How Does Having A Duplicate Podcast Show Name Affect Your Success And Audience Reach?

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Hey everyone, Tracy Hazzard here going solo today on Feed you'd brand and I am going to talk about how does having a duplicate podcast show name affect your success and your audience reach here's the thing. You can't usually have a duplicate name anywhere but Apple. When they set up podcasts in their system in the very, very beginning they allowed duplicates. Now there's slight differences to it because they assign it a different number in their system. So even if you have a duplicate name but they allowed it weren't really screening and checking and so it happens so you can have a very similar name. Typically they now will push back on you and make you add the word podcast to it or show to it. So it's not a complete duplicate. There's usually a little bit of an to the name, but it happens all the time. It is also sometimes a digital marketing strategy. So usually it isn't someone who is serious about their podcast. It was their company name before. It's usually someone who's saying I'm going to troll on someone else's good name and success and make sure that we show up in their search. So when someone's searching for a famous show, then they will also have your show show up and that's their goal. They are actually trying to trade on your hard work for building your show name.

So that happens. Now Tom and I did this early on. It was a strategy when we had our very first show wtff, which stands for Fused Filament Fabrication, which is the geeky term for 3D printing. WTF with Marc Marone was pretty famous at that time period as a podcast. It had gotten a lot of general public exposure because he had just had President Obama on his show at that time. And what happened was is that we're searching WTF through the search directory. So we did it more for fun because we knew his show was always going to show up when you type in wtf. We weren't really stealing his authority because we weren't coming in on top of him and in front of him. We were going to come in after because you would have to type in fff, but that didn't mean when you typed in wtf and his show shows up and it served up in the search directory, ours would show up as other shows or show up after that. So we were kind of doing a play on that and some people who might be a little bit techy. And Marc Marone was in the tech industry, so, like, he kind of came out of that. He usually covered a lot of tech people on his show. So there was kind of a. A tie in, if you want to think of it like that. But what might happen is, is they might see our show and go, what's that? That would be cool. So it's not going to steal his ability for someone who was really looking for a show, but it might allow them to come in and then go forward from there and check out ours as well. So we did it as a strategy, as a tie in strategy. But again, we were also making sure we weren't coming in on top of it. So. So there also has been some others out there that have done things like. So Better Call Daddy is a great show. And Better Call Daddy was also based on a show like they were. It was a play on a show called Call Me Daddy, which had gotten a lot of publicity and had really great listeners. And so Better Call Daddy and Call Me Daddy, they have some of the similar words in them, but they're not exactly the same. But if someone comes in and types in Better Call Daddy podcast, we're coming in on top of that person. We're really trying to play on and steal that person's authority. And that can happen in the podcasting ecosystem. And the question really becomes, did that person do something unethical? Maybe. Maybe they did something that was a digital marketing hack. Absolutely. But it is not against any rules or guidelines. They didn't violate any copyrights. They didn't violate any of the rules of how podcasting works. And they can do that. They can do that in the system. Does it harm you? Yes and no. Yes, it is them, as I put it, trolling on their. Your authority, trolling on all the hard work you've done to build up your show name, to get people to type it into the search engine and come and find you. But what doesn't happen here is that it's not going to take away your audience. They're going to recognize your cover art. They were looking for your show. They're going to come to that. But might they consider that other show also? Yeah, that could happen. But the Reality is, is that it's not your show, and your show might have hundreds of episodes. Wouldn't that be great? Right? So you have a lot of episodes based on your show, and that show's brand new. So a really serious podcast listener isn't going to come in and go check out a show that looks like a play on your when it only has three episodes, when it's just starting out. So they haven't actually built their authority up, and the podcast listener is smarter than that. So that's what I want you to really understand and know. Yes, you're going to show up in search. They're going to show up in search. And if you haven't done your proper job of listing optimization and making sure that your show shows up properly and you've done everything right and how you do it, then you will not have the first place. So that's one of the things you want to confirm if you are concerned about that. If when you type in your show name, it is not showing up first in the list, somebody else is, it's time for review of your show. So we do podcast power appraisals all the time. It's a great time for us to review what's going on with your title. Come to poditize.com, check us out. Go and type that in. You can go to our website and find anywhere which you can get an appraisal. You can make any phone call with our team and they will be happy to review that for you. If you're having an issue here, you should always show up, though, for your show name. It shouldn't be a problem. The podcasting ecosystem doesn't have a really rich search engine. So it's author name, show name, description, copyright line. Right? So very few things work in terms of searchability. And when we have that show name, it should be right. But you may have done some things wrong which that shrewd digital marketer may have recognized. Like you may have named your show Better Call Daddy Show. And that means that if they come in with Better Call Daddy, they've circumvented you and gotten in front of you.

Because here's the thing, the shorter it is, the better. So if it's Better Call anything else, and all they type into the search engine is better call, their show will show up before yours. Better Call Dad, Better Call Father. Those are different ways to get around it and come in front of you. Because Better Call dad is shorter than Better Call Daddy. Right? So they may circumvent you by doing that, that doesn't mean that there isn't some things that you can do to make sure that your authority in that search directory isn't staying front of mind. So it's not going to affect your success though, and your audience reach. It's not taking away your subscribers, it is not doing anything to affect that unless a subscriber decides to choose them over you. Now, if they've created duplicate cover art as yours, that's something you really need to do something about because that's your image. You've essentially copyrighted it. Hopefully you have by putting a copyright line on your show. You've also done that by hopefully putting it on your website and you have a copyright hopefully at the bottom of your website as well. You know, these are things you need to make a general practice and confirm. But by doing so, that cover art image is covered under copyright. Now, it's not a documented filed copyright with the copyright and trademark system, but that's okay. You can do that after the fact. Publishing it and putting your copyright line there is enough to protect you. And so you may want to ask for a petition into Apple and ask them to stop this show from using your cover art. You certainly could send a cease and desist letter and make them change it. So if you have a confusing because they're using an image that is almost duplicate with yours with just that slightly different name, that is a violation. And you definitely want to shut that down because they're creating show confusion. Definitely make sure you ask for that to be taken down and for them to stop doing that. But you can't shut down a show that is using a similar name. It just won't work. There's no process in the system, unfortunately. It just isn't there. But your success and your audience reach your subscribers aren't going to go to another show. They're already subscribed to you. They're not searching so they're not going to go somewhere else. You're not going to lose them. It is someone new searching and coming in. It's the number one reason why you need to make sure that your show is showing up at all times. Like, you should always double check the directory. I type the binge factor in all the time. I type feed your brand and I check it to make sure periodically I do it like maybe once a quarter check to see what new shows are coming on. We did have this happen to us. What feed your brand had been in play for a while and another podcasting company decided to come in with the word feed in their show name. It wasn't what their show name was originally. They switched their show and decided to draft off of our brand. I could have gotten upset about it, but I didn't, because what I know is that we had already had a hundred episodes in on our feed, so we already had more episodes than they did. There's always going to be greater authority with more power. So keep doing what you're doing. Do it week after week, continually, consistently and constantly post episodes that is going to win you more listeners. It is not going to change. They are going to. Your existing subscribers are going to stay. And smart podcast listeners, which are the ones you want, are going to choose a show that has more power and longevity than they are going to choose an upstart that is drafting off your name. So in the end, I really don't think that having a duplicate podcast show name is going to change anything from where you are and what you've already built and done. However, there might be a benefit because someone else has to market that new name. They're doing a marketing job. And so when someone else types in better call dad and you've got Better call Daddy and they type that in and they see your show and their show side by side, where they see Better call Dad and Better call Daddy side by side in the search engine, when they pop that in and they see your show has over a hundred episodes, you might be drafting off them, you might be making them do more of the marketing work, and you're actually getting the benefit because you've already put in your dues in the podcasting ecosystem.

Shutting them down actually isn't to your benefit. They're more likely to quit. A digital marketer is more likely to quit and pod fade faster than you will because you've already been doing this a while. So serious podcasters know that all they have to do is stay committed to their subscribers, committed to their audience, and keep moving forward on what they're doing. Let all those other people drive more traffic to you. It's more likely that when they drive more traffic to you, they're going to realize they made a huge mistake and they're going to quit their show. And it's never going to affect you moving forward. So I know it's frustrating. I know you want to get mad, you want to yell at your phone, you want to yell at Apple. I'm sure you might call up your hosting company and yell at them, but they have nothing to do with it. Right? We apologize. Can't do anything anything about the fact that someone came in with the same name as you because Apple controls that, they allow the syndication of that. I wish it was different, but here's what I want to say to you. Don't get frustrated. Don't get mad. Just do what you do best. Nurture your audience, create a great show and come to us and let us appraise your show. Let us take a Look at that potatoes.com appraisal you'll be able to easily check out and we'll be able to help you figure out if you're doing something technically wrong. That is the reason why someone control on you and actually show up first. And we'll do everything we can to help mitigate any problems that are happening from this and make sure you're still showing up and winning in the podcasting space. So thanks everyone for listening to this episode at Feed you'd brand I'm sure Tom will feel all better next week, which is why he's missing this week and he'll be back next time with me to cover a great podcasting tip topic or area. And if you have any suggestions, we want you to reach out to us. Go to go to potitize.com, submit a question to us. Go anywhere on social media, submit a question, comment on this live stream, Submit a question and we will cover it in a future coaching call. Thanks everyone for being here. I'm Tracy Hazzard on Feed. You'd brand for those of you on the live stream and those of you clients, stay tuned because we're going to answer your questions live. Thanks everyone.

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