Buzzcast

The Average Podcast Episode Gets This Many Downloads in the First 7 Days (feat. Tom Buck)

November 20, 2020 Episode 39
Buzzcast
The Average Podcast Episode Gets This Many Downloads in the First 7 Days (feat. Tom Buck)
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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode, guest host Tom Buck joins us as we discuss balancing a 9-5 with 3x podcasts AND a YouTube channel, break down the download stats from every active Buzzsprout podcast in October, Apple Podcasts' new embed player, and chat with Listen Notes founder Wenbin Fang on the new Global Rank and Listen Score.

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Check out our new Buzzsprout merch store on Cotton Bureau.

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Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!

Alban:

Travis, should we talk about where Kevin is?

Travis:

I don't know. Should we talk about where Kevin is?

Alban:

He's just not here. I feel like somebody is probably sitting there going, man. Isn't there like somebody else who's mostly on the podcast? They're not there anymore.

Travis:

It's true.

Alban:

Kevin is out Tom is in for today. But Kevin will be back in two weeks. So you don't have to. He's not gone forever.

Travis:

If you listen to Buzzcast because you love the sound of Kevin sultry voice, he will be back in two weeks.

Tom:

I'm not taking over. I'm not the new step heaven.

Travis:

Well, today, we have a special treat. We have a new co host joining us, Tom buck. Tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of you how you got started in podcasting? Yeah, it's

Unknown:

my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me, podcasting has been a huge part of my world since 2009, was when I remember, like actively listening to podcasts. And it's kind of the same thing as YouTube, where I was like, This is so cool. I wish I could do something like this, not realizing that, like, there's almost no barrier to entry. And so it wasn't until 2019 that I decided to start my own personal podcast, I had done a few through my job as a teacher, like producing and setting up podcasts for work. And that was cool to be on that side of it. But creating one of my own was something I had never done before. And I kind of just jumped in, almost as a way of, I'm so used to being a teacher, and also making YouTube videos, both of which require me to be very succinct and very condensed and like polished. And doing a podcast was a way for me to do something where I could just go like long form and not be interrupted and really, like dive into something and it felt so good. It was like therapy. And that was what kicked it off. And then I ended up currently have like three podcasts plus to get to guest hosts this one, which is the best one.

Travis:

Oh, thank you. And we don't say so ourselves. Yes.

Alban:

Tom, you're a you're a high school teacher. Correct? Yeah,

Tom:

I'm a high school digital media teacher.

Alban:

I love these said I like a podcast, because that's a long form. I don't get interrupted and you're like, that is definitely the that's something that only a teacher would say,

Unknown:

Yes, I can't. I mean, it's been weird this year, because everything has been on zoom so far. So it's, you know, it's kind of the opposite problem. Like I almost wish kids would talk more. But in the regular classroom, even though I've got great students and like, I feel my classroom management is pretty decent. I bet you can't go more than two sentences without having to like, you know, pause and wait. Or I try not to shush because it's so like, it feels so demeaning. Yeah, but like, as a teacher, there's, there's just times where you just find yourself like, and it's like, oh, no, it's terrible. So having a podcast, I can just complete a thought, like a whole thought. And it's wonderful.

Alban:

Well, that's cool. So like Travis said, the reason we wanted you to hop on the podcast, today's because you're a new Buzzsprout. creator, you joined the Buzzsprout creator program. And one of the things we said before we went live was in our minds. I feel like a lot of people listening this podcast, you're on kind of the same journey, as most of us, except you're like a couple steps ahead. So you talked about your three podcasts, you talked about the you're a teacher, you also the way we connect with you is through your YouTube channel.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's funny you say that, because anyone who makes YouTube videos, and I guess the same is true for podcasting. But my relationship with my podcast is very different than my relationship with my YouTube channel. But on my channel, where it's mainly like audio and video tutorials, reviews, things to help people get better audio and video, I try to basically act as though I'm making videos for myself six months ago. So I just kind of think of like, what what did I need help with six months ago was struggling with what were my questions. That's what I should make a video now. And it seems like that works really well. Because then the people who find it, it's like, I, I know them. I know what they're going through. And then creating the podcast side of it was, it was almost to be an escape from YouTube where I spend way too much time looking at analytics. And, you know, every number and every metric and I was like podcasts, I kind of just want to start a thing. And it wasn't until several months after doing it that suddenly people were like, Oh, I was listening to this episode and blah blah blah. And I was like you were you were listening to that. And I kind of forgot that that's a part of it. Like it's like oh yeah, a put out episodes and then people do listen to them and it it has then grown into a thing, which I mean I have not spent much effort in promoting it other than like putting some links here or there. Because it's just kind of been like side passion projects, but it has grown a community that I didn't think I could grow through podcasting, but it's been, it's been incredible. And it's to the point now where, even though I feel like I'm very good with my consistency, there's been a couple of weeks where I've missed a week, or like, wasn't able to record an episode, and people will send messages and go, like, I was ready for my Monday morning thing, and there was no episode I just want to check in Are you okay? And that's, that's, that's been that has been amazing to me. And that's really motivating to kind of keep it going and make it a priority. Even though there's also then full time work and family and, and all of life, you know, that exists outside of it.

Alban:

So just to kind of like recap some of this. You've got a YouTube channel, yes, that has something in the order. It's like 40,000 subscribers. So it's like, it's a decent size YouTube channel. You have three podcasts. You are a high school teacher during COVID. Yeah. And so I just want to make sure like, you're also you're a single guy that has all this free time.

Unknown:

No, I'm married. We don't have kids, we have two dogs. Those are our kids. And I say that with pride, though. And luckily, aside from just being genuinely awesome, in general, my wife, who is the co host of one of my podcasts is like a content creator herself. So she does YouTube and YouTube coaching, which is great, because she understands what I'm talking about and what I'm going through. And we're you know, it's very similar. So when I say like, I need to go lock myself in the room on Saturday afternoon, and like record myself talking to nobody. She's like, yeah, that's normal. You should go do that.

Travis:

Yeah, not the reaction of most of our spouses, I

Unknown:

think, yeah, so I have very appreciative of that understanding.

Travis:

So I'm curious, like, you are certainly, you know, down the pathway of being a content creator, you know, seeing a certain measure of success, especially as someone who's independent, and you know, not getting a lot of support outside of just the content, you create yourself, right. If you were to go back to when you first started your YouTube journey, your podcast journey?

Tom:

Mm hmm.

Travis:

What would be the advice you would give yourself at that point? Knowing what you know, now?

Unknown:

I Yeah, that's a great question. I started my YouTube channel in 2017. And then my podcast started in 2019. But I think the advice could almost be the same for both of them, which is I, I was so wary of strategy, when I got started. Just because I like my number one value was authenticity, and being open and honest and authentic. And I was, so I felt so bombarded with, you know, ads everywhere, and sponsored content and things that seem authentic, and then you scratch the surface a little bit, and you realize, Oh, this is not what it seems at all. And I was so jaded by that. And, I mean, I grew up listening to, you know, punk and ska bands, and California, which are all very much, you know, no big record labels, and you can't sell out, bro. And like that kind of stuff. And that just like had been in my brain. And so when I started creating my own content, the idea was, it just nothing can compromise that authenticity, which I still stand by. But what I didn't know was you can actually still be strategic and authentic at the same time. And just and if you're being strategic, it actually just means you're being smarter with your time and your energy. So it's going to take time, when you start something new to sort of get your bearings, figure out what you're doing, figure out who it's for, that's normal. But I would encourage myself, like, Hey, don't wait a year before you actually like, admit to yourself that you want to take this seriously. Like, you can just start taking it seriously from the beginning. And that's going to help you get your bearings a lot more quickly. And I wish I would have learned that lesson, it would have saved me just so much wasted energy, honestly.

Alban:

So are there any specifics that you would kind of tell me like what questions should people be asking themselves if they are kind of like, you know, three steps behind where you are right now?

Unknown:

I would say sustainability is key. I mean, I would imagine someone who's a couple steps behind me probably has like, their equipment thing I know, that's a very, very popular question is, what gear do I use? What do I need, and especially when it comes to podcasting, it's so accessible, and things are so good. You know, if you got your phone, you're good enough to get started. The bigger issue for me is sustainability. And sometimes people will have an idea where they'll go, you know, I want to do this podcast about this thing where I talked to these people about blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that sounds like a great idea. But you could do four episodes. And maybe that's fine. Maybe you want to do like one of my favorite podcasts ever is s town, which is seven episodes. And I've listened to it like four or five times, like all the way through. So if you want to do like a limited run thing, that's cool. But if you want it to be something that you do for a long time, it needs to be something that's sustainable. And that's whether it's a podcast or YouTube or anything so what what can you explore what can you dive into That you don't get tired of, and that you could see yourself doing not just, you know, five or 10 episodes of, but 50 100 200, like before, things really even start picking up because oftentimes you have to make 50 or 100 things before it even gets any traction at all. And I think a lot of people sometimes will make three or four episodes and then wonder like, why isn't this taking off? Why isn't everyone finding it? Why am I not on the apple homepage, or, you know, or whatever, and so that that sustainability, but a big fear that I have found in people is the thing that they're interested in, they feel is oversaturated, you know, they're interested in talking about technology, and they feel there's too many people or whatever it is. And I think it's very important to remember that that might be true, there might be other people doing it, it might be a saturated, market saturated niche, but you have a unique angle, unique perspective, unique experience. And if that's the thing that you don't get tired of talking about, that's gonna make you able to sustain it like as as a marathon rather than a sprint. And that means I think you should just go for it, because the thing that makes you stand out will emerge over time. And that's what's gonna draw people to you and help you build your audience, your community, and all those things that that really do let you keep going over a longer period of time.

Alban:

I mean, there's some areas that I mean, there's got to be 40 podcasts about guys talking about Apple products. Oh, yeah. And I'm always like, if whoever was the 41st to do it, you are probably feel like a total imposter, like, What do I have to say, That's not being said by all these other people? Mm hmm. And I think that it's not that you're talking about something they're not because you're all talking about the same new iPhones, the new MacBooks. But you are bringing just a totally different perspective, if all of them are super techie, and you're an attorney, and you're going yeah, this is how I use it in my work, or you're a teacher, and you're talking about, actually, this is a huge benefit, because most people don't understand how difficult it is to get 30 kids with different computers using the same thing. Well, now it's gonna be so much easier because of these features, you are bringing an experience that is unique, and that unique experience is going to resonate with some portion of the audience.

Unknown:

Yeah, exactly. And there's also just the part of it, that's you, it's sort of the intangible thing, where if even if you are saying the exact same stuff as somebody else, you know, you have your personality and your, your way of doing it that some people just might connect with more than others. It's like being a teacher, I'm kind of lucky that I the only one who teaches my subject, I campus, so no one knows what I'm doing, which is great. But for, for other teachers, and like I started as an English teacher, you know, if you have for sophomore English teachers, the curriculum is the same in all those classes. But you will have, you know, the same student might transfer between classes throughout the year and be like, I really don't like this teacher, but I love this teacher. And it's like they're doing the same content there. It's literally like from the same books. But it's the approach that's entirely different. And it doesn't mean that a teacher is bad or good. It just means that personality wise perspective, why something clicks, something doesn't click. And the same is true for online content, where, you know, they're just, I have found people on YouTube and podcasts where there's just something off putting to me about the way that they do their themes, like it doesn't, it doesn't land and then I go to somebody else who's doing the same thing. But I just feel like it's so enjoyable. And I don't know what that is. And, you know, everybody has that that's going to be able to, to build that, that crowd or that audience around you.

Alban:

So one of the questions we get pretty regularly are people want to know how their podcast is performing. And we have talked about this. A ton of times on this podcast, we talked about it in our Facebook group. And whenever we write a lot of our blogs and our guides, I feel like we ended up pulling in a lot of data for people to compare their podcast. And it's not comparison trying to say like, are you better or worse, but just to kind of see if you're on the right track. And we realized, like, you know, this was pretty popular that a lot of people want it to be able to see it. And so we've got something new that is out by the time that you're listening to it.

Travis:

Yeah, so we are now on a monthly basis, updating our Buzzsprout platforms, stats. So if you go into your personal podcast, you see all your download stats, and your apps and your devices and stuff like that. We are now every single month showing you all the podcasts on Buzzsprout and how those apps are performing and what those mean median download numbers are and you know, the countries that are popular and the devices that are popular. So you can kind of stack up your stats and see how they compare with, you know what other people are seeing. And we'll leave a link to these stats in the show notes if you want to go and check those out as we're talking about it. But let's go ahead and just go through these, and just talk through some of the numbers for October. So I imagined the beginning of December, we'll pull in the November stats of let's just talk about the October stats. So for all the Buzzsprout podcasts, we in the month of October saw almost 64 million downloads, which, when we sent the link to Tom, he was like, wow, Buzzcast is doing really well. Yeah.

Unknown:

I was not prepared for this. But that is an amazing number.

Alban:

Oh, yeah. So you could see monthly downloads, how many episodes were published by Buzzsprout podcasters. We This is all this is a subset of people we call active podcasters. And it's just if people have pod faded, or they're not regularly releasing, we removed them from this data, because that really will skew it. You know, if we have a bunch of people who aren't releasing anything, yet, we've got a section. I mean, probably my favorite section is this podcast app section is pretty common. Like we see this in articles all the time, Spotify is taken away X percent of the apple podcast share, Google podcast is growing. And we hear all these numbers. But one or two podcasts isn't a good data point. But across all Buzzsprout is a pretty strong data point of Okay, this is about how well Google podcasts is doing. So we want to just kind of go through this list and kind of give people a little bit of a taste of what's on this page.

Travis:

Yeah, and I think the first app won't surprise people. But I think depending on if you consider yourself to be knowledgeable about the podcast industry, or seeing it from fresh eyes, you might have opposite reactions to the percentage next to this app. So the top app, no surprises Apple podcasts. They've been the number one app since the word podcast was even a thing. Well, it was iTunes before and then they switched it but same app. But the number next to that is 47%. So 47% of all the podcast downloads across all the active Buzzsprout podcasts came from Apple podcasts. Now, if you have been following the podcast industry for some time, that seems low, because typically Apple's in the 60 to 65% range when you look at some of this other data. But if you're new, you could be like, Wow, that's a lot. That's like half, half of all downloads come from Apple podcasts.

Alban:

And this is Apple podcasts the way that we have it on a Mac. And on your phones, if it's actually the app saying, Hey, I'm Apple podcasts. When we get further down the list, iTunes will make an appearance because there are still people who are using truly using a software called iTunes to download podcasts. So it'll still be there. And it's actually doing pretty well. So Tom, do you want to take us down the list a little bit?

Unknown:

Yeah, sure. I mean, the number two option is probably no surprise, which is Spotify, at 24% coming in. And those were no surprise to me, because those are the big guys. What was kind of a surprise was then the how much the other platforms are like fighting over the ones in the two percents. And that seems to be pretty competitive. Because like Google is it 2.4 just a web browsers 2.1 I was interested in actually a little bit further down is the Buzzsprout embed player because I like use that on my website. And that's 1.9% which I thought was actually like a good number for just people finding that embedded throughout the internet. So that actually makes me excited. Yeah, and then there's stuff down here that I didn't even know like, Instagram is point 1% kind of way down at the bottom and I was I don't even understand how someone is actually getting a podcast on Instagram. So that was surprising to me.

Alban:

We saw a few downloads start coming through tik tok. And I was like trying to figure out like, How the heck is anybody listening to a podcast or tik tok? Like, yeah, there's some way they can get a link to get to a web page to play an episode there. And tik tok is the one that's requesting the episode. And I was like, well, it's, there are five people that have done it or something, whatever

Tom:

the number works. Yeah,

Travis:

well, I do know, at least for Facebook, and I'm not a heavy Instagram user. So this may or may not be true. But I know for Facebook. If you're in the app, and you click on a web link, it actually opens a Facebook internet browser, whereas a jump over it's a Safari or Chrome or whatever you have on your phone. And so if someone clicks a link from within Facebook, and then listens to a podcast episode, we will see that as a Facebook play. Yeah, so if you have Facebook or Instagram showing up in your personal podcast stats, and that's a good indication that the social media marketing that you're doing is actually working. And so that would be a good thing. Good thing to see.

Tom:

That's okay, that makes a lot more sense, then.

Alban:

Yeah, so just to run through Apple, podcasts, Spotify, then a massive drop off to Google podcasts, 2.4, then just web browsers in general. And then we get into some of like, the very popular not pre installed apps. So the number one of those is castbox. 2%. castbox, has a great player, they have a really great team. And we really like them. podcast addict, which is the I think the number one Android app for podcasting. 1.9% Buzzsprout embed player 1.9%. So that's when you put the Buzzsprout player on your own site. Then stitcher who is been a big player in the game for a long time. 1.8, the Buzzsprout website. So that's if you don't have your own site, and people are going to your site and listening there. That's 1.5. Obviously, that one is not industry wide. Because if you know, if you're on a different podcast host, obviously, your Buzzsprout site gets zero place. Then we get my personal favorite overcast at 1.5. And then I had to get this one in there. 1.4 of all podcast listens are coming from iTunes. And those are people who have not updated this is how big the Apple is. In the podcasting industry. More people are listening on iTunes than on I Heart Radio or pocket casts they're listening to on an app that should have been updated years ago.

Unknown:

That's pretty wild, even more than Pandora and amazon music. iTunes is taking more.

Alban:

Yeah, it's definitely surprised, was surprising to me. But it's just interesting to kind of go through this list and see what else is there. Are there any other sections that kind of jump out to you guys that you would like to talk about?

Unknown:

The devices section is really interesting to me? Well, it's sort of device and device type, which isn't really a surprise, but the top two devices are Apple iPhone at 64.7% and android phone at 22.8%. Which isn't surprising. But if we go back up to the platforms or the apps, it falls pretty aligned with Apple podcasts and Spotify, which it just saying it goes to show like how much the device type that the person is using plays into the app they're using to get your content. And then that goes down. The next section below that is device type. And the insane amount of people that listen on mobile, which is almost 90%. So to me, like as a podcaster, that gives you a lot of insight into how people are consuming your content, someone's listening on a phone, that might mean, okay, they are really using earbuds or air pods or whatever. Or they're listening in their car, which means all of those weird little sounds and plosives and whatever and your audio production might be a lot more prominent. So I'm like, oh my god. Okay, that means I need to really make sure to tighten up the production side of things.

Travis:

Yeah, and one thing that every once in a while, we'll get this question, or we'll see it pop up in these podcast industry, Facebook groups, is what about smart speakers? What about Alexa devices? You know, it seems like everyone and their brother now has Amazon listening to them. 24 seven to see when they need more toilet paper. So when are we going to see this big bump in podcast listening on Alexa devices? Well, right as of October, then percentage of plays that came from smart speakers. So that would be both Amazon Alexa devices. And you know, anything else that be categorized as a smart speaker is point 3%. So, so still, like even though it seems like this is a voice first platform, it makes sense that if someone's in the house, doing chores, whatever and they want to listen to a podcast, they would throw it on their, you know, Amazon Echo. It's still such a small portion of podcast plays. So I mean, we'll see if this eventually shifts, but at least for right now, podcasting is very much a mobile phone centric experience.

Alban:

Yeah, I think that's a great point, Travis. So you can kind of get twisted around the axle a little bit trying to figure out how do I make sure that I'm optimized for Siri and Alexa, and all these various platforms. I mean, we actually got an email from Apple recently that we'll be in touch. about this later in the show, but one of the things that they did include in there was how to optimize for Siri, which is a good thing to know. But you don't want that to become your focus, the thing that you should be optimizing for are your actual listeners, first of all, and especially their experience listening on mobile devices. So a couple of the other sections in here, you can see the top countries and territories, this is going to skew to English speaking countries, not only because English speaking countries do listen to podcasts more, but because Buzzsprout itself is only an English. And so I imagine if you're on a podcast host that also was translated into Spanish, that you would get a lot more Spanish speaking countries or into Mandarin, like it just depends on, you know, I think that this is skewed because of Buzzsprout. But 50% 51%, United States 6.5. United Kingdom 5.3 in Canada, 4.3. In Australia, 2.8 in Mexico, and 2.6. In the Netherlands, which to my great grandfather who immigrated from Holland, you'd be proud of this? Well, yeah, it's it kind of gives you a little bit of a feel for whether or not your podcast is reaching more an international audience, then Buzzsprout podcasts on a whole.

Travis:

Yeah. And I think the statistic that most of our listeners will be very interested in, because we've talked about it before on the podcast, is I'm getting X number of downloads, I have this many episodes, Is that good? And that's always how it's framed. Is that good? Like, am I doing a good job. And quite often people think that the number of what a good podcast is much larger than than it actually is. They look at, you know, maybe other platforms like YouTube, where you see these creators that have millions of views on their videos. And they think well, in order to be a successful podcast, I need that equivalent metric. And they don't realize kind of the the playing field is different with podcasting. And so if you go to this global stats page, and you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see episode downloads within the first seven days. And so this statistic is representing when you publish an episode, within that first week that it's live. How does your podcast episode stack up against other podcasts on Buzzsprout and the median number, if we were measuring 100 podcasts, and we picked podcast number 50. out is 28. So if your podcast episode is getting more than 28 downloads within the first week of it being released, you are in the top half of podcasters on Buzzsprout.

Alban:

And you can go actually see this exact number in your Buzzsprout dashboard. Our whole goal with pulling out this number was to give you one that's very clear that you can compare with your own stats, we're trying to make sure that you can see it as a one to one comparison that if it's a daily podcast, or you're publishing once every two weeks, that you're still able to do that comparison, this is really giving you an idea of how many subscribers there are that you can ever measure subscribers. Um, this is gonna get pretty close.

Travis:

Yeah, and we would we would call a subscriber somebody who listens to every one of your episodes. Which, you know, Tom coming from the YouTube world subscriber on YouTube doesn't mean quite the same thing. No, not at all.

Unknown:

He's thinking like, oh, wow, I got 40,000 subscribers, every video is going to get at least 40,000 views. And they don't.

Travis:

I mean, as, as someone who spends a lot of time creating videos for the Buzzsprout YouTube channel, it seems like the ones that are like, really special to you that you put extra heart into, like nobody else appreciates. And then it's like the throwaway one where it's like, ah, I guess I gotta, you know, publish an episode on this Thursday. So I'll just make a quick one. You know, yes, throw it out there. It's like that's the one that goes nuts.

Unknown:

For the longest time. The most popular video on my channel was a video that I made from the time I have the idea to the time it was uploaded was under two hours. And it's like, for over a year the most popular video on my channel. And I made that video while I like there's another video I was making, where in that video I go like hey, I think I'm gonna make this other video now and like so I make the video in the video. And the other video is when I put so much effort into and I don't even think it cracked like 1000 and then the one that was the afterthought was literally like the channel defining video for like a year. So you never know.

Travis:

You definitely don't.

Alban:

So let's roll up this list a little bit. I can go through this one and maybe you guys could do one of the next two sections, top 25% If you get 73 plays in that first seven days releasing something, you're in the top 25% of podcasts, top 10% 231 place, you're in the top 5%. If you're getting 534 place, and you're in the top 1% of all podcasts on Buzzsprout. If your podcast receives 3263 plays per episode, whenever the episodes been out for seven days, so all these numbers grow over time, we can definitely see on all of our podcasts, older episodes are often the largest, because they've been around for a while and more people can find them. But this gives you a strict, you know, really good comparison point to your podcast. If you've only been podcasting for a couple months, and you're starting to get close to that 28 number. Well, that's exceptional. You know, I often try to think of if these were real people that you could see, would you keep being excited to do your podcast? And I can tell you like if somebody asked me, Hey, would you come talk about marketing to this group of 28? Well, I wouldn't do it now because of COVID. But if somebody said, come speak to this group of 28 people and talk to us about marketing, I would show up every week, I would not miss it. Especially if it took me an hour to do it. And it was an IT, I gave them an hour content, I would show every week. But there's something about when it's on a podcast and you see it as that number, not as a person that it can get very tempting to disregard it. And I guess I should say all these stats that we're quoting, are IB certified and compliance stats. So you can really compare these to your Buzzsprout numbers. If you're on another host, it may be slightly different just due to how they are measuring everything.

Travis:

So next, let's tackle the episode duration. Because that's another popular question we get like, how long should my episodes be? And the great thing about podcasting is there are basically no rules. I mean, so the only rules you have to follow are, if it's explicit, you have to mark it as explicit. But other than that, you know, and adding a title to your episode, you can literally do whatever you want. But this is a very common question. So we wanted to give you the breakdown of out of all the Buzzsprout podcast where did the where do they land. And so for the shorter episodes, those less than 10 minutes, that's about 12% of all the podcast episodes that we see on Buzzsprout. And then, as you could guess, 10 to 20 minutes would be a little higher 14%. And then the large majority, more than half of podcasts fall either between 20 and 60 minutes. So 32% or 20 to 40 minutes, and then 24% or 40 to 60 minutes, and then the super long ones over an hour, or 18%. And so you could say that the average podcast episode on Buzzsprout is somewhere around the 30 minute mark. But that's still less than a third. So it's not like, Hey, this is the magic number. If you have a 28 minute 32 second podcast, you will be successful. But we did want you just to see like the breakdown, you know of kind of what the episode durations look like, Tom, when you're putting your podcasts together, what do you think about as far as how long they should be?

Unknown:

I that's where I go back to thinking about myself as a listener, because obviously podcasts be any length, but I know that for me and my listening habits when I scroll through and I see an episode that's like 10 minutes long, I usually don't listen to it. Because when I listen, I use I'm usually like doing something where I want to kind of live in that podcast world for a while. And so I love it when episodes are 45 minutes an hour, you know, some are like two hours, two hours. So I love kind of longer episodes. So I try to keep mine at about an hour. And I found that that for me works really well. It's manageable to create seems like that's what the people who are listening enjoy it. This data is actually very, like comforting to see that kind of around that range. Because sometimes all you know, sometimes you just come up short. You're like this episode's 42 minutes, and I'm like, I was too short. And I know there's no right or wrong, but it's nice to know like, okay, now it's about the average of what everybody else is doing. Okay, I feel better. So the next section, which is how often episodes are published, is very interesting because I think you can put a lot of pressure on yourself to try to keep up a schedule or, you know, really crank out the content and the first time stat is every zero to two days. So it's almost a daily episode is only 7%. So not a huge chunk of people are doing nearly daily content, three to seven days. So that's kind of getting into that weekly range is 40%. And then eight to 14 days is 38%. So between those three days to 14 days, basically one episode every week or two is 78% of podcasts, which is, I it makes me happy to see that because I feel like that's such a manageable for the average person, that's a manageable production workload. But then we jumped down to 15 to 29 days is 14%. And episodes published every you know, once every 30 days is 1%. So very few people doing that.

Alban:

And one of the reasons for that is if you go much more than 30 days, I'm not exactly sure what the number is, then we probably wouldn't consider you an active podcaster. And so you'd probably drop off of this list. But this kind of makes sense that you know that seven days is what we actually recommend, because it helps you get in a regular cadence. It helps your listeners know when to expect your podcasts you start fitting into their lives. I mean, Tom said earlier, if he missed a week, people write and say, I was ready for my Monday podcast and Where was it? It's because I have podcasts that especially when I had a commute, I was like, This is my Monday morning commute podcast, this is my Thursday night coming back, because it would always release by the time I was, you know, ready to drive home. And it's really nice to have some of those podcasts he can like look forward to through the week, especially as you really learn to love them. So I really like those weekly podcasts and then seeing the eight to 14 days. Well, that gets the semi weekly podcasts. And the people who miss sometimes. So maybe their average is like nine days, it's just because they're publishing weekly, but they every once in a while miss one. So they fall in that category to 78%. It makes me very happy to see most people are landing three quarters, people are landing, either in once a week or twice a week, just kind of where they're, you know, their release schedule.

Unknown:

Yeah, those are those are exciting numbers, because I did just want to point out too, that, at least on YouTube, one of the questions I get all the time is, you know, how often do I need to be uploading for YouTube to like, you know, help me or, you know, for people to find my thing. And at least in the YouTube world, it really doesn't matter the way that it used to anymore. And you'll see and you're recommended on YouTube, like, you'll get videos from 10 years ago that suddenly it just thinks you need to watch that video now based on your history. And when it comes to podcasting and stuff, I kind of think that it's the same, I don't think there's a magic thing where I have done four episodes this month. So now Apple is just gonna promote the heck out on my podcast. I think though, kind of what we just touched on, it's more about you as the creator, getting into the rhythm where making the thing is a part of your life. And then equally as important, it becomes a part of other people's lives if they, you know, if they're just sort of randomly getting these episodes, they never know when they're going to show up. That's not going to let it become a routine where they do expect this day, I can listen to this podcast at the gym, when gyms are open or on a commute when I had a computer, whatever, but it needs to fit into people's lives. And I think when you're just starting out, or maybe when your numbers are not as big as you expect them to be, that feels presumptuous for you to think that I'm going to make a podcast that's going to be part of someone's life. But you absolutely can. And it absolutely will become that and they're not care. They're not digging into your statistics and going like, Hmm, this isn't in the top 50% of Buzzsprout podcast, so I shouldn't be listening to it. They just want they just want the thing that you're making if it lands with them. And the only way that they can find it is if you just keep kind of consistently making out so long story extra long I, I always recommend that people have consistent schedules, not for the platform or an algorithm or anything but for themselves and the community that they're building around it.

Travis:

Yep. So if you want to dig more into these stats, we'll leave a link in the show notes for this episode. And if you check back in the beginning of December, you also be able to see the November stats. So you'll be able to compare how podcasting is growing or how apps are moving around month to month. And this will be something that we update on a monthly basis. So you can kind of keep track of how the podcast industry as a whole is shifting, as you know and be able to see kind of how you're doing in the grand scheme of things. So Apple just sent a lovely email to all the podcasters that have a podcast on Apple, Tom, I'm sure that you got this email as well. Oh yes, talking about their beautiful, wonderfully designed. I'm trying Think of all my Tim Cook words, a embed player, that magical magical Yes, it just works. It's like magic, courage, a new, a new embedded player that allows you to embed your Apple podcasts listed podcast on your website. So when you go through a podcast hosts like Buzzsprout, or to my knowledge, basically every other podcast host, they give you some code that you can drop on your website to allow people to listen to your podcast directly on the internet, as opposed to going into an app to your podcast. Well, now Apple has come out with their own embed player that you could use if you wanted to, on your own podcast website. So just looking at this NBA player, what are your just initial impressions of kind of the design and the layout? And how they how they put it together?

Alban:

Yeah, I'd start with saying like, I think this is truly an answer to Spotify as embed player, we'll talk about the big drawback that these have in a second, I'm sure. But Spotify was pushed off, maybe now. It's an answer to the Spotify embed player because Spotify started saying, Hey, why don't you put this nice looking player on your sites, it's got a nice Spotify logo. The one big downside to it was your podcasts had to be on Spotify to get it. And to when people click Subscribe, it says, Well, you know, the only place to subscribe to Spotify, right? And then it only open Spotify apps. So I mean, we just talked to these platforms, stats, and Spotify is only a quarter of all podcasts. Listen, so for three quarters of your listeners, that stunk, you know, now they have to go and try to figure out what to how to find your podcast. And now Apple said, Alright, well, if people are going to do this, if they're going to be putting Spotify players, they might as well be doing an apple player. And we're Apple, we can make stuff that looks beautiful. That works really well. We know more than anyone It feels like about podcasting. And so they made this player. Um, they too have added in the same limitation, which makes sense, obviously, for these companies, but they say, Oh, I mean, this is very Apple esque thing. It's like, Oh, we we weren't aware that other people had podcast apps, because they're like, the best, the best way to listen to a podcast is on Apple podcasts, on your Mac, you know, maybe on your iPhone, maybe on your iPad. And so it just pops up in the apps directly. So that's a big drawback for this. But yeah, sorry to hijack that question, Travis. I mean, what do you guys think of the design?

Unknown:

I mean, it's a Delta that kind of jump in there, apple, apples design, you know, I'm a fan. I appreciate it. But it does kind of it bumps up against this question that I've had, when it comes to embed players is I've been actually wanting an apple one in the past because that is where most people listen. And it's where I listen to my podcasts and and that kind of stuff. But I have always had the question of what about the people who don't listen on Apple? What when someone goes on Android device to your website, and others as a player, yeah, they can stream it from your site, but there's nothing they can click to open it on their device. And it I don't know if this is the question or not, but it kind of highlights the importance of importance to me, at least of having a player that not only lets you play it from your site, but also lets them then choose where they want to then go get more of your show or, you know, then click the little subscribe notification button. Because I might be going way off topic here. If so I apologize. But I've been using I speak passionately because I've been using the Buzzsprout player on my website for a while now, for all three podcasts. I have a podcast page, three podcasts, each one has a player. And up until recently, one of my podcasts was on anchor. And there was Buzzsprout. And it bothered me and I even told Kevin this when he and I first connected, I was like the Buzzsprout player looks so nice and is so functional. And the anchor player like does not look the same. It's not as great. It's it's very OneNote. It's you can listen to this one episode on this one platform right here at the end. Whereas the Buzzsprout one that I'm using, you can kind of scroll through, you can see a bunch of episodes, you can customize the color, so it matches like the layout of my site, exactly how I wanted it. And then there's a little button you can click. And not only do you have apple and Spotify but you can scroll through and like all the new mentioned overcast that's like right there fourth on the list. So if even though that's only 1.4 or 5% of people listening, they can still in two clicks get to their platform of choice and that to me like that openness, that versatility is hugely valuable. So the design is great. I don't think But the functionality is quite there. From what I at least one on my website.

Travis:

Yeah. And I see this is, you know, in addition to kind of answering the Spotify embed player when they released that this is almost like the next step from when Apple fixed, you know, the viewing a podcast in a web browser page, which used to be terrible, like it used to be completely non functional. And then they're like, well, what if we took like a super light version of the apple podcast app, and formatted it to look nice in a web browser, and you could click a button to open the actual podcast app. That's kind of what this is. But for your website, so the functionality is the same, you can see, you know, the recent episodes, you can click to start listening to one, you can't see the show notes. For these episodes, there's, you know, so you can only see like the four or five most recent, and then if you want to see all the episodes you have, you have to click a button that opens the podcast and Apple podcasts. So it's almost like a preview of your podcast in Apple podcasts with some limited playing functionality. So if you're thinking about should I use this embed player or my Buzzsprout embed player? Definitely you use your Buzzsprout embed player,

Alban:

as long as the guy who runs the Buzzsprout YouTube channel tells you.

Travis:

That's right until I changed my my tune.

Alban:

Jobs. Can I correct something? Yes. It does have show notes.

Travis:

Oh, it does have show notes.

Alban:

Yeah, you just have to click on an episode. And then it would start playing it on the side. And when you do that, it has the show notes right there.

Travis:

Yes, but they're not formatted. And they're not formatted. You get a preview of the show notes. You don't get all the show notes.

Alban:

You get a preview. Yeah, maybe like the first hundred words of the shownotes. It does drop the formatting, which is a bummer. I mean, I'll be honest, if Apple podcasts was still the 90%, I would be very, very tempted to use this. Let's say if we talked about all these people who have Apple podcasts. I think if you are one of the people who your podcast is about Apple, you probably should be using this because yeah, your listeners are almost all on Apple devices, or you're probably kind of proselytizing anyway. And you're trying to get people to move to Apple. So this is a good way to do it. Yeah, I mean, it looks, I think it looks great. I don't want to say too much negative, except that it is tough to recommend something when it's going to be a pretty rough experience for someone who's not on Apple. But it does have some good features like it's if people have dark mode selected on their, their device, it switches into dark mode for them. It's responsive so that it works on mobile devices. And on desktop, it looks really pretty and it will match, you know that Apple aesthetic. So it's got all that going for it. And obviously it's going to be updating, you know, this is similar to the Buzzsprout player, it updates when you add a new episode, it's going to be there right on the top. And so you don't have to think, oh, after I publish, I go back and re update my site, this will update for you automatically.

Travis:

Yeah. And then when you go to the page, where you can get the code for the apple podcasts and bed player, they also provide some other things that are actually really helpful. So one is you can generate a short link that links to your podcasts and Apple podcasts. So if you're sharing links, I mean, this is this is something that, you know, unless you physically take someone's phone, open Apple podcasts and subscribe to it. It's like how do you text someone to link to your podcast, especially if you don't have like a dedicated website, if you know they have an apple iphone, you can get this short link, then just save it in a note and you can send it to people to help promote your show. And then they also give you the badges like the thing that says listen on Apple podcasts, they give you the app icon, even a QR code. So you can have a QR code on a business card. And people can you know, scroll over it with their their phone and it'll open your show on Apple podcasts on their phone. So there's some cool, like additional assets and resources for helping people find your show on Apple podcasts. And so if you find yourself consistently promoting your show to iPhone, listen, users and Apple podcast listeners, then these could be some really great resources to include on your website, on your social media platforms and those kind of things. What's the final word on the apple podcast player? Well, I

Alban:

mean, I could answer this who's it for, in my mind, anyone who's using the Spotify player. And you do not have a podcast that has a contractual relationship with Spotify. I would switch over to this and the people that I know who are using Spotify player, mostly podcasters who I think they're on hosts that don't have a good player and so they just wants Something that looks really good. And I think this looks better than the Spotify one, it's got, you know, Spotify is half the size of Apple as far as listeners. So now you've made a better experience for a lot more listeners, though I still, in my mind, I would still recommend moving to a host, they had a player that was platform agnostic. Or, if you like the host you're on, you could use something like a third party player, like fuse box, fuse box.fm, I believe. And that has a lot more functionality. Just because you want to make it as easy as possible for people to click that subscribe button, and bam, be subscribed to your podcast, any bit of friction we put in there is going to reduce the number of times that people do click through to your podcast.

Travis:

So in the last episode of Buzzcast, we did a lot of listener questions. And there was one that we wanted to answer. But Alvin had a good idea, which was instead of us speculating on what the answer is, let's go right to the source. So Alvin, why don't you talk about the conversation that you had with the the creator of listen notes. Alright, so

Alban:

we got a question from Jordan, listen, notes just released Listen, score and global rank. And she was a little confused on how that all is determined, and just wanted to talk to it. So I actually, for a long time, have useless and notes. And I feel like I've connected to women a few times. And so we got him on the line. And I just want to ask you some questions. A little bit about what listen notes is and how you're doing all this. So could you just tell me, what is listen notes.

Wenbin:

Hi, everyone. Hi, Jordan. These are nauseas podcast, search engine and database. You can think about your IMDb for podcast. So IMDb is a database for movies, listeners is a database for podcasts. We have a website designer Comm. You can go to website and then search podcast, search podcast episodes, like how you use Google. We also provide an API for developers. So developers want to build a podcast app or website, and they can use our API to access to the polocrosse database.

Alban:

That's awesome. I use listen notes, because one of the really nice features you have is you do a much better job at search than almost anybody else. And so if I want to learn about a particular thing, especially when I want to learn about a author in a book that she or he is written, I can search their name. And it's not like they the name doesn't have to be in the title, it could just be in the transcript and other places. So you're able to pull back much better episode recommendations than I think anybody else on the web.

Unknown:

Thank you easily descent knows it was a side project of mine, and I wanted to search episodes. So you was early 2017. Back then I couldn't find a good tool to search episodes. So most podcasts require you to subscribe to podcasts first, and then find episodes to listen. But I listen to tons of podcasts. I don't want to subscribe to one another podcast. So yeah, I wanted this to so I believe as a side project. And now I've been working on it full time for three years.

Alban:

That's awesome. I really love it. Because you have a really small team, it's you. And I know you've you've kind of worked with some other people. But it's super awesome to see people who are kind of forging their own path in the podcasting industry, and providing something totally different. I feel like everybody else is too afraid because they think maybe Google will come do it someday maybe somebody else will try to steal my thunder, and you just cruising on and making it better and better every year. One of the things you just launched. So let's talk about George question. The listen score and global rank. What are these?

Unknown:

Yeah, so this score is basically a simple numeric value to estimate the popularity of podcasts. You can think of it like Nielsen ratings. So they Nielsen ratings about TV and then we barely call it one a simple way to get a rough sense how popular podcast is. And the and the radio is, is ranging from zero to 100. The higher the more popular. Yeah, and the global rank is basically to rank based on this end score.

Alban:

So what I'm what I look at right now for Buzzcast, which will put this interview on Buzzcast Buzzcast listener score is 41. And that's out of zero to 100. Yes, yes. And what's going into that score.

Unknown:

So basically, we develop a mathematical model to calculate the score, based on first party data and third party data by first party data ID and like website activities, you can imagine people come to our site to search, to listen to podcasts, play episodes, browse pages, so we can get pageviews. And then people at podcast to playlist, create clips, things like that. And by third party data, basically open web data, like media benches. If polycast is mentioned, by New York Times, Washington Post, a bunch of online media, this podcast is probably very popular, right? Also a podcast could be been sent on social media, right? So these days, our open web data, anyone can look at the data, Corolla data, and then do some transformation and case by case basis to count how many times this product has been sent. Also, there are websites that you can find reviews, ratings, items, and other size. So this kind of data we also use. Yeah, there are a bunch of other signals, we couldn't reveal too much. Because we don't want people to gain the system. Also, we we would tend to the air, we then we would use different data, different signals, or we would remove certain signals our calculation in the future. Right. So this is called actually it is for quite a while we've been using this score internally, for our search ranking, is one of the ranking signal we use is kind of like PageRank, or domain authority in SEO. Right? How do they calculate this kind of number? Well, also, they also take many signals on the open web.

Alban:

So what we're doing is you're kind of combining things you can see on other sites you're combining. How often things happen on your site. people search for that podcast, though. Yeah, podcast is a good fit. For some of the search results. Maybe people are clicking or adding it to playlists, things like that. Yeah. Um, so what is a good score? I mean, one of our podcasts is Buzzcast has a listen score of 41. The other one has a listen score of 50. How good is that?

Unknown:

That's pretty good. Because most more most podcasts, current score beyond 20. Okay, something either. Yeah, so absolute value, doesn't matter. The match is a relative score, you need to compare with other score other podcasts in your same domain. Now, you are a post pawlikowski company. Okay. You may you may look at other podcasting companies, podcast, right. Compare we said, Yeah,

Alban:

okay. And then global rank, I think they're very related, right? global rank is just giving you a percentile for your listen score. So it's, could you explain a little bit more about that? They'll just tell you like, compared to 100, podcasters, you're probably in the top 50 percentile or whatever percentile?

Unknown:

Yeah, we simply link by distance goal. And if we just talk to one, European 1%, then you do point 1% out of 1.7 million podcast, globally. Awesome.

Alban:

So yeah, so how to start a podcast is a top 1% right now and then, like Buzzcast, 2%, yet?

Unknown:

We only we only sold a top 10%. Okay, for top, top, top 10% and podcasts for now. was most podcasts. Well, if you if we, you know, in top 10% maybe you don't want to know your ranking.

Alban:

Yeah. And if it's pretty low, then probably there's a Oh, so if I look at like the daily it actually goes beyond that. It says top point. Oh, 1%.

Wenbin:

Yeah, yeah. It's a pretty cool euro is one of the most

Alban:

well, that's super interesting. What should people do if they want to improve their listening score? Is there any benefit to improving their listen score beyond looking good on listen notes,

Unknown:

okay. My eyesight would disappoint you don't don't try to improve Throw your distance goal is focus on creating good content. Okay, grow your audience. Because we don't we don't want people to gain the system. This score is also used in our ranking editor, right? If you artificially increase the score, maybe you're doing a pretty high, you know, ethos, so

Alban:

please don't do it. Okay, so you heard it here. First, do not try to improve your listening score beyond doing anything, except just grow your audience by putting out great content. Yeah, um, well, if people want to learn more about listen notes, and especially these two new things that you've launched, where should they go? And is there anything you'd recommend them to read?

Unknown:

Yeah, so we have a blog. So these are notes comm slash blog. So you can you can read some articles, behind the scenes, how we operate this and knows, and some of my very opinionated point of views? Well,

Alban:

I've seen I've always followed you on Twitter. So I've seen a little bit of it, and I love it. Okay, we need more people with opinions that are informed by actually working in digs. I think it's great. Well, thank you so much for joining me. And hopefully, we get you back on the podcast sometime soon.

Wenbin:

So thank you.

Travis:

Well, Tom, thank you so much for hopping on squad cast with us today and contributing to the show. I know a lot of people appreciated your perspective. Where can people find you online? where's the best place to connect with you? Yeah,

Unknown:

thanks again, so much for having me. The best place to find me is youtube.com slash Tom buck. Or you could just visit my website, which is Hi, my name is tom.com. And that URL makes me laugh every time.

Travis:

That's phenomenal. That's like, what was it? When everybody signed up for MySpace and you get your first friend?

Unknown:

Do you know how often from 2006 to 2008? Every time I introduced myself to someone to be Hi, I'm Tom, they would say my space Tom. flashbacks every time I hear that. Like, I'm

Travis:

surprised that he hasn't reached out and asked to buy the domain from you.

Tom:

True. I mean, he's got the money for it.

Travis:

So yeah, so Hi, my name is Tom calm and our call to action at the end of the episode. Rather than going and checking out our YouTube channel, click the link to go and check out Tom's YouTube channel. He just did a great review on the new shore MV seven, which he was rocking today in this episode, with a slight modification, which I imagine you may or may not see in a future episode on his channel.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's a the plosives This is a great sounding microphone, but the plosives are a huge problem. And I put the windscreen from the SM seven B on it, which actually almost like it works. I mean, it fixes the post problem. It just looks a little janky but it's not too bad. But it makes the mic so much more usable. So yeah, go check that out. And I'm sure that will pop up in future videos as well. Awesome. Well,

Travis:

thanks again for your time. That's it for us for today. And as always keep podcasting

Where's Kevin?
Introducing Tom Buck
Buzzsprout Platform Stats for October 2020
Apple Podcasts Embed Player
Listen Notes Founder Interview

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