Turning Casual Listeners Into Superfans

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Your most loyal listeners aren’t just tuning in, they’re fueling your podcast’s growth, engagement, and revenue! In this episode, we unpack what makes a superfan and why cultivating just 1–2% of your audience can make a bigger impact than chasing thousands of casual downloads.

We cover the listener spectrum from casual listeners to community members to superfans, the psychology behind deep connections, and practical strategies you can use to turn passive listeners into advocates for your show. From setting boundaries and personalizing interactions, to creating memorable moments and building community spaces, we share the tools that will help you move beyond downloads and build real, lasting fan relationships!

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Technium: 1,000 True Fans
• Amie McNee: I went on one of the biggest podcasts in the world
• Pat Flynn's book: Superfans

Contact Buzzcast

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

Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!

Episode Transcript

Alban (00:00):
All right, thanks, I just had to turn off my daylight.
Your what Daylight?
Do either of you have one ofthose lights that simulates
daylight, like a really brightlight?

Kevin (00:09):
No, no, I have windows and a sun.

Alban (00:13):
Well, I have windows, I have those, we have lots of
those in Florida.
We have lots of sunlight, butthere's these lights that are
made for people with seasonalaffective disorder, affective
something.

Jordan (00:24):
Is that real?
Yes, of course it's real.

Alban (00:32):
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, Kevin, if you livedfurther from the equator, could
you imagine not seeing the sunfor like four months?
Yeah, but is it a real likedisorder?
Yeah, it's in the DSM-5.
Dsm-5.

Kevin (00:38):
I don't know what the DSM-5 is All right, this is-.
Getting technical I am way outof my depth here.
Okay, I'll take your word forit.
It's a real disorder.
I just don't know anythingabout it.

Alban (00:48):
It's just like you feel sad because you're not seeing
the sun pretty much.
Yeah, okay, and one of the waysto influence people positively
is to get a lot of bright lightin your eyes sometime during the
day so that your circadianrhythms kind of like even out.
And some days I wake up doingstuff in the house and then I

(01:09):
just go right to work and so Imay be not in the sun for the
first few hours of the day.
So I got this big old light andI turn it on and really bright
in my face for the first fewhours, just to kind of help wake
me up and make me feel like,oh, I was outside today, even if
I actually didn't get out inthe sun.
Does it work?
I mean, it's bright for sure.

Jordan (01:29):
Does it have to be like pointing at your eyes, or can
you put it like off to the side,so it's not just like?

Alban (01:34):
No, it's.
It has to get into your eyes,ok, but it's less uncomfortable
than you think.
I mean, going outside isbright.
The outdoors are really brightcompared to anything indoors
ever.
True, that's true.
So those are some Lumen facts.

Jordan (01:56):
Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all
things podcasting from thepeople at Buzzsprout.
I'm so excited about thisepisode because today we are
going to be talking about how toturn your listeners into super
fans.
I know that's like a bigpromise and we'll kind of like
go into what defines a superfan, but it really is just a

(02:18):
handful of your listeners thatare going to be responsible for
most of your growth engagement,the money that you make, and so
it's really important to makesure that you at least have a
few of your growth engagement,the money that you make, and so
it's really important to makesure that you at least have a
few of them.
So first, if we look at whatdefines a super fan, on one end
of the listener spectrum we havethe casual listeners, and these
are the people who like findyour show through a search or

(02:40):
social media or they just checkyou out because you popped up on
the algorithm and you know,maybe they like the episode, but
they don't have a habit oflistening or they may not have
actually subscribed to yourepisodes.
And then you have the fans andthey're like the steady
listeners, and these are theones who will subscribe and
follow and you're kind ofbecoming part of their routine.

(03:01):
And then there's the connectedcommunity members, and these are
the people that are going tofollow you on social media.
They're going to join yourgroups and just kind of like,
stay connected with your podcastand make sure that they're
keeping up to date with yournewest episodes.
And then after those people whoeveryone wants, the connected
community members but after themare the super fans and they're

(03:22):
the ones that show up everyweek.
They've listened to everyepisode, maybe twice over, and
they will send in the fan mail,they'll send in voice memos,
they will buy merch, they'regoing to bring friends, they're
going to recommend you toeverybody and they're, like,
actually invested in yourpodcast.
So definitely taking casuallisteners up to that end of
things is exciting.

Kevin (03:43):
Yeah, I like the name super fans for sure.
Not saying that we shouldn'tuse that, but I've always
considered these people likeadvocates that's the word I
would use.
I would say they're like yourpodcast advocates.
Does that feel the same to youguys?
Do you feel like we could usethose interchangeably?

Alban (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, I think when you talk about like a business
funnel, from awareness all theway down to considering and
making a purchase, the finallevel is an advocate for the
brand Right, not just someonewho will purchase but will
actively go out and tell peopleabout the product and get people
other people to buy it.

Kevin (04:18):
Exactly.

Alban (04:18):
But, funny enough, I had a third word, which is true
fans, because I'm thinking ofKevin Kelly's blog post.
A thousand true fans this isfrom I don't know 2008, where
Kelly is going through kind ofthe dynamics of the internet and
is making the case.
You know, if you're a band, youused to have to have tons of

(04:39):
fans so that you could get anymonetization off the ground.
But if you really think aboutit now, with the way the
internet's set up, you just needa thousand people that are true
fans, that really love what youdo and are willing to pay.
So it's not a thousandlisteners to your podcast, it's
a thousand people who write in,who advocate, who care.

(05:01):
And the reality is it's muchbetter to have a thousand people
who really care about what youdo versus millions of people who
are just like, well, yeah,that's a good episode.
Okay, yeah, that's fine.
Like you want a few people wholove what you do.
Yeah, 2008.
That was kind of a mind blowingblog post to read and I think
now we all kind of take it forgranted that, yeah, all you

(05:22):
really need are a thousandpeople that really love what you
do and you have a businessopportunity.
But that was not the case.
You know 2006, 2007,.
People didn't understand it.

Jordan (05:33):
Yeah.

Kevin (05:33):
Right, and just to clarify the point of that,
wasn't that you need a thousandtrue fans, or advocates, or
super fans in order to podcastsuccessfully?

Alban (05:41):
No, the point was, if you have a thousand, that can be a
full-time job, versus whenpeople would think.
You need actually millions oflisteners to even sell concert
tickets.
You need to be on the radio soeveryone knows your show, so
that when you go to town you cansell out a show.
Kevin Kelly is making theargument.
No, actually, if you have athousand people online that are
diehard fans, then you canactually make a business just

(06:04):
off that.
That can be your full-timething, and it was an argument of
it's much more accessible thanwe imagine.

Jordan (06:10):
Yeah, this reminds me of a Substack article that I read.
It was featured in Pod News andit's Amy McNee.
She's an author and she said Iwent on one of the biggest
podcasts in the world and itdidn't sell any books, and she
was talking about how she gotinvited because Jay like read
her book and she was like, oh mygosh, like this is going to be

(06:30):
it, this is going to make meblow up.
And so she like went on thepodcast and everyone's like
texting her like, oh my gosh, ohmy gosh, this is it for you.
And then, I don't know, acouple months later, I guess,
nothing happened.
She did not sell any otherbooks, and so she realized that
there wasn't going to be somesort of like big break that was

(06:51):
going to, like you know,skyrocket your sales or make you
a bunch of money or get you abunch of like avid fans.
It's going to be the peoplethat are already fans of what
you're creating, and those arethe ones that you have to pay
attention to.

Alban (07:05):
Yeah, I might contrast this with a few weeks ago.
We talked about Stephen Colbertleaving.
We were like, oh, shouldStephen Colbert start his own
podcast?
Oh, yeah, and there was theNate Silver article where he
said I used to go on things likeStephen Colbert and it never
sold any books.
But if I go on what he called aniche podcast, that's the right
audience, it will sell books.

(07:33):
We all kind of confuse rawimpression numbers and actual
engagement, which might turninto book sales or paying for
something.
There's another piece of theequation which is how likely is
this audience to resonate withmy message?
And so, yeah, it's great to geta huge audience.
Everyone wants the Super Bowlat level awareness, but you've
got to reach the right audience.
And then what I take from thesuper fans and true fans, all of

(07:55):
this is there actually are somepeople you are perfect for and
there's a lot of people whomight go.
That's nice and there's a realvalue in finding who those super
fans are.
Who are the people who will saythis is my favorite podcast,
this is what I truly love,versus somebody else who might
say, yeah, me and 500 otherpeople kind of like it.

Jordan (08:17):
Yeah, we're touching on this right now, but super fans
are definitely worth obsessingover.
It's worth like putting a lotof effort and energy into
because they make up 20% of youroverall engagement, even though
they're like a smaller number,and they're also word of mouth
marketers.
So they're gonna be the peoplelike telling everyone about your

(08:39):
podcast and sharing it andsaying you have to listen to
this and posting stories aboutit on Instagram.
And then, if you're monetizingand sharing it and saying you
have to listen to this andposting stories about it on
Instagram, and then if you'remonetizing, nielsen Research
actually did a study I think itwas like last year or something,
and it was about how super fansare super spenders and it was
basically talking about how, ifsomeone is a super fan of a
podcast, they're 60 to 70% morelikely to purchase products from

(09:04):
that podcast and they drive themost subscription support,
merch sales, live ticket sales,all those kinds of things.
So if you're wanting to alsomonetize your podcast, then it's
definitely worth putting timeinto your audiences.
So this is kind of becoming alittle bit of like a hot term in
this year and I'm hearing it alot, but I think it's really

(09:38):
important when we're talkingabout super fans and making sure
that we understand, like thepsychology and also the
boundaries that need to be putin place with super fans.
And that's because podcasts aresuch a strong force for
parasocial bonds, such a strongforce for parasocial bonds.
So a parasocial relationship ifyou haven't heard it, you
probably have heard this termbefore but it's basically like
when you're in this sort of likeone-sided relationship with
somebody that you like listeningto or watching on YouTube or
things like that, it's like youknow this person so well that

(09:59):
you feel like you're actuallylike really good friends, but
they don't know you at all.
And we actually had one of oursuper fans.
We would say write in aboutthis.
Sara from Wish I'd Known Thensaid I'm definitely a super fan
of Buzzcast and Buzzsprout.
I've been thinking about why,and I think it comes down to two
things connection and value.
So I'm paraphrasing here.
She says hearing team membersand even the co-founders on the

(10:20):
podcast or at conferences makesit feel personal, like I know
them.
And on top of that, buzzsproutprovides real value through its
easy to use tools and commitmentto open podcasting.

Alban (10:32):
So I like the idea of a parasocial relationship.
I like that.
It's like using it as a term Ifind it useful.
I really dislike the name.
Parasocial to me has thisconnotation of like parasite and
you know it's one way.
It's almost seems like it'ssaying it's unhealthy, and maybe
it is.
If there's like an obsessionlevel there.

(10:52):
Maybe there's like a level.
Yeah it's not good, but I havelots of podcasters that I've
listened to for 10 years and Ifeel a connection.
Because I've listened to himfor so long, I know lots about
their views.
The way they see the world isinteresting.
You know, you know personalanecdotes that you've probably
heard them say the names of someof their family members.

(11:13):
You kind of have an idea ofwhere in the world they live.
I find that to be a reallyvaluable thing.
You know something that allowsyou to feel a bit more
connection to the podcast.
Or you know, even I get this toa lesser extent with maybe
bloggers or YouTubers- yeah.
But every time I hear it whenpeople talk about it, it's
almost like it's a negative,where they're like oh yeah,

(11:36):
people think they know you andthey don't really know you,
which is kind of true.
But on the other hand, like alot of our super fans, I feel
like they do know us a fairamount, you know, and I've
talked to people at podcastconferences.
It's not like they know fakethings about us.
They actually do know some ofthe hobbies we're into and our
views on podcasting and ifthey've listened for a long

(11:57):
time, you know, sometimes therecould be a pretty big, large
wealth of knowledge.
So I don't know, I've alwayskind of bristled at that phrase
because it always seems likeit's paired with like a negative
connotation.

Kevin (12:08):
Yeah, I agree A hundred percent.
I mean, the para prefix is justmeaning the one-sided
relationship, but usually in aconnotation that it only
benefits one of the parties,right, and I don't think that's
true in podcasting.
I think it's more of asymbi-social relationship.
Did you just invent that?

Alban (12:28):
I think.

Kevin (12:29):
I did invent that I've never heard it before but it is
one side in that one party knowsthe other party and the other
party doesn't really know what'shappening.
But there are mutuallybeneficial things that are
occurring on both sides.
So one person might be gettingentertainment or education or
something, and while they'rereceiving that benefit, they're
also getting to know somebody.
The other side of thatrelationship is, as the

(12:51):
podcaster, you might not begetting to know your audience,
but by having fans you'rebuilding a following, you're
building influence, so you arebenefiting as well.
It reminds me of I can'tremember the names of those fish
that like ride on the bottom ofthe bigger fish, like they ride
on sharks and they ride onwhales and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's like the big whaledoesn't even know that these

(13:11):
little fish are just like ridingon them all the time.

Jordan (13:13):
Yeah.

Kevin (13:14):
But for the little fish they're like eating the algae
and stuff off the bigger fishand they love the bigger fish.
They're like this big fish isgreat, it's growing all this
algae, I'm getting all this freefood and the big fish is just
like.
I have no idea what's going onbecause I'm just too big and I
don't have eyes down there, butfor some reason I don't have any

(13:34):
algae on me, and this isawesome.

Alban (13:38):
I love that we tried to.
I'm like I don't really likethis parasocial relationship.
You're like, yeah, symbioticrelationship, symbisocial,
symbisocial.
And then you come up with it,Send by social, Send by social,
and then you come up with it'skind of like we're the giant
whale and our listeners areeating the algae off of us.

Kevin (13:48):
I'm just saying we might not even know.
You know we don't know themlike they know us.
Yeah, yeah, but there is abenefit on both sides, and
without the listeners we'd havealgae all over.
So that's just what I'm at theend of the day.

Alban (14:00):
Yeah.
Another reason why it's not onesided is we know we're
podcasting.
It's not like this is theTruman show, where our lives are
being broadcast without otherknowledge, and then it's like,
wow, that really isn't cool.
Yeah, we're intentionally like,very intentionally, we show up
every week and we record andJordan intentionally edits it
and puts it out.
Yes, we're hoping peoplelisten, we hope they build a

(14:24):
connection with the show.
And the joy is when you go to apodcast conference and someone
like Dee comes up and says, hey,I've been listening for a long
time and then what might havebeen a one-sided relationship
for a little while becomestwo-sided and we get to know
her.
Yeah, and Sarah Rossett comesup to the booth and we get to
know her and you just start toconnect with people over time

(14:46):
rather than it being, you know,one sided.
So I like your new name, kevinthe symbisocial relationships.
That's what we need to bebuilding.

Jordan (14:54):
So maybe parasocial relationships are reserved for
the fans and listeners, likesomewhere in there, and then
once you get into the super fanrealm, then you get into that
like symbi-social, where youstart getting to know them as
well and there's like a deeperrelationship and connection
there.

Alban (15:13):
So maybe that's the goal.

Jordan (15:15):
We want to get out of the parasocial relationships and
move into something a littlebit better, right?

Kevin (15:21):
Yeah, or at least I like recognizing that there is a
benefit on both sides of therelationship.
So I think the term comes fromthis place of the relationship
is really only one-sided.
But it's really not.
It's only one-sided in terms ofthe personal knowledge of
somebody.
We don't know a lot about a lotof our listeners, but we do
know some.

(15:41):
But regardless of kind of wherethey are on that fan spectrum,
there is some benefit and so Idon't like the term.
That just feels like one sideof the relationship is leeching
off of the other.

Jordan (15:53):
Yeah.

Kevin (15:53):
Yeah.

Alban (15:54):
And the whole point of this episode is that the super
fans are the ones who providedisproportionate value to the
podcast.
Yes, they're the ones who arewilling to advocate.
They're the ones who leavefive-star reviews.
They're the ones who write inon fan mail.
They're the ones who show upwhen we go to a conference or we
have a meetup.

(16:14):
They're the podcasters who giveus feedback when maybe we said
something and they're like thatreally didn't land well, here's
a better way you could have saidit.
That really didn't land well,here's a better way you could
have said it.
Like every bit of the things wesay we want, almost 80% of it
comes from something like 2% ofour listeners.

Jordan (16:31):
Yeah.

Alban (16:32):
And 98% of our listeners.
We appreciate everybody, butit's like there's 2% that are
disproportionately valuablebecause they provide so much of
the feedback and engagement andso, yeah, I really think it's so
valuable to us and theopportunity that we have as
podcasters is, how do wecultivate the one to 2% so that

(16:52):
we have even more fans of thatlevel?

Kevin (16:54):
Correct, and this is such an important topic in
podcasting, because so manypeople in podcasting are only
focused on those downloadnumbers and if you listen to the
show for any amount of timeyou've heard us talk about,
like, don't focus on thenumbers.
The numbers have to be so hugebefore you're going to get any

(17:15):
sort of meaningful monetizationout of just straight up
downloads that, like you mightbe better off buying a Powerball
ticket.
The odds are probably slightlybetter, but not much.
To be honest with you, patFlynn wrote a book called
Superfans and the sort of thekey takeaway from that book was
that, instead of like competingfor attention in a market, he

(17:37):
encourages you to focus onbuilding relationships and he's
making the point that a smallgroup of dedicated superfans can
drive more growth and long-termsuccess than chasing, like,
thousands and thousands ofpassive followers.
But so many people just fallinto that trap of if I just get
my download numbers to 5,000downloads an episode or 10,000
downloads an episode or 20,000downloads an episode.

(17:58):
First of all, it's almostimpossible.
It's so hard to achieve thatand when you do, the money's
still not great.

Jordan (18:04):
Yeah.

Kevin (18:05):
You could be doing 10,000 downloads an episode and you're
still kind of I don't knowwhat.
What would that turn intoJordan?
A couple hundred dollars amonth, maybe.

Jordan (18:12):
Uh yeah, I would think so.

Kevin (18:15):
Right, not a business.

Jordan (18:16):
A lot of these, like marketing and ad agencies,
require you to have 20,000downloads to even have a
conversation with them, to evenbe considered to work with them
or with networks, things likethat.
But the thing is is if you justhad like a handful of
subscribers, you can make thatmoney way faster than if you had
tens of thousands of downloads.
It's so much easier.

Kevin (18:37):
And easier, not just in terms of the number of these
types of fans that you need, buteasier in terms of you have
more control over it.
It's very hard to move yourpodcast from 100 downloads to
500 downloads, to 1,000downloads, to 5,000, to 10,000
to 20,000.
Scaling that up is very hard.
It can be very expensive.
Creating super fans that's notthe process at all.

(19:00):
That's about sharing your life.
That's about being real.
It's about being personal andcreating memorable moments.
Doing things as simple as likeinside jokes to make people feel
connected with you and servingthem again, teaching them or
making them laugh or whatever itis that you're podcasting for.
Whatever your why is connectingthat to a group of listeners is

(19:22):
what builds them into superfans.
And that's why it's not goingto be everybody, because
everybody who tunes into yourshow is not going to connect
with all the things that yousay, but a few will.
And if you keep leaning intothat, if you keep exposing more
of who you are and they keepseeing that, then it starts to
spread and you start to create asnowball effect as well.
Because what if?

(19:42):
Like?
My term for super fans isadvocates?
And what advocates do?
They go out and tell otherpeople about it.
Yeah, and so as soon as youbuild one, that one could turn
into two or three, and the twoor three could turn into nine
and the nine could turn into.
Now I'm here, it goes, my math,what's nine?
27.
But that is self-sustaining andgrowing as opposed to.

(20:04):
Okay, I've got to.
You know, 50,000 downloads anepisode.
How do I get to 60?
How do I get to 70?
Well, they're, they're justpassive listeners.
They're not out marketing yourpodcast, they're not telling all
their friends and neighborsabout it.
You've got to spend money tocontinue to promote your show
and to continue to market yourshow, and that burden, still, it
still falls on you.

Jordan (20:21):
Yeah, and I like what you said about like making sure
that you are authentic and likeexposing yourself, but there's a
little bit of a threshold tothat too.
There's a boundary line thatyou don't want to cross.
Yeah, you want to connect withyour listeners and you want to
make them feel like they're oldfriends or something like that,
but you can't give them too muchinformation, and I don't know

(20:43):
if this is like actually thing,but you don't want to like
self-docs yourself, and so youneed to make sure that you have
like healthy boundaries withyour listeners too.
You know, if they expect you towrite back to every message,
and then pretty soon they'relike harassing you or something
like that because you don'twrite them back, like that's not
good either.

Alban (21:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think that this is a little bit more
difficult, I think, probably forwomen, just because, kevin, I
think the fear of someoneshowing up, while really
negative, is not the same as ifyou're a woman podcasting.
I would not say where you live,you know you don't want to give
people that information.
I think that anything thatcrosses over from online persona

(21:24):
to personal life there is aline that you try to keep.
Yeah, I never post any photosof my daughter out on the public
web.
It doesn't feel like a smartidea, you know, because there's
lots of people out in the worldand one out of every hundred
thousand people is going througha psychotic break or something.
You're not a great person, soyou just don't want to become

(21:44):
the target of that.

Kevin (21:46):
It is one of the reasons I really enjoy audio podcasting
over video podcasting.
I feel like audio podcastingreally puts the content and the
ideas forward and when stuff inthe video space or the social
space whether it be photosharing or video sharing or
short sharing or all that kindof stuff oftentimes you will
come across content that I don'tknow.
I don't want to be pessimisticabout any creators out there

(22:09):
that exist, but you can see thatit would be easy for a large
swath of a population to becomeinfatuated with the way somebody
looks or presents, but it's notnecessarily the content that
they're following this personfor.

Jordan (22:22):
And.

Kevin (22:22):
I don't think that happens very much in podcasting.
When I'm listening to audiopodcasts I might have a persona
in mind of what this person kindof looks like in real life.
But oftentimes I have reallyhave no idea and that's not an
important part of therelationship or the connection
that I have with that podcast.
It's what they're saying, it'stheir ideas, it's the
entertainment, it's theeducation, it's the

(22:43):
conversation, it's theexploration of ideas and
concepts.
That's what I'm connectingwith.

Jordan (22:48):
Yeah.

Kevin (22:49):
And the visual side of it and oftentimes you know what is
then associated with thenegative infatuation side that
comes along with.
That is very much absent fromaudio podcasting.

Alban (22:59):
Yeah, I mean.
The difference is when we go toconferences, people who have
been on the YouTube channel getrecognized much more than people
who haven't been on our YouTubechannel.
And the reason is sometimessomebody will hear your Jordan
laughing, turn and go.
Oh, is Jordan here?

Kevin (23:15):
I think Jordan gets recognized more for her laugh
than anything else.

Alban (23:19):
For her look is the nature of the medium.
If you're a YouTuber like CaseyNeistat and you make any level
of fame, you're skateboardingaround New York.
Millions of people know whatyou look like and are just
shouting at you the whole timeand that's just like.
That's what you get when youbecome famous from YouTube.
And there is something reallynice about.
I could probably see SarahKoenig.

(23:41):
You know one of the most famouspodcasters and not know it was
Sarah Koenig.

Kevin (23:46):
Like.

Alban (23:46):
I've seen a picture of her, but it wouldn't be like
instantly recognize her.

Jordan (23:50):
I wouldn't recognize her.

Alban (23:51):
Ira Glass.
I think if I saw Ira Glass, ifyou said, is Ira Glass one of
these three people, I'd get it,but besides that, I'd be like
you didn't jump out to me who itwas.
Yeah.

Kevin (24:01):
This literally happened to me the first time I met
Jordan.
I don't know if you rememberthis, jordan, but we met at a
podcast conference, I can'tremember which one it was.
You were facing away from me.
You walked over towards thebooth.
You were facing away from metalking to somebody, and I
recognized your voice and I'mlike oh, that's Jordan.
And I think I said it out loudand you turned around and you
said was it the hair Cause sheif you've ever seen her in

(24:23):
person, her hair isrecognizable.
Yeah, and I said no, it wasyour voice.
And we said you know, hi, weintroduced them.
It was the first time I metyou, but I recognized your voice
first.
You know I had seen a pictureof you, but I didn't really I
don't know, I didn't know itwell enough to pick you out of a
crowd.

Jordan (24:46):
But, as you were.
That's funny.
I don't remember that, but thatsounds exactly like something I
would say.
Yeah, I think influencers andYouTubers do have a lot more to
worry about with like gettingrecognized or people developing
like infatuations for them,rather than podcasters.
But I mean it does happen topodcasters as well.
There was a story I want to saya year or two ago about a
podcaster that got a stalker,you know, unfortunately, and it
didn't end so well.

(25:07):
And I remember when I firststarted I think a lot of
podcasters will do this,probably because you don't
expect people to care orrecognize you in a way.
So I had set up like a Patreonwhen I first started, and
whenever someone would subscribeI would have their address and
I would send them a thank youcard with a sticker for

(25:29):
subscribing.
And then I remember I got myfirst package to my house and it
was from a listener, and I wentoh no, I need to put a PO box
on those letters, and so I wentand got a PO box and so that's
not in there anymore, but I justI didn't think anyone would
care enough to do something likethat.
You know it, just it didn'toccur to me.

Kevin (25:50):
Yeah.
But now that I'm older and wiserI know you do not put your
address on anything duringworking towards building super
fans, and I think one of the keystrategies for building super
fans is to interact with peopleone-on-one and, as you can

(26:13):
engage in that, rememberingdetails about them.
So it's not always we've beentalking about what are the
appropriate boundaries, aboutwhat you share with your life,
with your audience.
But once you get thatconnection back, once you get
that piece of fan mail, once youmeet somebody in person, once
you get a voicemail or you getan email, being able to respond
to that and then turning theconversation around to focus on

(26:35):
them and what is real abouttheir life and what you can
remember about them, that iswhat's really going to make that
connection happen for them.

Jordan (26:42):
Yeah, like show that you care about them instead of just
saying that you do.

Kevin (26:46):
Yeah, that's right.

Jordan (26:47):
Let's actually get into, like the strategies to convert
listeners super fans.
So, yeah, I would say thatreally paying attention to your
listeners and engaging with themis great.
Obviously, consistency.
So you need to show up for yourlisteners when you are going to
publish an episode and makesure that you're consistent with
it, because if you are justposting an episode like

(27:10):
haphazardly, like maybe you doone every week for a little bit
and then you skip a couplemonths and then you come back
for a week and then you skip acouple of weeks again, they're
probably going to tune out.
They're not going to be asengaged as opposed to if you
become a regular routine intheir schedule.

Alban (27:25):
I mean, that's just good advice for friendship, it's
true.
If you tell people I'm gonnashow up to trivia on Wednesday
night and you don't show up halfof the time, eventually people
are gonna be like, yeah, Ireally liked that guy, but I
don't really see him all thatmuch, so it never really feels
easy.
And so, being consistent,paying know, paying attention to
people when someone does share,I always find this strange when

(27:47):
people write in to a podcastand podcasters are like, oh, it
was nice to get that, but Ididn't talk about it at all.
I'm like, put yourself in theirshoes.
They're listening to a show,they know a lot about you, they
like you, and then they took thetime to write something saying
I really appreciated this aboutyour last episode.
And then, if you ignore it,then to them it feels like, oh,

(28:09):
the first time I reached outthey said, no, I'm not
interested.
You actually want to kind ofhonor the effort of your
listeners, of your super fans,who say I really enjoy this
podcast, and thank them becausethey're the reason you actually
have a show to do in the firstplace.

Jordan (28:24):
Yeah, that being said, when people write in, it's not
always easy for us to work thatkind of stuff into the episode.
But just letting listeners knowlike hey, I actually do read
all of those messages Um, I dothat on dreamful all the time.
Like I will tell them like hey,thank you so much for sending
in the fan mail.
I read all those messages.
It means so much.
And then I get on with theepisode, like just making sure

(28:47):
that they know that you'rereading it, even if you're not
responding or you get too muchof it.
That's always good too.

Kevin (28:53):
Yeah, that's really good.
I like that and I like the ideaof we've cut back on the amount
of fan mail that we read on theshow.
We always have a very longsegment at the end and it was
just starting to consume toomuch of the podcast and so now
we're being a little bit moreselective and we're pulling the
pieces of fan mail that fit intothe topics that we're
discussing on the day.
But I still imagine, like wetalk about this idea of doing

(29:16):
fan mail episodes where we justkind of go through all the ones
that we never got to before, orhaving special mailbag episodes
where we talk about uniquequestions or topics that were
brought up by people in femaleso or just like you said,
jordan, just even acknowledgingthat this show isn't a place
where I read out the fan mailthat comes in, but it's very
meaningful to me, it keeps memotivated, keeps me podcasting

(29:36):
and thank you so much.
If communication comes in indifferent formats, like the
social media channels thatyou're active on, or email and
other opportunities where youhave an opportunity to respond
through the medium which it camein, then I would agree, take
the opportunity to at leastrespond and just say thank you
so much.
That means a whole lot.
It doesn't have to take minutesand minutes of your day just to

(29:57):
write a thank you back tosomebody.

Jordan (29:59):
That's so true.
I think it's a really good ideato invite your listeners to
participate in your podcast.
It makes them feel like alittle bit of a sense of
ownership.
With the podcast, you can workin a Q&A, you can work in fan
mail, voicemail.
Conan O'Brien he's got thatweekly fan-based episode and

(30:19):
it's so funny because he caresso much about his fans that he's
actually working the fans intothe podcast and so he's episodes
where he just has like thissuper fan on and he just talks
to them and I think that's justsuch a cool thing to do because
it's separate from his regularpodcast.
But he felt like it was likespecial enough and I really
think that those people musthave just felt so honored and

(30:43):
then also shared his podcastlike a million times to be like
look, I was on this.

Alban (30:48):
Yeah, jordan, you put this in the outline and now I'm
thinking I really like the ideaof how do you create a community
that's adjacent to the podcast,because we just talked a bit
about it.
Can be hard to respond to allthe fan mail and all the
boostograms when we used to dothat, and it would just feel
like it was 20 minutes and fiveseconds of it were meaningful to

(31:10):
one person, but to most peopleit was like none of it was
meaningful to them, and it doesmake me think there is a value
in the two-way communication,whether that be social media or
like a private text messagechain or a WhatsApp group or
Discord or something.
I'm not really proposing this,but I am wondering would it be a

(31:31):
valuable thing for even a showas small as ours to have, like,
hey, we have a WhatsApp groupand there ends up being like 30
people in there and it's justwhere people can share ideas for
the show and chat about theshow, and then the three of us
are members of it.

Jordan (31:46):
I mean, our listeners can tap the text, the show link
in the show notes and let usknow if they'd want to be
involved in something like that.
Right, yeah?

Alban (31:52):
It's one of the things if it went well, I could see being
awesome, and if it went poorly,it could be such a burden on
everyone We'd be like.
Well, no one ever writes in thegroup and you know it's never
any fun or it's a nightmare tomoderate.
And the three of us don't showup, and then, when we do, people
are fighting.

Kevin (32:08):
I don't know if we have to kill the whole idea there.
Like I think you're onto atactic that might be right for
some shows, but it's notnecessarily going to be right
for every show.
But that might be right forsome shows, but it's not
necessarily going to be rightfor every show.
But the bigger point isprobably right for every show
and that is figure out a way toconnect with your audience, to
get those people who want thenext level of engagement,
provide opportunities for themto step into that.

Jordan (32:29):
Yeah.

Kevin (32:30):
There's nothing worse, I think, for like a fan.
I've been a fan of musicians andstuff over time and it's tough
sometimes when, like I want togo to the next level, I want to
learn more about them, I want tofigure out how did they get
into songwriting, are theyactively recording, are they
planning any tours for the nextyear or whatever, and I go
online and I start searching forthis stuff and I can't find

(32:51):
anything.
It's like, okay, you put outsome music, but like other than
that, you're a ghost.
This is terrible.
I can't become a super fan,like I'm trying to, and I can't
because you haven't provided meany opportunities to do that.
So, whether it's a discord or aWhatsApp group or just a
webpage where you put a littlebit more information about it,
or a fan mail link in thedescription of your podcast or

(33:12):
whatever, provide, figure outwhat's right for you and provide
your fans the opportunity totake the next step on that
listener spectrum of you know,casual listener all the way up
to super fan to be able toprogress through the journey.
Yeah.

Jordan (33:28):
And I mean, if you're having a hard time getting
people to actually communicateand engage in those groups, you
can always do small challengesor have them like ask questions
for them to share informationabout themselves and connect
with each other on that.
And some podcasts includinglike true crime podcasts and
stuff they'll do book clubs intheir like community groups and

(33:48):
it's so funny because just likeonce a month they'll like do a
post and then everyone just liketalks about the book that they
just read.
So there's so many things likethat you can do.
And actually Wits and Weightspodcast wrote in to our fan mail
and they kind of pulled a ConanO'Brien here.
They said one of my super fansreached out and said my show
helped him start lifting weightsand walking because the

(34:09):
information was so practical andsustainable.
He had been quietlyimplementing what he learned and
in his case it has literallysaved his life because he lost
over 300 pounds.

Alban (34:19):
Holy cow, yeah so.

Jordan (34:21):
I invited him on as a guest because he's a huge
inspiration and it's humbling tohear from a fan like that, and
I'm so grateful for a platformthat lets me share what has
helped me so I can help others.
I think that's so cool.

Alban (34:33):
Yeah, I want to go listen to that episode.
What a, what an incrediblefeeling to do a show and then
someone reach out and say, oh,this had such a massive impact
on my life.
That's incredible.

Jordan (34:43):
Yeah, I think they said that the episodes coming out
like next week or something likethat, so we'll have to keep an
eye out for that.
Okay, so some other strategiesfor making your listeners into
super fans obviously beauthentic.
Be yourself.
So this means talking a littlebit more about yourself.
This is why we have the postshow.
I guess it's not why we havethe post show.

(35:05):
We didn't say like let's makesuper fans through a post show.
It was more of just like alet's just do this thing because
it would be fun to do for thepeople that like stick around to
the bitter end of the podcast.

Kevin (35:16):
And I think it actually had a benefit that we weren't
exactly expecting of turninglisteners into people that like
knew us a little bit on a deeperlevel, because we are sharing
all of our personal stories,even if it's weird or
embarrassing A lot of times ifyou stick around for those you

(35:36):
know the idea of the post showand I'm not claiming that it was
my idea, but I am saying thatthe idea of a post show
resonated with me because yearsago I heard a conference speaker
talking about this idea ofbyproducts, which is you're
doing things anyway and as aresult of doing things, there's
oftentimes byproducts of thosethings.

(35:57):
And so if you're a woodworker,you're cutting up wood all day
and at the end of the day you'releft with sawdust.
And so, like then, woodworkingfactories and wood processing
plants figured out that theycould sell that sawdust because
it could be used for otherthings.
You can make particle board outof it, you can make gunpowder
out of it, there's whatever.
There's a lot of different usesfor sawdust, and so it was just
a byproduct of something theywere doing anyway, and it turned

(36:18):
out to have value beyond justsweeping it up and throwing it
away.
The challenge was think aboutwhat you're doing anyway.
What are the byproducts ofthat, and is that of any value?
Can you turn it into value?
And for us, the post show it wasone of those things we would
get on to record the episode andjust to sort of warm up our
voices and get the energy levelsup.
We were having conversationsthat weren't about the outline,

(36:39):
and sometimes those would takeplace in the beginning,
sometimes they would take placeat the end, and so at some point
we just said why are we notrecording this and putting it
together?
You know people tune into thispodcast to hear about
podcasting, but the more peoplecan connect with us and hear
maybe a funny story that's goingon in a personal life or in the
business or something likethat, some people might like it.
It's not valuable enough thatwe want to interrupt the main
content of the episode for that,so let's stick it at the end.

(37:01):
If anybody wants to stickaround and hear about this funny
thing that happened to one ofus over the weekend, great.
If not, the episode's over foryou at the closing theme song
and you can move on.
That is just a byproduct thatpretty much came for free, minus
Jordan's editing time, so notdiscounting that she does work
on those post shows to makethem, you know, compelling and
tight a little bit a little bit.

(37:22):
But the larger point being isthat you're going to have some
byproducts of the things thatyou're doing.
So whether you're you know,whether you're you're just doing
your podcast, or you're usingyour podcast because you do a
coaching business, or you'reyou're a comedian or whatever,
there's going to be byproductsof that.
So if you can use some of thoseto create shorts or to create a
post show or to create funnysocial media posts, or you come

(37:44):
up with a catchphrase in one ofyour episodes, use it again and
again in more catchphrases, andthen you have something to put
on a sticker or whatever.
Those byproducts are that kindof fall out of what you're doing
anyway.
Those allow people to engage atagain at just the next level.
There You're helping people takeone step at a time on this
journey to super fandom oradvocate or Sim.

(38:06):
By what relationship?
Sim by social Sim by socialrelationship.
Right, like, how fun is it forus when we, when we go to a
conference and not only do weget an opportunity to meet
people, but I just see somebodywalking by and they've got a you
know one of our stickers ontheir laptop.
I'm like, oh my gosh, how coolis that.

Alban (38:24):
I think the the post-show first off.
That was your idea, so I thinkyou do get credit for it, it was
yeah.
The other is it makes the hostsfeel a little bit more 3d Like.
What you know about them is alittle bit more rich.
Kevin's not just the guy whohates Spotify's way they're
acting and podcasting.
He's also a dad who's reallyproud of his daughter who does

(38:45):
D1 swimming.
And Jordan's not just theperson who edits the podcast.
She's also really into boardgames and she hates the
humidity.
And you learn little thingsabout us.

Jordan (38:56):
That's my new Twitter bio.
You learn little things aboutus.

Alban (38:57):
That's my new Twitter bio, but you start learning
about people and to somepercentage of our fans, that
stuff ends up being like oh, I'malso like that.
And so when we're atconferences now I've had
conversations with people like,oh, I heard you did this run.
Yeah, I just did a similar run,and they're telling me about
theirs and it's like now we'reconnected over not just

(39:19):
podcasting, which we both love,not just over the show, but now
we're connected about some ofour hobbies.

Jordan (39:24):
Yeah, or they're giving you like sock recommendations.

Alban (39:28):
Alpaca socks.
So many people are like oh, Iended up buying those socks.

Kevin (39:33):
And I'm like oh, I've actually experimented with some
new socks, those first socks,those were just the gateway
socks.

Alban (39:41):
Now I'm onto the hard stuff.
Oh man, yeah, I.
Uh, we will have to do anupdate on the socks.

Kevin (39:49):
Yeah, pat Flynn calls them.
I think that it's been a whilesince I read the book, but I
think he calls them somethinglike memorable, memorable
moments or something like that,and so I was calling them
byproducts.
But memorable moments isprobably a better way to define
that, like giving your audiencean opportunity to create
memorable moments, to be able toconnect with you, to take that
relationship, like to deepenthat relationship.

Alban (40:10):
My youngest brother does not create any sort of content,
so he does this just in hispersonal life, not as a content
creator, but he is a super fanof franchises.
He loves the Office, he lovesYankees baseball, he loves
Jaguars football.
If he gets into something, heknows everything about it and he

(40:30):
tells everyone about it and soyou learn about it.
And then when people want toconnect to him, it's really easy
because they're like oh, I sawthis rerun of an office episode
and it reminded me of you, andpeople who know he has expensive
pens will end up giving him apen for his birthday.
A lot of opportunities forpeople to connect when they want

(41:00):
to Some people who kind of area bit more secretive, which is
much more comfortable inpersonal lives.
You're not vulnerable.
You know.
No one tells you like office,what a dumb show which my
brother gets.
Sometimes when he says what heloves, people say no, that's
silly.
But what he gets in return isthe people who want to connect.
It's very easy for them toconnect to them, and I think
that's a little bit of whatwe're doing.
You're being vulnerable in away that people are probably

(41:24):
most of the time rolling theireyes, going like good grief, do
we really need to hear aboutlike someone's sock exploration?
But for some people that arelike really into oh no, I really
like thinking through what I'mwearing, you know my clothes
choices Then for them they'relike oh, this is like a kindred
spirit.
This is someone I connect to.

Jordan (41:43):
Yeah, and this doesn't just apply to independent
podcasters or individualcreators, because kind of what
Sarah had written in earlierabout how, through the value
that she gets from Buzzcast andBuzzsprout and she feels like
she's connected with us so much.
I mean this goes even to likebranded podcasts where you get

(42:04):
to know the people behind thebrand and so you know you can
share like origin stories behindthe scenes stuff.
I mean we do this all the timewhere we let listeners in on our
thinking behind some things, orwe also will let them in on an
experiment that we're doing thatisn't available to all BestBuy
users, right, right, and I thinkthat that also creates a

(42:25):
stronger bond with our listenersand with the customers on
platform.

Kevin (42:30):
Yeah, we're going to do that today At the end of this
episode.
Stick around for the post showas we tease something.

Alban (42:35):
I have no idea what this is.
I don't either.
I'm so excited, keys.
I have no idea what this is.
I don't either.
I'm so excited.
Sometimes Kevin writes a checkthat we have to cash.
I'm going uh-oh, what's thisgoing to be?

Jordan (42:45):
Are we doing the buzz cruise Finally?

Alban (42:48):
Kevin's like we're doing a buzz cruise.

Jordan (42:56):
Jordan and Alban are playing it All right.
So another tip for creatingsuper fans is to make sure that
you are giving personalizationto your listeners, and so these
are like little things, littleinteractions Kevin even
mentioned this like payingattention to what your listeners
say and kind of banking thatfor later so that when you have
a next interaction with them,you can follow up with them
about you know their dog thatthey mentioned, or something
like that.
So make sure that you payattention.

(43:17):
When they write in, you can um,don't be creepy about it, but
you can look at their socialprofile.
I've done this before withlisteners that will write in
like sometimes I'll go find themon social media and then I'll
just let them know like hey, Isaw that you celebrate your
birthday recently.
That's so cool.
Most people are very excitedthat I have connected with them

(43:37):
on something and I actually likesought them out.

Kevin (43:40):
This is one thing that the Buzzsprout customer success
team does so well and, dependingday to day how busy they are,
there are days when there arehundreds of support tickets that
are coming in and they're justtrying to get everybody the best
answer they can as quickly aspossible.
There are days where it's alittle bit slower and so they
have a little bit more time toget to know the people that

(44:02):
they're helping, and I know thateverybody on the team loves to
do this when time allows andsomebody writes him a question
and they end up looking into thepodcast and helping them, you
know, taking screenshots orwhatever they're doing to answer
the question.
They might also click on one oftheir podcast episodes and
listen a little bit and then,when they write back in the
response, they say here, youasked this question, here's how
you do exactly that, and it tooka few seconds to listen to your

(44:25):
episode, and I can't wait totry that banana bread recipe
that you mentioned in episode143 this weekend.

Jordan (44:31):
So cool yeah.

Kevin (44:33):
So encouraging, it's so rewarding.
You know, usually when theyhave time to do that, the people
always write back and just belike that's amazing, I can't
believe.
You listened to that.
Thank you so much.
Of course, you did a great jobanswering my question, but
that's like almost not relevantanymore.
Yeah, because you just createdthis magical personal moment
with somebody who reached out toyou for something completely
unrelated, and then you justpersonalized it and just did

(44:56):
something really special.

Jordan (44:57):
Yeah, I mean, people just want to feel seen right,
they want to feel seen, theywant to feel understood, they
want to feel heard, and so justthe little tiny steps that you
can take to make people feelthat way is going to really
strengthen that relationshipwith you.
And I think that's probablyjust a tip for life, like what
Alban was saying, just afriendship tip Show up and pay

(45:18):
attention to people.

Alban (45:19):
Yeah, as we talk, I'm remembering more and more
stories of reaching out tocreators online.

Jordan (45:24):
Yeah.

Alban (45:25):
And some that responded that made me feel really good
and others that responded in away that I felt like
disconnected from the stuff theywere creating.
One that was really nice was apodcast.
It was just about books theystarted getting into like crypto
and they were getting intothey're using the fountain app
to interact with their audienceand they're like hey, we're

(45:45):
testing out this boost to gramsthing.
I had a wallet so I loaded itup with a little bit more money,
I sent him a boost and I have aunique name and I'd listened to
this for a while.
One of the hosts found me onTwitter and sent me a message
and was like hey, you're thefirst one to send us one.
Thank you so much, reallyappreciate it and would love to
know what you thought aboutsome.
You know some episodes and thenyou know, we ended up like

(46:08):
chatting on the phone a fewtimes and I start we messaged
back and forth about episodes.

Kevin (46:12):
Alban has no boundaries.
I had him over for dinner and Ibabysat their kids.

Alban (46:20):
I uh, that particular thing didn't happen, but I'm
sure I could find an example ofmeeting someone online and
people are like you kind ofbecame friends with that person
a little too fast.
But yeah, it ends up being likea very positive experience.
Others have been a podcast thatsaid hey, if you man another
Boostergram story.
They said, if you send us aBoostergram we will talk about

(46:41):
it on the show.
And I did.
I know it went through and theynever talked about it and so
for two or three weeks I kind oflistened to them and thinking I
wonder if they're going tomention what I wrote in.
And then they never did andyou're kind of like I feel just
like a little disconnected fromthe brand.
You made the promise.
I did the thing.

Jordan (47:01):
Yeah, there's no follow through.

Alban (47:03):
There's no follow through.

Kevin (47:04):
Yeah no-transcript word of mouth army to promote the

(47:36):
nation for Girl Dad Nation, likeI don't know, just seems like
he's put some thought behind itand that is also stuff that
super fans would get into, wouldhook into, would use that same
terminology.
I imagine if somebody who is asuper fan of Girl Dad Nation
meets him in person, they mightsay something like I'm part of
your army, or something.

Jordan (47:56):
Oh, that's so cool.
Yeah, singers have this.

Alban (48:00):
Swifties.

Jordan (48:00):
Why can't podcasters?
Oh, you know what Crimejunkies.

Kevin (48:04):
Yeah, I don't know what crime junkie fans are called.
Are they called junkies?

Jordan (48:07):
They're called crime junkies.
It's not very creative, but youknow crime junkie junkies yeah.

Kevin (48:16):
We haven't latched onto this for buzzsprout, but I've
heard people who come up to usat conferences and they say,
like I'm a buzzy orbuzzsprouter, buzzsprouter
there's.

Jordan (48:24):
I've heard sprout head before Sprout Head.

Kevin (48:28):
Yeah, right.
So if we were smart andstrategic, we would have a name
for people who are fans ofBuzzsprout and for people who
are fans of Buzzcast.

Jordan (48:36):
And then we make merch for it.

Kevin (48:38):
Buzzcast Junkies.

Alban (48:39):
Yeah, buzzcast Junkies.
We need a better name for theBuzzcast nation.

Jordan (48:45):
Yeah.

Alban (48:45):
So maybe if people send those in Sproutheads didn't land
a sprouties hasn't worked, butI'm sure there there's, there's
one out there.

Jordan (48:54):
There's gotta be something.

Kevin (48:55):
Yeah, but the point this is circling around is it's like
you create these moments, somepeople connect with these
moments.
Then you make those momentspersonal by connecting back with
them and getting to know thempersonally, sharing a little bit
more about yourself or learninga little bit more about them,
and then you're bringing thesepeople together somehow, whether
you're, you know, part of thegirl dad nation army or you're

(49:16):
part of the buzz head crew orsomething like that.
You're, you're bringing themtogether.
You're you're putting acommunity.
We do have that Facebookcommunity.
We also have a very activecommunity that's starting on
Reddit.
We have a couple of differentcommunity things.
We do meetups once in a whilewhere we bring Buzzsprout
customers or Buzzcast fanstogether in certain areas of the
country that our team happensto be at certain times, whether
it be a conference or just anall-team meetup that we're

(49:38):
doing.
But there has to be some way toform, as your super fans or
more mature fans are movingthrough that spectrum of fandom
and they're moving up, they'regoing to want to connect and
they're going to want to beconnected to something that
feels larger than themselves.
So I'm not the only whateverGuns N' Roses fan out there in
the world.

(49:59):
Right, like, who else is a GunsN' Roses fan?
And how do we, where's the fanpage and who's the fan club
chairperson and when are wegetting together and all that
kind of stuff.

Jordan (50:07):
Yeah, and I think that one way that you can incentivize
or reward your listeners forbecoming super fans and, you
know, being really connected andbeing big advocates for your
podcast is to make sure that yougive them like a sense of like
exclusivity.

Kevin (50:22):
Yeah.

Jordan (50:22):
We do this all the time with the people in our community
groups, with the listeners ofBuzzcast.

Kevin (50:32):
I mean, Kevin, you just teased that in the post show
we're going to say somethingthat even I don't know.
So I'm kind of in the same.

Jordan (50:35):
Yeah, I'm in the same boat as our listeners.
Right now.
I mean, I'm suspended.
I'm just so excited.
But you can use that to givethem like more interactions and
so you can provide them withlike bonus content.
You can give them specialprivate newsletters or behind
the scenes content or like ourpost show after show talk and
early access to content.
Also taking time to meet theselisteners face to face and

(50:57):
letting them know if you'regoing to be in a city, because
they are such big fans thatthey're going to stick around
and hear that message from you.
So we got another message fromLouis, from Love Thy Lawyer, and
Louis said excellent andinformative episode with Dave
Jackson.
You discussed how it feels tobe met by fans of the podcast
and to meet podcasters of whomyou are a fan, and as I was

(51:21):
listening it occurred to me thatI'm a fan.
I have met all three of you andI've had the privilege of
interviewing two of you for myown podcast.
So thanks for all your work andsupport.
I've met all three of you andI've had the privilege of
interviewing two of you for myown podcast, so thanks for all
your work and support of theindie podcast community.

Alban (51:36):
Count me as a fan.
Thanks, louis.
Yeah, I did an episode withLouis beginning of this year.
It came out and it was a blast.
I mean, if he'd reached outcold I'd have been like I don't
know if I want to be on anotherpodcast talking about being a
lawyer 10 years ago.
But we met at Podcast Movementand I was like I have such a
good time talking to you thatwhen he reached out about doing
a show, I was like, oh,absolutely.

Jordan (51:56):
Yeah, because he's a delight.

Alban (51:58):
Podcast Movement.
This year I met someone who wastalking to me about college
football and he's like I needsomeone who's a Georgia Bulldog
fan to come on.
And we talked about Georgiafootball for so long that he was
like you're the guy.
I'm like I'm not the mostinformed, and he's like, no, no,
this is fine.
And I'm like, ok, I'm in.
Maybe if it was a cold email itwouldn't.
I wouldn't have gotten superexcited about it.

(52:19):
But when you know the person abit, you're, I'm going to still
have a good time.

Jordan (52:29):
Yeah.

Kevin (52:30):
Yeah, and as we're wrapping this segment up, I just
actually prepared something forthis episode that I thought
would be a great way to closeit, and it is a quote from that
book that I mentioned earlierthe super fans book from Pat
Flynn and I flipped through itrecently to prepare as we were
coming into this episode, andone of the my favorite quotes to
pull away from it is Pat sayswhen you become a super fan of
something, it's not because of aperson, a product, a name or a

(52:53):
brand.
You become a super fan becauseof how that person, product or
brand makes you feel, and I lovethat.
I thought that when I read thefirst sentence, I was like wait,
it is that right?
And then, when he connected itto it's actually the feeling
that that person or the brand orthe experience you know gives
you.
That's what makes you a superfan.

(53:18):
And so remember that as you setout to connect with your
audience in the future and starton that journey of turning
casual listeners into superfans, they have to feel
something, they have to have.
You have to get emotioninvolved.
It's not just the productfeatures or it's not just, you
know, getting a laugh.
It's feeling something whenthey interact with you, when
they listen to your podcast,when they read your blog posts,
when they use your product, whenthey experience you in person.
You want to make them feelknown, make them feel seen, make

(53:41):
them feel important, make themfeel like you care about them
and as the more authentic youcan do that, the more super fans
I think you'll have.

Alban (53:50):
Well, we wouldn't be doing our job of honoring our
super fans if we didn't readsome fan mail.
So the first one, uh, warrenfrom Jaded HR wrote in I was
wondering if you knew of apodcast app that plays podcasts
at a consistent volume.
One records at a really lowvolume, luffs, and I turned the
volume up.
The next is so loud it makes myears bleed.

(54:12):
This blows my mind that this isstill a problem really in any
form of media on YouTube, onvideo, on TV, like things should
be normalized.
We should normalize volume, andpodcast apps should do it,
podcast hosts should do it,podcasters themselves should do
it.
And it's wild to me whensomebody has an experience

(54:34):
where, like you know, the ad isway louder than the podcast
itself.

Kevin (54:38):
Yeah, I am not a sound engineer, but I honestly don't
think that we have thetechnology to do it, sadly
enough.
Really, I could be wrong aboutthis, but I do think it's a
little bit like, you know,sending men to the moon we just
don't have the technology to doit yet, or we lost the
technology to do it.

Alban (54:54):
So this is Kevin's luffs conspiracy theory.

Jordan (54:59):
We lost the technology to normalize audio.

Kevin (55:01):
Right.
So my understanding and this isan amateur's understanding of
how loudness works in recordeddigital audio files but in order
to get that dynamic range sothat if I'm speaking very softly
it sounds very softly, to youand then if I'm speaking super
loud because I'm super excited,you hear it is very loud and
very excited.
The audio playback engines haveto be able to have this dynamic

(55:22):
range and you would lose thatdynamic range if it tried to
normalize everything.
And so, because of that, liketo counter that instead of
playback engines likecompressing everything to this
very narrow spectrum whereeverything kind of sounds the
same, whether I'm, you know,whispering sweet nothings in
your ear or I'm super excitedbecause my team just won the
Super Bowl.
What they do is they tell youwhen you record it, record it at

(55:44):
these specific specifications.

Jordan (55:47):
Yeah.

Kevin (55:47):
And so there is a standard that all podcasts
should be mastered to, and Ithink it's like negative 16
decibels or something like that.

Jordan (55:55):
I think it's negative 17 loves, or negative 14,
depending on who you ask.

Alban (55:59):
Ooh, I think 16, 19.

Kevin (56:00):
Just an amateur.
There is a standard and allpodcasts should be kind of
matching that standard and ifthey do, you don't have to
adjust the volume when you gofrom one podcast episode to
another.

Jordan (56:08):
Yeah.

Kevin (56:08):
But everybody doesn't do that.
It's one of the things that ourtool, magic mastering, does
automatically for you.
So if you're not sure if you'redoing it correctly for your
podcast, you can just turn onmagic mastering and then feel
confident that you're helpingthe world.
But there are standards, andthat's my understanding of why
the playback engines don't doit, because then everything
would just kind of sound thesame don't do it, because then
everything would just kind ofsound the same.

Jordan (56:33):
To remedy this problem, some podcast apps like Pocket
Cast and Overcast have addedfeatures or tools that you can
enable.
Overcast has voice boost andthen Pocket Cast has volume
boost.
I know that Warren listens onPocket Cast, so this might be a
feature that he's not aware of.
But yeah, in Pocket Castapparently you can do it on,
like certain podcasts orsomething like that.

Kevin (56:48):
Yeah, I still think one podcast could still be boosted.
It could still be louder thanthe next one.
Yeah, you know, I think voiceboost basically is like an EQ
setting that kind of brings outthe, I think, like mids and high
tones more than the low tones,so that it's a little bit easier
to hear spoken word.

Jordan (57:04):
That makes sense.

Alban (57:14):
Versus, like most car stereos, are kind of tuned to
play back to hear music.
Well Right, these are not goingto remedy all the way.
The remedy needs to bemastering or recording, but to
me I think they do seem to levelit out some.
So there might be somenormalization that's happening
which may fix some of theissues, but like it's one of
those problems I just can'tbelieve isn't solved everywhere.
Like if there's a podcast thatrecords really low volume,
there's free tools you can useonline to level your audio, get

(57:36):
to the right levels.
Or you could run magicmastering, you could run
offonic, you could run anynumber of voice cleanup tools
and while they may not be asgood as magic mastering, they're
going to fix this, they'regoing to get you to the right
loudness.
But man, it's brutal.
I mean we passed laws becauseof how bad it used to be in the

(57:58):
90s when commercials would playreally loud, when the TV show
was really quiet.
People got so mad about it.
We passed laws and yetpodcasters are still doing the
same thing 30 years later.

Jordan (58:12):
All right.
And then we got another femalemessage from Tom Raftery from
Climate, confident andSustainable Supply Chain, saying
I find it ironic that youdiscussed SEO at the end of the
episode, when I followed theadvice of last week's episode to
roll out subscriptions, only tofind that kills the podcast's
SEO.

Kevin (58:31):
Good going, Alban.

Alban (58:35):
Well wait, Tom, Maybe SEO.
Search engine optimization isGoogle finding freely available
information on the web, and it'sGoogle finding things that are
being given away for free, andunfortunately, we've all
realized that's not the best wayto make money online.

(58:56):
The best way to make moneyonline is to have some things
that are free so people find it.
And then you have some stuffthat's gated and so people have
to pay for it.
And when you're right, you knowputting something behind a
paywall does quote unquote killthe podcast SEO because people
won't find it for free.
But that's the business modelof a Buzzsprout subscription.

Jordan (59:17):
Yeah.

Alban (59:18):
So if you paywalled all of your episodes, they are no
longer going to be freelyavailable on the web and Google
may not find them.
It's one of the reasons whypeople will sometimes paywall
just period.
You know some of the episodesare the most recent ones.
They do early release.
You know different strategieshave different tradeoffs, but

(59:38):
SEO and paid content are alwaysgoing to be a little bit at
odds.

Jordan (59:42):
Yeah, I'm trying to find, because that was my first
thought too was I wonder if hepaywalled all of his episodes,
because you don't want people tobe able to find that
information if you want to bejust kept for subscribers.
Yeah, I found Tom's podcast andit looks like he has the most
recent four episodes availableto listen to, and then the rest
of the back catalog, which issuper extensive.

(01:00:03):
Wow, he's got a lot of episodeshere are paywalled.
So yeah, that could affect itfor sure.

Alban (01:00:09):
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I mean why it might make
sense to have, you know, everyother episode be out in the
open, because then that's afindable SEO optimized episode,
yeah, and then you maybe havethe other ones that are going to
be paywalled.
So those are the entice peopleto upgrade episodes and you can
kind of find the right balance.

(01:00:29):
Ben Thompson from Stratecherydoes once a week, does a really
big blog post.
It's always been on the openweb.
That's where they find theblog, then they share it and
they discuss it and then ifpeople really like those Tuesday
posts for a while, theneventually they'll upgrade and
read the daily posts that areall the other days.
So you could look at a strategylike that.

Jordan (01:00:52):
So our next episode.
What do we?
Oh, are you guys good withpodcast?
Myth busters.

Alban (01:00:57):
Yes, I like it.

Jordan (01:00:57):
Could be fun.

Alban (01:00:58):
Kevin, are you in for that?

Kevin (01:01:00):
Yeah, I mean I take pity on Jordan, who has to come up
with all the myths that we'regoing to bust.

Alban (01:01:09):
I've got a, I've got a myth that, uh, I believe
might've been started by Kevin.
It's a good idea Then.
Uh, then I keep seeing it showup in blogs for 15 years and
people say it like it's gospeland I'm like I'm pretty sure
Kevin just said I startedsomething that people are saying
like is gospel yeah.
And you said it as a this mightbe a good idea in an old blog
post, and it just caught on andthen everyone just took it as

(01:01:30):
like this is the only way tolaunch a podcast.

Jordan (01:01:33):
Okay, well, obviously we've got to find that one,
because if we could bust Kevin'sown?

Alban (01:01:36):
thing.
What we need to do is get Kevinto bust his own myth.
Yeah, there we go.
It's not, kevin didn't say itas a myth.
Kevin said this is a good idea.

Jordan (01:01:49):
And then people idea that people said like no, you
must do that.
That's what we're going to dofor the next episode.
So make sure to send in maybebad advice or weird podcasting
rumors that you've heard throughthe Texas show link in the show
notes, and we will try to bustthose myths on the next episode.

Kevin (01:02:02):
It doesn't have to be bad advice.
Sometimes the myth busters sayit's confirmed.
Oh, that's good, it works.

Jordan (01:02:08):
Yeah, yeah, but we don't want people just sending it
advice.

Kevin (01:02:11):
Well, they confirm it.
They say it's plausiblesomewhere in the middle or it's
busted All right?

Jordan (01:02:19):
Well, we'll send in advice that could potentially be
busted, not just random adviceLike.
I don't know, I don't know howto what the qualify for this
should be.
I love this idea to commit toit.

Alban (01:02:36):
We need people to really send in some plausible podcast
myths.

Kevin (01:02:38):
Yeah, and Jordan, you have to load up the actual
Mythbusters, like sound effectsfor busted confirmed all those
and we need, we need fullythemed Mythbusters, show art and
chapter art and all of it Allright, I'll get right on that
and let's get these, Get them inearly fans, because we're going
to have to get together andbuild some contraptions to
really test these things out.

Alban (01:02:59):
So if you have a podcasting myth, click the text,
the show link in our show notesand send them in to us.
And, as always, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.

Kevin (01:03:13):
All right, you guys ready to do this live?
Oh yeah.

Alban (01:03:16):
Yes, but Jordan and I have definitely got some nervous
faces right now.

Jordan (01:03:20):
We do.
I'm apprehensive.

Kevin (01:03:22):
Nothing to be nervous about.
Okay, I'm going to start with aquestion, though how do you
guys feel about save the dates?

Jordan (01:03:27):
If someone invites you to their wedding or something
like that.

Kevin (01:03:30):
Yeah, just the concept of sometimes you get this thing in
the mail and it's not theinvitation, it's the save the
date.

Jordan (01:03:36):
I'd rather just get the invitation and then RSVP and
commit to it.
You don't like to save thedate.

Alban (01:03:41):
Well, the save the date is we haven't figured out all
the details yet, so we don'tneed your RSVP, but, like be
aware, your cousin is gettingmarried on this day, so you're
probably going to go.

Kevin (01:03:53):
Or like we're sending this super early, so no excuses.
We're taking away whateverexcuse you might think you're
going to come up with to get outof this thing because we sent a
save the date and so you betterbe there.
That sounds anti save the date.
That says we're saving, we'resaving the date for you better
be there.

Jordan (01:04:08):
That sounds anti-save the date.
That says we're saving thedate.
We're saving the date for you.
We're going to mark this off onyour calendar.

Alban (01:04:11):
I have no choice, Okay.
So what are we saving?
The date for Kevin Are wesaving?

Kevin (01:04:16):
the date, just so we're clear on what this is.
I'm communicating this now soanyone listening understands
that you have no excuse not tocome.

Jordan (01:04:23):
Oh, my God, is God, is it a buzz cruise?

Kevin (01:04:25):
It's not a buzz cruise.
Why do you keep going afterthat?
October 22nd 2025.
Approximately six weeks fromtoday.
Yeah, the next Buzzsproutmeetup is happening in person.
Location Tampa Florida.

Alban (01:04:42):
Follow-up question.

Jordan (01:04:43):
Is it pirate theme?

Kevin (01:04:46):
I like.
Jordan jumps in with theenthusiasm.
Pirates we're going to havepirates.
Alban.
Jordan jumps in with theenthusiasm.

Jordan (01:04:49):
Pirates.
We're going to have piratesAlban very conservative, very
cautious Question.

Alban (01:04:54):
We need some clarifying questions first, First question
is is it pirate themed?
Question number two are weplanning it?

Kevin (01:05:01):
Yeah, Well, people on the team are planning it.

Alban (01:05:04):
You'll probably have some involvement All right Then let
me answer right now and get outahead of this and say a hundred
percent.

Jordan (01:05:13):
Whoever we got to send that message up the ladder to,
let's do that.

Alban (01:05:18):
Yeah, I love it.
I know we're going to Tampa aslike the larger Buzzsprout team
meetup Correct, so we'll all bethere to get everyone who's
remote together in one place.
And one of our favorite thingsis we in Nashville two years
ago, last year, last year Did asmall meetup with BuzzProp
podcasters and the value is foreveryone on the team who doesn't

(01:05:39):
go to conferences a chance oncea year to meet real customers
and real life is huge becauseyou realize it's real and the
work you're doing impacts realpeople's lives in a meaningful
way.

Kevin (01:05:53):
Right and I love these local meetups.
As we travel around the countryjust to get together with our
team, I love that we can dosomething small in person and
hopefully within I don't knowpeople who are within an hour or
two driving distance can comemeet us.
It's not a big percentage of thepodcasting world that has the

(01:06:13):
time or funds or resources ormaybe even desire to attend a
podcasting conference.
You know to take three days outof their schedule, potentially
a lot of money, time away fromwork, time away from family.
To come to a podcastingconference doesn't speak to a
large percentage of thepodcasting world.
But if we happen to do a meetupin your area and every year we
sort of do them in different,you know different larger cities

(01:06:36):
around the country it's a greatopportunity for you.
Just hop in your car and come,come meet the team.
So I love that you don't haveto commit to three days to go to
a podcast conference to meetus.
We just might be in your neckof the woods at some point in
the future.
Last year it was in nashvilleand it was fantastic.
I think we had 40 50 people whoshowed up awesome the majority
of those people I had never metbefore because they don't go to
podcast conferences, and so Ilove that, and so this year

(01:06:58):
we're going to try it again.
We're going to tampa this yearfor our whole team meetup, and
so on wednesday, october 22nd,sometime like after work, we
will get the details.
As Alban said, this is save thedate.
We don't have the detailsworked out yet, but mark it on
your calendar, no excuses.
Meet the Buzzsprout team inTampa.

Alban (01:07:18):
So if you're in Tampa and you're a Buzzsprout maniac or
whatever we're going to call oursuper fans, then we hope to see
you there.
They'll be fun, kevin, I likethat.
We're going to do anothermeetup.
Those have always been a blast.

Jordan (01:07:33):
I love it too.

Kevin (01:07:33):
Yeah, hopefully.
I don't know.
We don't need to guess numbers.
I'm happy at the size that itwas in Nashville, but if it
happened this year that we youknow, we pulled a hundred plus,
oh my gosh, that'd be crazy.
How fun would that be.
How fun would that be?
How fun would that be?
So if you're a casual listenerand you're within a couple hour
drive, please plan on attending.
We'd love to meet you and seeyou there.
We'll give you some food, we'llgive you some drink and some

(01:07:55):
conversation.
We'll bring stickers and swagand maybe some t-shirts and
stuff.
We'll make it worth your timeIf you are a what was the like?
A more medium level listenerJordan.
Engaged listener Listener maybeyou can drive, maybe you live
within two or three hours.
I would say it would probablybe worth it for you, and if you
are a super fan, a brandadvocate or a true fan, I think
there is no distance too far.

Jordan (01:08:17):
You drive all night International flight.

Kevin (01:08:19):
You need to book a private jet.
Whatever it takes Tampa October22nd sometime in the evening.
Details to follow we will seeyou there.

Alban (01:08:33):
You really can't joke about that, because we we once
bought some tickets to aconference and someone went, oh,
I flew in from like Africa orsomething, and I was like, I'm
so glad you're here, but, man, Idon't know if, like, I would
have told you you had to come.
Like I'm glad we got you aticket and I'm glad you came and
I hope you learn a lot.
But the commitment went up somuch I was like, man, we've
really got to make this worthyour while.

Kevin (01:08:49):
So hey, I'm not telling anybody what to do, I'm just.
I'm just saying what I'm.
We're not turning anybody away.
Could you just roll back thatlast clip right here, to come
from Africa, you're getting inAll right, save the date, it's
going to be a blast.