Welcome back to Podcast Insider. I'm Mike Dell,
VP of customer relations here at Blueberry.
And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, director of marketing.
And I'm Dave Clements from the support and
media team. Today, we are gonna pull back
the curtain a little bit.
Yeah. We're talking about what we see behind
the scenes here at Blueberry's
hosting company
or any hosting company, I'm sure.
We don't wanna call anyone out specifically, but
we are here to share some patterns we've
noticed after working with thousands of podcasters over
the
years. So don't panic. We're gonna touch on
the good, the bad, the ugly, give you
some insight.
Yeah. When you work at a hosting company
and support, you see a lot of trends.
You see what helps shows grow and
what usually causes them to quit, podcasting.
You're listening to Podcast Insider
hosted by Mike Dell, Mackenzie Bennett, and Dave
Clements.
We're bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider
tips and tricks to help you start, grow,
and thrive through podcasting,
all with the support of your team here
at Blueberry.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
That first one, why shows stop publishing?
Generally, I mean, you guys are support. You
could correct me if I'm wrong on this,
but I would say a lot of the
time, it's not because
of a tech issue.
No. Not not really. I think tech issues
are
normal. The the more that we use technology,
we understand that things are gonna,
you know, maybe not work perfectly
all the time, every time.
So, no, tech issues usually don't cause people
to quit. You know, they may cause people
to move around and find a different service.
But, usually,
we see people stop primarily because, in my
opinion,
they have
unrealistic expectations
that also cause,
a lack of clear goals that causes burnout.
And that's how I've always dealt with
quitting any shows that I've quit is
it's just kind of layers of all of
these things. Plus, if you have a busy
life,
that's obviously gonna get in the way. So
people who have, you know, busy families or
just a lot going on tend to just
burn out really fast
with their podcasts.
Yeah. You know, and that happens,
you know, when I first got into podcasting.
Oh, I wanna start a podcast about this,
and I wanna start a podcast about that,
and I wanna start another podcast about this
other thing. And, you know, before too long,
you just got way too much going on.
So,
you know,
doing multiple
podcasts,
if you're not
you know, they all take time.
So, you know, be careful with that. That'll
definitely help with the the burnout. You know?
Do do one. Get good at it. Decide,
you know, if you wanna make another one
or or stuff like that. But, you know,
tech
as you guys said, tech issues aren't generally
the reason people quit. It's usually
lack of time and and all of that.
Yeah. I think if you are
that excited about podcasting and you're like, I'm
gonna do a show about this. I wanna
do a show about this. I wanna do
a show about this.
I don't
necessarily trust
you about all of those topics.
You know? Not not so much trust. It's
just, you know,
are you gonna do a good job of
Yeah. Of entertaining
or or educating
or whatever
if you've got everything split into 20 different
directions.
Mhmm. Yeah. Like, I wanna hear you on
your soapbox about something, but I don't wanna
hear it about five different things probably.
So I would keep that in mind. Yeah.
I I think the big thing that I
see,
even just talking to friends, because I I
have friends that do podcasts. And
while you want to do a lot of
different things, even when you do have it
focused,
you kinda run into that unrealistic expectations because
podcasts are way more mainstream than they were
when our company started. I mean, when the
three of us started
doing work for Blueberry,
podcasting was still pretty small.
Yeah. But now, you know, you you've got
shows that are making a bunch of money.
They're highly produced, and we've talked about this
on previous episodes.
But those unrealistic
expectations
are gonna beat you up every single time.
And even looking through Reddit, which is something
that we're doing more and more now, you
see a lot of people that are like,
well, how do I get successful and make
this my living? And it's like,
why are we starting with this question when
you haven't recorded the first episode?
Yeah.
Yeah. It's,
it's one of those things. You know? I
need to start a podcast. You know, I
got laid off from my job, and I
like, well, podcast isn't actually the fast way
to make money.
It might happen over time, but, you know,
be realistic about it.
The show stopped publishing, but it's generally not
because of the podcast tech. I would say,
if anything, shows are going on for longer
because the tech has improved.
Yeah. The the tech is to the point
now where, you know, you can make the
tech disappear
for the most part. I mean, yeah, you
gotta know certain things to produce a good
audio file or a good video,
whatever. But, you know, as far as that
goes but there are some common
tech mistakes.
So, you know, Dave and I can speak
to this because we're on support all the
time. Mhmm. But, you know, a lot of
support questions come down to just the basics,
you know,
distribution timing.
You know, I published an episode, and it's
not on Apple yet.
And you look at their feed, and they
published twenty two minutes ago.
And, you know, that's just not realistic. Podcasting
is sort of backwards. It's distributed,
syndicated.
Mike likes to say it is a pull,
not a push technology. So you publish, and
then you have to wait for Apple and
Spotify and all of those other platforms to
pull that new information in. You don't just
ping them and go, hey. We're ready. Here's
the other thing. You know, we don't control
Spotify. We don't control Apple. We don't
Apple. We don't control Amazon Music
or any of the other directories. You know,
hosting controls the RSS feed. And if it
goes into the RSS feed, and your RSS
feed is correct,
which it will be from us, we don't
control what the directories do with it. You
know? We can't help you format the show
notes other than we send them the standard
thing. And if they just choose to do
something else with it, you know, it's up
to those apps.
So what can they do
behind the curtain at a podcast hosting provider?
So these common tech mistakes
Yeah. What could they maybe do to, to
avoid those or make your lives easier
with the support team? You You know, people
are gonna have the questions.
As I've said on other shows and other
places,
you know, the when podcasting first started, everybody
was a geek. Listeners, the producers,
the hosts, whatever, everything was geeky.
And over time,
it came up to average. So the average
tech savviness of a podcaster was
along the average of all people.
You know? So you had a little tech
savviness,
but not
you know, you weren't too geeky. And now
I honestly think that there's people that are
below average, and that's not a bad thing.
It just you know, there's people out there
that don't like tech, and that's fine, and
they can still podcast.
But just
know you have to learn a little bit,
and we're happy to teach you, of course,
how
RSS distribution
works and how these directories works, and they're
they're all different.
You know, I did my thing at Podfest
about distribution,
and, you know, it it changes.
You know?
New rules, you know, in different
different apps and directories have
different standards.
And, you know, just
just make sure that, you know, if you
have a question, please please contact your host
or us here, Dave and I,
at Blueberry, and we can we can help
you get it all tweaked the way it
needs to be, and then you should be
good.
Yeah. I think the other thing too is,
just to kinda build off of what Mike
was saying,
a little bit of education
in in how things work can actually go
a really long way for your own patients.
We'll we'll talk to customers that
get really frustrated because, well, I published fifteen
minutes ago. I don't see it on whatever
app I'm using.
And so then there's a phone call or
a ticket. And we totally understand that. We're
you know, we see it all the time.
But I think
if if people could step back just a
little bit and go,
okay. I'm going to just give myself a
block of time. Maybe it's two hours.
And if it doesn't show up, then I
reach out.
There's a lot of times where
especially if you're using PowerPress because,
caching is a bad word
Mhmm. For podcasters.
And, basically, that's just you know, files are
being stored so that they can
load your website a little faster. But the
downside is that
your feed isn't going to update as fast
and show the new episode
so that when Apple and Spotify go to
pull it, they're not gonna see it right
away.
So it's one of those, like, slow down,
maybe give it two hours. And then if
you don't see it,
contact us. Or
even
as simple as is my file
online,
You know, can I listen to that file
in my browser?
Because
we have run into issues where files aren't,
you know, publicly available.
And if you just
go in and, you know, republish the post
or set the file to online,
then it's working, and
there's no need for a support ticket.
And, you know, that's again, that's technology
being buggy sometimes, and you have that. And
I think we're just kind of in this
instant gratification
era where it doesn't work now, so
I panic and throw my phone out the
window
or call someone and or or whatever. So
Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit of basic
knowledge and patience will take you so far
in in creating your podcast.
Yeah. Exactly. You know, a little education. What
I used to like to say to people
this is, you know, way back in the
day. I know I'm an old fart.
But, you know, I used to say you're
gonna pay either money,
time,
or education.
You know, if you don't wanna learn how
this all works, you're gonna spend a lot
of time,
you know, talking to people about it and
get getting tech support. Or
if you get a little education, that's gonna
save you the time and the money.
Yeah. Because you know?
Yeah.
And here's the other thing that I find
that a lot of lot of, customers
don't understand.
Well, it's on Apple. It's on Spotify, but
it's not a obscure directory that nobody uses.
But that doesn't mean there's a problem with
your feed. That doesn't mean there's a problem
with your service at Blueberry or wherever you're
you're hosting.
That's a problem with that place. If all
the other places are working and that one's
not, then they have a problem,
generally.
And, you know, if it's really that big
a deal, contact them.
But as I've I've said in in all
my talks is really if you're in podcast
index,
Spotify, and Apple, you've covered 95%.
Any of the other ones are yeah. They're
kinda cool to be in,
but
don't lose any sleep over it.
You know, it's not not a big deal.
You know, a little little knowledge will prevent
some stress there.
That that absolutely leads us into the next
thing we wanted to talk about was stats
misconceptions,
and that stress and,
losing
sleep. Yeah. Stats is definitely on that list.
People can get discouraged
quite quickly
and,
you know,
maybe maybe don't understand the the full
spectrum of how podcast stats work. But,
usually, we see them upset by, you know,
some unrealistic
ideal number in their head. Yeah.
Yeah. That and, you know, another thing that
was stats is people watch it so closely,
and they obsess
about it. And,
you know, I had one guy. I think
he had eight downloads
on an episode, and
six of them were from New York state.
And he was like, wow. That that's gotta
be a bot or something in New York,
or this just doesn't seem right. You know?
And it's like, well, you're getting way ahead
of yourself. You're just starting here.
Mhmm. You know. And
the other thing is, you know, people will
freak out when they get a bump in
their stats. You know? I I think I
get just as many complaints about low stats
as I do high stats.
Oh, is this real? I got, you know,
2,000 downloads, and I normally get 500.
And, well, yeah, somebody shared it or something.
I don't know. You know? I'm looking at
it. There there is ways to look at
it to see if it is bot activity,
but we filter that stuff out pretty well.
Mhmm. You know? Yeah. I I think if
people
would
again, like, I think patience is key, because
I don't want us to just come off
sounding like we're just growing beer all the
time.
But I think there's a lot of
people don't always know how to use the
tools that they're given. I mean, even me.
Like, I've been doing support
for six, seven years
now, and I've been podcasting for twice that
long.
And I still have problems understanding some of
my stats. Like, where in the world did
this bump or this dip come from? And
especially, like, the bumps. You know?
Where where
I'm used to seeing a couple 100 downloads
for a certain show that I'm doing, and
then all of a sudden, it
it goes really high. And to a degree,
you can you can try and narrow that
down. Like, if they're coming from a country
that you have never
ever seen in your stats dashboard before,
okay. Well, then that is a reason to
get in touch with us. But sometimes, like
Mike said, maybe you were shared somewhere. I
know we had a somebody wrote an article
about the show I was doing,
had no idea,
and
they contacted us, like, a week later. And
they're like, just so you know, we did
write a an article about you, and we're
like, oh, that's where those extra, like, 400
downloads for,
you know, a handful of episodes came from.
And it was great, but we just didn't
know it. And so there's a little bit
of a panic. But you can figure that
stuff out
whether you look for it or, you know,
sometimes people will reach out to you and
tell you, hey. Yeah. You know, we're talking
about you. That that's why I don't panic
about your
stats. Yeah. And I've had a,
speaking of spikes,
that I've been able
to tell them why,
is I had a a person that had
200 and something episodes, and they were all
available in their feed.
And
they got, like
their their normal downloads were, like, 50 or
something. I forget exactly what it was, but
it was pretty low. And they were okay
with that.
But
on one day, they got 300 and something
episodes or downloads.
And they're like, why is this big spike
on this one day?
Well, somebody discovered your show and downloaded the
whole thing. It happens sometimes. You know? They'll
Yep. You'll you'll get a super fan, and
they're, oh, I'm gonna download all of these.
And they downloaded 200 and whatever episodes
Mhmm. That day plus the normal downloads, and
it made this really neat spike in the
in the stats. And and I said, well,
just go to the episode section, and you
can see, you know, this week, you got
one download on every one of your episodes,
even the ones from four years ago.
Yeah. You know? And and so that kind
of stuff happens.
The the the key with stats is we
can tell you what happened.
We might not be able to tell you
why.
Yeah. You
know? No. You kinda just have to let
go some stuff.
Yeah. And you might be able to figure
it out. You know? Again, you know, it's
it's not a complete mystery, but, you know,
stats can only do so much.
You know, we can tell you what what
happened.
Maybe not why,
but we can, you know, usually tell you
what and when.
So
Yeah. And I I mean,
we've we've all been doing this long enough.
I don't think that I would panic too
much at a a rise or a dip
in your statistics
unless
all of a sudden it just plummets, and
it's like, well, I was getting 50 downloads,
and now I'm getting two, and it's consistent
over the course of, like, two weeks or
something like that. Yeah. Then maybe you panic.
Yeah. But Or or if you get zero,
you know, then that might be a surprise.
Look into something. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. If
it's a drastic dip, you definitely
wanna check into that.
But, you know, more more times than not,
you're going to see
kind of a gradual rise or a plateau.
I don't think people's shows fall off until
they just stop
producing content. Yeah.
And, you know, what what'll happen is you
might saturate your market. I mean, if you're
doing a show that is super niche,
you might
have already reached anybody that might wanna listen
to it, and it may not grow,
you know, without some sort of change in
in your focus. But then you might lose
some of the ones you had. So, you
know, just do your show. We'll tell you
what happened.
Yeah. We've been doing stats a very, very
long time. That's one of the first things
we've ever done as a company
that, you know, when this started in 2005
is stats. So Mhmm.
You can believe the information that we are
giving out.
Yeah. So Dave and I recently did an
episode all about monetization,
But, you know, some people
don't exactly understand
that, it's more than just ads.
There's other ways of monetizing
your show. Yeah. For sure. There's a different
way that you can do it. You can
do different types of ads. You can do
affiliate program stuff. You can do
selling your own courses.
There's
a variety of things that you can do,
but we don't want you to
undervalue
maybe your niche audience of whatever show it
is that you have. There's this story that
we've told at the company that it's you
know, we had
a neurosurgeon that had a show that was
a very
small
audience,
in the grand scheme of things, but they
were making bank off of this because they
were the only show talking about this specific
topic. And the people that were listening were
other neurosurgeons.
And so they had amazing advertisements just because
of that. Mhmm.
Yeah. I think that's that's that,
yeah, it plays into stats a little bit,
but going, oh, my audience isn't big enough
or whatever. No. No. You could you can
literally
provide
good enough content
to that niche audience
that you can start selling to them at
or,
you know and that's that's if you're running
a business. Even if you're not running a
business and you're just doing it for fun,
you can have a Patreon that you have
just diehard fans that are like, yes. I'm
more than happy to give you some of
my money. There is another word I wanted
to use. But, you know, the the whole
value for value thing. You know? Time, talent,
or treasure. You know? You get a lot
of participation or you get maybe a little
money. You get,
you know, maybe somebody will do some artwork
for you. You know, there's all kinds of
ways people can contribute to your show. Money's
being one of them.
Yeah. Yeah. So build the audience and build
it to where they are just as dedicated
to you as you are to them, and
it becomes a reciprocal
thing. And, you know, monetization
will grow from that naturally.
Yeah. That and also, you know, the forcing
things
on your beloved audience, especially if they are
small and loyal, treat them with respect
with any type of monetization that you are
doing. You know, they are listening because
they obviously,
in some way, value the content that you
were putting out. So You mean a GEICO
ad doesn't fit every show?
You know, maybe
someone thinks that it does. Maybe the CEO
of GEICO thinks that is the case. Everybody
else does not.
Right. You know? And, you know, that's that's
the thing too. You know, make sure if
you take advertising that you broker that it's
something that you believe in because you're you've
got that relationship with your audience.
And if you're selling them snake oil, that's
not gonna go over well.
Yeah. They'll remember that. If you feel any
type of
embarrassed, not about
advertising in general, because, like, that might just
feel like an imposter syndrome type thing. You
know, it's okay to monetize your own content.
That is just
how things work nowadays.
But if you are
in any shape or form embarrassed by the
specific
advertiser
and feel like, oh, this this is making
me a little bit uncomfortable, that's when you
don't do it.
Right. If you are not, like, happily bragging
about this sponsor that you have, then don't
sign with them.
That would be my biggest thing. Yeah. And
what's cool about that sometimes depending on what
it is you're advertising, you might get a
sample for free.
Yeah. Exactly. You know, it's if it feels
gross on the inside,
it will come off as gross on the
outside.
Yeah. You know, I know I I watch
a lot of YouTube and said that 100
times.
A lot of the YouTubers will have factor
or one of those meal delivery things. Oh,
yeah. Of course, I'll send them a case
of the stuff, and they get to eat
it on camera, whatever.
You know, make sure it's something that you
believe in, though, because people can smell BS
from a mile away.
And, you know,
like, you know, if Microsoft came to me
and said, hey. I want you to
to,
talk about Windows,
operating system. Well, first off, I don't use
Windows.
Not that I don't hate Windows. I just
don't use it.
And it would be very fakey to my
audience
if I'm bragging up Windows when I'm sitting
here in front of a Mac.
And have been for many, many, many years.
Exactly. You know? So,
you know, there is there is that kind
of thing. So just make sure it aligns
with, a, your audience, and, b, you.
Yeah. Yep. Both are important. Yeah. So
there's some growth myths
out there.
And I don't know the motivation
of it,
but there's a lot of pressure for podcasters
to add video or
oops. Start with video.
And
it's not always a great idea. You know?
Audio is much easier to to do
than video.
And there's nothing wrong with video. Don't get
me wrong. We're we're all for it.
But if you don't wanna do video, don't
do video.
Same thing with, you know, you gotta be
on every single platform.
Well, yeah. No. I mean, the three I
mentioned,
yes.
The rest of them might as well.
You know? But
you don't absolutely,
positively have to be on Amazon or your
show's gonna fail.
Mhmm. Or you're not gonna grow because you're
not on Amazon. Well, Amazon,
on average, doesn't get very high listenership of
podcasts. I mean, there are some that do
pretty well there. Believe me. But,
it's it's not gonna make or break your
show.
Right.
You know? And then my my favorite one,
the shiny object
or use every new tool.
You know?
That used to be the big thing. You
know? What microphone do you use? That that
was a huge topic of of conversation.
And, you know, I I'm on a $400
microphone.
Mackenzie's on a $300
microphone.
Dave might be on a $50 microphone.
I have been before. I'm not now, but
I have been. Well, what I'm saying is
is, you know, spending,
you know, $400
more for your microphone
than the one you were using, as long
as it's decent,
isn't going to gain you a whole lot
other than, yeah, I got this fancy microphone.
You know, I'm kind of a gear head,
so I have fancy microphones because I I
just you know, I like that stuff. But
Yeah. It doesn't make me sound $400
better.
No.
No. No. That's actually funny. We we went
to a music store
this weekend, and
my youngest was like,
holy cow. There are microphones that expensive, dad.
And I was like, yes. You don't need
them.
Typical iceberg.
I I got started on super cheap microphones.
But, like,
you know, just talking about using every tool,
like, it's not just, like, the actual physical
gear. I see a lot of people going,
oh, yeah. Like, oh, well, I have to
use,
you know, this editor and use this AI
tool and, like,
you know, 500 different things to craft a
single episode. And it's like, no. You're just
gonna bog yourself down. Like, sure. Play with
things. Does it help you?
But,
you know, at the end of the day,
don't don't try everything because at some point,
you're you're gonna burn yourself out, and you're
gonna just stop doing it because you don't
really have a
pattern. So
so that that's a big one for me
because I am the shiny object. Oh, this
is cool. This is new. Let me play
with that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I just, like I mean,
we've been talking about, you know, video stuff
for the company, and I've been going through
and looking at different tools. And
I'm like, at some point, I just kinda
have to stop and go, okay. Which one
do we want to use? Let's see how
it works.
And
if we get good results, we'll keep that
one. If we get okay and we could
do better, well, then we'll try something else
and move on.
So Well, we don't have to to use
everything. We we did that a lot with
this show, you know, our recording platform because,
you know, we're all remote.
Oh, yeah. That was back and forth so
much for a while there. Yeah. And then
we finally decided, well, you know what?
Good enough is good enough. We already use
Zoom for everything.
Why not use Zoom? I mean, it's got
recording capability and, you know, with Kate's help,
it's decent. And that's really all you're going
for. You don't have to go completely crazy.
And, yeah, again, convenience
sometimes. You know, like, Descript is very convenient
for people to edit episodes on because they
can go in there and, you know, just
cut words out, and it does a decentest
decentest
is that a right word?
That's not a word. It's not. It's an
okay.
It's an okay
edit.
You know? But if you really wanna get
in there and, you know, get in the
weeds, you do something like audition or Hindenburg
or whatever, and you could really get in
the weeds
and edit. But
you don't have to.
Just use the tool that's gonna make you,
like, consistent.
You know? Yes.
That's the I think,
that's what you should focus on. If you're
like, I know this.
I don't want I don't have the time
or mental energy right now to figure out
a whole new program, then don't get a
whole new program unless something is, like, completely
broken
and is, like,
bringing you down.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah.
You know, the and and the tools
that are that are out there, you know,
yes, there's better tools,
coming out all the time.
Do you need them? Probably not. We wanna
play with them? Sure. Go for it. But,
again,
you're not going
to grow your audience
or anything like that just because you switched
to a different tool. You might save yourself
some time, you you know. But but remember,
every tool out there, no matter whether it's
hardware, software, whatever, there's a learning curve.
Mhmm. So it goes back to that education
thing. You know? Learn about it. You know?
I got a Roadcaster here, and it took
me a really long time to get the
get the idea how it all worked.
And but I put in the time to
do it. So now I understand how the
thing works, and I haven't had any Roadcaster
failures lately. Knock on wood.
And and mostly
with Switchology
on my part.
Essentially, what we're saying is don't necessarily change
things up because you feel the pressure to
do something
for that growth. There's a time and a
place,
and usually, you'll figure it out yourself as
opposed to just watching everyone else.
So I guess the the the big picture
here is, you know, most
podcaster
challenges come down to just, you know, unrealistic
expectations,
over complications,
compare yourself to others.
That's usually not a great thing.
Yeah. The, the solutions,
some patience,
the consistency,
and I think mental clarity.
If you recognized yourself in any of these
things, you are not alone as a podcaster.
Remember, you are never actually alone as a
podcaster.
No. Yeah. We
we have all,
at some point in doing this, hit every
single one of these phases. We've all got
caught up in it. So, yeah, don't don't
panic.
Yep. And, you know, just focus on the
fundamentals and build something
sustainable.
That's the best way to go. Alright. That's
all for today. Thanks for listening to Podcast
Insider. We'll see you next week. Thanks Thanks
for joining us. Let's meet up next week.
And in the meantime, for more information, to
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