In this episode, Krystal Proffitt from The Proffitt Podcast joins us to discuss the best ways to use Dynamic Content, shifts we noticed in Buzzsprout's December stats, and whether or not Clubhouse is the next big social media platform.
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In this episode, Krystal Proffitt from The Proffitt Podcast joins us to discuss the best ways to use Dynamic Content, shifts we noticed in Buzzsprout's December stats, and whether or not Clubhouse is the next big social media platform.
Links from today's episode
Review Buzzcast in Podchaser to let us know what you think of the show.
Contact Buzzcast
Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
Are these called groups? And are they called clubs in clubhouse? I thought they were called clubs.
Krystal:Maybe that's right. I don't know. Maybe they are called clubs. And I'm just thinking groups.
Kevin:Okay, when I filled out the form for a Buzzsprout Club is what I filled out the form to get.
Krystal:Yeah, it's a club. Yeah. Okay, I see one right here.
Kevin:So let's so Alban, what you joined, was probably the black pod collective club.
Alban:Yeah. But it's called the power of podcasting. She said, me, but she sent me Was it she started a group.
Travis:I think we're all just using our former social media terminology and applying it to Yeah, club. However, nobody
Kevin:knew when Twitter first came out, nobody knew what to call them. We used to call them like, you know, Twitter's or my message on Twitter, and then tweet finally caught on clubhouse trying to get club to catch on.
Krystal:Yeah, that makes that make sense, though.
Travis:They're trying to make fetch happen? We'll see. We'll see. So Krystal, have you had an opportunity to check out dynamic content yet?
Krystal:Yes, I have. And I have so many thoughts on how independent content creators can use this for just, I mean, I'm just going to be really honest, I have a million ideas. So you tell me what you like direction you want to take it in. And we can go from there.
Travis:That's fantastic. Awesome. For those of you who did not catch the last episode of Buzzcast, where we talked about dynamic content, which is the newest feature that we've rolled out to all of our Buzzsprout podcasters. Kevin, do you want to just give a brief synopsis of what dynamic content is?
Kevin:Sure, I'll be as concise as possible, you can always listen to the last episode. But it is a new feature within Buzzsprout, where you can upload short audio clips, five minutes or less. And you can assign them to play before your main content or after we call those pre rolls and post rolls. And then you can apply them, you can set it up. So it applies to all future episodes as you continue to upload. And there's also a very cool button, you can click to apply it to your entire back catalogue, whether you have one episode in the past, or 1000 episodes in the past doesn't matter. And, yeah, that's dynamic content. In a nutshell,
Travis:yeah. And the great thing about it too, is, you know, the tech team worked really hard to make sure that it would be a feature, we could roll out to everyone. Because typically, being able to dynamically stitch audio files and add things and remove things without affecting the original audio quality of the episode is like a feature you have to pay for. And so they worked really hard to make sure that this is something we could offer, across all of our plans at no additional charge. So super, super grateful for that. But then also, what's really cool is we made sure that whenever you add pre rolls and post rolls, it doesn't break anything that you've already done. So if you add chapter markers is going to automatically shift the chapter markers based on how long the pre roll is, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it really is great. All the feedback we received from you guys so far has been super positive. And we're grateful that you guys have been digging into it and loving it. But we wanted to talk about different use cases, different ways that you could use dynamic content to just have more control over how your listeners are engaging with your particular podcast episode. So Krystal, have you used dynamic content so far for your own shows?
Krystal:Yeah, so the first thing that I did, which I work with online business owners and entrepreneurs, and they're always asking me, how can I get something that's happening right now in front of my audience. And so I played around with an affiliate promotion, and I'm actually an affiliate of Buzzsprout. And I thought, you know, this is a great opportunity, because I don't always mention an affiliate in every single episode. So it was kind of a fun way for me to just play with it, see what happens kind of measure results. Because if anyone knows that it that is an affiliate for Buzzsprout. You get pinged when you make an affiliate connection, so I could definitely measure it. And so what I did is I just recorded a super quick what I like to call a self sponsored ad, and I said, Hey, guys, you know, have you tried out my favorite platform Buzzsprout. And then I was really strategic and mentioning a link, I think that that's really important when you're using dynamic content is to say your link out loud, because it may not be in my show notes for episode one, right? Because I applied these to every single episode. And I have over 220 at this point. So I wanted them all to be in there. And I actually saw several affiliates, like sales come through. So that was really cool. So I'm like, well, it's it's working. I mean, other than that, I just was really excited about this. Because for people that use their podcast as part of their business, it's a way for you to promote something that's time sensitive. If you have a, you know, a promotion going on in February, but you want to start talking about it in January, then it gives you the opportunity to do that and then take it down because maybe you don't want that on all of your episodes after you've launched something. And the link that you shared was that like a domain that's really easy to read. Then Then redirects to your affiliate link, like,
Travis:how did you make sure that it was memorable? Because often the time that the hard part when you use affiliate links, whether you use Bitly or not, is like buzzsprout.com, slash m 17. qR? It can be difficult to remember. So So how did you set that up? So it'd be easy for people to remember to take action.
Krystal:Yeah, so I kind of established this, I have a WordPress website, that's my main website. And I use the pretty links plugin, which allows you to redirect a site from your domain to anywhere that you want. And I started doing this about a year and a half ago, because I'll just be really honest, it's not only easy for my audience, it's easy for me to remember. So for all of my affiliates, and I'm a part of, it'll have my main domain, it's Krystal profit.com. And then it'll have whatever the promotion is afterwards. So I kind of just established that as a role. I think Bitly is another great platform to use. If you don't have your own website, which I know some people just use their Buzzsprout website. And you could use Bitly. I'm sure there's a ton of other short link. I don't know if you'd call them applications or programs out there that allow you to shorten them. But I think it's really important for you as the host to be able to save them, like Travis said, not kind of stumble over the letters was that a number was that a space was that a dash? Because it just makes it easier for your audience to actually follow up and go do whatever your call to action was for them.
Alban:One of the other ways that I really like is the ability to let people know about specific events. So whenever we go to something like podcast movement, or pod Fest, we're going to a conference, we always want to send out an email to let everybody know, hey, if you're at this conference, come by and see us. But the what's always been difficult is we never could really do that with a podcast, we could bake it into an episode. So the most recent one, let people know about it. But if anybody listen to old episodes, they would never have any idea about the episode. And then you've kind of got this weird artifact for years. It's like people go back and listen, it's like, Hey, we're going to podcast move in 2014, come on down. So like, have you have you had chances to experiment with that at all?
Krystal:No. But I as far as what I like to look at it is, you know, you could use it for special announcements and calls to action. But another thing that brings back to your point of something that's happening, like in real time, whenever I'm working with podcasters, I'll tell them, like, try to focus just on your show for a while. Because they'll say, well, should I have an Instagram and a Facebook group? And should I do all these other things for my podcast, and I say, just focus on your podcast, getting your podcast up and running, making sure it's like you're talking to the right people. And you have all the things set up to make your podcast successful to where you don't burn out. That is a huge thing for me is not just getting it launched. But make sure you're excited to come back every single week. So I want them focusing on just their podcasts for the first let's say three months of their show. Well, if three months in, someone's like, Okay, I think I'm ready to start a Facebook group for my show to interact with my people. Well, you could insert a dynamic content ad that says, Hey, guys, we just launched our brand new Facebook group, here's the URL or go just find us on Facebook, here's the name of it, go check it out, we would love to have you join our community. And it would not only go into the current episode, but it would go back to all the other episodes. So if they're getting new listeners, everyone's hearing the same message. And hopefully you can grow other platforms. Another way I like to use it is I love you know, you talked about building your email list or having an email list to send people to, you can mention your free resources, if you have free trainings, if you have videos on YouTube, whatever it would be, but I think specific calls to action are really important. Yeah,
Alban:you're making some good points. I actually hadn't thought about that. From like a conversion rate optimization, like you're trying to AV test things. One of the difficult things to do would be, let's say the old way, I say, oh, follow me on Instagram, I want to only have one call per action. So I'm saying follow me on Instagram. But then a year later, when my podcast is twice the size, then I'm saying follow me on Twitter and I see better results. I could incorrectly interpret that as Oh, people would rather connect on Twitter than Instagram. Instead, now I could say I'm not putting this call to action into the main body of the episode. I'm putting it into the dynamic content. So that at any point I could be running a test. I say, well, we'll talk about this later today. But I'm like, I talked about Twitter for a week. I saw the results, but then I put on you know, hey, follow me on or join me on clubhouse. And I could just experiment with that for a week. I may find out that it doesn't Work it all for my audience. And then you can remove it and move on to a different call to action. I know one thing I see people get caught up in a lot you see this on websites, but also in podcasts is they ask you to do like seven things. And sub number the you actually get exactly zero people to do anything. You know, you're like, hey, follow me on all these channels do all this stuff. And it doesn't matter how much you love somebody, you're not following them on separate different channels. Right? It's just like having one call to action is much more powerful than having three or four.
Krystal:Right? And I think too, like, I'm a huge, just a big fan of having a content calendar. And even if it's as simple as a Google Sheet, it's what I use, I just use a Google Sheet, I have a dump all of my ideas in there, I have my episode numbers. You know, if I have main talking points or something that I want to mention that I put it all in there. Well, now I actually just did this yesterday, I added a column for dynamic content. And then I can break things out over a month period of time, because in my opinion, I don't think it's as effective if you go in and you switch this up. And, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that that was your intention in creating this and having like, Oh, you got to switch your dynamic content every day, or it's not going to be effective. Because you know, and Alvin and I, we've had conversations about marketing before, it's like, you got to tell people over and over and over again, it's super important, like you said, to just go with one call to action, and just be strategic with what you're going to promote. So if you're trying to grow your podcast audience, or grow your YouTube, your Instagram, focus on that one thing, maybe for a month, right, if you publish every week, maybe for four episodes straight, you only have this one call to action for people to join you on another platform. And then the next month, you can see what your results were, and kind of check it out and see if you wanted to change things up from there.
Kevin:Yeah, you're absolutely right. We, when we designed it, we built it in such a way that you're right, you could change it out every day or every couple of days if you want. But just because you can doesn't mean that you should. And I think you make a really great point about Make sure when you're when you're using dynamic content, you're strategically thinking about how to best use it, and then give it enough time to measure the results before you make changes. We get tempted with stuff like this all the time, especially when we're talking about marketing stuff, is I want to try this. And then the next day, I have a different idea. We might be better it might not be but unless we give, you know, experiment, a enough time to gather enough gather enough data, then we're just making changes, and we're not really learning, right? We're just testing our gut. And not that you shouldn't trust your gut. But if you have the opportunity to gather data before moving on to the next experiment, that's a much smarter way to progress and hopefully grow your show.
Travis:So what do you guys think about content that is best suited as a pre roll versus content that's best suited as a post roll. Because I know, especially in the dynamic ad, world, post rolls have started to go away, at least as they're measuring them. And as they're seeing how effective they are. They're seeing that pre rolls and mid rolls are where it's at. If you're trying to get a message to somebody that to take action specifically on a sponsorship, that's where you should do it. And that post rolls really aren't as valuable anymore. But I do think post rolls can be extremely valuable for, again, letting people know about timely information. Or if you're testing different calls to action about where you want people to leave reviews for your podcast or sign up for your email newsletter, those kind of things. So I'm just curious on your thoughts on what kind of content is best for a pre roll and what kind of content is best for a post roll?
Alban:Well, part of this is going to be dependent on the actual body of the podcast, what's actually in the middle. If you end the podcast with some music that says This podcast is over, and then you run for ads for Casper mattresses, people aren't going to listen to ad after ad when they know the episode is over. So I would probably stop putting like, you know, this is done music there. And then it needs to be probably the postal needs to still have more value in it than just an advertisement. I mean, I know that every once in a while I do end up listening to that ad. And I'm kind of bummed. I'm like, Oh, I listened to that when I could have just gone on to my next podcast,
Travis:or it's the same ad that they had at the beginning. Like the it's not even anything new. Right?
Alban:Yeah. And so I would I think that's a much better place. I mean, I think of like Tim Ferriss where he his post role is always his newsletter. He's like, Oh, I do this Friday newsletter and if you'd like to, you can subscribe to it. And like I don't know how effective that is for him. But the benefit is, he's telling you about something where you can get more information from him and if you've already made it to the various into the episode, you're probably kind of a superfan, and you're more likely to want that newsletter anyway. And so it makes more sense. If you're really keen on getting advertisements, affiliate sales, things like that. I feel like that's got to be pre roll, you know, the the post roll, maybe it's more of an announcement section for the podcast.
Krystal:Yeah. And I think that for if anybody's listening that is brand new to podcasting, and you're like, you know, I've been meaning to say, subscribe to the show and leave a review. And you have yet to do that on your podcast. Well, if you wanted to, you could not worry about going back and redoing I hear this all the time people ask me, do you go back and redo all your old episodes? I'm like, No, no, no, no, I do not there. I'm sure there's tons of people that do that. But in producing so many episodes, I just don't have the capacity to make that happen. But I do like the idea of saying, Hey, if you're enjoying this content that you're listening to make sure that you subscribe to the show, and leave us a review, because that's how we get this content in front of more people. And just something really simple at the end, just to play with a dynamic content tool. Because I do think that it's something that you may get in there. And you're like, I don't know how to use this. I don't know how this is gonna work for my show. But at least starting there is a great place to experiment with it.
Travis:Now, one thing that I think we can we can all agree is something that we don't think is a good use of dynamic content. And I've seen this question asked a few times in our Facebook group, should I use the pre roll dynamic content for my intro for my podcast, intro for music and for telling people about the podcast? And I think our answer would be, that's probably not the best use of dynamic content, because that's something that you'll want to stay in your episode, no matter what you're talking about, or what you're promoting. So we would, we would put the intro in any Intro music that you have in the main body piece of your episode, and leave the dynamic pre roll and post roll for things that you'll want to put up and take down as appropriate. And so you don't want to get in a situation where you've been using the pre roll to do your intro music. And now you want to do an announcement. And you have to remember, okay, which episodes that I use the pre roll to do my intro music, which episodes? Did I just bake it into the main episode? Do I need to put the intro in the pre roll it's it just becomes a mess to try and manage. And so if you're thinking about doing that, keep putting the intro music keep putting your intro in the main episode that you upload, and then use the pre roll for something that you would be able to put up and take down without affecting your main content.
Alban:This kind of goes back to the question that Krystal got about do you go back and change episodes later on? If you change if you rebrand the podcast, you add in more different music, or you go for a full name change like we did with Podcasting Q&A. When we changed it from five minute Mondays, we left all the five minute Monday's episodes as they were and you shouldn't feel like embarrassed the rebrand. That's kind of a cool thing. It shows the evolution of the podcast and you shouldn't be embarrassed of that.
Krystal:And the last thing I wanted to add is I was playing around with it yesterday, and I saw that you can because somebody had asked me Well, can you do both simultaneously at a pre roll and post roll? And I was like, I don't know, I haven't tried this yet. So I'm gonna go with it. And I saw that you can. And I just I thought that that was really cool. So for anyone that's like, what can you do both at the same time? Like does it work? And how does all that? But my question is, and I don't know if y'all have addressed this. But does anything that you add on there count against someone's monthly allowance, if they're adding new content on the front end and the back end?
Kevin:Yeah, we have. We talked about it a lot like what would the expectations be what makes sense? what's fair. So if if you add a pre roll and post roll, they both have size limitations of five minutes each. So you could add up to 10 minutes of content to any of your episodes. If those episodes that you're adding it to are in your current cycle, they do subtract from your monthly allowance. However, you can also apply them to your entire back catalogue. And that is, there's I mean, we don't track that, at that point, when something moves from your current episode cycle to your history. It's, you know, free for all. So you could add up if you have episodes that are 30 minutes or whatever, now they're gonna be 40 when you add up to 10 minutes of dynamic content to them. And that is, you know, no penalty, no consequence, no track on any of that stuff.
Travis:So yeah, we're really excited about dynamic content. And we've got some other things coming down the pipeline to make it even better. If you have some feedback that you want to leave for us some ideas that you have for how you want to use dynamic content. Or if you want to send us your ideas, just go to our Facebook group, the Buzzsprout Facebook group, we have a post pinned to the top where you can leave your feedback and we'll be there to interact and engage with you. And then also two resources to help you get started. We just posted a poll blog post, which goes through step by step how to use dynamic content. And we just created an episode of Podcasting Q&A, which is available on YouTube or in the podcast feed. And I'll leave links to all those in the show notes for this episode. So if you have more questions about how to actually execute dynamic content for your podcast, make sure you check the show notes for those links. So this is the first episode we have recorded since the December Buzzsprout. Global stats have come out if you ever wanted to see how podcasts and episodes are performing and different apps and countries and those kind of things across all the Buzzsprout podcasts, just go to buzzsprout.com slash global underscore stats, I will also put a link in the show notes if you want to check that out. So we wanted to talk briefly about the December stats. So all of our play data, location data, you know, what the top 50% podcast median download number is, all that stuff for December has been updated. So we're just gonna want to talk through some trends that we're seeing some things that we're seeing, specifically going from October and then moving into November and then December. So right off the bat, was there anything that you guys noticed in the December stats? That was a, you know, caught your attention?
Alban:Yeah, I mean, Apple podcasts and Spotify. I feel like that's been the, you know, the big story for quite a while, you know, how long is it going to take Spotify to have as much of a market share as apple? And they've caught up quite a bit. I mean, our numbers now have them it. They're only behind by 3.9%. So Spotify is 26.4. Apple is 30.3. And that's a pretty big jump. Let me go check out what November was. And mean November, they're almost behind by seven 6.8. And so that's a really big improvement for Spotify. And I'd imagine, you know, I think December was that December, not the first month, where Joe Rogan's completely on Spotify only?
Travis:Yes, that's correct.
Alban:I mean, my, my belief is that those aren't like, all, Spotify wasn't doing that just to get Joe Rogan. So they could listen get people to make to listen to Joe Rogan on Spotify. It was also once you move to Spotify, because you have to be able to get this one podcast, then you go, Well, why am I going to have, you know, multiple apps, one where I listen to most podcasts, and the other one where I listen to, you know, Joe Rogan, or any of the other exclusives they have. And so I think that Buzzsprout has seen that shift. In our own podcasts. Obviously, we don't host Joe. And I think these are a lot of people who were listening to Buzzsprout hosted podcasts. And then when they made that shift, they went now I'm going to go and subscribe to all of these podcasts. I'd actually be very interested if anybody listening to this show, kind of made that shift. You know, we'd love to hear that in the the ways you want to contact us that if you were kind of enticed to switch podcasting apps for an exclusive podcast, that'd be interesting to hear. But that that's the thing that jumped out to me,
Krystal:the thing that I noticed was, was the the device types. And the reason why I noticed this is because I pay so much attention to my own stats. And I know that my listeners are around 70% and mobile. But in looking at this, I'm like it is almost 90% mobile. And I mean, it's no surprise. I mean, as a listener of podcasts, I'm listening on my phone most of the time, but it just surprised me that it was so high, I would think over I mean, because what we're looking at 80,000 plus podcasts here, but that was just really surprising to me. Because I didn't know how my show was comparing to other podcasts on the Buzzsprout platform so that that number just really stood out to me as being so high. But at the same time, I don't I don't know why it surprised me because it's what I do as a podcast listener. But how how do y'all feel that the devices have changed over the last I don't know, I guess two or three years with podcasts.
Alban:The biggest change that I've seen is that we hear a lot less conference talks about smart speakers. You know, two, three years ago. Everyone wanted to get into Alexa devices and they wanted to tell us how actually most audio listening was going to happen on smart devices. And while we've definitely seen an increase and we saw it when amazon music launched, smart speakers isn't the entire category is still only point 5% And that's just seems, I mean, that's about the same as like smart TVs. And so they're really not. People aren't really listening on them as much as we think it's really nice to have your podcast everywhere that is available. And I know there's certain categories that get a lot more smart speaker listening than other categories. I don't know, that's just one that's always surprised me since we launched this page, we kind of had a definitive answer, that I'm constantly surprised how that's not in the conversation.
Kevin:Yeah, there are there are some devices that are just incompatible with the strengths of a medium, right. And I feel like smart speakers is one of those things that falls into that category. the strengths of podcasting is that it's like asynchronous on demand audio, that can be with you whenever you have the opportunity to engage in audio, but you might be doing something else. So I listen to podcasts. When I'm in my car, I listen to them when I'm exercising, when I'm on a walk when I'm doing these things. I don't have my smart speaker with me when I'm on a jog. Like it's incompatible with the main benefit that I love about podcasting, you don't
Travis:take your Amazon Echo with you and you go for a jog. Yeah, and
Kevin:the battery pack on my back. And
Travis:I just thought that was normal. I didn't know he doesn't do that. Right.
Kevin:So it's, it's not super surprising to me. What is this? I think what's more surprising is that a lot of us and I'm not saying I wasn't included in this group, but a new device comes out and it can play podcasts. And we're like, oh, this is gonna be a huge thing for podcasts. But, you know, now we're like looking at like, is this does this really make sense? It is logical that it's not as popular as we thought it would be. So I don't remain super bullish on it. I know that there are people who, who still are. And there, there are other problems that are being addressed like, right, it's not super easy to get a podcast to play. Because what's the What do they call it the invocation word or something to be able to launch a podcast and your podcast player and have it remember where you were in that episode. So it picks up from that spot, that stuff is all going to get better. But no matter how good that stuff gets, it's not going to change the fact like Travis said that I can't run with my Amazon Alexa.
Alban:Right? Though at the same time, you while we're kind of saying Oh, people aren't listening to it on their smart speakers, people are definitely listening more on amazon music, we saw a 32% increase in the number of plays to amazon music. So it's not that people aren't looking for new experiences. It's just that the specific devices and the smart speakers are inclusive of all the smart speakers, including the one that I have in my office that if I say its name, it'll start talking to me there. So I just think that that's not as important as we'd kind of anticipated maybe a couple years ago. But it does still reiterate, if your podcast isn't in something like amazon music 32% increase last month is pretty strong. So you want to make sure you're there to you know, if that kind of becomes this wave of new ways for people to listen, that you want to be a part of
Travis:it. Yeah, and then something else that, you know, we're seeing. And I'm not saying this is a you know, cause and effect or correlation or causation. But we are seeing a further globalization of podcasts listening, that especially very early on, it was a very us centric thing. That if you own an Apple device, and you're an English speaker, then you're more likely to listen to podcasts and otherwise, but now we're seeing some really large emerging markets like India, which you know, that's going to shift just based on cultural preferences and how integrated mobile devices are into different cultures. And so so that'll be something to continue to watch out for, as it becomes more worldwide, and starts to get integrated into non English first speaking countries. That's something else to keep a lookout for, as well. Yeah.
Kevin:And I can give you guys a quick update on that there are two directories that we are in the fourth quarter of adding to Buzzsprout. One is called Ghana, and one is called gsf. Seven, seven. I'm not sure how they pronounce it. Great directories that specifically to what Travis was saying, upon like opening yourself up to more international audience. I think both of those companies are based out of India. The reason they're not in today, is they whenever we add a directory, there's, there's usually an agreement between the podcast host and the directory. And then sometimes there's also a podcaster agreement. So like if you go to submit to Amazon, for example, you'll see there's an agreement that you're making with Amazon to submit your show to them. There are certain conditions in the agreements between both of those companies that we weren't comfortable making on the hosting side that we wanted to push to the podcaster side. So we don't force anybody into any directory, but we also are very cautious about what we agreed to on behalf Half of our customers. And so we said like, I don't know that either one of those agreements say this specifically, but like their ability to re host or you know how much rights, you're giving them over the content that you're submitting to the directory, we are very cautious and conservative when it comes to making agreements on behalf of our podcasters. So we want that stuff moved into the podcaster agreement, not in the hosting agreement. So that's what we're working out with them. And that's why we don't have those two directories yet. I'm not sure. I'm not saying anything about other podcast hosts that have added them, like I don't know how they altered their agreements. But I wouldn't want our customers to know our position and our stance on that, that we don't want to make agreements in terms of ownership or licensing or the rights that you're giving up without you being aware, and you being able to make that decision instead of us making it on your behalf.
Travis:Right on. And then everyone always wants to know, am I in the top 50% of podcasts. So here's the latest. So here's the latest stats. So if you go to the global stats page for December and scroll all the way down to the bottom left corner, if you're viewing this on a laptop, one of the 10% of people listening to this podcast may be on their laptop, the top 50% meaning you are right at the middle of podcasts across Buzzsprout means that your new episodes will get 26 downloads within the first seven days. And so you might be like, Wow, that sounds very similar to November, because in fact, November, the number was 27. And so these numbers don't shift very often. Because there are so many podcasts around Buzzsprout. You know, the the the margin that shifts even if a really big podcast launches, or takes off or something like that, for the most part, the numbers are pretty stagnant. But that's the new number for December. So here podcast is getting at least 26 downloads within the first week of pushing out a new episode, then you are officially in the top half of all podcasts on Buzzsprout.
Krystal:And what I love so much about just seeing this information is because I feel like you know, asking a podcaster how many downloads they get is kind of like asking somebody, well, how much money do you make? How much did your house costs? You know, it's like one of those things that people are like, well, they either give you like a roundabout thing, like they don't really want to tell you how many they're getting from. They're either embarrassed or they're like I don't I don't know, is that good? Like, it's kind of like it's very of a vulnerable situation. And it's funny, because you wouldn't think that unless you're surrounded by podcasters. And you like live and breathe this every single day. But I love this so much, because it's very encouraging to people, they're just getting started. And they say I only got 50 downloads on my first episode. And I'm like, That's incredible. Like, that's amazing. And then they think like, I have to like really play with who I'm speaking to because they think that I'm being sarcastic. And I'm like, No, you don't like I understand this, like you're actually in the top 50%. And that is incredible. You need to celebrate that. And I'm all about celebrating any listeners whatsoever. Like I think that that is what's most important that you have an audience and I know that you've talked about this so many times, but just imagine if you had 50 people sitting in your house listening to you are trying to get around 50 people would not go anywhere. Especially. That is no that is not allowed.
Kevin:I've got a treadmill that's connected to the internet. And as you're running, it's you do these certain workouts. And as you're as you're doing them, it shows you everyone else who's ever done this workout. And my goal every time I do one of these runs is to finish in the top 50%. And it is hard. It is hard. And so I always think about that when I look at podcast numbers about like, how much work it is to be of all the people who've ever done this to be in the top half. That's not an easy thing. And yet, in podcasting, sometimes we look at our numbers and we say Oh, in the first seven days, I only got you know, 28 downloads, that doesn't feel great. It is great. Like it's really hard to be better than half the people who have ever done something like this in the world. And so I love that point Krystal, it should be celebrated. It's not about the number. It's about your passion. And are you having fun, and you're achieving your goals. And this stuff isn't easy. So don't be too hard on yourself.
Krystal:And I think it also goes back to like comparison because you could ask someone who's been doing this for two or three years. And maybe they don't have a huge audience a huge following, but they have a huge passion. But then someone who was an influencer on Instagram, and they started their podcast, and they're like, I only got 5000 downloads in my first month. And I'm like, okay, I just, we just need you to go sit down, you know, because it's because it's so different for everybody. And so what people ask me all the time, like how many downloads is good how How many downloads is this? And I'm like, I kind of tiptoe around that question, just like we said, that's like, How much money do you make? And I love that this resource is available to tell them mums like, Well, here's how your podcast is compared to 80,000 podcasts, this is a great comparison, instead of just asking the only other podcaster that you know, and maybe they're in a totally different market with a different audience, and they've been doing it longer. So I love that y'all have this resource available for people.
Alban:Maybe the last section, bit for this section that I'd like to point out is, it's the holidays. So we saw the average time between publishing episodes slipped a little bit, the people who were doing it once a week, a couple of them move to every two weeks. And I think that's probably just, you know, the the people that had to skip over Christmas break, probably bumped that by a percent. But we consistently see people who publish every week or every other week, do really, you know, do very well, when they're publishing on a consistent schedule, you're able to get your podcast listeners into a bit of a rhythm into a habit. And it's very easy for you to know, Thursday mornings is when I record Thursday afternoon is when I do my edit, and then it's published on Friday, whatever your particular setup is, it's nice to have that kind of weekly cadence. But it's also healthy around the holidays to give yourself a little bit of a break.
Travis:Yeah, we did see that. If you go up to the top, you'll get new episodes, new episodes published by Buzzsprout podcasts for November, it was a little over 144,000. And then for December, it was almost 137,000. So but a 7000 episode drop with more podcasts. So I think that that is definitely spot on.
Krystal:So here's here's my experience with club house. Okay, I'm not gonna sit here and say I am an expert in the app, because I have only been on it. Let me see, I guess it's been three weeks. And for the first two, I didn't do anything with it. So it is only for iPhone users. As of now, of course, there's all the rumors and the talks of like, Oh, well, it's gonna be rolled out to everybody soon. But I didn't even know what it was, I got an invite from someone who said, Hey, this is audio, you should absolutely be on this platform. But I got on there. And I'm like, What do you do? You know, it's so overwhelming. I'm like, okay, I click this button. And then all of a sudden, I'm in a room and people are talking. And the thing that I have used to describe it best is thinking back to like AOL chat rooms, you know, when you'd be like, oh, ASL for your age, sex and location. Oh, my God, it just like takes me back to, you know, you're just all of a sudden you click to be in a room and you're in there. And there's just so much chatter, literally chatter going on. And we were kind of talking before we went live earlier, we're saying it's kind of like Twitter, but with actual words with actual people speaking. And it can swing both ways. It could be good, it could be bad, it could be overwhelming, it could be underwhelming. But for me, I have really liked being able to hop into a room where a lot of my mentors are hanging out. And they're actually bringing people up on the quote stage to ask them questions. And they're giving them valuable feedback in real time. So that's kind of a little bit of like, the the surface level stuff that's going on. But what questions do you all have about it? Like I said, I'm not the expert, but I've been on there for a little bit. I'm enough to be dangerous. I know enough to be dangerous with it.
Travis:Well, when I first saw people posting about clubhouse, and hey, do you have an invite link and stuff like because it's still invite only, I believe, so very much like early Facebook days, we had to have a certain email address. I was like, Man, this is a godsend for extroverts and 2021, that just want to be around lots of people at the same time. You know, it kind of like simulates that, you know, social events activity, where you're just like at a restaurant, there's chatter everywhere, or you're at an events and you're talking to your friends, and you have other groups of friends nearby. And it's just like, kind of like a virtual version of that. So I'm curious, what kinds of groups specifically for podcasters people are starting to pop up in? Are they hosting their own rooms? Are they encouraging people to jump into specific rooms? Like how are you seeing everyday people using clubhouse and then also, the more savvy internet marketers and podcasters How are they tending to use clubhouse?
Krystal:Well, so it's been interesting because I've seen there's a lot of experimenting going on, which as a I'm just a marketing nut. And so I love to see the different ways that people are using it. So there's different groups that you can be a part of, I didn't know how you create a group and then I started digging into it the other day. So I know that podcast magazine, they started a group that you can go and be a part of, if podcasting is your thing, and you're on clubhouse, you can go join their group. Be honest, I don't even know how groups work. I don't even know what that means other than maybe you get notified when someone is a part of the group. I don't know, I don't know the things with that. But I've seen people that are big names like I know, Pat Flynn, Lewis, Howes, and Darrell elbs, who are all talking about YouTube the other day, and they, the key that I'm seeing is in the title, so you have the opportunity to title the room that you're starting. And that's really how someone decides, do I want to be a part of this? Or is this not for me, so being strategic with how you label your room, I started one the other day that was like podcasting and 2021. And when people came in there, they knew that that's what we were going to be talking about. But I've also seen other marketers who typically talk about business or online marketing, they're starting rooms about women, and like just being a working mom. So they're kind of deviating from what they would normally talk about in order to connect with their audience on a different level. So I'm just saying lots of different ways that you can use it. My tips, if someone's listening, and they're like, how, how can this work for me, is just to go join a whole bunch of different rooms and see if it's kind of your vibe, if you feel brave enough, there's a little icon at the bottom, you can hit to raise your hand and a moderator will bring you up on stage. And here's here's some etiquette rules real fast, we're going to run through these, if you're on stage, mute yourself, unless you are talking, you have the opportunity to mute yourself, because I've heard so many people trying to talk over one another. So I think that people are trying to figure out the dynamic of having 20 people on stage, which I don't think is great. Can you imagine somebody said this to me the other day, they're like, could you imagine a panel at a conference that had 20 people on stage, just how discombobulated everything would be. So it's definitely something to watch and learn. Another tip would be to follow people that you follow on other platforms, because there's some people that are doing this really well, and learn from them and see, see the different things that you know you can do, I still don't have a strategy plan for how I'm going to use clubhouse. I'm just kind of, you know, getting on there. I did a two and a half hour room the other day with two of my friends on speaking at virtual events. And it was really fun, but it was also like, Oh my gosh, like, um, no more questions. I there's kids banging at my door, like asking for snacks. I gotta go. So it could you can definitely get sucked into, you know, doing it for a while. But I think it's fun. Yeah,
Travis:I mean, what you what you're describing sounds like a much more interactive Facebook group, right? So like, if you in the past would say, Okay, I'm gonna start a Facebook group. So that way I can share about new episodes that are coming out. I can ask questions of my listeners, I can interact with people. If I'm strategic about what I call my facebook group, maybe both people will find it through Facebook and then discover my podcast. It seems like clubhouse rooms could potentially be like a more interactive version of that, if done well,
Krystal:for sure. For sure. And I think that it's a great way to make that connection with people but also hearing someone else's voice. There was someone It was her name is Amy. She was from the UK and she popped into the room. She was like, y'all, I've been trying to get off clubhouse forever. I'm so addicted. This is so much fun. It's 1130 at night where I am. But she started asking me questions about podcasting. Well, then from there, she came and joined my facebook group, I wasn't selling her anything. I wasn't telling her Hey, go listen to my podcast, it was just you make those connections with another human that much faster. And you don't have the distraction of a feed. There's no text, there's no video, there's no Hey, a whole bunch of links are coming at me. It's just people gathering around to talk. So it's really interesting.
Kevin:The most, cuz like not concerning, like, different thing different thing about clubhouse is if you start a Facebook group, and you post content there and you invest stuff, there's like a history of that, right. Some of that will have value way down the road, right. And clubhouse doesn't have that there's, you're not supposed to be recording, we can get into the recording stuff in a second. But the idea, at least for now, the way the app is set up is that these are events that happen at a time and a place in the places clubhouse in the time is whenever they happen, and then when they're over there over. And so you either you know had an opportunity and participated in that or heard it or you didn't and if you didn't, it's gone. So I don't know if it's going to live like that forever. But that's a different thing for marketers to wrap their heads around. Because if I do a YouTube video that will have value You years down the road if I you know, start a Facebook group and post a bunch of stuff out there that will have value. longtail value, clubhouse right now it doesn't have a lot of longtail value. So the question is, is how valuable is it? Because it's real time. It's very different than, again, we just talked about this with podcasts. One of the wonderful things about podcasts is that you can consume them on your own schedule when they make sense. And clubhouse is a very, it's not on demand. It's, it's demanding of you. So and so I
Krystal:actually I love that part of it, though, because it's so different than everything is different. Because it's like, you got to show up, it's live, it's not recorded, it's not something you can go back to which right now doesn't really seem fair to anybody that has an Android phone and they can't access it, or it's invite only, there's definitely a lot of like, talk in the online space of like, you know, I just, I want to do this, but it's, you know, I can't do it. And I think that on their part, it's super smart marketing, right? Because it's so exclusive. But from a standpoint of being a podcaster and having content, I think of it almost like it's like a weekly coffee chat. If that's what you wanted to do with your listeners. It's like, Hey, we wouldn't record ourselves if we were doing a local meetup. I mean, maybe you would in certain circumstances. But if I were meeting with podcasters in person, I wouldn't sit down and say, Okay, I have a tape recorder in front of us now start talking. What are all of your questions? I wouldn't do that. That feels really awkward. But it's just another way to connect with your people.
Kevin:Yeah. And I think that insight that you just gave is what's going to make clubhouse? Like, I don't know how big it's going to be? Is it going to be the next Twitter? Is it going to be the next, you know, tick tock, how big is this thing going to go? I don't know. But I do know that people who are really good at marketing and picking up on the next trend, or the next hot, you know, marketing channel or way to connect with people, they're there. And they're investing a lot in it, like you mentioned, Pat Flynn, but he's one of many who are investing a lot of time in this new platform and are starting to build their base early, because the rules and the tools are obviously going to change over the next couple of years. But there's, and it doesn't mean it's too late to get in down the road. But there's always an advantage to being in something early. And so I've heard people talking about well, none of that content is evergreen, so I'm not going to invest in it, there might be missing out on an opportunity, because there's probably never going to be an easier time to grow a following than when there's you know, a fewer number of users than like there are now. So there's not a ton of people who are doing consistent, great content on that platform, yet, there's an opportunity for you to be able to jump in and start filling the need. They're growing some followers. So then, you know, maybe the tools do change down the road. Maybe we do get more options. Maybe not. Maybe it stays exactly how it is. But I'm looking towards people who were really good at picking up on industry trends. Like, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, who, what was it five or six years ago was like Snapchat is where you need to be back when we were like, what is Snapchat? He sees these things early, and he is all over clubhouse right now.
Alban:Yeah, just another piece of anecdotal evidence. I actually got my invite from Ana at Black pot collective. And what she did was she started a group called group, is it group? Or is it room? Or is it a club?
Kevin:Yeah, I think it's a club.
Travis:Yeah, yeah. That's
Krystal:what we're we're trying to decide where I think that you can use the word group and club interchangeably. But yeah, a room is what Kevin was talking about. Like it's a one time flash in the pan and then it's gone. But a club is like where you kind of like connect with other people. In your, your, they're your peeps and the clubhouse and your club?
Alban:Well, she started a club called the power of podcasting. And pretty quickly grew to 500 members. And it's still growing. I'm actually, if anybody wants to get involved in clubhouse, I'm doing my first guest I'm doing on Tuesday, I'm gonna come up and talk about podcast hosting and some podcasting stuff if anybody wants to come join and, you know, be a part of it. But it's, it's just interesting to see how fast this has caught on. And hopefully it continues to go we see some more innovation, I love people talking in conversations, and the power of voice and how it's very different than written text online. I would hope that the intensity in which we talk at each other on like Twitter, maybe cools down a bit when we talk in person remains to be seen since I haven't spent much time on clubhouse. But yeah, I'm I always like seeing new things like this, and it's pretty exciting. Can I can I give a piece of advice on recording clubhouse Not only is it against their terms of service, at least if you record. Krystal, I don't know what Texas law is, but definitely Florida. It's illegal to record someone in Florida unless they've consented to it. So it's a two party State two party consent everybody who's being recorded has to consent to it. So just be wary. Not only are you running afoul of clubhouse rules, but what you're doing could also be illegal. So don't record people without their permission. It's also just not very nice. It's like, if people talk differently when they know they're being recorded. And yeah, if the power of some of these platforms is in knowing that what they're saying is kind of going away, they're a little bit more free, and they're able to like, make a mistake and go, Well, maybe let me fix that. When you start recording people know, oh, this can kind of be taken out of context and kind of killed the magic of people just being able to express themselves.
Krystal:Yeah, and I think that what's so novel about it is it just it goes away? It's like an Instagram story, right? Like, it's like you, you record it, and you're like, oh, like, there was there was all my laundry in the background, there was dirty dishes. I hope nobody saw that. And you're like, it doesn't matter. It's gone away in 24 hours. So it's kind of it's that same idea. Like I, I am not going into it, like trying to figure out strategies, how can I record people? How can I get this, I want to save at evergreen, like all the things. I'm just like, how can I connect with people? How can I find new people to just, like, share the passions that I have in my life. And I thought about creating rooms that have nothing to do with podcasting, because I think that it would be really fun.
Alban:This club, they had 500 members, and she sent me this email December 7 has 7000 it has 5000 members right now. I'm getting kind of nervous about this. That's a lot
Travis:who's gonna be the biggest audience we're at? That'd be great. If you don't count how to start a podcast. Yeah. And that case you use far surpass that.
Kevin:I've read a few I don't know, tweets or blog articles. Is clubhouse going to kill podcasting? Is it the next iteration of podcasting? You know, I can't wrap my head around the arguments. I don't know if you guys can make an argument for that or not. But But my interaction with clubhouse it feels very, very different. It feels like a new type of social media. I mean, it is, I think, a social media network. I think it would fall into that category. But it feels different in that it's more personable, like we don't, we don't lose tone, you know, when you're talking to somebody, because if the tone comes across wrong, you can just ask them for clarity. Are you saying this? Are you saying this? are you attacking me? Or is that a joke? Like that's much easier when you're listening to someone's voice than it is when you're reading words that are written on the page. But it's also long form, right? Like most other social media, whether it be Instagram, or Tiktok, or Facebook, or like most all of that stuff is pretty short form stuff. And this is long for most of these talks that I've been able to hop in on. I mean, most of them are like an hour minimum. Like they're going for hours and hours. A lot of them are like, I see some rooms that seem like 24 hour persistent rooms, like around the clock, people are just coming and going. And so it's it's very different. But I do feel as though it falls more in the social category than it falls in the content creation publishing category, which is like barresi, podcasting.
Krystal:The only thing that I can think of right now, if anybody's listening, they're on clubhouse, they have a podcast or like, how can I use this for my show? One, I think it's a great way to engage with new listeners, but to I think that it would be a great place for you to source questions for your content, and then tell people you know, hey, and you don't have to use their name. Unless again, like Alvin said, like, you have their permission, like, Hey, I was chatting with Alban on clubhouse. And he asked this amazing question. Well, now, I'm creating this podcast episode, because I wanted to follow up on our conversation and go deeper on it. I think that would be a great way to use clubhouse kind of in tandem with your podcast. But I agree, I don't think it's gonna replace any of my podcast content that I'm creating now or in the future, because it's just so different. So, so different. All right.
Alban:Well, I think we have to end this episode with a promise that we will follow back up, because I became a very aware that two people are gonna be like, well, you don't understand the terminology. What are you guys talking about? Maybe we need to get on here to kind of give us her perspective of how she's grown her club, the power of podcasting. And I will tell you how I was sweating bullets when I started, you know, when I first got on stage, so we can maybe do a quick follow up next episode and, you know, give you a little bit more of our thoughts of how you can use clubhouse to grow your online brand and your podcast.
Kevin:It's always fun to hear a director of marketing stumble upon a hot new channel in real time.
Travis:Well, Krystal, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today for Buzzcast. totally appreciate your insight.
Krystal:Thank you so much for having me. It's always fun to chat with y'all. And I love talking about the new Buzzsprout tools anytime they come out. So yes, absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank
Travis:you guys so much for listening, and we will catch you in the next one. Keep podcasting