Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mike Dell, VP of customer relations here at Blueberry. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. Today, we're going in a bit of a different direction. We're gonna give the worst advice you can take to heart when it comes to podcasting. If you've ever followed any of this advice, don't worry. We'll have some fun tearing it apart. You're listening to podcast insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting. With all the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in. This is our opinions. We're not gonna get too bad with it. So this is the top 10 worst podcast advice that I've heard and Mackenzie has heard. So starting at number 10. Yeah. So all all you need is passion. Equipment doesn't matter. And, yeah, passion is a big thing in podcasting because if you're not passionate for the topic, you're not gonna keep doing it and all that. But if you're recording with a really low quality microphone or in a bad location, a noisy room, people can only tolerate so much bad audio before. It doesn't matter how good the, the content is. It it just grinds on people, and that's not great. And, just imagine recording in your bathroom with a $5 mic telling listeners, hey. It's all about the passion, but not realizing that all the toilet sounds has ruined your entire episode. This is a moment where we say you get in what you put out. You can't you can't fix garbage audio at the end. Right. So you might have the best content on the planet, but people are not super forgiving with just audio. They are a little more forgiving with that audio and video, but a podcast is not where you wanna play around with this. I think I have dogs barking in the background. I don't know if you heard that. So speaking of bad locations Yeah. I have people going through the dumpster by my house right now. So That's nice. So, you know, the better advice when it comes to, equipment and passion and all that good stuff is invest at least some decent equipment, and it doesn't have to be a lot. You can get a decent dynamic microphone that plugs into your USB port, and it's gonna sound infinitely better than the little stick microphone that you may have may have come with your computer back in the nineties or the laptop microphone built into your laptop. Those sound bad most of the time. Number nine, more episodes equals more success. There is a limit to this. So why it's why we think it's bad? Releasing multiple episodes every week will not matter if your content is not good. I have been saying this over and over and over again doing this podcast that quality over quantity is the key to success to any podcast out there. Yeah. I know people that, that will say, well, if you if you get a hundred downloads per episode and you only do one a week, well, if you do two a week, you're gonna get double that. Maybe not. Some people get tired of you. I they're just being Including yourselves. Honest. You you gotta limit. And I I go in fits and starts when I do my show. I'll do one show, and then I'm like, oh, I wanna do another one tomorrow. And I I have to hold myself back because, a, not everybody that's gonna download that last episode has downloaded it yet. And if I put out another one, then that one's gonna go down a little bit, I think. It just the the funny take on this would be release seven episodes a week who needs sleep. That sounds like what is it? In November, Nepod, Pomo? Yeah. I Those episodes are not necessarily great. And I failed at that several times. Yeah. I did do it once completely, but speaking of which, that's coming up here shortly. We'll we'll we'll be talking about that. I might have Jennifer on here to talk about it. But We will talk about it. We will not do it. Yeah. So our our advice is to stick to a manageable release schedule that works with your own lifestyle that allows you to create quality content over consistent Yeah. Okay content. So some of the this isn't necessarily bad advice, but some of the advice that I've heard and also given is a lot of people will pick a format. They'll say, oh, my episodes are gonna be exactly thirty minutes long. And if the day you record, you only have fifteen minutes worth of content that's worth of crap. Mhmm. Stretching it out to thirty minutes is gonna make it boring. Yes. It will. Seriously. A lot of filler. We we we say that this show is gonna be somewhere around thirty minutes, thirty, forty five, but you'll notice that certain topics take longer and certain topics take less time, and don't sweat that. But, you know, as far as your schedule, again, just make sure it fits in your life. Because if you are constantly running up against what do you call it? If you put deadlines on things yourself, and then it just starts to become drudgery. We took a couple weeks off at the beginning of the month because, well, one, we were traveling. And then Quite a bit. And another one, yeah, quite a bit. You were on vacation after traveling for business. So so every once in a while, we do take a break. We ran some reruns. Hopefully, they weren't too bad. I I think they were good episodes. But sometimes keeping on a rigid schedule can be bad if you do it too much. There's also positive things and rerunning episodes because we chose ones that are still very relevant and that we think maybe you haven't listened to an episode that was released over twelve months ago. It can be definitely a good way to make sure that your content stays a little more long tail, evergreen and just Yeah. We're lucky with this show. A lot of this stuff is long tail. It doesn't some of the more topical stuff, I guess, would would not age well, but some of it does. Yeah. Here here's one that I think we get a little argument from Todd, but, don't bother with editing. Raw is real. Which cracks me up because our company name Yeah. Legally is Raw Voice. But there's some pros and cons to that. There definitely is. Authenticity, that's a word, is important, but long pauses, filler words, awkward moments, they're not as entertaining to some people. Some people like that. Gauge your audience on that too, but editing helps tighten up the flow, keeps the listeners engaged. What's the it says cue a mock conversation full of umms, likes, and a thirty second awkward silence. Now this podcast, gold. Right? Right. If if you love this stuff. If you love your your awkward moments, put it into a blooper reel because people do love that, but they don't wanna hear your mistakes every episode. So it it's definitely edit for the clarity and the flow and and make sure that you're keeping things conversational if that's the type of show that you have. Mhmm. Shows such as, like, fiction, drama, journalistic, those types of things, those are probably gonna be very heavy heavy handed editing. For a show like this, we do definitely keep in some of those uhs and likes, and we keep it we keep it pretty real in the sense, but we don't wanna sound like idiots. So that's what Kate helps us out with. Right. Yeah. Kate over at blueberrypro.com. She she makes us sound smarter. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. We love her for that. Thank your podcast editor, including yourself, if you are your own podcast editor. This one this one, number seven, you don't need show notes or a website. That one that one, like, cuts to the core at Blueberry because that is one of the things that we tell absolutely every podcaster is that, yes, you should have your own website. You should have your own name out there somewhere on the Internet so that people can associate your show with yourself, with your brand, whatever you want to designate. Yeah. And then show notes, I tell people sometimes you don't over obsess about show notes because they're like, well, I want this space to be here, and I want that. Sometimes it just doesn't work out on the different platforms. But, you know, most people, believe it or not, don't ever read that stuff. But they're the ones that want to give them the place to do that. And and and don't just say, hey. We we had a podcast today. We talked about x, and that's it. Yeah. It it's I don't know. It's just I I listen to a couple of shows where it's a one line show notes. It's annoying. I still listen to the show because content's good. But, of course, talking about overproducing, this guy does two episodes every single day, seven days a week. That is too many in my opinion. And he does them on on YouTube as well. There are exceptions to the rule. Yes. There are always exceptions, but I am a person that that wants links in the show notes. Like, I wanna go learn more about whatever it is that they talked about or whatever guest it was. That is generally what I care about. And, yeah, I think you said it. Like, a lot of people don't end up actually reading the show notes, but you know what? They'll read it. Google. Oh, yeah. Bing. Every search engine out there, it's gonna read it if it is available. And if you did it well, it's gonna bring this episode or your show up when people are searching for whatever your content is about. And don't go to the other extreme. People will do transcripts, and then they'll put that as the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. That's just a block of text. And They can't do anything with that. Yeah. And even Google doesn't they look at that and say, well, it's just a blob of text. We're not gonna index this. Or so somewhere in the happy medium, have detailed show notes, but don't go completely crazy. And just have a basic website, landing page, whatever you need to have, but make sure that, that it has enough information in the show notes that if those that wanna go to links you mentioned or or just or if they're going through their app and some people do that, they'll they'll look at the show notes to decide whether they wanna hit play or not. Yeah. Always do that. And website's always better because it gives people a place to go if one of the apps messes up. And if you are a Blueberry podcaster and don't currently have a website, if you are hosting with us, you get a free WordPress website. So you know what's gonna be in the show notes? A link to learn more about PowerPress sites from Blueberry. Yeah. There you go. So we will have that link in the show notes. Here's something that was really good advice in 02/2005. If you build it, they will come, but that doesn't happen anymore. No. It does not. When Todd, Barry, myself, and Sean all started podcasting, we were in the first one hundred podcasters ever. And listeners of podcasts, which were mostly other podcasters or geeks, would was starving for content. It wasn't unusual that some really crappy podcast would come online, and it would get 5,000 downloads an episode. But that was probably 90% of the podcast audience at that time. It doesn't happen that way anymore. There's, what, 4,000,000 something podcasts out there depending on who you ask. Right. So simply launching your podcast doesn't mean people will just find it. You gotta market, promote, network, and all that stuff is essential to get an audience. Your your audience will grow more organically when you have really good content and you already have a base of an audience. Because those people will tell so and so, and then it will just spread from there. To this day, word-of-mouth is still the biggest way that podcasters grow grow their show. And so, yes, your content is important to making sure that people come back, but they have to find it in the first place. So you gotta you gotta build that audience at some point. And and yeah. I imagine what was that baseball movie from, like, the nineties or the eighties? If you build it, they will come. The yeah. It's it's not relevant anymore. Not the way it works anymore, unfortunately. Here's something we should get the AI to make a picture of. A picture of podcaster sitting alone in a room saying any minute now my audience will just appear. Yes. And then you hear crickets in the background. Don't do this to yourself. Yeah. Just make sure you have a good solid marketing plan, and that doesn't have to be extensive, but make sure you're on social media. Get into it. As much as people hate Facebook, there's one good use for Facebook is the Facebook groups. So find a Facebook group or two in your niche and go in there and be helpful. Don't don't go in and say, hey. I have a podcast. Come look at or listen. You answer the questions that are asked in that group, and you you you become a known entity. And then if someone asks a question that's relevant to one of your episodes, hey, I did an episode about that if you wanna check it out. But don't don't be pushy. They'll kick you out of the group. Yeah. You you think Facebook, I think Reddit. And same goes for that. Don't be pushy. They will they will love your confidence and enthusiasm and just general knowledge, but you can't you can't spam. Yeah. Same idea. Any of the any of the socials like that that have special interest areas, that's that's a good place to go. Used to be forums. That's how old I am. There are forums out there still, believe it or not, but I don't know how used they are. Yeah. They're it is not what it was. Yeah. Also, monetizing. Yeah. Number five, monetize right away. That is absolutely not a great idea to just expect to earn money and monetize your show on episode zero, on episode one? Yes. Can you turn on programmatic ads with Blueberry to earn to put in automated ads in your episodes? Yes. Is it going to annoy listeners if it's done poorly and done right away? Potentially. Yeah. Some some podcasts are worth listening to with a bunch of ads in them, and I do. But, you know, I'm I'm the one that I'm one that pays for YouTube, so I don't have to watch all the ads getting broken into. Even, like, looking up some obscure how to video where that has, like, 12 views, and I get a a freaking ad for foot fungus cream or God knows what. Mhmm. Yeah. It's just not it's not gonna make me want to keep watching or listening to that YouTube or podcast. And the thing is with with programmatic, yes, you can do that, but it's gonna take you a little while to build up enough to even get paid. If you're you're just starting out and you've got 12 downloads from mom and all your cousins, you're not gonna make any money on that right away. And I hate to have the ugly baby talk, but until you have an audience, you're not gonna make any money with ads. Yeah. And and another thing is if you're doing this just to monetize, I think you're gonna have to have a different mindset. Like, you're gonna have to be going at this a different way. You're gonna be putting in potentially a lot more effort and time and money into the marketing of the show, into the editing, the the equipment, all of these things. If you wanna make money right away, you have to spend money right away. Yeah. And I I just think for a lot of hobbyist podcasters, that's a bad idea. Yeah. I think most of us are hobbyists. There there's commercial shows and, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. But getting into podcasting just to make money may be a bad plan unless you really have it planned out and you got a good way to market and all that stuff. But putting ads in the first episode, unless it's for your own stuff, that's here's here's kind of the the opposite view. Say you're a book author and you're doing a podcast about the subject to your book. Of course, you wanna mention the book. Yep. That is a great idea. Monetize, but don't go in there and say you're doing a doing a show about tech, and then all you're doing is selling that foot fungus cream they were talking about or whatever the what's the big advertiser nowadays? BetterHelp. There we go. Oh, yeah. You hear that ad in a lot of podcasts and must be working for them. They keep doing it. But, yeah, it's not applicable to your audience. That's the other thing. Don't do ads just for the sake of getting an ad unless it's really relevant to your to your audience. That's it's very inauthentic if you're you're doing a Mac show and Microsoft wants to advertise. Don't do that. Yeah. A lot of the time, like, for programmatic, you can decide the categories that you're comfortable having advertisements with, but you don't get to pick the actual advertiser. You could say, like, yeah, I'm okay with talking about health and wellness stuff, but you can't choose BetterHelp over another online therapy program. Like, that's just part of the automated monetization program. No. We But you're not gonna get into the nitty gritty. Yeah. We had somebody on programmatic. It was a while back, but they their show was sponsored externally by a particular company. Mhmm. And their competitor was buying programmatic ads on that podcast. So here they are sponsored by company a, and company b, a competitor, you had the ad spots, and that was not cool. So be careful with that. Yeah. For sure. Alright. And we're down to number four. Just copy what's popular. Yeah. Trying to mimic somebody's format is just not good. They're doing it already, and they're you they want your take. That's maybe somebody that's interested in that subject doesn't particularly like that host, but they might like you if you're you and not kind trying to copy them. Yeah. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That's what people say, but that's great for the person being, quote, unquote, copied. It's terrible for the listeners, for the actual consumers. We don't want that. That's we do to an extent. And I think that is one of the really critical things that you have to determine. A lot of people think they know what audiences want, and they're like, oh, well, I like this. So obviously, other people want it too. You gotta really take a hard look at the landscape of what is currently being provided and and do that hard take of, is this already oversaturated in exactly, like, this form? The content itself, probably not saturated. The way that it's being done and the exact thing same things being said over and over again on every show, yeah, that is overdone. Yeah. I'm guilty of this one. Back in the day when I first started, I was listening to Adam Curry's daily source code. Mhmm. And I tried to mimic that format. It's just not me. Yeah. So for two or three episodes, I said, yeah. That ain't me. And but, you know, my show has evolved over the years to many different formats and all that stuff. And I have a core group of listeners. Probably could get them all in this room, but that's okay. But you're not gonna grow a big audience by copying somebody else. I saw a tweet actually yesterday that someone had looked at the NBC schedule for fall programming. Mhmm. And they were like, I knew pilot season and new content and new ideas was dead, but I didn't realize how dead. And they said, NBC has, like, seven shows, six of which are all the same. It's Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, something else, FBI, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, like, one other program slightly different than that. That is, like, not part of that Yeah. That's that universe, that world. And it's like, this is exact we we are so tired of this. Give us new stuff. You know, it's like CBS. You can you know, cop show cop show cop show cop show. And I don't know why NBC fixated on Chicago. It's a it's a winner. It's a great city. I love it there. But, yeah, it's it's it's done Yeah. To a lot of people. So, basically, the the best advice about that is just find your own unique voice, your your own perspective. Most podcast listeners, when they get dedicated to a podcast, and that takes a little while, but most of them come because of the host, not because of the subject even sometimes. I listen to a couple podcasts that I'd like to host to care less about the subject. And that's weird, but I do that and others do. Kinda similar to copying is focusing on going viral. That is just plain and simple, a bad idea. It's very gimmicky. It doesn't retain a loyal audience. I am absolutely proof of that. Mhmm. I am not a dedicated person who will, like, go back to your stuff. You have to prove to me over and over again that I should try this. Clickbait has its time, but it absolutely does not guarantee long term success. I watch a YouTube series, not not a podcast. I wish he would podcast, but he won't. But I watch a YouTube series where every single video is a clickbait. And I don't worry about the titles because the content is good. But, you know, whatever the title of it is is click baity or the picture. And nine times out of 10, it has nothing to do with what's actually in the content. And that's Yeah. I don't know why it works for him, but it works. That's the thing. I don't know. But I'll tell you who it is. Scotty Kilmer. He does on automotive YouTube. And almost everyone is it'll say, this is the end, and it shows him with a sad face. Like, he's gonna quit doing YouTube or whatever. And he's got, like, five or 6,000,000 subscribers, so he's not gonna quit. Or he'll he'll picture a a Ford on the screenshot. Ford is firing everybody and going out of business or something will be the title on it. It's not, obviously. Stop that, Gotti. Yeah. The the better advice is just to focus on creating consistent high quality content that will build you a loyal audience over time. A viral hit will not. It just won't. It's and it's pretty rare that a podcast goes viral. I can think of a couple, but they're not it's not very often. No. No. It's really not. It's not viral moments are not good for long form content. Yeah. And most podcasts are generally long form content. So Yeah. Yep. So here's the number two, and this may should have been number one maybe, but number two is fine. It says make your podcast for everyone. And, you know, my saying I tell people this all the time. If you're making a podcast for everyone, you're making a podcast for no one. Trying to appeal to everybody just isn't gonna work. Not in a podcast. Podcasts are usually very niche y topics. Being in a particular category will make you come up in the search more. So someone's looking for underwater basket weaving. There might be only 12 people out there that are interested in that, but they'll find you. But if you're chose about scuba diving and underwater basket weaving and 10 other subjects, it's not gonna go anywhere. Like my personal show, it's about everything. And, obviously, I don't have a huge audience. I just do it for fun. But if I was interested in growing my audience, I would niche down to something that made sense. Actually, I think you and I are kind of a great example of this is we've known each other for many years now. We we definitely have some things in common. We talk a lot about music and food and and travel, but I don't think we listen to any of the same podcasts. No. Probably not. Like, at all. But we have plenty to talk about over over these almost ten years now. So it's just when we when it gets down to it, what we wanna listen to in a full episode is not gonna be the same thing. Yeah. Exactly. And if we recorded our conversations, we would be in trouble. That's also very true. Anyway, so the better best advice is just focus on a clear niche or target audience. Make sure you you do a little research in what what audience would be interested in what you wanna do. Don't do it the other way around. Say, a lot of podcasters, when they first started, they say, well, what's gonna be popular? I'll do that. Ugh. That drives me insane. Do that. Figure out what you wanna do and then figure out where to find those people that would also be interested in what you do. Yeah. People that don't have an opinion and they're like, what do what should I just do to make everyone happy? I hate it so much. Number one. Number one is don't bother with marketing. Just focus on the content. That's a no. That is just plain and simple. Bad. Content is always gonna be king. That is that's always gonna be that way. But like we said earlier, when you're trying to go viral or or copying someone else, you have to market to get the content in front of the listeners. Yeah. This is not gonna build it. They will come. It really is not. Yeah. Well, it's just like in a company, if you come out with a new product and no one knows you came out with a new product, it ain't gonna go very well. Same thing with a podcast. You've gotta get it out there in front of your listeners, social groups, and Reddit, and all those stuff like we talked about before. And there's there's other ways. Some people like what's the guy that does the I am Salt Lake? What's his name? Anyway, he does a a local Salt Lake City podcast. He rents billboards. That makes sense. In Yeah. In Salt Lake City. So It's a very creative as well. Yeah. It's a very niche show. So that's what he's gonna do. I remember when I was driving home from the Outer Banks A Couple Years ago, and we literally passed a billboard while still in the Outer Banks that said, listen to this show about this true crime episode of that happened in the Outer Banks. And we were like, immediately, that's what we're gonna listen to. That marketing worked in ten seconds. Yeah. What what kind of budget do you have to have to put a billboard up for each episode? Oh, god. I don't I don't know. But no. The like, it was a series show. It wasn't just an episode about an Outer Banks 1. It was like, no. Here are 12 episodes about this thing that happened, and we listened to the whole show because we had twelve hours to ride home. So it worked. Yeah. That's that's great. And, yes, true crime is hot right now. Don't make a true crime podcast unless you're actually interested in that subject. Yes. Yes. Choose your subject carefully. And that that passion that we talked about in number 10, I truly hate the word passion. I think it's incredibly overused and is more of a a descriptor, I guess, instead of how you actually feel. Mhmm. It's it's more I am passionate about this because I get the satisfaction out of doing this than out of, like, here's what I can provide to the world. So do good content that other people are going to be receptive of. Yeah. And make sure that you are marketing that to the right audience appropriately because you could be do mark doing your marketing to all the wrong people, and that's why it's not doing anything. That's why you're not growing. Here's something that used to be a big thing and isn't so much anymore, and I think it could come back Mhmm. Is promo exchanges. Yeah. So find somebody in your same niche. You know? Because it's not so much competition is people have have time to listen to more than one show. It's not like you're competing ABC at 09:00 and NBC at 09:00. Okay? So you don't have to think that way anymore. It's not competitions. Do a promo exchange. So, you know, hey. If you like this show, check this other one out. They play it on their podcast. You play theirs on your podcast. I think that should really come back. Yeah. I do too. And I think a lot of people might be nervous about doing that because they're like, oh, what if they like their show better than mine? People love They'll probably listen to both. Yeah. People love to hyper fixate on things that they like. They're probably gonna listen to two different shows about whatever it is that they enjoy. Yeah. Always make marketing part of your podcast strategy. Social media, collabs, collaborations, I guess that would be promo exchange. Of course, word-of-mouth. Tell your audience, hey. If you like this, someone else that might like this, tell them. That's a simple thing, little call to action you can throw out at your audience. And not everybody will do that, but somebody will. No. But it is important to have a call to action in your episode, in your show notes, whatever it is that you want them to do. Whether that is coming back to listen to the unit next episode, you finish the episode by saying, thanks for listening today. We'll be back next Thursday. Go subscribe to Podcast Insider on your preferred podcast listening app. I think that about covers it. This one's a little longer episode than normal. Cool. Think it was worthwhile. Yes. I hope you enjoyed this tongue in cheek episode. Check back next week for another episode. If we did this alright, you will hear a panel of raw voice slash blueberry employees said that we're here from the beginning, talking about twenty years in podcasting. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out our latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com. That's Blueberry without the e's. We couldn't afford the e's.
CHAPTER 1
00:00:00
Introduction to Podcast Insider
CHAPTER 2
00:00:54
Dissecting Common Bad Podcasting Advice
CHAPTER 3
00:02:45
Impact of Episode Frequency on Podcast Success
CHAPTER 4
00:04:37
Importance of Adaptability in Episode Length
CHAPTER 5
00:06:42
Editing For Better Podcast Quality
CHAPTER 6
00:08:10
The Necessity of Show Notes and Websites
CHAPTER 7
00:11:15
Marketing Your Podcast Effectively
CHAPTER 8
00:14:30
Challenges of Monetization for New Podcasters
CHAPTER 9
00:18:47
Avoiding Imitation and Finding Your Unique Voice
CHAPTER 10
00:26:30
The Role of Marketing in Growing Your Podcast Audience
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