Smart Ways To Avoid Holiday Burnout And Stay Consistent

The holiday season can be one of the most challenging times to keep up with your podcast. Between travel, family events, and year-end deadlines, it’s easy to fall behind or feel stretched too thin. 

In this episode, we're sharing practical strategies to help you stay consistent without burning out!

Learn how to plan a short break without losing listeners, prepare episodes in advance, and keep your feed active with simple, time-saving ideas. You’ll also hear how podcasters in our community handle their holiday schedules and what the data really says about listener behavior in December.

Links mentioned in this episode: 

• RSVP for the Tampa Buzzsprout Podcaster Meetup
• Buzzsprout Podcast Name Generator
• Podcasting Q&A Episode: How to Rebrand or Relaunch Your Podcast

Contact Buzzcast

• Send us Fan Mail
• Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods

Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!

Transcript

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Buzzsprout Meetup: Tampa

Jordan 0:00

Okay, we got a fan mail from Tampa, Florida, saying Jordan mentioned a Buzzsprout Summit in Tampa. I live in Tampa and would love to hear more if it's open to podcasters.

Kevin 0:11

What a lucky person to get to live in the fine city of Tampa. I love Tampa.

Jordan 0:17

Do you? I've I've never been. This is gonna be my first time.

Kevin 0:20

I grew up in the Tampa area, not Tampa proper, but across one of the many bridges that lead over to Pinellas County. That is my childhood home. And uh I didn't spend a ton of time in Tampa because as a child I was not allowed to go to Tampa because it was this big, mysterious, you know, it was like going to Gotham City, like nothing, you can't go there. There's bad people there. Yeah. But as an adult, I finally got to travel to Tampa and I realized it's a wonderful place. And yes, we are doing a podcaster meetup. I think I have to do a uh correction because I think I talked about this two or three full episodes ago.

Jordan 0:59

Yeah.

Kevin 1:00

Well, I gave the date. I don't need to say the date again, but I gave the wrong date. It was off by a day. Oh. So it's gonna be October 21st. I'm gonna let Alban take over from this point because it's his team that's planning it. And last time I tried to give information, I gave the wrong information. So Alban take over.

Alban 1:16

It was right at the time. Um on October 21st from 8 to 9 30, we're gonna be at the Oxford Exchange in Tampa. And the reason that we're doing it on that day is because when we started looking around online for venues, we found out that uh Chris Krimitsos and everybody who does PodFest, they have a monthly podcaster meetup in Tampa. And we were going to kind of almost come into their town and have a rival event the next day. And so we talked to Chris, and we're like, hey, what if we just we some of us come to your event and then anyone who wants can come to our meetup afterward. Um, we don't want to dominate theirs, but we want to support it. And so this is a way we came up to support it. So if you want to go uh to the local meetup that they have every month and get plugged in with them, uh that's earlier. I think it's 6 30 to 8. And then everybody is invited to come to the buzzsprout meetup right after, and we're gonna have some food. We're gonna, you know, light food and we're gonna have some drinks and we're just gonna hang out and have a great time.

Kevin 2:20

Light I thought you were gonna say light off fireworks for some reason. As soon as you said light, I was like, Wait, there's gonna be fireworks?

Alban 2:27

If you say food, then everyone's idea of what food is is very different. And somebody shows up and they're like, I didn't eat dinner, it's eight o'clock, I was expecting dinner. And you're like, oh no, we weren't providing dinner. We have like uh a small you know charcuterie board or something. And they were like, Oh, that's not what I wanted.

Jordan 2:46

We've got the grazing table. Yeah, so pod fest is like the awards ceremony, and we're like the after party. So you gotta go to both.

Alban 2:53

Oh, okay. You can go to both, you can go to one, uh, whatever you know works for you. We just thought having people go to podcast meetups in Tampa back-to-back nights, you know, somebody's spouse was going, like, what are you doing? It's not due into this podcast. Right. One time it's really a blast to talk to buzzcast listeners in particular, at least for the three of us, because like all of you, we podcast every week and we put it out to the world and we hear back from fan mail, but nothing ever compares to meeting people in person. And so uh it's always one of the highlights for me is when we get together and we meet all of you. So if you're in the Tampa area, please come by.

Jordan 3:34

And I'll put the eventbrite link in the show notes so you can RSVP and get the time into your calendar and have the uh location in your maps app, because that's what I use it for.

Kevin 3:45

And please RSVP so we know how many light bites to order.

Alban 3:50

Yeah, if you come expecting like a some cheese plate and have a little like pickle on the side thing, you you gotta make sure that you already RSVP'd or we're not gonna have enough.

Jordan 3:59

There's not enough cheese.

Alban 4:02

What if there's little tiny pickles, the uh baby gherkin pickles have on shirt rewards? That was great. Gross. You like the sweet pickles?

Jordan 4:10

No, thank you.

Alban 4:11

We're gonna run out.

Jordan 4:13

Gherkins are gonna run out.

Podcasting Through the Holidays

Jordan 4:20

Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. This episode, we're going to be talking about podcasting during a very, very busy time of the year. I know for me personally, the idea of podcasting through the holidays, it's like I start getting filled with a sense of anxiety. Like I can see the holidays looming almost like a storm off in the distance. And I feel this sense of like dread. Like I need to make sure that I board up the house and I do all the things before the electricity gets shut off. Um, where it's just like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna do this and do all my work and deal with the kids? And there's all these holiday parties. And I don't know. Do you guys feel that or is that just me?

Alban 5:05

Do you know?

Kevin 5:06

Yeah, I don't think I feel it the same way. Wow. Okay. Let me let me say this. I am really grateful that you carry such a large part of that burden for us. We yeah. Jordan does such an excellent job producing the show and preparing everything for us that really our responsibility, Alban and I, for the most part, is kind of just, you know, show up and read or outline ahead of time. That's more on Alban's side than my side, and then produce the best content that we can. But there is a heavy lift that takes place before, during, and after at the show. And Jordan carries mostly all of the before and mostly all the after. So I completely understand that. I don't want to minimize how you're feeling, but do I feel it? No, because you are awesome.

Jordan 5:47

Okay. So I guess my experience probably resonates a little bit more with like independent podcasters who they are the podcast producer and host and editor.

Alban 5:57

Yes.

Jordan 5:58

Okay. Well, I hope that my experience resonates with our listeners. And so we're going to be providing some strategies in this episode to kind of lift that burden off of you. So it's a little less stressful to keep podcasting through the holidays.

Alban 6:12

And maybe give some tips to help people kind of capitalize on the opportunity because it's not just, oh no, it's a special time of the year which involves travel and parties and fun and that might interfere with my podcast. There's also a lot of opportunities in here, too.

Jordan 6:29

When I was doing some research for this episode, I saw that the Podcast Marketing Academy's trends report in 2024, they said that December is often the second busiest month for downloads, while fewest new episodes get released. And I know that they pulled like 500 podcasters to create this report. And so I was wondering how that compares to our database of 110, 120,000 podcasters.

Alban 6:59

I really appreciate when they put out data like this and they're trying to figure out how stuff works. But 500 podcasters, it's a lot of work to collect that data, and yet it's still not as significant as what I would want. So I went and pulled the buzzprout stats for this same period. Um so we're looking at 120,000 podcasts. And I did it for all of 2024. And the biggest months are January, March. You get a big spike here in August, September. Those do really well. But yeah, November, December are low download numbers, and they're the two lowest. But they're also the two lowest for people releasing episodes.

Jordan 7:45

Okay. So we have that in common.

Alban 7:47

It's not exactly the same as what I think Jeremy found, but it's it's similar. And so what I did was I kind of took the average. Like what are the average downloads per new episode? And pretty much that ends up being consistent. While we do see the numbers of podcasts episodes being released, new ones going down, we're also seeing the downloads going down, kind of almost with those. Not as much, but almost. So I think I end up pulling a little bit of different conclusions than the podcast marketing academy's podcast marketing trends report 2024 did.

Jordan 8:26

Yeah, it's a mouthful.

Alban 8:29

But there is some data here to dig into.

Jordan 8:32

Okay, so you looking at it, I don't know, I'm not a stats person. And so I just hear like a lot of numbers.

Holiday Listening Opportunity for Podcasters

Jordan 8:38

When you look at it, what is the opportunity that you see for podcasters?

Alban 8:42

Okay, so let me take you back to 2017. And 2017 was the first time that I remember a lot of people in like normal life talking about Bitcoin and all this crypto stuff. And then November hits and everything went wild. Like all crypto went wild. And I remember like wondering what happened. Why did that go from zero to 60 over, you know, just like a few a weekend. And then I saw people online posting, like, oh, I went to my Thanksgiving hangout with my family, and my uncle was really into Bitcoin, so we all bought it. And I saw enough of these anecdotal reports. I went, you know, there is something special about these periods where almost everybody is trying to spend a little more time with family and you catch up on stuff. And so if it worked for Bitcoin, I keep coming back to why is this not going to work for podcasting? I'm gonna spend more time in the car with family members in the month of November and December than I will all the rest of the year. You know, those are the two big drive months, they're the most busy travel months. That's when people want good podcasts, and it's where recommendation is actually going to land. So I didn't get the same level of downloads are up, but my gut tells me recommendability is at an all-time high. The ability to find a new show is at its highest that Thanksgiving weekend, almost of any weekend that there is.

Jordan 10:12

Yeah.

Kevin 10:12

I find that data very interesting, Alban. My gut tells me that consumption would be up and publishing would be down. But what you're seeing is they they both go down. And I think the conclusion that maybe we could draw from is maybe downloads just go down just because publishing goes down. Like maybe the it doesn't mean the demand isn't there, but if the supply is not there, then you can't get it. And so if the seven to ten podcasts that I've you know follow in my podcast app, if they're not publishing, I can't download. So then I might have to do something else while I'm traveling. I might have to listen to the radio or I might listen to music or get an audio book or something like that. But there's a potential that the opportunity and demand is is up, but as publishers, we're just publishing less. We're not taking advantage of this opportunity that may exist.

Alban 10:59

Yeah, I think you're uh drawing a really important distinction between downloads and consumption. Downloads are the data that we have. We see, okay, the downloads go down a bit, but kind of almost similar to the new episodes being published. Well, we probably can guess why. Like Kevin's saying, we see auto downloads when new episodes go live. Okay, that makes sense. But are all these episodes being downloads being listened to? And my guess is the percentage that are listened to and the length that they're listened to and the number of people listening to them is skyrocketing because that's when I clear out the queue. I let the queue build up, and then we go on a road trip and it all gets cleared out. And then you start going into, we've talked about this before, kind of like the tier two podcasts, where you're like, I don't listen to every this American life, but then I go once every once in a while and I go download like five, and we listen to them right then. And that's a period where if anyone in my life said, You really have to listen to this episode, you would love it. Your family would love it. Then it gets added and but gets put to the top of the list. Most of the time, I'm not looking to take a two-hour adventure with some podcast I've never listened to.

How to Take a Planned Break

Jordan 12:13

Okay, so this puts podcasters in a position where they want to maintain consistency with their podcast, not burn out, or maybe they just really need a break. And so let's go over some of the strategies. I actually pulled a lot of the podcasters in our community. I got a lot of responses from podcasters in the Facebook group and on Reddit. And I kind of compiled all of their responses into a breakdown of podcasting strategies in the holidays. The first strategy that I want to go over is to just simply take a planned break. I think that this is maybe the path of least resistance in terms of like, is this going to take a lot of energy for me to do? So we've talked about taking a planned break from your podcast and not like losing listeners. And I think really the key to this is to communicate to your listeners, hey, I'm taking a break during the holidays or for a vacation, and then communicating with them that, you know, I'm gonna be back at this date. Like make it planned. Don't just give them a nebulous idea of, like, yeah, I'm going on break, and then they'll be like, uh oh, are they ever coming back? So just assuring your listeners that you're gonna be coming back in, you know, two weeks, a month, two months, however long.

Alban 13:29

I think that's a good idea. Um, one thing I see people do when they take a break, we've talked about this before, is rerun old episodes.

Jordan 13:37

Yeah.

Alban 13:38

And sometimes I think that works really well. And other times I'm not really a fan.

Jordan 13:43

Yeah.

Alban 13:43

Um, like for us, it wouldn't make sense. We try to talk about mostly topical content. Sometimes we're doing more evergreen episodes, but we're doing a lot of like, hey, here's what's happening in the industry right now. So it would feel weird to be like, hey, let's take a look back at what was announced to Apple WWDC in 2020. Yeah, that wouldn't be an exciting episode for people to listen to.

Jordan 14:04

I actually

Reruns: When They Work and When They Don't

Jordan 14:05

got a lot of podcasters saying that this is what they do, is where they do like a greatest hits or best of, and they publish old episodes that they had they're trying to promote their back catalog through this. I know for me personally, and this is just a complete personal preference. I get a little annoyed when podcasts do this too much. When I get like a greatest hits, or like once a week they do like a best of or like a look back. And I don't know if that's just me being weird, or how do you guys feel about those when you see them?

Kevin 14:38

I think it's hit or miss. And it comes down for me, it comes down to execution. Tim Ferris does a good job of once a month. He will publish an episode that is the greatest hits. It's roughly a month. Sometimes it's like six weeks, but he will take four or five of the episodes that he's kind of done between the time last time he did it and this time, and he'll give you like a two-minute intro of who this person is and what we were talking about. And then he plays a segment of that episode. And it's like a five-minute segment, a little part that stands on its own, and then he comes back in and narrates and intros the next one. And so it's an opportunity to catch up on the podcast very quickly. And then it also highlights, oh, that's actually an episode that I might want to go back and listen to the whole thing.

Jordan 15:24

Yeah.

Kevin 15:24

And so I really love that execution. For me, the Tim Ferris show is not a podcast that I listen to every single week. The episodes are very long. And so I love that as an opportunity to figure out which episodes do I really want to listen to the full two hour or more episode on. And doing something like that, I think could be a could be a winner. Like to say, uh, the year's coming to a close. I'm gonna take three or four of my favorite podcast episodes and I'm gonna highlight clips from them and introduce them for people who might have missed them.

Jordan 15:53

I think that's a really great point is you know, take old content that you have and chop it down into a more minimal format and then promote the back to say, like, hey, if you want to listen to the full episode or the the rest of it.

Alban 16:08

I would say the execution, like Kevin said, is a big key component there. Yeah. And so I don't think this fits the, hey, I want to take a break and I want an easy episode. I think that this could be as hard, if not harder, to do than a normal episode. Because you're gonna go back and try to find good segments and old episodes. You're gonna have to refresh yourself about what each one was about. You're gonna have to add that narration in and compile this. That could be a real winner because anyone who listens to it might go, oh, there's five episodes I'd like to listen to. And then that that's kicks off a bunch of downloads. It could be really good. But I think that's a real amount of work to go through, find segments, put it all together.

Jordan 16:54

Yeah, an alternative to this. So if you don't want to take, like, go through that whole rigmarole of cutting it down content into something that you find compelling, something that you could do, especially if you provide podcast subscriptions, like if you have bonus episodes as a subscription, this is something that I've done. I have taken a bonus paywalled episode. And if I'm on break and I'm not publishing an episode, sometimes I'll record an intro and just say, like, hey, I'm going to drop an episode from the premium feed for you to enjoy for this episode. And if you like it, you can go ahead and subscribe with the link in the show notes. And that is actually a really great option to not only keep my feed warm while I'm away, but also at the same time promote my premium content.

Alban 17:43

It's a Christmas gift.

Jordan 17:44

Yeah. Merry Christmas.

Kevin 17:46

I like that. I mean, it's two birds with one stone, right? It's serving the need of keeping your feed fresh and delivering new content to people who subscribe to your feed, and it's also promoting your premium stuff. I love that idea.

Jordan 17:59

Yeah. Another thing that I've done, and I heard uh from some of the other podcasters in our community saying that

Feed Drops, Promo Swaps, and Premium Content Promotion

Jordan 18:06

they have also done this is the feed swap process. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a feed swap because sometimes that takes a little bit more communication with the podcaster. But what I've done in the past is to keep providing episodes and keep showing up in the top of my audience's feed is I will reach out to other podcasters that are in my niche through like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, just wherever I can find them. And I will send them a message and just saying, like, I'm going on break and I'd really like to promote your podcast, an episode of your podcast in the feed while I'm away. I will record an intro saying why I think it's a good fit. And I'll have like a link in the show notes so that they can go check out your podcast. And every single time the podcasters said yes, absolutely, and then they shoot me an MP3 file and I schedule it and I tell them what date I'm gonna be dropping that and I promote it. And that's another really easy way to take a break without creating like a full episode in the meantime. And then that way it's like the rising tides raise all ships because they're also going to promote that they were featured on your podcast. Hopefully, maybe not. Maybe this is just like in the fantasy land I have where they're just like, oh yeah, I should do the same. That's a great idea. And that's the fingers crossed version of it, but really it's whether they do or not.

Kevin 19:26

I mean, that would just be the cherry on the Sunday. Like you're primarily doing it for your audience and to make sure that they stay connected to your show and receive benefit from following your show and thanking them. And so you're tipping them off to some other great content that's similar to yours that you want to make them aware of. And that's great. That's the benefit that you get. The podcaster that's supplying that content to you, they get their show promoted. If they go above and beyond and do anything back for you, do a feed drop back for you or talk about your show to their audience. That's just that's just gravy, I think. Oh, yeah. It's wonderful, but you already have a benefit whether they do that or not.

Jordan 19:57

Mm-hmm. Do we have any other ideas of how a podcaster can take a break from their podcast without losing audience? Do we have any other tips for that that you guys can think of off the top of your head?

Alban 20:08

I mean, just like letting people know. So many more things are totally fine if you're honest with people. So have a plan. You know, say, hey, if you tell them, like, you know, I have a job and I have kids and they're all gonna be home for the holidays. And it's hard for me to do uh the same level of content I want to, but we're gonna be back January 7th. And I hope uh you have a wonderful holidays. And in the meantime, here's five podcasts that I'm gonna be listening to that you may enjoy as well. I think that's totally fine. What stinks is when you're excited for your favorite podcast to come out on Tuesday and it doesn't, and then you're waiting for it on Friday and it doesn't. And then you go, oh, something's broken or they've gone away. And then when they show up, you know, a month later, you're kind of like, whatever happened? Like it feels something feels off. And so tell people up front and it makes it so much more seamless.

Jordan 21:05

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And and listeners will notice I I accidentally took about a month-long hiatus from my podcast. And finally, one of my listeners wrote me and they're like, Are you okay? I was just like, Oh crap, I probably should have at least recorded like a dynamic pre-roll, just saying, like, hey guys, life is happening. It's busy. I haven't been able to record, you know, just something. So I definitely think it's important. All right.

How to Stay Consistent Without Burning Out

Jordan 21:32

So our second strategy is to stay consistent without burnout. And so this is actually publishing episodes during the holidays without working during the holidays. And so something that comes to mind for a lot of podcasters and what many podcasters have recommended is to batch record. If you haven't heard of batch recording, that is where you just are making sure that you are recording as many episodes as possible. And you can even like set out an entire day on the weekend and just like crank out two or three episodes in a day. I've heard of some podcasters, if they have short form content, cranking out like 10, which I couldn't do.

Kevin 22:11

I love it. There are a lot of podcasters. This is just their normal flow that they are podcasters, they are consistent. And the the way that they do consistent content creation is that they carve a day out of the week or a day out of the month and they they crank it all out at one time. Now, that doesn't work for every show. And I think that you have to think through things a little bit differently if you're gonna do that. So if you're a show that doesn't normally do that, but you want to try to do it for this holiday season, then the type of content that you create just might have to look a little bit different because I'm not recording something today that I'm gonna publish tomorrow. I'm recording something I'm gonna publish in two weeks or or something. And so just think through it through that that lens. Like we don't want to be necessarily time specific or talk about events that may be irrelevant by the time that this show publishes or something like that. But it's certainly it's certainly possible. And for shows that don't normally work like that, it could be a fun way to mix it up, like a new fun, fresh challenge for a podcaster. So I think it's definitely something to consider.

Alban 23:10

This is maybe related to batching. I have never loved the idea of batching content because I always feel like we're trying to get better. And so I would hate to, you know, record four and then I'm editing those four later and realize over time, like, oh, some of this doesn't feel as uh authentic as the things I'd want to change. I kind of like that iterative process of going through the whole episode. But the related piece that I think is really valuable is having some level of margin in your recording, editing process. And that margin means yes, we could do this show every week. And we've created some margin by saying we do the show really once every two weeks, and then we do a mini show. You know, we do the quick cast. And that's a way of giving ourselves a little bit of breathing room so that when inevitably we have a company summit where we're all going to be together, or we're at a conference, or Jordan wants to take a vacation, or we go on holiday, any of those things happen, we naturally are able to shuffle things around. Now it doesn't mean it's perfectly easy, but the fact that we can somewhat do it is proof that there's some margin there. I remember a pastor that we met when I was younger, and he said his whole goal was always to have written the sermon two weeks in advance. And so he was always just he had like one sermon banked, and he was always one ahead because somebody would pass away and he'd have to do a funeral, and then he goes, but then I knew on Sunday the sermon was ready. So I didn't have to stress and do that on top of, you know, doing a funeral. And I think that's a great method to have for podcasting, like just have a little bit of margin. So maybe you can't say one episode ahead because eventually that will get used up during the holidays or you know, when life happens, but then you don't have to have that added stress of the podcast on top

Experimenting with Format: Minisodes, Seasonal Themes, and Two-Parters

Alban 25:02

of it.

Jordan 25:02

Yeah, I will say like changing up the format of the episode does help. So for example, I was looking at the calendar, trying to plan out the time that I was gonna take off during the holidays. And it was so nice because I was looking at it and I'm like, okay, this is a big main episode, and I know that recording is gonna be like one and a half to two hours. And then, oh, thank goodness, like this week's gonna be a quick cast. So we can actually record that the week before, and we could even, you know, tack that on to the end of our main episode recording. However, if I was trying to take off like two main episode recordings, it'd be really hard to stack that and be like, okay, guys, we got a four-hour recording sesh today and we're gonna knock out two big main episodes and we got to keep our energy up. Like that would just feel really insurmountable. So I think that if you do normally have a long form content podcast, maybe try doing something else like FAQs or using fan mail to answer like listener fan mail or just do something fun, do something seasonal. We know when these holidays are, we know when our episodes are coming out. So you can actually look at the calendar and plan ahead a little bit and try to frame your podcast to be seasonal and record it ahead of time, you know, make it Christmas theme or Halloween theme or whatever you want to do.

Alban 26:18

Well, it kind of makes me think of one really good idea for us might just be hey, we've got a lot this stacks up. We could just do three quick casts in a row. We could take a normal episode and just make it a quick cast. You could think about how do you change your publishing format, the episode format, maybe to accommodate the actual schedule. You know, it just may be difficult to do a full episode for somebody if a lot happens, but being able to be consistent, even if it means it's 15 minutes rather than an hour, I think would be really valuable, much better than missing an episode.

Jordan 26:52

Yeah.

Kevin 26:53

Another way to batch that you might be able to entertain for your show would be just taking a normal episode that you're gonna record anyway and stretching it a little bit enough so that it makes sense to split it into two parts.

Jordan 27:05

Ooh, yeah.

Kevin 27:06

So you're really just doing a little bit more work for an episode that you've already put together. Maybe you cover one more topic or go in a little bit more depth in one area, another. And then all of a sudden, instead of normally your shows are roughly an hour, maybe you get an hour and a half, which nicely splits into two 45-minute episodes. And so you kind of get a byproduct of just doing a little bit more on one episode, you get a whole nother episode if you can find a place to split it into two.

Alban 27:30

You could even use the uh like dateline method where they're like, after the break, we're gonna do this, and you like preview it. And then when you come back, you're like previously, and then you fill it in, and now you're up to basically hour-long episodes for both of them.

Jordan 27:45

Yeah, you only need 20 minutes of content. You can stretch that baby out. And that's kind of like another point is you could do that if you have like an extra long interview or you an extra long conversation with your co-hosts, but some other people might have a different opinion on this. But I think it's a little bit easier if you record solo episodes. It's a lot easier to just record at like 11 o'clock at night or something like that. You know, you can batch late at night, burn the midnight oil, and you don't have to rely on co-hosts to also kind of like schedule that time with you. So that's another thing that you could do if you're trying to batch episodes, is just kind of like change up the format from having like a guest on or co-host and maybe just, you know, run a solo show for a couple episodes. Okay, so here's some other options that our community of podcasters have suggested. One of them said to change up the publishing schedule. And they said that during the holidays, they go from weekly to every other week, which I think is a really good idea because that's an easy way to lighten the load. I mean, you're basically cutting your podcasting in half, which seems a lot more doable. Uh, some people talked about dropping mini sodes, which we had touched on, you know, where they do like mailbag, year and review, tips and stories, shout-outs, those kind of things. And they also will do year-end specials where they will talk about like maybe things learned over the year of their podcast or QA, fan mail, holiday themes, like we had talked about. So those are some other great options that you could do.

Kevin 29:17

Yeah, I like the idea of using the holiday season as an opportunity to do something different, to try new experiments. And so if your show is normally an interview show, or name maybe you choose specific topics and you go deep and uh do a lot of research and teach on those things. Maybe you have a comedy show and you have guests on and and you crack jokes or review comedy specials or whatever you do. The point is you could do something completely different. Uh you could just say, No, just me this time. I want to share a story about somebody who wrote in to how this podcast you know impacted their life. And I don't normally normally do stuff like that, but I'm gonna do it this time because it's the holiday season. Uh right. And so in things that we're thankful for here. Here's something that I'm thankful for. And they were thankful for us and how that moved me and how the show has moved them. Okay. It's totally different.

Jordan 30:06

Yeah.

Kevin 30:06

It's like the holidays give you an excuse to try stuff like that.

Jordan 30:09

Yeah.

Kevin 30:10

Right. Or you could just say, I don't want to do, I don't have time to go back and pull out clips of all my favorite episodes from the last year. But I could quickly just look at all the podcasts that I saw last year and just say, oh, these three stand out. And so I'm going to fire up my mic and I'm just going to record. Okay, in episode 123, I talked about this. And and I really love that episode the way that it came together. I love the guests that we had on. And there's a link in the show note for that. And then the next episode that I want to highlight is this. And you talk about that for a few minutes and then you say there's a link in the episode. And it might only come out with a 10-minute episode, but it's pointing people to three or five of the episodes that you did in the past year. Again, it could be a totally different format than your normal show. People might be surprised, but you know what? If they don't like it, they can just skip it and go into the next podcast. But maybe some people will like it. Maybe some people will be like, oh, I remember that episode. You released that back in February. I want to hear that again. And they might go back and listen again. So I really love the idea of the holidays, they don't always have to feel like a burden. It could also feel like an opportunity to just try something new, to experiment with your podcast, to have fun.

Jordan 31:10

Yeah.

Kevin 31:11

And if it works, it works. Great. If it doesn't, you don't ever have to do it again. But why not use this uh opportunity just to be like, I've always wondered if I could do that. I'll give it a shot. Holidays give you a reason and an excuse to do it.

Jordan 31:23

Stretch those creative muscles. Yeah. I mean, we kind of did something very similar after podcast movement, which to me is a little bit of a holiday is podcasting conferences. And we came back and it was a completely different format for episode. It was just me, and it was just me pulling in clips from people that I had talked to at the podcast conference. And honestly, it was really fun to get to do something creative like that. It was completely different from what we normally do. And I actually really liked it. And I hope to do that again.

Alban 31:51

Yeah. I appreciate everybody who wrote back to Jordan or wrote in with fan mail for this. Um, I saw a lot of people on Facebook and on Reddit offering their suggestions, and those really helped shape, you know, this outline. So to everyone who's engaging there and gave ideas, we really appreciate you.

Fan Mail: Renaming and Rebranding

Jordan 32:10

All right. So we got two fan mail messages that actually tie together nicely. And I'm really excited because we have uh a little bit of a promotion to go along with this. Um, so first off, Marty from Nepal wrote in and said, I tried the name generator twice, and each time it came up with one suggestion that I really liked, which is awesome. Since I'm relocating to another country this week and my show is all about the country that I now live in, these suggestions could turn out to be very helpful. I definitely want to keep doing the podcast, and my audience seems ready to travel with me, but I'm still trying to figure out how to refocus it and rebrand also if necessary.

Alban 32:50

Marty, that's awesome news. Uh, I'm glad that you tried it out. I also really like that as you're traveling and you're gonna be telling stories about another location. I remember Marty from earlier when he wrote in and we were talking about how to promote the podcast. I like that you're kind of growing the show as the scope of the podcast is growing. You're deciding, hey, I'm gonna rebrand it so that now it matches and it's the best compliment we could get that you use the name generator and you found a suggestion you liked. Um, that's really great news.

Jordan 33:20

Yeah. And if you're listening and you're like, what is Marty talking about? What's a podcast name generator? In our last episode, we talked about our new Buzzbrow Podcast Name Generator, where you can enter in some information about your podcast and generate some names for it. And I will put a link to that in the show notes, or you can go back to that episode and listen to our process behind the name generator. And Fletch from the Mango Times said, I've had a hobby podcast for years that accompanied my personal blog and website, The Mango Times. I was never really focused on growing an audience and have started and stopped the podcast several times. Now I have a clear focus for next year. All of my shows will be centered around midlife adventure stories, conversations with people who made a major change at midlife and how those choices have played out. And I think this direction has real potential to grow an audience. So here's my questions. Should I rename the podcast and update the cover art to reflect it? Or should I leave my existing episodes published, even though they don't align with the new theme, or would it be better to just start fresh? These are both very timely Famo messages because the episode album that you recorded with Kara on podcasting QA, which we relaunched, is up about relaunching and rebranding your podcast.

Alban 34:32

Yeah. So, I mean, to speak to this directly, I think I'd want to know a little bit more about the Mango Times and what the Mango Times was about uh previously. And if you're trying to decide, do I keep the old episodes up? Do I rebrand? Um, I think yes, you rebrand if you want to have a title and artwork that match the new direction of the show. Absolutely. Is the audience that you have right now going to listen to this new show? If they're the right audience, then keep the same podcast feed. Should I keep the old episodes up? Well, if they're in alignment with the new brand or they're kind of an you see the evolution, then probably. But if it's like if you're changing a lot, you may unpublish those. It really I think would depend based on like how much is this show changing? Is it changing from a show about Pokemon cards to about adventures in midlife? Yeah, you you're getting a whole new feed and a whole new brain. It's totally different. The only thing the same is it's a podcast by you. But sometimes podcasts shift so slightly that you don't even need to tell people that it's making a change because it's so natural. So it's just you've got to determine how much of an abrupt change is this.

Kevin 35:52

I think Alban gave such a good answer there. And reading between the lines, like I've known Alban for a very long time. So let me try to summarize back to you, Alban. Tell me if I'm hitting it. But the theme that you keep weaving into your answer that you gave is thinking about your audience, thinking about your audience, thinking about your audience. And it just comes down when you when he says really only you can tell or he needs more information, the questions he's asking are is it the same audience? And so just think about that. Ask yourself are the people who I was reaching before or I was speaking to before, are they the same people with this new pivot that you're making? And if they are, you're good to go. Upload new cover art, change the title, keep the feed rolling. But if it's different people, if the people who listen to the old show are not gonna be as interested in the new show, then you've got a tough decision to make. And that's do I say this show is changing directions? I'm gonna keep the feed, but if you don't like this new topic, you might unsubscribe. Or do I say no, there's there's a potential for that to still find an audience, and that is its own work, and I want to keep it online, and I'm gonna launch something new in addition to it.

Alban 36:55

Yeah, I think that's the right way to approach it.

Jordan 36:57

Yeah.

Alban 36:58

Does the audience actually want to be subscribed to this podcast? I remember one of the first conferences we went to, uh, somebody spoke on stage and they said, never ever throw away an RSS feed. Always keep it so you can always launch another show or redirect it to your current show and get new listeners. And I'm like, but if I launched a show about marketing and then a show about podcasting, and then a show about baseball, those are totally different audiences. The only connection is me. And I would be really annoyed if I got if I signed up for a baseball podcast that eventually became a marketing podcast that became a podcast about podcasting. I'd be like, who is this guy? He just assumes that I want to listen to it. So pay attention to your audience. Like, what do they actually want?

Jordan 37:44

I just had like a mini daydream about rebranding Dreamful to the Aliens podcast and just changing it to that. Like it would just be a nightmare. It doesn't work.

Alban 37:53

I wish I could give an example without kind of beating up on someone, but there was someone who I remember them telling us it went from just polar opposites and they switched and it made sense for them and they just made the change. And I was like, none of your audience wants to stick around for it. And they're like, my numbers are dropping. And I'm like, Yeah, I can tell why.

Jordan 38:15

So for next episode, we are going to be tackling part two of podcasting mythbusters. The subject so nice, we're doing it twice. So if you want to send in podcasting myths, maybe you missed the bus on the first episode that we did. Um, you can go ahead and tap the Texas show link in the show notes to send those in. And if not, I'm really looking forward to some of the myths that we have in store for you. So until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Post Show: A Comedy of Winners

Kevin 38:50

Alban, I'm gonna ask the question, but I know the answer. Your voice is different today. And I don't think you started smoking aggressively in the past 24 hours. No. You were at that Jags game last night, weren't you? My voice is uh already, it sounds quite a bit better.

Alban 39:07

It was totally gone last night.

Jordan 39:09

Oh no.

Alban 39:10

Um, every once in a while, the Jaguars get a Monday night game or a night game, and my daughter and I go to every Jacksonville game, and then we my wife went with us this time, and uh we let Emerson uh stay up past midnight to watch football and screens. And we had a blast.

Jordan 39:31

Did she make it to school in the morning?

Alban 39:34

She went to school, she was first up this morning.

Jordan 39:36

Wow, what a trooper!

Alban 39:38

I was dragging myself into work. Millie was uh didn't want to wake up, but our daughter was up and she was like, hey, someone's got to take me to school.

Jordan 39:46

Like, come on, guys.

Alban 39:49

But it's been uh, you know, it's been 10 years of us losing uh two-thirds more of our games, and most often in embarrassing fashions, and we've stuck it out, and there have just been a few bright moments, and we had a bright moment last night.

Kevin 40:06

Ooh. But last night the Jags won in sort of an embarrassing fashion. What? I I don't find a win embarrassing at all.

Alban 40:14

Embarrassing maybe for the Kansas City Chiefs, the perennial Super Bowl contenders uh who came down to Jacksonville confident they were gonna get an easy win.

Jordan 40:23

Ooh.

Alban 40:24

And uh they were up 14-0, hadn't lost a game like that in, I don't know, 10 years, and Jags fought their way back. And it may have ended with Trevor Lawrence getting tripped, falling on the ground, slipping on the ground again on his birthday, and then scrambling around the edge and getting in for a touchdown that sealed the game. It was uh, you know, we could we're we we sat. I just saw him fall down behind the line of scrimmage. I can't see him. And I'm like, this is what happens. This is what we do.

Kevin 40:56

Somehow he gets up and scrambles into the end zone. It was it was it was like in Jaguar fashion. Like that's how they're gonna win. A busted play. Yep.

Jordan 41:05

I am having like a visualization of Mr. Bean just like stumbling into things the way you describe that.

Alban 41:13

I'll I'll have to I'll have to send you a link, Jordan, so you can uh you can go watch this. I want to see it. Everyone used to call us the cardiac cats because uh you're always on the edge of your seat, your your heart's pounding, and we always make it stressful. We lived up to the name last night, but we just had a blast. You know, there's times you've got to take the wins, and uh it was a huge win, and I appreciate it. And uh go Jags Duval