Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Start Small, Stay Consistent: Key Strategies for Effective Science Communication

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Start Small, Stay Consistent: Key Strategies for Effective Science Communication · How To Protect The Ocean

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This episode is for those of you who are in the audience that want to
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use science communication to help get the projects or
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the science that you're working on out into the real world using
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social media. And we're going to talk about three things that I
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think you need to know to make sure that you can succeed in
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doing science communication for ocean conservation. We're going to talk about that
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on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
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start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with
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the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live
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for a better ocean by taking action. And
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this is a resource, this podcast, this company that I've built
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is a resource to help you find out all the information you can on the
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ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean. And you can find out
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more information at speakupforblue.com. That's speakupforblue.com.
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And if you want that information to come to your inbox Monday to
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Friday, you can sign up to our newsletter at speakupforblue.com. forward
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slash newsletter that speak up for blue dot com forward
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slash newsletter. You put your email in it's free. You get it
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Monday to Friday. You'll get three articles on
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the ocean. You'll get the latest podcast that we've put out or video that we've put
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out and you will get three job related ocean
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conservation projects or jobs that you will find that are paid
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unless they're said intern or graduate opportunities that are in there
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every single piece of newsletter. So five days a
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week, Monday to Friday, speakupforblue.com forward slash
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newsletter to sign up and get yours today. Let's
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start the show. I'm super excited about this because I love to
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talk about science communication and today We are gonna go over the
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three things that you need to know to be successful in
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science communication. This has helped me be successful for almost
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a decade in podcasting, doing video, doing
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other social media. I've done some great things in podcasting.
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I've done some pretty bad things on social media, but
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I wanna talk about some of the lessons that I learned and what I
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do to become successful or I try to continue to do to become successful.
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the first thing to know right before I get into the three items
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is like sort of like a little caveat is pick
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one thing if you're just starting pick one platform
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whether it be a podcast whether it be a video whether
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it be long form or short form Pick one platform that
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you are going to focus on because it will make everything easier. If
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you try to be on every platform at the same time and you don't
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have the time to keep up with it, it's going to be difficult because just doing one
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is going to be difficult in and of itself. I publish three
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times a week. I spend probably about
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six hours a week trying to get all this done. That's
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including the research, the recording, the editing,
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the posting, and the promotion. There's a lot to go in to making
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sure that people know what you're trying to do, just even on
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one platform. Now, you can use other platforms to promote, but
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those aren't as consistent as it's going to be for that one piece of
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content that you're going to put out, that one platform. So make sure that
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you decide what's best for you. And we'll talk about workflow in
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a second. But what's best for you and what platform works
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best for you, what you like the best, what's easiest for you, what comes naturally
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for you, that's going to be a big deal. And we'll talk all about that in
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these three things. So the first thing to know is that, yes, there
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is going to be a fear to begin whatever project you want.
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It doesn't matter how badly you want. It doesn't matter your personality. If
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you're good in front of people, if you're good in front of a microphone or you're good in front camera
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you're comfortable you're not there's always a fear to begin especially
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in science communication because there's an imposter syndrome right
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everybody has it we all talk about it we're all surprised I can't
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believe you have an imposter syndrome everybody has it even
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the smartest of professors the smartest of researchers the
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smartest academics the smartest government people. We all
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have imposter syndrome. We can't know everything. We can't
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be experts in everything. So yes, when you put something together,
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know that yes, it's okay not to be the smartest person in the room.
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It's okay not to know the most about this information. You
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cover topics, you put it out there, you find out as much
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as possible, and there's some people that are going to say you're wrong or don't agree with you. That's
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okay. It's okay not to know everything. I've been doing this for
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almost 10 years. I don't know everything. I know generally
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what's going on, and there's certain things I know a little bit more of
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than others because I read up on it because I'm most interested in that. But
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I get to know more and more each and every day. And I get to
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repeat that behind this microphone and behind this camera. And
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I'm able to get it to you enough so that in a sort
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of a package where you can understand that enough to go and do whatever you
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want to do with that, whether tell a friend, a family member, or
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do some action around it where you're doing conservation projects,
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where you're working in a career, or something like that. The goal for
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me, and it might be different from yours, was just to inform people. So
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when you're doing science communication, inform people from what you know, keep
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it easy, keep it simple. You're gonna hear that a lot this episode.
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So yes, you're gonna have imposter syndrome, it's okay. The
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way to get over it is actually just to put out information. Start
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recording, you don't even have to publish it, just start recording so you get
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comfortable behind a camera, you get comfortable behind a microphone. I
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started off just with the microphone because doing the microphone and
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looking into the camera for me at the beginning was uncomfortable as
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hell. Hell, I did not like it one bit. It would throw me
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off. Seeing myself in the camera, I can see it on my screen here. I can see
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it on the camera screen up there. It throws me off every once in a
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while because I'm like, what's going on? What's going on in the background? Do I have
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everything? Do I look okay? It gets very distracting. So I
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didn't do it for a while, just to be honest, until this
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past July when I started posting regularly videos and
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I started to record myself. You eventually get used to it, but at the beginning, it
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can be challenging. So anyway. Just understand that it's
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going to take a while to get used to it, so just start and just go. When
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you start to publish, yes, you are going
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to find negativity on the internet. It happens. It happens. It's
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the internet. Don't let that get in
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the way of you putting stuff on. The first video that I ever posted for
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YouTube, I remember correctly, because I will never forget this. It
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was one of those videos where I actually talked about a couple
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of different stories. I think it was three different stories. One of those stories was about
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Sea Shepherd and how I didn't like the violence they used at the time to
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do their whale wars. I still don't like it. I still don't like using
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violence to do some type of conservation and say that's conservation. they
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have a pretty big following and they can get
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aggressive online sometimes so i got to hear about it when i posted that
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that episode on the same episode i also posted about rosie o'donnell
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how she caught a uh a scalloped hammerhead
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shark in florida it was in federal water so it was legal
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and you know I didn't like the way she did it because they are protected, they
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are under the Endangered Species Act of Florida, they're protected under Florida law, but
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it wasn't federal law, so it was just, it was a bunch of things, I didn't like
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it, I mentioned my opinion on it, I mentioned why it was important to protect these
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animals, and the fact that it should be federally protected as
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well as state protected, but some people didn't
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like it. The first comment I ever got was STFU. You
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know what that stands for. If you don't, you can look it up. But it's one
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of those things where you're just like, oh, wow, that was fun to see.
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But not everybody is going to like your episodes. Not everybody is going to
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like the content that you make. People are going to criticize. Just try. Just
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try to put anything that you title climate change on there and see
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the bots that come out and say, nope, you're wrong. You should watch this YouTube video.
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It dispels all of the other journal articles that talk about climate and
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how bad it is for the planet. This one dispels it all. It's not climate change.
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Don't worry about it. Just watch this one YouTube video. Well, that's
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not how it works, right? But that's what happens. You'll get that. But
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there are more people that want to know and want to learn the information that
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you have to give than there are people who want to criticize. I
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guarantee you, right? It all comes in the delivery. If you're aggressive
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with people, people will be aggressive back. If you come out and
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say, hey, I'm just going to be a resource for you. then people tend to
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be like, oh, this is great. Like if I wanna find something out, I will find something
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out. They may not agree with you all the time, but at least you can
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answer somebody, right? You can answer somebody's question that they might
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have, right? And you can even start by looking up on chat GPT
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or Google and be like, what are the questions around the ocean? What are the questions around
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coral reefs or whatever those questions are and start answering those
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so that people can be like, oh, okay, like I had this question, this
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is a common question, but I had this question and this person answered it.
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You know, and I think that's an important part is to be that resource for
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the people when you do science communication, just inform people what
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they need to learn and whether they want to learn or not. Those are the people
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that are going to, you know, answer or respond or
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even click a like or even, use that information. You may not hear from
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them for a while, but they're going to be there, and they're going to want you to
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keep providing information. That's what's happened with me. I've seen it happen to
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a lot of other people. People look up to you. People think you're like a celebrity at
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some times. It's kind of weird, but it's fun. It's really fun when
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you start to see people who really depend on the information that
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you provide. At one point, people were like, hey, I noticed that you took
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a week off. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't put out any content for a week.
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And people were like, hey, Andrew, I noticed you didn't put everything OK. You didn't put out any content today.
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You didn't put out an episode today. I was kind of waiting for it, hoping you'd get it. And
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then you're like, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't do it. But it's coming.
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Don't worry about it. I took a week off. You know, you gotta tell, sometimes you get to a position where
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you gotta tell people you're gonna take a week off. Regardless, it's something
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that's important. Just don't worry about the fear to begin. Everybody
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has it. Start recording first. If you don't wanna publish right
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away, that's fine. But then start publishing. And then just
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publish it and you don't even have to look at it. Just because it's already tough when you
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look at it when editing. We're gonna talk about workflow in a second. But
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once you post it, don't even look at the statistics. We'll talk about that in
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a second. All right, so the second thing. The first one was
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fear to begin. The second thing is trying to stay consistent. And
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I say try, and I know it's weird, because you're like, when you're consistent, you're consistent. It
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doesn't waver. But trying to stay consistent is a
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better effort than not being consistent at all. And I see this
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happen a lot. I'll see people try and make an effort. And I've done it myself, make
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an effort on a platform. say tiktok and they'll start posting
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videos every day sometimes twice a day sometimes three times a day
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and then all of a sudden they get burnt out because they realize how difficult it
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is to actually begin so the key to try
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and stay consistent because consistency matters when you start
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to publish stuff online because people want to come back and be like all
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right andrew's starting to publish Like what he says so far, so
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I'm gonna come back and if he publishes on a regular basis I'm gonna keep
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coming back and keep coming back now the platforms like that because they
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keep coming back to that part like your Profiler or your video or
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whatever it is and then people are like, oh cool Like the platform starts
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to say well if this person likes it that other people are
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gonna like it So we're gonna serve it to more people. That's how things go viral. That's
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how people get loyal you know,
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followers and so forth, and so that's what helps. So the consistency actually
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helps, right? It may not be the way to grow to
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a million, but the consistency matters, because if people know that you're continually
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going to be putting three episodes a week, or one episode a day,
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or one episode a week, people will come back and they will understand that
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this is the episode, I'm going to value it when I see it, and I'm going
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to look out for it. Some people, like I said, will wait for that timing, and
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like the first thing in the morning, that's what they want to hear, what they want to watch, that's important.
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So that's always great, but to be consistent doesn't
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mean you have to be the best. It doesn't mean that your editing
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job has to be perfect. It doesn't mean that you have to be discovery style
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good or National Geographic style good. If you're doing a vlog and
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it may not be the best editing or may not be the best of what you want to
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do, it's okay. Put out the product. It's
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the internet. The internet and podcasting and videos
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and YouTube is not made to be the best
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quality, the best audio, nor the best content. A
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lot of the times the content of YouTubers that do the best aren't necessarily
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people who actually have great content. It's just people who've gotten
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popular for a number of different reasons. It could just be
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they have a silly show that people are entertained by. could be
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that they're playing a video game that people want to watch. I've never gotten
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over people watching other people play video games, but that's a
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thing. That's just not my generation, but that's a thing, right? I've
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seen, you know, the culture around that and how that grows
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channels. I even have a friend, Emily in the
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Sea, I think is the YouTube channel. And Emily does
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these, for a while she does these vlogs, but
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then for a while she started like, I'm going to do a video game. And it was like a marine biology video
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game. And she started doing that, and she got like 80K people watching
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her play this video game. And she did a few of
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them, but then she's like, this is not the content I want to do. I want to do vlogs. And her viewership
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went down because people weren't, like that crowd was not
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a vlog watching crowd. But she still does really well on YouTube. You
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should check her out. I'll put a link in the comments below or
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in the description below. But that's something that's really important, right,
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is to stay consistent. You don't have to be the best. You don't have
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to have the best quality. You don't have to be the best editor. I've spent a
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lot of money on this microphone. I've spent a lot of money on this camera and
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this lighting setup, but that's over 10 years of doing stuff. It's
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Christmas money. It's birthday money. It's money I've got from
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editing podcasts and so forth. I've got better equipment. quarter,
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I've spent thousands of dollars. You do not have to spend those thousands of
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dollars. You can get a very similar sound
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that's podcast ready from just your MacBook if you
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want, right? Because it has a microphone on there.
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You can go out and spend $100 on a microphone and
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get a podcast sound. It may not be the
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best, but it doesn't have to be the best. Right? It just
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has to be good enough to get your content out so that people will
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listen. You still want good audio, but you don't have to be
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the best of the best. You know what I mean? Not everybody is
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going to have a radio broadcast or a CBC
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or an NPR style show. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on each
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episode of their shows. Right? If you are on
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the internet, you just have to make it sound good enough
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to get it across, to get the viewership across. And
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of course, you're going to get better, which we're going to talk about over time. You will
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get better as you remain consistent because you're going to try more things, right?
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That's the big thing is you get to try more things once you get
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used to your work process, your workflow. Okay,
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your workflow is everything that goes into putting an
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episode together, right? So it goes down to the idea, the
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research of that idea that you come up with that you wanna discuss. There
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is the recording, there's the editing, there's
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the publishing, and then there's the promotion, which is probably the
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most you spend on, the most time you spend on that 80-20 rule, right?
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You spend 20% on the production and you spend 80% on the promotion. That's
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a big marketing rule that I've learned that it's helped. I still haven't mastered
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it because I spend more time doing the stuff because I really enjoy it.
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But promoting it is a little bit more difficult to do. And
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that's probably why I'm not bigger in terms of followers over
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time. But that's something that you hear every creator talk about
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and you've got to promote. But that workflow is important
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because it's hard to set, especially when you're just starting off because
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you're experimenting. Right, you're trying to be the
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best editor. You're trying all the stuff I said, you don't have to be the best. You're trying to
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do that right off the bat. Everybody makes that mistake. Everybody wants it to be perfect.
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They don't want to stumble over words. They want to edit the crap out
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of your episode. And when you're just doing an audio, it's really easy
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to edit because nobody sees the difference. The visual aspect
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isn't there. It's just audio. So if you cut something, as long as
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you're not cutting in like in the middle of a word, people aren't
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really going to hear it unless it's really badly edited. But
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for the most part, I found editing just audio makes it a lot easier
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because you can cut some pieces out and make it sound like it wasn't even cut out.
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And it made it easier, especially when I do my solo episodes. I didn't want to mess up
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in the way that I speak. I didn't want to have too many ums. I didn't want to
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have too many ahs. But that's how we speak. It's
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raw. It's podcasting. That's what I love about podcasting. It's
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who you are as an individual. I always said people
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really enjoyed the stories that I told or the information that
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I gave at parties or at a function or something when they asked me
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about marine biology or ocean conservation. So that's how I tend to
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speak. I tend to speak like I would speak to anybody that I'm at a
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party with, or I'm at a function with, or I'm just talking to
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my friends. And that's the way I speak. And that's sort of my style
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of doing things. Some people like to be super professional. They want to be a
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radio broadcaster, and that's fine. But don't let all
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of that take up your time so that you don't publish
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consistently. Because that's what I see a lot of people do. They perfect
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the crap out of the stuff, and it takes four to five hours
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to put out an episode. but then you don't even do the promotion, right?
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It's all in the editing, right? Or it's all in the prep.
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Just get the information out as much as possible. It'll allow you to
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be more consistent and then you can get better later on.
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We'll talk about that as the third thing, but we'll talk about that in just
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a moment. But the big thing is, is getting used to that workflow, setting
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yourself up for something easier. So for the longest time,
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I've kept my editing down to a minimum where I would record and
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then I would just do audio, I would record, and
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then once I was finished recording, I would chop it up into little pieces, not
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little pieces, like three different segments. Actually, two different segments.
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I would have my pre-intro, then I would have my musical intro,
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and then I would have my actual intro with the rest of the episode, and then I
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would have the music at the end. That was all a template. I
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just had to plop in the recording, cut where I needed to cut, and I would put
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it together. And I would put it together within 10 minutes, unless
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something happened where I lost the recording or something happened with
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the audio, which happens all the time, or more than you think,
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and I had to just kind of fidget around with it a little bit. You
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know, I was able to do it. If the mic didn't get picked up
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and it was just my computer that picked it up and it wasn't the greatest
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sound, I would still put it out because I'm like, I spent enough time
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recording it and enough time putting it together. I
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wanted to make sure it went out. It wasn't always the best. I think I did it a couple episodes.
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It wasn't always the best sounding, but it was different. And a lot of the times the
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mistake happens when things are changed. For
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instance, I record on Riverside. It's a software that's
18:56
designed for remote recording. And I do it, I record my
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solo episodes, I record my interviews on it. It's a great piece of software. Highly
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recommend if you wanna get into science communication, especially
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digitally, you use that. But they just
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came out, I was using it off the web, off the web browser, but they just came out with
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an app. When I did the app, settings changed. It
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wasn't always the same setting. My microphone didn't pick up. It was my laptop microphone. which
19:20
wasn't bad, but it was different. And I didn't like it. I knew I
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didn't like it and I could have re-recorded the show, but I said, Oh, I did
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a pretty good job on the first time. So I'm just going to edit that and I'm going to
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send it out. Right? And then when I'd switch from audio to
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audio and video, I had to change my setup process. I had
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to change my software. I didn't just go with
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an only audio software. I went with a video software. So I
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had to learn DaVinci Resolve. That's a free software, although
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I paid for it because I wanted certain aspects of it because I was doing another project. We'll
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talk about another time. But I had to change my process. That
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took some time to get used to. I had to figure out the software. There
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were some complexities to it because I've never really done video editing or it's been
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a long time since I have. And then I kept to
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my process. And so I made that workflow new. Now I'm into
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that workflow and I'm starting to change up because I'm like, okay, now
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I'm on YouTube, I'm on Spotify. How do I get people to
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listen to this on those platforms a little longer without
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changing too much of my process, but it means I'm going to have to change my
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editing and the way I did structure the show. That's going to take some
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time to come to it, but I'm not going to let it stop me from posting
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consistently. I'm going to learn in the background. I'm going to do some editing tricks.
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I'm going to do some experimentation, and you might get some benefits of
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that. You might not get some benefits of that, but I'm going to continue to
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do that, and once I get into that new workflow, if I find that it's working, I'm
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going to have a new workflow, I'm going to have some hiccups, but I'm going to go through
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it, but I'm going to stay consistent. I'm still going to put out some episodes.
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I may not look great all the time, but I'm still going to be there,
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and I'm still going to say what I want to say and
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get that information out there. It's important for me to get that to you. That's my why
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is to get this information. Be that resource to
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you. Stick to that workflow. The
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last thing on this part of this trying to stay consistent is
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you will have to make sacrifices for consistency. And
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there's going to be some sacrifices in quality, just as I mentioned earlier,
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but there's also going to be sacrifices in time you dedicate. you
21:19
know, to other things that will have to be sacrificed in
21:22
order to remain consistent. If you decide to do one
21:25
a month, one episode a month, then you may not have to make as many sacrifices
21:29
depending on how much time and effort you put into each episode. But
21:33
if you do, for me, like three episodes, I have to come
21:36
up with a workflow where I batch record, so I try and do all my
21:39
three episodes of that week in one or two days. Then I
21:42
have to edit them, I have to prepare them, and I have to come up with a workflow to do that. I
21:46
have to sacrifice five to six hours on those days
21:50
to ensure that I get this done. If not, I'm
21:53
piecemealing it together, I'm staying up late, I'm not getting the right sleep, my
21:57
whole schedule becomes shuffled, and I'm gonna have to sacrifice something other
22:01
than that that's not good for my health. So here
22:04
I try and find some time every week and I say I have this block of
22:08
hours, I'm gonna do research all week to make sure I know what
22:11
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna write it all down so that when I'm ready to record, Bam,
22:15
I'm recording, I'm recording one episode, I'm recording two episodes, I'm
22:19
recording three episodes all at once. It doesn't always happen. Like this time,
22:22
going away for the weekend, I'm doing two episodes now. I'll do the next
22:26
one probably on the Thursday before I publish. It'll be a little last
22:29
minute, but it'll be good. But I'm gonna make sure that I have time to
22:33
record that as well as the week after's episodes, right? So
22:36
you have to find the sacrifices. You have to make some
22:39
sacrifices in order to get the consistency that you want.
22:43
Now, we've gone through the fear to begin. We got to the second thing,
22:46
which is trying to stay consistent. Now here is the third thing. Get
22:50
better at what you do. To get better at
22:53
what you do, the first thing you need to do, keep it simple. Keep
22:57
it simple. Start with a minimal viable product, right?
23:01
You're putting out an episode, keep it as simple as possible and
23:04
build on that as you go around. It's an evolution, people.
23:09
It's an evolution. You have to realize that
23:12
you are going to evolve slowly. And there's going to
23:15
be some things that you experiment with, that you come up with, and people
23:19
are really going to like it. And it's going to go. It's almost like natural selection. Oh,
23:22
this is the way to go now. We're always going to use this piece. And
23:26
sometimes it's not, it's gonna go extinct. You're gonna have to
23:29
drop that quickly if you find that people don't like that, people aren't watching, or
23:33
the numbers drop. It's an experiment, but it's an evolution. And
23:36
the ones that survive are the strongest numbers that get you what
23:40
you want, and people giving you comments back, like, I
23:43
really like what you did there, but also going in with your
23:46
instinct, like, I really like doing that, that's a really creative piece. But
23:50
build on that, just nice and slowly. You know,
23:53
as you build on that, you start to get stronger and stronger. And after about
23:57
20 to 60 episodes, you start to have
24:00
this product that's getting better. If you start by keeping it simple, it's great. If
24:03
you start by keeping it complex, like with editing and everything
24:07
like that, it's going to be harder to put out consistently and it's
24:10
going to be harder to get better. People understand that you're not going to be perfect
24:13
when you get behind the mic the first time. or the second time or the third,
24:17
but they're going to expect you to get improved over time and you will as
24:21
you get used to your personality will come up behind the microphone behind the
24:24
camera. We're going to start to see some smiles. It's not going to be all monotone. It's
24:28
going to be nice. It's going to be fun. You're going to change your voice pitch every
24:31
once in a while. You're going to you're going to start with some fun segments, right?
24:35
All that different stuff. Like I'm starting to think about things that I can
24:38
do creatively with now that I have video that will help
24:42
get people more tied into the episode. especially people
24:45
who are visual watchers instead of just audio listeners.
24:51
But you have to keep it simple right from the get-go so
24:55
that you can get more complex and you can get better. There's
24:58
always room to be better. You can always improve. You're never
25:01
going to be perfect and that's okay. Right, because you're going to put out information consistently,
25:06
but you can always have room to be better. That could
25:09
be the way you speak, the way you get your message across, the
25:12
way you edit and you start to start to learn about effects and
25:15
you start to learn about transitions. You start to learn all about all these
25:19
background noises and things like that that can get better, maybe some music and
25:22
all that kind of stuff. And you can get better and better as you go
25:26
along. You don't have to be the best right off the bat. Like
25:29
I said, it's an evolutionary process. And growth doesn't always
25:33
mean success, right? People always
25:36
start podcasts or video podcasts or a YouTube channel
25:40
where you're vlogging, everything like that, and you start to look at the views or
25:44
the downloads that you get depending on what you're doing,
25:47
right? How many followers you have, how many subscribers you have, how
25:51
many views you're getting, how long people watch your content. Obviously,
25:55
that's a big one. probably I think the most important over time, but
26:00
everybody wants to grow. Everybody wants to increase in the number of
26:03
downloads, increase in the number of views, increase in the number of
26:07
subscribers and followers. That means success. No, that
26:10
doesn't mean success. Your success depends on
26:13
your why. For me, I always want the person
26:17
who's listening to this or watching this to learn something
26:21
new about the ocean that could change their behavior in
26:24
the future and how they look and view and act for the ocean.
26:27
That is my why. So every time someone new listens, I
26:31
get a little closer to my why. So I don't need millions
26:35
of people to listen to my podcast. I just need one
26:38
more person. every single time just one more person or
26:42
one different person who's discovering the podcast for the first time and
26:45
they're listening to this and all of a sudden they're like hmm that could be good
26:48
it's not always successful that that person who listens they may not like what i
26:52
have to say or they may not like my style they may not like the content
26:55
it doesn't matter but one more person is listening to it so i have that
26:59
much closer But growth for me, I don't have to have
27:02
millions of viewers or downloads or anything like that. I just
27:05
want one more person. Because somebody said this to me one
27:08
time. I think it was Dave Jackson, who is a
27:12
big podcaster. He's a Hall of Fame podcaster. He teaches people how to podcast. School
27:16
of Podcasting is a great site if you want to learn how to podcast. He
27:20
talks about all the different sites. He's really great. And
27:23
he told me one, he said on his podcast one time, think about
27:27
like the people who start off and they have like one or two downloads. Maybe
27:30
it's their mom that's downloading or their dad or their brother or
27:34
sister or siblings. And that's okay.
27:37
But after a while, you'll start to get five, you'll start to get six, you'll start to get, and some people
27:41
get like 100 and 120. And then people are like, oh man, I only have 120. I only have 120 people who download my
27:44
podcast and listen to it. And
27:49
then he said to me, he said on the podcast, and I think he's speaking to me, that's how good
27:52
of a podcaster he is. He said on the podcast, he said, imagine filling
27:56
a classroom full
27:59
of 120 people. Those 120 people in one
28:03
classroom, imagine what that would look like. It would be standing room only. Right,
28:07
because what, in a classroom you can fit, there's what, 20 some odd desks? Seems
28:11
to be more and more these days, but that's okay. 20 some odd desks. and
28:16
you fit 120 people in there. It's packed to the brim. People
28:19
are probably waiting outside, listening in just for you. So
28:23
think about that next time when you have 100. You'll be like, oh, I need more downloads. No,
28:26
you don't necessarily need more downloads. You have 120 people that are listening
28:30
to the message that you're saying, and that's important, right?
28:33
And if you get too big, all the people might be
28:36
listening. They just might be listening because other people listen to it. They're just like, oh, I don't really
28:39
like it, but I'll download it, but I'm not really listening. But if you get a
28:43
core group of people that are listening, those 120 are always listening and
28:46
maybe interacting with you at some point, even if you get like
28:50
10 to interact with you on a regular basis and just have
28:53
discussions about the ocean or about what your topic is about, that's
28:58
where the growth is. That's the engagement. That's the success.
29:02
Because like for me, I'm starting a conversation on the ocean. I
29:05
want you, the audience member, to continue it. So I
29:08
want you to reply back. That's the reason why I give out my how
29:12
to protect the ocean Instagram account. It's why I
29:15
have my email readily accessible through the newsletter. I
29:19
want people to email me back. I want people to DM me because
29:23
I think it's important that we have discussions. Hence why
29:26
I started this podcast. It's a one way street, but it can be two way very
29:30
quickly. And so I ask every episode to, hey, give
29:34
me a shout, DM me, respond to the newsletter if you
29:37
want. Right? We can have conversation on this.
29:41
That's the important, that's my why, that's my success. It doesn't mean
29:44
I need a million downloads. It doesn't mean I need a million viewers. I'm
29:48
gonna take more viewers if they want, but I want them to learn. That's the
29:51
point. I don't want them just to watch for like five seconds and then get out. I
29:55
want them to watch a majority of the episode, form a thought,
29:58
respond to me, or respond to somebody else, or take an
30:02
action. So growth doesn't necessarily mean
30:05
success or lack of growth doesn't mean that you're not successful. I
30:10
should probably say it more that way. So I want you
30:13
to think about that when you're starting and you continue to do the
30:16
science communication stuff. A lot of people in podcasting will
30:19
stop after seven episodes. I don't know why seven is the magic
30:23
number, but after a while, after about seven episodes, people, a
30:26
lot of people, most people will stop their podcast. And it
30:30
could be for a number of things. It could be that the consistency is hard to
30:33
maintain. They made it either too difficult or they just don't have
30:36
the time or they didn't expect the amount of effort that they wanted to put in. It
30:40
would take them that long per episode. coupled with,
30:43
or in and of itself, not seeing the huge downloads
30:47
that they expected after seven episodes. And I don't know why they're expecting huge
30:50
downloads. They obviously didn't do their research in podcasting. Because
30:54
even with podcasting, it's very difficult to grow these days. There are so many podcasts out
30:58
there. And so it's hard to grow your numbers, especially if
31:01
you're not focused on promoting, or especially if you're at the beginning of
31:05
your podcast journey in terms of the first seven episodes. And
31:09
if you're not willing to put in the work, that's fine. If you don't
31:12
like the numbers you have and you don't wanna continue, that's okay. But
31:16
most people stop after seven. If you remain consistent and stay for
31:19
at least the first three years, you're gonna see immense growth right
31:23
from the beginning, from zero to maybe 1,000, maybe more, it
31:26
depends. But that's what you're gonna see. You will
31:30
see growth, but you may not see the crazy growth, and
31:33
that's okay. That's okay. As long as you have people listening, you
31:37
are successful. That's my opinion. You can make money. There aren't
31:41
many podcasts that are making millions and millions of dollars like you see like
31:44
the Joe Rogans. the Alex Coopers and things like that.
31:48
It's very, very rare to make that amount of money. But there are people who
31:51
have businesses and it's around their podcast and make money off
31:55
of their podcast where they can have a full-time job as a podcaster. There
31:59
are people who do that. I don't, but there are people who do that. And
32:02
if you put the money in and you put the time in and you get the money, then good
32:05
job, congratulations. Tell me how you did it. But
32:09
the big thing is, you know, start, don't be afraid to
32:12
start. Try to be as consistent as
32:16
possible and get better at what you
32:19
do. Don't stress the numbers. Those
32:22
are the three things that you really need to know if
32:26
you want to start science communication in ocean conservation. If
32:29
you have any questions, I would love to hear from you. Hit me up
32:33
and DM me at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean.
32:38
You can also respond to the newsletter that this goes out on if
32:42
that's how you heard about this show. And you can just respond to that and
32:45
just say, hey, Andrew, I heard your show today. I really loved it. I have some questions around
32:49
science communication. I would love to listen and I'd love to hear. If
32:52
you have a comment, you can put it on our YouTube under these video
32:56
in the comments below or on Spotify. They allow commenting
33:00
now. And you can watch the video on this one. And yeah,
33:03
let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear what you want to do for science communication. Or
33:07
if you've already started, I'd love for you to share your channel or
33:11
your platform or your account on whatever platform you're on. But I
33:16
think this is a really important episode for me to
33:19
tell you, because I've been doing this for almost 10 years. Actually,
33:22
really longer than that, but podcasting for almost 10 years. And it's
33:26
really changed my life, not only and the
33:29
fact that people recognize me a little bit more and listen to
33:32
me a little bit more and understand what I do, but also
33:35
it's changed my life and the confidence that I'm able to do in presentations
33:39
and speaking in front of people. It's gotten me jobs in and out
33:43
of marine science and conservation, and I think it's just
33:46
an important skill to have. I want my daughters to have this skill. They've done
33:50
some podcasts where they haven't published anything, but my one daughter is going into
33:54
zoology. I'd love for her to be able to follow in
33:58
my footsteps and do science communication for wildlife biology,
34:02
what's important, what will be important, and what's important to her. But
34:06
it's something that I think everybody should get into because more people need to learn
34:10
about the things that are affecting our oceans, our planet,
34:13
nature in general. And being able to do that is to be able to connect
34:17
with them where they're at on social media, on these digital platforms, and
34:21
be able to inform them. Because people are looking for resources to learn
34:24
from stuff and quality resources. And if you get scientists and ocean conservationists
34:28
who do great work and want to share that great work, whether
34:31
it's an organization like a large organization like WWF or
34:34
Oceana, or Ocean Conservancy or whoever, or
34:38
if it's an individual like you and I that just want to share and share
34:42
our passion for ocean conservation and science and
34:45
also making sure that people know what's happening with the ocean or what's happening with
34:48
our planet, I highly recommend that you take this up and you contact
34:52
me at HowToProtectTheOcean. I want to thank you so much for
34:55
joining me today. This has been a fun episode to do. I look
34:59
forward to having more conversations about this with you. Have
35:02
a great day. This has been the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo,