Buzzsprout Sierra Update + Social Media Tips

We just wrapped up a bunch of new features now available in Buzzsprout, so we talk about why we created them, how to use them, and where you can find them. We also chatted about how to succeed on social media and our biggest social media pet peeves!

Have an idea for something we should talk about? Post it in the Buzzsprout Podcast Community on Facebook and tag one of us to let us know!

Chapters

• 0:56 Work cycle Sierra update
• 2:10 Visual Soundbite upgrades
• 6:51 The new episode sidebar
• 9:47 Getting listed in podcast directories
• 17:57 Social media tips
• 29:14 Social media pet peeves

Transcript

Travis: 0:00

Welcome to BuzzCast where we talk about all things podcasting. Everyone has an opinion. Sometimes they're right. Uh, I'm your host Travis

Kevin: 0:06

We need a new opening, like that. Jokes. It's, it was funny, but now we need a new one. All right. The bar is going up a little bit.

: 0:14

All right, Alban, kick us off.

Alban: 0:16

Hey, welcome to BuzzCast where we talk.

Kevin: 0:18

Oh No, we're killing it.

Travis: 0:24

Welcome back to another episode of BuzzCast. We were talking about all things podcasting from three guys that work at Buzzsprout. We've got our usual suspects, Kevin resident cofounder and man that pays the bills. Hey Travis, Alban, marketing guru in, in, in magic man that makes the whole thing go. Definitely not your Guru. And then, uh, and then I'm Travis, I'm the head of content, head of contents. That's the official title, right? Uh, that's what I put on my business cards. And then, uh, I haven't been asked you much about it yet, so I guess it makes sense. So we just wrapped up a work cycle that Buzzsprout which was awesome. We always love the end of work cycle. But for somebody who doesn't work at Buzzsprout, Kevin, what is a work cycle and why should Buzzsprout people be excited?

Kevin: 1:10

Sure. So all the work that we do here at Buzzsprout, we work in these six week cycles and we just call them work cycles. So at the beginning of the six week period we get together and we decide what we're going to do and then we split up into teams and then we work independently as teams to accomplish that work over the six weeks. So if you're a Buzzsprout customer, hopefully you've noticed over the past week or so, those projects have been coming to a close and we've been pushing them out. And so we pushed a couple of great enhancements that we can talk about today and we pushed a couple of things that you know was just the beginning building blocks for future things that we won't talk about, but they're equally as exciting, if not more exciting. That's what you call a teaser. Yeah. Yes. So, sometimes there are projects that span more than six weeks. And when they do, we don't talk about stuff that's not released yet, but you'll hear about it soon enough cause we'll probably wrap it up next cycle.

Travis: 1:56

Awesome. So, so let's jump into some of the new stuff that people that use Buzzsprout podcasters on Buzzsprout, uh, can see right now in their user dashboard and why we are excited about each of them. The first one being our visual soundbites 2.0 so, uh, if you've used them before, we, we have this visual soundbite creator where you can great these 32nd video clips to use to promote your episodes and social media. And we've been getting a lot of feedback about them over the past months and years. And so we took a lot of those great ideas that we heard from you guys and created a 2.0 version, right? Based on all that feedback. Um, Kevin, you were on that development team, right?

Kevin: 2:36

Yeah. So the, the main points that we were trying to hit, like what we would call the epicenter of the project is that we wanted more customization and we wanted to um, extend the length. So for purposes of creating a sound bite, you don't want to use your entire episode, you want to take a segment of it, kind of like a highlight clip and use that to promote your show. And so we started off with the original 1.0 version of visual soundbites was you can create up to a 30 second clip. We've decided to move that to 60 seconds. And the reason behind that is like for Instagram stories. So now we also let you do different formats. You can do a, a landscape, a square or a portrait version of the portrait version is great for Instagram stories and Instagram stories will allow you to post up to a one minute clip. Now it will break those into four separate 15 second segments. But overall you can drop a one minute video in there and it stitches them altogether. So we did that and we did the ability to change the background color, the ability to change the text color and change the color of the wave form. So we rolled that out last week, posted it to our Facebook group. If you're not in there, please join because you get to see stuff like this before we officially make the announcement next week. Uh, and people have been using it, loving it. Alban, what have you heard?

Alban: 3:45

Yeah, I kind of wonder if we should tell a little bit about what the soundbites are for some people who may not know what they are yet. Do it, man, go for it. Um, so when you're sharing something on social media, you can just post a link or you can post image or something like that. Uh, but we'll, we found worked best was little videos, so little videos that kind of entice people to go and click on it and listen to your podcast. So the solution, um, that we have is always been to show these little videos to kind of like a little animation of your voices, like a wave form. That's what we call the sound bytes. Um, hopefully, I mean I think a lot of people probably used them, but every once in a while I do run into people who are like, Oh, I've never noticed I could do that.

Kevin: 4:24

Right? And you might see these online posted other under different names, like an audiogram or a wave wavve as a company. They're awesome and they make little sound bites like this. Um, another company called headliner, another cool company, they give you a lot of customization options and stuff. So our solution isn't designed to compete with those companies. We love those companies and they may have a great product and if you want more advanced features than what we offer in Buzzsprout, then absolutely go check those companies out. And they've got, they create awesome little video clips. Our solution is designed for somebody who needs something, uh, you know, 90 the 90% solution. So I'm in there, I'm editing my, my podcast. I know that there's this great little clip that I can use to promote it when I'm dropping my show and I just want to create something quick that's on brand. And on message and I don't have a lot of time to go customize it in one of these other tools.

Alban: 5:13

Yeah. I read something that headliner put out where they were trying to like express like how valuable it is to actually make these little videos rather than just an image. And so they did it totally kind of, I really liked the random bunch of Facebook ads for a podcast with different visual components to somewhere images too. They had like images with text and then they had their actual soundbites, like little videos and the ones that had the videos, those I think were getting three times as many clicks is their images. So if you consider, you know, you're sharing it, you're actually go through this process at creating some asset to put on social media to try to drive some traffic, um, soundbites going to be able to get you quite a bit more action than just posting up a little imagery or face like dropped a new episode. Hope you guys like it. Right?

Kevin: 6:01

And all these social platforms use algorithms to help determine what they're going to show people when they log into their feed. So Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, they all use these algorithms. So if you just post content, do you have a much less of a chance of being shown in some of the feed than if you post an image, which is even less than a video. So video being the highest, so you already get a bump just for the fact that you post a video, you have a better chance of showing up in people's feeds. And then as people engage with that, so they like it or they share it or they click on the link below it, then you get bumped higher and higher and higher in the algorithm.

Travis: 6:37

Yeah. So it's a really nifty tool. If you're creating content for social media, you're, you need something to help promote new episodes. It's something right inside your Buzzsprout dashboard that you can very quickly utilize to get something that's going to work really great for you. Um, now something you will notice when you go to create your visual sound bite is that we read, we re, uh, worked the right toolbar so it looks a lot cleaner now. It's a lot easier to see different things that you can do after you upload an episode with the visual sound being one of them. Uh, so that was something else that came out of the work cycle. Right?

Kevin: 7:09

Right. So we had to re it was time to rework that right toolbar because as we're adding more functionality, um, things that were important, it starts to get buried and things like the visual soundbite, people weren't seeing as much because there was so much stuff over there. So we had to go back to the design board and figure out how do we not only kind of create a hierarchy that's appropriate and helpful, but also make sure that people aren't missing things that not, not maybe not as many people use or something like that. Yeah.

Alban: 7:37

I mean there's two ways to do it. One way is to kind of put it right in front of People's face when they upload an episode and be like, why don't you do these 12 other tasks? And our way is always been, you know, get that besides up there and then do the things that matter to you. So that may be transcribing an episode, but it may not be. It may be using the share buttons and may be creating those visual sound soundbites. Um, you know, any number, adding chapter markers are over there. And I think the redesign makes it a little bit more clean. So you can go, okay, I'm going to do, I'm gonna start off launch my podcast, I'm gonna do one or two of these things. And maybe down the line as this becomes a bigger project for you, you've love, you really get into a podcast, you start doing more of those as you move up.

Kevin: 8:19

Right. One thing that a lot of people don't use right now that I hope the redesign of the sidebar brings to the forefront a little more is chapter markers. So it was, what was it like four months ago, roughly? We pushed out chapter markers and we built a really great chapter marker tool into Buzzsprout. If you've ever listened to a podcast in an app like overcast or apple podcast and now supports chapter markers, there's different ways that you can get to the chapter marker functionality of those Apps, but then that allows you to skip forward and backward and move around through a long podcast episode just by jumping to the topics that you're interested in.

Travis: 8:49

Yeah, really nifty tool, especially if, uh, there's certain segments in your show that have titles or something you want to call out. It's like, Ooh, yes, that's exactly what I want to listen to and it's seven minutes and 11 seconds in. You can kind of cue that up for your listeners to make listening to your episode a little more engaging in that way.

Kevin: 9:06

Yeah. It's also super helpful if you do any advertising, whether they be ads that somebody just paid you upfront to do or if you do affiliate marketing or anything, it's a good idea to use chapter markers to highlight where those ads are not so people can skip over them. But just, you know, in full transparency that this is an ad that's playing in my podcast at this point.

Alban: 9:23

Yeah. And you can also click, like the chapter marketers can have a link in them too. So it's kind of nice that if you're talking about something and you're like, hey, check out this article we're talking about, you can click through and go and actually check it out.

Travis: 9:35

Yeah. Chapter Markers are one of those, those great little tools that once you start using it you start to find more and more reasons to use it. Um, but it's just kind of breaking into it and getting started. Um, the other really cool thing that we did was we changed kind of the way that you, that you, uh, get listed in directories or the way that you can see your status in different podcast players when you're first getting started. Cause I know a lot of the support questions we get are like, how do I get an apple podcasts? How do I get in Spotify? You know, am I listed in Spotify yet? Like those are some common questions we get. And so we wanted to redesign that part of your dashboards and make it a lot easier to add a glance, see kind of what your status is on all these different things and then kind of clarify some common questions that we get.

Alban: 10:23

Yeah, I know Priscilla natty went through all of support and they were trying to figure out like what percent of all of our questions are in these different areas. And Priscilla's have something like a quarter of all of our emails are like a directory related question. And we've always thought like, we're doing a pretty good job getting people into directories. We're giving really good, um, step by step instructions on how to get in. That's kind of concerning. 25% are directory related and when you get into it, a lot of times it's like, Hey, if I've been approved yet by apple podcasts, like, oh, do you know if I have a URL for my Google podcasts and why did I ever get in? Um, I know I got into Spotify, but I don't know my link. And I think as we dug into where like, you know, a lot of these are things we can figure out programmatically, we can figure out, well we know what the URL is going to be, uh, for your Google podcast listing and we can check for you to see, oh, you are in, and actually provide that data back. So it was, you know, a cool tools. I mean a redesign really just so we can share, say, hey, we see that those are there and then we can start adding them to different things. So we added them to the public sites. So if you use Buzzsprout public sites now you can click like listen and it pops up this modal that's got a whole list of all the places people can listen to your podcast. There's links get used inside your embed players. So it's a good way for us to start collecting that data without asking people to go out and figure it out on their own.

Kevin: 11:50

Yeah. And that, that turned out to be a really challenging project. Yeah. It seemed simple when we stepped into it, but turns out the majority of these directories don't do things the same way. And so the way that you get listed in apple is very different than the way you get listed in Google podcasts is very different than the way you get listed in Spotify. It's different than when you get listed in stitcher and iHeart and Tunin. They all have their own unique way of doing things and their own unique way of displaying your link or telling us once you are listed and the majority of them don't tell us. So we've got to go out there and and ask them specifically, is this podcast listed? And then they say yes or no. So it was a, it was a tougher project than we thought going into it, but I'm really excited about where we landed and the solution that we have and I think we did a good job. Again, let us know if you're a Buzzsprout customer and you agree or not. But I think we did a good job of hiding that complexity. Right? It looks the same from the front end anyway. To submit to if you're submitting to apple podcasts or Spotify or stitcher. We try to make it as simple as possible and push all that complexity to the back end and let the computers do the hard work.

Travis: 12:57

Yeah. And I just wanted to clarify one thing. Um, cause we, we throw around to some of these terms a lot in in the office but might not be as obvious. So when Alban was talking about public sites, that's the free website that we give you when you sign up with Buzzsprout where you can send people and they can listen to your episodes and they can see your description. And on those included podcast websites, there's now a button that says listen. And when they click on that, there's like a pop up screen that has all these different podcast apps that your podcast is listed in. And so if somebody goes to your website and they're like, oh, I want to subscribe to this and I listen to stuff on stitcher and they click that button and you're listed in Stitcher, then there's a direct link for them to be able to go and subscribe. So just makes it a lot easier for people to take that next step of going from discovering your podcast and seeing it on your website to then subscribing to your show in their app.

Kevin: 13:53

Right. And it might be worth clarifying as well the difference between like directories and podcatchers or podcast apps.

Travis: 14:00

Yeah, go for it. Kevin, what's, what's the difference? Cause even when I was doing research on these initially it was, it almost felt like splitting hairs, trying to figure out how to, how to define them,

Kevin: 14:09

right? Well some are both. So like apple podcasts is an app that lives on your phone and allows you to listen to podcast through and subscribe and stuff. But it's also a directory, a place where you would want to have your podcasts listed. And Spotify is the same way. Um, now we get to like Google podcast that's a little bit different. Right now that's primarily a directory. There is a Google podcast app that runs on android phones, but it's brand new. It doesn't have a ton of functionality. So I say that one's just slightly different because it's not like something that you would need to go to the android store and download and and load up with all your podcasts. Google is trying to be really clever and maybe they crack a new way to do podcasts apps. But the biggest benefit of Google podcast right now is it being a directory?

Alban: 14:53

Yeah, so if you're trying to think of the two big categories, you've got directories, which that's like the phone book of all the different podcasts to listen to. Anywhere that you're going through big lists, that's a directory. Anywhere that you are subscribing to a show and probably listening to those shows, that's a pod catcher or most people just call it podcast app. Then you can remember that because it's catching all of your podcasts as they're being made available and it's downloading them.

Kevin: 15:19

And so then we go on to stitcher again, an app and a directory, a Iheartradio in app and a directory and tune in which is an app and a directory. And that's kind of the end of the directory list. Like those are the big six in the directory world. If you get your podcasts and those big six directories, you're pretty much going to be everywhere. You want to be a, and then we start talking about Pod catchers, only podcast apps and those are the popular ones are like pocketcasts and overcast Castro. I'm I missing a few castbox is another one. Breaker. Yeah. And so usually what, how those work since they're not, they don't have directories behind them. They, they pull from another directory and the majority of them use apple podcasts. So that's why we recommend everyone start with apple podcast. Get Your podcasts listed there first and then you'll automatically be available on all of these podcast apps.

Alban: 16:15

Yeah, I think one of the most valuable things is getting to go back to projects that we've done work on before. Like, so this directories, since I've been here, I can think we've worked on three, four separate times and the sound bytes, this is the second big project on them. And the uh, you know, the place where you upload an episode and then you have all these extra options. We've worked on that 15 times since I've been here. And so the nice thing is when people write in, I think it's always good to get lots of feedback from customers like, hey, this works really well. I love it. Or Hey, I'm running into this new issue or here's something that I could envision that would be useful for me. Not every single thing that's written in is that we're going to be able to build. And it may not always be an idea that fits with the product, but it is always great to get that feedback. So if you ever have a, you know, some insight or you notice something you like, you know, write it in. Because our support team, one of the things I love, they always do, they take that and they end up sending it to the team that built it. So there's a lot of times like we'll be, we use something called Basecamp to manage all the projects and like addie will get an email and we'll come in and she's like, Hey, great job John and Dave, like this project you just worked on. It's awesome. And it's fun, like seeing the persons that, uh, you know, think they wrote into support.

Travis: 17:31

Yeah. Just support@buzzsprout.com if you any, even if you run into any quirks or difficult to use, like we, we do a really thorough job of testing stuff before you see it, to make sure that it's not gonna break on you. Uh, but if you discover something or if you're having trouble doing something, um, that should be easy. Please write us into support. We want to help you figure out any bugs that you're encountering to, to get you back to doing awesome podcasting and stuff. So one of the reasons that we decided to revamp the sound bite at all is because a lot of podcasters lean on social media to help promote their podcast. Um, and so we wanted to kind of take a minute to just share some things that we've observed, uh, some best practices, so to speak, about how to utilize social media to help your podcast. Not necessarily just with getting more listeners, but other metrics, other things that podcasters[inaudible] are interested in. And I think the, the first thing that I want to queue up for us to talk about is what is the most effective thing that are the most effective platform for podcasters? Like is it Facebook, is it Instagram, is it Pinterest, linkedin? And this is a trick question, but I'm curious what your initial thought.

Kevin: 18:48

I feel like we're getting set up here. I don't know that I want to answer the most effective. Can we just talk about effective platforms in general or is this you really want to trap me on this one?

Travis: 18:57

Oh No, it's not a trap. It's not a trap. I just have a, I guess a non intuitive answer coming on the back end of this. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so what do you think, like if somebody asked you, hey, what social media platform should I be on for my podcast? What would you say?

Kevin: 19:11

Well, I don't love the answer because I don't love the platform, but I think you have to be on Facebook. Um, here's what's exciting. Just so I don't spend time harping on Facebook. I mean Facebook is great and everyone's there and you can get a lot of engagement. But I've, I've heard recently that people are just talking more and more about linkedin and how people are finding more and more podcasts on linkedin. And so that's something that we're actually pitching for the next work cycle would be to include the ability to share to linkedin and um, especially if you have any, anything like professionally related or work related or your podcast talks about the workplace or job opportunities or anything like that. Like that's a fantastic social media network to get plugged into with your podcast.

Alban: 19:52

One really good piece of advice and now this makes me think, it kind of answers your question on which platform should you be on. I read this article and a guy was like, you know, often people talk about, hey, you should be trying to build a brand online by yourself and like market yourself and talk and do all this stuff online. Start a podcast, do a blog, do this, do that. And he goes, really, you've got to do is you kind of got to build a little group, like a, like a technology stack. You're doing kind of just a stack of the things that you do. I like to blog it on, like to podcast. Okay. Do a blog. You don't have to do a blog and a podcast and a video. You can just do the blog. And if you're only want to be on one social platform, because that's the one you're on and you like, and do you think your audience is on? Just do that one. You're better off doing Pinterest really well. Like, I don't know Pinterest at all, but I bet doing Pinterest really well is better than Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, poorly. And it's better to in, you know, invest in one and meet people and reach out and build a little community somewhere rather than just this idea of, I've gotta be on all of them, so I'm just gonna put in 15 minutes and all of them in burn out and never really do anything that great. Does that Kinda answer your question?

Travis: 21:08

Well, yeah, you stole my answer. Oh yeah. So, so whenever somebody asks me like, what social media platform do I need to be on? Uh, my first, the first thing that I say is, it's better to do a couple of things really well than be mediocre at everything, right? So this is just echoing what you just said, Alvin, right? Like choose, like make a choice and say, I'm gonna, I have my podcasts. That's something I do consistently. That's one way that I engage with my, my audience, my listeners. And then if you are never on Facebook, but you're always on Instagram, which I know is like owned by Facebook, but we'll just ignore that for now. Um, if you're on Instagram all the time and that's what you enjoy doing and that's how you, you know, communicate with people, then make that the focus of your podcast, you know, of how you're gonna interact with your listeners on social media if you're all over Pinterest because you're always getting ideas of how you want to, you know, redesign your house and plan for your wedding and, you know, just get craft ideas or cooking ideas or whatever. Um, then figure out how can you use that to interact with people that listen to your podcast. Um, cause you're right, if you just try and do everything, like start your tick tock account because that's a new thing now. Um, it's musically 2.0 it's the new tech talk app. Um, and it's like, that's cool. Like you can do that, but it's not the, you know, checking all the boxes, filling in content on all these profiles, it's going to be successful for you. It's where you can be consistent with something and actually enjoyed doing it. Cause when you enjoy doing it, you're going to stick with it. Right. If you hate writing articles for linkedin because that's what works, like you're not, you're not going to be successful because you, you won't stick with it long enough to actually pick up the traction you need.

Alban: 22:55

Yeah. I, and you've got to also find where your audience is. So in different stages of my life that's been in different places. I mean, I think college, like everyone I knew was on Facebook and then when I was practicing law, everything's like, you gotta be on Linkedin. And all of my like buddies from law school now all they do is post on Linkedin and now in the marketing world it's all Twitter. Like nobody is like, hey, come to our secret Facebook group. Everyone's like, hey, publish all this stuff on Twitter. And that's where we interact. Maybe like a slacker actually also, but there's, you know, I've just seen it myself like moving from one platform to the next and different stages of my life that exists for different interest areas. So I know if you're going to write, I don't know, let's say you're really into rescue animals or something like dogs and there's probably Facebook groups for that. But then there's other things I bet like a world of Warcraft group that's probably on Reddit and find the place where your audience is hanging out. That's where you want to engage because you're not trying to engage just to blast all of this stuff, like new episode, check it out. You've got to get out there and be like discussing things with people, talking to them and uh, you know, engage with your audience.

: 24:15

Yeah. And I think we should say, I think we would all agree that you don't want to just jump into these groups wherever they are and just start promoting your stuff. Like you want to add value first, you want to( that never works). Yeah. You want to be a member of the community, you want to be one of them. And then maybe you start off by just adding value to this community and being a participant. And if somebody wants to learn more about you, they click through to your profile or your bio or whatever. And that's where they see, hey, you're a podcaster and you have this podcast. Now if the opportunity comes up where someone's asking a question and you covered it in a recent podcast episode or something and you want to drop a link, totally fine, but you can't lead with that stuff. And regardless of what social network you jump into.

Alban: 24:55

Yeah, I see this one the most on reddit and I always think it's hilarious. Like people will come with like hit clear they, they throw a question out there or they have like a total reason why they're coming to the conversation. Like, oh, very interesting question. I addressed this on my podcast drop link and then move on. And they always just read it. It seems especially cruel in this aspect that people will just be like, ah, this is total pandering. Like knock this out. We don't like stop trying to just promote your own stuff and gauge down vote. Yes. But sometimes people will discuss something and you'll notice they talk about a podcast and people then we're clamoring and they're like, hey, is there a podcast? Like you're into? Like I'd love to listen to it. And that stuff so much more authentic and those opportunities do come up when you're engaging with an audience. They don't come up just by you manufacturing and try to trick people into listening to your show.

Travis: 25:49

Yeah. And there's actually, I think that this can be a helpful distinction. There's, there's kind of like two reasons that you have of a social media account or use social media to promote your podcast. One is to interact with people that aren't listening yet and getting a conversation with them to then lead them to your podcast content. But then the second reason would be people that already listened to your podcast that you want to start more of a dialogue with because when they, when they listen, they just get you talking into their ear, which is great. It's great for you. It's always great when people listen to your podcast, right? But then there are times where you want to talk back. Like you want to hear from them, you want to hear, what do you like about the show? What can I make better? Um, you know, what was your favorite episode? And, and when you start that kind of a online community around your podcast, what that does is that that brings people closer into feeling like they're a part of something, feeling like they're a part of making your podcast what it is and then they're more excited about sharing it. They're more excited about telling their friends about your podcast cause they're like, hey, not only is this an awesome show that I listened to, but like I am always messaging the host back and forth. Like he answered my question on an episode. It was so cool. If you're into this, this is a podcast you have to listen to.

Alban: 27:01

It's like the number one content marketing idea generator to where if you can just go mean, core is really good for this, right? It's really good for this. Facebook groups are good for this. Just go and start looking for questions people have and people will say, you know, hey, I don't know, going back to my rescue dogs group that I've invented now someone's like, Oh, I've always wanted to do rescue. How do I find a good dog? How do I, what do I know? How do I know if it's going to be a good dog for me? How do I figure these things out? Well, if you're in that community and you're podcasting, how do you probably know the answer to that and you can go and go, oh cool, great answer. I can write up at something nice for them, but then that can become the lead for my next episode. And then you could start generating content that people are really interested in listening to. Even if you don't answer that specific person later on, say, hey, I podcasted about this for you. You have answered hundreds of people who have that question as well.

Kevin: 27:55

Yeah. Quora is an amazing community that I've just recently stumbled into, but I do that all the time. I'll all core smart like all social networks are and so they will start to recognize patterns of answers or answers or answers from people that I am interested in or that I, you know, click to read more about their answer. And then sooner or later, like I don't even know, like I don't on Quora. Do you like follow people? I don't even,

Travis: 28:19

you'll just start getting emails. They'll be like, hey, you answered a question about this in the past. I bet you could also answer this question really well.

Kevin: 28:26

It's crazy. And then the emails I get, I see a lot of the same people answering questions cause they're topics that I'm interested in. And then inevitably I end up clicking on their profile and I find out that they work in this company and then I check out the product from that company. And so I think it's a really interesting and non kind of like sleazy way of marketing and becoming an expert in getting some influence without, you know, just posting your podcast link everywhere.

Alban: 28:49

Yeah. One thing that I'm marketer online, Justin Jackson talks about is being helpful online and if that's the way you're approaching a social media to be helpful to people who are on that platform, you're doing something good. If you're going there with the explicit purpose of I've got to get them to buy my ebook, you're already taking the wrong mindset in, but if you can go and provide real help, something good will come out of it.

Travis: 29:14

That just gave me a really fun idea. A, I'm really curious if you guys have social media pet peeves when it comes to people promoting their podcast. Uh, I can tell you mine right off the bat, which is when they join a Facebook group that's completely unrelated to anything that they're talking about, and immediately share a live video of them sitting at a table not talking. I don't know if you've ever seen that. I've never seen that. They're like live streaming their podcast, but it's like in the setup phase, or they're like just getting like set up and uh, maybe they're like small talking or whatever, but it's just totally random. It's like, why? Why am I looking at somebody's living room? And there's just like a couple of dudes sitting on a couch. There's no microphones in the shop. There's no nothing. It's just like, hey,

Alban: 29:58

why is this happening to the Buzzsprout group on Facebook?

Travis: 30:02

It's happened a couple of times and people flag it or I'm quick, quick to delete it, one of the two. But that's one of my pet peeves cause it's like, it's not even like clear what you're trying to spam me with. It's not even, it's not even spam where I understand what you're trying to do. Right. At least then I'm like, I see what you're doing there and then I delete it, but with this, I'm like, you're wasting my time with me trying to figure out what you're spamming me with. And then I see, oh, new member never posted before. They're just sharing this live video. And it's like, nope. That's, that's, that's one of my biggest pet peeves with social media.

Kevin: 30:37

If you're marketing your podcast, the idea that people shouldn't listen to other podcasts because they should listen to yours is not, it's just not true. It's not a great marketing strategy. And so we would never talk bad about another podcast and say, don't waste your time listening to that because they get everything wrong or they're boring people. You should listen to this one instead. There are plenty of listeners out there and so we, we believe that you don't need to knock the competition to be able to build your own show. Just talk about what's great about your own show.

Travis: 31:08

I like that. Alban, any, any pet peeves from you?

Alban: 31:13

The ambiguous complaint. It's like you're trying to get somebody to ask you what's wrong so that you can be like, no, I can't talk about it. So it was always like, I can't believe it. Dot Dot, dot. What can't you believe? Like sometimes people disappoint me. Dot Dot, dot. And you're like, all right. I guess something happened bad and it was like, people are like, oh my gosh. Or that there's always a few friends in the know like she's not worth it bro. And you're like, what was it like, who is she? I guess this is a girlfriend or something, something happened and I'm like, I don't want to get into it. On Facebook? No, actually you do want to get onto Facebook because you just posted it. I don't know if there's like a, uh, a podcast promotion version of this, but sometimes I feel like we just hit on a hot button. Nothing to do with podcasting, but Alban's all excited try. Travis is like, what's your pet peeve? And then one like popped in and I was like, oh, got to get it.

Travis: 32:12

So you don't like it when people are fishing for your engagement in your comments?

Alban: 32:16

Yeah, I guess that's it. It's that if I know they're trying to get me to engage, they're using this tactic of like, why don't you ask me what I want to tell you? I'm like that I want to ask, I don't care.

Travis: 32:27

Or, or do you just not like that there that you know that they're manipulating you in the doing something that you really don't care about?

Alban: 32:33

Yeah. As soon as I know that someone's trying to manipulate me, then I'm like allergic to it and I'm like, oh, going to do my best. Not to get excited, but I'll check back later and make sure you know, if I find the details are posted.

Travis: 32:47

So. So yeah. So I think just high level some things to take away. Ah, don't worry about trying to do everything. Just pick one or two things that you can really zero in on and do to the best of your ability, not just for effectiveness but also because you don't want to spend your entire life and all your free time posting stuff on social media. Um, like there, there are better things to do with your, with your time. Um, so just make the best use of your time by focusing on a couple things. Make sure to provide more value than you're asking for in exchange. And then don't be a, don't be posting ambiguous posts and then you should be ready to rock and roll.

Alban: 33:22

Sometimes a podcast episode is so good. dot.dot oh, which, which podcast? Episode one I just put up. I'll check it out. Here's why I like cost. Any, any closing remarks, guys? Any, any thoughts? Yeah, wrap up.

Kevin: 33:38

Just to put a bow on that. I just want everyone to remember the internet is this really big place. So the idea that Facebook works great or you have to be on Facebook or you have to be on Twitter, you have to be on Instagram. I mean that's, it's just garbage. It's not true. You want to go where your listeners are, where your people are, where you spend time, be authentic. Find the people in those and those places, they will be your true loyal listeners. They will engage with you. You won't have to spam people with links or put on false pretenses to try to engage with people. Find the place that's right for you online on the Internet and engage with them there and don't try to do what everyone else is doing just because they say you have to be there.

Alban: 34:14

Yeah. And uh, if there's anything that you engaged in with, uh, you know, bus probably in the last few weeks. One of the things that we just launched, like the new directories or the new sound bites. Definitely right in cause we are always want to hear your feedback and hear what you like and what you don't.

Travis: 34:27

And a perfect place to do that is plug, plug, plug. Gosh, the Buzzsprout podcast community on Facebook, our public Facebook group where we're always posting links to contents that were coming out with blogs, videos, podcast episodes, uh, answering questions, interacting with other podcasters. If you are a podcaster, the Buzzsprout podcast community is the place to be. Be there or be square. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of BuzzCast. Thank you for your attention, your subscription, all the love you guys send us. As always, keep podcasting.