Facebook Podcasts Update + Listener Q&A

In this episode, the crew discusses the fallout of the FB and IG blackout, what's going on with Facebook podcasts, why Heavyweight is going exclusive to Spotify, and answer some listener questions from Podcasting Q&A.

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Transcript

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Travis: 0:00

So we did play a game. Last episode and we created a poll in the Buzzsprout. podcast community Facebook group. Yeah, I

Alban: 0:07

want to recount. Yeah, yeah.

Travis: 0:09

asking people what who they thought one? Well, there was only two options they could put out there, Kevin. And there were five Total votes. And they all voted for Alban. All right, including Kevin, I believe. Oh, yeah, I think we think Kevin, Yeah,

Kevin: 0:28

I did. This is one of those things that like, you know, sometimes people will send you a Facebook poll and be like, please vote for me. I really need this to win, you know, and I kind of felt like that was this type of thing with Alban. So I want to give my vote. I didn't really send it to friends and family. I knew he was. But yeah, I mean, it was important to him. Some people are more competitive than others. So congratulations.

Travis: 0:55

Alban next week, you are taking a cohort over to she podcasts?

Alban: 1:00

I don't know what I mean by a cohort. I mean, we're not leading course. But yeah, I'm going to she podcasts, Priscilla, and Megan, and Gilon. And Ona and I are all going to be there. Few of our Buzzsprout creators will be there and lots of Buzzsprout podcasters. So it'll be awesome. I will not be speaking because she podcast is a podcast for women. But I will be over there in the exhibitor space, and talking to people about Buzzsprout it's gonna be exciting. It'll be great to see a bunch of Buzzsprout podcasters. And, yeah, it's a it's a very cool conference. Elsie Escobar and Jessica Kaufman, who run she podcast, which is a really big Facebook group, and it's a really big podcast itself, put it on, and they did a really awesome job. So it's one of the conferences. We've really enjoyed when we've been able to go in person, and we're excited to be in person again. And that's in Arizona, right? Yes. So we will be in Arizona. This is coming out on Friday the eighth. We will be there Thursday, the 14th. And it goes through the whole weekend. Are we doing a meetup while we're there? We are doing a meetup. It's been in the email newsletter, we'll drop it into the show notes so that everybody can register. But we have like an event bright and you can register for your ticket and we'll just meet up and have drinks and hang out and have fun.

Kevin: 2:22

That is awesome. It's in Scottsdale, Arizona, which I'm totally jealous of that like Arizona is like one of my favorite states. And Scottsdale is a beautiful area. And this is a great conference. So is it too late to get ticket Elvin Are they still have tickets available,

Alban: 2:35

there are still tickets available. There's no more rooms in the hotel block. But there's lots of hotels nearby. So you can get still get a ticket. There are virtual tickets. But my opinion, if you're going to a conference, you just get so much more out of going in person because you get to see people, you get to have conversations in the hallway, you get to make friends. And those are the friendships and the connections that you know, are really, really valuable, especially when you're doing something like podcasting where you may not know a ton of people that are all doing it in real life. So it's really great to be able to meet people in person. So if you had the opportunity, head over to Scottsdale, Arizona, and we will see there,

Travis: 3:13

do you think they'll be able to livestream pieces of it or people will be able to livestream their experience on Facebook and Instagram? Perhaps they call my friends.

Kevin: 3:24

Nice transition?

Alban: 3:25

Yeah, let's go there. Yes, there is a digital version. But what you're doing is you're trolling Facebook for being down for me nearly a full day A few days ago, right?

Travis: 3:36

Yeah, I mean, it was hard to know that like Facebook and Instagram were down for most of the day, you'd hear birds chirping outside, and there was this general sense of peace, calm and tranquility that overcame the human race as we overcame division and linked arms and symbols of unity. And

then around 6: 3:54

30pm we, you know, people went back to throwing things at each other. Yeah, so pretty significant when the largest social media platform on the planet goes down for a little bit. And, you know, I think there were definitely some, some hot takes on that, some that, you know, we're a little bit more of a stretch than others, but certainly showed the significance that social media has in just our everyday communication and how we interact with each other.

Alban: 4:26

I mean, my experience was, I didn't notice it for hours and hours. I don't really use Facebook or Instagram.

Travis: 4:33

You didn't notice an influx of Twitter followers from everybody coming over, I

Alban: 4:36

did see a bunch of people on Twitter, like celebrating like, we're still doing well. And I'm like, you know, that like everybody left Twitter in like 2012. So it's like, yeah, it's still running because it the monthly active users are a 10th of what Facebook has or something. So it was a it's definitely a big deal. I think there were a lot I saw a lot of people, you know who were using this as the most Want to say, this is why you've got to own your audience, you've got to have an email list, you've got to have all these other things. I think some of those takes, maybe we're people overplaying their hand, like, I truly believe you should always be pushing people towards owned media things that you control, that your own platform, your website, your email, list your podcast, so that you have a connection. The reason for that, though, is not, hey, what happens if Twitter goes, or if Facebook goes down for a total of 16 hours, or whatever it may be? That's not really like that bad. Like, oh, you couldn't send a friend request for 16 hours. That's not the fear. The fear is, you've built an entire business or audience that's reliant on Facebook connecting you to them. And then slowly over time, Facebook starts dialing down the engagement and then that is eventually saying, hey, you can still get to these people. But it's going to be through an ad, it's not going to be through organic views, that you basically put Facebook in between you and your customers, and your business is now reliant on Facebook's decisions. So that's the main fear I have the main reason that I would say, hey, control your own destiny building email list, build a website, build a podcast. Yeah. So I still think like there's a lot of businesses having a Facebook page is critical. I navigate Twitter presence, or Instagram is critical. I don't think it means that all social media is evil, and you should get away from it. Yeah, I

Kevin: 6:34

like I mean, I was gonna say I like it. I didn't like it that Facebook goes down. Obviously, we don't wish that upon any internet company. And I'm sure it was a very stressful day for them. But it is a good wake up call. Not to, as Alban said overplay your hand there. But it's kind of I mean, I think about as like the analogy of like, when I pull out of my driveway backwards, like I've tried to always be intentional about stopping and not relying on the backup camera and looking both ways. And then sometimes you do that routine. And you notice like a ball rolls behind your family's walking by and, like, golly, I'm really glad I did this, like just, sometimes you get a wake up call opportunity. And even though we know this stuff, we know that we shouldn't be totally reliant on these social networks that use algorithms to decide what they show and don't show every now and then it's good to have a wake up call and just be like, you know, if I didn't have my email list, like, what if Facebook didn't come back online for a week, how would that have impacted my business. And so in that sense, I think that kind of stuff can be good for us as creators, to get those Wake Up Calls once in a while, make sure that we're still being intentional about connecting with our audiences in a way that we have control over that connection, and not fully reliant on these other platforms that can change the rules that can go down that all these things can happen that are out of your control. If your livelihood is dependent upon that, that's not a great situation to be in.

Alban: 7:52

One lesson that I kind of got from reading a lot about what happened with Facebook was the mistake they made was kind of a understandable one that could have been backed out in like an hour, except for the system for changing the code that made the wet, everything go down, was also run through Facebook. So once they couldn't connect via the fact that Facebook was down, they couldn't connect to that to the reset those routers. And then they weren't able to even get into some of the buildings that they needed to get into. Because the key cards wouldn't go because they actually that ran through Facebook as well. And it's kind of like they had this Facebook's single point of failure was the Facebook app and everything ran through the Facebook app. And I kind of like maybe this is just a good argument for diversification, like you maybe you shouldn't only have one thing, you shouldn't only have your Instagram page, or your YouTube account, or only your podcast. You know, things can change in all sorts of different ways. Certain platforms have much higher risks than others. But it's a good idea. If especially if you're building a business or a real audience, to like, hey, I want to have a few different options for connecting to people so that I don't have just one single point of failure for my entire business. The minute that Instagram makes me now spend a lot more money to connect to my existing followers. All of a sudden, I can't be a profitable business. That's a single point of failure that you want to mitigate.

Travis: 9:29

Well, and even thinking about it wasn't too long ago that Amazon just totally slashed their affiliate payouts for their affiliate program. And there are people that built their entire livelihoods on how do I create a YouTube channel or a blog that is generating search traffic and I can recommend products on Amazon and pay the bills that way. And then Amazon's like actually, a lot of people shop here now and we don't really need your help getting them to buy things here. They're going to come here anyways. So rather than pay you 5% we're going to pay One and a half percent, rain overnight, Amazon just decides to do something. And if you've built your entire model for what you're doing on top of the current way things are going, then that's just not a wise place to be. And so so thinking as a podcaster, if you're pursuing monetization strategies, or growth, like marketing strategies, and you're using social media, just be mindful that like, hey, Instagram, Facebook, maybe they won't go down again, like this for a while. But they might change the rules, they might change the algorithm. And now this thing you've put a bunch of effort into, it's just no longer as effective as it used to be, you know, and that's not to say, don't do anything, because something might change in the future. But just make sure that you don't become so invested in one particular thing, that you're putting a lot in unnecessary risk, and the current way that you're trying to operate and grow your show or monetize your show.

Alban: 11:03

Yeah, and this will become a little bit more salient when Facebook podcasts kind of starts becoming a thing.

Travis: 11:10

Lately, it's not a thing yet they announced it like months ago Alban, surely surely they figured it out.

Alban: 11:16

Do we want a quick Facebook, podcasts update?

Travis: 11:19

I think the peep the people would want to know, if I'm, if I want to know, I know that our dedicated Buzzcast listeners want to know is now the time to strike. The iron is hot, go all in on Facebook podcasts.

Alban: 11:32

I mean, it's still rolling out to more people a lot more podcasters are getting access to it, they can add their podcast to their podcast page. It's like your Facebook page that now you can attach your podcast to it. The problem is, they're still doing this totally on their own. So Facebook is like, Hey, we found this podcast, I think it's associated with the Buzzsprout page. And so they say Buzzsprout, why don't you put add this to your pot, your page. The problem that I've seen is, you know, we're probably unique in this, but I log in now. And it's like 100 podcasts are connected to the Buzzsprout page. And those are not our podcasts. And I feel really bad for everybody. Whenever I log in, I started looking at the names, I'm like, these are podcasters that they don't have any control, I have no ability to help. And their podcast is attached to our page. So I just don't publish it. And even if you can publish it to your page, I mean, we have not seen a big change in Facebook plays even for our shows, we haven't seen them really go up. Because it's only available to us podcasters using mobile, Facebook mobile app, and it might even be iOS only mobile app, I'm not 100% sure on that. In the end, this could be really big. But it could also be you know, I mean, Facebook just has this massive power, but just the sheer size of Facebook, that if they really go all in on something, it gets really big. But they also every once in a while, say things like they're going to launch their own cryptocurrency at one point, Libra, and they said it's going to be amazing. And then they like backed off of that said, Yeah, we're not really going to do that anymore. And when stuff like that happens, I think that everybody in the you know, in that particular industry goes Wow, Facebook could crush us. And then you realize Facebook may not be super interested for podcasters we're like, hey, Facebook could really, really help podcasting, we could really bring a lot of people in. And so far, Facebook kind of made the announcement. You know, it's like your New Year's resolution, you say you're going on a diet, and you get all pumped up, and you have all the fun of saying you're going on a diet, and then you don't go on a diet today. That's kind of like what's happened with Facebook podcast so far. So maybe someday Facebook, rolls this out more, and we get all these cool features, and they really promote podcasting. But right now, we're not seeing it be a big thing for our shows, or for the stats in as Buzzsprout as a whole.

Kevin: 14:05

Let me say this, I think we have to keep in mind that right after the apple event is when all this news came out from Facebook and from Spotify. And I think what happened is that I have no insider information. This is all just in my head, and I'm going to share it with you now. So you're probably not going to be any better for it.

Travis: 14:22

Take it gospel,

Kevin: 14:23

it's a theory is that Apple came out and announced a bunch of stuff in the podcasting space. It was it kicked off their keynote in the spring. And we know how that went. It turned out that they kind of flubbed the delivery of everything. But it seemed like shortly after that Spotify and Facebook both wanted to get in on some of the excitement in the news around podcasting. And so Spotify said, Oh, Apple's doing subscriptions, we're gonna do subscriptions, and we're gonna do a better we're gonna make them open and available to anybody. And we're going to play nice with third parties and all that stuff. Well, that's been really slow to sort of trickle out since then there hasn't been a whole bunch of development on that front a little bit. Not a whole bunch, Facebook Same thing, they're saying, oh, we're gonna get into the podcasting space, we're gonna let you link up your podcast to your page. And when every time a new episode hits, we're gonna help you promote it. And notice, again, I think this might have been marketing and PR departments saying, Hey, what's going on in the company has to do with podcasts? Because podcasting is all over the news, right? Now Apple's getting a whole bunch of press coverage on this, we want to get some of that, what are we doing? And they started, you know, leaking out stuff that might not have been ready for primetime yet. And so it's it seems like the tech teams weren't ready to make announcements, but the timing of the press made it important to go and get something out. So they made a bunch of announcements, maybe ahead of schedule. And now we're sitting around saying, hey, you promised all this stuff. Where is it? Well, it really was never ready. They just wanted to capitalize on the media opportunity.

Alban: 15:43

I think that that's very much the case. The other thing that was announced then was right before was clubhouse, raising a $4 billion valuation. And that was when the shine was just starting to come off a clubhouse, people were just starting to see, hey, maybe this thing is everything we thought it was going to be. Maybe these other platforms will be able to steal the magic of clubhouse and replicate it. And everybody started adding chat, you know, chat rooms, or whatever you want to call taught little audio rooms. And Facebook, that was part of their announcement was all these kind of clubhouse II features. So I think it's very true Kevin, like they saw the money being raised. They saw the PR, they saw the excitement, similar to whatever it was three years ago when they said, Hey, we're gonna make a cryptocurrency. Because we see that was really big, it was getting a ton of hype. It makes sense for Facebook to do that. And because we all imagine if Facebook goes all in on this new direction, and they leverage the billions of people that use Facebook, then all of a sudden I think could be a real winner. The thing is, is that going to be the one thing that Facebook really wants to go all in on because there's only so much space on the iPhone screen or in the Facebook app. You know, they can't just add new features forever, they have to actually have some be prioritized and the chances that their crypto or their podcasts are the primary thing they show on the app are minimal. And so we'll keep you updated. I would you know, I am super hesitant to make any videos about it because the truth is, we're still in a holding pattern. Maybe we do make a little video Travis Knight could do one that says hey Facebook podcast, whatever happened not a whole lot. We will update everybody if there is anything.

Travis: 17:42

So Alban I'm really sad right now. One of the shows that I'm told should be one of my favorite shows heavyweight is no longer going to be available on an app that I listened to walk us through what's going on with heavyweight and Spotify.

Alban: 17:53

Have you ever listened to heavyweight?

Travis: 17:55

I feel like I've listened to one episode in the past. Okay,

Alban: 17:59

so heavyweight is a very popular podcast is put out by gimlet that was acquired by Spotify a few years ago. And I will read you something out of the verge gimlets heavyweight is becoming a Spotify exclusive and the fans are mad of you. The longest price gimlet media shows is becoming a Spotify exclusive next month, five years after began two years after the Spotify gimlet acquisition. And so yeah, I mean, this kind of felt obvious that eventually this would start happening. gimlet shows that were hits and have been doing exceptionally well, even after they joined forces with Spotify. While that happened was Spotify help these shows get even bigger because they promoted them in their app. But the day was going to always come at least we always assumed it would where Spotify said, yeah, if you want to continue listen to this show needs to be only in Spotify, though this is in direct contradiction to, you know, back in the day two years ago when Matt lever interviewed Alex Bloomberg who founded gimlet and said like, are you going to make all these existing shows exclusive to Spotify? You have you read the exact quote? Yes. Alex Bloomberg. Yeah, yes, the existing shows will not be made exclusive to Spotify, that will continue. You'll continue to get them where you get them now. And yeah, going forward, I think it's gonna be a mix. And eventually, Spotify. And that may have been maybe the intention. I, Alex bloomer might have believed that at the time, but I think Spotify always knew they had to have known. The only reason you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a podcast studio is if you eventually are going to say, hey, these shows really need to be exclusive, to try to get as many people as possible to switch their listening bat habits from Apple or Google or whatever India Through using and flip over to becoming a Spotify only listener,

Kevin: 20:05

well, it's possible that the strategy was true. Like, we will create new shows, we will launch them exclusively on Spotify. And we'll try to get people to come over here and listen, that the problem with that is that it's harder to grow an audience on when you're exclusive to one platform. And so as this strategy starts to play out, I mean, the writing's on the wall, right? Like we want to take new shows that have no audience, we want to put them out as big and wide as we can build an audience, then make them exclusive and pull all of those people into one platform. So I don't know if it was a mistake, or if he really, truly believed it. I think it's a little naive. If he really did truly believe that. I mean, I think what they're going to continue to do is launch new shows, and they're going to launch them big and far and wide, build the audiences and then bring them exclusive. And then try to build up and then keep, put that on repeat and do it as many times as you can to get as many people into Spotify ecosystem as possible.

Travis: 20:57

Well, that's consistent with what we've seen with a couple other shows. I know that the show that you know, brock obama did with Bruce Springsteen, started a Spotify exclusive then went freely available everywhere. I don't know if it's back behind the paywall or not. There were a couple other shows big shows that were supposed to be exclusive that that they destroyed. Oprah No, Michelle Obama had a podcast. Yeah, Bernie Brown had one. So that that could totally make sense. I don't know why fans are mad. Spotify is gonna let you participate in quizzes while you listen to episodes, this greatest thing ever. It's a new feature. They're trumpeting that interactive audio is the future. Everything's everyone's got their idea of the future of podcasting. And we'll see, we'll see.

Alban: 21:38

I'm interested by what smartlace has done, or what amazon music has done with smartlace podcast, because they paid a ton of money for that podcast, to only do Hey, the podcast itself will still be everywhere. The benefit of listening on amazon music is you get episodes either? I'm not sure. A week, early week early. Okay. So you get them a week early. And I think for a lot of people that's like, at least when I saw it, I was like, wow, this is not the best strategy. I'm maybe a little bit warming up to that strategy, because we've seen smartlace continued to rise in the podcast ranks. So now it's like the number nine podcast, it's been there for, you know, a couple, maybe two months now. Number, that number not in spot

Travis: 22:26

that the pod track measurements is what does that ranking?

Alban: 22:29

Yeah, I think, pod track. And that's really, that's a really big show. And the way that it's doing super well, is the fact that it's everywhere, so everyone can listen to it. And then they can, in every episode have that bonus, they're like, hey, and if you love this show, and you want one more episode, there actually is another episode over on Amazon, and then jump over there and start listening to it there. Because we're always gonna be putting out the new stuff, and you'll see it earlier. But it'll be interesting to see how these work, I am much more in favor of the time gated content. Because you're then allowing everybody to still, you're keeping your audience very large, that's good for the podcast, you get the benefits for the platforms of trying to attract listeners to try out your app. And there's a compelling reason to, and you don't already have to have a very successful show. I mean, I know when Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama put out the their podcast, I was interested in it and I saw his Spotify exclusive. And I have some negative feelings around exclusive shows. So I just didn't go listen to it. And had it been available everywhere. I would have probably binge the whole first season right away. And so I think that that will be interesting to see how these different strategies play out. If the smartlist one works, that will be very exciting to me, because that's more of the world that I'm excited to live in.

Travis: 24:01

So we wanted to follow up on the last episode, we had our first edition of this or that the new hit game show on Fox Thursdays.

Alban: 24:10

I'm not sorry.

Travis: 24:12

Sorry, I've seen too many bass singer. commercials. So we did play a game. Last episode and we created a poll in the Buzzsprout podcast community Facebook group. Yeah, I want to recount Yeah, yeah, asking people what who they thought one?

Alban: 24:26

Remember? I got the first two answers, right? And then Kevin, surprisingly, came from behind. He got three answers in a row that he won. And so we went to unbiased judges, the Facebook group. And Travis posted I did not post this. So who actually won this or that on Buzzcast. Today, what were the results Travis?

Travis: 24:50

Well, there was only two options. They could put Alban or Kevin. And there were five Total votes. So really significant number To know, you know, it's outside the margin of error and all that kind of things. And they all voted for Alban. All right, including Kevin, I believe reality.

Kevin: 25:09

Oh, yeah,

Alban: 25:09

I think. Yeah, I'm actually looking at, I see that the profile photos I know that these people sell as five, five votes by people that we know. All right, I'm claiming it What's the price?

Kevin: 25:25

And I think this this is one of those things that like, you know, sometimes people will send you a Facebook poll and be like, please vote for me. I really need this to win, you know, and I kind of felt like that was this type of thing with Alban is I want to get my boat. I didn't really send it to friends and family. I knew he was. But yeah, I mean, it was important to him. Some people are more competitive than others. So congratulations, Alban. You got it.

Travis: 25:48

Kevin, how do you how do you feel? Do you feel like the the weight of public opinion should overturn the previous results?

Kevin: 25:57

I don't have anything. I don't have a clever comeback for you. If Alban needs the victory, he can have the victory. It's totally fine. I'm not. I'm not worried about I'm looking forward to the next game. I'm already I've been training. I've been in the gym every day. I'm ready to go.

Alban: 26:11

I if are you, Kevin, I'd be saying listen, I don't care if the refs made a bad call or a good call. And if a bunch of fans voted in some online poll with five fans saying the ref made a bad call. The game's over. The Superbowl was one, I'm hanging up the trophy. And if you don't like it, complain to the refs and get a rule change. That's Yeah.

Kevin: 26:31

And to me, it's not so much about the scoreboard as it is the love of playing the game. And I just had a good time plan. And I can't wait to get out on the field next time.

Travis: 26:41

Speaking of questions, we got a lot of questions for our other podcasts that we publish weekly Podcasting, Q&A, and we get a lot of really good questions. But unfortunately, not all of them become episodes. And so we wanted to just kind of take some time to answer questions that we have received from you guys, and offer our thoughts and any insights that we can. And our first question comes from Jacob.

Jacob: 27:09

Hi, this is Jacob from Saft podcast. Let's say that we schedule our podcasts to release on Buzzsprout at 12pm. Since we also release the podcast on YouTube, we would really want the podcast to pick up on all directories at the same time. But there is a bit of a delay between the podcasts being released on Buzzsprout. And it picking up on the directories. How long is that delay? And also, what can we do from our end to ensure that while the podcast gets released on YouTube, at the same time, it is made available on podcast directories like Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, and the others. Thanks in advance for your response.

Travis: 27:47

So do you guys think why is there a delay when you publish an episode or schedule something in Buzzsprout? And when it might show up in different podcast directories?

Kevin: 27:55

Sure, let me take that I will try to give you the most succinct and succinct answer that I can. The reality is that podcasting is very different than YouTube. So YouTube has its own closed ecosystem, the system that you're publishing on is the same one that does distribution. So once you're live in one system, like that's it, you're live on that world, and anybody who brings up YouTube, whether it be on their phone, or their TV, or their computer, have access to the same directory. In the podcasting world, we have lots of different directories, the biggest, of course, being Apple podcasts, and a lot of third party apps rely on that. And unfortunately, it's also the most unreliable in terms of how quickly it updates. So theoretically, Apple is saying that new episodes should start appearing within a couple hours. Now, since they've made all these system improvements. Unfortunately, that's not the truth of what we've been seeing we've been seeing some episodes might pop on within two hours, and then they might come back off for a couple hours. Usually, within 24 hours or so. Apple podcasts has kind of stabilized they found your new episode. And they start distributing it through their API, which means all the other third party apps start updating as well. There's another directory that's big called the podcast index, we push to that as well, if you're listed there, and they use a technology called pod Ping. So as soon as your episode goes live on Buzzsprout, we ping them that we don't have to wait for them to ask us if there's a new episode, we tell them, hey, there's a new episode. And so any directories that use them will get it faster. And then there's Spotify, which is another big one, Spotify. I think, though, they don't have a way for us to notify them. But they ping us like every five minutes. They ping us on a very aggressive interval. And so they pick up episodes pretty quick. But as you can see, everyone's kind of on a different schedule and you're kind of at the mercy of all the different directories. So in the podcasting world, what we say is, hey, if you want your episode available first thing in the morning, publish it the night before, you know give yourself a good 12 hour buffer. And then you have a pretty high chance of covering most of the directories it might not be 100% but it will be most of them. Just thinking this up with your YouTube publishing is really difficult and it can be maddening. And so what I would suggest for you there is go ahead and schedule your podcasts. pisode, the audio version that you want distributed to all the directories, give yourself as much buffer as possible, at least 12 hours, maybe more if you can stomach it. But it's probably never going to be an exact sync with what you're seeing on YouTube. And that's just, I don't know, it's just the nature of the beast in podcasting being different than the YouTube ecosystem.

Alban: 30:19

Yeah, we've been doing a lot of work in this the last month because this has always been a frustrating point for a lot of Buzzsprout podcasters. They say, hey, what the heck, I published my episode, and no one gets to see yet. And we're always like, yeah, we have published it instantly. It's in your RSS feed, it's on your Buzzsprout website, it's in your embed players. It's available. But the directories haven't come to us to ask and check if there's a new episode. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a difference. If we run to them and say, hey, it's been updated. So Apple, mostly within eight hours has updated Spotify, mostly within two hours is updated. But both of those our support team, you know, will check things, but most they don't think, to really, there's not a whole lot they can do. If it hasn't been 24 hours since the episodes been live that it hasn't shown up in directories, one thing I would kind of consider is, what is the fear that we have that things go live at different times, you know, it feels like everything should go live at the same time. It's a bummer. If you know you see it on YouTube, and you want to say it's live everywhere. But you know that people with Apple podcasts are probably not seeing it right away. I'm not super fearful, because the worst thing that happens is, you know that some people don't see it right away. But there's not a whole lot of people that are seeing it on YouTube, and then are like popping over Spotify and going like what the heck, I thought this was live in Spotify. So I think like Kevin said, maybe I would publish the podcast 12 hours earlier. And so you're they're pretty synched up, and the little bit that they're off, you know, we wish it could be better. As more information and more technology comes out, we will always adopt it. Because the faster we can make this the better. Unfortunately, it's just not the nature of how podcasts work right now.

Travis: 32:16

It's ironic, you guys both picked 12 hours, because Podcasting Q&A we published on YouTube, and in all the podcast directories. And we always put out the podcast episode at 12am. And the YouTube video always comes out at 12pm. And that's just the way that we schedule it. And so if you want to be the first to listen to the new Podcasting Q&A episodes, your best bet is probably gonna be listening in a podcast app, and then YouTube will come out later. But I also know for YouTube, that in your YouTube studio, it will give you an idea of when is the best time to publish, based on previous viewing activity. And so also look at that to see Is there an ideal time of the day when most of your subscribers are online, and maybe publish around that time as well. So thank you for your question, Jacob. Next question is from Stephen. And he has a question about audio quality for remote interviews.

Stephen: 33:08

Hi, my name is Stephe scheels. I would like to kno how I can get good audio qualit from a regular phone call whe I'm using my zoom h1 microphon into logic. Because some of m guests don't have internet an they need to use the phone. I there a way I can improve th phone? audio quality

Alban: 33:33

Yeah, so this is a good question. Unfortunately, we can't give you a ton of great stuff, Stephen. phone calls, like, I don't know how many people will remember this, this was a big thing when I was younger, that people would talk about having your regular voice in your phone voice that everyone's voice was distinctly different on phone calls. And that was because and we all knew that because you talk to people a lot on the phone, we don't do that as much anymore. And phones are so compressed, the signal is so compressed that it actually loses some of the fidelity of your voice. And so some voices would actually change quite drastically, you'd have a different phone voice than you would in real life. Apple has updated this and some networks have updated it so that they do a little bit more broad range, it's a little bit less compressed. So I know, iPhones seem to get better signal quality. And the best answer I really would have though, is you know, trying to do some sort of voiceover IP. So maybe download the zoom app and do a zoom call, and then have the person use the Zoom app because that is using the data connection rather than the cell connection. So you can get a little bit higher quality audio. And you could maybe use Riverside has an iPhone app that you could use that you Get even higher quality audio. Those are some of the options. But I know Stephen, in your answer said, sometimes people don't have this internet connection. So yeah, you've got to use phone. And the truth is, the reason that phones work so many places that there isn't good internet is because they're compressing that signal. So unfortunately, you can't get the best audio. Best thing we could still do in that scenario are the same things that we're doing other places, try to limit background noise, try to hold your state very close to the microphone, try not to yell and pique the audio, just normal things that you would do with normal mic technique. All those are valuable. Yeah, oh, there will always be a limiting factor when we're using the phone networks for doing a recording draft. Do you have any other tips for that?

Travis: 35:53

I mean, so if you're really stuck trying to figure out how to record phone calls, and you've already decided, you know, what, we're just going to accept that the quality is not going to be as great. Another option would be Google Voice. So with Google Voice, you can sign up for a free phone number, you can install an app on your phone. And then when someone calls that number, you just press four on your keyboard, and it will record the conversation and save it. So I can give advice on that side as far as other options for recording phone calls. But like what Alban said, anytime you're using a cellular network, the audio isn't going to be as good as an internet solution. So anytime you can use internet, the better. We have a bunch of videos and resources on remote podcast recordings, all of them are internet software based solutions. And that's the reason because you're just gonna get better audio quality, because of it.

Alban: 36:45

One thing, I see a lot of podcast, like NPR podcasts, that a lot of times they actually have phone calls with people who are in the field as a reporter, or a subject matter expert. And what they do is they always set your expectation that it's about to be a phone call, so that it's not this jarring, beautiful, clear voice and all of a sudden, then it's kind of this grainy cell phone call with noise in the background. What they do to do that transition is they don't say, hey, it's a phone call. Sorry for that quality. They do the phone ringing noise. And so it's like, there's actually like a ring ring, pick up noise. That's not really then calling right then they're inserting that audio, which helps cue in your mind, hey, this is a phone call. I'm about to get phone call level quality. And then you already know that's coming. And so you aren't as harsh maybe on the quality there. So if a phone call is required in maybe look at using that audio cue of kind of the ringing phone and the pickup and maybe the click at the end to help people transition into hearing a phone.

Travis: 37:55

That's a pretty clever tip there Alban, I've never even thought about that. If you want to know where you can find that kind of stuff, just look at any stock music site that also offers sound effects. So something like storyblocks would have the sound effects that you can download and put in your audio, all of our audio, the music tracks come from soundstripe. Anytime we bring in a sound effect or something like that, that's typically from a storyblocks type of website. So all great tips. The next question we have is from Dana. And I think we actually did do a podcast episode on her question, but it's a really, really good question. And so we wanted to play it again and see if we get any fresh ideas. Hi,

Dana: 38:32

this is Dana Hughes. I was wondering if you could go over how to pick your podcast name with SEO in mind. I know that using SEO is important. But is it so important that it's okay if the podcast meme is boring, or just not that interesting? Because you care about those keywords in order to be found. The other part of that question is that I was wondering, should we be just going towards high volume keywords or more of like the long keywords that are less competitive? Thank you

Travis: 39:08

so much. All right. Alban, your SEO expert, let's say you.

Alban: 39:12

So there was a time where Facebook or Google served up a lot of podcast episodes in the search the search engine results. for Google searches, we're seeing a lot less of that. And the episodes that do get served up are often the episode is titled similar to the search. So if I was searching, you know something like how to start a podcast, I wouldn't get a podcast called that I would get an episode called that. And so it's not as important for this podcast name. The places that it really matters are Apple podcast, and Spotify, where people are actually making these searches. And they're you using pretty rudimentary search algorithms to surface podcasts. So what are the things you can do is you try to work your main keyword into your funnel Cast title. So the example I always love is Amy Porterfield podcast, online marketing made easy. The main keyword that she's trying to hit is online marketing. And there's also a lot of people searching for online marketing Made Easy, or how to, you know, learn online marketing. So all of those keywords are pretty close to her podcast title. It's very clear. It has her name in it, which people are searching for her people are searching for online marketing. And so it's just a great title. It was also available when she launched her show. So I think that's a great example. It really depends though, is your podcast really focused on a specific thing like online marketing? Or do you have a bit more of a general podcast? If your podcast is on Dungeons and Dragons, you know, try to include Dungeons and Dragons in that title, if at all possible. And the best case scenario is to include that at the beginning of the podcast title name. So I've seen a lot of podcasts that, you know, one of the things they'll do is they actually have kind of a unique name. And then they include kind of like something a little bit

Travis: 41:18

after it, like a tagline and the title.

Alban: 41:21

Yeah, it may be like, I don't, this is off the top of my heads. But you know, like the tabletop, you know, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. And so they're, you know, maybe they're getting into the edge of the tabletop is the name of the podcast, and they go, but we know that people are searching for Dungeons and Dragons. So they it's kind of like I take the tabletop, Kama, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. And that's the whole title is kind of their way of still including that keyword in the title. So see if there's ways to do that without keyword stuffing, and really just starting to add keywords at the end. Because when that gets obvious, Apple podcasts is going to kick you out of the directory, and you'll get no searches. So your SEO over get

Travis: 42:03

all. I remember when that was common practice. It was like Albin, blogger, Twitter aficionado, podcaster, lawyer, extraordinary GA, and you're just like, adding all these different, like keywords in your artists tag. Yeah, we're in the title, because they didn't have those filters yet. And this is like, relatively recently, four or five years ago. And then they were like, yeah, that that makes everything look terrible. So we're not going to allow that anymore.

Alban: 42:30

The real bummer was that some people got kind of grandfathered in with that keyword stuffing way. So they actually still for a while. We're getting by before Apple was like, Okay, yeah, you guys gonna have to also check, go back to old episodes, old podcasts and update your listings as well. So I think that's all been solved. But yeah, keyword stuffing eventually gets caught. And you're trying to build a brand. So you know, this is always you're balancing two things you're balancing Hey, do I get found by people searching for this topic with EMI creating a unique brand. The one thing I always tell people not to do is don't try to create a unique brand with like something that's upon, or like a unique spelling, something that makes it very difficult to find. So if you have a podcast that you know, you think hey upon would be really funny here. Maybe avoid it, because puns are mostly a play on the spelling. And now it makes it very difficult for people to find you. That's not the best way to, you know, kind of start your podcasting career is making it difficult even for people who know the name of the podcast to find the podcast.

Travis: 43:44

And our last question comes from Nancy,

Nancy: 43:46

we want to start creating transcripts of the podcast and are wondering what's the best software to use? Thanks.

Kevin: 43:53

Alright, transcripts? Yeah, great question. We've got some wonderful solutions inside of Buzzsprout for you to go ahead and get transcripts going with your podcast. The three software solutions that we recommend for transcripts are descript, which is software that you download install on your computer, and then you can use that as your recording software. If you don't want to use those recording software. You don't have to you can just use this transcript software, but that works great. And it would push your transcript when you're finished straight into Buzzsprout and associated with your episode. So that's a great option. We also integrate with Timmy Timmy as a transcription service. I think it's 25 cents a minute and you would just do your recording in your in your editing however you want. Once you upload your episode to Buzzsprout then you would just click a button Timmy would transcribe it, attach it let you download it, do whatever you want with it that way. And the third one, what's the third one that we get? We use?

Travis: 44:41

Otter

Kevin: 44:42

otter? Yes, otter is awesome. I think that's what we use for Buzzcast. Travis uses Yes. And that's a similar approach. It's just not as integrated in that meaning that you don't just click one button inside of Buzzsprout you go to otter.ai. You upload your audio file, they transcribe it. You can tweak it if you need to. Then you download file, and you can upload that to Buzzsprout if you want to associate it with your podcast. So those are three great options. Varying prices vary in quality different UI wise, I would suggest you test them all out, figure out which one works best for you. And I'm excited that you're using transcripts for your podcast, we think every podcaster should do that. It's certainly a way to get some benefit in the SEO world. But also it makes your podcast available to anybody who has a hearing disability. So congratulations. Thank you for doing that. And best of luck.

Travis: 45:28

So we hope you enjoyed another episode of Buzzcast. We didn't bore you too much with our pontificating about what's going on in the world of podcasting. If you have ideas for things we could talk about, make sure you go and follow Alban on Twitter, who's the most activist over there, this tweet Alban, let him know what you wan to talk about, and we'l incorporate it into the futur episodes, or just drop us a pos inside of our Facebook group an we'd love to interact with yo there. Thanks for listening an we'll catch you in the next one Keep podcastin