Fact or Fiction: The Realities Behind Popular Podcast Advice

Send us a text

We're investigating six more common myths, including whether you need to be on YouTube, if ratings and reviews actually boost your ranking, and whether great content alone is enough to grow your show.

Myths we're covering:
• YouTube is the largest podcast platform, so you need to have video
• Ratings and reviews help your podcast grow
• If you build it, they will come
• You can use any song as long as it's under 10 seconds
• We can fix it in post
• You need a big following to make money in podcasting


Fan Mail Requests:

Send us your favorite bits from past shows for our 200th. Also, if you’ve cracked Apple charts or earned a feature on their app, tell us your story!

Contact Buzzcast

• Send us a text message
• Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods

Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!

Episode Transcript

Kevin (00:00):
Is the outline right?
This is episode 199.
Yeah.
What in the world happened?
Oh, wait.
I think I I think I know theanswer to my question.
Because it seems like just itwasn't that long ago that we
were like, we just did a hundredepisodes.
And now all of a sudden.

Jordan (00:13):
Yeah, I remember putting the hundred episodes together.

Kevin (00:15):
Yeah.
And now we're already at 200.

Jordan (00:17):
It feels like it came a lot quicker because it took us
so long to get to 100 episodes.
And then the 200 just likesnuck up, but that's also
because we kind of doubled ourpublishing frequency.

Alban (00:28):
That's my theory, is that it went twice as fast as soon
as we started doing twice asmany episodes.

Jordan (00:33):
I guess that's true.

Alban (00:34):
There's also we're recording this one.
We're following our own adviceright now.
We are planning ahead for whenwe're all going to be not able
to record.
And so we're recording thisearly.
So for us, this is episode 198,and we're going to 199, we're
planning it ahead.
The next one you listen to willlikely be the 200th episode,
and we're going to have to dosomething special for it.

Jordan (00:56):
I know.

Alban (00:57):
I don't know if we're going to get any takers on this,
but we talked about doing anepisode where you go back and
you pick out like old bits orthings from the podcast that you
liked over the years.
If you've been listening to theshow for a while and there's
episodes you remember, there'sbits you remember, the things
that you thought were funny,send them in to us and we'll try
to bring those back.

(01:18):
I'm not committing us to doinga recap episode because I don't
know if I always love recapepisodes, but if there's
something from, you know, a fewyears ago that you still
remember, send it into us.
We'd love to hear what it is.

Jordan (01:30):
Here we go.
Welcome back to Buzzcast, thepodcast about all things
podcasting from the people atBuzzsprout.
Our last myth episode got abunch of feedback.
We got some fan mail messages.
It was uh listeners like reallyappreciating that we covered

(01:50):
things like publishing frequencyand niching down.
Like your podcast doesn't haveto be that big to be successful.
It's been really awesome.

Alban (01:58):
Well, the best ones, the ones I liked the most, was
somebody who was like, I'm doinga regional podcast about my
county, uh, a small county inGeorgia.
Yeah.
And they're like, my out ofstate friend said, Well, why
would anybody around the worldlisten to it?
Like, yeah, that's the point.
Nishing down, niching down isbecause you're out of state,
you're not going to listen tothe podcast about Fayette

(02:21):
County, Georgia.
Yeah.
I actually thought that was amisspelling of Fayetteville when
I first saw it.
And then I went, no,Fayetteville is in Fayette
County.
Even I'm learning stuff aboutGeorgia because of this podcast.
So the best part of the aboutthe myths is when we quote
unquote bust them, when they areencounter you encounter them in
your life, you don't have tofeel like, oh, I have to listen

(02:41):
to it.
You can go, I think I feelcomfortable with my initial
decision to niche down or topre-record episodes or just
follow what felt like the rightadvice to you.
And it's great when thataligned with at least our
feelings about some of thesemyths.

Jordan (02:56):
Yeah, I'm I'm super looking forward to our next
round.
We've got six more for you.
So let's go with round two.
So, how this is going to workis I'm going to present a myth.
I'm going to talk about what itmeans, maybe the story behind
it, and then we'll do somesupporting arguments.
We'll do some uh dismissivearguments, and then we will
determine if it is.
I'm trying to remember whatthese were from the last

(03:18):
episode.
Uh, myth, fact, or possiblytrue, or maybe true with like a
caveat or some nuance.
I think I asked this last timeand it just didn't stick.
I don't remember.

Alban (03:31):
There's lots of things you can do, but mostly we're
going for myth or fact orconfirmed or something like
that.

Jordan (03:36):
Yeah.

Kevin (03:37):
It's confirmed, it's busted, or it's plausible.
Those are the main three.

Jordan (03:41):
Okay.
Let's kick it off with ourfirst podcasting myth.
This one was suggested by Mattat Girl Dad Nation.
YouTube is the largest podcastplatform, so you need to have
video.
YouTube is where everyonelistens to podcasts now.
So if you're not making videoepisodes, you're already behind.
So, what are our supportingarguments for YouTube?

(04:03):
It's the largest podcastplatform, so you need to have
video.
Why are people constantlysaying this on the internet?

Alban (04:09):
Well, I keep seeing all this data that says YouTube is
the number one podcastingplatform.
Let's table that for a second.
And for people who are reallybig podcasters, many of them
seem to be doing video.
So it kind of feels like if Iwant to have a really big and
successful podcast, I should bedoing video as well.

(04:30):
You know, video is not just away for people to engage your
content, but the fact that it'son YouTube means that you're
going to get the benefits.
I'm putting this in scarequotes, the benefits of an
algorithmically driven platform.
So you're going to get lots ofexposure, possibly, to totally
new listeners.
And so the idea is you have achance of getting in front of a

(04:51):
lot of people who wouldn't haveseen your show and they could
become uh subscribers.
So I think that's the argumentfor why you need to have video.

Kevin (04:59):
Yeah.
I mean, I you can't see mebecause we don't do video, but I
winced when Alban said, youknow, the algorithm could expose
your show to a lot of newpeople or a big audience.
Well, sure, it's a possibility,but it's also a lottery.
Like quite literally, a lotterywhere the odds are very much
against you.
And so I do think that a lot ofpeople struggle with the whole

(05:21):
marketing aspect of podcasting.
In order to grow a show in atraditional like audio podcast
space, you have to market it.
You have to spread the word.
You've got to tell people.
And what often happens in theYouTube world is people just
rely on YouTube to do themarketing for them and they hope
that they stumble uponsomething that the algorithm
likes.
Or the better strategy is thatyou create content that favors

(05:45):
whatever the algorithm likestoday.

Jordan (05:47):
Yeah, I think that Joe Rogan kind of set the bar for
this because he was publishingso many clips.
It was short videos, and that'sreally what went viral for Joe.
And I think that a lot ofpodcasters, if you have time, if
you have time for it, it can bebeneficial to have like those
like talking head videos or, youknow, make something where you

(06:09):
can like convert it into shortsbecause that's going to be a
little bit more engaging than anaudiogram.
Obviously, if you're onsomething like Instagram or
YouTube, it does make sense thatvideo would be more engaging
than like a still image.
And so I think that's kind ofwhere this comes from.

Alban (06:26):
Yeah.
Let me give one more argumentfor this before we go into full
um dispelling mode.
The last is that Gen Z and GenAlpha are consuming ungodly
amounts of YouTube.
And if you know anyone underthe age of 15, that's like their
primary type of entertainmentis YouTube.

(06:48):
And they want to watch YouTube,they love YouTube, and they
find creators.
And if that's where the Gen Zand Gen Alpha are going, then
that's going to be your way togrow a podcast long term.
That more of the culture isgoing to be uh YouTube centric.
So we see all the stats, we seethe celebrities seem to be

(07:10):
proof points that they're doingwell on YouTube.
It feels like it could be markuh help with marketing, and
younger listenerslash viewersare consuming a lot of YouTube.
Maybe you need to be onYouTube.
Now I think we can uh like jumpin and start pulling this part.

Jordan (07:27):
Okay, we'll start dismantling this.
One of the first things that Ithought of is how YouTube was
randomly assigning playlists aspodcasts because that's how
YouTube categorizes podcasts, islike there's um basically a
tagging system where you cancreate a playlist and tag it as

(07:48):
a podcast.
And there was like, I don'tknow if it's still going on, but
they have been tagging musicand just regular YouTube videos
as podcasts.
And so, like, even in like theYouTube music app, there will be
like songs tagged as podcasts.
And so I think that the numbersare super inflated just from
that alone.

Kevin (08:08):
100%.
It's very fuzzy math over thereat YouTube.
Mostly because you have likethe people who are collecting
the data are the ones reportingthe data, and they're the ones
who are determining what iswhat.
Let me try to make sense ofthat a little bit of what I'm
trying to get at.
Is like YouTube, um, they havepublic view counts on all the

(08:30):
videos that are on the platform,but they don't really tell us
what counts as a view.
Now, I understand that theywant that to be a little bit of
a black box because they don'twant the they have to battle
bots like we battle bots andwe're counting downloads.
And the more transparent theyare, then the more people can
get around that.
I I get all that kind of stuff,but we don't really know what a
view is.
Is a view 10 seconds of videowatching?

(08:51):
Is it one second of videowatching?
Is it a minute of videowatching?
We don't really know, and theydon't want to tell anybody.
That's fine, it's theirplatform.
But what we do know is that itdoesn't seem to be equal to what
is in the podcast world.
I think that YouTube used to,Alban, you might know this
better than I do, but do theystop most video play counts at

(09:12):
500 while they do like a deeperstats analysis and then they
start counting again?

Alban (09:17):
I've definitely seen videos that seem to stall, and I
think that it's their way ofmaking sure that the traffic's
legit.
Right.
So I don't know how much thatstill happens, but I remember
seeing that when we would bedriving a lot of the traffic
ourselves.

Kevin (09:30):
Yeah.
This is what I'm referencing isthat one of the things YouTube
used to do is I think they justused to pretty much count
everything for the first 500.
They're like, this video issmall, it's not getting a ton of
traction.
So anything that is, you know,click and play on this video,
we're just gonna count that as aview.
As soon as it hit 500, thenlike their level two system
kicked in, and they're like, oh,this video seems to be getting
a little bit of traction.

(09:51):
We actually want to put it intoour like level two stats
package and do a little bit moreanalysis before we start
serving it up to everybody.
The good thing about thatecosystem is that the
motivations are in alignment.
Like they don't want to getscammed by bots, and then their
platform thinks something isgood content, so they start
promoting it to a bunch of otherpeople.
Turns out it's not good contentand ends up driving people off

(10:11):
the platform.
That's not good for YouTube,it's not good for the content.
And so the nice thing is thereis that alignment there.
Like they are incented to makesure that views are actually
views.
They are keeping people on theplatform.
The bad news is that like wedon't know how they're doing it,
we don't know what they'recounting.
And so if you try to comparethese like Apple to apples with
podcast downloads, you're nevergoing to get anywhere because

(10:32):
while the while podcasting statsare public and there is a
standard and a certificationprocess that we all try to
follow as much as possible.
That doesn't exist.
It doesn't have to exist on theYouTube side because they yeah,
like it's what they say it is.
Ads are purchased through theirplatform, their the data is
reported through their platformand collected through their
platform.
It's pretty much what they saygoes in their world.

Alban (10:53):
They control the whole world.
Yeah.
It's a bit ironic.
Like the podcast stats get somuch more scrutiny because
people can move between hostsand set up all these redirects
and all these different ways ofmeasuring the stats.
And they go, Oh, I'm seeinglike a slight variation between
two hosts or between, you know,OP3 and my host, which those are
really healthy checks.

(11:13):
But YouTube's, I mean, is theequivalent of asking someone to
grade their own homework.
Yes.
That we want to believe thatthey're doing their best.
And we know that the algorithmis really important to them to
make sure they're getting thatnumber really good.
But from other Googleproperties, we have indication
like these numbers are notabsolute.

(11:33):
So the views that you could getif you're running ads in Google
ads towards a YouTube video,those aren't gonna be
one-to-one.
Well, they feel like theyshould be.
If you're using Google SearchConsole and also Google
Analytics for your website,those numbers are never gonna be
a hundred percent match.

(11:53):
So there's lots of areas whereit's like Google is grading the
same piece of homework slightlydifferently at different times.
And that makes me feel likethese are useful numbers, but
we've got to put some prettyhealthy error bars around it.
And we also have to knowthey're just totally different
types of numbers than what we'regetting elsewhere.

(12:14):
There's a another point Ireally want to make here.
When we talk about YouTubebeing the number one platform,
one of the things I see a lot isthis question that uh people
answer in surveys, and it'swhich of the following podcast
apps do you use to listen topodcasts or watch podcasts?
Check all that apply.

(12:35):
Okay.
If I asked the two of you to dothat, both of you would
probably check YouTube.

Jordan (12:41):
Yeah.

Alban (12:42):
Unless you were making a really like precise, maybe
pedantic point, no, YouTube'snot podcasts.
But like most people arechecking YouTube because they're
going, well, mostly I I watchsome podcasts and they pop up
every once in a while.
So yeah, I check it.
Right.
But then you don't go checkSpotify and Apple and Overcast
and Pocketcasts because you onlyuse one of those really to

(13:03):
listen to podcasts.
So what happens, I think, iseveryone has a primary podcast
player and it's Apple, and youcheck Apple.
And then you scroll down thelist and you go, Well, I used
Apple Music, so Spotify's notinvolved.
I don't use a third-partyplayer.
Oh, I also sometimes YouTube,because I look at videos on
there, I also see podcasts checkas well.

(13:25):
And what happens is thenYouTube is the most dominant
because the most people say,Sometimes I use YouTube to watch
podcasts.
Yep.
So it shows up on all thesereports as being number one just
because everyone is watching alittle bit of podcasts on there.
But it doesn't mean that that'sthe primary consumption
platform.

Jordan (13:43):
Yeah.
And I would say that weekly, Ilisten to, I want to say, like
15 to 20 podcasts each week.
And there are two technicallypodcasts that I will watch on
YouTube.
And they are both, when I lookat them, they are both by
filmmakers who it's gorgeouscinematography.

(14:04):
They have visual aids and it'sdocument, every episode is like
a documentary.
Right.
And so that is why I watch thosebecause it is so engaging
visually.
And I know for a fact that alot of the podcasts that I
listen to probably have somevideo version of the podcast,
but I don't want that becausethey're literally just sitting

(14:25):
on a couch and talking.
Why would I watch two peoplesit on a couch and talk?
I don't need that.
So those are the ones I'm gonnalisten to while I'm driving or
walking or doing dishes.

Alban (14:35):
So we've talked about one of the supporting points is
well, when I look at the mostpopular podcasts in the world,
they're all on YouTube.
Yeah.
First, that's just not true.
They're not all on YouTube.
But even the ones that arethere, there's a very heavy uh
survivorship bias that thepodcasters who launch and don't
stick with podcasting, who theylaunch on YouTube and they don't

(14:55):
stick with it and they just goback to doing whatever they're
doing and they quit creatingcontent.
We don't see them.
But the ones who had a team,had everything lined up, they
launched on YouTube, they hitthe algorithm and they stick
around, that makes sense thatthey get near the top.
But we're discounting all ofthe 95% who go, this was too

(15:17):
much work.
And then they kind of justchurn and they quit.
Yeah.
They pod fade.
And it's really important toremember like, if you're getting
into this so that you can helptell the stories of Fayette
County, Georgia, well, you'reprobably not going to make it to
number one.
And are you still doing whatyou want to do if you do it as
audio?
And I think the answer is yes.

(15:38):
So don't try to add video dayone and overwhelm yourself and
end up in the 95% plus that are,you know, pod fading pretty
quickly.

Kevin (15:48):
Yeah, I like to think about YouTube as in terms of how
an indie podcaster shouldapproach the question of is
YouTube right for me or not.
I like to think about it interms of it's a for sure, a high
investment marketing channelwith a potentially high return.
Yes.
But the return is notguaranteed.
That's definitely risky.
What is guaranteed is theinvestment.

(16:08):
It is a high investment.
And so if you get to a placewhere you say, I need a new
marketing channel, I want a newmarketing channel, and I've got
a lot to give, then YouTubemight be a marketing channel
which you can make that highlevel of investment in and
potentially get a high return.
But you might also not get areturn, or you might get a very
low return.
And so that's how I think aboutit.

(16:29):
And I hope that's helpful.
I don't think it is in terms oflike the myth, being YouTube is
the largest podcast platform.
So I have to be on there and Ihave to be video.
I don't think that's right.
I think YouTube could be areally great marketing channel
for a podcast.
And if you have the resourcesto put yourself in there in a
high quality way, there's achance that it could pay off in
a good way for you.

(16:49):
But yeah, it's risky.

Jordan (16:52):
All right.
Our next myth.
This one was suggested by DaveJackson.
Ratings and reviews help yourpodcast grow.
The math is simple.
More podcast reviews equalshigher rankings equals more
listeners.
I just heard this one.
I was listening to On Fire withJeff Probst, and he said in a

(17:13):
call to action, hey, make sureto leave a rating and review
because that helps us grow.
And I was like, ooh, Jeff, no.

Kevin (17:20):
So you're coming right out of the gate and you're
saying, no.

Alban (17:22):
No, one of you has to make the uh supporting
arguments.

Kevin (17:25):
Yeah, I mean, one of the ways that we could say that this
is true is that there is socialproof that goes along with it.
So it depends on what you dowith your ratings and reviews.
You could just rely on theplatforms themselves, like Apple
Podcasts, to promote yourratings and reviews that you
get.
And that might do something,but you could also take them and
you know repurpose them.
You could tweet them out.
I just got a new rating andreview, and it was really

(17:47):
flattering.
And so I'm going to tweet thatand I'm going to put it on
threads and I'm going to put iton Blue Sky and all the social
channels that I'm on.
I'm going to throw it onLinkedIn and everything else.
I'm going to put them on mywebsite.

Jordan (17:55):
Yeah.

Kevin (17:56):
I'm going to incorporate them into my show.
I don't know.
All the different things thatyou could do.
There is some social proof thatcould be a way that does help
your show grow.
Maybe Jeff's onto somethingthere with that.
Maybe that's what he'sthinking.

Jordan (18:09):
Yeah.

Alban (18:09):
Often the way I hear this portrayed is people not saying
the social proof.
They're actually saying, like,no, ratings and reviews are part
of the search engine algorithm.
And we know that to be 100%false.
So three years ago, Applepublished this blog post about
how search works on ApplePodcasts.
And here's a quote Like charts,um, search and charts both work

(18:32):
this way.
While ratings, reviews, andshares help indicate a podcast's
newness, popularity, andquality, they are not factored
into search results.
So we know it's not part of thealgorithm.
We actually anecdotally knowthis from another way, which is
when all the scammers weretrying to do podcast promotion
and Apple Podcasts, they woulddo two things.

(18:53):
They would subscribe to theshow, because it was back when
subscribes were the main thing,and they would listen to one
episode.
And they would just listen to ahalf a second.
They'd subscribe, listen,subscribe, listen, and that's
all they would do.
They weren't leaving ratingsand reviews, they weren't doing
any of that stuff.
So it's not something thatfactors into the search results.
But like Kevin said, a greatmarketing strategy around your

(19:17):
podcast could incorporateratings and reviews.
So when we used to ask for themand read them on the show, we
got more of them.
We could screenshot them andpost them online.
We could put them on ourwebsite and we could say, man,
this is awesome.
You should listen to the show.
This person loves it.
That's all really goodmarketing work to do, but it

(19:38):
does not influence thealgorithm.

Kevin (19:40):
Now, I do think that a lot of the stuff, like if we're
talking about Apple Podcastsspecifically, a lot of the
podcasts that they highlight indifferent areas of their app are
editorial selections.
And so I am, I would imaginelike Apple has never come out,
as far as I know, and said thatwe don't look at the number of
rating or reviews that you havewhen we're selecting podcasts to
be featured in whatever.

(20:00):
Like Halloween is coming uphere in the States.
And so they might put togetherwhatever the spooky podcasts,
you know, playlists or whatever.
And they're looking forpodcasts to highlight in that.
So if you do some true crime orspooky stories podcast or
something like that, you mightbe on the threshold of what they
would consider something, likesomething that they would
consider in terms of engagement.
So how many downloads are yougetting, you know, per episode

(20:23):
and like what's the amount oflisten time?
They're probably looking at allthat data.
And then they might also lookat, oh, it has like 200, you
know, five-star reviews.
So that could bump it up.
As far as I know, they've neversaid that they don't look at
that stuff specifically whenthey're selecting podcasts for
editorial features.

Alban (20:39):
Yeah.
New and noteworthy.
They're very clear.
It's editorial.
You submit and say, Hey, willyou include me?
And they ask you questionslike, are you going to launch on
the day that we would put youin new and noteworthy?
We kind of want you to line upwith our schedule.
They say, Are you going to goout of your way to promote Apple
Podcasts?
So there's just, are we on thesame team here?

(21:01):
They seem to want to highlightpodcasts that have a
subscription, like bonus contentinside of Apple Podcasts.
They're very clear, like thisis editorial, and there's a bit
of, we want to make sure it'svaluable for not just uh
listeners, but also ApplePodcasts as a whole.
And they've got to be lookingto see are we getting real
ratings and reviews from peoplewho say this is a great show?

(21:23):
I'd be surprised if they saidthat wasn't the case.
So there's there's still valuehere.
It's just the myth that itseems to influence search
results or it influences thecharts, the two other ways to
get visibility in ApplePodcasts, that is not accurate.
That's uh got to be busted.

Jordan (21:44):
Yeah.
And I went and checked onSpotify's uh to see if Spotify,
because we're talking mainlyabout Apple Podcasts, but
Spotify is another big player,and their algorithm also ratings
do not affect that at all.
I know they added ratings likea couple of years ago or
something like that, but yeah,even ratings on Spotify, not
included.
So yep, busted.

Kevin (22:04):
I know you guys want to throw out busted.
I just I want to put it in theplausible category.
Oh, because I do, I do think itcan help your show.
And the way that at least theway that it's written in the
outline, it says ratings andreviews help your podcast grow.
I think it's plausible.
It's plausible, but it is not aone-for-one.
It is not a if you get moreratings and reviews, you're
going to your podcast is goingto surface higher in the list of

(22:26):
search results or chartrankings or anything.
No, like let's bust that.
But I feel like we kind of haveto have some nuance here.
We have to break these out astwo separate myths.
The fact that we'll get yourpodcast to search like rank
higher in search results, bustedfor sure.
That it could potentially helpit make it grow?
Yeah.
Plausible.

Alban (22:43):
I think it's possible.
Yeah, I'm reading the uh morepodcast reviews equals higher
ranking equals more listeners.
And I'm saying that's that'sbusted.
That's not true.
That's busted.
But are is getting social prooffor your podcast gonna help it
grow?
Absolutely.
Are people saying this is agreat podcast help gonna help
you grow?
Absolutely.
Should you do it?

(23:04):
Yes, 100%.
In a great marketing strategy,should you be highlighting the
people who say you do a goodjob?
Yes.
Um, there's about a thousandstudies done on marketing going,
oh, it turns out if you justhave random people say, I like
this peanut butter, other peoplewill buy it.
Even if they don't even knowthat person and they're not a

(23:24):
celebrity at all, they're justlike, oh, I heard from somebody
at the store peanut butter.
This peanut butter is good, soI bought it.
So 100%.

Jordan (23:32):
Yeah.

Alban (23:33):
Is it good to get a five-star review?
Yeah.
Yes.
But it the path doesn't gothrough the the rankings, it
goes through the psychology ofsomeone thinking about listening
to a podcast.
And nobody wants to listen to apodcast where that has zero
ratings and reviews.
You kind of want to look thereand go, oh, there's like five
people who love the show atleast.

(23:53):
Great.
I'm in.
I'm gonna give it a try.

Jordan (23:56):
When you find a new podcast, do you go to the
reviews to read them before youlisten?
No.
I don't either.
I don't either.
Yeah.
But I will notice like if apodcast looks interesting to me
and it has like a hundred andsomething reviews and it's like
an average of two stars, then Iwill go to the ratings and be
like, okay, why are people?

(24:16):
Why are people reading this solow?
And like nine times out of ten,they're like, there's too many
ads.

Kevin (24:21):
Yeah.
Oftentimes ratings end up beingan indicator of something being
low quality more than highquality.

Jordan (24:27):
Yeah.

Kevin (24:28):
That's kind of true of ratings across the board.
I expect most of the thingsthat I'm looking for on Amazon
to have a high number of starsgenerally.
But once in a while, I'llstumble upon something that I'm
about to check out on and I'llnotice that it's like averaging
three stars.
I'm like, that's that's prettylow for an Amazon product.

Alban (24:43):
What's going on?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.
In a five-star rating system,you really want the five star to
be reserved for like, wow, thisis incredible.
You know, you go out of yourway to recommend it to somebody.
But what really happens is fromUber to Amazon to everywhere,
it's like five stars isbasically like we were adequate.

(25:05):
And then anything below that islike there was a serious
problem.
And so everything is like 4.8stars.
And you're like, okay, so it'sabout average.

Jordan (25:14):
That shouldn't be average.

Kevin (25:16):
Uber Uber has gotten really bad with this.
If somebody accepts your Uberride and they've got less than
like 4.5, me personally, I'mcanceling that Uber.
Something bad happened in thisvehicle, I'm not getting in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which it shouldn't be.
Like you would think it wouldbe like most drivers would land
somewhere between three andfive, which means three is very
average and five is exceptional.
And if as long as you'rebetween three and five, I should

(25:38):
be accepting the ride, but it'snot.
Like every Uber driver, for themost part, has like high fours,
4.8, 4.9, 4 something.
It's very rare that I seeanybody with a five.
But if you're in the low foursor below, I'm done.
Cancel, like, no way.

Jordan (25:52):
It's because people are so polite when they're leaving
those ratings while they're inthe car with them.
You know what I mean?
All right.

Our third myth of this episode: if you build it, they will (25:58):
undefined
come.
All you have to do to have yourpodcast grow in listenership is
just make great content,publish it, and the audience
will find you.
Right?

Alban (26:12):
Yeah.
So yeah, this is the uh thefield of dreams.
Argument for it.
Quality is what keeps peoplecoming back.
Marketing is what gets peopleto see it the first time.
So if a podcast has reallyincredible marketing, it doesn't
matter if somebody's listenedto the show and went, This
really stinks, and they don'tcome back.
If you have millions of dollarsto spend on podcast ads, but

(26:36):
the show's not any good, no onesticks around and you aren't
able to continue to grow.
So quality is really important.
Lots of shows are growingbecause they're highly
recommendable.
And people are telling theirfriends and family, I really
enjoyed this episode.
You would too.
You like this kind of stuff,check it out.

(26:57):
I guess there's an argumentsometimes that people would make
that the quote unquotealgorithms will surface your
content.
Um, that's not going to happenin the podcast apps, but that
may happen on YouTube if you'redoing video.
It may happen on social mediaif people are recommending you
there, um, if people arecreating clips.
But there's a bit of just likevirality that happens in real

(27:18):
life if one person startsrecommending a podcast.
I mean, kind of like what wehad with serial in 2014, that it
just started gettingrecommended everywhere to the
point that you you reallystarted seeing it everywhere you
went.

Jordan (27:31):
Yeah, I think we saw something similar to that happen
with the telepathy tapes thisyear.
That podcast just like blew upand everyone was talking about
it.
And then she's and then afterit blew up, she started like
guesting on another podcast andtalking about her podcast.
And some I think we've seenthat where someone just like
makes something and I didn't seeany like advertising form.

(27:53):
It just was like a word ofmouth sort of thing.
Everyone's talking about it.
But I think there's also somepodcasts that I've listened to
that I thought were spectacularquality.
And then I look and they onlyhave like 20 reviews and I'm
shocked and I don't understandit.
And I imagine that that'sprobably because they aren't
marketing it.
They're not like, there's nocall to action in the podcast

(28:16):
saying, hey, if you like theshow, please share it with
somebody.
So I think there's something tosay before that too.

Kevin (28:22):
Yeah.
I got so many thoughts on this.
I don't know where to begin.
Not every podcaster wants likethe main reason of them doing
the show or entering intopodcasting in the first place,
one of their goals is not to getto a million podcast downloads.
And so the reason that youstart a podcast is just I want
to connect with my co-host andwe want to get together and we
want to record these things andwe put it out and it's fun, and

(28:44):
that's enough.
Then the idea that if I buildit, they will come.
We might find our 10 listenersout there in the world, and
that's enough.
Then I think you could leaninto this and you can say, we do
no marketing for our podcast,and we're completely fine with
that.
I think that's a completelylegitimate position to have.
You don't have to have amassive audience to be

(29:05):
successful on the terms that youdefined.
And that is I get to get on theuh, you know, a microphone with
one of my best friends everyweek and we chat for an hour,
and that is a blast.
And yeah, 10 people listen, butwe don't do it for the 10
people.
We do it because that in and ofitself is fun and rewarding for
us.
That's wonderful.
But I don't think that's whatthis myth is saying.
I think what this myth issaying is that just creating

(29:25):
good content in and of itself isa marketing channel, and I
think that's where this startsto crumble.
Because how are people going tofind it?
Like, I just don't know how tosay it any simpler than that.
Like, I end up scratching myhead a lot at podcast
conferences when we talk topeople who say that they've been
doing, you know, it'spodcasting for a year or two,
and the show's just not gettingas much traction.

(29:47):
They're not getting theaudience that they really set
out to find, to discover, tocreate this content for, and
they're disappointed by it.
And so, of course, the questionis well, how are you marketing
it?
Like, what are you doing topromote your show, to tell the
world that this show.
Exists and find the rightpeople.
And they're not doing anything.
Well, that is it's a differentskill set.
You know, being able to put anoutline together or come up with

(30:08):
interesting topics or be anexpert on a topic that you can
talk at length about is oneskill set, and obviously the
number one skill set for apodcaster.
Another skill set is now makingsure that whoever this podcast
is created for and intended theintended audience is for that.
Like, how do you let them knowthat it exists and how do you
get them to try it?
And then once they try it,hopefully now your great content

(30:31):
takes over and they become aregular listener and they maybe
start to spread the word.
But you got to do that firststep.
And so we've talked about thatbefore.
Like, how do we get those firsthundred listeners?
We've got some tips.
We did a great episode on like25 unconventional marketing tips
and all this other kind ofstuff.
But if having a moderate tolarge size audience is part of
what you would consider successfor your podcast, you have to

(30:54):
put on the marketing hat at somepoint and you've got to do some
marketing work.

Alban (30:57):
Again, the quality of the content is retention.
And it's really, reallyimportant.
Once you feel comfortable,like, hey, I'm really proud of
the content we're doing.
People who do listen, who maybewe've told about in real life
or communities we're involved inthat we've told about the
podcast, they're listening andthey're enjoying it and they're
writing us and they're tellingus they like it.
Then that's the good indicatorit's time to do some marketing.

(31:21):
Trying to get your podcast infront of the ideal audience.
But long term, like the contenthas to be there.
So these are two sides of thesame coin.
You have to have both greatmarketing without a great
product.
That's called a scam or snakeoil.
A great product without greatmarketing, a great podcast
without great marketing ismostly just like a hidden gem.

(31:43):
And you do run across them.
Like you find productssometimes, and you're like, this
is such a great product.
How do people not know aboutthis?
Or you find a great podcast,you go, how do people not know
about it?
Probably because there hasn'tbeen any marketing around it.
And you do need to have bothpieces.

Kevin (31:57):
I'm reminded of two things.
But first, I'll start with aquick one, which is TV Guide.
You remember TV Guide used toexist?
Yeah.

Jordan (32:03):
Yeah.

Kevin (32:03):
I don't know if it still does, but like when shows would
come up for renewal, I don'tknow what time of year that
would be generally, but theywould always put out a TV guide
episode that would be like thebest TV shows that you're not
watching.
And it would basically gothrough a couple of shows that
are like, hey, the networks aregoing to cancel these because
the ratings are so low, butthey're really good shows.
And so it would be like TVGuide and the people who work

(32:26):
there doing marketing on behalfof these shows because they
didn't want them to go away.
Right.
And and you might find a fewfans of your podcast that are
like, hey, every time we listento this episode, the hosts are
saying, Yo, we're asking forfeedback and nobody's writing
in.
And like, well, why are wedoing this?
Should we keep doing it?
But you really love the show.
You don't want it to go away.
And so, like, you, as a fan, asa listener, might try to like

(32:48):
market the show for them or helpgrow the show.
It reminds me of what TV guys.
But somebody needs to do themarketing, right?
Yeah.
If you're listening to a showand you love it and nobody's
talking about it, nobody'slistening, then we need the
street team out there to helpgrow the show.
Somebody has to do it.
The other thing, Alban wassaying, great marketing without
a great product is he calls itsnake oil.
It reminds me of my favoritequote about marketing in
general, which is the fastestway to kill a bad product is

(33:09):
with good marketing.
Yes.
So I think that that means youhave to ask yourself a tough
question sometimes.
If you're marketing your show,if you're promoting all of your
episodes on all of your socialsand you've set up a blog or
whatever, and you're targetingcertain keywords and you're
getting search results, ifyou're doing marketing type
stuff, but your audience stillisn't growing, then you have to

(33:31):
ask yourself, like, is it aproduct problem?
Yeah.
And podcasters often don't.
That's a tough question to ask.
You have to be really honestwith yourself.
You have to find some people inyour life who will be honest
with you.
If you say, Did you listen tomy last episode?
No, why not?
Would you listen to my nextepisode and give me some harsh
constructive feedback?
Because I really want to dohave a I really want to have a

(33:52):
good product and I'm investing.
I'm putting time, effort, andenergy into marketing this
thing, but I'm not seeing anyresults.
And it's probably it could bethat the marketing you're doing
is not good.
That could be the problem.
Or it could be no, themarketing is fine.
It the problem is with theproduct, and you have to have a
high quality product.

Jordan (34:08):
All right.
If you build it, they will comebusted.

Kevin (34:11):
I say busted.

Jordan (34:12):
But there are some lightning in a bottle cases.

Kevin (34:14):
Yeah, because to entertain the myth itself at
all, you have to say thatwhoever is interested in
figuring out if this is true ornot is interested in growing
their audience.
If you're interested in growingyour audience, you have to do
more than just putting out agreat product.
You have to tell the worldabout it.
And so I think busted.

Jordan (34:30):
Next up, we have the internet's favorite rule.
You can use any song as long asit's under 10 seconds because
it falls under fair use, right?
Yeah.
This is one I added so quicklybecause I see it all the time.
All the time.
They're like, hey, I want toplay a song, and like I got to
make sure it's under 10 seconds.
And everyone's just like, ah, Idon't know.

Kevin (34:53):
Let me just pile on another myth on top of this
myth.

Jordan (34:55):
Okay.

Kevin (34:56):
Is that using a cool, catchy, popular hit song in your
podcast intro will make yourpodcast good or help make your
podcast grow.
It will not.
Nobody cares about the intromusic that you're using.
Bust it.
Right.
And if I wanted to go listen tosome great music, I'm not
searching podcasts to find it.

Jordan (35:16):
No.
Yeah.

Kevin (35:17):
So anytime somebody comes into podcasting and they're
like, oh, I need an intro, Iwant to use my favorite song.
Bad idea.
Bad idea in terms of you knowliability and lawsuits and
everything else.
Any amount of time that you'reusing copyrighted music is going
to get you in troublepotentially, unless you're
completely flying under theradar, which means it's just a

(35:37):
ticking time bomb.
At some point, you're hopingthat your show gets popular
enough that somebody is going torecognize that you're using
this music that you shouldn't.
But here's the other thing it'snot going to help.
Nobody cares.
Nobody's like, oh, that's myfavorite song, too.
I'm going to listen to thispodcast.
No.

Alban (35:53):
What's really important.
So a lot of times people say,Well, yeah, you can because of
fair use.
And what's happened is theyheard this phrase fair use once,
and then they go, Yeah, that'slike perfectly legit.
Fair use is a defense againstcopyright infringement, which
means you get sued for copyrightinfringement, and then you go,
no, no, no, it's okay becauseit's fair use.

(36:15):
And fair use, we have fourpieces to it.
Okay.
The third one is going to behow much of the copyrighted
material did you use?
So that's where that 10 secondscomes from.
People are like, hey, if you'reusing less, you're less likely
to get busted.
Unfortunately, for thosepeople, there are three others.
One is the purpose and thecharacter of the use.

(36:37):
So is it commercial?
Well, for a podcast, yeah.
If you're ever gonna run ads init, you know, it's a commercial
use.
It's not a parody.
Um, you can get away withparody more because you're
trying to say you're trying toriff off of the original.
The nature of the copyrightedwork, it's a copyrighted song
that was made for selling CDs oralbums or streams.

(36:58):
The purpose was not for this toget ripped off.
So that's gonna cut againstyou.
And then the fourth one, effecton market value, kind of ties
to what Kevin was saying.
No one's really listening toyour intro because they're like,
oh, cool, I'm gonna replace theoriginal song.
But it's still like the thepoint of the song is to get

(37:18):
licensed in movies and incommercials and possibly in
podcasts.
So nobody wants you to stealit.
And if you get big enough, thenyou're going to get some cease
and desist, or you're going toget copyright takedowns, or
you're gonna run into somenegative legal issues.
So either go ahead and get thelicense or just don't use

(37:39):
copyrighted music.
There's tons of good music thatnow that you can get licenses
for all over the web.
There's tons that are free.
And now there's all this newAI-generated music, which isn't
always great, but you can makeup a quick jingle that you could
use and not have to worry aboutcopyright infringement.
So there's lots of options outthere for you.

(38:00):
Don't go pick your favoriteACDC song and hope to get away
with it.

Jordan (38:04):
Yeah, there's a lot of podcasters.
Like, um, I've seen the uhexample of someone saying, I
want to do a podcast where Ianalyze like hit songs from the
80s and 90s.
And I'm going to play clips ofthem and then I'm gonna talk
about them and dissect like whyit became a hit, and we're gonna
talk about the music theorybehind it.

(38:25):
And even doing that, likechopping it up and using it as
like a reference of analysis isgoing to get you in hot water.
And the Spotify takedowns.
So, I mean, I've talked aboutthis before.
I have licensed music, not bypopular artists.
This is like just music fromEpidemic Sound or Artlist.

(38:45):
And Spotify has been soaggressive in taking down all of
my episodes.
I feel like I am constantlybattling Spotify.
And there is a gorgeouslycomposed fiction podcast that's
kind of like a comfort podcastfor me in the autumn.
It's like every autumn I goback and listen to this podcast.

(39:06):
And it's just a short series.
And this guy is a beautifulcomposer.
I went back to it and he had anew episode, and it said,
attention for Spotify listeners.
And Spotify had taken down liketwo-thirds of his entire
podcast.
Like it was like all of seasonone, all of season two, half of

(39:27):
season three.
And he's just basically likethis was months ago.
He's like, they're not helpingme resolve this.
I can't resolve this issue.
This is music that he himselfcreated.
Yeah.
So if he's having issues andit's music that clearly the bots
couldn't have flagged aslicensed music, they just took
it down.
Then, I mean, if you havesomething as popular, it's gone

(39:49):
immediately.

Alban (39:49):
Yeah, you're making a good point.
Even if you have a good defensefor fair use, the way this
actually plays out across thepodcast apps, especially ones
like Spotify or YouTube, thatthey are very much in a strong
relationship with the musicrights holders, they're going to
take it down and they're goingto err strongly on the side of

(40:12):
the labels who have the rightsto this music.
And they're going to go, hey,by default, we trust you, label
who sent us this takedownnotice.
We'll let the podcaster,YouTuber, whatever, prove they
have the license, and it's goingto be painful for them.
So just don't do it.
It's not worth the upside.

(40:33):
The upside value is almostnone.
You get some music that mightsound good, but the downside
risk is now you're invitinglegal and a bunch of just
headaches.
So it's definitely a myth andit's not worth it.

Jordan (40:47):
Okay.
Next up, we have we can fix itin post.
You don't have to worry aboutmistakes because editing will
save everything.

Alban (40:55):
This one was sent in by Jordan.

Kevin (40:58):
I'm like, wait, why are you saying it like that?
I think this one's true.
Come in there, like confirmed,moving on.
Right.

Jordan (41:06):
Yeah.
And I mean, the truth iseditors who have a lot of
experience and expensive toolscan absolutely clean up a lot.
You can clean up backgroundnoise, pauses.
Maybe if your co-host isclicking their AirPods case, you
can scrub it out of the audioif you're really talented.

Alban (41:24):
Fishing for compliments here.

Jordan (41:27):
But not everything can be cleaned up in post.
Audio is data.
And when you have corrupteddata, there's no data there to
save, right?

Kevin (41:36):
Yeah.
I mean, there's there'sdefinitely a line.
Like the clearest line is if onyour recording there's some
clipping.
That is something that evenlike with the best tools, you
can't create something that'snot there.
And clipping is when you'rerecording and your levels are
set so high, somebody is so loudin the microphone that it's
actually not able to be capturedin the recording.

Jordan (41:55):
Yeah.

Kevin (41:55):
And so it's when your meters on your little microphone
meter level go red.
That means that there's so muchnoise coming into the
microphone at this point that wecan't record it all.
We can't capture it all.
So there's no saving.
It's a little bit like inphotography.
The photography, the kiss ofdeath, is the overexposure.
There's too much light.
And now on the film or on thecamera sensor itself, it's just
gone white.
And you can't pull back anydetail from something that's

(42:18):
white.
Like every pixel has beencompletely blown out.
I don't know if there was, youknow, a bird in the sky or not,
because now the sky is just allwhite.
And that's the same thing thatcan happen in recording.
So there are mistakes that areso egregious that they can't be
saved.

Jordan (42:30):
Yeah.

Kevin (42:30):
For the most part, a flubbed word or re-recording a
line, like, yeah, with a goodeditor, with a nice editor, with
a gracious editor, they canmake you sound wonderful, even
if you're not that great.
But there are extremes.

Jordan (42:42):
Yeah.
And I mean, there are like AItools now that even if you, like
you said, flub a word, you canactually like highlight the word
and then type in what you meantto say, and then AI will make
it sound like you actually saidthe correct thing in your voice,
which is really cool.
But like you said, there's justsome stuff that can't be fixed.
Um, one of my really goodfriends, she's an editor and she

(43:05):
has a bunch of clients.
And one of her favorite thingsis when they send her a
recording where the internetlike dropped and there's
literally like half of a wordmissing or half of a sentence
missing, and they say, Hey, canyou fix this?
And she's like, There's nothingthere.
There's there's no audio tofix, but people expect her to
fix it.

Alban (43:26):
Yeah, it's there's a lot of these things that have
stepped in to try to fill thisgap.
Magic mastering is one of them.
We go, you have audio, but it'snot very good.
Let's try to clean it up.
The filler word deletion thatlots of tools have.
That's just you said um a bunchof times.
I think we could take that out.
That will help.
The script has that thing whereyou can like correct a word,

(43:48):
the overdub, and now that wordis fixed.
But what it can't do is itcan't fix the fact that you
never wrote an outline to beginwith, and so none of the points
really made sense.
You and your co-host were justnot connecting for an episode,
and so there's just a lot oflike awkward back and forths.
You can't really fix that.

(44:09):
You just mispronounce this, youknow, phrase multiple times.
So things that you can do, youknow, if someone mispronounces a
word and it's important for youto fix it, just say, hey, let's
pause for a second.
Can we say that again and getit right?
Or if you flub a word, you justgo back to the beginning of
that sentence and you say itagain.
And those are like things thatnow it's you can fix it in post.

(44:30):
You know, when we flub theword, now Jordan can just delete
the flubbed sentence and keepthe good sentence.
But the fix in post isn't wecan create it in post.
There has to be something tofix for you to actually fix it.

Jordan (44:45):
Yeah.
There are some things,obviously, that can be fixed in
post, but it's really just aband-aid for lazy recording.
Um, and it's going to costwhoever is editing a lot more
time and effort.
And there's always a situationwhere if you record in like a
bad environment or you know,something's not working, you
have tech issues, it just can'tbe fixed in post.

(45:07):
It can't be busted.

Kevin (45:09):
You so strongly want to make sure that's busted.

Jordan (45:12):
Yeah, that's got a big old busted stamp right on it.
Finally, you need a bigfollowing to make money in
podcasting.
The carrot at the end of thestick for a lot of podcasters is
to earn income from thousandsand thousands of listeners.
But unless you have thousandsand thousands of listeners, you
can't make any money inpodcasting.

(45:32):
There's no money in podcasting.
Like, don't even try.

Alban (45:35):
Confirmed.

Jordan (45:36):
I disagree.

Kevin (45:38):
I think about it two ways.
I think that it's possible toearn some money from podcasting,
even if you have a smallaudience.
I also think that I wouldn'tsay the inverse is true.
Like if you have a largeaudience, the chances that
there's no way to make money offof your podcast, I think that's
crazy.
If you have a large audience,even if your show is, you know,

(46:00):
all the traditional ways likenot monetizable, because let's
just say it's offensive and it'scrude, like no brands are going
to want to align with you.
And well, we've seen that work.
I mean, we've seen with one ofthe largest podcasters in
podcasting, Joe Rogan, he hasfound brands that he can do ad
reads for where he's dropping,you know, curse words every
other word.
There are brands that are like,no, we're fine with that.

(46:22):
As long as Joe's talking aboutus, we don't care if he's like,
this is the best beep beep beep,you know, friggin' product on
the market.
They're fine with it.
Yeah.
And so I would say, like, ifyou have a large audience,
there's definitely a way for youto monetize.
So the qu the question for usbecomes hey, if I have a small
audience, is there any way forme to make some money?
And I think we're gonna sayyes.

(46:42):
I think we can point people inthat direction, the yes.
It's not gonna be big moneythough.
Like, I do think the potentialfor income from a podcast
specifically does scale, notnecessarily like on a straight
line, but it does scale.
So the larger your audience,the more potential for income
you have.

Jordan (46:59):
Yeah.

Kevin (46:59):
But even with a small audience, you can monetize.
You guys would agree with that,right?

Alban (47:03):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
I mean, it's a multiplicationproblem where it's the amount of
people who listen to the show,that number, multiplied by what
to what degree are they willingto pay for the content.
And that's a function of do,you know, is this an audience
that has money and is yourcontent exceptionally valuable
to them?
You want all these numbers tobe big.

(47:24):
You know, you'd like the numberof listeners to be big, you'd
like it to be extremely valuablefor them, and you'd like your
audience ideally to be anaudience that has enough money
so that they can spend the moneyto pay for your premium content
or that their advertisersreally want and get in front of
them.
So, can the raw number ofdownloads be low and it be

(47:45):
monetizable?
Yeah.
We had an example of a BuzzBrowpodcaster who had like 150
downloads per episode and wasranting and raving about how
valuable it was.
And we asked him, and he goes,Oh, well, what I do is I set up
call centers for big companies.
And so I started doing thispodcast about call centers.
But pretty much everyone who'slistening is one of the CEOs of

(48:07):
a company I would work with.
They're the decision makers,they're people searching in this
very small space.
And so they listen to the show.
I don't run ads, but I monetizebecause these are leads that I
would be paying thousands ofdollars per lead.
So when they come and they say,I've listened to the podcast
for six months, we sit at thecall center, it's a huge win.
That's a monetized podcast witha very small audience, but it's

(48:31):
because the value of each ofthose listeners is so incredibly
high, especially for the guywho's making that show.

Jordan (48:38):
Yeah.
I think where this idea reallytakes hold is when podcasters
start a podcast with theblinders on that they need to
get like 10,000 listeners, andthen that way they can slap some
programmatic ads in it and it'sgoing to be easy money.
And I think that there's a bigissue here because when you have

(48:58):
these podcasters that have20,000, 30,000, 50,000
listeners, yeah, you cannegotiate higher CPM rates,
which results in like biggersponsorships.
It's bigger ad deals.
You know, one ad can bring inlike a thousand bucks on an
episode or more.
But the thing is, is there's alittle bit of a trade-off

(49:19):
because yeah, you can slap someads in there and, you know, make
a quick $2,000, but you're alsoputting in a ton of work with
the marketing.
You're putting in a ton of workand ad spending for your own
podcast.
You're, you're trying to getother podcasts to promote your
show.
You're doing a ton of work.
You have a whole team on thatkind of stuff.
So I think there is atrade-off.

(49:40):
And really, I talked about thisin my talk in the podcast
movement.
I think that there's kind oflike a skewed value with
advertising versus like listenersupport.
Because with advertising, ifyou have a CPM that is $15,
which is pretty average, ifyou're doing like programmatic
ads, you're looking at four,seven dollars, something like

(50:02):
that per thousand downloads.
And if it's sponsorships,you're looking at like, I don't
know, $10 to $20 per thousanddownloads.
So let's say that you get $15for a thousand downloads on an
episode versus if you have alistener subscription and you
get three subscribers on yoursubscription, just three, you

(50:24):
make that $15.
So that's three versus like athousand.
It's a huge difference.
You do not need a massiveaudience to make money.
You just need a few dedicatedlisteners.
And honestly, I was talking toone of our podcasters about
this.
He's, I forget his name rightnow, but um he's the guy that
has like millions of followerson social media.

(50:46):
And we were talking about howvolatile the sponsorship and ad
landscape is because you gothrough seasons and it's like
when it rains, it pours, and youget all these sponsorships.
And it's super easy to makethese brand deals and you know,
you get a bunch of money comingin.
And then you have six monthswhere there's just nothing.
It is a wasteland.

(51:08):
However, our subscribers, thepeople who are supporting the
show, the people who aresubscribed, that's not wavering
from month to month.
That's staying consistent,whereas like the ad dollars are
just all over the place.
So yeah, I'm gonna call thisone busted.

Alban (51:24):
I think I want to put it in the plausible.
If I'm I know that it's not ahundred percent true, you have
to have a big audience.

Jordan (51:30):
Okay.

Alban (51:31):
But boy, does it help.
Like you definitely want.

Jordan (51:35):
It does.

Alban (51:36):
And I don't love the idea of going into podcasting
thinking I'm going to make moneyon it and I'm gonna do a kind
of niche show that hopefullyI'll be able to figure out how
to also run, you know, all thethis Patreon and this BuzzProud
subscription and a newsletterand all these other things so I
can monetize the audience.
I think I'm just holding all ofthose hopes and dreams with

(52:00):
like a kind of a loose hand,loose grip in the beginning.
And over time, then I'm goingto, you know, if it, if that's
the direction it goes, thenthat's going to be beautiful,
but it may not go thatdirection.

Kevin (52:12):
I'm with you, Alban.
I I have to say that I'mleaning more in the direction of
I just want to simplify it inpeople's minds.
I do think there is a way tomake money off a podcast if you
have a small audience.
I think it's it's challengingand it's not a lot of money.
I think it's true that if youdo have a large audience, there
are lots of ways to make money.
And I think that kind ofbecomes easier when you have a

(52:34):
large audience.
But it's much in the same wayas like, here's a weird analogy
that I'll draw.
If I just had a milliondollars, I could take that
million dollars and I can investit in an SP index fund and I'll
make 10% a year, 10% a year ona million dollars, 10 at
$100,000, right?
I would be making $100,000 ayear for doing nothing.
So all I got to do is get amillion dollars.
It's so easy.

Jordan (52:54):
Yeah.

Kevin (52:55):
Right.
And I think as crazy as thatsounds in money, like everyone's
like, yeah, no, getting themillion dollars is the hard
part.
That's the same problem we havein podcasts.
Exactly.
Podcasters start and then assoon as I get to $50,000
downloads per episode, I'm gonnaturn on programmatic ads and
I'm making $5,000 a month.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
How are you gonna get the$50,000 downloads per episode?

(53:16):
Yeah.

Alban (53:17):
On the same vein, Kevin, there's people who are going,
no, no, no, all you need is$10,000 and just to pick the
perfect investment, and thenyou're gonna make all this
money.
And that's I think what thesmall podcaster is saying like,
all I have to do is get theperfect audience, perfect
everything, and then I'm gonnasell them this incredible
content and they'll all pay forit.
They're just both of thosestrategies are viable, and yet

(53:39):
uh you're missing the reallydifficult piece.
Right.

Kevin (53:42):
Yep.
All right.
So busted, plausible, new.
This is a nuanced.
Yeah.
This is the bigger theaudience, the more options
you're gonna have to monetize.
But there are some options atthe lower end of the scale.
So you don't need a bigaudience, but it sure does help.

Jordan (54:01):
Let's get into fan mail.
We have a response to ourpodcasting through the holidays
episode.
And this is from John Corey.
And he says, I'm listening tothe holiday episode in
discussion about Jeremy's surveyand Alban's deeper dive into
data from over 100,000 podcasts,which is much broader and more
inclusive data set.
Alban mentioned holiday roadtrips mostly tied to US

(54:23):
traditions like Thanksgiving andChristmas.
But what about audiencesoutside of those assumptions?
So in Australia, Christmasmeans summer on the beach.
Um, Muslim friends don'tcelebrate it, and Jewish friends
in NYC spend the day at aChinese restaurant in a movie.
And Canada's Thanksgiving is inOctober.
Scotland celebrates New Year'smore, and in China, holiday

(54:44):
travel often means trains, notcars.
So are there insights in theBuzzsprout data about
non-American audiences orholidays beyond the US lens?
Alban, wow us if there'sanything hidden in there.

Alban (54:57):
Um, well, no, this is primarily uh US data.
So across all of Buzzsprout,um, it's something like 45% of
all listeners are going to be inthe US.
And then that's followed byCanada, United Kingdom,
Australia, but it pretty quicklywe're down into like 5% and
below.
Yeah.
So Buzzsprout podcastersdominated by English speaking

(55:20):
and in English speakingcountries.
You know, so yeah, that data isprimarily US, but it still
plays out.
So what a lot of podcasters whoare listening to this and
listening to Buzzprout shows aretalking about the holidays.
They mean Thanksgiving, NewYear's in the US, and Christmas
in the US.

(55:40):
And even if you're notcelebrating the birth of Christ,
Christmas is still happening inthe US and there's still a lot
of cultural things happeningaround it.
We all are mostly taking theday off, you know, for that
period.
So yeah, it has that lens toit, but I still think it's all
good advice.
Um, this is an opportunity toreach people who are traveling

(56:03):
around the holidays, those beingthe US holidays.
So if you can put out anepisode, you have an opportunity
to be recommended during thatperiod.

Kevin (56:12):
Yeah.
I mean, in in the US, is it theday before Thanksgiving is the
number one travel day in the US?
Yeah.
And I don't know what it isworldwide, but that would be
interesting, especially if yourpodcast has a more international
appeal and audience.
Like what are the big traveldays worldwide?
You could apply some of thesame tactics and strategies that
we talked about, maybepotentially other dates or other

(56:33):
times of the year, if you havemore of an international
audience.

Jordan (56:36):
All right.
So for our next episode, we aregoing to be talking about Apple
podcast charts, rankings, doingnoteworthy.

Alban (56:45):
And if you have information about all of this,
we have a lot that's publiclyavailable.
But if you have a case study oran anecdote or something that's
worked for your podcast, tellus because your stories are
often the best way to share thatdata.
So we may have kind of whatApple has told us, but the
stories uh make it so much moreinteresting.
So let us know if you havesomething you'd like to add.

Jordan (57:07):
Yeah.
All right.
I'm excited about that one.
Okay.
So until next time, thank youfor listening and keep
podcasting.