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Podcast Editors Mastermind
Top 5 Things Our Clients Should Stop Focusing on (And Things They Should)
01:02:21
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A
Foreign.
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B
Welcome to the Podcast Era Mastermind show. I am Steve. How long is it going to take to get this deck finished, Stuart? And today we're going to have a conversation about what podcasters should probably stop doing and give them a list of things that they probably should start doing to advance their podcast, make it more successful. With me, I've got three panelists. First we have Andrea Klender, founder, media strategist and lead producer, editor of the creator Impostor Studios. She also facilitates Power your Story, a high school mentoring program and podcast produced by Neurodiverse students in Chicago. I think it's really cool. Tell me a little bit about that.
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C
Yeah, it started off as a little side gig as I was growing my podcast editing business. The school for Neurodiverse students. So that's students with intellectual and developmental disabilities like autism spectrum. They were looking for a specialist to come in and help their journalism class become more digital rather than just creating a PDF for the school. Printable PDF. I did not consider myself educator with experience with students with disabilities, but I mean, that's a weird combination of skills. And so I applied and I got it and almost 10 years later, wow. And teach them podcasting skills. So it's really fun. And it is how I stay current on what's coming is like, okay, what are the high school students paying attention to? What are they interested in? It's why when people started saying that YouTube was gonna be like this major podcast platform and a lot of podcasters were like, no, no, no, no, no, it's not. It's YouTube's never gonna dominate video. Doesn't matter. I was like, all of my students only care about YouTube. That's how I knew that that was the direction. So that's, that's how I stay hip and current.
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B
You mean podcasting on TikTok, right? Not yet. Not coming?
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C
I don't think so.
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B
Okay.
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C
I'm loving the TikTok so much right now.
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B
Okay. Also we have Lou Bartone, a former Hollywood TV executive, video marketing expert, a certified AI consultant. Lou brings strategy, storytelling and practical AI know how to entrepreneurs who want results without the tech induced migraine. We what is a certified AI consultant, Lou?
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D
I've been in an 18 month course that's probably 10, 12 hours a week where they basically teach you everything that's happening and every three days it changes. So the class keeps going on and on because it's moving so quick.
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B
How do they develop an 18 month course when it's only been out for like a year and a Half. That's interesting.
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D
Yeah.
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B
And then it's a real pleasure to bring on. Jay Soderbergh, long known as the Podvader, started producing podcasts in 2004, so way at the beginning, and is currently the VP of Podcast Operations and production at the Cumulus Podcast Network. Jay, you've had your hands in a lot of things. Is this the most fun as working for a corporation, or what is the best part of your job?
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A
Well, you know, the best part of my job is I get to work in podcasting, and I get paid to do podcasting. The best part of my career has been that I've worked with independent and corporate podcasting alike, so I'm a bit of a unicorn in that sense.
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B
Cumulus, do they always work with Megaphone being the media host? Because that's. That's kind of how I know you.
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A
No, they've been with Megaphone since I've been with the company, but they used other hosting platforms.
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B
Okay, that's interesting. All right. Megaphone's fantastic media help, so. Yeah. All right, well, let's get into this. We want to talk about the things that our podcast clients should stop focusing on, and then we'll also talk about things that they probably should start focusing more on. So let's go ahead and start with Andrea. No, I want to save Andrea because she said she has a list of 100, so we're going to see if we can take up some of her list. And let's start with Lou. What is something you think that our clients should stop focusing on or stop doing?
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D
I say the same thing to myself, because I am totally guilty of this, but I think we should stop chasing all the bright, shiny AI tools for podcasting, all the new tools and bells and whistles.
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B
Well, that's interesting coming from a certified AI consultant.
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D
I know. I mean, I love tools. I love doing tools, but at the end of the day, you know, if I'm playing with all these tools, I'm like, wait a minute. Descript does this already, Or Riverside does this already. Do I need another tool to do the same thing that my original tool does?
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B
So where do you see this being a problem with our clients? Then?
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D
I think. And again, you know, I'm the poster child for bright, shiny objects, but I think it's easy to get distracted by all the noise and come back to, like, the content and the conversation rather than the tools that you're using. Like, nobody cares what camera you're using as long as they can see you and hear you.
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B
Mm. Jay, let's come back to you then and ask you what's one of the things that you think our clients should stop focusing on?
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A
Well, just like I'm not anti AI, I'm not anti video, but you need to stop looking at the view specifically as a metric. The view is the worst, most nonsensical metric in all of data. You can quote me on that. I've worked on that quote quite a long time to come up with the way to describe the view. Now, I'm not going to say that it's completely useless, but it's almost completely useless. It doesn't do what you think it does. It does not give you an idea of how large your audience is. Yes, if you have a large number of views, you clearly have a larger audience. However, that is not the number that you want to look at to see how large your audience actually is. You want to narrow that down and YouTube gives you the metrics to narrow it down to find out what your actual audience is. And I can save that for the what we want you to do for later. But basically what I'm telling you, what you don't want to do is look at your views anymore.
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B
I think you took one of my they should start doing. So we'll see when we get there if I can kind of bring it to another angle. All right, Andrea, what's one of the hundred that's on your list that you think is going to be most interesting to our audience? What should our clients stop focusing on? What should they stop doing?
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C
Well, I'm going to kind of double down on and expand on what Jay said about video views. And that is, you know, we have to say this to stop obsessing over downloads in general. Any kind of metric in terms of whatever the platform is giving you, whether it's views, whether it's downloads, whether it's streams, whether it's plays, whether it's impressions, whatever that is. Obsessing over those numbers is going to lead to pain and misery and suffering and not lead to a joyful, successful longevity in the podcasting space. And I want to, I'm not supposed to say what they're going to start doing, but to consider that there are other ways to measure the success of your podcast and that the success of what your show is doing is not reliant, just strictly in number of eyeballs. And we don't even know that they're eyeballs. They could be bought eyeballs, you know, or whatever is on your particular platform. And so just to stop measuring your success by the download or the view or the impression or whatever it is. And also to stop stressing about video in general. Like, I have a lot of longtime audio podcasters who are largely independent too, who are like one person shops. They've hired out editing and show notes, writing, and they get some strategy consulting from me. But they're basically doing everything else their self and running a business. They're like, oh no, I got to do video too. And like, it feels like I have to, I have to, I have to. And I just want to say, like, stop stressing about video. There are ways to incorporate it that are not as heavy a lift as other ways. And there are ways you can do it smartly. There are ways you can do it minimally. And you can also just ignore it completely if you want to. It's your show. That's the great thing about podcasting is you're the boss. You don't have the gatekeepers. If you're an independent, of course, if you're on a network or you're with a corporate brand, you might have some different things that you're required to do, of course. But if you're an independent, just stop stressing about the video, stop stressing about the downloads. So that was a twofer, I guess.
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B
But wouldn't you agree video's really important? No, I mean, I'm.
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D
Oh, okay.
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A
I will tell you right now that on the corporate side, a podcast that's a larger podcast that is relying on podcast advertising and a large audience to grow, you have to have a video strategy for sure. If you're a smaller independent podcaster who's just starting, you absolutely do not need video for your podcast. I'm also, again, I want to try and couch this properly because understanding the engagement is different on video than it is in audio. You have much larger engagement in audio than you have in video, and that's told to us directly by YouTube. YouTube has said to us directly 20% completion rate is good on their platform. We've seen the numbers from Tom Webster and others that have told us that in audio, the industry average is 75% plus completion in audio. So you've literally flip flopped the number on video. So no, video is not important. However, I caveat that with there are things that you can do with video that can help your podcast. While YouTube might be a large discovery machine, people are not searching for podcasts on YouTube. The algorithm will put your content in front of people and then it is up to that content to do the work to convert those people into your audience. And that is something that is hard for people to grasp because once they start seeing what their conversion rates are, and the conversion rates are low too, when I say 20% is good for completion, 10% conversion is good for converting people, and that is a low, low number. When you see the big number, like everyone loves to see the big number. But then when you actually do the math and figure out how small the conversion actually was, that can be disheartening. So it goes back to what Andrea said. Do not focus on the numbers. Use them to help guide you, but don't fret over them.
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C
Yeah, and that's similar to what we've been seeing with a lot of our clients, which is that it may look like they're getting more views on YouTube, but if you look at the total minutes of content consumed, even if the number of people might be smaller on their audio podcast, the time that they've spent with that host, with that podcast, or with that content creator is sometimes greater in the audio. And so it depends on what it is that you want your show to be doing. Like, are you using your podcast to form a deeper connection with that small niche audience? It's like, I sometimes have organizations that I work for, like nonprofit organizations who will say, but our podcast numbers are so much smaller than our Instagram numbers. And I'm like, I can't understand why it's so difficult to communicate, difficult to see that someone watching a 30 second reel on Instagram is not equivalent to somebody listening to 45 minutes of a podcast. These two numbers are not equivalent. And so the depth of engagement often comes through that audio platform. But yes, YouTube is doing a lot of things to like, help with the discoverability of it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have your whole episode on YouTube, because if people are only going to listen or watch 2 minutes, 3 minutes, then why are you editing this whole full length video when you could just be popping out some really high quality, engaging and touching, getting reels, and then saving the long form content for the audio. On the flip side, if you're already recording video, like on Riverside for your audio podcast, why not put the full video on YouTube? So it's sort of like, where do you want to put your focus? What is it that you're trying to do with your podcast and how much resources and time and attention are you putting into each of those distribution channels?
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D
I want to do a yes and yes and or yes, but when I do the video, I now have the flexibility to do YouTube shorts and to do Clips and to put it on Opus clips or wherever. So I like the. The flexibility that the platform gives you to do other things. Like, okay, maybe you're not going to watch the whole video on YouTube, but you might watch the short and that will bounce you back to the video.
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B
I'd love to hear some studies on if that's converting, though. I really would like to see that because I end up seeing some shorts and I'm like, well, I've seen enough. I don't need to watch the whole video or go to the podcast. I'd really like to see a study on that. Maybe there's one out there. I just haven't found it. Lou, use your ChatGPT to find one for me. Okay?
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D
I know. Go find out what's actually happening. But again, like Andrea says, if you're recording your podcast on Riverside or Zoom and it's just one or two more clicks to put that up on YouTube, why not?
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B
I'm going to disagree.
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A
It's going to depend on what your ultimate strategy and goals are. I think if your ultimate goal is to have high, engaging audience, putting the full video up may not be in your best interest. If your goal is just to get your content out to as many people in as many different places as possible, then 100%, if it's not going to kill you to finish editing the full episode, put the full episode up. But I think there are strategies and things that you can do with the full episode that can help, especially the independent podcaster, increase those completion rates and monetize the show at the same time. Because as we know, the only way to monetize a show is not just through ads. You can do subscriptions. And that might be something I might talk about as something that you should
- [14:43]
B
be doing or what my clients do. The whole reason they have a podcast is their brand, their products and services, pretty much what they're selling. And it's not going to be through someone listening to a podcast. It's going to be from the content they get from them, the connection they get with the host. So that's the goal for them as far as putting it up on YouTube. And now with Apple HLS and everybody's putting their focus on video again. I mean, I don't agree with making that the only product because that's usually not as expertly produced as the audio version. Well, say for the people who work with people like us, when we're actually taking the recordings and we're polishing them up. Nice. I can't edit video the same way I edit audio. Nobody really can. Because you need visuals, you need sound effects to get people's attention. You gotta make it quick and snappy in the video. But then you don't want to have too many jump cuts, because if you're taking all the amaras out, then you've really got a somebody jumping around the screen. That gets to be tiring for a while. So it's kind of like a book and an audiobook. They're different products. You'll get the same thing, but they're different experiences. And what you take away from it can be different. When it comes to the editing of these products, it's a whole different ball game. And you get a different product when you do it right. One for video, one for audio. But if you're just puking it up on YouTube, it's just. It's just puking up a zoom call.
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C
Well, and that's what I say to my clients is like, I mean, do you want to watch other people's zoom calls? I don't. I don't. I don't want to do that. And also from a talent perspective, as a producer, when I'm working with, you know, sometimes an organization, they'll designate a podcast host within their organization, and that person may or may not have on the mic skills, camera skills, interview skills, even. They may not have those skills at the outset. And a lot of what I'm doing is host development and coaching. And I'll tell you, from a talent perspective, some people are great on audio, and they're so engaging. And as soon as you. They're aware that they're being video recorded and that that video in their face is going out, it does something psychologically where they're just not as engaging on video or they're more nervous or they start umming and ahhing even more because the. The camera thing creates a different level of vul for them. Or just some people are not great on camera. It's just a thing. And it's a skill that you can learn and you can develop, but again, it depends on the time and the resources that you're willing to invest into building those skills. Because I think audio podcasting and video podcasting have overlap, but there are also different skills that can be employed in each.
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A
I mean, this video being a perfect example. I know I'm supposed to be looking at the camera, but I just completely ignore it. Like, it's not even there.
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B
All right, let's move away from video if we can. I'll throw in my Real quick thing is, I have clients who write their own show notes and they should. It's their content. They know better than I will. We need to stop beginning the episode description within this episode or today I'm speaking with or on today's show of the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's things that get lost there as far as when somebody's scrolling through and looking for what episode to pick first, they're gonna see the title. So I'm also gonna add on to my thing we need to stop doing. And people are gonna disagree with me. When you stop putting episode numbers at the beginning of titles, very rare instances. Does it make sense that we do that? But I have another suggestion which I've shared before. It's to put the number at the beginning of the description. That way it's not in the title. People are gonna see the title first click play. But that description. I want to see what's in the episode too. So if the title doesn't tell me enough, I'm going to read the description. If it says in this episode, today I'm speaking with, that's about all I'm going to see. So I think my clients should. And everybody's client should stop starting. Stop. Here's the double negative, right? Stop beginning the episode descriptions with things like in this episode.
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C
Okay, I'm going to ask the AI expert over here because I agree as a human, Steve, I agree with this one. You've got precious few words of space before somebody stops looking at the description. And as a human, I already know in this episode because it's the description of the episode. Right? So don't waste your time on that. However, some of the tools that I've been using recently to try to boost the LLL ll, the. Oh my gosh, the acronyms, the LLM game for my clients, and the establishing domain expertise through their content and writing LLM friendly descriptions. A lot of the tools want you to say in this episode of podcast editors, mastermind Steve Stewart and his panel of experts, blah, blah, blah, talk about this, this, this, this and this. Not for the human, for the chatbot to know in those first few sentences what this content is. And is this something I'm going to recommend to the user who is looking for that? And it has the source cited right in that front thing. And I don't know if that's true, but that's what multiple answer engine optimization tools are telling me to do. And it will take my description that doesn't have it and it'll put it In. I'm curious if that's correct, if you think that that helps.
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D
Yeah. I read the other day that Google search, like traditional SEO, is down something like 25, 30%. So I think you have to start to adopt some of the AI search optimization. But all you can say is like, yes, that's a best practice today. Next week it may change again.
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B
Isn't AI trained on existing content that's out there on the Internet?
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D
Yes, yes. Unless, like, in my case, I'll go to NotebookLM, which is only trained on what I give it, put my podcast episode into NotebookLM and then say, Give me an AI optimized description. Right.
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B
What I'm asking is where did AI come from as far as their knowledge? It came from stuff that was written on the web. It didn't come from video, it didn't come from smells, it didn't come from touching things. It came from written content, text. And if everybody in podcasting started their shows, which they had been within this episode, wasn't it trained that, oh, this is what you. This is how you start a podcast episode description with. So if it's been trained that that's the way to do it, that's where Andrea scene success is like, oh, we know what this is. This is the way the podcast begins. So it's familiar. It's just like somebody using a bad habit as an excuse to continue a bad habit. Right?
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D
Yes. You're getting the average and the aggregate. You're not getting anything unique and new.
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B
Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to disagree with you, Andrea. I just don't like in this episode, at the beginning of descriptions, it's like saying in this book, at the beginning of the book, all right, shall we move on? Or does somebody else have something good that they want to bring up as far as what our clients should stop doing or focusing on?
- [21:58]
D
As long as we're on the video topic, I'll say the
- [22:02]
C
Steve's trying to do a whole other episode about videos.
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D
If you're gonna be on video, stop obsessing about how you look because you just have to get on camera and get over it. Like Andrea was saying, some people, all of a sudden their entire attitude or mood changes because they're not just doing audio now. They see their face in the camera and they get that deer in the headlights. But I'll leave it there. I want to move on, to move away from video.
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C
I also want to stop seeing shows running tons of low cost CPM based ads, especially the independent podcasters.
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A
So I love that.
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B
You brought this up.
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C
I'm gonna. I'm gonna give a hot take here, which is that many of my clients host on Libsyn. I love Libsyn. I think they're great. They rolled out some new ad programs that are available to podcasters of any size audience. So there's, you know, no gatekeeping on. Like, you have to have this many downloads per episode per month. I immediately was like, I don't know about this. Like, just gut check. I'm not sure if this is the right way to go. A few of my clients wanted to experiment with it, and I was like, I'm not going to recommend this wholeheartedly, but I'm gonna say, sure, experiment with it. See what happens. They did not make enough money to make it worth annoying their listeners.
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B
Thank you.
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C
And particularly these are, you know, independent brands, like you were saying, Steve, like people who are selling a product or a service or building a brand and the purpose of your show. Again, this goes back to knowing what the purpose of your show is. What it is that you're trying to do is to build that brand authority, to build that trust, that no like and trust factor. And if you're building a relationship with your potential clients, if you're promoting services like, please focus on that all day long, and don't try to get these little scraps of, you know, $10 a month, $4 a month, $0.30 a month, whatever it is, by putting all of these ads. And I just. As a listener, I have shows that I've stopped listening to because they have so many ad breaks with so many ads that are completely irrelevant. And I'm not opposed to advertising in your podcast. I'm not opposed to spons. I'm not opposed to host red ads. There's just something about the listening experience that it just decays my relationship with that show when it's just. I feel like I'm being blasted with these ridiculous ads all the time from their shows. It just really detracts from my experience of engaging with you as a listener and a part of your audience.
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A
So let me rewind my career to all the way back to blog talk radio. When we first were trying on a blue yeti, by the way, when we were. When we were first trying to push dynamic ad insertion, not a single podcaster wanted dynamic ad insertion. Nobody wanted it. They hated it. They didn't like the idea. Get away from me with your ads. We don't want them now. Everybody needs them. They want them, love them, need them. I will say, Andrea, I think you made the perfect caveat. It's about what is your goal and what are you doing. If you're pushing your brand and your services, you should 100% not have ads in your podcast, especially not dynamically inserted ads that are the typical ones that you'll hear from a radio station. But if you're a smaller podcaster, you're a hobbyist, maybe you're talking about your favorite TV shows, maybe you're doing a sports podcast, maybe you're doing something like that. Yes, you should be using these ads because A, it's the only ads you're going to get, most likely until you get up into the 20,000 downloads per episode range. But B, use them conservatively. Don't go in and try and recreate the radio show that everyone's running away from because there's too many ads on the radio. You want to make sure that they're conservative. The other thing to understand is Tom Webster has presented this research to us. While no one's going to argue that a host red ad is going to perform better than a prerecorded ad, the difference in performance, the actual performance is extremely minimal. And so I often will tell podcasters, especially independent podcasters, yes, you are going to hear from a very vocal minority that hate your adult. You're never going to hear from the people that love the ad. Like, I love Flo at Progressive. I want to know what Flo and her group of insurance agents are up to in the next ad. But I'm never going to write my favorite podcast and be like, I'm so glad you have the newest Progressive ad. I'm so happy that it's in your pod, because one, it probably isn't. I've probably heard the ad a thousand times on somebody else's podcast at that point, but that's beyond the point. The point is use the ads conservatively. The research that I have done, and this is my own personal research, is you can get away with about two ads per 10 minutes of content, and that still seems like a lot. So I would probably back that off, especially depending on how long your content is. If you only have a half hour podcast, think about only doing one commercial break, like somewhere close to the middle, and only make it two ads a piece. And then play with a pre roll, play with a post roll. And when it's a pre roll, do not put it as the very first thing in your episode. Do a tease to your content so the first voice that's heard is yours. And then play an ad and then get into the content, but you got to get right into the content of the show after that. Ad plays. Don't mess around. Don't do more introductions. Don't do any of that. You got to get right into it right after the ad.
- [28:02]
B
And speaking of ads, I've been in the podcast industry for a long time. Podcasting since 2010, podcast editing professionally since 2016. And in that time, I've learned a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. And I've also learned you can never learn enough. Everything keeps changing. Look at what AI and video is doing in the past couple of years. The Podcast Editor Academy has a goal of helping you to migrate through all of these changes, as well as draw on my over 10 years of professional podcast editing experience and my more than 30 years of running small businesses. Wait, is that right? 30 years? No, wait, it's 35 years. More than 35 years of running small businesses. Get access to me and other resources in the Podcast Editor Academy. Register now for a $2.49 quarterly membership. Every week I send out a weekly challenge. Get some of that Windshield University Zig Ziggler always talked about with our private podcast you can take on the road with you, and of course, our monthly office hours where you can get together with other professionals in this industry where the real learning takes place. Join now podcasteditoracademy.com that's podcasteditoracademy.com. We've been talking with Andrea Klunder, Lou Barton, and Jay Soderbergh about what our clients should stop focusing on. But actually, we need to start talking about things they should start focusing on. Actually, I've got a question, and Lou, you're the perfect person to answer this. And maybe Andrea and Jay, you guys have some knowledge, too. I've heard some pretty influential people in the space. They've mentioned that AI is using transcript material in their GPT results. Lou, I think you kind of hinted at this earlier. Is that true? Is it the transcript now that's bringing the SEO to podcasts being discovered?
- [29:49]
D
Yeah, for the most part. I mean, now they can search everything, like, on YouTube. They'll go a little bit deeper than that, obviously. And that's why I say, like, until somebody says that this is not what's happening, that's what we have to focus on Again, it's moving so quickly that that answer may change in a day.
- [30:05]
B
So we should focus on editing the transcripts, cleaning them up, making sure that they are accurate. I have a funny post I put on LinkedIn a while back. I had a female client and she was interviewing a female guest, and the female guest was talking about how she bought a condo. And transcript. Put an M at the end of condo. No, that can't go out. Can't go out. And if there was a caption on the screen, I would be embarrassed. So, yeah, I guess we gotta look at our transcripts now, don't we?
- [30:36]
D
I mean, when I do my everything from show notes to descriptions, I'll take the interview transcript. And I built a little Gemini gem where I say, okay, here's the transcript. Give me five SEO AEO optimized titles and a description. You know, obviously it's not just a cut and paste thing, but it gives me a huge head start and saying, okay, now I know what AI is thinking about this transcript.
- [31:00]
B
Is it worth the time, Andrea? Is it worth the time to go through and clean up transcripts or pay to have them cleaned up by somebody else?
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C
No.
- [31:09]
B
How come?
- [31:09]
C
It depends on what you're using them for. Again, it's the same answer that I give about video and social media and ads and everything. It depends on what you're using it for. Like, what is your strategy? There's. So for the most part, if you are publishing your transcripts somewhere publicly for people to consume, then, yes, I think that they should be edited. If you think about it, like, sometimes we're consulting on accessibility, right. And so if it is a matter of somebody who is hearing challenged or deaf who wants to consume your content, or I heard from people who, they don't have a hearing problem for podcasts, but it's just that they have a hard time focusing sometimes, and so they'll actually, like, read the transcript along with what they're listening to. And now if they're using Apple podcasts, can they just use that transcript, which you don't have to lift a finger for? And it's actually, I find that other than not having speaker labels, the actual text on the Apple podcast transcripts is surprisingly good. Yeah, much better than Descripts. By the way, why aren't your transcripts more accurate?
- [32:20]
B
Oh, I know why. But continue.
- [32:23]
C
So if you are publishing for humans, then yes, there are some unfortunate things that are gonna come up that, you know, I'm like, why does. Why do the AI transcripts have such a dirty mind sometimes? Like, to your point about changing condo to condominium, it's like there are so many things that it turns into swear words in my transcripts and, like, bizarre things that I'm like this. Where is this? That's not even a common word. Why would it think that? That's, you know. So you are taking a risk if you put out unedited transcripts. I just think that, again, if I'm working with a lot of indies, if I'm working with a lot of nonprofit organizations, sometimes the budgets are just really small. And if you've only got so much budget to go around, or you've only got so much time, because if you're not spending money on outsourcing it, you're doing it your. I don't think that's generally the primary place for you to be spending your time or your budget.
- [33:17]
A
And Andrea hit on it. Spotify is already doing it. YouTube, I think, does it in the background. And mostly the transcripts aren't necessarily for humans. I mean, I know humans that do love transcripts. I've never looked at a transcript in my life. But the transcripts are for the computers, and titles are for humans descriptions and transcripts are for computers. Let the computers talk to each other.
- [33:45]
D
Unless you're doing captions, and then that's a whole other thing. Like, okay, do you want all the ums and ahs and mistakes in the captions as well? Because then you really got to.
- [33:53]
A
Transcript captions definitely have to be edited, for sure.
- [33:58]
B
I've got some comments I can add. Andrew, you said the script's transcript is horrible. I think it's because when it's being generated, it's supposed to be as real and authentic as possible because we're trying to clean up the things that are mistakes or wrong. And then I remember hearing Maya Chapov, she's the host of Proud Stutterer Podcast. She was talking. It opened my eyes. She was talking at podcast move in 2023, maybe, about how these transcripts or some of these transcripts were cleaning up the transcript. But then you've got this stutter, and that's their thing, and it's not doing the stutter. It's not authentic. Now, how much of that do you need in a transcript? I don't know. But what I'm saying is, if AI is cleaning it up for us, we don't have the ability then to go to the source and make the changes that we want or leave it the way it is, because that's the way it should be. So that was just an interesting observation I thought I'd throw in there because it just opened my eyes when I heard her say that. I use transcripts all the time, but it's not for publishing. I guess the real question Then comes back to what I said at the beginning when I brought it. The. The topic is, where is AI sourcing this transcript information that it's revealing? If it's something that's published on a website like Andrew is talking about. Yes. Gotta be cleaned up. If it's the YouTube transcript, then do we go into YouTube and replace what is the SRT file in there? VTT. I don't even know what they have there, but there's something that's generating. So I guess this is to be determined later. Yeah, we'll revisit this in a year or two when somebody finds out the training.
- [35:27]
A
I think it's also the size of your team. Right. And if you're a team of. You have to sort of assess your time management. And I don't think your time management is best served editing the transcript. If you have a larger team or if you're paying someone to do that for you, I mean, that's definitely something you can consider. But also consider how much are you paying that person for something that gives you nominal value.
- [35:53]
B
Agreed. But if ChatGPT and these LLMs are pulling information from transcripts and revealing that, and more people are going to asking Google questions to ChatGPT, hey, what. What's the time in India right now? I mean, why is it a chatgpt question? It shouldn't be. It's just a simple Google search. But if it's revealing These transcripts in ChatGPT and more people are going to ChatGPT. If discovery is what our clients want, if discovery was what podcasters want, maybe that's a case for focusing on the transcript more than the video shorts or, you know, whatever. That's just my devil's adversion of that.
- [36:35]
A
I agree with. That goes back to what we said. Your goals. What are your ultimate goals?
- [36:39]
B
Yeah. All right, Lou, what is something that podcasters should focus more on? Give me something good.
- [36:45]
D
All right. I think podcasters, well, let me put it this way. When you walk into a casino in Vegas, you hear ding, ding, ding, ding, and bells and whistles and lights and sounds. I think anytime you're going to listen to anything online like a podcast, it's that digital casino. Like, oh, my God, all I hear is noise. So I say focus on being more memorable and more impossible to ignore. And how do you break through all the other bells and whistles and lights and Vegas casino kind of thing? So that's my analogy. I'm like, okay, I'm walking into a casino. How do I make the person go to this slot machine instead of the thousands of others.
- [37:22]
B
You know, I was in a call with the Podcast Professionals association the other day with Jay Naklis. He was presenting. I think it's now it's out there. They did a webinar for it too. They did a sample test on what people remembered about trailers. They did a side by side comparison of the same show with two different types of promos for trailers. And one of them, it was interesting, it seemed like it was a better promo, but they didn't introduce themselves. And the one that was favored by most people, they did introduce themselves, but they remembered it for something else, but they favored that one because it was more personal. So I think you got something there with making it more memorable. What you said there.
- [38:02]
C
I'm going to build off that. There's a presentation that I've done. I did it at she Podcast Live and have broken it up into some of my behind the scenes content that I offer as well, which is a five pointed system. So it's your podcast star framework and there's five points to it. And one of them is to be more entertaining. I've heard Tom Webster say this since we've brought up Tom Webster already. He said, you know that a lot of times what you should be focusing on is your skills as a podcaster, as a podcast host, and that people forget sometimes. And this, this happens especially with service based businesses and, you know, consultants and things like that who have their podcasts, they want it to be informational, they want it to be educational, they want it to be like a service to their listeners, they want it to lead them to a buying decision. But they forget that all podcasts are also entertainment. It's media. And if, if the listener is not in some way entertained by the show, it's probably going to fade into the background or go to the bottom of the listening queue and other shows are going to pop up over it eventually. Because people only have so much brain space that consume media. And when I say entertainment, I have some hosts that I work with on strategy consulting, they immediately freeze because they think that they now suddenly have to like tap dance or do jazz hands or comedy or something like that. And I'm like, no, entertainment doesn't necessarily mean that it could be humor. But doubling down on what Lou was saying of being more memorable, like, you know, it used to be back in the olden days, like you could create a podcast about podcast editing and you would be one of like three or four, one of one. And so you would be the show. And if that's not the case anymore. If there's a hundred shows about female entrepreneurship, a thousand shows about female entrepreneurship, or women in business, what is it that you're bringing to your show that is specific and unique to you? That is the only way that. That you are the only one that can deliver the content in that way. And so there's ways to be entertaining where you are maybe bringing more storytelling into your episodes, or you're bringing sensory language where you're really leaning into describing things in a way that people can see and taste and hear and feel. Or maybe you're bringing in hot takes and dissenting opinions. And one of the questions that I ask my consulting clients in their opening questionnaire is, what is something that you disagree with most of your industry on? Those are your points of differentiation. Those are what's going to bring the attention to your show rather than all the other slot machines that are out there that people could drop their. Their nickel into or whatever it is. I've only ever done nickel slots. I'm too scared to do anything higher than that. So finding ways to become more entertaining and engaging as a host and figuring out what your unique flavor is that you bring to the content, that it's not just about having on a good guest and having a good conversation, but it's also about your personality and how you're relating and how you're really engaging and entertaining your listeners. So that when they have, you know, 10 shows they could choose to listen to, but they only have 30 minutes, they're picking yours.
- [41:27]
B
Jay, let's go to you. What's the next thing on your list or what's the thing on your list that you think podcasters need to focus more time and energy on?
- [41:35]
A
Well, I teased it earlier since I said don't focus on the view, what I will tell you to focus on for your actual audience is not just one metric. It's multiple metrics. It is one. You want to start with your unique viewers. Those are the actual number of unique individuals that watched your video on YouTube in a given time period, typically a month. The default, I think, is 28 days on YouTube. The unique viewers can be broken down into even smaller niches. There is the new viewers, and then there are the returning viewers. Returning viewers is essentially your audience. Those are the people that are there to watch your video time after time after time. You don't need to talk to them. They're actually your proponents. They're your heroes. They're the ones that hopefully, if you tell them, hey, tell a friend about this podcast. They are the ones that are going to tell a friend about the podcast. The new viewers are the ones that Mr. Algorithm has brought to your podcast. These are the people that saw your podcast in the wild, thanks to Mr. Algorithm, most likely, and said, oh, that does look interesting. Let me click on that. And then they gave it a try and hopefully next month they'll become a returning viewer. Or they gave it a try and they said, this isn't actually what I was hoping for. And determine how well Mr. Algorithm is doing. That's where you look at your impressions and your impression click through rate. And that's sort of where I had mentioned before. Do not get discouraged. Your impressions is going to be a monster number. Even the smallest YouTube video will get over a million impressions on YouTube. It's the conversion rate that tells you how well your titles and your thumbnails are performing for you. And so I've seen 10 as high as 10%. I consider that to be excellent. I consider average to be 5% click through rate. So if you're between 5 and 10% or higher, you're doing great. Don't be worried about that number. That's a good number. If you're below 5%, wouldn't say be worried about that number. But it just means you might want to put a little bit more thought into the thumbnails and to the titles that you have because it's showing that your podcast is being put in front of a lot of people. They're just not clicking on it quite yet.
- [44:05]
D
Jason, the other thing, do you also look at watch time?
- [44:08]
A
Well, yes. Also completion percentage. I look at completion percentage more than watch time. I find watch time to be sort of a nebulous number. Like unless I know exactly I'm putting out 30 minutes per episode every single time. Can't really calculate in my head really quickly what that is, but completion percentage for sure. And understand that YouTube has told us 20% is good. Obviously you want to hope for something more. And if you niche that down and you look at the returning viewers completion percentage versus the new viewers completion percentage. You can also look at your graphs. It's a matter of understanding that everyone has the reverse hockey stick. It's just how far does that initial slope, when does that initial slope start to even off?
- [44:57]
B
Now that's YouTube. You took away one of mine, which is, well, I guess it's not the same. It's. It's focused on analytics and not downloads. Downloads is not a good measurement of success in podcasting an overall growth period. Sure. But as far as, like, I've got clients who would look at, they want to do a replay and they'll look at their downloads of the episodes from last year, say, oh, this one's got the most downloads. It must be the best. No, there's no way that could be the best because of downloads. It's best because of downloads, because more people click play on it. But how does somebody judge if a podcast episode is good until they've heard it? And how do they hear it if they haven't downloaded it yet? They have to download it first. So you're going to get the download whether it's good or not. So analytics, though, with Apple and Spotify, fantastic analytics showing consumption rate, completion rate. You can see the grass where people are sticking around, where they're dropping off. That's gold. That is gold right there. Stop focusing on. I'm using double negatives. Stop focusing on downloads, but start focusing on analytics. That's me and Jay, you were right there with the YouTube analytics as well. I mean, there's so much in YouTube.
- [46:04]
A
Yeah. Not to go back to what not to do. But don't do replay episodes. Like, don't, don't do that. You did the episode already. Why are you doing it again? Use your social marketing and your promotional skills to get people to go back and watch or listen to that particular episode. Or as you just mentioned, Steve, look at your analytics and look at what parts were really hot in that particular episode and pull those out and now create new original content around that older content. Give it some more context. Like if time has passed, like what has changed? Is it still relevant today as it was a year ago or however long ago it was?
- [46:48]
C
And I'm going to disagree with the replays and not totally disagree with the replays because it's moderation and it's having a specific intention. So, for example, we have one client right now who she wants to take a summer break from content. She's writing a book. Again, she's not a one person team, but not far from it. We're not in the double digits yet of her team. She needs to focus on writing the book. And she was asking me for strategies of how to stay relevant and top of mind for her listeners and for her audience so she doesn't just disappear in the time that she's not producing new content. And so what we're doing is kind of a mixed strategy of doing some collective growth where we're reaching out to other podcasts that have complimentary audiences and offering to do episode swaps with an introduction from the podcaster. So I'm sharing this episode of so and so's podcast with you because. And this is why I wanted to share it so that we're potentially reaching new audiences. And we're also pulling out some of her episodes, which are not necessarily. And she's been podcasting for nine years, so she has an enormous back catalog of content. And we're pulling out episodes that not necessarily have the most downloads, as you were saying, but episodes that are very relevant specifically to the work that she's doing right now and the services that she's selling, and also relevant to the times that we're in. She's in the mental health space and social justice space. And so there are things that she talked about long ago that are particularly relevant in this ecosystem. So she's pulling out this old episode and then giving it a fresh intro. Like, this is why I'm resharing this with you right now. This is the context that it's in. We're clearly marking it, you know, as a refreshed episode rather than a replay and pulling out any. Anything that is. We're not really re editing the episode, but anything that's outdated or like, doesn't need to be in there, like promoting a thing that doesn't exist. We're pulling that stuff out so that there's nothing, you know, people are looking for a program that doesn't exist or something like that. And we're also using it as an SEO opportunity to retitle it. Right. We're giving it a new title based on things that are relevant for what people are searching for right now. So there's a little bit more work and craft that goes into it than it just being a replay. And we're being really intentional about those. And one of the things we're looking at is analytics. It's just one of many. But what is the content? Who is the guest? Do they have something new that's happening that it's a good opportunity in her community to promote that guest again without them having to do a whole new interview if they've got a new book out or they've got a new this or whatever. So it's bringing that sort of shared visibility and collective growth into the replay strategy.
- [49:38]
D
It's not a replay, it's a reimagining. You know, it's like when you go, we don't call them used cars anymore. We call them pre owned. Right?
- [49:44]
C
Right. Refreshed, refurbished item.
- [49:49]
A
Now, I know on YouTube you can retitle episodes. And I've seen that strategy work really well. I just recently read an article about somebody doing that with their audio podcasts. Just not, not republishing, but just going back and retitling the episodes. I would love to see a study on that, how well that's working. But one thing that you mentioned, Andrew, that I have never heard anyone do and I think is absolutely brilliant, is if they're going on a vacation to do a promo swap with a like podcast, I think that's absolutely brilliant. And I'm stealing that for sure.
- [50:27]
B
Yeah. And we can't fault our clients. If they can't fix their transcripts, then let them do a replay so they've got some extra time. Right. All right. Who hasn't come up with a what should our clients do Thing? Andrea, have you given us yours yet?
- [50:39]
C
I think ultimately this is kind of the encapsulation of all my opinions and a lot of what all of us have been saying, which is clarifying a strategy for why you're podcasting and where it fits into your business, your lifestyle, your brand, your mission. Whatever reason brought you to podcasting knowing exactly what it is that you want your show to do. Because the same strategy is not going to work for somebody who is trying to use their show as a product to monetize and get ad revenue or sponsors and build that massive audience. The way you approach your show is not going to be the same as somebody who's using it to promote and market their service based business. And it's not going to be the same as somebody who is not even thinking of it as marketing at all, but somebody who is using their podcast for networking, for building community with other people, other potential partners. I've talked about this with a lot of especially female entrepreneurs in that space. In terms of their strategy. It's like, yes, the audience is important. We want the audience there. We want people, you know, engaging with our show and we want to be building that. But part of the reason for the podcast is to be able to reach out to other interesting people that we want to talk with. That if you just reach out and you were like, hey, let's get on Zoom for 45 minutes and talk, they'd be like, who are you? Why, why would I, why would I do that? But if you can say, I'd like to invite you on my podcast and talk about the work you're doing, you're now building your network and perhaps you're meeting somebody who could be a collaborative partner if you do Podcast strategy, maybe you're talking to somebody who does personal branding and you can refer clients back and forth to each other. So there's ways that you can be thinking about how your podcast fits into your overall vision, your overall strategy. Again, my non profit organizations, a lot of them are getting grants to bring their work to more people, and a podcast might be a way for them to do that. So that's like, like grant fulfillment. That's mission fulfillment. Some are using it for education and community development rather than like marketing. So just really understanding that the podcast itself is a piece of media, and media is just something that goes between one place to another place, one human to another human. And so you can use that communication strategy in so many different ways. It doesn't have to be about marketing or lead gen or monetization necessarily. And as long as you know where that strategy is, you can make better decisions, decisions about where you're putting your time and energy, what you're going to stop doing, what you're going to start doing, and all of those sorts of things. So I think just really clarifying what your show is for and where it fits into your model, I'd expect an
- [53:22]
B
answer like that from you, Andrea. So tell me what you're most excited about in your business right now. What are you doing that's really charging you and really enjoying with the process?
- [53:32]
C
I'm actually in a pivot right now. So I started out as a podcast launch consultant. That was the first thing. I had no vision of editing anybody else's podcast until somebody that I launched said they did not want to edit and could you edit it for me? And I was like, oh, yes, I guess I can. So then I was launching and editing, and then somebody asked me to produce a show that was more on the NPR storytelling side. And I was like, well, I listen to a lot of those shows and I have a storytelling and theater background. Certainly I can figure out how to do that. So then I started producing and it's just kind of built from there. But where I am right now is really focusing on strategy. And so I'm really pivoting into strategy consulting for those people who either already have editors that they're happy with or who are diying it. And they're totally good with that, but they just have questions about how to keep going, how to get better at what it is they're trying to do, how to focus in on that purpose, how to be more entertaining, whatever it is that they need help with so that they can keep podcasting. I have a private podcast which is called Peace, Love and Podcasting. And it is really just voice memos for me. It's not edited. I used to try to edit the private podcast and I wasn't getting episodes out. So I'm like, they're just voice memos. It's just me talking and it's about these strategies and these tools that you can implement that is available. I'm sure Steve will have a link in the show notes. It's also a great place when you subscribe to that private podcast, which is free, you can send me questions and I love solving problems for other people, not myself. So please send me your problems and challenges and questions and if I don't know how to solve it, I will be researching and trying to find that answer. So this pivot into strategy is really a fun one for me.
- [55:23]
B
Yes, I will definitely have that link in the show notes because we want a little more Andrea Unfiltered Jay Podvator, you got a day job in podcasting, so it's really pretty cool to see that it's a W2 type position. What are you excited about at work today?
- [55:39]
A
I love digging into the analytics of shows and really narrowing down and finding the reasons why a show did well or didn't do well or things of that nature. The thing that I'm most excited about that I'm working on right now is I'm trying to develop a game show with my team that will be available to the public. We're stumbling because we all have day jobs and so we're trying to find the best way to make an exciting type game show that's also semi fictional because essentially the contestants are the same every single week. So you're going to get to know the contestants and their characters and certain things despite the fact that they are truly competing in a trivia contest that that will determine their success or their non success. It's complicated, but that's why it's podcasting.
- [56:34]
B
Of course it's complicated.
- [56:35]
A
That's why we're working on it and that's why I'm excited about it, because I'm trying to take something very complicated and make it into something very simple that we can produce on a regular basis that people will be able to enjoy. So we're getting there. We made a pilot, we learned a lot of things from our pilot that we did not publish for good reason and we're continuing iterating it from there. And maybe it won't see the light of day, but while we're still Trying to make it. I'm excited about it.
- [56:59]
B
That sounds very interesting, Lou. Lou Bartone, what's the newest AI thing you're going to play with today?
- [57:05]
D
Oh, my gosh. I got the vibe coding bug really bad. So I've been creating a lot of apps for clients and tools or taking like a sort of dormant lead magnet and turning that into an interactive AI tool. So. So I'm just having a blast playing with all that crazy stuff, and I have the attention span of a gnat, so I'm like, jumping around like, oh, look at this Claude skill that I can create and sell. So I'm doing a lot of stuff with Claude. And Claude. Cowork. And also Lovable is a great app for making no code apps.
- [57:36]
B
Lovable? Is that what you said?
- [57:38]
D
Mm.
- [57:38]
B
Never heard of it.
- [57:40]
D
I'm upset.
- [57:40]
B
You're gonna go way farther than me. I'm gonna be stuck in my ways. You're gonna be way out there in the future, Cody. You're going to find a way to freeze your brain and come back as a. As a, you know, automaton or whatever. Should I edit that out? That was stupid. Anyway, I want to thank you all for coming on the show today. Thanks for having this great discussion. There's so many more things that I'm sure we could add to this. Andrea's got a whole list. Maybe we'll have her give me that list and I'll post it as a separate blog post along with others things that our clients and podcasters should stop focusing on and maybe the things they need to focus more on for their success. Thank you very much for joining me, you guys.
- [58:15]
C
Thank you, Steve.
- [58:17]
D
Thanks, Steve.
- [58:22]
A
But you gotta get right into the content of the show after that. Ad plays. Don't mess around. Don't do more introductions. Don't do any of that. You gotta get right into it right after the ad.
- [58:33]
B
And speaking of ads. And that's where I'm gonna put the mid roll for this show.
- [58:38]
A
Perfect.
- [58:39]
B
It's a promo for the Academy, of course. All right.