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Spotify's Latest Changes: What You Need To Know with Krystal Proffitt · Buzzcast

• 0:00
  Kevin: I took that as a personal nod to Kevin, thank you that they recognize that all of the content they have in there is not a podcast that they're like, technically, it's not a podcast, but it's, you know, like the Joe Rogan show is not a podcast right now. It's a show. So I really appreciate it that Spotify is trying to win me over.
• 0:14
  Jordan: Is it working?
• 0:16
  Krystal: They're trying. It's a slow burn.
• 0:25
  Jordan: On this episode of Buzzcast Alban is out, so we have invited Krystal Proffitt of the Proffitt Podcast and the Poddy Report back on. Hi, Krystal.
• 0:36
  Krystal: Yeah, I love being here. Thank you for inviting me, Jordan, and it's good to see you, Kevin. Yeah, it's say that because I literally was gonna say I just saw Jordan. It hasn't even been a week. We were together like just hanging out just a second ago. So yeah, this is awesome.
• 0:53
  Kevin: So how was it? You guys were just at Podcast Movement Evolutions, right?
• 0:56
  Krystal: Yes. In Vegas.
• 0:58
  Kevin: Okay, so that is like a conference that I've never been to like, which is surprising because I've been to most podcast conferences, but I've never made it over to evolutions. And I've heard this from from people. But I want to hear your take on like, what is the big difference between Podcast Movement Evolutions and the regular Podcast Movement, I guess, proper, or original Podcast Movement that takes place every summer.
• 1:18
  Krystal: So for me specifically, this is the first time I've ever attended Evolutions, the last time I went to a Podcast Movement was actually in Nashville in 2021. So the comparison is like night day, because that was like the height of Delta and Mark Cuban being there. And like all the things that happened in Nashville that year, but this one definitely felt smaller. I had talked to a few people that said that they were expecting maybe 1500 people there. I'm not sure what the exact number was, but it just felt a lot more intimate. The other ones that I've gone to, I feel like were just podcasters everywhere. And they're like, hey, you know, there's just like a different kind of energy, where everyone just felt like, listen to my show. And this is what it's about. And this is what I'm trying to do. And that Creator energy that I just I've really felt at Podcast Movement.
• 2:07
  Krystal: The last time I went was missing at this one. This one felt a little bit more. I'm trying to think of the right word to say it because it's not a knock on like industry podcast, but it's it just felt more like corporate in a way that it hasn't felt previously at other podcasts conferences. Like I felt like there was a lot more suits.
• 2:29
  Krystal: That's the best way to say it.
• 2:29
  Krystal: Like there are a lot more suits running around. Yeah, that I'm like, Oh, they must be an important person where I'm like, Hey, I'm in my workout clothes.
• 2:40
  Krystal: And I'm just I showed up to because this is how I podcast.
• 2:43
  Krystal: This is how I live my life. And that was the biggest thing is I felt like so much of it was catered to industry professionals, or people that are looking to make not just a business out of their podcast, but like, create a brand like smart lists. And you know, Joe Rogan, and like these, the biggest podcast in the world.
• 3:00
  Krystal: And that was the biggest one.
• 3:03
  Krystal: But Jordan, I don't know what other things you want to add.
• 3:07
  Jordan: I definitely agree with you that it felt a lot more corporate, I think there was a really heavy focus on branded podcasts. There were so many talks about that. But it was definitely more intimate than Podcast Movement. And it was so weird because we were in such a big space in this casino, essentially. And I knew a lot of people that were there. And for like days, I was just like circling the expo hall, like hoping to see people. I literally would like sometimes be in the expo hall for like 40 minutes waiting for a session and like, kind of looking for people that I know. And like nobody stopped to talk. Like I didn't see anyone I knew. It was so weird.
• 3:48
  Kevin: So this is very different than what my perceptions had been about Evolutions because I thought, in my mind, Evolutions was a place more for independent podcasters and people who were like looking to get into podcasting, like a place for beginners to go. But it sounds like that's not either my perception was totally off, or it's like maybe evolutions is shifting a little bit.
• 4:08
  Krystal: I think back again, I don't like the comparison of like my previous experience. And this one, I would say that there were so many more people just getting started at the previous Podcast Movement that I attended, whereas this one, there were still some beginners, right? They had a beginner tract, and they had, you know, people that were they just recently started in the last few months or they were about to get started. But I felt like that was the exception and not the rule. Most people were there that were some of them that didn't even have a podcast. They were agents or they were podcast networks, or they were editors or managers that were looking to, I guess find the next Joe Rogan person like I don't know, like I don't really know what their whole shtick was, but I felt like there was a lot more of that that I hadn't seen previously.
• 4:57
  Jordan: I think that this Podcast Movement was a little less attended because it was based in Las Vegas. Like I had talked to so many people. And I was like, Are you coming? Are you coming? And they're like, No, I don't like, I don't like Vegas. I don't want to go to Vegas. This was the third time I've been there. I really enjoy walking around and like seeing just all the sights and the shows and stuff like that. This was a very different experience going to a conference there was not so great. I mean, it was in the casino, right? So like, you just walked in, I had to wash my clothes when I got home because they just kind of smelled like cigarettes. The other thing was how expensive it was. It was never that expensive before. So Kevin, they had a Starbucks in the hotel. I got to breakfast sandwiches and two coffees. What do you think that cost me?
• 5:45
  Kevin: It was expensive? I mean, how is Starbucks pricing not standardized across, at least the US? You would think to breakfast sandwiches and two coffees that that should be like no more than 20 to $23.
• 5:57
  Jordan: It was $50.
• 5:58
  Kevin: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 5:58
  Kevin: That's like more than airports.
• 6:01
  Krystal: Yeah. Oh, no, it was more expensive than the airport for sure. For sure.
• 6:06
  Jordan: So I want to touch on the things that I did really enjoy from Podcast Movement Evolutions. And Kevin, you and Alban had talked about how at pod fest, like you had people like Buzzcast listeners come up.
• 6:16
  Jordan: And I finally got to experience that this time at evolutions.
• 6:18
  Jordan: And it was really fun. I got to see people from the Facebook group and get to hug them in person. And that was really awesome. And then also doing the pod News Live show on the stage at evolutions was really cool moment. For me, that was really fun. And it was great, because I have always kind of had a little bit of an insecurity about how much I outline. I feel like I do it too much where to the point where it's like almost scripted.
• 6:45
  Jordan: And I was so relieved to see that James and Sam actually outline the heck out of the Podnews Weekly Review. And I was just like, yes, I've never been so comfortable on stage, as when I had that in my hand.
• 7:00
  Krystal: This is like the number one thing that has helped me because Jordan, Jordan and I will always say like, we're on the opposite ends of the spectrum, when it comes to editing, like Jordan knows how to masterfully like curate something that's just going to be like, you know, the most sweetest thing that could ever hit your ears and me, I'm like, I'm gonna record this and I'm, unless I make a huge mistake, there's gonna be absolutely zero editing. And I'm gonna run that maybe through magic mastering and we're calling it. That is my level of editing. But it really does help the more that you have things scripted out. And even if you don't say it verbatim, I always tell people like you want to be scripted, but not sound scripted. And that's where you kind of it just comes in practice, practice, practice, practice, the more that you record. And the more that you put stuff out there. It just really helps you read your outlines faster or know like those key elements that you want to remember or say, or you even want to quote yourself, and you know, not be all weird about it.
• 8:03
  Krystal: But say something like, Oh, this is the point I want to like, reiterate like, say it once and then say it again slowly, because you're just trying to put the emphasis on it. But it really does help that script. I love it.
• 8:16
  Kevin: Krystal, you ran a session, right?
• 8:17
  Krystal: Yeah, it was on the beginner track. And it was called How to Talk to Yourself.
• 8:20
  Krystal: And it was lessons learned from 1000 podcast episodes. So which is crazy, crazy, like it is bananas 1000 podcast episodes.
• 8:30
  Krystal: So for you know, anybody that that doesn't know. So I didn't mention earlier, I have a daily podcast. And at this point, that Daily Show, which I started in 2020 has 790 ish episodes that we're up to now. So that one alone has so many and then my profit podcast has, you know, 400 So we're I mean, we're at 1100 episodes at this point. And so I thought, Well, it'd be really fun. I mean, first of all, what a name right? Yeah.
• 8:59
  Krystal: 1000 episodes, people are like, cool. What in the world? What are you talking about? But yeah, that was it was so fun, and the beginners that showed up there.
• 9:10
  Krystal: So this is one thing because like Jordan, I said, it was very intimate. And that wasn't always like a bad thing. Like it was a really awesome thing. Because I felt like if the sessions would have been a lot bigger, it wouldn't have allowed for such a I guess a space where people could ask really good questions and then like come up later and chat with you or ask questions like, Hey, let's go out to the hall you know, and talk for a little bit, which you don't really get that if the sessions were huge. And so that was that was a lot of fun. But it was it was great. I loved having Jordan. Jordan was like my cheerleader and she was like, Oh my God! This is great. She laughed at all my jokes which is I mean to to anybody, like that was fantastic.
• 9:53
  Jordan: And I have like a really loud cackle so I'm sure that helps. No, I loved that you had like an Oprah moment. To have like you get a book, you get a book.
• 10:02
  Krystal: Yes, yes. So I had my husband go with me. And that was fun too. So Jordan and I both had our husbands. And that was, that was interesting too, because I had never gone with me before. And he vaguely he's not into podcasting. He's not in a digital marketing online business space. So he doesn't really get to see what I do. And so for him to come and help out and watch me speak on stage, and he handed out copies of my book, to people that ask questions, it was it was a lot of fun. It was really cool.
• 10:30
  Kevin: It's great. So what were what was the size of the rooms?
• 10:33
  Kevin: Like big rooms, but smaller crowds? Or?
• 10:36
  Krystal: Yeah, I mean, well, I would say it was like, the way that the beginner room was set up was kind of nice, because it actually had tables and chairs and everything, I would say that they probably had them set up for anywhere, probably 50 to 75 people to sit comfortably in those rooms. And then I think for my talk specifically, there might have been around 30 ish, I would guess.
• 10:58
  Kevin: I agree with you. I like that session size, though, like 30, that's a good size. What I don't like is when they put you in a room that can like see 200 And then you have 30 people Yeah, and it kind of zaps the energy. But if you're in the right size room for that size crowd, then it can feel really good, exactly what you said.
• 11:13
  Krystal: I felt about 50% full like it felt like it felt like it was just enough. And it was again intimate enough and small enough and and spatial wise for the beginner tract was great because it was more of a rectangle room or a like rectangle as in like wide.
• 11:28
  Krystal: Whereas some of the other ones were very long and narrow. And it made it kind of awkward because you were super far away from the stage. And some people again, at a podcast conference didn't know how to use their microphone, which is really funny, because you could tell which ones were podcasters and which ones weren't. Because you could hear people screaming from the back, like put the mic to your mouth. Come on, like put it up there. But it was it was great. The size of the rooms were awesome. And the intimacy of having people tell you about their podcast and ask you questions was just I mean, it's what I live for. And it was it made it everything worthwhile to go.
• 12:07
  Jordan: There was something in your session that you had talked about that really resonated with me so much, and I wanted to talk to you about it while I have you on here. But you chatted about how stumbling is necessary. And I personally struggle with like an intense fear of failure or a fear of like judgment from others. And so stumbling is not something I want to do ever. I think that your talk actually helped me a lot. And yeah, so I just want to talk with you a little bit about your points on that.
• 12:37
  Krystal: Yeah, to set up the story a little bit, I shared a little bit about how it's really cool to share the highlight reel, right, you're all the cool things. I've spoken on stages.
• 12:48
  Krystal: I've done this, I've done that.
• 12:48
  Krystal: And that's the Instagram highlights that everybody sees, you know, everything that's on your feed. And people are like, Oh, you're so successful, or you're so this or that. And I love sharing the messy places of my story. Because that's when people really relate to you and say, Oh, you've messed up to like, you're not perfect, because a lot of people, especially podcasters, and content creators in general, think that so many of us just woke up one day, turn on a camera, put a microphone in our hand, and we're like, oh, I'm a YouTuber, I'm a podcaster. And I never make mistakes. And I'm like, oh, no, actually, I've made all the mistakes, which is why I can stand here today and tell you what not to do. And so I shared about, you know, being a stay at home mom for several years. And I was like, I don't Is this do I need to just do this with my life forever and ever. And then I started writing, I started blogging, I did that really, really badly. I always tell people, I was a terrible blogger. And then my blogging mentor started a podcast and I was like, Oh, well she can do this, then I can do this. And so that's the stumbling phases of me getting into podcasting, and then eventually figuring out like, Oh, I really love this. Like, I don't just love creating the podcast, but I love helping other people make it easier because I can explain things that aren't technical or that aren't super complicated. And so if I hadn't have started at that point in my journey, I wouldn't have stumbled into podcasting, which is eventually what I did.
• 14:22
  Krystal: So you know, for anybody that's listening right now, if you're in this awkward stage of I don't really know what I'm doing. I just launched a podcast. I'm just getting started. I'm trying to figure this out, like kind of sit in that awkwardness until you can push through it because Jordans had it Kevin's had it like we've all had it. And you don't have to have all the answers all the puzzle pieces like out on the table fit together perfectly. To get to that next step. Maybe figuring something out is what you know, who knows, maybe that's how they ended up with chat. GBT. Yes No fumbling around with stuff. And they're like, Oh, hey, look, we got this thing to spit some cool stuff back out at us, you know.
• 15:07
  Krystal: So you just got to keep going.
• 15:08
  Jordan: Yeah, it's like a macro version of trust the process, for sure. And when you're a perfectionist, it's really hard to do that.
• 15:16
  Krystal: Yes.
• 15:17
  Kevin: There is this gift that we all have when we first start out in whatever creative endeavor, you're starting out.
• 15:22
  Kevin: You don't have an audience yet, right. And so in the podcasting world, not only do you not have an audience at the beginning, but you might not have an audience for a long time, it's really hard to grow your audience on podcasting. But in podcasting, but instead of like looking at that as a negative, like I'm doing all this work, and not a lot of people are listening yet, like the other side of the coin on that is that you have this time to hone your craft to get really good. And while you're getting good, the people who are following you along while there might not be many, they're cheering you on.
• 15:49
  Kevin: And they're they're becoming these, like super fans of you.
• 15:51
  Kevin: So like when you get really big, like everyone wants to be the first fan of whatever bands like there's a huge band, they're super popular. You're like, oh, well, I listened to them back in the 80s. Right? Everyone wants to be that person. Yeah. And so people want to be like that for podcasters, too. So they're cheering you on, they want to be your earliest fan. And they it's so great for them to be a part of that journey to listen to you in the beginning and listen to you stumble, and listen, you stutter and feel awkward and find yourself and find your voice and build your confidence.
• 16:15
  Kevin: And then years down the road, when you have a larger audience or, you know, someone's looking for new podcasts. And they can recommend you, they can say, Oh, I've been listening them for years, and they've been on this great journey. It takes a lot of confidence. And for sure, like podcasters talk all the time about this imposter syndrome that we all experience to some degree. But like I think what I hear you saying and it's very encouraging to me, and hopefully anybody who's listening, this is like, instead of looking at it as I have to perform, I have to be perfect, like look at it as the gift of I don't have to yet like this is an opportunity for me to figure it out and to get better. And the few people that are listening, they understand that I'm not great. And maybe that's what they like about me.
• 16:52
  Kevin: And so like push into that step into that, and you'll get better over time, but you got to stick with it. You got to keep plugging away. You got to keep showing up every week and you got to keep doing it because the only way you're gonna get better is by keep doing it.
• 17:04
  Krystal: Yeah. And I want to circle back around to bands are being fans from the beginning.
• 17:07
  Krystal: Because Lance Bass from NSYNC was there. We were fangirling.
• 17:11
  Krystal: Totally.
• 17:16
  Jordan: I literally got to the keynote stage 20 minutes before that, and I got a front row seat.
• 17:24
  Krystal: So awesome. I saw her up there with her phone. She was like snapping pictures, take videos. I was like I love it.
• 17:29
  Jordan: I did! I got a lot of videos and I have my phone like in front of my face like this.
• 17:33
  Jordan: And I know at one point like Lance locked eyes with me, and I know he saw me like with my phone up in front of my face.
• 17:44
  Krystal: He's great. And he hasn't aged a bit for anybody wondering he hasn't aged a bit.
• 17:48
  Jordan: Yeah, he looks great.
• 17:49
  Kevin: What is Lance doing now?
• 17:49
  Kevin: Is he is he in podcasting.
• 17:52
  Jordan: He's like a cosmonaut.
• 17:52
  Jordan: And he's no, yeah, he's got a podcast.
• 17:58
  Krystal: I just remember Guncle and I thought that was the funniest term ever.
• 18:01
  Jordan: So yeah, he's really big on TikTok, which is Yeah, Guncle Lance. So, gay uncle.
• 18:09
  Krystal: Your gay uncle Lance.
• 18:09
  Krystal: That was the best term. I'd never heard that before. Like, oh, my gosh, this is great.
• 18:16
  Jordan: That was actually really great session. Yeah.
• 18:18
  Krystal: So he is and I don't remember the name of their organization, but it was for the LBGTQ community and what they do over on iHeart. So I know that that was the thing that they were talking about on the main stage was the inclusivity and like DEI, for just that. I'm trying to think of what their organization was called. But it was it was really interesting to hear about just having more diverse voices and podcasting, so it was a good session.
• 18:52
  Kevin: Okay, so also, at Podcast Movement evolutions, James Cridland from Podnews, got up and did a session and he went through his podnews report card.
• 18:58
  Kevin: Did you guys attend the session?
• 19:02
  Jordan: It was great. It was really interesting. And he started the report card out with some context of information he had gotten from pod track. And this is going to sound a little bit stat heavy, but like, bear with me, because I know and this slide came up, I audibly gasped, I was like, This is so cool. So the first slide was about the audience of the platforms. And you know, their share of a full audience because they have done this over 2 billion global downloads in January of 2023. So in January, a third of all US podcast listeners, were using Spotify as a platform. But here's the kicker, this is where things get interesting. The total share of downloads, Apple podcasts had 70% of the share of downloads, even though they only were a quarter of the platform usage, which is crazy.
• 19:56
  Krystal: So when he put these up, like it literally took my brain a second to be like, Wait, this makes zero sense to me.
• 20:04
  Krystal: Like, I don't understand what's happening. Because I'm one, you're saying that you know, a third of all podcast listeners on Spotify. But then you go to the next slide. And it's 70% of all downloads are coming from Apple. And so I just I found this to be so interesting. Well, first of all, I don't use either app for my podcast. Anyway. So you don't know. I don't use either. What do you use? So I use good pods, like I'm a tried and true, like, I love good pods so much. It's the app that I always use. So hopefully, it'll be on the list one day, it's not even on here. It's not it's in the other category at this point. But I just thought it was so interesting, because I was thinking, well, are people just really listening to episodes?
• 20:50
  Krystal: Like, I mean, how is it such a stark difference from the amount of listeners to the amount of downloads? I don't know, what are what are your thoughts?
• 21:00
  Kevin: Right? So I have a theory, but I'm wondering, did James, did James present his own theory on this?
• 21:04
  Jordan: I don't recall that he did.
• 21:06
  Krystal: I think that he went into it. But again, this was like, there were like, 1000s of charts and this presentation. So we want to we want to know your theory. Kevin, What's your theory?
• 21:18
  Kevin: All right. So my theory is these apps work very differently. Apple podcast is set up as like a download app.
• 21:23
  Kevin: So when you follow a show, even if you don't listen to the most recent episode, that it's downloaded, it has it queued up in the background for you, right. And so it's downloading on a regular schedule, whether you're listening or not. And as long as you have some level of interactivity with the particular podcasts that you're following, it will continue to download. And so I think, I think it's like, until I think by default, until it has like three episodes that you haven't listened to at all yet, it will just keep downloading. So as long as you're listening to like one out of every three episodes that drop for a podcast feed, it'll keep downloading them.
• 21:56
  Kevin: Spotify is very different. I think, again, by default, I'm not sure if you can get in and configure it to work differently. But out of the box, I think it won't download anything, like you'll follow shows, and it will just have queued up so you can tap them to listen. But it won't actually download anything until you tap to listen to the episode. And so I wonder if that's where the huge discrepancy comes in.
• 22:16
  Jordan: Yeah, I think you're right. And also, I'm remembering that Apple podcasts, I think it was last year rolled out the autoplay feature, where it just like, will queue up the next podcast episode, and it will auto play at the back end of the episode that you just finished listening to. And similarly, Spotify actually just launched that same feature where they are queuing up for auto play. So I'm wondering if next year, we're probably going to see Spotify taking up a bigger share of the downloads if they start automatically playing other podcast episodes. Another slide that came up that I thought was really interesting is audience share for these platforms. One that really stuck out to me is that Amazon Music has jumped up 126% James said that he was thinking it was because of them rolling out the ad free versions of like wondery, podcasts, things like that. I forget what the brands are. But if you have Amazon Prime, then you get access to ad free versions of podcasts. And so that could have helped their share of audience.
• 23:24
  Krystal: And I have to say like I don't like just existing in the podcast sphere, if you want to call it that. I don't hear a lot about Amazon or wondery. But I heard so much like there were they were very, very present at Podcast Movement evolutions. I don't know if it was because the proximity to La it seems to be where most everybody was coming from, from one dri. But there were so many people there. So I feel like I mean, they're showing up like they were definitely there to talk about all the different things. I didn't see anybody from Apple, Spotify, there were some people from I heart. And I want to say, Stitcher baby. I don't know if there were or not. But I mean, there was definitely if you look at all the players that are here, they definitely showed up to like have some skin in the game at Podcast Movement evolutions, for sure. So I'm curious to see what that looks like in the future.
• 24:24
  Kevin: Yeah, it seems like out of all of these players. Now, I don't want to take anything away from Apple, because you guys know I'm really coming around to what Apple is doing in their podcasting app. But it does seem like Spotify is out of these companies that we're talking about. So Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, like Spotify is the one that is most aggressively trying to improve their listening experience like in their app, right. And it's not an easy task for them because they also have to balance music, but it seems like that's kind of how they got their foothold in the world was that they had really kind of the best music listening experience in an app. Like anybody who uses Spotify will tell you the curation of their music, their suggested playlists that they do and all that stuff. That's what sets them apart from everyone else. And so it seems like maybe that's just part of the DNA of that company is that they really want to create these amazing listening experiences. And so when they started off in podcasting, it's been easy to criticize them and say like, it's not that great compared to what others have been doing. But their approach seems to be, hey, we don't have to knock it out of the park day one, but we are going to continually improve and iterate and make this better and better and better. And they're doing a lot like we're going to talk about some of the new stuff that are introducing, you know, in a second, but their app is continually getting better. Now, I don't use the app very often, but I am constantly checking it like two or three times a year, because they're making these big announcements of all these things that are doing to improve the listening experience.
• 25:42
  Jordan: That's kind of the thing is like, you know, moving on to the actual Podnews Report Card, where James surveyed a whole bunch of podcasters and listeners, that's totally reflected in the results from this with as far as like the overall like experience with the apps, the insights of the apps provided, how the creators feel the apps are working for them, too. You can see it reflected in this year's survey results that Apple and Spotify are scoring a lot higher than they did the previous year. It's definitely known throughout the community that they're making really big improvements.
• 26:20
  Kevin: Yeah, to contrast that we're not seeing that same level of improvement with Amazon, Google. I mean, we'll see what YouTube is doing. But YouTube seems like they're just kind of like trying to figure out how to fit podcasting into their video first solution. So I don't know that we're gonna see a lot of adoption there. Now, it's not that doesn't mean that's totally bad. Because anytime one of these new platforms that has a large user base already comes onto the scene, it introduces a whole new level, or a whole new world to podcasting. Right. So there are people who probably just live in YouTube and use it a lot, who don't venture out and discover podcasts today. So as podcasts, enter the YouTube ecosystem, new people are gonna find out about podcasts. And I think the same thing probably happened with Amazon music.
• 26:59
  Kevin: There's a lot of people who use Amazon music, and they introduced podcasts, and they got introduced to podcasting through that. But if you really want to get people to move from one app to another, like if you want somebody to stop using Apple podcasts as your primary listening app and jump over to Spotify, or jump over to an Amazon music, then you really have to provide a compelling reason for them to do that. And Spotify strategy seems to be, we want to create really good experiences for people who were listening in our app. And it seems to be working for them.
• 27:28
  Kevin: And again, not to say that Apple's not improving because they are their app is getting really good. But I just don't see that same thing happening.
• 27:33
  Kevin: And Google podcasts is doing nothing. I don't really know that Amazon podcast has changed much since launch. And they've been out for a while now.
• 27:40
  Krystal: You brought up YouTube.
• 27:40
  Krystal: And I have to say that video podcast is one of the things that people kept talking about.
• 27:47
  Krystal: And it's funny because I think I went to almost every session about video podcast, and the definition of each one was different, every single session.
• 27:54
  Krystal: So I'm curious, Kevin, if you had to describe a video podcast, what would that look like?
• 28:02
  Kevin: Oh, boy, I would want to understand, like who's asking the question, so I could speak to them in a way that aligns with what they're thinking, like, I'm not really big on-
• 28:10
  Krystal: I'm a brand new podcaster. I've never created an audio podcast or video content, like, I just want to know, should I do a video podcast?
• 28:16
  Krystal: What would you say to them?
• 28:21
  Kevin: I would say no, I would say no, I wouldn't suggest that you do a video podcast. So like a true video podcast would be a video file that is has an associated RSS feed, right. And you can do that. You can't do that on Buzzsprout. But there are ways to do it. It's just not very popular, because, well, there's a whole lot of work that goes into creating video, first and foremost, hosting that yourself or on somebody like Buzzsprout, like Libsyn or something, it can get expensive, because the files are big. And so when you're, you're doing paid podcast hosting, you're going to be paying for all that bandwidth and storage. And so the easier solution to lower barrier to entry solution to that has been YouTube. And YouTube has come along and said, Oh, you can host here for free.
• 28:59
  Kevin: And we have millions and millions of people who are on our platform looking for video content, we've got a really great recommendation engine. So if you do something that's compelling, we'll try to serve it up to people who might like that kind of stuff, and we'll help you grow. And so they've dominated that space. Now, that's not video podcasting, technically. But it pretty much has become that because YouTube, like owns the online video space. And so I would always say like, if you really want to get into video podcasting, even though YouTube technically, isn't it, it's a fine solution for it. Now, that being said, we will see if Spotify has the ability to change that. So Spotify seems interested in competing with YouTube for online video stuff, which nobody has challenged YouTube in the video space for years and years and years. So let's see if Spotify can actually pull something off here and open up the video space a little bit.
• 29:46
  Kevin: Their initial entry into the space was just like for Joe Rogan and a few other select shows. Since then, they've said okay, now anybody can push video into Spotify, but you have to use our publishing tools to do that. And now most recently, they said we're going to open Add it up so that you can push video and even if you don't use our publishing tools, so I'll be interested to see, I don't think unless you're like someone who loves to live on the cutting bleeding edge, I don't think it's a space that anybody should jump into right now, because I think you're gonna be doing a lot of work for very little audience. But over the next couple of years, if Spotify proves out that they can actually serve up a reasonable sized audience for video, podcasting, and it's open, meaning that anybody can publish from any other platform, then maybe my tune will change a little bit. I still think for a beginning creator who's trying to figure out what their voices and who their audience is, and all that kind of stuff, I still think video is not a great place to start, because the equipment's more expensive, the editing is harder, the requirements that you need in terms of computer space and bandwidth, and the amount of audience that you have available to you who have to be actively engaged to watch a video versus can passively consume your content, like when they're driving a car or walking a dog working out. It's smaller. And so it's complicated. And it's a long discussion. But I really liked the idea of crater starting and audio only true podcasting, distributing to all the platforms, deciding if they want to move into video over time, and then taking a look at the landscape like where it is, whenever you happen to step into video. If you were doing it today, I would say YouTube first strategy, but maybe in a couple of years from now, maybe it's Oh, no, you actually have to have your video in both Spotify and YouTube. And maybe it also includes publishing with an RSS feed to anybody.
• 31:23
  Krystal: I love, like everything that you just said about video podcast from your perspective, because I think that what a lot of people forget is that while YouTube is great at doing all these things, it's taking on the burden of the files and the storage. And it's such a luxury, and they've been doing it for so long that we don't take that into consideration when we're thinking about putting because I think about this all the time people ask me, Well, why can't I just upload my podcast to my website, I'm like, well, because your website will crash.
• 31:56
  Krystal: Especially if it's a 4k video, like good luck getting anything longer than like 15 seconds to play on your website without the whole thing shutting down because it's so heavy. And so I think that the way that you're thinking about it, in terms of video podcasting, on YouTube, on Spotify, like whatever places, I'm in total agreement that if you're just getting started, it's not worth the hassle. Like, figure out your topic, figure out your audience, figure out who you really want to speak to and your content. And then down the road, you can add in video and add in those other things.
• 32:30
  Krystal: But typically, most people aren't as comfortable on video as they are behind the scenes.
• 32:38
  Krystal: Like, did you do a lot of awkward things with your face?
• 32:40
  Krystal: Like let's be honest, like people do a lot of awkward things with their face. And they have to sit down and like I I learned so much about what not to do by recording myself watching it and being like, Why did I do like, I'm not even looking at the camera? What am I even looking at? Or what am I doing and so, but that came well after I had been podcasting for a while. So it's too much. It's too heavy. To get started with video first.
• 33:11
  Jordan: Speaking of Spotify, trying to compete a little bit with YouTube, Kevin, what you're referencing is their new announcements that they've made at their stream on event last week, they announced a few things, the first being that some of the features that were previously only available to anchor podcasters have now been made available to any podcaster no matter where you host. So these features I'm talking about are the q&a. That is like a question answer, like the podcaster can post a question.
• 33:40
  Jordan: And then in the app, there's like a little Reply button for the listener to answer that question. And kind of give like a little bit of feedback, or their two cents to maybe talk about on a future episode. And then the other feature is polls where you can actually run a poll on an episode and it kind of shows up just right on your episode description. You'll see like a little widget on the Spotify app that has these. And one of the things that kind of struck me was they said to kick things off, we added a q&a to your most recent episode, if your podcast is on Spotify, and I went, Oh no. I went to my Spotify for podcasters dashboard on the dashboard next to like the episode audience, stuff like that. There's a new tab called interact. And when you click on that, you can see the q&a and the poll for every episode. And so I looked and they did in fact, post a question on my most recent episode, saying what do you think about this episode? So I clicked on it and I had seven responses and my responses-
• 34:57
  Kevin: Let me ask you, how were the quality of those responses.
• 35:02
  Krystal: To be fair, we have to tell the audience, we got to read these ahead of time, so we know exactly what they are.
• 35:08
  Jordan: Thank you for setting me up on that, because I could barely get to this sentence without laughing. So the first response that I saw just says Poop. And the second one says iPad, and the third one says IDK. And this is the kind of thing I kind of expected from having a question posted on my podcast. So I went ahead and disabled this because they have automatically enabled these questions to be posted for every single episode that publishes.
• 35:36
  Jordan: So next to the little q&a on the column, there's a little settings cog, and you click that and you're able to on toggle that, so it doesn't automatically, yeah, you can turn it off. And it doesn't automatically update your episodes anymore with these questions. So you can delete them, you can change the questions to be something else, you can add the polls from here.
• 36:00
  Jordan: And so yeah, I definitely turned mine off. Because I don't want any more comments from my listeners.
• 36:06
  Kevin: One of the things that I saw that was nice was that while they did give everyone a question by default without necessarily asking your permission to do so, they didn't publish the responses by default.
• 36:16
  Jordan: Yeah, they don't publish your responses. So you can go into the questions, and you can select certain responses to be published, so that it will actually show on the episode page.
• 36:26
  Kevin: So I guess this is a fine way for them to introduce something like this. I was wondering, Kevin, what's your opinion of this? I was trying to think through the interview myself again, like, what do I think about this, and I actually don't have a problem with it.
• 36:38
  Kevin: It's not done in an open way.
• 36:41
  Kevin: They're not using any sort of open specification to be able to do this. And so that brushes me a little bit wrong, because I like the idea of open podcasting. So like, why if we're going to do polls, if we think polls are good things for podcasts, why can't we do them in a way that's open for everybody. But that's not on Spotify, that's on the open community. So the open community hasn't really come up with it and propose a solution to that yet. And so since that we they haven't done that we haven't done that, then what's wrong with Spotify saying, well, we want to do it. And so we're gonna do it our own way? And I guess my answer to that is, there's nothing there's nothing wrong with them. Like I like the idea of having some sort of standard spec that the whole community builds around and supports. And then if any company wants to innovate, above and beyond that, in their own proprietary way, no problem, go do that. And so I think that's what they've done here. I didn't like before how they did it in a way that you had to publish through their publishing tools to use it. But now that they're opening it up, I think it's, I think it's great. Now the open community can respond and say, Oh, everyone's loving these polls and questions on Spotify, we should come up with an open way to do that so that others in the ecosystem can use it as well, fine. But I don't think Spotify is necessarily has an obligation to participate in the open community in terms of like bringing their ideas and innovations, their first they can bring into their app first, and then open community can respond. So if anyone was wondering, to answer my own question, I think I'm okay with this implementation. And I think I'm really okay with the way that Spotify is trying to do it too. Like, maybe they blundered a little bit by saying, Oh, we're gonna give everyone a default question. But I could see their their logic and reasoning and saying, Well, we won't publish any of the answers, we'll just let the podcaster see them. And then they can decide if they want to publish them or not. And so I'd say that's totally fine. Like, maybe not maybe like Jordans, like, I'd really didn't like that you guys did that to my podcasts, I know, you have a large percentage of your audience listening there. But at the same time, like, I think that kind of trying to walk that line between, like, we want to push new features, and we want to show everyone how they can work and give him an opportunity to test them instead of waiting around and hoping people discover them. And at the same time, we're not going to publish their answers. So we kind of give you the control.
• 38:39
  Krystal: Well, I think to like if you think about because I love I love this feature. So much. Like I know Jordan has mixed feelings about it. And of course, there's gonna be people that put poop on every single episode they ever listened to.
• 38:51
  Krystal: That's just kind of what happens. But I love marketing, and I specifically love market research. And this is a way for people to get that immediate feedback, because people are always asking me, How can I understand you know, if my episodes any good? And I'm like, well, first and foremost, are you getting any downloads, number one, that's that's like the very first, you know, thing that you need to take into consideration. But having this immediate feedback, whether it's a star rating, or actual, like people giving you that like, text based message back to you that says, This was great, or I didn't love this, or like, all of it is really just data, it's just sometimes can be hurtful, right? Let's just throw that out there. Like, you could get stuff that's like, Oh, this is terrible. I hated this and maybe even come at you with like, very specific reasons why they don't like it and you're like, okay, like, we're gonna delete this, like, no one's ever gonna see that. But I love the idea of having that feedback, but also having the option on what you want to publish what you want to put on your show. And it kind of helps you build that character around what you want your podcast to represent. And it could be Hang on this. So if you all have the information or the data, but I think that Spotify skews younger, and people that have grown up or have had Amazon around their entire adult lives in their consuming behavior habits, like everybody's just used to reviewing things like, Hey, I listen to this thing, I bought this thing, and I reviewed it, or people in like, kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, they're used to reading reviews before they decide, is this worth my time?
• 40:29
  Krystal: So this is just another way for people to decide, you know, episode by episode, like, oh, this was a fantastic one, I can see from all these comments, I should go ahead. Like it's worth 30 minutes of my time or an hour of my time, however long it is.
• 40:43
  Krystal: So I'm all for it. I just I think that there's a way that you can do it to be inclusive with the Creator on what they want to have on their show.
• 40:52
  Jordan: You know, it's interesting, because in the last episode, we actually had talked about how lonely podcasting can feel. It can just feel like you're talking into a void sometimes. And so I actually think that this is a really good fix for that having this sort of like interactivity in app, it's really easy for people to use.
• 41:09
  Jordan: It's just like, right there. And I think like a good use case for this for a podcast like mine would not be so much like, what did you think? Because like, I actually don't really care personally what people think.
• 41:24
  Jordan: But what I do care about is what do you want to hear in the future? Do you have story suggestions? Do you have tips for something? Like what's a big pet peeve that you have, and we'll share it on the next episode? Like this is definitely a tool that can be used for something like that, I think.
• 41:42
  Kevin: Yeah. And maybe the polls would work better for a podcast like yours, where you could select maybe four or five stories that you're thinking about doing upcoming and then let them choose instead of like, open ended questions where they can write things that are just completely random.
• 41:55
  Jordan: Yeah, yeah. And I definitely use polls all the time. On my podcast, I'll run them on Instagram, or on my Patreon, or something like that.
• 42:01
  Jordan: And so this is another place where I can do that and say, like, hey, like for our big spring episode, what do you want? Yeah, that's definitely way to do it in a controlled environment.
• 42:12
  Krystal: I was gonna say, I'm gonna go check my podcast out after this and be like, Oh, do I have any poop comments on mine or other other colorful things that people have said?
• 42:22
  Kevin: Well, I will say that we think, this hasn't been confirmed, but we think that this is only available for people who have claimed their podcast on Spotify. So we have a couple of different shows, some are claimed on Spotify, and some aren't. And as far as we can tell, like the questions, the default questions that they push for everyone's podcasts, we're only showing up on podcasts that we know that there's like a claimed Spotify account behind it. And so if you're looking at your podcast, and Spotify and you don't see that question, that's maybe because you haven't set up your Spotify account and linked your podcast to it yet.
• 42:48
  Kevin: So you can do that. And then you can check out polls and questions and see a little bit more insights into activity like demographics and stuff that people who are listening to your podcasts on Spotify, so it's worth doing.
• 43:01
  Jordan: So a couple of the other things that they announced Spotify said to stay tuned for an update on the video podcasting, so I don't, I don't think that they have rolled out video podcasting for podcasts not hosted on their platform, but I think that it might be in the works down the line. In addition to that they have a new podcast feed. And what this is, is on the homepage of the app, if you click the little podcasts and shows they have what they call a machine learning selected clip playing for podcasts that they think that you might be interested in. It's
• 43:36
  Kevin: This is just them putting a bunch of buzzwords around listen, you ripped off the TikTok UI, it's TikTok for podcasts, or TikTok for music.
• 43:42
  Kevin: That's all it is. Yeah, they got to put like It's like blockchain machine learning AI Virtual Reality scroll. TikTok.
• 43:52
  Jordan: I think they were trying to avoid the term AI because it's being used so heavily right now. So I but I think the machine learning aspect of it is actually more geared toward what clips they choose, because they said that it selects clips that you would find the most interesting from the podcast. So I don't know if it's like going through it. I think they might be transcribing the episodes though, because my podcast, I do not have it transcribed. And I noticed that it was actually playing the transcription while my audiogram was playing. But yeah, it's very much like TikTok. It actually reminds me a little bit more of Instagram. So like you scroll up and there's just like a block of a podcast and it has the cover art and it has like an audio Graham playing and you have the ability to follow that podcast right there.
• 44:39
  Jordan: When the clips done playing, you can click to continue listening to it. And they also have videos showing up. So if you have a video podcast on Spotify, then you can also have a clip of the video playing. It's really funny though, because they said that there are seven The 1000 video podcasts on Spotify. And I scrolled for so long yesterday and I did not get a single video podcast pulling up on that feed.
• 45:09
  Kevin: Yeah, I had a similar experience. I did see one video podcast, but it was Joe Rogan now and we all know he's been doing video on Spotify forever, like since he came over. So that wasn't shocker.
• 45:20
  Krystal: I'm scrolling so long, and I don't see anything. I told them. I was like, Okay, let me let me see if I get this feature on here. I updated my app. I don't have a premium account.
• 45:29
  Krystal: That's why I was like, well, maybe I don't have it. No, I just maybe only like people have or maybe I'm the only person in the world that doesn't have it.
• 45:34
  Krystal: I don't know. But it's not working for me, so I can't even see it and test it.
• 45:39
  Kevin: I was surprised, I didn't know how to find it. Jordan walked me through how to find it. And then once I did what she said it did work for me. So it was go to your home screen. And then you have to, have at the top, I think it's called podcasts and shows ,which I might be the only person in the world. He found that interesting that it's podcasts and shows instead of just podcast. But it was almost like a nod to me, I took that as a personal nod to Kevin, thank you that they recognize that all of the content they have in there is not a podcast that they're like, technically, it's not a podcast.
• 46:08
  Kevin: But you know, like the Joe Rogan show is not a podcast right now it's a show. So I really appreciate it that Spotify is trying to win me over.
• 46:14
  Jordan: Is it working?
• 46:16
  Krystal: They're trying. It's a slow burn.
• 46:19
  Kevin: Maybe I will say this, I've been a fan of anybody who tries to introduce podcasts to more people. And like I like anytime an app comes out and says hey, we're gonna try to get more podcasters discovered, like, I think this is great. I don't necessarily think that there's a huge discoverability problem in podcasting. But if if somebody wants to take on marketing on behalf of podcasters, like I'm in your corner cheering you on. And so I really like that they're exploring these ideas. What I would really like to do though, is I would like for this just to auto scroll for me. So this feels like we've been talking about very much like Instagram stories or rails, they call them or tick tock experience where I have to sit there and look at my phone and scroll these things.
• 47:01
  Kevin: So every minute, you know, the clip I'm watching is over. And then I've got to swipe up to see the next one, I want to just turn this thing on and put it in my pocket, or just drive my car.
• 47:09
  Kevin: And I'm just basically it's like putting your, you know, your old school car stereo into scan mode, you know, where it's scanning stations for a song that you'd like. And then as soon as you hear a song you'd like you'd like hit the button, it stops and you'd listen that song. I want to put Spotify in scan mode for podcasts where it's just scanning through podcasts, and then all of a sudden I hear something that's interesting, then I'll pull my phone out of my pocket, tap a button and listen that whole episode. What do you guys think?
• 47:33
  Kevin: Good idea? Bad idea?
• 47:33
  Jordan: Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
• 47:34
  Krystal: I keep thinking about what you said with you know, discoverability and having marketing tools for podcasters.
• 47:41
  Krystal: I think that anything that can help people have their shows discovered organically without having a PhD in SEO and keywords. And you know, titling things sit like such a specific way that it loses all kind of meat of the episode, you're like, What am I I don't even know what I'm listening to.
• 47:59
  Krystal: Because somebody's just keyword stuffed all these things that they learned from a video they watched from 10 years ago, that's not even relevant anymore, then I'm, like I'm all about it. I'm all about the tools that help podcasters just make it easier, because that is the number one thing that I hear from people is it's so awkward to talk about my show, it feels braggy or it feels like I'm just talking about myself. And so helping podcasters feel more comfortable saying, Hey, you could just go to your Spotify app, and you know, start liking podcasts that are similar to this category. And you know, I hope that my podcast shows up.
• 48:33
  Krystal: But you'll also find other shows that are out there that we would also be interested in.
• 48:40
  Kevin: That's good. There is this tag in the podcast namespace called soundbite. And there are a lot of apps that have kind of built a real a lot of really great features around the sound bite tag. It would be like doing backflips if Spotify is like, hey, we develop this new feature, this new scrolling thing that's similar to tick tock but totally different than tick tock, right. And it introduces podcasts to people.
• 48:59
  Kevin: And that's a great thing for podcasters. I would love it if they would look in your RSS feed and say, Oh, if there's a soundbite tag associated with an episode, then that's what we'll use as kind of your highlight for your podcast. Because then it gives the podcaster some level of control of, hey, if you're going to play a clip from this episode for somebody, and it's only going to be 30 seconds or a minute, here's what the one that I would suggest you use that I would like you to use as the creator. And then if there's not that that tag doesn't exist Spotify, use your machine AI to do whatever you want. Pick whichever one you think is best.
• 49:28
  Kevin: But if that tag is present, like why not let the podcast creator have some control over this a 45 minute episode, if you're only going to play somebody 30 seconds of it, you're only going to pay 45 seconds of it. This is what I would suggest you use or I would prefer you use than why not use that tag.
• 49:44
  Krystal: And I've already created so many in Buzzsprout that you can just go in and grab them. They're already- they live in there already. Like please go grab them and just take them with your API and show them to whoever you want to because I've already taken the time to create the thing and put it there.
• 50:01
  Kevin: Right you've already gone through your episode and tagged like this episode at this timestamp for 45 seconds or 30 seconds is the highlight reel for the episode and like we think about these things as creators right like it's like I want to tease the episode but I don't want to like give it away like I don't want to. Oh this it's a comedy podcast and you like totally botched my joke or you just came in with my best joke, like I want to give a teaser joke not the best one, whatever. But that should be in control the creator, not necessarily some machine that is smart at Spotify smart was an air quotes there.
• 50:36
  Kevin: Jordan I was listening to the Podnews Weekly Review and they do Boostagram Corner.
• 50:41
  Jordan: Uh huh.
• 50:41
  Kevin: I was wondering what was going through your head while they played that booster Graham corner intro? Were you thinking, You guys don't know this, but your audience hates it?
• 50:53
  Jordan: No, I wasn't thinking that. It was really funny though, because one of the Boostagrams that they got that they asked me to read was from Genebean and I was like, Oh, I know this guy. So it felt very, I felt very at home, really.
• 51:10
  Krystal: Very comfortable.
• 51:12
  Kevin: Okay, first boost this week comes from Dave Jones. He said Uga an example of the amazing creativity of the University of Georgia fans. And you know what I'm I'm a gator fan myself. And we kind of have a bit of a rivalry with Georgia.
• 51:25
  Kevin: So I will receive that comment as complete sarcasm. Personally, Georgia fans are not creative at all. And I'll get is a silly name for a mascot. I totally agree. And Alban is not here to defend it. So we're gonna go with that. Thanks, Dave. Go Gators! Gator Nation.
• 51:38
  Jordan: All right, we have at Mere Mortals Podcast. Been a while since I heard an update of what you're working on in terms of P 2.0 tags. Is there any LIT or value tags coming? Please and thank you. Kevin?
• 51:54
  Krystal: I'll just say I don't know anything about that.
• 51:58
  Kevin: So value tags you can do today on the podcast level, you can't do them on an individual episode level or splits. But if you don't have now, like if you don't know, if your podcast is on Buzzsprout, and you don't have value for value enabled, and you want it, you just drop an email to our support team.
• 52:10
  Kevin: And they will walk you through that process. We don't have a UI for it, but is fully supported at the episode level and splits.
• 52:16
  Kevin: It's something that we continue to discuss and figure out if that's something that enough people need for us to actually build a UI around or how we're going to support it. And LIT is in that same boat. It's more like we love the technology. But we have to prioritize and build things that a lot of people are going to use. And so like just this week, like we're rolling out the text tag, which isn't super exciting, but it's another Podcasting 2.0 tag that we're rolling out or podcast namespace tag that we're rolling out. So it stuff's always on our priority list. And it's just kind of us shuffling around what the majority of people are asking for and looking for. So I love it. Like it's cool, and it's fun. But there are so few podcasters out there that can actually take advantage of it.
• 52:53
  Kevin: So if you don't know what it is, it sounds for live item tag. And it's like if you want to do a live podcast. And so why would you ever want to do a live podcast? Well, it gives you an opportunity to interact with live audience. So if you have like a chat room going, or I don't know how well it's maybe some you figure out some way for people to like hop into your Skype call your zoom call or whatever. And you can interact-
• 53:12
  Krystal: It's like Clubhouse, like that's what I keep thinking.
• 53:14
  Kevin: Yeah, like a Clubhouse kind of thing. Right. So you could do live podcast, the reason to do it would be to interact with your audience. And so I keep coming back to if we're going to support the live item tag. How can we do in such a way that we also give people the tools to be able to interact live with their audience. And so that's where our thinking is on that. But yeah, we're staying up to date and always looking at all the new innovations that are happening around the podcast namespace.
• 53:36
  Jordan: And then Krystal, do you want to read Genebean's since I got to read Genebean's on Podnews Live?
• 53:41
  Krystal: Yes. Okay. So Genebean says, I was really glad to hear y'all say that you are investigating how to facilitate getting our episodes into YouTube. I don't have the time or energy right now to make a video version of volunteer technologist. But I'm interested in expanding my reach to the audience. The hesitations I have are pretty much what you all said, stats would only be there.
• 54:02
  Krystal: It's us only and only in YouTube music. Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts on this too. So you know, we're talking about video podcasts and what that looks like and what that really is. And when I think back to all the different experiences I've had, because I create on audio only for a podcast, and YouTube video only. And mine have never been the same. It's never been having video and then stripping the audio. And that's my podcast. I've never done that from the beginning. But I think that having your content in some way on YouTube, even if it's just YouTube shorts, could actually be a great way for you to get discovered by another audience on YouTube and it would be less work than having all the editing done for videos or making sure everything looks great or doing something in Canva or putting B roll on like there's just like Kevin said earlier, there's a lot of complexities that come into video. And because it's not something that is, you know, supported by every single podcasting app, whether it's your host site, or it's the actual app that you're playing in, we're just we're not there yet. But I do think that having a presence on YouTube is a way for you to gain organic traffic and have someone discover your podcast, and then have them move over to a podcast player that they already know and love, like Apple, Spotify, or wherever they're listening.
• 55:33
  Kevin: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 55:33
  Kevin: And I think YouTube is great for exactly what you said. But I would also say like other social channels can also work in that same way. So if you happen to be a big fan of YouTube, and you engage with it there and you like, then maybe that's the place for you. But if that place for you is tick tock or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Mastodon, or whatever, like any of those channels, can you can invest in them the same way the pitfall might be like spreading yourself too thin and trying to do all of them. And so if you love YouTube, and you love Instagram, like go for those two, or if you're only in one, just like go for one, but don't try to be everywhere, at least initially. Like that's too much for any one person.
• 56:08
  Jordan: We also have a tweet from Sarah Rossett. She said, I agree podcasting can feel lonely. But I think it's probably similar to the world of books where readers of different genres have different behaviors.
• 56:17
  Jordan: So she said that the best ways we found to connect with our podcast audience are through surveys, meetups for meals or drinks at writing conferences announced on the podcast before the event and Buzzsprout subscriptions. I totally agree with this, Sara, these are absolutely the best ways that I've also found to connect with the audience, especially like I preach surveys all the time. I love surveys so much. But meetups are such a huge deal to especially if you live in a big city where maybe your listeners are close by you can do that.
• 56:51
  Krystal: Yeah, it's so powerful when you get in person with people. I mean, like I said, Jordan and I were just in person together. And we haven't seen each other in person for a year and a half. And it's just it's there's something so special.
• 57:03
  Krystal: And to know that you share this collective will in our case, it's this collective nerdiness bond about podcasting. Like we love it so much. And we can just geek out and talk about it. So being in the presence of, you know, people that have that shared experience or that shared interest, it just gives you this energy that you can't replicate in a digital space. So definitely anytime you can get in person with people, it just it makes it a lot of fun.
• 57:29
  Kevin: I love this idea for like niche podcasts, like a Disney That's a great thought. Sharing that same sentiment we have podcast or something. You probably go to Disney all the time. And a lot of people listen to your podcast probably go to Disney all the time. So maybe people are already doing this.
• 57:39
  Kevin: But if not like Why aren't you saying hey, when I go to Disney, I'm going to have lunch at this restaurant from 12 to one, and I would love to meet you. And like here's what I'll be wearing. And this is the right time to approach me and say hi and get a picture and let me talk to you about my podcast. So you're like inviting your audience to interact with you that way.
• 57:53
  Kevin: There's a lot of people who do sports podcasts, I might be going to this game and watching this and here's my tickets are in this section, or I'm gonna stand outside this hotdog stand outside the venue for an hour after the game. And if you want to talk, I'd love to meet you there. Like maybe you don't live in a big town. But maybe you go places where you might bump into podcasters I do a travel podcast, I'm doing this trip at this time with my family and it's a family trip. But I'm gonna go to this attraction and I'll be there at this time for an hour. If you guys want to plan a trip. That's a great place to go. And I'd love to bump into a meet you there.
• 58:21
  Kevin: Whatever like like make it your own, figure out how it could work for your podcast for us.
• 58:23
  Kevin: Since we talked about podcasting. We always say we're going to these conferences and if you're there we'd love to talk with you. But it might be able to apply to lots of different things. So just think about that. Maybe you can use it.
• 58:37
  Kevin: David John Clark saying really connects with your thoughts on a lack of listener engagement with podcasts. Funny, I was out hiking when you talked about not being able to interact while on the go. I tried to remember for later such as now to interact.
• 58:50
  Kevin: And then he said I tried to rate and review shows and individual episodes via pod chaser. I liken it to the IMDB of podcasts, which podcasts are now on IMDb too, much easier than logging into individual platforms such as Apple or Spotify. I feel though many podcasters don't see the pod chaser reviews yet. I agree. I think a lot of people miss that too.
• 59:10
  Kevin: Jordan might see them but she just hates reviews. So she won't read them.
• 59:13
  Jordan: Yeah. I don't see reviews.
• 59:16
  Krystal: I think it's, well, I think it's great when you can have so if you're in Jordan's case where you you don't like to look at that, like have someone that you love and trust and that loves you and is supportive of your journey to look over those for you and maybe pull out the ones that you know would be a confidence boost, like on a hard day. Because I mean, we've all been podcasting for a long time.
• 59:37
  Krystal: We know that sometimes it just sucks like maybe you don't have the energy to record or you're really you have 1000 Other things personally going on in your life or professionally and you're like I just don't feel like recording today. But having one of those that you can pull up and it's that confidence boost that I know I need as a podcaster when somebody says this one episode like really helped me get through a hard time or going back to, you know, after my podcast movement, talk somebody, you know, DM me on Instagram and said Your talk was exactly what I needed to hear today. And that will get me through those times when it's a little bit harder. So I love reviews, find someone that can read them for you. If you're like Jordan, who doesn't want to see him and then these are your top three best reviews, look at these and remind yourself, you're on the right track.
• 1:00:25
  Jordan: You know, what's so funny is that I actually also implement the review buddy system. So my husband was always the one that would like, look at the reviews. And then if I had a really good one, he'd screenshot it, send it to me, right? I think I need to fire him because he slacked off a little bit on the gatekeeping of the bad reviews. So now it's like he'll walk by the office and be like, do you see that jerk that left you one star? I'm just like, No, no, no, no, don't tell me. He's fired. Just completely forgot why he was hired for that in the first place.
• 1:00:58
  Krystal: Fired. He's fired.
• 1:01:01
  Jordan: All right. Well, I think that's the show. So thank you for listening and keep podcasting.
• 1:01:05
  Krystal: Got my kids. I threw them outside. They're playing basketball right now on all my only charge to them was Don't scream outside. Like why do we have to repeat like Don't scream. Why is that a thing?
• 1:01:18
  Krystal: They're 13, 10, and 7.
• 1:01:24
  Kevin: Does it work?
• 1:01:24
  Krystal: No, they're screaming outside. Still.
• 1:01:26
  Jordan: I heard a couple times while you're recording. Like, BLAAAAH!
• 1:01:29
  Krystal: I was like, I need a I need a mute it then I was like Jordan, she can work her magic editing and mute my whole track.
• 1:01:38
  Kevin: Any of your kids have like the friend that is the low?
• 1:01:42
  Kevin: Yes, yes. Yes. And you know, when this kid is coming over your house, and you're just like, I can take it or I can't today. And I just my prayer is that, like, my kid isn't the loud kid for somebody else.
• 1:01:54
  Krystal: Well, how many kids do you have again, Kevin?
• 1:01:56
  Kevin: I have three
• 1:01:56
  Krystal: You have three. Okay, that's what I was saying. So I have three, too, and there's always one. I feel like there's one in the bunch that I'm like, when he goes over to somebody else's house. I'm pretty sure that he's taking all the snacks screaming very loudly and hopefully using his manners but not 100% sure. And so it's kind of like that gentle reminder when they're out the door. Like, just be a decent human, please.
• 1:02:20
  Krystal: Thank you. Like
• 1:02:23
  Jordan: That's my youngest, too.
• 1:02:23
  Jordan: She's, before we went to Podcast Movement, I told my mom I was like, okay, she will eat all the snacks like you have to limit her. She will. We just stocked up the pantry. Everything stocked is ready to go. But do not let her eat snacks all day.
• 1:02:37
  Jordan: And I came back and I don't have any chips left. So I think she went through like three bags of chips.
• 1:02:46
  Krystal: No, I've heard of people that put like those latches at the top of their pantry because they're the kids can't reach it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is genius. This is so smart.
• 1:02:57
  Kevin: Kids will get through that really quick. Don't, if you can prevent your kids from eating snacks by just putting a latch up high like, there's something off. Like they're getting, they're getting snacks a different way that you don't know about.
• 1:03:11
  Krystal: Go look under their bed and you're like, What is this?
• 1:03:14
  Kevin: They have a stockpile somewhere. Kids are, they don't give up that easily.
• 1:03:17
  Jordan: Oh my gosh, I found out that my daughter's stockpile is in my room.
• 1:03:23
  Kevin: She hides it in your room?
• 1:03:24
  Jordan: It's in my room. She's so good that she hid the food in my room. And I didn't find it until later I foun, oh my gosh, I moved I have this like rolling hamper thing. And it has like removable bags. So I never moved the hamper itself, which she must have known. And so I moved it out when I was vacuuming and I found a banana. A sucker.
• 1:03:51
  Kevin: Kind of random.
• 1:03:53
  Jordan: And the banana was like black and hard and I was just like, how long has this been here? No!
• 1:03:59
  Krystal: Petrified banana.
• 1:04:00
  Jordan: Oh my gosh, I was so mad when I found this like, disgusting banana in my bedroom.
• 1:04:04
  Jordan: I was just like, you've got to be kidding me. Little turd.
• 1:04:10
  Krystal: Oh my gosh, that's great.
• 1:04:12
  Kevin: All right. Well, let me tell you. I hesitate. Because this is another sports story.
• 1:04:14
  Kevin: Jordan and I apologize crystal you're in sports at all?
• 1:04:17
  Krystal: It depends. Yes, maybe.
• 1:04:17
  Krystal: Go for it.
• 1:04:21
  Kevin: I don't think Jordan gets this story, because I posted it to our like, company Basecamp thing and she didn't she didn't give me a boost. Everyone else give me a boost. This last weekend, our kids had their swim meet. They go to swim meets all the time. Well, this was a pretty big meet in the state of Florida and Katie Ledecky, who's like the greatest women's swimmer of all time, I shouldn't even say women's, she's like she's the greatest distance swimmer of all time doesn't matter what your gender is.
• 1:04:41
  Kevin: She's amazing. She was swimming there. And she was swimming the mile, which that's a normal event for her and so everyone's like, Oh, it's great. Like we're gonna get to see her swim. But what we did not expect was that she set a new American record for the mile which was like it really is a world record I guess call it American record because only the US swims the mile. It's like only a US event. But I got to see a person swim the fastest mile swim in the women's division, like, in real time, like watching the GOAT swim.
• 1:05:12
  Kevin: Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I was crazy, like nobody expects.
• 1:05:17
  Kevin: And so she jumps in, they go off and like in the first 50 She has already like a half a body length the head of the next closest person. By halfway through the race. She'd already lapped everybody. And then by like three quarters of the way through the race, everyone else is slowing down. And she's going faster. And so she's like, already lapped everybody. So she's like more than 100 yards ahead of the next closest person. Well, and people are watching the times, and we're all like she's swimming this really fast and like she always seems really fast. So we're not sure like what's going to happen and she starts coming down that last 25 And she's like two seconds ahead of the world record time and she touches the wall. I'm not like as into swimming as everyone else who's there because it's just my kids.
• 1:05:52
  Kevin: Like I was never a swimmer. But she touches the wall the place erupts like she's you know, she's done this seven times. Now she's beat her time seven times.
• 1:06:02
  Kevin: But she's excited. Everyone's going crazy. Like no one expected the small little meet in Florida just like a regional thing. And she set a new world record. I cannot believe it.
• 1:06:09
  Krystal: Did they have it, like because I'm thinking of like when you watch them on the Olympics, like Did they have the time on their of like what the record is, that's how I was like, Oh my gosh.
• 1:06:18
  Kevin: This was just like a regular, like a bunch of high school kids. She was swimming next to high school kids while she did this. They have these open events where like high school kids can swim, and college kids, and professionals, to anybody who wants to get a time can just go jump in these open events. And I guess she was feeling like I've been training and I'm gonna good place and maybe I can better my time. And so she just jumped in and swam it and I cannot but I've never seen something that like historic happen real time in real person. Like in life, it was amazing.
• 1:06:44
  Jordan: And that also would just be wild to see someone you know, who's just like Superhuman by in swimming. Like just, I mean, I can't even imagine how like how fast she must have been going.
• 1:06:54
  Jordan: That's crazy. It was crazy. So cool.
• 1:06:58
  Kevin: She's amazing. And then she hops out, cools down for like five minutes and they will cool down pool and then gets out and like takes pictures with all the kids who were there and like super nice to everybody. And it's just amazing. She's an amazing person. So whether you're into swimming or not like we've got this amazing athlete, that's just like crushing it the best of all time in women's swimming, distance swimming, and she represents the US and I got to see her in person. I was totally beyond myself. It was amazing.
• 1:07:22
  Krystal: Did you get a selfie with her? Kevin, be honest.
• 1:07:24
  Kevin: I didn't. I stood back and let the kids get all the pictures.
• 1:07:26
  Jordan: You're just like pushing them out of the way.
• 1:07:28
  Krystal: You're in the background. You're like, you know, like, Hey, I'm the dad of the back. I got my job. Here. I got all the dad jokes. I'll be here.
• 1:07:38
  Kevin: It's amazing, though. I think you experience it differently. Like I think the kids thought it was pretty neat and stuff but like as an adult, recognizing that you're actually in the presence of like the greatest person to ever do this ever. Like it's it just hits a little differently. Like yeah, that's awesome.