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The Audacity to Podcast® - tips and how to start and grow profit in podcasting
429. Remember and Keep Your Podcast Promises
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What are the promises that you and your podcast have made to your audience? And most importantly, are you keeping those promises? Thank you for joining me for the Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. Over the course of podcasting, we make many spoken, outright promises to our audience, as well as some things that our audience comes to expect because of certain consistencies that we deliver. That's not bad. But the most important thing with promises is what to keep them. That's something that I remind my son is keep your promises always, no matter what. The whole point of a promise is to keep it, not to just say, I'm going to keep it until I don't want to. The point of a promise is to keep it even when you don't want to. And we might be making some of those promises with our podcasts. Yes, there are certain circumstances that need to override that, like emergency things, family issues, sometimes holidays things, stuff like that. Our audiences, I think, generally are understanding toward that kind of stuff because we're humans and the kind of relationships that we get to build with our audiences are really dynamic and intimate on some level. So I think our audience can forgive certain things like that because they would do very similar things in a similar situation. But there are the other kinds of promises that we might make to our audience, and I encourage you to try to remember what those promises are. Look back at the promises that your podcast is making and seek to keep those promises. And to help you in that process, I have three questions for you to consider. You can follow along in the notes for this podcast, a simple tap or swipe away. Look at the chapters or go to the audacitytopodcast.com/promises. Question number one. What might your audience expect? Let's take a trip down memory lane back to episode one of the Audacity to Podcast, which you can still get@the audacitytopodcast.com one that is the number one. Or you can scroll all the way back inside your podcast app to June 17, 2010. And that's when I published episode one of the Audacity to podcast. And I broke many rules that I now recommend that you not do. I did many of those things. I made many of those mistakes in my first episode. Like I wasted way too much time in the beginning of the episode before I actually got into the content. And the other mistake was I explained what the podcast is about in the first episode. I, by the way, don't recommend that you do that. I recommend instead you do a trailer. Or if you really want your first episode to kind of be an introduction to the podcast as a whole. Weave that in through the content that you're teaching. And in my first episode, I did get to unique and episode content that could be a regular episode on its own. But I also gave some introduction before then. And part of that introduction was my explaining why I called the podcast the Audacity to Podcast, saying that the word audacity has a lot of meaning to it. It's not just the software, it is the guts, the power, the courage. And I said it takes guts and courage and audacity to believe that we can take on the big broadcasters, that we can change the world, sometimes literally from our closets and our basements, that we can have a voice and share that voice with the world through our podcast. That is first and foremost why I called my show the Audacity to Podcast. And it has always been that. And that's why the tagline has always said first giving you the guts. So I started out my explanation of Audacity as a concept and why that applies to podcasters, and then let's take that trip back so you can hear what I actually said after that. I know that not many podcasters out there are talking about Audacity. Sure, there's a episode here or there talking about Audacity, but no one really talks a lot about Audacity. Now, now, this show won't focus entirely on Audacity. I'll be talking about all sorts of things. Not just the software, the hardware techniques, and all sorts of things. But when it comes down to editing software, I will be talking about Audacity a lot more than most other podcasters are. So that explanation came after my saying that the main reason I called my show the Audacity podcast is because of what the word means. Audacity, courage, guts, power, all of that kind of stuff. And that's why I was so excited about, and I did also want to be a podcast that would go in depth when talking about the Audacity software. That's what I said. And I didn't promise that I was going to be a podcast about Audacity, but because of the branding. And even Leo Laporte, when he gave me my first podcast award, said it would be a podcast about Audacity, and he thought the podcast was about Audacity, which it has never been a podcast about the software Audacity. But you heard what I said there in that first episode. And I found it funny that back then, when I thought there were so many other podcasts about podcasting. Because of the two I found and I was listening to at that time, I was shocked when I heard one of them mention me, and that was Dave Jackson, now a very, very good friend. Back in episode 223 of School of Podcasting. Near the end, he talked about some of the other podcasts about podcasting, and he welcomed me to the scene and he said this, his first episode, said it was going to be in depth about Audacity. I'm up to episode three, and he hasn't really talked about Audacity yet. What we have is a failure to communicate. You heard what I actually said in episode one, and then you heard what Dave expected from the Audacity to podcast. And that's not Dave's fault, by the way. That's my fault because I failed to communicate better. Nonetheless, and bringing this back to this point, what might your audience expect? I did set certain expectations because of the name of the podcast and the fact that I did acknowledge that I would be talking about Audacity in that first episode. But I didn't actually talk about Audacity or focus an episode entirely on something in Audacity until episode five of the Audacity to Podcast. And that was my fault for not communicating better or not meeting that expectation right up front. You know, what I could have done in that first episode is hit the ground running, as they say, and given something like, here's the number one tip to make your podcast sound great in Audacity. That would have been a great first episode, because there it is, talking about Audacity from the start. So when people come to the podcast thinking this is a podcast about Audacity, they listen to episode one expecting a podcast to talk about Audacity. They hear me talk about Audacity, they get that promise fulfilled, and then they'd be more likely to listen to the other content. It's just like years ago when I acquired a domain for a Christian comedy podcast and forwarded their RSS feed to my then clean comedy podcast. I welcomed that audience and I provided more content that would be more targeted to them so they would know, yes, we are welcome here. This is a completely different podcast, but appealing to some of the same interests and humor. And so I welcomed them that way. I learned my lesson later on, but there in episode one of the Audacity podcast, I didn't set the right expectations for the podcast. So you need to look at how is your podcast setting the expectations for your audience, not the stuff that you explicitly say yet. We'll talk about that in a moment. But the stuff that your audience will come to expect because of the nature of your podcast or the branding of your podcast, or anything else about your podcast. For example, going back to another podcast, I hosted my podcast about the TV show Once Upon a Time. It's over@oncepodcast.com with that podcast, something I tried to remind my co hosts frequently of, especially when we would watch an episode of that TV show that just felt like a time waster episode or filler episode that didn't really move the plot along. It did some weird things with the story, maybe rehashed things that we already saw, and it was just kind of like the monster of the week sort of thing without really progressing the serialized storytelling that we were used to and eager to learn more about. What I reminded my co hosts is as podcasters talking about this TV show, we are curators of fandom. And so we need to remember we are talking to people who love the show. They are coming to our podcast because they love this TV show. And so when they come to the podcast, they are expecting to have that love fulfilled in some way, or celebrated, or reinforced and supported and fed. They want their fandom curated for them. So even when we are having a bad day or if we have a bad episode, we need to remember that we are curators of fandom. Our audience expects us to bring positive light to them through the podcast, even if it's a bad episode. Yes, we can acknowledge this wasn't a great episode of the TV show, but let's make a great episode of the podcast for the audience that wants it. And so that's what we did. We would praise the show, we would, yes, criticize the show when it needed it, but we didn't beat down on the show. Some of the other podcasters about the TV show did that. And I've heard other podcasts about TV shows that also beat down on the show that they were watching. And it would often leave me as an audience member asking the question, why are you even doing this podcast? If you hate this TV show so much, or you're coming across like you hate it episode after episode after episode, it's not meeting your expectations. Why even bother doing this podcast? Unless you want to ridicule the show, then maybe change your branding to make that point that you're making fun of the show or criticizing it because of how much you hate it, it's your hate. Watch. So what might your audience expect from your podcast? Not that you have explicitly promised, but due to the nature of your podcast, the branding, the ideas that your podcast talks about, and the content that you present, what might your audience expect? This doesn't mean you need to meet every single expectation of your audience and be at the whim of their every demand, but you should take it into consideration what they expect so that you can try to give them the content you are excited about. That also helps fulfill their expectations because that is somewhat of a promise relationship with your audience. Number two, what does your description promise? Look at your description in your favorite podcast app and see what is your podcast actually saying that you will deliver and are you delivering that? Think back to my example of episode one of the Audacity to podcast. If my podcast description said this is the only podcast that talks exclusively about Audacity for podcasting, which my podcast description did not say it, but if it did, then that would definitely make a promise to my audience that this is what my podcast is about, this is what I'm going to talk about. You can expect that episode after episode after episode, with very few exceptions, will be about this thing. That is the promise you make to your audience through the way that you describe your podcast as well as your branding, the episode titles too, and the episode descriptions. You need to make sure that you deliver on that promise that you are making through your descriptions. I see this way too frequently with YouTube videos, especially when you get into the AI space, because there are a lot of AI focused YouTube channels that are basically republishing or revoicing AI slop. Either the video is completely AI voiced and AI even an AI avatar on there, or they are reading an AI generated script that is still basically AI slop. And the titles and the images of these things. The word, by the way that now oh bothers me so much every time I see it is insane. Like there's one particular channel I ended up unsubscribing from the channel because it bugged me so much how much AI slop that they put out. Yes, they would occasionally have a genuine video of the person actually they're looking at the camera, their actual face, not their digital avatar. It seemed like four out of five of their videos and they would publish a lot of videos. About four out of five would have the word insane in the title or the screenshot. It would be like such and such Update is insane. Opus 4:7 is insane. And other things too. Like weird things that just to me screams of, you're using AI to write all of this for you and you're letting it write these titles for you. And these titles are falling into a pattern. That's something that AI can do, by the way, is that if you keep something going in the same conversation, AI can start to fall into a pattern. Because AI is really good at recognizing patterns. And when it looks back at what it's already done, if you haven't corrected what it's already done, it will often end up repeating itself and following that same pattern. So I think that's why there's a lot of insane stuff out there in the world of people talking about AI. But when those titles for your episodes say something like how to do this thing, then does your episode actually deliver on that promise of how to do that thing? Or if your episode description says something like follow these steps to 10x your growth or 10x your success, and whatever focus area that is that your podcast is about, does the information you provide actually do that? And can you quantify that? Can you show that, yes, this has. Has 10x'd the results for someone else, and therefore you could follow these to probably 10x for yourself too? So what are those promises that your podcast is making through the podcast description, as well as your episode descriptions and your episode titles and how you promote the podcast? Look at those things. And number three, what have you actually said in your podcast that is basically a promise? Have you said things like get a new episode of the podcast every week or joining me, as always, my co host? Well, is your co host always there? That is a form of a promise to say things like always and every week, and it will always be out there. Look for those times where you're using those words that communicate a promise of some sort of. And try to refine your language there. If you said, we'll have a new podcast for you every Tuesday morning, then make sure you keep that promise. Yes, your audience will be understanding if certain things come up and, like, there's a family emergency, it's a holiday time, that stuff aside. And I really do think audiences will understand that, especially if they've been listening to you for a while. Because we tend to build relationships with our audiences since podcasting is a bit more of an intimate medium versus many other forms of Internet content. So your audience will understand when something comes up like that. But if you're just being lazy, you just didn't get around to it, you just didn't feel it in the moment, and you skip an episode, then you've broken your promise. And that's convicting to me because I know I've broken my promise too. There have been things I've said that I would do with the Audacity to podcast that I didn't do. There are times that I said I would be there. Look at how many times. What would you call it, like not a pod fade, but a pod false start or something like that. But how many times after I went through my painful and unwanted divorce? But how many times I said the Audacity to podcast will be back, or it is back now. I came out with several episodes and then disappeared for months. And yes, there was major stuff happening each time and some personal things that I don't need to get into right here. But it was basically where I thought certain things were stable enough that I could get back to podcasting again. And then something blindsided me and that's the way it was for several years. And then there was all kinds of guilt. And beyond that, you heard from my first episode how I described what some of the episodes would be about. And that was making a promise, which as you could see from how Dave Jackson took that, I didn't keep that promise right from the beginning, even though I didn't explicitly say every episode will be about Audacity, still, he was expecting it. And I said I would focus on Audacity multiple times. And I didn't do that for several episodes. So think about those things that you have said in in your podcast you've promised your audience. It could be topics that you're going to cover in an upcoming episode. It could be an event you're going to do, something you're going to promote, a way that you're going to help someone or something that you're willing to do for certain people. What are those promises that you have explicitly said? I will do this. That is a promise. You don't have to say I promise to do this and pinky swear and all that kind of stuff, spitting your hands and shake hands with each other or anything like that. You don't have to do that to be making a promise. Just think about every time you say I will. That is a form of a promise. So what have you said in your podcast as a promise? Look back at these things. Look at what your audience might be expecting from your podcast and the kind of podcast that you have, the topic that you talk about. Look at the descriptions around your podcast, your podcast description, your episode descriptions, your episode titles. Look at what you are saying in your podcast. Look at all of these types of promises that you're making. And yeah, it could be convicting to realize some of them. You might not have kept. And yeah, that is a failure. But you can make things right or you can set new expectations and new promises and correct things from now on. And that's up to you how you want to handle that. But I hope that these questions have inspired you to look at some of these things, consider those promises so that you can not just remember them, but keep them. Because that is the whole point of a promise, is to keep the promise that you make. One of the promises I make is to be constantly improving and building onto podgagement and POD Chapters, and I am fulfilling that promise with a big feature that I had said would be coming, and that is in podgagement, the SEO tracking feature. This took a while to make because I hit several roadblocks and obstacles along the way. So it got a bit more complicated than I expected. But I finally broke through those things and the SEO feature is actually ready. But don't tell anyone yet because it's not completely officially launched yet. Nonetheless, if you are a podgagement user, you can go over and sign up to try that out. And in fact if you're on on my email list, then you will get a special little promotion because for a limited time, and this might already be passed by the time you're hearing this, but for a limited time I want to make the SEO tracking feature available to all podgagement users, even though it will be a constellation exclusive feature. So that's for the higher tier membership over there@podgagement.com but I want more people to just try it. I want more feedback on how does this look? What are you expecting from this feature? How are things operating? Because I can only do so much testing on my own podcast. I want others to test with their podcasts their ideas of what they want to track for their search ranking. But the way that the feature works is really cool and I think it might even be working better than what anyone else does and more accurate than anyone else does. In fact, one of the things that podgagement can now track with the SEO tracking feature is how your episodes are performing for certain search terms. Not just your overall podcast, but your individual episodes, which of them are showing up in the search results in Apple for those search terms that you want to enter. So that's over@podgagement.com, i would love for you to try it out to track your ratings, your reviews, your charts, your helping you get feedback, written feedback or voicemail feedback from your audience. You can track your ranking across nearly 34,000 charts. Now you can track how you're ranking in search results inside Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps to be supported soon, and you can generate images from your ratings and reviews. With just a few clicks, you can embed those images and reviews on your site and you can do so much more to engage with your audience as well as network with other podcasters who have crossover audience with you. Podgagement is built around the idea of helping you to supercharge your engagement with your audience. That's why it's called Podgagement. Please check it out over@podgagement.com and now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com thanks for listening. It.