Where People Find New Podcasts

Summary

Buzzcast Episode Summary

Episode: "Where People Find New Podcasts"

Podcast: Buzzcast
Date: April 10, 2026
Hosts: Alvin, Kevin, Jordan, and unnamed female host (with guest voicemails)

Episode Overview

This episode is the much-anticipated deep dive into the various ways listeners discover new podcasts in 2026. The team combines recent research (from reports, forum threads, polls, and professional experience) to break down the key channels that actually move the needle for podcast audience growth. Additional fan mail and community voicemails provide live feedback on new Buzzsprout features and share listeners' own stories about discoverability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Podcast Editing, Feature Releases & Internal Banter

[00:00–06:40]

• Opening Chatter: The episode starts with the hosts joking about syncing claps for remote recording, poking fun at each other's cadence and timing.
• Buzzsprout Features: The team discusses how internal beta tests can suddenly explode in size when mentioned in public newsletters, highlighting the double-edged sword of enthusiastic marketing (Alvin: “This is the double edged sword of having a good marketer…” [02:12]).
• Feature Release Philosophy: Kevin contrasts silent feature rollouts (to quietly catch bugs) vs public launches for maximum impact (Kevin: "I'm a huge fan of the silent release. Roll it out, let people discover it slowly..." [02:51]).
• Internal Review: Alvin seeks editing feedback from Jordan and the team—they discuss the learning curve and technical hurdles of editing, and the importance of understanding one’s quirks as a host or editor. Editing experience in CapCut and use of Magic Mastering are highlighted.

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2. Main Theme: Where Listeners Discover New Podcasts

Four Core Channels

[11:32–40:49]

A. Podcast Apps (50% of Discovery)

• Growth in Podcast App Discoverability: Once considered a major weakness, podcast apps have now significantly improved discovery experiences.
• Mechanisms: Listeners discover podcasts through editorial pages, algorithmic suggestions ("you might also like"), trending charts, and keyword searches.
• Real Examples:
  • Robert from Notorious Bakersfield & Sarah Rosette share personal stories about finding shows via searching for topics within podcast apps ([16:13]).
  • Alvin notes repeated exposures are usually necessary before subscribing ("Most of the podcasts I listen to regularly, I did not hear about once, and I didn't convert. The first time I heard a good episode, I listened..." [12:34]).
  • Discussion about YouTube’s role as a podcast discovery app: Listeners primarily discover podcasts via direct search, not through Shorts ([19:35–20:18]).

Notable Quote:
"Podcast apps are actually the number one way that people find podcasts, which surprised me. I really thought it would be word of mouth..." – Female Host [15:11]

B. Word of Mouth

• Expansion of Definition: No longer just in-person; includes social sharing, mentions, guest spots, and promo swaps. Now also facilitated digitally (social shares, Instagram stories, etc.).
• Podcast App Integrations: New features in Apple Podcasts and Spotify, where recommendations and chat links increasingly allow word-of-mouth to cross over into app-based discoverability.
• Personal Impact: Alvin realizes only one of his favorite 15 podcasts was found through a personal recommendation, versus the female host, who finds most shows through recommendations.

Tips for Podcasters:

• Make your podcast easy to recommend: clear name & premise, repeat your elevator pitch often.
• Regularly ask listeners to share—direct calls-to-action in episodes help.
• Guesting & thoughtful promo swaps can be very effective, but be selective to maintain niche relevance.
• Using Buzzsprout Ads allows double opt-in promo swaps, making sure ads run in relevant shows ([36:40]).

Notable Quotes:

• "Word of mouth used to be...you’re out to coffee with your friend...but I feel like it’s really gotten very social." – Female Host [28:52]
• "You've got to ask your listeners to share...Think of a friend right now. That's the best thing you can do for us." – Alvin [35:08]

C. Search Engines & LLMs (Large Language Models)

• The New Wave: Many users, including some hosts, are increasingly using search engines and AI tools (like ChatGPT) to discover shows by topic.
• Strategy: Full episode transcripts and robust web presence significantly enhance the chances of being discovered by LLMs.
• Listener Story: Alex Sanfilippo and Jewel Kim both cite using search/LLMs to find and binge multiple podcasts on specific topics ([40:49]).
• Alvin’s Experience: "Of the 15 podcasts I looked at, I think six or seven of them were ones I'd found through LLMs." [40:49]

Pro Tip for Podcasters:
Transcribe your episodes and keep your show notes/pages up to date for maximum AI/search visibility ([41:53]).

D. Social Media

• Still Relevant: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X rank as the most-used social platforms for podcast discovering (per the Cumulus and Signal Hill report).
• Reddit’s Role: Low self-reporting, but actually highly influential due to search and LLMs often surfacing Reddit threads as sources.
• Strategy: Don't try to be everywhere. Focus on one or two platforms and build consistent, intentional presence. Good content there will often be naturally reposted across other platforms ([48:49]).

Host Reflection:

• Kevin shares a personal story about quitting social media and feeling better, then discusses the potential of LLM chat sessions as the next phase of digital curiosity and discovery.
• The group notes the overlap and fuzziness between channels (word of mouth, LLMs, social shares, podcast apps).

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3. Product & Tool Feedback: Fan Mail

[49:48–58:32]

• Voicemails from listeners highlight appreciation for new features, especially:
  • Voicemail Integration: Fans love the ease and engagement of using voicemail via Buzzsprout, over older third-party tools.
  • Chapter Marker Updates: Tom Raftery praises the new copy-paste function for adding chapters, streamlining a formerly clunky process.
• Advice from Listeners: Make segment calls-to-action clear and brand-friendly.
• A unique question from Jeffrey Greif prompts discussion of podcast legacy and digital afterlife – Buzzsprout commits to an "archival" plan for deceased creators upon verification ([54:47]).

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4. Community Moment: Buzzsprout Golf Tournament

[58:59–64:44]

• The hosts light-heartedly share a story about winning a Jacksonville area charity golf tournament as "Team PodMatch," with the help of a pro golfer and a golf ball cannon.
• A fun, on-brand way to end the episode, connecting their podcasting community to offline, social experiences.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Editing (& Self-Awareness):

• "I do a lot of pauses. I just did it...where I just stop in the middle of a sentence..." – Alvin [06:57]
• "I could see the word ‘all’ in Kevin’s audio..." – Jordan [07:04]

On Feature Launches:

• "I'm a huge fan of sort of the silent release. Roll it out, let people discover it slowly..." – Kevin [02:51]
• "This is the double edged sword of having a good marketer..." – Kevin [02:12]

On Discovery Philosophy:

• “Most of the podcasts I listen to regularly, I did not hear about once, and I didn’t convert…” – Alvin [12:34]
• “Podcast apps are actually the number one way that people find podcasts, which surprised me.” – Female Host [15:11]

On Making Recommendations Easy:

• “[Spirits Podcast]...at the beginning of every single episode, they say...‘a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore’—that's the elevator pitch.” – Female Host [34:29]

On Using AI for Discovery:

• “Of the 15 podcasts I looked at, I think six or seven...I’d found through LLMs.” – Alvin [41:53]

On Social Media Burnout:

• “I'm sort of encouraged that maybe we've reached peak social media. Maybe we're going to start to see a turn.” – Kevin [45:27]

Fan Shoutouts:

• Andy from Dudes & Dads, Allison Weeks from The Art of Home, David John Clark from Late Bloomer Actor, Jeffrey Greif from Sellin Podcast, Tom Raftery from Climate Confident—voicemails celebrating features and raising engaging questions about the future of their podcasts.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–06:40: Editing banter, feature release philosophies, show structure
• 11:32–19:35: Introduction of main theme—discovery, focus on podcast app improvements
• 19:35–22:48: YouTube as a discovery platform, app UI recommendations & ideas
• 28:52–36:40: The full scope of word-of-mouth, social sharing, promo swaps, actionable tips
• 40:49–44:40: Search engines, LLMs & transcripts for discoverability
• 44:40–48:49: Social media as a discovery channel, overlapping roles, host reflections
• 49:48–58:32: Fan mail, listener voicemail shoutouts, legacy podcast hosting
• 58:59–64:44: Golf tournament story and signoffs

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Practical Takeaways for Podcasters

1. Prioritize Being Found in Podcast Apps: Invest in show pages, episode titles, and consider how you might surface in app recommendations.
2. Word-of-Mouth Matters: Make your podcast easily recommendable—clear name, premise, and quick explanation. Integrate calls-to-action for sharing.
3. Don’t Neglect SEO & Transcripts: Make your show’s web presence and transcripts robust for search engines and LLMs.
4. Lean Into Social Media Selectively: Focus on one or two platforms, and be consistent rather than spreading yourself thin.
5. Make Use of Podcasting Tools: Whether it's promo swaps, ad networks, or voicemail plugins—bring your audience closer to shape your content and go where they are.
6. Keep Learning from Feedback: Whether it's technical features or creative direction, listener input is essential.

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Final Thoughts

The hosts wrap with community-driven stories and a call for more ideas from the audience. This episode combines data-driven insight, behind-the-scenes honesty, and audience engagement—in true Buzzcast style, providing both actionable tips and lighthearted camaraderie for podcasters of all levels.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Alvin]

All right. Three, two, one.

[Kevin]

That was a bad cadence on the clap.

[Jordan]

Not getting clap reviews.

[Kevin]

Just your cadence was too slow. You did like three, two. And I think, like to keep the energy up, you want to go. Okay, here we go. Ready? 3, 2, 1.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

5, 6, 7, 8.

[Jordan]

Yeah, I don't want to rush you guys.

[Kevin]

You kind of want to be around like 120 beats per minute. You're coming in at like 70.

[Jordan]

I just feels like that scene in

[Alvin]

Whiplash where he's like, not my, not my, not my tempo. I'm about to get slapped.

[Kevin]

All right, I don't really have a bone to pick with you, but I kind of, maybe I should. I think is is the way to say it. I had this small, little nice group of beta testers that I've been working with on this Apple podcast video rollout.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Mm.

[Kevin]

And then you decided to send out a newsletter this morning to a hundred thousand plus people and linked to my beta form, which just in the past couple hours has exploded.

[Jordan]

I'm sorry, the. The problem is that the thing that

[Alvin]

you've got the entire company working on. I promoted it.

[Kevin]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

Like almost like marketed it.

[Kevin]

But do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I rolled the form out and then I wrote like in my daily check in or something, I was like, I was hoping to get like 20. We have like, you know, 15, so it's great. It's good. And then a few days later I was like, we're up to 28. So I'm way over what I needed, so I'll get there.

[Alvin]

No, I don't remember that at all.

[Kevin]

Well, now we have 143 and counting because they keep coming in every couple minutes of people who are trying to get into this beta. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm not letting anybody else into the beta.

[Alvin]

You don't need to add more people to the beta. But you can just say anybody who's at spot 21 through 143 and counting, that they're in the. Once we launch this, we'll send it them out the first email.

[Kevin]

Right. We will notify you probably along with everyone else.

[Alvin]

And I say that because I also am halfway done having recorded and not finished editing a YouTube short, talking about Apple podcast video. And at the end of it, and I say, and we've got our form live right now.

[Jordan]

And so if you want early access, fill it out in the video.

[Alvin]

So 1:44 on the way.

[Kevin]

This is the double edged sword of having a good marketer yeah, it will market everything whether you want it. Right. Really marketed or not.

[Jordan]

I'm constantly now going, oh, we. All right, so we're good to talk about this.

[Alvin]

And I'm like, oh, I still haven't, like, I haven't gotten to talk about it enough.

[Jordan]

The pretty big one is that we

[Alvin]

have transcripts on all the paid accounts now, all the new paid accounts. It's just not many people knew that those were free because we wanted to make sure it was all, like, everything was buttoned up, it was working perfectly. And then we talked about it on Buzzcast, and I've been holding everything back,

[Jordan]

and now all sorts of people are

[Alvin]

like, this is awesome.

[Jordan]

Why haven't you been talking about this? I wanted to talk about this.

[Kevin]

Yeah, I noticed in Pod News Weekly review last week, they said something about not getting a press release for a bunch of these new features that we've been rolling out, and that's my fault. I apologize. Albin would certainly be happy to extend press releases for all the new stuff as soon as it's ready, but I'm a huge fan of sort of the silent release release. Roll it out, let people discover it slowly. If an issue then pops up, we can address it quickly before it hits too many people or impacts too many people. And then after, you know, you have a month or two and you've kind of found all those edge cases and sanded down all the rough edges, then we make the announcement.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Here we go.

[Alvin]

All right, Jordan, as the person in my life who's edited most podcasts.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Huh?

[Alvin]

What's your feedback? What feedback do you have for me? I don't know if you know this, but last episode was the first time I've edited a Buzzsprout podcast episode by myself.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Really?

[Alvin]

That was the first one. I mean, I went through the whole thing, and I was like, man, the amount of times I've taught people how to do this and done pieces of it is hundreds. And I was like, but I'm never the one who does all of it. Mostly I, at some point, hand off part of it. And so I'm going through and changing things, and I have such strong opinions

[Jordan]

about it and no ability around the

[Alvin]

actual ED audio, so I'd love some of your feedback.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Okay. I can do the. What was it called? A compliment sandwich version of this.

[Kevin]

No, don't worry about the compliment sandwich. Just hit him with the hard stuff.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I will say I was actually really flattered that you guys took about 15% of the episode to acknowledge that I was gone. Even Though we did acknowledge Alvin being gone from the other one. And the pacing was really good. And I was impressed because you got the exact kind of, like, beat to starting from the cold open into the intro music. I was really impressed with that. And I was like, okay. Like, this is good. I did notice just my only feedback for the whole thing is that content wise, you guys kind of glossed over some of the tips for using voicemail. And there were a couple points where the words were clipped together a little too closely and it didn't feel exactly natural. But other than that, that's it.

[Kevin]

She says the only. And then she gave you two things.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

They're in together, but those are my only critiques. I have no other notes. I thought it sounded great, and I was really happy that you did that for me.

[Kevin]

Right. I will say it's a bit of a challenge when. Cause we were working off the outline that you put together.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yes.

[Kevin]

And then you weren't there to guide us through it. So it was a little bit hard. We tried just going straight off the outline in the first take. And I think we got like, five minutes in, and we were struggling pretty hard. And we're like, with Jordan not here leading us through this, we don't know her intention for each piece. And so we had to, like, editorialize. And we didn't rewrite a new outline or anything, but we're like, we just have to wing it or else it's going to be awkward.

[Alvin]

Yeah. The other thing was my roadcaster was giving me some grief. So the final recording has all these little, like, pops and glitch sounds. And it was all pretty much at the end. And so there were, like, two full tips that I pretty much had to cut.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Oh, no.

[Alvin]

In the beginning, there's all these times and I'm like, oh, I can just jump around this word. So that's might be some of those unnatural spots when this is the one word, I can clip it, but there are three little sounds I had to leave in. I could not figure a way around it.

[Jordan]

And at the end, you'll notice the percentage of the time Kevin's talking goes up dramatically. Because my audio became unusual at some point.

[Alvin]

But it was really useful for me to edit my own audio at least once. And I think maybe this is good advice for everybody. You learn so much about your own speaking habits by hearing yourself over and over and over. So I've gotten a bit of this as I've been recording video and editing my own video. But in the podcast, I do a lot of pauses. I just did it just there where

[Jordan]

I just stop in the middle of

[Alvin]

a sentence to get a clean word. Kevin's way of doing that is to go all.

[Jordan]

It's like I. By the end of it, I could see the word all in Kevin's audio.

[Alvin]

And then there's just weird things where I like, I mispronounce documentary.

[Jordan]

And I'm like, you have to hear that six times as you edit. You're like, how do you not know the word documentary?

[Kevin]

I remember that from last week. You said it weird.

[Jordan]

I don't know what it was like I was forming the word.

[Kevin]

It was a. I think you just put the emphasis on the wrong syllable or something. Documentary. That's what you said. Documentary style episodes.

[Jordan]

Like I'm saying the word document. And then I went, oh, I'll add on Eteri.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Was that Mike Myers where he said, you're putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable.

[Jordan]

Actually it was a nice experience for me to go through and do that.

[Alvin]

I really enjoyed the edit. I actually did the whole thing in cap cut.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I was gonna ask you what did you edit on.

[Alvin]

I know Cap cut now from doing video and I threw it all in there and I'm able to chop it pretty fast. And then I just, I spent a good amount of time refining it.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

That's honestly wild that you did in cap cut.

[Alvin]

Really?

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah, it legitimately sounded good enough where I was like, okay, like this is great.

[Alvin]

Well, the other is that I put it into Magic Mastering. I mean, yeah, I knew that all of that I was relying. Magic Mastering is going to clean this up. So all I'm trying to do is get pretty much content wrecked, edit out as many of those little glitches as I can. And I did quite a bit of tightening up just all the dead air. And besides that, I threw it over to Magic Mastering and trusted that it would, you know, make it all work out.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Now I'm curious, from recording you said that it sounds like you did a couple takes and I know the finished product was nine minutes. How long did it take you to put this nine minute episode together?

[Alvin]

Uh, we recorded and I think I started about 2:30 and I think I finished at 5:30. Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was 3:30. I started. I spent at least two or three hours on it, but there were a few times where I moved audio. Like Kevin's reaction is just a little bit behind where it felt natural so I'd move it up. Same with myself that I move it so that we're reacting quite a bit earlier than we did in real time. Do you ever do that?

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Oh, yeah, all the time.

[Kevin]

Notoriously slow reactors.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

No, it's. It's not that. It's just like we're over Google Meet and our Internet. So even though we clap to align the travel track itself, there's still times where my Internet will be a little bit faster than yours. Yours would be a little bit faster than mine. And so sometimes it'll sound like I'm late laughing at a joke, you know, like half a second later, it just sounds like a little weird, like, oh, I just got it, or something like that. Or sometimes I will say something and then Albin will also start saying something. So we have to, like, realign things. It just. It goes in and out throughout the recording. So especially when you're recording for an hour or two, you definitely see the time kind of like slipping in and out of alignment. And it helps so much more for, like, comedic timing and things like that response. Like, it just. It sounds punchier depending on how you move things around. But I'm constantly rearranging our reaction times to things.

[Alvin]

I've also noticed quite a bit how much Kevin will help me if what I'm saying gets pretty slow and boring and vice versa. One of us kind of has a thought. Didn't really land. We tried again. We're going for round three. And the other one jumps in to

[Jordan]

say, all right, good enough. And it was pretty regular. As soon as it. I would see it. I know a hundred percent what was said right before.

[Alvin]

So if Kevin jumped in for me,

[Jordan]

my last comment that gets deleted, like,

[Alvin]

it was not good.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I mean, we talked about that on our content editing episode, how sometimes you can't really piece together, like, a thought. Not you personally, but it's hard to, like, piece ideas together. So then I feel like this is Kevin's role perfectly. They'll come in and just kind of like, summarize everything that you've said in so many words into just kind of like an overarching picture with, like, a nice little bow on it and be like, all right, there you go. So the topic of this episode is what we've been teasing. We are going to cover for the last few weeks and we're finally doing it. We are talking about where listeners actually find their next podcast. We sourced a lot of this information from reports that have been through, like, Signal Hill and the podcast host. But we also kind of looked through online forums like Reddit, and then I also pulled the Facebook community group and we got a whole bunch of responses in that. So I've pulled all this information together, and I think we're just going to be covering four of the main topics. Alvin could probably speak to this. I feel like with marketing your podcast or marketing in general, it's good to focus on an area where you are going to get the most return. There are other places that people find podcasts, you know, such as, like, awards or things like that. But the thing is, is, like, it's so minimal that I don't think it's good for us to even pay a whole lot of attention to it.

[Kevin]

Oh, yeah, for sure there's going to be outliers. Like, if you did a sports podcast, it might make sense for you to put flyers up in sports bars or something like that, because you could see a return for particular thing for your particular podcast. But that's not applying broadly to most podcasts. And so I like the idea of saying, hey, we're covering the main things. These kind of apply to every podcast. And then you might have some special things that you do uniquely for your own podcast. And that's when, again, we've referred people back to this episode so many times. But the 25 unique marketing ideas for your podcast episode is so helpful.

[Alvin]

And another thing, I went through my entire list of podcasts and was thinking through how did I hear about this show? Over the last couple weeks, I've been thinking about kind of like, what was the exact moment where I got recommended this podcast, how did I start listening to it? And there's this common thing that people teach you in marketing, that we only make decisions about things when we've encountered them a handful of times. Sometimes you hear. You have to hear an ad seven times, you have to be introduced to a brand five times, whatever their number truly ends up being. Most of the podcasts I listen to regularly, I did not hear about once, and I didn't convert. The first time I heard a good episode, I listened to one. I gave it a chance. I listened to a clip, I saw a little video, and there are three or four times that I heard about it. I probably kind of demoed a few episodes and then later on became, okay, I'm subscribing to this. I listen every day. Yeah, it was a good reminder for me because when I talk about channels, especially on this episode, I don't want to just say, hey, you know, try to get up a couple Facebook posts, you know, and if people see it, then they may. They may actually go listen to the podcast. It's a good reminder that you want to keep doing that. Because even if it's the same 10 people, they need to encounter the same message multiple times before they feel familiar enough with that. They go, maybe I should check this out. Maybe I should check out that podcast.

[Kevin]

Oh, but I think I'm the same way. But I kind of do it within my podcast app. So for me, it doesn't take a whole lot for me to go ahead and add a podcast into my podcast Apple, like, just to follow it. But then once it's there, it kind of starts in this. I'll check out some of your episodes once in a while. It's not in my. My regular rotation. When I get into listening mode, whether it be a car or walking or wherever I am, I have my kind of go to episodes that I want to listen to regularly and stay caught up on. And then I have tier two stuff. Tier two stuff is I'm traveling, I'm on a road trip, I've got extended period of listening times. And then I'm like selectively going through all these podcasts that I've. That I've thrown into this podcast app. And I'm saying, oh, that that sounds interesting. I'm going to click on that. Or that one might sound. And then I'm selectively pulling. And then the next level from there is like, you can get promoted from there or you can get dropped from there. So, like, when I'm in road trip mode, when I'm doing exploratory listening, I am either gonna be like, I'm moving you into the this, this podcast is so good. Why don't I listen to this every week category. Or it's, I've just clicked through two or three different episodes trying to find something interesting and nothing's there for me. So I'm gonna allow unfollow. But that initial ad for me, like I sort of use my podcast app is sort of like a podcast collection bucket. And then I just am constantly curating that bucket.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Half the battle is getting people to actually listen to the show. But then on top of that, you have to make sure that you're hooking them with your podcast. You have to make sure that you're actually doing the production quality to keep them listening to your podcast. And podcast apps are actually the number one way that people find podcasts, which surprised me. I really thought it would be word of mouth would be a little bit higher on the scale there. But with all these reports and what people are mentioning on these forums and also in the poll, it's pretty much 50% of people are saying that where they find their next podcast or like a new listen is going to be in the podcast apps. And there's so many different ways to find podcasts there, which I appreciate because it wasn't that long ago that we are saying that podcast apps had a discoverability problem. Everyone was talking about that, and I think that they really listened and they've really fixed it. And there's so many different ways for you to find podcasts in podcast apps now, whether it be, you know, these editorial pages or unsuggested, like, you might also like these kind of podcasts or even on POD rolls where it shows up in certain podcast apps or trending charts, things like that. We actually had Robert from Notorious Bakersfield write in about this, and he said that the latest podcast he, he enjoys was Dakota Ring. And I discovered it by accident. I was searching for a specific subject for my listening pleasure, and Dakota Ring had an episode that covered this specific subject. So I gave it a listen and he found that it was like really interesting and well produced. And so he went back and listened to a bunch of their other episodes. Sarah Rosette said something very similar, saying that I tend to use search to find new podcasts, and the Pocket Cast search function is the best I found within the podcast app. And Listen Notes is very good at servicing specific episodes related to search terms.

[Alvin]

So quite a few of the ones in my podcast player are podcasts that I found through Overcast. When I'm going through them, like, oh, I just remember, like, I go to the search function and every once in a while I look at what podcasts are the most starred. And it's a relatively static list. Like the daily in this American life at 99% invisible have been at the very top of that list for 10 years plus. Yeah, so it's not a great discovery app. But there are multiple podcasts that took me three or four times of seeing there. I click on it, I read what it's about, I go, maybe even some of them I disliked initially. And then over time going, oh, there I see the merits of this podcast. And, you know, really ended up liking it.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

That's exactly what you were talking about earlier about, like, how you have to see things over and over again. And Alvin, you actually posted a story about that was featured in POD News that talks about this.

[Alvin]

Yeah, so there's this independent podcast from, I think it was Australia that was featured on the Apple Podcast US homepage. And so the reason I liked it was because most of their connections would be more likely based in Australia. And just the US Listeners are probably, you know, more than typically. They're probably going to find them through this big feature. So the podcast was called what I Survived, and it launched in February, and it went up the charts pretty fast, and it got to number one in, like, the documentary section. But then they got featured and they. They peaked out at 61,000 downloads in a single day, over 20,000 in a week. And even though the show is produced in Australia and it's obviously worldwide, like every podcast, 74% of their audience is now in the U.S. so I think a decent amount of that we could attribute to this Apple podcast promotion. Yeah, we've talked to other people who said, you know, I got a promotion, I was into a noteworthy, and it didn't really yield anything. I got a huge bump, but nobody stuck around because lots of people tried it and the content wasn't, you know, what they were looking for. We've heard that story numerous times. But it sounds like what I survived, the content was already really good. They did well enough that once they got that promotion, people stuck around and go, okay, this is pretty good. So they probably had a pretty strong hook.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

Jordan, can I ask a question? Because we're highlighting podcast apps as a place to discover. Does that include YouTube?

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah, I'm including it. The only reason I really included it as a podcast discovery app is because I actually did get a lot of people saying that they find new podcasts on YouTube all the time. But what's interesting is none of the people said that they found it through shorts. They specifically said that the way that they were finding new podcasts through YouTube was by entering in a search term. Because, I mean, we all know that YouTube is widely used as a search engine. So people are typing in these topics that they're interested in, and they're scrolling down and they're finding podcasts on those topics through YouTube that way, not necessarily just through scrolling shorts like you do with, like, Instagram or TikTok.

[Kevin]

So all of this stuff to me feels. This is a foreign concept to me. I will tell you, I have done this before. I. There have been a few topics at certain points in my life where I have gone out and I've, like, intentionally sought out podcasts talking about certain things, but it's so rare. That's not typically the way that my mind works. And there were some times in my life in the past where I've gone to, you know, discovery pages and podcast apps looking for something to listen to. And it's just been such a painful experience that I sort of abandoned that years ago because there was no way to quickly figure out if this is something I want to listen to or not. You know, you have to invest, like, 15, 20 minutes at a time before you're like, all right, I've given you long enough. I'm moving on to something else. And so I've. I've sort of abandoned this concept, but it doesn't seem like the world has. And so I'm trying to open my mind to this idea that podcast apps can still be a good place to grow a good marketing channel for podcasts and a good place to grow your podcast. In that vein, let me just paint a quick little picture of what. We have no interest in building a podcast app, so we're never going to build this, but I think podcast apps have an opportunity to go further with the pod roll tech. And I don't think it's going to be complicated. The few apps that have implemented this tag. And when I say pod roll, I shouldn't say that. I should say a podcast that recommends other podcasts. I think pocketcast calls this thing. They have a little tab that says you might like, and when you click that, it says shows recommended by the creator, and it lists all the shows. So if you go look up Buzzcast on pocketcast, you can find this little tab that says you might like, and it has a bunch of great shows in there. Now, here's the problem. They put that on the podcast level. So when you're looking at Buzzcast, the podcast overall, and like all of our episodes, you will see that option. But I think people do that like one time when they find the show and then they follow the show and then they just look at their episode feed and they're like, oh, there's a new episode of Buzzcast. And they tap on it and it starts playing it. And they never go back to that show page. Now all they see from that point forward are individual episodes on the now playing screen. And I think that's where this you might also like content needs to live. So in the UI for Pocket Cast, they have like a swipe left, swipe right type navigation. I can swipe between the show notes and my bookmarks and chapters. Like, why not just throw another tab over there where I could swipe over to. You might also like. And it shows all those shows that we like and lets you quickly follow them or just tap on one to listen. I would love that.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Kevin]

And then I would also like for them to bring all those different recommendations together. So it's like, oh, you listen to Buzzcast, and Buzzcast has a pod roll, and you listen to Pod News Weekly Review and Pod Newsweekly Review has a pod roll, and you listen to podcasting 2.0. I'm just gonna name a bunch of podcasting shows right now. And they have a pod roll. And so just give me a place within the podcasting app itself to be like, based on all of the different things that you listen to, here's all the different shows that are recommended by the creators of those shows. Just put them all together. That would be great to bubble it up there. I mean, I don't know, because evidently, like I already said, my brain works differently than a lot of people. But at least for some people whose brain works like mine, I would like that content surfaced in a more noticeable area, an area in which I'm going to visit more frequently, especially the show

[Alvin]

that is recommended by multiple of the creators that you like.

[Kevin]

Yeah. If those Venn diagrams interlap at any spot, like, prioritize those at the very top.

[Alvin]

Yeah. So Goodreads does a good job of this. If I go to Goodreads and I'm recommended a book and someone's like, oh, you should read this book. Okay, maybe. And then I go look it up on Goodreads and I can see a description, I can see the rankings, I can see related books. And so I can if there's, like, related books that I've enjoyed. And then I scroll down and I look for different people from different areas of my life all liked this book. So rather than getting a list of, here are books my dad recommends. Here's book recommendations for my wife. Here are some from somebody at school. All those being separate, I'd rather it be, here's the book that is you should check out, because six people in your life all liked it. Here's a book that two people in your life like. And I think that that's the way that Goodreads pretty much is working. I think that's the way the podcast app should do it. That you know, your friends or the creators you follow, they're all recommending the same podcast. You should give it two or three chances rather than it needing to hook you immediately.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah. The whole time you guys were discussing this, I was picturing your episode finishes, Napa podcasts, and then like, a screen pops up and it's just like, you might also like these. And then I realized this is what YouTube does. But I would absolutely love it, and I would love it if I had an option to look at some sort of, like, algorithm grouping other listeners of this podcast also enjoy these shows too, or they follow these shows. And yeah, it's just, I'm feeling a bit like that. Like if you give a mouse a cookie. Yeah, we have like the pod roll and we have like these recommendations and I'm like, what if we did this and this and this?

[Alvin]

We are rebuilding YouTube ourselves.

[Jordan]

We're going, what if it's recommending other

[Alvin]

podcasts all the time? Oh, what if you didn't have to listen to the whole thing? You could only listen to, like, minute long clips. That would be really good because then I could try out lots of podcasts and see if I liked them more. And you're like, wait a second, we've

[Jordan]

just reinvented short form video.

[Alvin]

Oh, video podcasts could be in there too.

[Kevin]

Well, a huge difference between what YouTube's doing and some of the stuff that we're talking about is in the podcasting, like, tool development space, which is where I put buzzsprout. So on the hosting side, we've done a really good job with the podcast standards projects, bringing a bunch of hosts together and agreeing on some tool sets to be able to deliver tools to creators that they could then use to hopefully make their shows better. One of the ways they can make their shows better is by increasing their reach, increasing discoverability, increasing marketing channels and stuff like that. Those tools that we've focused on, at least initially, have been like manual tools. We're trying to replicate and keep the beauty of podcasting because we've seen what's happened in the YouTube world, right? When YouTube makes a recommendation, you know, it's this algorithm making this recommendation. And they're doing it selfishly to keep you on platform, not necessarily to make you smarter, not necessarily to improve your life in any meaningful way. They're just doing it because they want more watch time, to serve more ads or to keep you a premium subscriber or whatever, whatever their motivations are. But in the podcasting world, the motivations are different. And right now anyway, most of discovery is happening by word of mouth, by even podcast apps that are making recommendations. They have the ability, like we've given them ingredients to make this cool recommendation cake that comes from creators. It doesn't come from an algorithm, but largely we're still waiting on podcast app builders to look at the ingredients that are available and figure out how to make their version of this podcast discovery cake. Terrible analogy, but that's sort of this. This vision that we all had in the PSP a couple years ago when we started trying to figure out. And the pod roll thing, that's just one. Obviously there was a lot of other tags and transcripts and stuff that have been built and been put out there. So there's lots of little things that you could pick up to help discoverability that doesn't just at the end of the day feel like, oh, we don't know what to serve next. We're going to serve them a funny, you know, cat video or something. Because it's. It's not really about helping them find their next like or follow or subscribe or whatever the YouTube garbage is. It's just about keeping you on platform. Podcasting is different and so we're trying to put some really good information out there. So hopefully podcast apps pick it up. It's just been a while. Come on, guys.

[Alvin]

Lots of people find podcasts through, hey, you should listen to this. Recommended by a friend or another creator. And this can happen in any number of ways. And we're hoping that we make it a little bit easier so that word of mouth recommendations make their way into podcast apps and so they can be surfaced. I feel like the only app I can think of that does this is Apple Podcasts, where I think if somebody sends you a podcast episode or a podcast itself through imessage, that it will try to pick it up and show it inside of the Apple podcast app. If we mention a podcast, it can show up as one of those links. So those two things, Apple Podcasts, I think is trying to solve this, not lean all the way into the algorithm, instead trying to bring a bit more of the like, quote unquote word of mouth into their app. But I think there's still a lot of other ideas worth exploring in this space.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Word of mouth used to be very much interpreted as, you know, you're out to coffee with your friend and you're talking about something and they tell you about a podcast and that's how you, like, find it. But I feel like it's really gotten very, like, social. There's a lot of podcasts that I have found through word of mouth from somebody even sharing the podcast on, like their Instagram story or talking about it on the podcast. And so guesting on other podcasts and promo swaps should be put into this bucket. Podcasters, when they have you on as a guest or when they talk about your podcast on their show, it's word of mouth because their audience trusts them. And in a way, they're vouching for you. And I love that the apps are seeing how powerful word of mouth marketing is. And we're. We're getting this, like, marriage of the podcast apps, discoverability and the word of mouth through people talking about it. And now there's suddenly these automatic links generated. Spotify added that if I send a podcast to somebody, they will, like, start up a new chat in Spotify, which is very weird, but I kind of like it. It's really weird, but I'm like, oh, what were they talking about again? And I can just go into there and I can see it again.

[Kevin]

I know this piggybacked off of, I think, TikTok or Instagram. One of those two were to sort of pioneer this technology where when you share stuff now they're not just giving you a share link.

[Alison Weeks]

Yeah.

[Kevin]

They're giving you a share link that's unique to you and unique to the person who ends up getting it. They're kind of like fingerprinting you both on both sides. So they know that, oh, Jordan just copied the share link and then Albin, an hour later tapped it. You two are connected. We can start a chat thing.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Kevin]

It's kind of. I get what you're saying. It's kind of creepy, but it probably is very effective.

[Jordan]

I've gotten some.

[Alvin]

And then I click a TikTok and

[Jordan]

it says, keena, Finn, you should connect. And I'm like, oh, Keena got this clip, shared it to Kevin. Kevin just copied the exact same clip, sent it to me.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

It's so crazy.

[Jordan]

And that's happened multiple times where the

[Alvin]

name that pops up, I'm like, I know who this person is, but they're one step away from me.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I don't like that.

[Jordan]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

[Alvin]

So word of mouth. I know it's big. I know that we all talk about it. I know that I recommend it constantly. But when I went through my list of 15 podcasts, I have, you know, right now, subscribed with an episode that I'm going to listen to. I had one that was personally recommended to me.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Really?

[Alvin]

Yeah.

[Kevin]

That's surprising.

[Alvin]

And it's not a top show. Like, there are other people who listen to the same podcast, but I didn't find it because of somebody else. I either I might have been the recommender or we both found it independently. Almost none of the podcasts that I'm listening to were recommended to me. There's a lot that someone recommends. I'm like, I'm into it for one episode, but I'm not into. Yeah, I'm going to follow this for years and, you know, keep listening mode.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

That's actually really surprising to me, Alvin. I find the vast majority of the podcasts I listen to through recommendations. I have friends that send me podcasts or, I mean, literally, just today, my husband started a new podcast and he sent it to me and he said it was great and I'm going to, like, listen to it. You know, that really surprised me that you don't listen to them.

[Alvin]

I don't know. Maybe it's just that the stuff I'm recommended doesn't land as well. I don't know what it is, but I listen to lots of podcasts. I like them, I talk about them with people. And yet a lot of the ones that are my favorites that I'm subscribed to, that I listen to every episode, rarely recommended by a friend.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Do you consider yourself like, a podcast snobby? A little bit. Like, you know how there's always those people that you try to recommend, like, a book or a movie to, and they're like, I don't think so. Like, that's not really my speech.

[Alvin]

Not a podcast snob. I think I am.

[Jordan]

I do think that's true.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Maybe that's part of it.

[Jordan]

I don't like this, but I. I

[Alvin]

try to think of, like, what did I like about this so that I can share that with the person who recommended it, because I like them.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

But lots of times, you know, my sister will recommend a movie, and I'm like, I liked some of that movie, but I didn't. I'm not leaving going, that's a movie I really like. And books. This happens all the time, where someone sends it. And I'm like, I read it because I liked you, but this isn't my kind of book. And I could tell pretty quick. And I think I had that with podcasts, too.

[Kevin]

Well, that sounds like a, like a friend curation problem. Not a podcast curation problem.

[Alvin]

It's a me problem. I'm curating my friend list pretty poorly.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

They're all wacky.

[Kevin]

You need to have, like, criteria to get an Albin's friend circle. And one of them should be, like, you do good podcast recommendations, and if you don't, then you're out.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

There's definitely, like, circles that I have where I can count on them listening to the things that I recommend and they can count on me, like, watching or listening to the things that they recommend to me. There are some tactics that you can use with your podcast to make sure that you are getting the most out of word of mouth discoverability. I mean, first off, like, make sure that your podcast is easy to recommend. I've had people recommend so many things to me where I have to ask them, like, spell it for me or I don't understand what they said fully or I can't remember what it was. And so you need to make sure that, like, your name's easy to pronounce and it has, like, a clear, like, premise to the podcast. One of the podcasts I think about a lot is spirits. And it's a multitude productions podcast. And they go into. And it's so funny because at the beginning of every single episode, they say spirits podcast. And it's a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. That's the elevator pitch. And they say it every episode. And when I tell people about that podcast, I'm like, oh, you love it. It's like a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. And they go, that sounds great. They listen to the podcast. So you kind of have to like, train your listeners too, to be able to like, give the elevator pitch for your podcast.

[Kevin]

Right? Like, how many times. This probably has never happened to Jordan, but it's happened to me quite a bit, which is somebody says, oh, you're into podcasts, you're in the podcasting industry, whatever. Like, what should I be listening to? What's a good show? And I'm like, oh, I'm going through all the shows I listen to and I'm like, you wouldn't like that. You wouldn't like. I'm like, trying to find one that they would like. And I bet if more shows I listened to had catchy elevator pitches like that that I just had memorized, I bet a couple would just come out naturally because they'd be right on the tip of my tongue.

[Alvin]

Yeah, I think another tip is this. You've got to ask your listeners to share. I hear so many times, like, please drop this into the group chats that you think would like it. You know, please share this with a friend. Think of a friend right now. That's the best thing you can do for us. And I really think that is a good reminder. Like, you need to remind people this is the time to share. This is the thing that helps the podcast the most. And when you ask people, then they do think, which group chats my end that would like this? And you kind of one or two might pop up and you go, actually, this is a good fit. So I think that if anything is probably the piece.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah, I've been recently doing a lot of this. But guesting on other podcasts, that's a really great way. I mean you, you have the entire episode to help out your fellow podcasters, to spread the word about like whatever your topic you're interested in. And then you get to plug your show in the process and it's really awesome. Along with that, the promo for promo swaps.

[Kevin]

Mm.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

But I think when we get into this territory, it's really easy to kind of do like the spray and pray method where you don't care what podcast promotes your podcast. Like you're just gonna reach out to everybody and you're do promo swaps with everybody. But it's really important to be laser focused on your niche because you don't wanna be doing promo swaps for podcasts that your listeners aren't really interested in. Cause that's, I don't know, it feels disingenuous to them. And then you also wanna make sure that your podcast is being promoted to audiences that actually care and are going to follow through and listen to your podcast too.

[Kevin]

Right. And then maybe it's a shameless self plug here, but there is also buzzsprout ads which kind of falls into this promo for promo thing. And we've addressed that issue that Jordan just mentioned, which is it's a double opt in on both sides. So when you do a buzzsprout ad for your podcast, you get matched with podcasts that are in the categories that you select and then they get presented with an ad opportunity for your ad. If they accept it, if they think it's a good fit for their audience, then you as the advertiser get to approve them or not. And so it goes into this waiting for approval and as soon as you approve it, then it starts running in their episodes. And so it's not sort of that spray and pray, it's the double opt in on both sides. Make sure it's a good connection because we really want them to be as effective as possible. I will tell you, if you decide to do that, whether you do manual promo swaps that you set up yourself or you do buzzbread ads, so it's more get a wider reach and a little more automated at the cost, of course, of spending a little bit of money, it all comes down to doing a really good promo. So many times we see in buzzsprout ads, people don't get the results that they're necessarily looking for almost every single time. It is because we listen to the promo and then have to give them some, like, tough love and say, like, that promo wasn't really effective. Like, you didn't say the name of your podcast ever in your promo or something. Sometimes it's obvious like that, but usually it's just little things that you like. They just didn't invest that much time in putting together a promo. They just like edited down a piece of their trailer episode or something like. Well, it's not the same way that social media works where you get lots of impressions and lots of tries and the algorithm keeps serving it up to try to figure out if this content is resonating with people or not. It's not. You're paying for, you know, a couple of impressions over a couple of episodes, so you really want that dialed in. So if you decide to do it, I just. My tip is to invest the time to actually make a really good, compelling promo. Share it with people you trust who will give you honest feedback before you spend money, money behind it to actually serve it out.

[Alvin]

And think about what Jordan just shared. The spirited podcast, the boozy dive into folklore. I have not heard it. Besides what you just said just now, that's what I remembered. I think it needs to be something like that one line that tells me, what is this podcast about? So that the people who would listen hear it and go, that's for me. And you need some percentage of people to have a chance to hear. That's exactly what I want. Oh, it's a reverent podcast about the future of AI. Yes. That's what I'm looking for. I need to. I kind of want to keep up with AI, but I also wanted to be light hearted. That sounds good to me. Like it needs to be kind of snappy so that they know well and

[Kevin]

not just describing it, like giving it to them. You have 60 seconds. If you. If your podcast is funny, you better make them laugh in that first 60 seconds. If your podcast is educational, you better drop a piece of knowledge that makes them say like, they really are. And I'm interested in that. That's. I didn't know that, so. And if your podcast is about Unsolved Mysteries or something like build up the beginning to a mystery and then leave them with a cliffhanger and tell them they check out the show to hear the rest. Don't just describe it, but don't not describe it. Describe it. Give em a taste and then you're out.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah, it should be pretty easy to figure out what your elevator pitch is for. Your podcast, because you probably should have figured that out when you're creating your podcast description, which I think segues nicely into why it's good to have this. This information out there is search engines and LLMs. Alvin, you've been talking about this a lot recently with how you've been finding, like, new podcasts, because you search up a term and then it, like, serves up these sources. And you're not the only one who has been finding more podcasts through search engines. Alex Sanfilippo wrote in, and he said that he uses search engines and he looks up a topic, and then he finds 10 different podcasts that have an episode that covers that exact topic, and then he binges ten of those back to back. And that's his strategy for learning, growing, and consuming podcast content these days. So his is, like, a little extreme. But then we also had Jewel Kim write in, and she said that she kind of does same thing when she wants to learn something, except she also will ask LLMs and the people that she knows or Facebook groups for recommendations in addition to the search engines.

[Alvin]

Yeah, I actually think I'm similar to Alex in this way. When I want to learn something, I cast a really wide net early, and I'll subscribe to 10 shows, I'll read a couple books, and then I'll go, okay, most of this is not very good. I don't like it. And then I lock in on a couple sources. And so you kind of explore in the beginning, and then you find something, and then you tighten it up. Of the 15 podcasts I looked at, I think six or seven of them were ones I'd found through LLMs. I never thought Google was very good. You know, I type in best podcast on podcasting, and I didn't find shows that I wanted. But when I go into ChatGPT and I put it on thinking, and I say, here are my favorite podcasts. Here's the blogs I like. Here's the type of show I'm looking for. Is anybody doing this? I've regularly found really good recommendations, and now I'll go through this whole prompt. I'll just do it with voice. And I'll say, find me an episode that's on this and it'll recommend something. And more often than not, it's really good. And a high percentage of these are linking to pages like your buzzsprout website with a transcript. Yeah, I am surprised at how often I end up listening to podcasts that are hosted on buzzsprout. I think it's because we're transcribing all of these and we are putting them on the websites. It's showing up a lot for me. I think this is really underutilized. If I was starting a new podcast right now, I'd a hundred percent be transcribing my episodes. I'd be making sure that they were out there on the open web so that they were getting picked up by all of these bots that are going through it. I don't love the idea of them using it and ripping off my content to train the models. But when people want recommendations, this is how you get recommended. And it's definitely landed for me. And maybe it's just that I'm looking for things that are a little bit off the wall. I don't know. But lots of my recommendations now I'm like on that podcast. I found that podcast on that one all through LLMs.

[Kevin]

Yeah, I think the world is changing rapidly in this regard. That's absolutely where I would start again. This isn't my default go to, but just the amount of context that you can put around an LLM search versus a Google search is totally different. And so I have a lot more confidence that the results it's going to bring back are going to be better because I can. It knows more about me and I. And I'm more likely to type more specifically what I'm looking for than just podcast about gardening, like and it and Google's going to return some like top 10 gardening podcast list that somebody wrote six years ago. And half of the podcasters aren't even podcasting anymore. And I just, I have a much higher level of trust that whatever the LLM is that I'm using, it knows a little bit about me. The information that it's searching is more current. And again, I'm just going to tell it more stuff about me. Like I want a podcast not just about gardening, but gardening in Florida specifically for this time of year and whatever. How do I grow tulips? And it should be funny. An LLM can find that really well.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I actually want to bridge this topic with the final way that people are saying they find the most new podcasts, and that is with social media. Cumulus and Signal Hills spring 2025 report. I was looking through it and weekly podcast consumers said they found the most podcasts on social through Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. And down at the very bottom was Reddit sitting at 4% of the people. And I was thinking, I wonder if people don't realize that they're discovering new Podcasts through things like Reddit because of search engines and LLMs. Because what happens a lot of times is if you ask for recommendations, like there's so many people that recommend podcasts or they talk about certain podcast episodes on Reddit and those LLMs will use Reddit to source the information.

[Alvin]

Yeah, it would be good to acknowledge right now that all of these. The lines are a little bit fuzzy.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

Something is a personal recommendation from a friend, but it's a friend I've never met. It's a friend who's on Twitter and they posted. And so I see that as a social media recommendation. But if I was on Reddit, that might have shown up in an LLM search because somebody on Reddit recommended it. And that's what ChatGPT grabbed to use the recommendation. So there's lots of these influence each other. So it's good to, you know, no matter what you're picking, target any of them because it can kind of bleed into other areas, you know. Is YouTube a podcast app? I don't really think so. Is it social media? I don't really think so. It's kind of a little bit of lots of stuff, but. So it could have been in any of these buckets.

[Kevin]

Well, while we talk about social media, I'm not discounting the fact that it is a great channel for a lot of people to market their stuff, but I have just recently had the thought that I'm sort of encouraged that maybe we've reached peak social media. Maybe we're going to start to see a turn. And I don't necessarily know what's next on the heels of that, but I will just share my own, like, sort of personal epiphany that has led me to this hopeful thought, and that is I did like a social media fast towards the end of last year, I deleted all the social media stuff except for the accounts that I needed to maintain for work. And so the only time I would use social stuff is if it was for a work purpose during work hours. But, like, once I logged off, there's. There was no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok, no YouTube shorts, no nothing. And it was different than I thought. Like, there was lots of times where I was like, I would normally be on my phone scrolling right now, and I'm not. That felt good. Once I got through, like, the detox stage of that, I continued to have, like, very important people in my life. Mostly my family send me stuff and then they wanted to talk about it later and I couldn't see it. Anymore. And it was annoying to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm going to put some of these apps back, but I don't want to get back into those same old habits. And what I've noticed is that I think sort of like what people describe when you quit sugar or something for a long time, like, when you go back and then start, like, maybe you're like, okay, I'm done with that. I did no sugar for six months. And then whatever, you have a peanut butter cup or something, you're like, I think you can have two reactions. One, it's so good. Or two, it's not what I remembered. It's worse than I thought.

[Jordan]

It's.

[Kevin]

It's. I don't know, it doesn't live up to the hype. And that's sort of this reaction I'm having as I'm starting to introduce social media back into my life.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Mm.

[Kevin]

I'm. I feel very sick now after consuming it. And I was at a point where, like, I had a high tolerance. I could sit there and get lost in Instagram reels for, like, 30 minutes and I wouldn't feel like just wasted 30 minutes of my life. I didn't feel that afterward. Now I do now. Like, now that gluttonous feeling comes back whenever I get stuck again. And so at least for me, and I'm seeing a little bit, like, in my kids and stuff, too. Like, they're just. It's just the usage seems less now. I don't expect any of these companies to report that or for it to be a big news story. I think that even if they're seeing that and they're trends, that they would hide that as much as they can.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Kevin]

But I'm wondering what's going to come on the heels of it, though. That's the question. And I'm wondering, like, question I'm asking. And I think some of this, these LLM interactions, I don't feel awful at the end of these, but there have been times when I'll. I'll sit down for a chat session to learn something, to research something, and I will kind of get lost in there for a long time. And have you guys noticed that these chat sessions are now, like, not wanting you to end them? They're not, like, answering your question and then, like, just been like, glad I could help you with that. They're like, I'm glad I answered your question. If you want, I can also do this and this and this. And you're like, oh, yeah, let's do that. And they're just keeping you locked in.

[Jordan]

It's unbearable.

[Alvin]

I hate it.

[Kevin]

Yeah. I mean, they haven't quite figured it out yet because it's very obvious what they're trying to do. But you can tell they're going to get better at it.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

All right, so to wrap all this up, if you want to improve your discoverability on social media platforms, I think it's really good to just focus on one or two social platforms and really be intentional about being where your audience is.

[Alvin]

I think that it can be overwhelming to jump into social media because you feel like you have to be everywhere.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

And everybody seems to recommend, like, oh, sign up for Buffer, so you can publish your content everywhere and make sure you're engaging on all the sites and it's just a total setup for you to burn out and not do anything. Much better would be, what's the one that, if I was good at it, it might actually help grow my podcast. For you, it could be Pinterest for me, it could be Twitter. For somebody else, it could be Instagram. Pick out which one is best and just be consistent. Just like podcasting, it's time and consistency. Will help you get better, will help people learn about you. They'll see your stuff regularly, you'll gain followers, and all of that builds upon itself. And remember, the whole way the web works is everything's published one place, and then it's screenshotted and published other places. And so if you do something that's a really good Instagram post, it's probably going to show up on Reddit eventually. Anyway,

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

let's get into some fan mail. We got voicemails. This time it's oops, all voicemails. And I'm really excited about it. So we have some really great kudos from listeners, and it's awesome to hear their voices. So first up, we have a message from Andy from Dudes and Dads.

[Andy Layman]

Hey, buzzcasters. This is Andy Layman. I am the host of the Dudes and Dads podcast, and I just wanted to say I love voicemail. I've had voicemail on my podcast since the beginning of my podcast, and I love the ability to have users just call in and hear their own voice. It's one of the amazing things. You get a lot of engagement because people hear their own voice and they're more likely to call because they can say, hey, I was on the show. Go listen to me. So, guys, great job implementing voicemail. I love it.

[Kevin]

I love that. I mean, people are going to be Doing this, they're going to be saying, I called into the show. No one's calling anybody. It's just you're going in your, you know, on your phone or you're going on a web browser and you're recording a message. But I just love that it's going to be like, hey, call into the show. That's going to be the call to action.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Next up, we have one from Allison Weeks.

[Alison Weeks]

Hey, buzzcast. This is Alison Weeks from the Art of Home podcast. Just finished the last episode about all of the new updates, and I am thrilled with the new updates to fan mail. I have said for a long time I wish there was a way that I could text people back that wouldn't expose my phone number and give give them constant access to me. So this is the perfect fix. All I want to be able to do is say thank you for the message. And then, like you guys said, ask, hey, could I share this? Do I have your permission to share? That's so helpful. And I'm looking forward to seeing how I can use the voice messaging as well, because Speak Pipe, I used it for years and I got maybe five messages over five years, so that's a wonderful addition. Also, Kevin, I don't think those were the Lord's snacks in the bathroom. So I'm really glad that you didn't pick them up because you never know. You're not supposed to pick things up that are left unattended at an airport. So good call.

[Kevin]

Oh, yes.

[Alvin]

This is great.

[Jordan]

I feel very vindicated.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Do you know how weird that's gonna sound to somebody that did not listen to the post show?

[Kevin]

Oh, well, I was just being vulnerable, sharing some stories. Hotel.

[Alvin]

I also agree with Allison. I know that there's people who do have done voicemail before where you can record audio and have a service set up. The downside was we didn't see enough adoption to justify paying for a whole nother tool or maintaining that having voicemail is nice because if you get one, there's a way for people to send it. If you don't get any, it already is part of your Buzzsprout plan, so it's no big deal. And if you ended up realizing there's more features that I want, I think there are nice things like Speak Pipe that maybe you end up upgrading to down the line.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

All right, next up, we have David John Clark.

[David John Clark]

Hey, team. David John Clark, AKA the late bloomer actor of the podcast of the same name. This is awesome to be able to send a voicemail through to you and be able to maybe hear your own voice on your favorite podcast. Now if only my guests and my listeners would do the same on my show. Late bloomer actor. Thanks, guys. This is absolutely fantastic. Love the work that you're doing and it just gets better every day. Cheers from down under.

[Kevin]

Does he work at Outback?

[Jordan]

That was a very Tampa thing for

[Kevin]

you to say Outback. The first one, I think, was in Tampa.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Oh, was it really?

[Jordan]

They were just like, we need it. We need a theme for our steak restaurant. They go, what about Australia? And they did all this Australian stuff and never went there.

[Kevin]

And David did a great job because he mentioned. I don't know if you guys picked up on it. Mentioned his. The name of his podcast a couple of times there.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yes.

[Kevin]

So delivered a valuable message and serves as a promo for his own podcast.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Love it.

[Kevin]

Perfect.

[Jordan]

Thank you, David.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

All right, here's a voice message from Jeffrey Greif.

[Jeffrey Greif]

This is Jeffrey Greif from the Sellin podcast. Jordan, Kevin Albin, it was wonderful to meet you@podfest 2026. My question is this. When we die, do our podcasts live on forever in the directories, or do we need our estate to continue to pay the monthly Buzzsprout fee? Or is there some other way to address this so that our podcast episodes live on forever? Well, after us podcasters go on to the great podcast Mic drop in the sky. Several other podcasters and I have discussed this for years and nobody seems to know the answer. So I know this would be a valuable topic of discussion for a buzzcast episode. Thank you all very much. I never miss a single episode of Buzzcast.

[Jordan]

Jeffrey, thank you so much. Good question. I think our next episode does need to be what happens when you die.

[Kevin]

I don't know that we could do a whole episode on it. Here's here, Let me give you a quick answer right now. If you add to your state instructions for somebody to reach out to our support team and tell the support team that the creator of this podcast has passed and make sure they then email us a copy of the death certificate so we can verify. We can move them to a forever enchanted plan or something like that.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I love that.

[Kevin]

Where we just. We basically put it on an archive plan for free and just keep it there forever. So no new episodes. But we won't. Won't delete your stuff. At least as long as. I can't promise forever, but I can say as. At least as long as Buzzsprout is around.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I don't know. I've heard that anything you post on the Internet is there forever.

[Kevin]

Well, that's because you're a mom and you probably tell that to your kids.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

It's probably because my mom told me.

[Kevin]

I do think stuff can get lost from time to time.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Oh, okay.

[Kevin]

But, yeah, I think we can. I mean, I'm. I'm happy to say that as a policy, we can create a. A very simple plan, which is basically the. It's a combination of a. What do I want?

[Alvin]

It could be like an immemorial podcast or something like a. It's just a legacy. I don't know, maybe the legacy I would commit to.

[Kevin]

I would commit some resources to making that happen once the. The first time this happens. So there you go. Instructions for your estate to contact our support team with a copy of the justice, and then we'll make sure something happens.

[Alvin]

I love that there was a time where WordPress did a hundred year hosting plan. Did you see this, Kevin?

[Kevin]

I sort of vaguely remember something about a hundred year hosting plan. Was that WordPress?

[Alvin]

Yeah, it's WordPress. And you register for it and you get your domain. They will register the domain. They'll keep it going. They'll host your website for a hundred years for $30,000. And so this is a $30,000 offer that Kevin.

[Kevin]

All right, we got one more.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

One more from Tom Raftery.

[Tom Raftery]

Hey, buzzpred Team Tom Raftery here from the Climate confident and resilient supply chain podcast. And I just want to congratulate yourselves and the team because this new way of adding chapter markers to podcasts is awesome. Absolutely awesome. I hesitated adding chapters to my podcast before because the process was too clunky, but now with the copy and paste function, I can create chapters in something like Descript. Do just a quick copy, come over to the buzzsprout site. Paste and boom. Chapters created. Phenomenal. Thank you so much, folks, for that.

[Kevin]

All right, I'm laughing. I'm laughing because it's sort of like Thomas saying, we fixed the problem that we created, so congratulations. We created the pain in the first place and then we took the pain away. Yeah, I get. I totally get what you're saying. We did. We did at. The first iteration of the chapter tool was for, you know, people who wanted to slowly go through their episode and be very intentional about where those points were and it wasn't already a part of their editing process. We totally did have a blind spot around the quick and easy. I'm already doing this in another app, and I just need to be able to transfer them in. And so I'm glad that that blind spot is blind no more. And I'm sorry for the pain that we caused at the first version.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

All right, that was a lot of fun. Thank you, everyone, for sending in your voicemails. I would actually like if you could use the voicemail or just fan mail text to show feature, to send in some topic ideas, some questions that you have around podcasting. I'm trying to do some episode planning for 2026, and I think it would be awesome to hear from you guys some ideas of things that you think we should cover. So to send those in, go ahead and tap the text show link in the show notes.

[Kevin]

Our link doesn't say text to show anymore. Just says send us fan mail.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Okay?

[Kevin]

So you got to update that script in your head.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

So to send those in text. So to send those in, tap the send us fan mail.

[Kevin]

Send us fan mail.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Okay, so to send those in, tap the send us. So just. So to send those in, tap the send us a fan mail link in the show notes. And until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

[Kevin]

You said each word correctly at least once.

[Alvin]

So, Jordan, this weekend, Kevin and I were in a company golf outing with John and Lloyd.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

And we came home golf champions. Wow.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Against John and Lloyd?

[Kevin]

No, not against. With.

[Jordan]

No, with.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

Oh, yeah.

[Kevin]

We were. We were a team.

[Jordan]

I mean, they're 20 something teams. This was a.

[Alvin]

This is legit. This is a big deal.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I thought you were bragging about beating John and Lloyd in golf.

[Kevin]

No, no, no. We're bragging about beating every other golf team in the Jacksonville area that was

[Alvin]

in this tournament, charity golf event. We won. And one caveat.

[Kevin]

Well, I don't know that it's a caveat. I mean, we were playing within the rules and everything. So as part of Pod Match was a. The sponsor that sponsored our team. And what a fun opportunity because nobody from Alex's team is really that into golf. And he's like, I know you guys are into golf. Let's do it. He's like, do you want to go represent PodMatch? We're like, we'd love to represent Pod Match. This is amazing. And so the sponsorship deal, it was like a pro Am, so you got to choose a pro golfer to be a part of your team.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

What?

[Kevin]

And so, you know, Alvin and I are like, we're going to pick the right pro. We're going to pick the best pro. So we did some research on the pros that were available to us. We went into ChatGPT and we're like, they have to be an awesome golfer. But also, like, here's the weak parts of our game. We need them to be strong in these areas, and they also have to be fun. And they got to. Anyway, we got this. The pro who joined our team, I will share with you. His name is Luke Guthrie. I'd never heard of him, but he was awesome. Perfect fit for our team in, like, personality, in humor. Younger than most of us, but, like, old enough that we could still relate and. And have a good time together.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

So he actually competed with you guys on your team, like, the whole time, side by side?

[Kevin]

Yeah, we all played golf together.

[Jordan]

What we ended up with is a

[Alvin]

scramble where all five of us would hit a shot and then pick, okay, which of these is the best and hit from that spot.

[Jordan]

And a big part of why we won is because the four of us

[Alvin]

have some of the worst handicaps of anyone there.

[Jordan]

So we get a bonus based on our handicaps. But 80% of his shots are from the guy who's a pro, and he just got the benefit from all four of us having high handicaps. And Kevin, walking out at one point

[Alvin]

goes, don't worry, guys. I got some mulligans, which are, like, if we don't hit a good shot, we get to re hit.

[Jordan]

I went, oh, how many do we have? He goes, well, obviously, I bought the max amount. We have 15 Mulligans as a team. So this guy is a professional golfer getting a big handicap bonus, hitting almost all the shots himself, and then just

[Alvin]

every hole, we're like, not that great, man.

[Jordan]

Why don't you hit another one?

[Kevin]

Well, we're. We were hyping him up, though. We were. We played our part like, we had to keep him mentally strong. And so, like, anytime he hit a great shot, we're like, oh, you're amazing. Look who we're. His gallery.

[Jordan]

He kept saying, stu, like, albin, do you want to take this mulligan? Like, no, he's not. I'm hoping for us to hit well.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

He's trying to get you guys involved.

[Jordan]

And then on the final hole, we

[Alvin]

get there, and there's a cannon.

[Jordan]

There's like, this giant golf ball shooting

[Alvin]

gun that has, like, compressed air, and it just. You point it out, they go, hey, if you donate another $100 to the

[Jordan]

charity, everyone gets to shoot their golf

[Alvin]

ball out of this thing. And Lloyd has been in the naval reserves, and so he goes, I got it.

[Jordan]

He jumps up there. He aims the golf ball up, fires it, shoots off into the sky, totally.

[Alvin]

We can't see it. It's going in the direction of the pin.

[Kevin]

This is a par five, 540 yard, par five, like, very long hole.

[Alvin]

And we go down there, 540 yards away, and there is a golf ball embedded in the green. Like, it is stuck, like, 10ft from the hole.

[Jordan]

And so we pull it out, repair the green, do the best we can.

[Kevin]

The guy who's running the cannon comes running up with his camera, and he's like, no one's hit the green yet. This is amazing. I can't believe it.

[Jordan]

So he filmed every one of us missing our putts with a commentary going. They just hit the green after using the cannon. Here it is. This is. This would be for two on a par five miss. And then the next person gets up, he does the same video. He did it every time until the pro got up there, tapped it in, and we ended up winning by one stroke.

[Alvin]

So Cannon was the difference maker.

[Kevin]

Yep.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

With a pro golfer on your team, you won by one.

[Jordan]

Sometimes you need a little help, Jordan. And we got a lot.

[Kevin]

Alex did not believe us when we texted him and said, we won the tournament. He's like, there's no way you're messing with me. Like, no, we spent a lot of money to win this thing, but we won.

[Jordan]

This thing is a good cause, but they always do a good job of

[Alvin]

saying, like, hey, do you want to. You want a little bonus? You're like, yeah, okay. I mean, you just donate another 20, 40 bucks, and you're like, well, it's a good cause, so let's keep going.

[Jordan]

And by the end of it, you're

[Alvin]

like, these charities are really good at, like, upselling you.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

It's those microtransactions. They learn this from the gaming apps. You know, for some currency, you can get some boosts.

[Kevin]

Yep. Well, it was. It was a super fun day. Thanks again to Alex and the team at podmatch for sponsoring us and letting us go out there and have some fun and play with a pro. If you haven't checked out podmatch, please do so. There's your plug for the day. Pod Match is an awesome service, and it's so great. I can't believe that we're both in Jacksonville and get to do fun stuff like this together.

[Host Female (possibly Sarah or similar)]

I know. That's awesome.

[Kevin]

Yeah.

[Alvin]

Really great time. Thank you so much, Alex and everybody there.