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- [00:00]
Alvin
Good morning Vietnam. It's buzzcast, and we are talking to what now is our number one country who listens to this show. What is going on for us, too?
- [00:14]
Host
I don't know. It's. It's affecting everybody. That is like the hot topic in all of the online forums and all the communities. Everyone's like, what's going on with Vietnam? Where are all these downloads coming from? I got a thousand downloads this week. What's up with that?
- [00:28]
Alvin
What is up with that?
- [00:29]
Co-host
Okay. I mean, this happens once in a blue moon. A couple times a year. Some brand new bots pop up and have figured out a way to get around most bot detection that exists in media hosting until they get discovered, they start generating download traffic. We've never had a good answer of like, why? Why in the heck is this worth doing?
- [00:49]
Host
Yeah.
- [00:50]
Co-host
I mean, there are people who advertise services on Fiverr and stuff like that are like, we'll grow your podcast, but that stuff doesn't happen on the. Just across the entire network.
- [00:59]
Host
Yeah.
- [00:59]
Co-host
Like, once in a while you'll see one show kind of pop off and it starts getting, you know, a bunch of downloads. And then that usually results in us emailing them and saying, hey, are you paying someone to promote your podcast? Oh, yeah, we hired this new service and they're doing great. No, they're not. It's. It's bot traffic. We're going to block it. And we just wanted to give you a heads up. Yeah, but this, this is a different thing than that. This is a bot that just starts going across the entire Internet downloading any media files that can find from a bunch of different hosts. And so there's some, like, inside industry back channels that a bunch of hosts are on, including us. And so we have friends in the industry. Like, they're competitors, but they're friends. I don't know what you call that. Frenemies Cooperative Working Group that we all work together and share this type of information and everybody is getting hit from the same stuff. Yeah. So as soon as somebody identifies it, we share that with everybody. So we were able to block this stuff pretty quickly. And all the other hosts are doing the same thing. But I saw people chime in from Blueberry, from Transistor, from Captivate, from rss. Everybody was talking in the back channel. Yes, we're all blocking that. John Spurlock, who's not a hosting service provider, but just does download tracking metrics for people with the OP3. He blocked it. We blocked it. Everyone agreed. Um, so, yes, there was thousands and Thousands, tens of thousands of downloads that did take place within a couple days, and then it all got shut down. So that's why some accounts will see the spike. Going back and removing all those downloads is dangerous and.
- [02:23]
Host
And kind of a bummer.
- [02:24]
Alvin
Yeah.
- [02:25]
Co-host
Once you identify it, then going back into data records and stuff is. Is. Is pretty dangerous. So as an industry standard across the field, most people don't do that. We do not do that. We don't want to accidentally remove some legitimate downloads. And since the industry, like, hasn't, like, they'd met all the criteria of a legitimate download. But this is sort of outside of that. It's identifying a bunch of traffic from a few unique sources that have some signals and then confirming that with other podcasting hosting companies. And so we are able to block it going forward. But going back and removing that stuff is not something that really anybody probably should be doing across the board.
- [02:58]
Host
That makes sense.
- [02:59]
Alvin
You know, over the last few days, I've seen a couple times where I'm on social media and someone's like, oh, I switched from this host to this host, and talking about things that they like and things they don't. And I'm always looking at that because I want us to build everything that people like and remove the things they don't. But one thing I've run into twice now is they go, when I moved to this podcast host, it was awesome. We started getting more downloads.
- [03:23]
Co-host
Right. That's a red flag.
- [03:25]
Host
Nothing changed.
- [03:26]
Alvin
Yeah, that's a huge red flag.
- [03:27]
Host
Yeah.
- [03:28]
Alvin
That's not a good sign. That's a bad sign. Even though it feels good. That's just that they're not filtering, so.
- [03:35]
Co-host
Or they're not filtering as well. Yeah. Moving from one host to another host should be completely transparent to anybody in your audience. No one should ever know that does nothing to help promote or grow your show. You shouldn't be getting any more exposure unless you know your previous host. You weren't listed in all the directories, then you moved to a new host, and then you listen a few more places or something like that. But outside of any changes like that, your number should stay pretty close. Like the IAB V2 certification gets us all, you know, kind of plus or minus 10% or so. If you see anything outside of that, you're getting, you know, numbers that are 20% higher, 30% higher, your strings, then that's a red flag that whoever you just moved to is probably not filtering as well as your previous host. And what feels like your show is growing is actually probably not real.
- [04:17]
Alvin
You know, one way you can verify this is setting up something like OP3. And so if you turned on OP3 now, you're getting a measurement on top of whatever Buzzsprout offers or on top of whatever RSS offers or whoever you're with. And then if you switched, you'd see your OP3 stats are probably not changing at all, maybe, and the underlying hosts are showing you something different. That's a good sign. It's just filtering. Somebody else sees all these Vietnam downloads and goes, hey, technically it's legit, so let's keep, you know, let it keep flying and let everyone think. 40% of the podcast listening audience in the world is based in Vietnam.
- [04:59]
Co-host
Yeah, I think that's a good recommendation, especially if, for whatever reason, you're using a hosting company that's either new on the scene or it's like a free podcast host or something like that. There's a couple of those out there. But if you're using a paid podcasting hosting service, a company that's been around for a while that has a good reputation in the industry, that's probably not necessary as, like, a check for the stats. If they're IBV2 certified, you don't need to do that. That check's already in place. There's other benefits of listing, like with OP3. Just like if you want to have your stats be open and available to the public, that's great too, but they should be pretty similar.
- [05:33]
Host
Here we go. Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So this quick cast we're dedicating to a famous message from Rich from two Guys on a Plane, and he said, are you guys enjoying the long and short episode format that you're alternating between? We're thinking about moving to weekly episodes rather than bi weekly, and this seems like a great way to avoid burnout and save us studio time. And as far as feedback from an audience member goes, I think it's great. All right, so are you guys enjoying the long and short episode format? That's the first question here.
- [06:12]
Co-host
I am ish.
- [06:14]
Host
Yeah, same. Why? Why is your ish? Because I think we enjoy it because it's nice to have, like, the weekly cadence, and it's nice to be in the feed a lot. So what's the ish part of this?
- [06:28]
Co-host
The ish part is that when we launched the podcast and we started our every other week cadence, we did that because this just part of much larger jobs that we all have at the company and it, it takes a lot of time. So we said, hey, like, every other week feels about right. And then we realized that we, we wanted to do more. We weren't showing up in people's feeds very often. I would launch my podcast listening app every day or every other day. And it was like, golly, our show doesn't just show up here very often. I want to figure out a way to solve that. And then we came up with this idea of doing the every other week. So it's just more, more load every time that we do it. I enjoy it. I enjoy the fact that these shorter episodes, they're quicker to record, I assume. Jordan. They're quicker to edit and they don't require nearly as much prep. So it's not like we didn't double our workload. And it is accomplishing most of the reasons that we decided to do it in the first place. What's really interesting is, remember when I was doing all the stats analysis for episode a couple episodes ago, I was using AI to help me analyze all the stats and everything. The shorter episodes perform like just as well as the longer ones they do. And so I thought that was really encouraging is that you can get a lot more, I don't know what we call it, traction, engagement, whatever, like performance without necessarily doubling your work. And so I think it's a great topic. And I'm really excited that Rich this episode is based on a comment that he sent us because Rich just launched video podcasting this week. I've been working with Rich. Uh, he's in our video beta program and he launched, I think he's got three or four episodes in in Apple podcast video now. So go look up his podcast and check out the video.
- [08:00]
Host
Yeah, I'll link to that. Alvin, how are you feeling about the weekly cadence with the smaller episodes?
- [08:05]
Alvin
I like things being a bit more of a. Like, we do the same thing every week. And so if I had my perfect world, it would be like we did a 30 minute episode every week and we did the same one. And you guys feel the pain of that because I show up 10 minutes late today with a recording on a new day, the new time. And as soon as that happens, my brain just turns off any outside influence until Kevin's texting me going to show up to this buzzcast recording.
- [08:32]
Host
I was really apprehensive about this, like moving into a weekly cadence, even with a quick cast episode. But what I found is we're able to cover these topics that wouldn't quite fill like a Full hour episode, such as, like, just something simple, like ways to increase your publishing frequency and just answering, like, a single fan mail and dedicating, you know, like 10 minutes to it. I also enjoy that on the weeks where I'm just not feeling as energetic, I can tell myself, okay, you can talk about this topic for 10 minutes. You got this. You can do this. All you have to do is get on the microphone for 10 minutes and talk about this one thing. And then I'm like, all right, let's go. And we can do it. And I also have enjoyed the fact that I'm feel like I'm more in practice if I skip an episode of recording with Buzzcast. So I was sick last time. You guys covered for me. And then when I came back, I felt out of practice and I was just like, blah, how do I go about this? And I was just, like, cognitively malfunctioning a little bit because it just. It interrupted my routine. And so I love that when we're just doing these quick episodes, it's kind of like a quick refresher or quick, like, practice. And I've gotten better at editing. I've gotten better at coming up with, like, outlines very quickly. It just feels really good for that reason. And so that's on top of, you know, basically doubling our podcast downloads. That's on top of, like, making sure that we're staying up at the top of the feed for podcast apps. There's so many benefits to increasing your publishing frequency, but at the same time, I think that there's a lot of things that you have to look out for. Burnout can really lead to not as good a quality. Like, if you're doing a quantity over quality sort of thing, I think that it can hurt your podcast in the long run. You might not feel as, like, impassioned about it. You can also miss deadlines and, you know, rush through things and, like, it makes it harder to take breaks from your podcast too, if you're increasing your publishing frequency. So there's some different ways that you can go about it so you don't run into those issues. Like, you can do what we do and just have, like, long and short episodes. Or if you record one episode, you can, like, chop it in half and maybe record, like, two parters.
- [10:43]
Co-host
Yeah. When we. When we first experimented with this idea of quickcasts, we. We tried a lot of different things. One of the things, or I don't know, did we actually do this? Did we actually ever record a full episode? And then right after we finished that one, like, stopped recording and started a new recording and then recorded a quickcast right after.
- [11:01]
Alvin
I think we did once.
- [11:02]
Host
Yeah, we did once.
- [11:03]
Co-host
And so, like, if you're a batching mindset type of person, it doesn't mean that if you want to release every week that you have to record every week. You could still record every other week, but your recording sessions just are, whatever, 10 or 15 minutes longer because you finish your full episode and then you might do a shorter episode, but you record them all at the same time.
- [11:21]
Alvin
All right, My take on batching episodes is this advice you get all the time. Like, you should batch. It's so nice. You bat, you record five, and then you edit five, then you publish five. It feels like you're all the way into, like, automation mode when you haven't even figured out what you're doing. And so it's really. I think it's bad advice. For anyone who's new, but almost anybody who's kind of treating their work as a craft, you're turning your podcast into, like, an assembly line. And what I really love is we do a podcast, we notice a couple things we like, we notice the things we'd like to do better, and we try to do it in the next one and the next one. We notice something new, we change it. And each time we iterate, I think we're getting a little bit better. And not that every episode is better than the last, but overall, the trend is up and to the right. And so I'm not a big fan of batching it. Also, just for me, the energy goes downhill the longer I sit here and stare at, you know, a Google Meet session and record on my microphone.
- [12:19]
Host
Yeah.
- [12:19]
Alvin
So I prefer what we're doing. We do a big episode once every two weeks, and then we have one where we pretty much show for 30 minutes total. We chat for a little bit at the beginning, we kind of check in on what everyone's working on, what's happening at the company, and then we record. It feels a lot better to me than if we were, I don't know, recording back to back episodes.
- [12:41]
Co-host
Right? Yeah, but I think you would say, Albin, like, that you're just expressing what works well for us and for you and what you prefer.
- [12:47]
Alvin
Yeah, I'm still in the what works for me mode, not the you need to do what we like mode.
- [12:52]
Co-host
Right. And so I think that, like, our advice is not batching is a bad thing. Our advice is batching doesn't work for us. You need to figure out what works for You? Yeah, if batching works well for you, and, like, you have one day a week or one day a month, but you want to publish weekly, and you want to record, whatever, four episodes on a Saturday, and that's fun for you, and that's fulfilling, and it's easy for you to schedule guests on that same day or whatever you're doing, then that's totally fine.
- [13:16]
Alvin
Yeah. If that's what you enjoy and you're having fun doing that, then go for it. I do think there's some value, especially early on, in going through an entire process, you know, beginning to end multiple times and iterating, rather than jumping to the final stage and building the entire assembly line all at once. We used to see this all the time. Daily podcasts were, like, the rage, you know, 10 years ago, and everybody was starting daily podcast because John Lee Dumas had a daily podcast, and it was really successful.
- [13:46]
Host
Yeah.
- [13:46]
Alvin
But then they burned out instantly, and they're like, oh, but are you batching? But it's like, yeah, but if you're telling people to start day one with a new podcast where they batch seven episodes, it's a little bit much.
- [14:00]
Co-host
Yeah, I put batching in a. Like, in the optimization category.
- [14:05]
Alvin
Yes.
- [14:05]
Co-host
And you should not optimize until you know what works for you yet or you've kind of perfected your craft or you know what you're creating and you know what you're building. Once you get through that stage, then you can go back and you can start optimizing stuff. But if you. If you optimize too early, you might be optimizing the wrong things.
- [14:20]
Alvin
Right.
- [14:20]
Host
Mm. I was thinking about another way that you can increase your publishing schedule without it being, like, too heavy of a load. You can do more lightweight formats with your podcast. So something that came to my mind was we have a post show at the end of every big episode. What you could do if you have that time where you guys are chatting and you're on the mic, it's being recorded, and every time you're going, oh, this is really funny. Like, I kind of wish we could keep this in the podcast, but, you know, it doesn't really fit with this episode. What if you were to once a week, drop, like a green room sessions or like a studio talk or, you know, like a backstage sort of thing where your listeners can get an insight into just you talking about life or talking about current events or movies that you've watched. You could totally do that. And that is really lightweight because you're just chatting. You're just talking. You're not doing prep. This is off the cuff kind of stuff. And I feel like that would be a really cool thing for listeners to get like once a week if they're interested in that kind of stuff.
- [15:22]
Co-host
Yeah, that's a great idea. And some of the. When we get criticism, very rarely, but when we get it, some of the. Some of the, like, the common thread between the criticism is you guys get off topic too much. There's too much banter, there's whatever. And so, yes, we do.
- [15:38]
Alvin
This is also one of the top compliments we get. Other people will write it and be like, I love, like the friendship. I like, you guys laugh and I like you're talking about these other things. Yeah, it's the positive and it's the negative.
- [15:48]
Co-host
Yeah. But for some of those reasons, we do our best to keep most of that chitter chatter either at the beginning of the episode or the end in the post show. But yeah, I think that's a really cool idea, is that you could also release them as completely separate episodes. So for people who enjoy it, those episodes get dropped. For the people who don't, they could just skip over those episodes.
- [16:04]
Host
Yeah.
- [16:04]
Alvin
All right, so something I've seen in podcasts I listen to are the Q and A episodes. And we've done some version of this, but where pretty much the idea of a Q and A episode is you're using the audience, help fill the calendar. You don't have to come up with every topic. Let your audience recommend, hey, here's something that's happening in the world related to this podcast. I want you to talk about it. And you don't have to do as much prep because you just pick the questions that are kind of interesting. Like we did for this episode. And then we hop on a mic, we record, we edit, and our total investment is really diminished.
- [16:37]
Host
Yeah. And I think that if you're trying to increase your publishing schedule, these are really great places to start. And ultimately you don't have to stick to it. Like, you don't have to completely commit to this idea of, I'm gonna increase my publishing schedule. Maybe it's not for you. Maybe it won't work out. Maybe your audience isn't interested in this additional, like, content and you can just temporarily do this. It is okay to experiment with your podcast. We talk about this all the time. You should have fun with your podcast. You should experiment with it. You should constantly be improving it. And part of that is being willing to try something out and just let it go. If it doesn't work. And if it does work, then you can keep at it. So just make it temporary. You can make it a seasonal thing. You can introduce it as a bonus thing that you're just doing for a couple months. You can tell your listeners about it, and if they like it and ask for more, stick to it.
- [17:28]
Co-host
I love the idea of reminding yourself that you have permission to experiment. This is your show. You can try things, and you can have fun with it. We did tons of different experiments and variations of what a quick cast or a short podcast episode was going to look like in the beginning. And ultimately we've kind of figured it out, and this is where we've been for the last year or so. But in the beginning, it was very different. We'd pull topics from longer episodes, and we tried those again. We tried batching for a little while, or at least one episode. We used to always have, like, a quick cast in the feed, and then when a new one came out, we'd replace the old one and delete the previous one. We tried that for a little while.
- [18:02]
Alvin
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
- [18:03]
Co-host
Just a bunch of random ideas. None of them ended up ultimately kind of being what this was, but we got to hear by trying all of that stuff.
- [18:10]
Host
Yeah.
- [18:11]
Co-host
And then. And listening to feedback from our audience. Like, I know one of the reasons that we stopped removing episodes from the feed was that people were referencing episodes that were no longer in our feed. Somebody actually wrote in and said, I think you talked about this at some point, but I can't find it anymore. And I was like, oh, yeah, that was a quick cast. And we deleted it. We should probably stop doing that.
- [18:26]
Host
Yes.
- [18:27]
Alvin
Oh, yeah. We used to call them Snapcasts because it was like a Snapchat podcast. Yeah, I forgot about that.
- [18:32]
Host
That did not work at all.
- [18:34]
Alvin
Yeah. I think that it's gotta go back to, you're having fun and you're enjoying it. You don't have to promise, like, we're going to do this forever and then immediately figure out, oh, I don't like it. You don't have to keep doing it. It's your podcast. You could quit doing it. You could try a new experiment until you land on something like we have, which is, we like it more than we don't like it, and we're going to continue trying to make it into something we really, really enjoy. And. And when it's, you know, Friday and we hop on for an hour and we record, Not a big deal. And so it works out pretty well.
- [19:02]
Host
All right. So if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, go ahead and tap the Send us a fan mail button in the show notes and maybe we'll cover it on a future quickcast. And until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.