Latest / Buzzcast / Why Apple Podcasts Automatically Downloads Your Episodes

Transcript

Why Apple Podcasts Automatically Downloads Your Episodes · Buzzcast

• 0:00
  Travis: So Alban, do you have any recommendations for Halloween podcast since we're coming up on the best holiday of the year? I'm not biased at all.
• 0:05
  Travis: I may or may not have actually been born in Halloween
• 0:09
  Kevin: is your birthday Halloween?
• 0:11
  Travis: Yeah, my birthday is on Halloween.
• 0:12
  Kevin: Well, that's something I'd much rather celebrate your birthday than Halloween.
• 0:15
  Alban: This is not a podcast recording. This is just me talking.
• 0:20
  Kevin: Well, I'm the only one with high energy. not keeping it going.
• 0:23
  Alban: Travis asked me a question. Did you interrupted.
• 0:26
  Alban: Remember I said she's a Reese's in here that
• 0:36
  Travis: circle back. Alban, do you have any good Halloween podcasts to recommend to people?
• 0:43
  Alban: Yeah. So amazon music reached out, I don't know, maybe a couple months ago and said they are doing a series of promotions. And one of them are a Halloween themed scary podcasts. And so I put out a call to the Buzzsprout Facebook group and said, Hey, what are some great Halloween podcast hosted on Buzzsprout you know, scary stories. And I got a big list. And we went through and we listened to a bunch of them and sent over some of our favorites.
• 1:11
  Alban: And three of them were selected by amazon music and they're going to be promoted starting, I think Friday. So those are marked safe, a disaster podcast, which is there actually are friends who did the TIC Tock videos that went really well. So I feel like they're just on a roll right now killing
• 1:30
  Travis: it.
• 1:30
  Alban: The real Halloween scary story is like what happens if you go to an amusement park and like, you know, the roller coaster goes off the tracks.
• 1:36
  Alban: Then there's another one called eclectic stories of the paranormal, which is a paranormal podcast, and pn w haunts and homicides, that's like Pacific Northwest. And they're just kind of learning like, Hey, what's happened around in this area, so it's all like kind of ghost stories and true crime, but it's all kind of focused on that area. But all of them were picked up. And they're all going to be getting promoted inside of amazon music. So congrats to them. And if you aren't a member of our Facebook group, go ahead and join because that's where if we ever hear these on the Buzzsprout side, there's an opportunity for some additional promotion or something we can do for you.
• 2:22
  Alban: That's probably where we put out the call first. Just since that's where our community hangs out.
• 2:27
  Kevin: I have a question. Yes, the word paranormal, right? I understand the prefix para Uh huh. Meaning like abnormal or apart from normal but then how does that make sense in the word parachute? What are you like an abnormal or
• 2:46
  Alban: wait no is because it's like a long side or near what the
• 2:50
  Kevin: shoot para it's a long side of what near what
• 2:55
  Alban: near you you're you're falling in the parachute is near you.
• 2:59
  Kevin: What's the shoot part apart from maybe it's the apart parasail It's a part of shooting so it's like it's it's different from shooting is
• 3:07
  Alban: a shoe that is apart from you.
• 3:11
  Travis: Like because you have like paratrooper paragraph,
• 3:14
  Alban: right paragraph is like that it's
• 3:16
  Kevin: set up like people taking this prefix and just applying it in all these weird ways. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:20
  Alban: paranormal, like beyond other use apart from
• 3:24
  Kevin: paragraph makes sense.
• 3:24
  Kevin: Because it's, it's an apart from a longer story.
• 3:28
  Travis: So according to a quick Google search, it's from the Greek para, which means beside in combinations, often meaning a miss, irregular and denoting alteration or modification,
• 3:41
  Kevin: right? I just don't understand it in the context of the word parachute.
• 3:45
  Alban: Alright, this is now an etymology Podcast, where we are get deep dives into parachute etymology. Okay. So from the late 18th century French, French para protection against and shoot fall. So a parachute is what protects you against a fall interesting. So it sounds like it's maybe not the same prefix.
• 4:08
  Alban: paranormal is even though he felt the same. Yeah. a parachute is from the French. Anybody who has a real etymology podcast, please feel free to give us some follow up on this. This is very important, but the more important thing, go on to amazon music, submit your podcasts and get some promotion in there and go ahead and listen to Pacific Northwest haunts paranormal podcast and Mark safe. All good shows, and we'll link them in the show notes.
• 4:37
  Kevin: Yep. And speaking of Halloween themed podcast, I mean, if you guys watched the what's the name of it the only murders in the building?
• 4:47
  Travis: Yes, I watched the crime. Kind of how much did you watch? I watched the first episode. Yeah, I
• 4:53
  Kevin: watched the first two.
• 4:53
  Kevin: Did you get into it Alban?
• 4:56
  Alban: I haven't watched it. Oh,
• 4:58
  Travis: it definitely hooks. You Even if you're a podcaster, and I've heard it only gets better, what's the premise
• 5:03
  Alban: of the show? Oh, well,
• 5:04
  Kevin: I'll give it a go since I've watched twice as many episodes, Travis. So there are three people that live in the same building. And they all bump into each other and make a connection because they're all fans have this true crime podcast. And so at some point, they all have like a fire alarm or something that goes off in their building, and they all go out of the building. They meet up in a coffee shop next door, and they're all trying to listen to the new episode of this true crime podcast. And they make this connection. And then they realize it wasn't like a fire alarm or whatever reason they left the building, somebody was actually murdered in their building. And then they decided to start their own true crime podcast to solve this murder in the building. And then Episode Two, they talk about oh, we should, like all podcasters do.
• 5:49
  Kevin: We've got this one podcast going we should start another podcast.
• 5:52
  Kevin: And then somebody says, No, we're not going to do another podcast. We're only gonna do murders in this building. And that's where they get the name from. And that's where I am Episode Two. But it's kind of funny. It's Martin Short. Steve Martin, Selena Gomez. Well, interesting cast, but I love it.
• 6:08
  Kevin: I love the fact that podcasting is getting more and more mainstream. Like these are just regular people from different generations connecting over this true crime podcast and then starting their own. Just really fun concept. Alright, good talk.
• 6:25
  Kevin: Alban, how is she podcasts?
• 6:26
  Alban: Oh, she podcast is great.
• 6:26
  Alban: We flew out to Arizona, Scottsdale Arizona, got to experience the desert climate and took a big team got to hang out with everybody she podcasts
• 6:40
  Kevin: where's where's Scottsdale in relation to Phoenix.
• 6:44
  Alban: Right next door. So flew into the Phoenix airport, took a nice $60 Uber and cruise over there to Scottsdale pretty close by. But it was just you know, it's a cool spot. There probably, I don't know, maybe 300 people in person. And quite a few that were virtual. It feels like we're kind of coming back for podcast conferences.
• 7:06
  Alban: This one, they had everybody either upload proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test. Like right beforehand. So it was much more laid back. You didn't have to feel stressed out. Most people weren't wearing masks, and you're just kind of normal talking to people and come back and haven't gotten anything. So yeah, it was just fun to like, kind of talk to people normally again.
• 7:31
  Kevin: So it felt like Florida felt like,
• 7:33
  Alban: well, it the the enforcement was about the same as Florida. The stress level is quite diminished. It's you knew that everybody was taking some precautions.
• 7:45
  Kevin: Yeah, I always feel like living in Florida, we have a very skewed perspective on what the rest of the world has been going through for the past year and a half. Because we had a very short like really tight lockdown period, it was like, month and a half, two months where every store was masked only. It was only for like a month when they're like please don't leave your house unless you have to, like go get groceries or something. But then, like from that point forward, Florida has just been like living up to its reputation of wild crazy Florida. It's just like everyone knew everything.
• 8:16
  Kevin: We definitely leaned into it.
• 8:16
  Kevin: Yeah. And so schools have been open. Most businesses are not requiring masks. You can it's kind of been, you know, obviously on an individual level, people are doing whatever they need to do. But mandate wise, there's been very little happening in Florida. But I talked to people in other parts of the country. And it's obviously it's very different.
• 8:35
  Kevin: And so I was interested you going out to Arizona, what it felt like,
• 8:40
  Alban: I don't really know how Arizona was it as a whole. But the way she podcasted it was, I think really good, because it was the best chance to feel normal. And for people to feel safe. And everyone was being respectful. And everybody had either had shown something to say like I'm not COVID positive right now. And so that was nice to be able to not wear a mask the whole time and not be feeling bad when you talk to somebody. And you know, podcasters like to talk so we all got to connect and have a good time. Priscilla, who runs our support team and Ana who does our events and community.
• 9:18
  Alban: Both had talks were really good.
• 9:18
  Alban: And I was just, you know, cool to see Jessica and LC who runs she podcasts and just kind of like lots of familiar faces.
• 9:30
  Kevin: That's great. Were the talks recorded, they do video sessions.
• 9:34
  Alban: I took a bunch of photos and little clips to share with the team. I believe all the talks were recorded, and they should go out to people who got like a virtual pass. I do think there were some events though, that were separate. They were like virtual only events. And so if you got a virtual ticket from Buzzsprout, you might have access to a few things that weren't actually recorded live that were recorded separately.
• 9:59
  Kevin: I wonder Did they ever make it available to the people who gave talks? And if they do a video recording they ever would they like Priscilla and Ana have their talks that we could put on our YouTube channel or something.
• 10:10
  Alban: podfest did that for me one year, they gave me the link and said, go ahead and upload it. And I watched it and I went on a fast track. I was like, there's room for improvement in this doc for sure. Yeah, I think it'd be cool to, you know, take them and maybe clean them up and then put them on the YouTube channel. I think that'd be awesome. All right, well, let's jump into our one breaking story on Apple podcasts clarifies automatic downloads.
• 10:40
  Travis: So here's why this is interesting. Apple usually does not do this. They don't usually tell us the secret sauce of how they do things in the background, we're always trying to read the tea leaves and say, what's going on. We even recently did a refresh video on the podcast Connect analytics that you get with Apple podcasts. And it's very, like mind bending, trying to make sense of some of the stuff they have in there. And so the fact that they would actually create a full length article with like gifts, showing how different things are done. It's like, Alright, well, let's, let's get a little bit more of this apple, help us understand how things are working in the background.
• 11:19
  Travis: So one
• 11:20
  Alban: of the things Apple's always done is they I'm pretty sure it's like VP level, and anyone below VP level at Apple isn't really supposed to talk to the media at all about Apple.
• 11:31
  Alban: And so I think that kind of keeps, you know, it keeps the excitement up high, it makes it so that, you know, Apple stays on message. But it also makes it harder for things like the podcasting team, which probably isn't getting, you know, big airtime in the middle of an apple event to talk about changes the ranking. And so I think that maybe this is their way of being able to say, hey, industry, you guys seem a little confused about how we're doing automatic downloads. Why don't we clarify it? There's a few things that I learned. And I thought it was pretty useful. Do you guys want to jump into a little bit?
• 12:06
  Travis: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 12:06
  Travis: Alright, so
• 12:08
  Alban: the default behavior on Apple podcasts, which is really one of the biggest players in the podcasting space, it automatically downloads episodes, when your phone is charged, and connected to Wi Fi.
• 12:20
  Alban: If you want to change it.
• 12:26
  Kevin: That was a sticking point for me when your phone is charged. Like they don't necessarily specify which level of charge as long as it has a charge and is not in low power mode. They did say that. So I'm assuming what they mean when I say charge, they mean it's over 20% because at 20%, it goes into low power mode and then acts differently.
• 12:43
  Alban: Yeah, I saw later it said in low power mode, they won't download episode. So I kind of took it the same way. It's not in low power mode. And then the other thing is you can turn on cellular downloads. I mean, that's what I do, I it's okay, I'll chew up a little bit of data plan to make sure that I've got my new podcasts ready to go.
• 12:57
  Alban: So the default though, is charge connected to Wi Fi downloads.
• 13:04
  Alban: Depending on how the podcast is set up, they download different things like a serial podcast, it's downloading the first three episodes of this season, where episodic like this show, we just download the latest episode.
• 13:20
  Alban: Make sense? Apple Watch is automatically trying to pretty much mirror the app, you can customize it, but it's going to mirror the app. I don't know about either view, Apple Watch apps in general, are never not always been that great for me, you've got to pretty much leave your watch on a charger for quite a while for it to actually sync up and do things. So you know, if I'm going to go run and you only wear my watch and want to listen to a podcast, I definitely am like charging it like making sure things are loading before I go.
• 13:54
  Kevin: Right. And for stats counting. We don't add Buzzsprout anyway, I think we'd have to pull in john or Tom, to get 100% accurate answer. But I don't think we count any Apple Watch transfers in our stats.
• 14:05
  Kevin: Because I think it's super rare to be able to configure your Apple Watch to download directly from the host. But they used to like hit the server still is like a ping or something. And for a little bit a small window of time it was registering as an additional download. And so I think we decided to cut those out of our download numbers. And I think that's the way it still works. So you don't have to worry about people who are downloading your episode to your phone and then sinking that to their watch as a duplicate download.
• 14:31
  Alban: Right? So when Apple's mirroring it from your phone to your watch, that used to look like two downloads. But since we know it is two downloads, but it is one person, we're gonna say that's one download, you know, even because it's mirroring the two apps Yeah,
• 14:50
  Kevin: it's weird that it's I don't think it is technically two downloads, but it might be I think what they're trying to do is they were trying to confirm that the episode they're transferring from your phone is still the exact same Episode that's on the server. That's where the server hit came in from. And then if it was they would just transfer it from your phone. And if not, they would download it again. Again, since it's it's kind of a black box without the help of articles like this and understanding what's going on in the background. Yeah, we just played it safe and said, it's just one download. And I think most podcasts hosted the same that change was like a year ago or a little over a year.
• 15:22
  Alban: So the big thing is, when do they pause automatic downloads, because here's the here's the concern that people would have somebody subscribes to your podcast, and then they don't even listen to podcasts anymore. And then three years later, like, they're still downloading your episode, and you're still like, man, podcasts are growing, I'm doing well. And maybe they're not even being listened to. And so apples now said, if somebody hasn't played an episode of your podcast in 15 days, or they haven't listened to any of the last five episodes, we're going to put them on pause, we're just going to say, hey, those episodes are still there. If they want to unpause it, they can if they want to listen, they can. But as of now, they've got five episodes in the queue, or they've got over two weeks of content that hasn't been played, we're just going to go ahead and pause the podcast, you know, that can be returned on and it kind of like restarts that countdown. But that, to me feels like a very healthy number. If someone hasn't listened to a bunch of episodes. They're probably they've moved on.
• 16:28
  Alban: That's okay. And over two weeks, they haven't listened to something they moved on. And that's okay. Yeah,
• 16:36
  Kevin: I personally love this behavior. And I wish more podcasts apps would adapt something or adopt something similar. Because I get so frustrated overcast is the app that I've been, I have been using, I am looking for another one right now. But I have been using overcast for years. And one thing that I often find myself doing is sitting in the seat of a Southwest flight as we're taxing, and I'm trying to download episodes as quickly as possible. And it really is not the end of the world because you can get in flight Wi Fi, but I'm just trying to save myself $8 before we lose cell connection, and so I'm trying to download as fast as I can. But like if Apple podcasts was my default app, then anything that I really wanted to listen to would already be there and queued up, I also have a problem because I travel from Jacksonville down to South Florida on a pretty regular basis. And I usually cut through the center of state and when I cut through the center state, I don't have good cell phone service for a long time.
• 17:29
  Kevin: So if I'm just playing episodes, like real time, and like progressively downloading as I'm listening, sometimes I'll hit a section for a couple miles where my episode gets interrupted.
• 17:37
  Kevin: That again is frustrating. And so I like the fact that Apple is building this you don't need to be connected to listen to podcasts into their app. I like that they're putting safety measures in place where it says hey, if you're really not listening after a couple of weeks, we're gonna stop. So it's not artificially inflating podcasts or statistics numbers.
• 17:54
  Kevin: And so I'm a fan. I wish more podcast apps would do it. I know people who are like stats purists say, well, are people really listening? Or are they just downloading. But for me, being an avid podcast listener, like I will unsubscribe to a show, if I'm not interested, listen to it anymore. I'm not I'm interested in keeping my queue clean. I don't want to have a bunch of shows in there that I don't listen to. So I'm fine. Like, go ahead and download it, have it ready for me whether I'm connected the internet or not, I want to be able to listen. And I think that's probably
• 18:19
  Alban: the right way to do it.
• 18:19
  Alban: Though I still know, the apple podcast analytics that Travis just did a video on show.
• 18:26
  Alban: There's a significant amount of people that are downloading episodes and not listening to them. You know, this is the end of the episode. At the end of that article. There's a quote, automatic downloads provide a seamless experience for listeners like Kevin Finn.
• 18:40
  Alban: They're not designed to measure listener engagement, and may provide an incomplete view of this behavior because people can download it, and they may not actually play it. Analytics and Apple podcasts Connect offer a robust set of insights and visualization tools to help creators understand how listeners are engaged with their show and episodes. I completely agree because if you log into Apple podcast Connect, and you go and you look at your downloads, you can often see, you know, the number I really like is engaged listeners, what percent what number of people like actual people are listening to more than 40% of this episode. And that's the number I want to know. I don't want to know some like how many people auto downloaded it. And if Buzzsprout ever, we could aggregate that stat across all of the apps. I feel like that would be the gold standard. Like what number of people are actually listening to a good bit of this show. But at least Apple provides a nice snapshot of that your Apple is, you know, 50% of your downloads, and they're saying hey, there's 200 engaged listeners, then you can kind of extrapolate out is probably somewhere in the range of 400 engaged listeners so you have an idea. So I love that they provided that stat. I think They've done. they've updated us quite a few times, and it's gotten better and better. And, yeah, the plate number and the download numbers are very important. But ultimately, I really appreciate having some insight kind of behind the curtain how many people are actually listening and listening to a good bit of this episode versus the number of people that are just downloading it to their phones?
• 20:23
  Kevin: Yeah, I don't know, sometimes I don't want to know, necessarily that number. I don't know, a lot of podcasters really do, like, doesn't make me feel better. It's always gonna be lower. Like, if somebody walks up to you and says, I don't know you're walking in to it to a gym, and they're like, hey, how much can you benchpress like, the number you're gonna tell them is the most that you ever benchpress the amount that you work out with on a regular basis, you're gonna say, oh, there's one time I lived in a small car. And like, that's the number. And so when somebody says, like, how many downloads is your podcast? Guess like you're saying, oh, like, what's the max I've ever gotten for an episode? And I think it's totally fine. Because most of us do this for fun and for passion.
• 21:06
  Kevin: Right? And, and like, so the encouragement is, I think outweighs sometimes, you know, engaged listeners is actually a much more accurate number. I totally get it, it probably is a much more accurate number. But it's not as fun. And podcasting should be fun. So yeah, that's my two cents.
• 21:24
  Alban: I'll be honest, we have said, you know, we have our own numbers for this show. And they're going up over time. And I feel like I'm happy where they're at. I think we regularly get 1500 plays. Yes, the max we've ever benchpress. We do we do all right. But the few times that I've been at a conference and someone said, Oh, I really enjoyed Buzzcast, or we get a really nice review. Or there's actually a couple that have a local podcaster meetup. And one of them said she was walking around their house, and she heard my voice in their house.
• 22:00
  Alban: And she was like, is Alban here?
• 22:00
  Alban: It was like, Oh, no, I'm just listening to Buzzcast, like, on a speaker. And I was that meant more to me than getting another 200 downloads, ed. So in the end, I think you're right, like the numbers, they're cool. It's good to be able to track this progress. But, you know, in my heart of hearts, like if they're actually 15, out, are people listening to this content? I don't think it would be as like free flowing and natural, because I'd be like, Whoa, that's a pretty big number.
• 22:29
  Alban: Well, and
• 22:31
  Travis: I think there's a couple different reasons why you would want that specific number. One would be if you're an advertiser, and you're putting money on a show, you want to know, what's the actual reach, you know, so in the radio days, it's what's your hypothetical reach of like your antennas?
• 22:50
  Travis: It's like, Oh, we reach this many million people, like, Yeah, well, if 200 of them are actually tuning into the show, that's what I want to pay for, I don't want to pay for your potential reach. And so if you're an advertiser looking to sponsor podcasts, then that might be a motivation to kind of drill down to what's the actual listener behavior. For me, personally, I think it's just more about getting in a ballpark of an idea of how large your audience is. And if it's growing over time, like I don't really look at our stats very often, for Buzzcast, or any of the shows that we do. But I'll just check in every once in a while and say, hey, are things still going well, are certain episodes doing better than others? And that's about the extent of it.
• 23:25
  Travis: You know, it's not, it's not super helpful. It doesn't help me make informed decisions about how to make great episodes moving forward, to try and figure out which of our Buzzcast episodes have more engaged listeners versus plays than others. Other than just to say, Yeah, like, that seems like over 50% of people that listen to our show on Apple podcasts are engaged listeners. And that feels about right, and that feels good.
• 23:48
  Kevin: And there is a standard for this that is applied through most professional hosting companies. And it translates over to the advertiser side as well. And that's the IAB v2 spec for measuring podcast downloads.
• 23:58
  Kevin: And there is a margin of error factored into that when advertisers do ad buys in podcasts. And that just comes in like what are they willing to pay on a CPM basis. And so don't miss hear what we're saying.
• 24:12
  Kevin: Like if you have an opportunity to get a sponsor, or somebody to advertise on your podcast, and they want to know what your reaches or how many downloads your episodes are doing. Then you would want to quote the numbers that are shown in your Buzzsprout statistics in your Buzzsprout analytics. You don't want to go into Apple podcasts and look for engage listeners and give them that number.
• 24:27
  Kevin: Because that's not the same jargon. That's not the standard people are using in the industry. You want to use the IAB v2 spec standard, which is the number that Buzzsprout gives you. And then when they say, oh, like let's talk about a CPM which is cost per 1000 downloads, that's going to be anywhere between I mean, we've seen crazy and we paid crazy numbers. We paid 65 $70 CPM before, all the way down to a 10 or $15. CPM. That is all based on IP numbers, which takes into account the fact that some people will download your show and not necessarily listen. So Just to clarify that,
• 25:02
  Alban: yeah, and that is all right, based on the effectiveness of years and years and years of podcast ads, the industry is kind of landed in this range based on how effective these ads have been.
• 25:13
  Alban: When the you're giving the same set of numbers and the set of numbers that everyone's giving, or the set of numbers that Buzzsprout is providing, they're not providing that engaged listener, if we were using that number, the quote unquote, CPM would be something like $100, you know, B could be way way higher, because the actual number of real people listening would be maybe a lot closer. So given the number inside of Buzzsprout. But all these numbers are interesting. And hopefully this helps you understand a little bit more of why you may see Apple podcast numbers drop off at some point.
• 25:49
  Alban: Because if people don't listen for 15 days, or they don't listen to five episodes, Apple is going to make the executive decision to say, you know what, maybe they're not interested anymore.
• 26:04
  Travis: So front of the podcast, Eric Newsom, I'm not sure if he considers himself a friend of the podcast, but he was on the podcast at one point back in the day, he is a pretty big influence in the podcasting industry is responsible for producing a lot of the big shows that are still in the top 1020 in the world. He has a really great newsletter. And then we just want to talk through one article that he put out that I think is really a great perspective for indie podcasters. And the title is five pieces of advice for those interested in podcasting. So just wanted to walk through these, we'll link it in the show notes if you wanna read for yourself. But idea number one, I thought was interesting, which is, don't be a podcaster.
• 26:50
  Alban: Great. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
• 26:56
  Travis: It's like, hey, you're interested in podcasting, don't be a podcaster. Well, in the point that he makes is, instead of thinking of yourself as like, I'm a person who is attached to this medium, this way of communicating information. Think of yourself as an audio maker.
• 27:11
  Travis: So and he draws the parallel of how, for a long time radio producers thought about themselves. There's like, no, I produced for radio. So then, when podcasting comes along, there's an opportunity to take the audio content you're making, and do something else with it.
• 27:29
  Travis: But if you only think of yourself as a radio producer, then you'll miss that opportunity. But if instead you think of yourself as an audio maker, then any opportunity that you see, to be creative to create content. And even if podcasting evolves, or turns into something else in the future, that's not gonna stop you from being able to continue to to grow on your craft.
• 27:48
  Alban: We've seen this before where clubhouse comes up, and people are kind of experimenting and playing with clubhouse. And then you have some people are like, well, that's not a podcast, technically. And it's not Yeah, that's good point. But it is audio content. And a lot of the skills that you've developed in podcasting might be applicable. Now, clubhouse turned out to not really be the next big thing. But it's okay to try out these new mediums as they come up, we don't want to end up being the radio producers of the future, who are saying, oh, I've only ever done stuff over radio, because I'm only comfortable. If this is broadcast as like FM radio to a local geographic area, things are hopefully going to change and hopefully change a lot over the next 20 years in podcasting.
• 28:32
  Alban: And be ready to experiment and try new things out and leverage the skills that you've already created.
• 28:39
  Travis: So the next idea, he posits is to prioritize function over format. And this is the one that really caught my eye, because it goes against a lot of the prevailing wisdom of what a good podcast is supposed to look like. So most of the advice that you hear is, if you want to grow a successful show, then you need to give people what they expect that if they're coming to Buzzcast, to listen to three dudes talk about podcasting, you need to deliver that consistently. And that's how you grow an audience. But Eric does a really good job of making a distinction that you shouldn't start with the format of your show, and then reverse engineer your way back to the content.
• 29:19
  Travis: Think about what do you want to create? What do you want to produce? And who do you want to speak to, and then choose the format that matches the best way to communicate that. And so he gives the idea of a 10 part narrative series, which for a long time, there were a lot of podcasts trying to be the next serial, right, what's the 10 episode serial podcast that we can do that'll just like make a big? Any ask the question, you know, why not add in some smaller episodes or an interview with an expert that could be like a diversion or a side channel and think more expansively about what your podcast can be. And he makes the point to that like, there are no rules of podcasting. Like there's there's nothing wrong with saying you know, what, We're gonna take a break from our normal roundtable discussion. And we're gonna do a sci fi murder mystery version of Buzzcast, talking about when there was a DDoS attack, right.
• 30:08
  Travis: And that is our Currently our number one episode other than one that's like embedded as an example, somewhere on our website, totally different format, totally different approach to making an episode that we've never done before.
• 30:21
  Travis: But that was the medium that was gonna allow us to communicate what we wanted to talk about in the most engaging way possible.
• 30:28
  Travis: So don't be afraid to experiment.
• 30:31
  Kevin: Yeah, I like that example that, you know, normally what we're doing is roundtable discussion around the big topic of podcasting, and what's happening in the space. But like, in that specific instance, we had a story to tell. And so how do we transition Buzzcast this roundtable discussion into a storytelling podcast? Like we're not going to take three episodes to slowly migrate how we communicate the format of the show, like it was totally fun and fine to do one episode that was very different. And I loved how you intro that episode. You know, we started right in on something is very different here in this episode, and you said how we're going to, you know, tell the story. And then the next week, we're right back or two weeks later, we're right back to our regular format.
• 31:11
  Kevin: Really fun and something I don't hear enough in podcasting. Like it's it's predictable. And there's there's there's a lot of benefit to productivity, right.
• 31:18
  Kevin: Predictive predictability the right word. Yeah. predicted. Oh, my gosh, totally mess
• 31:25
  Travis: rock. Grammar at the end of this episode.
• 31:29
  Kevin: Yeah, there's a huge benefit to predictability.
• 31:31
  Kevin: Right? If I, the classic example is I go to McDonald's here in Florida. And then I traveled to London and go to McDonald's, like, I want that same, you know, for better or worse McDonald's experience. But in the podcasting world, it's not bad or terrible, or the end of the world to break that predictability to break that format once in a while. If it's good, if it's engaging content, if it's fun, if you enjoy it, I think your audience will enjoy it. There's a lot, there are a lot of podcasts that I listen to over and over and over again.
• 31:59
  Kevin: And I've been listening for years, and it's always the same thing. And I enjoy the show.
• 32:01
  Kevin: It's why I continue to continue to listen, but hey, I'm not gonna be mad at you. If you try something different when episode. One of the things I like, I don't listen to it as much as I used to, it's starting to phase out. But Conan O'Brien needs a friend. He has some different formats. And once in a while, sometimes it's just him and his executive producer, like doing like game show style stuff on their show. Most of the time.
• 32:19
  Kevin: It's him with a celebrity guests that he's interviewing, but every now and then it's something different. And I think that's fun. So I love that point.
• 32:26
  Alban: One of the times I think that we come up with the opposite advice, is there's lots of people and I think Travis and I are in this group that are teaching, not just podcasting, but teaching content creation, right. And so we're saying this might be your first experience, really putting yourself out there online, you might not have ever done a YouTube video or, you know, written blog posts.
• 32:47
  Alban: And so now you're getting into podcasting, this is kind of that first experience that first step. And the most important advice in my mind, when you're starting out a creative venture, and you're going to put yourself out there is just be consistent, and maybe limit the moving parts in the beginning.
• 33:06
  Alban: experimentation is very important. being open to creativity is very important.
• 33:13
  Alban: But I really love focusing on like, hey, in the beginning, we're just getting ourselves ready. And used do this once a week getting something out once a week putting out a new piece of content. Because if you could do that, and you start building that consistency, then it's going to become much easier for you to do a unique episode, when Travis put together the really full narrative episode, we'd already done something like 40 episodes of Buzzcast. So it wasn't like episode two, we're trying something new episode three, a totally different format. There's kind of a balance to be played between finding a format and sticking to it, but also keeping space open for experimentation.
• 33:55
  Travis: Well, we actually experiment quite a bit on this show. Like it was just a couple episodes ago, we had our game show segment, where
• 34:02
  Alban: we just had a huge etymology.
• 34:05
  Travis: And so what is the root of Paris, you know, and so that could have totally been a dud.
• 34:08
  Travis: And everybody's like, what the heck are you guys doing? You know, want to hear more about, you know why Spotify is the scourge of the earth. But the feedback was very positive. So there's a good chance you're gonna hear this or that on a future episode. But then there's other things that we've tried, it's like, that didn't really work the way we thought it would. So we're just going to keep, you know, throwing spaghetti up against the wall and seeing what sticks. And that's what keeps it fun. That's what keeps this show fun for us, and hopefully fun for you guys to listen to, that we're gonna talk about podcasting. And we're gonna make sure you're kind of up to date on what's going on with Buzzsprout and in the general world of podcasting, but hopefully this is a an experience that we all kind of grow with together, and that the show will naturally kind of evolve. As you know, we as creators, continue to grow. And then as the industry continues to evolve,
• 34:57
  Kevin: yeah, I thought this was a great article. Those two points We're awesome, he makes five, that the one that jumped out at me was was Don't be boring. I say that's resonates with me because we, and maybe I shouldn't say we, I say I speak less, I'm a normally low energy person. And I find myself like struggling sometimes to keep the energy high, to keep it upbeat to not be boring. And so that was my favorite piece of advice.
• 35:23
  Kevin: I think that spoke right? To me, it's one of the reasons that we don't do a live show, because I think one of the opportunities we have in podcasting is to be not just great. Well, let me say it this way, part of being a great content creator is being a very good editor. And so that's the the one of the mantle's that Travis wears for us is that I think we've said this before is that typically, we'll record well over an hour, but our episodes end up being around 40 minutes. And he could probably even cut more of that. He's just, you know, he's being nice to us. And
• 35:54
  Alban: he wants to make sure I have some airtime and the episodes, that's why we included the garbage, he lets
• 35:59
  Kevin: us ramble a little bit, but it's probably not a bad rule of thumb to, you know, if you're, if you're editing 50% of the content that you recorded, that's probably not bad, you're probably leaving more in usually, then you need to. And the tighter you make it, the more your listener would benefit from that. Because you're you're really honing in on what are its most valuable stuff that we covered in this episode. And so I love that point, don't be boring. And I'm just going to tie that in with my own point, which is, like, be a very harsh editor,
• 36:28
  Travis: right? Because you're curating an experience for your listener, you know, so when someone shows up to a live event, the expectation is very different than listening to an audio show that they can listen to on their own time, right. And you think about all the new podcasts that are coming out, like podcasting is just going to continue to blow up, which is great, because it's going to continue to get more exposure, more Hulu, exclusive television shows made about it. And that's going to help all of our shows do better. If we can stand out if we can leverage that experience, to continue to make content that's going to be more appealing than what else is out there. And so, definitely don't take for granted that you're asking your listeners every single week, to set aside time to listen to what you have to say. Make sure you respect that time. And make sure you respect the trust they're giving you to make something worth listening to. So I think that's definitely a great point, Kevin.
• 37:18
  Kevin: Yeah, I don't know either of you guys like me. Are you?
• 37:21
  Kevin: Are you kind of brutal when you listen to podcasts? See, I feel this personal connection to the podcast I listened to. And so I feel bad. But I do it still, even though I feel bad, but I'll be sitting there listening to a podcast and I will no wake up my phone and I'm hitting that forward skip button, like ding ding ding ding ding, like you're just rambling. You're boring me now. And I feel bad because I feel like I'm listening to a conversation with a friend and I start hitting fastforward on my friend, which I wish you could do in real life. You can't This
• 37:46
  Alban: is literally your experience with like talking to Travis, right? You're like
• 37:52
  Kevin: you would never do that in real life. And it's good thing that you can't, you've heard a lot of feelings. But in the podcast world, I can do that. And I do feel a little bit like, I feel a little cringy doing it. But I'm still gonna do it. Because you didn't edit good enough.
• 38:04
  Alban: I am never find myself doing that. I do skip some ads.
• 38:09
  Kevin: That's the southern polite boy.
• 38:11
  Alban: I mean, I also listen on one acts. I think that mostly for me podcasts are I'm trying to find something that I'm trying to find shows that are actually very heavily edited.
• 38:21
  Alban: And they're mostly like, you know, maybe a bit deeper. So I'm kind of want time to digest what they're talking about. And then I'm often doing something else I'm driving, or I'm running or I'm doing something. And so I'm not sitting there thinking like alright, wrap this up, let's move on to the next thing. I'm often like, kind of thankful that it's a three hour episode, and I have something to do during a long run or some you know, whatever, I'm up to that time.
• 38:46
  Kevin: Yeah, but I know you listen to ATP like I do, you don't ever get the urge to hit that 32nd foward skip button a little bit when you're listening to ATP.
• 38:55
  Alban: Every single time I listened to pretty much the entire episode.
• 38:59
  Kevin: Oh my gosh, you've got more patients than I do.
• 39:02
  Alban: Now I that's one while I'll kind of zone out. But you know, in the middle of doing yard work or um, you know, doing something else. So it's kind of nice to have three friends that are chatting about the latest Apple devices. And if I zone out a little bit not I'm not, you know, going, Oh my gosh, what did I miss, you know, there's other shows that are much more in depth that if I zone out, I'm like, I kind of need to back up and re listen to that really understand what they're talking about
• 39:27
  Kevin: my deal with 80. So ATPs x tech podcast, and they just talked about Apple stuff. And I'd love to show it because I love the personalities of the people that are on it. But it's about two and a half hours every week. And really the bandwidth that I've decided in my mind that I can give to that is about an hour. So I listened on to x so that brings it down to like an hour 30 or 40 you know, somewhere in there, little under an hour 30 and then with my skipping get the highlight but I think like I just I just look at podcast listening and engagement through the lens of how I listen to podcasts. And so I don't know if that's good advice or bad advice. But I think as a podcaster, you should do that you should, you should think like, how do I listen? How do I engage? Like what speed do I listen, and the show is yours, so why not crafted for people like you. And maybe that
• 40:13
  Travis: helps well, and just to give anyone listening, some self serving motivation, the podcasts that get shared, that really do well, with word of mouth promotion, which is still the number one way that people discover new podcasts, recommendations from friends, is to make something not boring, is to make something that's really engaging, really unique that would compel someone to out of their way to say, you should listen to this 45 minute episode from this podcast. You've never heard that before. Right? So if you're just another podcast, in the sea of 100,000 options, of you know, shooting the breeze and talking about current events with your buddies, and your goal is to create something substantial, and that's probably not gonna work out the way you want it to. Wow. Some tough love but coming from a good place.
• 40:59
  Kevin: Interesting fact. You know, the number two way that people find podcasts right now,
• 41:02
  Travis: YouTube? No, mailers, no.
• 41:06
  Kevin: billboards. It's from other podcasts
• 41:10
  Travis: interesting. So like interviews or promo swaps or things like that
• 41:13
  Kevin: cross promo. Yeah, cross promos, podcasts that are kind of associated with each other, stuff like that. Yeah, but podcast mentions inside of other podcasts that 46% of people say they found at least one of the podcasts that they listened to by listening to another podcast,
• 41:32
  Travis: I would say that's true.
• 41:32
  Travis: For me, I would say probably about 40% of my library is things that I discovered through listening to other podcasts. The more you know, the more you know, the more you know. Well, as
• 41:43
  Alban: always, thanks, everyone for sticking with us. Thanks for not skipping too much of this episode. And we appreciate all of you being here. But until next time, keep podcasting.
• 41:58
  Alban: Everybody's thanks for sticking around to the end of the episode. This is Alban here dropping in some dynamic content to tell you about some updates to our dynamic content features, we're continuing to move forward with all the tools allowing you to drop ads and announcements into all of your episodes, so that you can record something once and automatically have added to the beginning or end of all of your episodes, the new updates that we've made to dynamic content. Number one, if you have an announcement that's maybe only applicable for a short period, and you replace it with something else. Well, now that announcement stays in something we're calling our dynamic content library. The library is a list of all of the different announcements or advertisements, or just little pieces that you've dropped into your episodes over time so that you can reapply them whenever you would like. The second piece is that now those are tracked for how many times they've been played. So if you have an ad read, and you want to report back to your sponsor, and tell them how many times it's been downloaded. Well now you know, because that content may be spread across 30 different podcast episodes, you want to be able to count the stats for all of those for the entire time that it was out in the world.
• 43:14
  Alban: Reach out to us on Twitter, let us know how you were using dynamic content and the new dynamic content library. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Bye