but that's okay. To me, the important part is it's getting posted out to a new audience. So if you don't see it right up here at the very beginning of this activity section, you can click show all posts. So I'm really looking at his follower count and I'm looking to make sure that he's really currently posting that he does share his podcast. And it looks like pretty much he shares his podcast all the time. So that's a really good sign right there. So already moving farther ahead on that. So we've done. We looked at the show in the podcast app. We googled him, we googled the show, we went to the website, we checked out the blog within that website. Then we went to check out Primary social media, did a little check on that and from there we were checking their follower counts and how often they post and what types of things that they post. Last thing is, I'm going to invite him on the show. He's going to get an invitation. So I make a real quick reply answer and I have a absolutely simple URL to send him, which is, you know, basically invite. And I sent it back and said, come on the show. I don't do any explaining. I don't do anything because he solicited me. So there shouldn't be much explanation. If they come back with a bunch of questions or anything like that, I'm done, they're out. It needs to be low hassle at that point and quick and easy for me.

Well, so two things I'm thinking trace to. First of all, that obviously took longer than five minutes. But you're talking about it, you're demonstrating what you do, you're not just doing it right. So I really do think you could do that in five minutes. So I'm pleased to see that. And of course you've done this so many times, you know exactly what to do. You don't have to like think about what to do. You're not going through a checklist or anything. You know what to do, right?

No. And honestly, you can do it straight from the podcast app. It actually used to be a lot easier when I had Google podcasts. It's a little cumbersome now with some of the other apps. But when I'm in the podcast app and I search for the show and I see top episodes, top shows and I then I click on the show when usually when I click that about it'll have the website link right below it. You can click right through the website. I still check them out on Google cause I wanna see how they're ranking and what they're ranking for. And if there was any kind of red flag such as a scam or a criminal activity or anything like that, it should come up to the top. And so I wanna make sure I'm not associated with someone I don't want my name associated with. So I do wanna google them, but I can straight click the website from there. Go check out the website, then straight pop in. If you're doing it all on your phone, it's really fast because then you just pop into your social media and you check em out in social and then you can friend em right there and you can just DM them and say hey, come on the show. I saw your email. But you can make it really simple and fast when you do it that way.

So thank you Tracy, that's very helpful. The second thing I want to mention, and I'm going to do it because this is a pet peeve of mine, is that in that email where he wrote you, he said he was a top 1% podcast on Apple. To me, my red flag goes up sort of. My BS meter starts to go up to the red.

I think it goes up worse for me when they say they're that unchartable. Like it's higher for me there than it is on map.

Well look, I mean chartable rankings are real, but I mean. Well they're not rankings though, they're just chart positions. And here's the thing that to people that don't know any better, that sounds great, but it's also not a stat anybody can verify. It's not like you get a badge from Apple that says you're a top 1% podcast. Oh, oh, is there more?

I didn't read this part, but in parentheses it actually said buzzsprout data, which is even more suspect because if he's hosted on buzzsprout, buzzsprout is just like, you know, blowing smoke and giving him like, things that make him want to stay.

They're not the authority of what's a top 1% on Apple. And quite honestly, look, and I'm going to say this in the podcast, but I will put an asterisk or a caveat on this, that Apple's always updating their app. They're updating their OSes. Depending on which OS you're on and what app, things may have changed by the time you hear this or it may change tomorrow. But I don't think Apple really tells you what percentage you are of all their podcasts. I think that is a interpretation of data somebody's making. It's highly suspect. What we usually hear.

Well, this is Buzzsprout's interpretation of that data. And that's who's telling them that. That's what it says. It's just like if you go chartable and chartable says that you're ranking like this on Apple.

Well, no, but if you're ranked in chartable, they do have a direct integration with Apple. And if you're number 75 in your category, that's fine, but that doesn't tell you what percentage you are of all the shows in that category. It's just what your rank is. And most people tend to cite what they're in the top whatever percent according to Listen Notes. And that's the one that really drives me nuts because it's really a percentage of all 4 million podcasts that are out there in the ecosystem. And it's very easy to be in the top 10% or the top 5% when you consider.

Or the top 1% if you've done over a hundred episodes and all the.

Dormant, no longer publishing new episodes shows that are out there. If you're publishing episodes on a regular basis, you're already in the top 10% of all podcasts. So you could be doing that badly and be in the top 10%. Sorry, of podcasts. So anyway, that kind of thing is suspect because there's no real sort of quantifiable certification that that statement is got truth behind it.

Well, and I think that that's the point to my vetting process here to kind of wrap this up for everyone. Tom, is that my point to the vetting process is, is that I don't really care what you want to tell me about your show. I need to know why your show is going to make a difference for my purposes, whether your show you coming on my show is going to make a difference to my audience. It's going to make a difference to what I want to talk about. It's going to make a difference to what we do. I want to make sure that that's going to happen or if I'm going on your show as a guest, I want to make sure it's actually going to achieve the goals I have. And that cannot be told by a bunch of charts and numbers and stats. Because honestly, I don't believe your stats. I don't believe your numbers. And I'm in the podcasting industry. Like this is what we do. I know they're all bull and because I know that that does and I know that I can get just as much value from a show that has a hundred listeners than I can from a show that has a hundred thousand listeners. If it's the right show with the right audience, then I have to vet for that. That's what I'm looking for.

All right, well, that makes perfect sense and I think that's some valuable suggestions that you provided to the audience. So you definitely want to go check that out in the blog post on podcasters united.org not only to see some of the things that Tracy shared in video, but also links to a few things. And you have that form, Tracy, that you use or don't have a form?

I actually don't have a form for this, but I saw a note in the chat that said we should have one. And I mean it's a five step thing, so I could certainly put one together. So I will work on that with the team and hopefully we'll have it done by the time this airs as a podcast.

Yeah, might as well just spell it out there. Cool. All right, well, I hope everybody got some good value out of that. And so you can really have a roadmap for, and I think consider for yourself what criteria are important to you. I don't think, Tracy, you're saying everybody has to subscribe to what you think is important. Every show is unique and you may have reasons for inviting someone on your show that are different or reasons why you may want to go on a show or not go on another show that are different to you. Right.

Yeah, you've got to make this relevant and a right fit for you. Like, so I have my criteria. I already know what it is. They have to have a hundred episodes or more. They have to be consistently posting every week. I don't do shows that are under 15 minutes. That's way too short. Even 15 minutes is borderline for me. And so I just have this criteria. But I've developed it over time because I found that that's the right type of show, the right type of product person for me. You may not know in the beginning, but trust your gut because when you go, that sounds so much all about them. Or like, gosh, that just sound like constant pushy sales. When I listen to that show, you'll start to get your own criteria and you'll be able to develop it. And that's why I said, if I'm at all wondering about a show and I just listen to it, I'll know instantly that which way they're going. Is this all about sales? Is this all about them? Or was I maybe mistaken about that? And maybe they just had a really bad advisor who wrote a bad description for them. It happens all the time. So that's why I don't always judge the show by this one. I would have judged by the COVID art and gotten really bad cover art, but I didn't. So that's also something. Take your gut on the COVID art. Take your gut on the title of it.

It's hard to do that though, because sometimes people are just so uninformed. I know they haven't been coached well. Even though they've got good content, they got lousy cover art. What does that tell me? That doesn't tell me the show is always. But it tells me, gee, you could be being heard by a lot more people if you had a better cover art.

Yeah, it is. And that's why I don't always judge that way. But if at the end of the day you looked at it and you go, I don't wanna be associated with that, then don't. Right. Like that's it. That's why you wanna go look at it. Cause if you look at it and you go, definitely not. Cause if you're embarrassed or it's just not a good fit and you to share it with your audience, then you're not doing that host any good.

The worst is when the COVID art is just somebody's headshot. And that's all it is. There's no words, there's no text, no, no nothing. But they filled the entire with their face. I'm like, really?

Yeah.

Why does that give me anything?

That's why I'd rather see words like this guy's. Right? I'd rather see words like this guy's. And at least it's something. But it looks like an educational journal, right? It looks like a journal of some kind, so it fits the model, so there's nothing really wrong with it. And it's bright yellow, so it's catchy. So anyway, the right fit for you. You'll know when you start doing this and you'll get really quick at it. So good luck, everyone. I hope you reach out to more shows because one of the best ways for you to grow your show is to do a guest swap where you invite a host on your show and you go on their show. So get someone that's a right fit, because if it's a right fit for you, it's a right fit for them and it makes a fabulous swap. And that's one of the fastest ways to grow your show.

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