80 Pro Podcasting Tips + When To Monetize Your Podcast

In this episode, the crew breaks down Instagram's new Link Sticker, Alban gives us an update on the Facebook Podcasts rollout, and we share our favorite tips and strategies from our most recent blog post.

Links from this episode:

• 80 Podcasting Tips to Start a Successful Podcast [Blog]
• How to make your mic sound BETTER [Video]
• Can a Samson Q2U sound like a Shure SM7B? [Video]
• When should you monetize your podcast? [Video]

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• Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods

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Transcript

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Travis: 0:00

Was that a good ad read Alban, you'd be the objective person, if we were actually sponsored by honest, would they be happy with that?

Alban: 0:06

I'll be honest, I don't think

Kevin: 0:08

so. I haven't heard many, many beverage companies doing podcast advertising,

Alban: 0:13

there really is not many. I'm sure there's some sort of legal issues around like alcohol and

Kevin: 0:19

just talking about beverages. Why do you gotta go straight to alcohol because

Alban: 0:22

that that's where the profit margin is. That's what I was thinking. Okay, the alcohol there might be some laws that they don't want to deal with. The alcohol stays out. And then you're basically left with you know, Lacroix and coke. You know, I don't know what other things people drink besides tea sometimes.

Kevin: 0:39

Well, Coke owns honest.

Alban: 0:40

Oh, really? So you just did an ad read for a coke product? That's right. Yeah, we should definitely be getting paid for that. I'm looking at the outline. And I'm sorry to say that our first thing there's no way I can talk about it. I had an Instagram. I guess I still haven't Instagram had one back before it was a Facebook property. But at some point I've dropped off. So I'm not sure what I will have to say about it. Kevin, do you know anything about this? The link

Kevin: 1:13

sticker that's new to Instagram?

Alban: 1:15

What is a sticker?

Kevin: 1:16

I know all about this stuff. Got a teenage daughter? Show her how to use Instagram.

Alban: 1:21

Wait. So I'm in the generation that is out of Instagram was in Instagram and got out. Travis? Are you in the still in Instagram group?

Travis: 1:29

I'm in the person that just shows up to look at what other people are doing. But I don't think I've posted anything in lurker. Yeah, I'm

Alban: 1:36

a lurker. And then Kevin, you're in the you're like a parental role. And yeah, Graham,

Kevin: 1:42

I'm a supervisor.

Alban: 1:43

That's a what, what is? What is what is this new feature? How does it work?

Kevin: 1:50

Alright, so I could be off, I'm going to explain it as best I can. And then if I get it wrong, I'm sure someone, one of our podcast fans out there will write in and let me know that I'm off. But I believe that it's a sticker. And I believe stickers are only available to go on stories. Now, every now and then I see a post that looks like it has stickers on it, but I don't know how they got it on there. So I wonder if it's like a fake sticker. They, they edited their graphic and something that Canva and then they put the picture and it looks like a sticker. But I don't know, if you can do stickers on posts, let me know, I know how to do it on story. So if you hit the little plus icon, then you hit a story, then you're gonna see this little icon at the top that looks like it's like a face and the little corners peeling up like a sticker that's coming off, tap that that's the sticker button. And then for throwdown center, you're gonna see one that's called link, it's a link sticker, you can type in whatever URL you want. And then when somebody taps on that sticker that's on top of your photo, or your video, it will take them to that page, which is awesome, right, because used to only be able to share a link in your bio. So you'd have to go to a link tree or something like that. And Travis does know all about this, because he's the one that told me about this in the first place. But now you can actually add links, right to a story post. And if I understand stories correctly, they only last 24 hours, and they're gone. So you got to do it every day. But keep adding to your stories, sharing links to your podcast, you can go right to your episode page, right to your website, wherever you want to go.

Alban: 3:13

Okay, so how is this applicable to podcasters? And then second, how is this applicable to what you tell yourself at Instagram supervisor,

Kevin: 3:23

it doesn't really come into play as a supervisor, that I that I'm been aware of my daughter posts, you know, she's not using the link sticker yet that I've seen. I've not seen her post anything with the link sticker. But podcasters can certainly use the link sticker because all the time they're sharing bits about a new episode, or they're sharing a soundbite. They're sharing something that they want to lead people into more of that, right. And so that's been hard to do on Instagram in the past, but now you can use the link sticker to do that effectively.

Alban: 3:54

I mean, for a long time, Instagram really did not allow any sort of links at all, unless you were over like 10,000 followers. I know for us getting to 10,000 was like a big deal for Instagram, we were like, Okay, we got to get there so we can get our link. And now before we ever made it, they said actually everybody can have a link. So okay, so thank you to everyone who follows us. Well, we never got to that special pinnacle of Instagram fame. So everyone gets links now, which is great, because if you want to promote content, on Instagram, especially your podcast content, now you can actually link out to your podcast. And then Travis was talking to us a bit about there's kind of always been this question about where do you send people? Some people send since their audience is very Apple centric to Apple podcasts. Some people say you know, send them to your podcast website, which is what I've always recommended but you were telling us about you use

Travis: 4:51

link tree. Yeah, so link tree. I don't know if it was created specifically for Instagram, but link tree and other services like it Basically recreate these simple pages that have a bunch of links in them. And you could link to whatever you want, you could link to your website, you can link to your social media platforms, you could link to specific episodes of your podcast. And so the way that you would use it, as you would say, listen on Apple podcasts, listen on Spotify, listen on Google podcasts. And so when someone clicks the link, they see your link tree, and then they can choose the app that they actually listen to podcasts on. So you could do it that way. Or you could have, let's say, three stories. And the first one is an apple podcast link. The second one's a Spotify link, the third one's a Google podcast link. And you could just like, either, right? What all those links are going to in the story in the graphic, and the picture, or do something similar to that. So there's a number of ways you can do it. But link tree has been a very popular method for quite a while, especially since before the link sticker.

Alban: 5:50

I mean, the benefit there is you share this link, and it goes out to the world, people can click on it. And if you're not going to just a web page that's got tons of information, and you're expected to read it and scroll and click around. It's immediately like, Hey, you're at a crossroads. Which way do you want to go? Do you want to go to one of these podcasts listening apps? Do you want to go to my website? Do you want to go look at another social media profile, and it's formatted for your phone. So that these are big targets, like you're not trying to click a tiny little link in the middle of a text box. This is like a big fat place to tap. Nobody got box, but link box and use a lot of space. So it looked good. And I think link tree is free, unless you want to do like premium branding and stuff. But for a lot of I mean, they're free plans. Pretty nice. So if you're trying to think of a place to send people, it's not a bad option. And you can put your Buzzsprout site as one of the options there. Yeah,

Travis: 6:46

we actually have a link tree for our Buzzsprout Instagram page. If you go to the link in the bio, there's a link tree bio. And there's actually a link to Buzzcast there include in addition to our How To Start A Podcast guide and our blog, and you know, our Clubhouse club and things like that. So

Alban: 7:01

the clubhouse club that that link is getting used constantly. People are flowing in

Travis: 7:08

I mean, I'm just glad that we were able to do our part to help Oprah get 23,000 listeners on her clubhouse after party after her big Adele interview, you know,

Alban: 7:16

yeah, so actually, this isn't in the notes. But maybe this is a nice little aside, you know, for anybody that know that. Oprah Winfrey, the queen of TV,

Travis: 7:28

I guess she's like one of the top 10 most famous people in the entire world. Yeah, yeah.

Alban: 7:33

And she did an interview with Adele, who's like a top 1000 most famous people in the world. And it got like, over 10 million viewers when they're on TV, and then they did an after party, or a little chat on clubhouse, and what did you say was

Travis: 7:49

23 23,000. And that included people to just like popped in and popped out. So that wasn't, you know, so that'd be like, the Facebook video plays version of counting stats.

Alban: 8:01

Yeah. Now, clubhouse did come out later. And they said, Oh, no, that was a bug. It was 31,000.

Travis: 8:08

It's not that much better. Yeah,

Alban: 8:10

I it's just wild that, you know, remember, there was this time where it was like is clubhouse going to kill podcasting. And it's just, this is now the fifth or sixth version of this that we've gone through. Since at least I've been at Buzzsprout, where every year to there is a new app. And everyone's like, Oh, this is probably going to take out podcasting. And people who are not in the industry are very convinced podcasting has run its course and this new thing is taking over. And podcasting is surprisingly resilient. Because all of you listeners and many, many, many more podcasters are creating fantastic content. And in the end listeners are just trying to find things that they're interested in. You know, we can create cool experiences like clubhouse had that sometimes are perfect for the moment they're created in long term though, I think the ability to listen to a cool podcast while I'm out for a run, I just don't see something else stealing that spot,

Kevin: 9:07

quick correction on the number there just to make sure that we get it right, it was 23,000 people originally reported. And then 41 Five was the corrected number that they

Alban: 9:15

will take. That changes my whole opinion. I

Kevin: 9:19

just want to make sure we got the right numbers out there, as reported from pod news. So let me let me circle back to Instagram real quick. Yeah, cuz I have some possible questions or possible suggestions. All right, I was just I was just playing around. So when you click on a link in a bio to like Link tree, for example, it opens up when on iOS apps anyways, called a web view. And I'm sure it's a similar name. I just don't know what it's called for the Android versions. But it's a screen that opens up you're still in the app, and it's like a browser screen in that app. If you linked to a page, for example, your Buzzsprout provider website that you get when you create a Buzzsprout account and you played something in there that would count as an Instagram play in your stats it would show up under Apps in histogram because you're playing it through their web view, or the built in web browser into their app. You can also tap a button at the bottom and like jump out to mobile Safari. And if you're listening to it in mobile Safari, then it shows up as a mobile Safari view. I also noticed off of Buzzsprout slink tree, that we have a link to our Buzzcast podcast, which goes to the Buzzsprout provided website for that. And then from that web page, there's a link to Apple podcasts. And I can tap on that. Now that doesn't stay in the WebView that breaks out and launch switches me over into another app, Apple podcasts, which is really quite interesting. So I haven't tested this. But I would like to create a post or I sorry, create a story, put a couple stickers on it and say listen to an apple podcast, listen, and Spotify. And I wonder if you actually then put in those links, like your apple podcast link and your Spotify link. If you then tap them, it would jump them out of Instagram, into Spotify and Apple podcast.

Alban: 10:56

Well, if anybody wants to follow up with that, this has been a exciting Instagram tips from Gen X. I had to look it up. I was like, I'm pretty sure Kevin's not a Boomer and I look yeah, you're safely not a boomer. You are a Gen X are

Kevin: 11:12

though, right, which I'm proud to be. Yeah, Gen

Alban: 11:15

X actually is a pretty good group. We're getting stuff done. Alright, so onto the second segment of social media apps that we don't really enjoy it. drabbit Kevin and Alban got a quick follow up for Facebook.

Travis: 11:30

Yes, everyone's everyone's favorite topic, Facebook podcasts, we have updates. Yes,

Alban: 11:35

we keep coming back to this because more and more rolls out for Facebook podcasts. Since the last time we recorded, I went ahead and wrote a post on how to get your podcast into Facebook podcasts. We've now recorded a video that will come out on Monday, comes out on a Friday, and the video will come out on next Monday, on how to get in. And we've been kind of learning more, but one of the things that I wanted to do was figure out where is Facebook podcasts actually available. And for at least according to Facebook, it's only available in the US, at least according to like the official webpage. And I was feeling like that was out of date. Because I know that the editor of pod news is in Australia, and he was able to set it up. So I knew that at least one other country seemed to have access unless they were like us only. And probably one of the two most popular and important podcasting, journalists will make sure that they have access as well. So maybe they he was the exception. Anyway tries to crowdsource this on Twitter, a few countries that do have access to Facebook podcasts, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Portugal, all seem to be in and have access. Germany, Norway, New Zealand, they do not. So we're still seeing some countries that are in some that are not. Netherlands, I got reports both ways. So to be determined, but I think that the you know, kind of the standard is more countries are rolling out. Kind of consistently, we do have Android now. So if you are in one of these countries, US, Canada, France, Portugal, so probably a lot of Europe. Go ahead, get your podcasts into Facebook podcasts. And maybe you'll start seeing your numbers grow. We've definitely seen them start growing on the Buzzsprout side as a platform they've been growing. And this blog post I put out, it has been read, I think at this point close to 17,000 times so there's definitely a interest in Facebook podcasts is pretty large. So let us know what your questions are. If you have more. Let us maybe Travis can link to where I was asking people if they had access. And if you have any knowledge if you're in any of these. If you're in a country that wasn't listed here, we'd love to know your experience.

Travis: 14:05

Yep, we'll definitely link to that in the show notes. And make sure you go and give that video some love on the channel when it comes out on Monday. Because Alban you were the host of that one. So

Alban: 14:14

yeah, I mean, I I showed up and you fill me in, you will edit it together and it will probably turn out way better than it was in real life. So I appreciate It's the magic

Travis: 14:22

of editing my friend the magic of editing.

Alban: 14:27

One of the things we just finished was this big piece on podcast tips. We have been going through the Buzzsprout blog, and kind of updating a lot of older posts, and there's probably one of those out there from like 2014 Maybe 2015 on some expert podcasting tips, and some of these expert podcasting tips were outdated. So we went ahead and updated them. As Kevin said when he saw all the names on there he goes I really think this is at podcasting tips from albums friends in podcasting, but basically reached out to a lot of people I knew and asked, Hey, would you submit a tip. And then we also asked people in the Buzzsprout newsletter and we got over 350, maybe even close to 400. And we kind of removed a lot that were similar and duplicative. And we got down to 80 tips on how to start a successful podcast. So I think this is a great post. And it's got a lot of people that you all would recognize, as they be kind of cool if we maybe highlighted a few that resonated with us.

Travis: 15:29

Yeah, for sure. So just just for the record, since we're recording this, how many of Kevin and I's tips made the list?

Alban: 16:06

Well, neither of you submitted zero.

Kevin: 16:10

I don't think that's true. I think mine were mis attributed because for some reason everything I wrote down has a dash Alban Brooke next

Alban: 16:17

year, there's only one Alban Brooke.

Kevin: 16:20

All right, I will tell you, I like how you ordered an organized these. I scroll down right away to tips about podcasting gear. And I like what Nina bads and said, There's no perfect time, no perfect microphone or headphones, no perfect recording software, no perfect logo, this is a learn on the job type of venture. And the time starts now. So I mean, I thought that was powerful statement

Alban: 16:42

that actually reminds me in the past two days, two writers that I really respect, have both posted on Twitter about updating their computers. And I'm shocked at the computers that they were working out with like very, very cheap computers, these are two people, they're like, they're well off, they're making good money. And it seems like they were using computers that are worth a few $100. And I thought that was really super interesting to me because they're techie. And the fact that they didn't feel like they needed the $4,000 brand new MacBook Pro. But every amateur writer, including myself feels like we have to have it or else we can't ever write something decent. It's just such a, you know, good reminder that the true craftspeople the world, I think are often experimenting and they're using tools, they love their tools. But that's not the only thing that matters. And they realize that sometimes the as an amateur, you can feel like the tool is the most important thing. And that's what's going to make me successful. Alright, so one that really stood out to me, Evo Tara, who we all know, he was something like the 50th podcaster in the world and does a show called podcast pontifications. Take the long view, podcasting is no longer if there ever was a quick road to success. But if you put the appropriate amount of time, treasure and tension into every project, over time, you'll find it reaches the audience that deserves. And I love like, you know EVO has been in podcasting. Now for something like 17 years. And it's just important to remember, like, if you can stick with something for five years, you're going to be so much better at it, it's going to grow so much larger, and everything won't be perfect now, but taking the long view, and you're really putting your Karen, the show will grow to the right audience,

Kevin: 18:43

that tip from shared in Ripley is great, I got out of the habit of doing this, I remember very early on, she says, when I'm recording, if I make a mistake, I do a big clap near the microphone pause and then start the thought over it makes it very easy to find that part you need to edit out. Once you you know, open up the waveform, you can see that big spike that's super scalable. Now like we were using a road caster pro we'd get this like little button on there, you can drop a marker. And then when you open it in your DAW and you're doing your editing, you can see where those markers are. But that's not scalable. Like this is actually a really good tip. Because whether you're recording, you know, on your laptop on the road, or in a podcasting conference, or at your home setup, and maybe you have something, you know, fancier, more sophisticated, it works everywhere. So I love that super simple. And a great way to probably make your editing go quicker.

Travis: 19:26

Yeah, especially if when you're recording it, you're like, Man, I'm not gonna tell the park is exactly what I want. They're just like three or four places, I need to make a quick edit, and then it's good to go. You can kind of like, figure that out, as you're recording and know, how much of this am I gonna have to cut out? How much of this is good, how much this is bad? For sure, for sure. The tip that I think really caught my attention was from Tristan over recorded content. And this is one that I think if more podcasters asked these questions, it would help alleviate a lot of the just kind of the growing pains of podcasting. He encourages companies, or podcasters to answer two core questions as part of their strategy. Who is this podcast for? And how does it help them? The more specific you can get with these questions, the better. When you get really specific, you start to build a show for a very specific person. And I think the reason that that's so helpful and just as such a good reminder is to remember that because podcasting is really about the long tail listener People aren't just looking for generic shows, they're looking for specific shows about specific interests that they have. And so when you can really dial in on, who am I making this podcast for? How is it going to help them? Why are they going to listen to this show instead of something else, then that will really set you up for success, because that's the mental work that a lot of people aren't going to do. And it's really going to set you apart and really set you up for long term success when you have that kind of focus.

Alban: 20:56

Alright, got another one from Mr. Alpi of the clear visions podcast, be consistent. Whether you're released an episode every week, or it's a season, be consistent on your off periods, inform your fans that a break, a break is coming. You know, it's just so common you get into a show, and then you kind of realize like, Man, I don't feel like I've heard an episode in a while and you go and look and it's been a month and it's not uncommon for me to find something that I'm into, and they kind of disappear and I don't know like Did they just lose interest? Or is the show coming back? So I love that quote from Mr. LP of Jacksonville, Florida.

Travis: 21:33

Yep, and then one that just like jumps out at the off the page that you're just like, wow, this is so incredible. By this may have been Alban but it may have been Alban, quoting Kevin, who knows. Write an outline before you start recording. I think that's so true. So like we are recording this an hour and a half after we actually hopped on. So the first hour was just kind of catching up, but then also working through what are we going to talk about? How are we going to talk about it, who's going to say what, and and really just kind of mapping out loosely, the flow of the episode. And if there are things that we need to work through, or think through, or resources that we need to double check, like we do all of that before we start recording. So we're not figuring it out on the fly, even though if it's edited? Well, you don't know that as the listener, it just sounds like we're really good at having intentional conversations around podcasting. But there's a lot of prep that goes into getting ready to record an episode like that. And we have an outline for our conversation. And so right now, we're talking about this at podcasting tips block, and there's notes in there about the different sections and how they're organized and how we're going to talk about it. So having a plan, doing that work up front, it's not only going to save you time, as someone who's producing the podcast, but it's going to be a huge service to your listeners, because it's gonna be totally obvious that you are well prepared, that this is a good use of their time. And that you're not just rambling for 20 minutes about whatever, as you try and find your way. And they got to sit through that in order to get to the things that they actually want to listen to. So Alban slash, Kevin, great tip.

Alban: 23:10

Yeah, thank you. I mean, this is one that I feel like I just keep giving that tip out over and over. Because I think people often get confused between structure and being able to have some freedom. And they act as if those are opposed to each other. And I actually think that they are on the same side, if you have a structured podcast, with an outline, you know, where you're going, and your co host know where you're going, then when you decide on the spur of the moment, hey, I kind of want to actually interject something here. So when I said, I've actually talked to writers who are using, you know, older laptops, we didn't have that in the show notes. And it just popped into my brain. But I wasn't doing that inside the context of we've just been running on this silly banter for 45 minutes, let me interject another random thought. When we have a structure, then you're able to be a little bit more creative in the moment knowing if this doesn't work, we've always got the structure, you know, kind of bringing us back to the main topic. So I think that this is a great tip from Kevin, that I put in there as my but yeah, that's a, you know, build out a little outline, and it really can save you a ton on the editing process.

Travis: 24:29

So if you want to check out more podcast tips, in addition to the ones that we talked about, we'll leave a link to that blog post in the show notes for this episode 80 podcasting tips to start a successful podcast 2021 updates. And even though there may be some key omissions from really seasoned veterans in the podcasting space, who produce shows for Buzzsprout there are also some good tips in there as well. So go and check that out and let us know what your favorites are. So our YouTube channel has been doing pretty awesome lately. Hi Alban.

Alban: 25:02

You can't you can't open this section. Alright, I'll start this. Alright, you started now that we finished like high fiving ourselves for a blog post that I wrote and submitted comments to. Let's go ahead and talk about something that Travis has been working on. So we've there's a bunch of new videos we've really kind of honed in the YouTube channel. I feel like over the past few months, and a few videos really stood stood out To me, and I've done pretty well. So I don't know, Travis, are you down for doing a little bit of a deep dive into a few of your videos?

Travis: 25:36

Sure, absolutely. Which one do you want to start with?

Alban: 25:39

Okay, so there's two that we can take into conjunction. One, we did this video on how to make your mic sound better. And we can often think that the sound quality of a podcast is the microphone itself. Often, it's everything else, it's the way you speak into the microphone, it's the way you position it. It's the editing and the processing that you're doing. It's the, it's all the other stuff around it, there's lots of things you could do to make some better. And then you did another one that was kind of a new type of video for us was kind of this challenge, where you took the SM seven B, which is the mic that I use, and you're probably you're getting, you know, it's a minimum of $800 setup about versus the Samsung cue to you a $60 microphone, and then you tried to make the q2 us sound as close as possible to the SM seven B. So I don't know, can you break down these videos a little bit and tell us some of the things that you learned?

Travis: 26:37

Yes, 100%. So it's it is helpful to think about podcasting gear in terms of like other sports, you know, so like the football that you throw at a high school level is not super different than the football that you know, Aaron Rodgers is thrown at the NFL level. Or if you're a golfer, you can get like a really nice golf club. But it doesn't immediately mean that you're going to be like an amateur Pro, just because you have the right golf club, you have to know how to use it, right. And it's the same with podcasting gear. And so you can have a cheaper microphone that is built the right way or is designed in a specific way. And if you know how to use it well, then to your listeners, it sounds really well done and really professionally produced. And so you can actually get a lot of longevity out of entry level gear, if you know how to use it properly. So in that first video, you talked about how to make your mic sound good. We talked about it from a couple different perspectives. Because depending on the mic you get it might be designed differently. The two more popular ones are dynamic microphones, and condenser microphones. They're also ribbon microphones. But those are so rare that and really so expensive. They rarely enter the conversation.

Alban: 27:47

Ribbon microphones are pretty much like if you see an old timey radio station, and there's like a barbershop quartet all singing into the same mic. That's a ribbon mic, right?

Travis: 27:56

Yes. So not not necessarily like designed for voiceover applications. And they're also really finicky. So they're not very reliable for setting up in your home office or take it on the road with you and throw it in a backpack. So dynamic microphones, pick up your voice passively, meaning that they're just recording sound waves as it hits the capsule inside of the microphone. And so that means there are some strengths to it one, it has more of a bacey kind of more well rounded sound quality to it, it sounds more like a broadcast personality that you would hear on the radio or classic NPR kind of stuff. And it's much better at rejecting background noise. Because if the noise is quiet enough to not get picked up in the capsule, it doesn't get recorded as prominently. And so we really like dynamic microphones for podcasting. And so when you're using a dynamic microphone, like a cue to you, or any of the microphones we're using, then you got to be close up to it, you got to be, you know, a couple inches away, in order to really get the most out of it. With a condenser microphone, that's an active microphone, so it is powered, it is seeking sound, it is looking for sound and trying to capture everything. And so if you're in a well treated recording studio, then you'll get a fuller range of those frequencies. So it's like a better more holistic picture of the sound that it's that has been captured. And so when you're a recording artist, or you're going into an actual sound studio, you're using a condenser microphone. But in kind of everyday applications, it's going to pick up more background noise. So classic examples, the Blue Yeti, we actually did a sound test of a Blue Yeti versus a cutie you in my house with kids running around, and you can tell a huge difference, just an ambient background noise because of how they're designed. So knowing what kind of microphone you have is step one, and then step two is figuring out how do I get the best sound out of it.

Alban: 29:49

So can you give us a few tips quickly like is a kind of a tips heavy episode, but um, like give us like three things like if I if I can just learn three things to get better sound out of my existing setup, what would you tell me to do?

Travis: 30:03

Number one, bring the microphone closer to your mouth, you can immediately make any microphone sound better. To a certain extent. You don't want to eat the microphone. You don't want to be so close that you're like brushing up against it, but it needs to be pretty close to your mouth. The second thing to be aware of is is it angled directly at your mouth or is it angled to the side. So if you have the microphone, kind of diagonally angled towards the corner of your mouth, that's going to help avoid harsh plosives, which are the P and B sounds. And then in a lot of microphones that also helps with your sibilance, which is how the s resonates in the pickup pattern. And then the third tip, just be mindful of where you're recording what room you're choosing to record in. You know, if you're recording in a room with hardwood floors, and not a lot of stuff on the wall, so you're going to get more echo more reverb. And that's going to impact your overall sound quality, even if you have a Shure SM seven B. But if you're recording in a walking closet, or in the video that I did try to make the Qt you sound like an$800 microphone setup actually stole Jonathan's hoodie. He's back behind the camera filming the video and created a little tent little recording tent around the microphone to really isolate all the external sounds. I mean, that works. It looks really silly. But it totally totally works. So you can create like a little pillow fort or a tent with a comforter and record in there. And it makes a huge difference compared to recording in a more reverberant space.

Alban: 31:28

If you're ever thinking about trying to get an excuse to start building pillow forts, again as an adult, podcast, right hobby for you.

Travis: 31:37

Absolutely, absolutely. And if you're your spouse gives you a hard time to say, I'm doing it for the audio quality, I'm saving us money, because I can use the gear that I have to get really good audio quality.

Kevin: 31:47

So one of the videos that hit our YouTube channel that I thought was awesome was the like when to monetize video, when should you start? When should you monetize your podcast? Travis, you did that. I think that's something everybody should watch. Especially because people are asking all the time, when's the right time for me to monetize my podcast? So tell me like, give us the high points, like convince everyone who's listening this right now to go watch this awesome video?

Travis: 32:08

Well, thank you, Kevin, I really do appreciate the completely unsolicited praise that I did not ask for in the slightest, but I will graciously accept. So it basically comes down to two things. The first one is recognizing what you're going to spend your time doing as a podcast creator, as a producer, you're going to be creating content, the actual episodes themselves, you then got to tell people about it. So you got to have some kind of marketing and promotion effort in order to grow the show. And then you're looking at monetization opportunities. How can I monetize this asset that I've created? Most people jump from content creation straight to monetization? Because it's like, cool, I've started creating this thing. Now, how do I monetize it. But unless you have a strategy in place to get new listeners every single month, there's only so many times you can sell honesty to the same 50 people or promote a product or an affiliate link to a smaller audience,

Kevin: 33:04

I might push back on that a little bit, I think I'm just gonna keep I'm gonna buy honesty all the time all the time. So you can you can sell it to me.

Travis: 33:12

Maybe that was a bad example. Me undies. There's only so many pairs of mattresses that there's only so many Casper mattresses you need. But but the point being that you really got to focus on things in the right order. And so before you start focusing time and energy into figuring out a monetization strategy that you can apply consistently, that's actually going to turn into a significant amount of revenue for you. You first are going to want to focus on growing your show, and getting more listeners. So the recommendations that I give at the end, are that before you really consider monetizing your podcast, focus on creating content consistently for at least six months, that'll give you enough time to really iron out the kinks to find your voice as a podcaster. And to start building an audience and to have a cadence where it's not overwhelming to you anymore to create episodes every single week. And then the second metric to look for is to get 500 downloads per episode. Now, can you monetize it for that, of course, this is just something to shoot for. And the reason that I picked 500 over other numbers is because at that level, most of the monetization strategies that you would look to pursue or experiment with or try actually makes sense, right? Even if you go to the far extreme, and you're, you're doing host read ads, for sponsors at a CPM rate, you're still making, you know, 40 to$80 a month, depending on how many ad reads you do at 500 downloads. So you pay for your hosting, you pay for new gear, pay for some swag, whatever you want to do. And so that's those are the numbers that I recommend. You can agree disagree. But in general, that's the advice that I find myself getting

Kevin: 34:59

fantastic. That was a two and a half minute teaser for four and a half minute video.

Travis: 35:04

The best seven minutes of your day that you will spend learning about monetization

Kevin: 35:08

brought to you by honest organic tea just a tad

Travis: 35:12

should reach out to honesty about being a show sponsor just every single week,

Kevin: 35:17

man I'll do it for free.

Alban: 35:19

Like aren't doing it.

Travis: 35:20

I'll do it for this thing that gets in this free product in exchange for promotion if we if we do the right thing I

Kevin: 35:26

wouldn't even feel right about taking it for free. It's just so good. Gotta give them I got to give them some

Travis: 35:30

back. Now are you a half and half guy you'd like to have tea half

Kevin: 35:33

late half tea and half lemonade. 100 calories per bottle.

Travis: 35:36

See, I like the green tea organic tea myself.

Kevin: 35:39

Green tea is delicious. It's perfectly sweetened. I've got some green tea right here. Now this is not honest brand. This is Arizona brand. It's a terrible substitute. Stick with honest if you can get it but my gas station didn't have that.

Travis: 35:51

So I had to go there is on it. I mean, the nice thing about Arizona is you can get 144 ounces of drink for 99 cents, you know, so yeah, that's the benefit there. It's almost cheaper than water. But if you want the good stuff, can't go wrong with honest Was that a good ad? Read Alban up the objective person, if we were actually sponsored by honest, would they be happy with that?

Alban: 36:08

I'll be honest, I don't think so.

Kevin: 36:13

I haven't heard many, many beverage companies doing podcast advertising, there really

Alban: 36:18

is not many. I'm sure there's some sort of legal issues around like alcohol and

Kevin: 36:23

I'm just talking about beverages. Why do you gotta go? Because

Alban: 36:27

that's where the profit margin is. That's what I was thinking. Okay, yeah, alcohol, there might be some laws that they don't want to deal with. The alcohol stays out. And then you're basically left with you know, Lacroix and coke. You know, I don't know what other things people drink besides tea sometimes. Well, Coke owns honest. Oh, really? So you just did an ad read for a coke product? That's right. Yeah, we should definitely be getting paid for that then

Travis: 36:52

Well on that note, taker advice, but then don't follow our example when it comes to host read ad rates and monetization. So we hope you enjoyed that 40 minute version of Podcasting Q&A here on Buzzcast. With all the practical tips, one thing that'll be super helpful for us go ahead and use that link sticker if you have an Instagram account to promote your podcast and then let us know how it goes. Let us know if you see any traction or anything like that. Just shoot a tweet over to Alban Brooke, at Alban Brooke, use hashtag what Buzzsprout Kevin what hashtag we want to use Buzzsprout rocks. Yeah, sure. Buzzsprout Buzzsprout is awesome. use that hashtag. Yeah, tag us. And then we're like it. And then Alban will tweet it, and we'll tick tock it and you'll see all the things. That's the tag Buzzsprout in your story, and we will catch you in a couple of weeks. Keep podcasting.

Alban: 37:45

Everybody, thanks for sticking around to the end of the episode. This is Alban here dropping in some dynamic content to tell you about some updates to our dynamic content features, we're continuing to move forward with all the tools allowing you to trop ads and announcements into all of your episodes, so that you can record something once and automatically have added to the beginning or end of all of your episodes, the new updates that we've made to dynamic content. Number one, if you have an announcement that's maybe only applicable for a short period, and you replace it with something else, will now that announcement stays in something we're calling our dynamic content library. The library is a list of all of the different announcements or advertisements, or just little pieces that you've dropped into your episodes over time so that you can reapply them whenever you would like. The second piece is that now those are tracked for how many times they've been played. So if you have an ad read, and you want to report back to your sponsor, and tell them how many times it's been downloaded. Well now you know, because that content may be spread across 30 different podcast episodes. You want to be able to count the stats for all of those for the entire time that it was out in the world. Reach out to us on Twitter, let us know how you were using dynamic content and the new dynamic content library. We'll see you in a couple weeks.

Unknown: 39:11

Bye