Holiday Podcast Schedule: Take A Break Or Stay Consistent?

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Hey everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tracy Hazzard and along with my partner Tom Hazzard, we are here to talk about podcasting in any which way, shape, form that you want to use it to build your brand. And today we're gonna talk about the holidays because this is a question we get again and again, right, Tom?

Yeah, it's a bit of a dilemma. People often, especially new podcasters, ask, hey, over the holidays, if my normal day to publish is on Thursdays, should I still publish on Thanksgiving or should I take a break? And Thanksgiving's easy Cause it's always every Thursday every year, right? I mean, it's the last Thursday, I guess in November every year. But other holidays like Christmas and New Year's, you get a couple holidays in a row there back to back.

And Fourth of July is always a decision making too. Those are things that happen here in the U.S. of course, if you're international, you have your own holidays that are probably at different times. And this is a dilemma that you have is like, do I stay consistent with my calendar schedule and my regular scheduled episodes or do I take a break?

And so I have a very strong opinion about this from long hard experience. I can tell you as a podcaster and also as a podcast listener, and that is no, don't take a break. Don't ever take a break. Be consistent. Because actually, even though we want to take a break as podcasters during the holidays, we're working hard. I know we've been working really hard. Tracy and I have been working hard. I'm looking forward to a long weekend coming up. But that's also when I want to listen to stuff. That's when I as a listener have more time and I want to stock up on podcasts and listen to them over that break.

So let's think about this from a psychological perspective and from a sociological perspective, right? So we're headed out to Thanksgiving. We're going to be stuck in the car all day or stuck on an airport all day.

Can I tell you, I had today a sales call on Zoom with a couple who's going to co host a new podcast, who you know very well, actually. And they were driving a five hour drive in Florida within Florida, only to go to their Thanksgiving.

Right. So people do work. People also need escape because you're sitting in a nasty airport trying to tune everybody out around you. Right. You might want to have downloaded some podcasts to take with you. So I tell this story again and again when I go to events with my good friend and our podcaster, Aaron Young, who has the Unshackled owner podcast. And this is exactly how I met and connected with him. So I was driving to an event. It wasn't a holiday, but I was driving there from California to Las Vegas. And so it's about a four and a half hour drive. And I had downloaded all of his podcasts to at that time. My ipod. That's how old it is. Yeah, it was a while ago.

This was back in, what, 2015.

2015. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I downloaded him to my ipod, we hooked him up to the car, and we were listening to it on our way in. And I get to the event and I hear this emcee at the event, and I think, wow, his voice sounds really familiar. I feel like I know him already. And it took me a couple of days before I realized that he told a story that I had actually heard on the road and remembered exactly. And part of it was because it was Aaron Scott Young was the name on the podcast. And then he was Aaron Young. And it seemed like a common enough name. I didn't really tie the two together immediately. And I hadn't seen a picture of him, so I didn't know what he would look like. I just heard the voice. So anyway, but we connected and bonded because of that travel time. Because of that, I had listened to probably, I think, at least eight of his episodes on that drive. So there had been significant amount of bonding time, even though he didn't know it. So this is a great opportunity for someone to binge on your show and having something where you're saying, hey, I'm showing up for you today, even though you're traveling, it's a vacation day, I'm showing up for you. That's really important. So sociologically and psychologically that being there for them on that consistent basis is extremely important. And Tom and I love that model of podcasting because that's the way you show the greatest trustworthiness. And I'm worthy of doing business with you if I'm worthy to be here for you when you need me most.

And the thing is, as podcasters, as podcast hosts who have to do the work of recording and creating the content.

So what? It's a holiday. Guess what? We can record ahead.

We schedule everything.

Most of us should and do. Now, there are some podcasters that their show is done as a live weekly thing, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not opposed to that. What I'm saying now is not going to apply in that situation. Now, most of us record ahead. We're recording, and we want to be a month ahead. At least we've got some podcasters. Shout out to John Livesay, who is one of the most consistent podcasters, and he is so far ahead. He's already submitted episodes, and we've produced them at Potitize already through April or May of 2022. Now, I think that might be a little too far ahead, but the point is, if you get ahead at least by a month, we get to have our vacation, too.

So usually in September and October, I need the most interesting and exciting people. It's really easy for me to pack my schedule a little bit with extra slots for recording. So typically in a normal month, I might record five episodes. I always try to record one ahead just in case somebody falls through, so that I'm always a month or so ahead. But I might record eight in September and October just because people want to get in. They're in the mode of promoting themselves, they're back into business after the summer, and it's actually a really great time. And so I can do that, which helps me pack up for the holidays and helps me get ahead, so I can do that as well. But what I really want to remind you is to remember that we're not just podcasting for our listening audience. We're also podcasting for our business growth, right? And in our business growth that requires our digital world to be in place. And when our digital lives are in place, the computer algorithms don't take time out for Turkey. They don't have it built into an algorithm that if you skip a Thursday because it happens to be Thanksgiving, that that's okay. In the algorithm. It would be like, as if, to use an example from our good friend Meryl Chandler at Credit Sense, is that if you skipped your bill payment because it happened to be a holiday and it was only due on the. Well, what is it going to be? 25th November this year? And that was your bill was due on that day and you skipped paying it, do you think they're going to like that? No, they're going to give you negative points for it. Well, that's what happens in the algorithm from Google, from Apple, from the whole entire ecosystem that is our digital lives today. So in our digital life, we have to stay consistent and constant because it's what the computer expects of us, the algorithm expects of us.

Unfortunately, all the systems are set up for you to be able to record ahead and schedule things, to publish the same date and time, same day of the week, same time. You always would for your podcast, your videos on YouTube if you're doing that, your blog posts on your website if you're doing that. And by the way, you better be doing that if you're a podcaster. All of that, it can be set up. It's just locked and loaded and scheduled and software makes it happen. So.

So, yeah, so there really isn't any excuses. Our point is that this isn't hard. Now, if you were doing a live show, as Tom was referring before, there is no reason you can't do a recorded version for a holiday. So instead of showing up live, that's perfectly acceptable to your audience. The algorithm knows no different. It doesn't really care about that. I mean, maybe your Facebook Live, like, gets a little bit more circulation than it does, but the recording being there, you're still showing up for that audience. So psychologically, you're still there for them. You've given them the benefit of your day. You have an opportunity to talk about something really interesting. You can record it. So maybe you can do something that you couldn't do in the live, so you can give them something special, too. So it's also an opportunity to do something. So you may want to think about that and plan ahead. But the last thing I want to point out, Tom, and before we close here, is really point out that we have seen consistently year over year over year since we started this business and since we started podcasting in 2014, that the holidays are some of our best growth builders in terms of listener and downloads, or plays, as you want to call them, not just downloads, because they aren't just downloading it, they're actually listening to it and listening through. Why do you think that is, Tom?

Well, it's what we actually said at the very beginning of this episode when I'm going on a break. And so during the time between Christmas and New Year's, I go skiing. That's my thing. And I'm going on a long. A lot of time I drive there because I like it and it's a long drive. I want content to listen to. I've got a lot more time when I'm away like that for me to listen to content. So I want to stock up. I want to make sure I'm already getting the episodes that I haven't been able to listen to recently, the latest ones that have come out too. And maybe I'm even looking for some new shows and some new content.

Browsing happens at this time. You're scrolling through your browsing, you're looking for new shows. This is a really opportunity for you to be seen and found by people who haven't taken the time to do that before. They're barely keeping up with, like, the regular podcasts that they subscribe to already. But here's an opportunity. They're looking for something new. It's the perfect time to do that. And then in addition to that, what they're also doing though is escaping and or planning. And this happens very consistently between Christmas and New Year's. That very end of the year where you're taking a break from your business and something that is occurring is called flow. If those of you know that, like you're having flow process happening in your brain, right, think about that. When you're mindlessly driving, your brain is processing, is really thinking, and you're finally at a downtime in your business and in your life where you can allow that flow to happen. And when that flow happens, what occurs to you is, wow, I need to amp up my game on marketing. Maybe I need to try this this year and I'll go out and I'll look for a podcast for it. So the minute I have a moment, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing. So this is a time for someone to plan ahead, to start thinking proactively, start thinking about, wow, I didn't achieve what I wanted to achieve, but I got to make sure that that doesn't happen next year. Who's going to be my resource? So this is the time when we really start looking for something new and we start making changes. And if you're there in the right time with a brand new episode, what that says to me is you're showing up for me when I need you most. And that has an impact in my choosing your show.

And that's really what podcasting is all about. I mean, when I'm driving and I know a lot of people listen when they're driving and we're actually recording this episode live to our private Facebook group. First, for those of you listening to the podcast and I've got a comment that says, I love listening to content when I'm driving, especially on long journeys. 100%.

A lot of us do.

A lot of us do. Because who the heck wants to listen to real terrestrial radio and hear commercials over and over again? I mean, I gave that up years ago. If I'm going to listen to music, it's Sirius xm because I don't want the commercials. But even when I'm on one of those long trips, if I listen to that same station on Sirius XM long enough, I hear some of the same music sort of recycle or play or some of the same where somebody's guest djed for an hour and then you hear that again. It's like, ooh, I've been listening to the station too long. I want to listen to something else. And so I may as well learn something or be entertained in a different way.

And the other thing is that we have to do remember, is that sometimes we need some downtime away from our families. So even though we're taking family bonding time, sometimes we need a break and we need a place to go. Be away from that. And plugging in and listening private, it kind of gives everybody to give you that barrier and space that you might need. So this is why we find listens consistently higher at the end of every year, right around the holiday time. And it goes pretty consistently every single year. I think the only year we didn't see that happen was in 2020. We did see as significant increase because it was already at a higher pace from the pandemic to begin with.

Yeah, there was a much higher listenership we saw sort of all year long. I think there still were a bunch of new shows launching around that time.

So there was a spike, but yes.

There was a spike, but yeah, definitely. I agree. So here's the thing. If you were thinking about taking a break and not publishing over the holidays, reconsider that thought.

Think again.

Yes.

Yeah, we'd love to see you stay consistent and constant. It's something that Tom and I say here again because it pays dividends both on the digital life that we talked about and on the connection to your audience or to your potential future audience that might be looking for you right now. So that's a way to feed your brand. And we will be back next time with more episodes about all kinds of things in the podcasting space. Right, Tom?

Absolutely. Because this is the life that we live. We're here for you, and hopefully you're getting value out of this. Feel free to reach out to us. If you have a suggestion for a topic, we'd love to hear it, but we're constantly coming up with new ones and our experience with podcasters, so we'll keep bringing those to you week after week.

So thanks everyone for listening. Happy Holidays. For whatever holiday it might be for you at the time that you're listening to this, Tom and I thank you. We're grateful for all of you for listening to our show.

All right, everyone, so that's it for us. We'll be back next time for another episode of Feed you'd brand. Have a great one until then.

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