Managing Listener Feedback And Criticism

We're talking through creating a healthy feedback filter so you can tell the difference between criticism that helps, confusion that needs clarification, and negativity that deserves to be ignored! 

We discuss where podcasters are likely to get feedback, why public comments can feel so much heavier than private messages, and how to stop one bad review from drowning out all the people who are cheering you on.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet
• This American Life: Everyone's a Critic
• Happy to Help: Using Psychology to Thrive in Customer Support with Melody Wilding 
• Buzzcast: 8 Tips To Make Podcasting more Fun And Less Like A Chore
• Buzzcast: How To Get Listeners To Actually Do What You Ask
• Buzzcast: Creative Ways To Use Voicemail In 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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Get By With A Little Help From My Kids

Alban 0:00

Jordan, I have to compliment you on these two videos you've made for the Buzzprout social channels with you doing these little mini podcast interviews.

Jordan 0:07

Oh, thank you.

Alban 0:08

Uh these are both very good. I've been surprised at how much thought can go into you know 45 seconds of vertical video. I always imagine it's not much. And both of them I watched, I was like, oh, this is really good. Really enjoy it. Good B-roll, good story. And the end of it was hey, you could do video podcasting robust crowd. So I liked that too.

Jordan 0:29

Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's interesting learning these apps that like my kids understand. There was a lot of me going to them and saying, like, hey, how do I do this? How I apply this effect, and watching a lot of like YouTube tutorials and stuff like that. And it was funny, I called my 14-year-old daughter in and I made her watch them. And then she gave me her critiques and then I like kind of reworked them a little bit. So I have her to think too.

Alban 0:56

I like that you're getting reviews. That is, I didn't intend for that to be where we went with this, but uh, what kind of reviews did you get from your daughter?

Jordan 1:03

Um, she thought that I needed a little more of like a bounce on the buzz sprouts. So the bouncing buzz sprout logo at the end is all her. I just like had it there and she's like, no, mom, you gotta have movement. So she's going through the effects. And it looks so good. I was like, you're you're a natural kid. Welcome back to BuzzCast, the podcast about all things podcasting for the people at Buzzsprout. I love these episodes where we have kind of real life influences on what the topics are gonna be. Because after like 230 episodes, I don't know, I feel a little bit of worry that I'm gonna run out of topics and then like something happens or we get a fan mail message in, and then I go, oh, this is perfect. We're gonna discuss this. So this is one of those episodes where, you know, we got a fan mail in, I think it was last time or a couple episodes ago, where someone was getting negative feedback on the reviews. And then we got a whole bunch of fan mail messages about last week's episode. And I said, perfect. Let's do an episode covering how to handle listener critiques and feedback. And so that we can um address things in a very healthy manner.

Alban 2:17

Wait, are we doing this because we got a bunch of negative feedback?

Jordan 2:20

No, not a bunch of negative feedback. We did not get a bunch of negative feedback. And I feel like listener feedback is one of those things. I mean, especially implementing uh fan mail and stuff like that. Like I love fan mail so much because usually our feedback is awesome. People are just really friendly and it's great. But I know that sometimes online, you know, in reviews, in comments, especially if you are, if you have a podcast on like YouTube or something where it's just kind of like open to anybody to comment, it's fun until it's not.

Build A Healthy Feedback Filter

Jordan 2:50

All right. So we're gonna be talking about creating a feedback filter so that you can tell the difference between a useful critique that is worth addressing or confused comments where maybe people are misunderstanding or misconstruing your intentions and then outright negativity, which is really just worth completely ignoring or blocking the person. Because putting yourself out there on the internet, it's it's like scary enough and you feel a little bit more exposed. And so you don't need that kind of negative noise to like bog you down and ruin the fun of podcasting.

Kevin 3:25

What are the platforms that most feedback comes in through for podcasts? Do you think most people just gather it through their Apple Podcast listing?

Jordan 3:33

Probably reviews, probably YouTube comments. Uh Spotify does comments too. That's a big one. I've gotten some great feedback. Yeah. I get so many comments on Spotify. It's like crazy. And most of them are really nice, but when I get a not good one, it's it's not great.

Kevin 3:50

Yeah. You know, I asked because I think so much of this feedback comes in in public forums. And oftentimes online communication like that is is taken out of context, or the way that you read it might not be the way other people read it. Like somebody might say something that's just, hey, I think your show would be a little bit better if you did this. Well, that might hit you one way. When other people read it, it's gonna hit them a different way. And it might hit you a third way because it's like, oh, I know what they mean because I make the show and that meant that in a helpful way. But gosh, if anybody else reads that, they're gonna think I'm terrible at this, or it's it's gonna look bad. And so there's a lot of different ways to process this stuff. And since so much of it happens publicly, it can just feel worse than oftentimes it might not be that big of a deal if it was just sent as a private message.

Alban 4:36

Yeah, that's true. And there's also an incentive sometimes to leave comments or to create content about public figures or public content, you know, podcasts, videos, whatever, that's negative just to create a new piece of content. And the incentives can be just like find something, kind of take a shot at it, move on. Who cares? It's kind of performative. Where if someone taking the time to write you a letter or send you an email, like there's enough effort and it's not public that it's probably going to be much more likely, I'm guessing, to be constructive or thoughtful rather than just like a random, angry review left on Amazon. Right.

Jordan 5:18

Yeah.

Kevin 5:19

I'll say it this way my perception of reviews and Apple Podcasts are either like, great show, love it, keep up the good work, or they're kind of like, save your time, don't listen to this. It's garbage, um, terrible podcast. And that's such a weird thing to wrap your head around. Like, you have a person who's being mean to the creator, but they're sort of positioning themselves as like, I'm gonna do a great service to the rest of humanity. Like, I'm gonna be so nice to all you people who are reading these reviews before you listen. And I'm gonna tell you it's not worth your time because I'm such a nice person, but I'm also being an awful person to the person who created this.

Alban 5:54

This podcast stinks, but also I'm kind of a hero for telling people I'm a truth teller, I stand up to power.

unknown 6:02

Yeah.

Kevin 6:03

And you have to wonder, I don't know, I've never left a comment like that, but I wonder what's going through their minds when the people are they do they really feel like I'm gonna do a service to the world by letting people know how terrible the show is and save your time. Don't put this poison in your ears, or are they just trying to be mean? Or is it something in between? Or are they just like I don't know.

Alban 6:22

I think that if you work in the food service, like when I was a waiter and you work in the service industry, you just like it hits you over and over and over. But a lot of criticism has nothing to do with you. And like it is presented as you're bad at your job, this food's terrible, this is all like, what are you doing? But you just like sometimes the same exact thing happens to a table, and one person takes and goes, Oh, can I could you could I get fries? I got meant to get fries, but I got broccoli or something. And the next table, someone just loses it. And you're like, This it's not a normal reaction. And so you just notice over and over something else is going on in your life, and I don't have to take it personally because I know I've done this has happened to me 50 times, and one out of 50, it's just like something snaps.

Speaker 6 7:15

Yeah.

Alban 7:16

And so, like, it feels like when you get a bad review, sometimes you're like, There's no way my show did this. Like it was my show plus something bigger, probably much more serious going on in their life.

Jordan 7:27

And we've covered this a lot in Happy to Help. And I actually reached out to Priscilla, who is the head of Podcaster Success. She is always in the support inbox and she deals with like happy people and unhappy people. And so she's gotten really good over the years at separating herself from negativity that is not actually directed at her, because it can be hard to say, like, okay, this isn't actually about me, it's about something else.

Tips For Handling Negative Interactions

Jordan 7:56

And so I actually had her record a voicemail giving a quick tip about how to handle kind of like negative interactions like this.

Speaker 2 8:06

When you work in customer support, you're gonna hear a lot of opinions. It just comes with a job. And I think it's the same thing with podcasting. When you create content and put it out in the world, people will tell you what they think. And it's really hard not to take that personally because in some cases it feels really personal and sometimes it is personal. But I find that it helps to remind myself that I can't make everybody happy. And honestly, that's not my job. Your podcast is not for every listener, and that's a good thing. It's actually kind of nice to think about it that way. You're creating podcasts for a specific community, and the people who don't like your show will move on to something that they align with. And the people who do connect with your show and your content, they will stay. So I guess my advice is to learn from the constructive feedback you get. And if the feedback isn't constructive, let it go. That way you can focus on feedback from listeners who connect with your show and support your content.

Kevin 9:00

I know Priscilla well enough to know that when she says the people who don't align with your content will move on. I like one of the things that plays in my head are people who are, I don't know, they come on to create some content or they're posting on X or there's something, and they're like, and if you don't agree with my opinion, then you can just unfollow me, or you can unsubscribe to the show, or you can, you know, delete my channel from your YouTube or whatever. I know she's not saying that. Um, but sometimes like that's sort of what I hear, which is I not at all what Priscilla is saying. I'm sure of that. But also not something that I think we need to do as content creators. The path will naturally fall out. Like, I don't think you have to address every criticism that comes in, defend your position, and say if you disagree with me, you can stop listening to the show. Like, that's just gonna happen. Unless, you know, you have an edgy show that that's what you want to do, fine. But I don't know. I hear that, I feel like I want to clarify that point that this stuff works itself out organically. There's gonna be things that we say that people are like, oh, these people don't know what they're talking about. They're gonna move on on their own. We don't have to tell them to move on. And there's gonna be people who love everything we say, and even when we make a misstep or say something dumb, they're gonna offer grace and forgiveness and still listen to the next episode.

Alban 10:11

You know what this reminds me of? There's a really good This American Life episode about like, I think it's called like Everybody's a Critic or something. And it starts with somebody who's reading all of his reviews on on Amazon, and he's like, you know, just feeling down that he wrote a book and people are giving bad reviews. And so then they just go and look at all sorts of stuff to see what kind of reviews it got. And one of them was like a one-star review for the Great Wall of China, and the person wrote on the like they left a one-star review, they're like, way too many people and a lot of stairs. How is this supposed to be like awesome if there's so many stairs? It's like, yeah, yeah, that's part of the product.

Jordan 10:52

There's a whole podcast based around that. Have you heard of uh Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet? No, the whole it's so funny. The whole premise of the podcast is they go to ridiculous one-star reviews and read them through. And so they will like pick a location or they'll they'll pick something like the Louvre, and they'll go and find the worst reviews, like the funniest worst reviews for it, and just read them on the podcast and make fun of it. And it's it's it's a good list. That's awesome. So I was thinking about um what Priscilla said, and I remembered when I was doing uh research for this episode. We

The Critique That Hits Your Insecurity

Jordan 11:30

had on Happy to Help, there was a guest. Her name is uh Melody Wilding, and she's a psychologist. She's written like a few books and stuff, just really brilliantly. It was a great episode. I'll actually link to it in the show notes because I felt like there was a lot of great takeaways just for like life in general about it. But something that she said in that episode, I felt really hit home, especially as a content creator. She said that the criticism that stings the most is usually the one that confirms the worst thing we already fear about ourselves. And so if you are already experiencing um imposter syndrome as a podcaster, you're already feeling like a little insecure about it, if someone says something mean or nasty and it's something mean or nasty that you tell yourself already, it's going to confirm that you have this confirmation that what you're this lie that you're telling yourself is true. And so for podcasters, that can sound like things like, I'm not interesting enough, my voice is annoying, or no one wants to listen this, or I'm I'm embarrassing. I'm embarrassing myself and my friends are embarrassed of me. And sometimes we have to like stop and say, like, okay, is this actually true, or is this just my inner saboteur like whispering lies in my ear?

Kevin 12:43

Yeah. And I I mean, I don't know what to do with that, except I would say, like, why are you podcasting? And and I know that's kind of trite that we go back to the like, what is your why often? But I think we go back to it because it's important, especially in times like this. So, like, my voice is annoying, but I have something I want to share, or I think my voice is annoying. Other people might find my voice is annoying. Like, you have constraints. Um, this might work, it might not. Let me let me just put it out there. But my son is a musician and he's he books some solo gigs once in a while. And sometimes in the solo gigs, they want him to sing, but he's not a singer. And he's like not tone-deaf, but he's not a great singer. Um, but he's trying to lean into it more because he loves performing, he loves doing music and stuff. So he is like exploring, getting singing lessons and stuff like that. But I ask him, like, do you love this enough to invest in it, to try to get better, to take the criticism as you go along? Because it's gonna be a hard road. But if it's something you love, it's worth pursuing. Like you can get better at this. You might not be the world's greatest singer. That might just not be in the cards for you genetically, but you can get better. You can get good enough where you can book these solo gigs and you can sing and you can perform, and people won't be leaving the restaurant because you're doing it. Like, that's achievable. Now, are you gonna sell out, you know, a big full stadium tour? What maybe, maybe not. Like, but that's not the goal. That's not the why. The why is like right now you're young and you like performing and you want to get good enough where people don't leave the restaurant when you start singing. We can do that. And you can do that in podcasting. You're going to have things that you're insecure about and you can work on them and you can get better. And you can get to the point where you have, you know, maybe you have 50 downloads an episode, maybe you get to 100 downloads an episode. Are you going to be, you know, number one in Apple's charts? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of that is luck. A lot of that is who you know, a lot of that is, you know, um, just raw talent that genetically we're not all born with the same levels of talent, but you can get better, you can improve, and but it's going to be tough. Like along the way, there's going to be criticisms. There's going to be days where you feel like you're not getting any better. Um, and it might be months where you don't feel like you're getting any better. But if you go back to the why, like I'm enjoying this. Uh, my message is important regardless of the sound of my voice. Um, what I'm teaching is adding value to people. My jokes are funny when I tell them to my friends, but they're not landing in the podcast yet. How can I bridge that gap? There's there's improvements to be made. And if you're confident in your why and you keep going back to that, that's going to get you through, I think, a lot of the struggles along the way. And then it's sweeter when you get there. That's when I mean, you guys have probably been to conferences where you see some great podcasters. Pat Flynn used to do this famously. He would open up a lot of his session talks with like his first podcast episode, where he sounded terrible and very awkward, and it was not engaging content at all. And then, like, to see where he's gotten to today, where he's standing on a stage in front of thousands of people and he's being paid to be there and to speak, um, contrasting that with where he started. But it's not an overnight thing, it's a it's a journey. And so that's why you have to remember like, why did I start? What's the goal here? And how can I get a little better every day?

Alban 15:43

Yeah, I'm I'm wrestling with a little bit the idea of the criticism that hits the closest and hits the hardest is the stuff that you already kind of believe. And half of me hears that as, yeah, it actually is true. Sometimes I will get feedback and I go, Oh, you're a hundred percent right, and I think that too, and that's an area I want to work on. There's also feedback that is it kind of hits an insecurity you have that you will hopefully grow through. And I can think of examples of both of those for me. So in the beginning, I don't know if I ever got this feedback, but I was so insecure about why I am the person teaching this? Why am I the person who thinks he's so great, he's got a podcast? And it was really like that was how I felt. And so if I got that feedback in any format or even something close to it, it really stung. How do you grow through that rather than it just every time it hits you, you're like devastated? Um I think I'm just maybe fortunate that I didn't get too much of it, but it really was in the beginning. I think I was just so sensitive to that area of feedback.

Jordan 16:52

Well, I think the first step in that is to figure out what kind of criticism it is, because you know, like I said at the top of the episode, there's there's three different kinds. So you've got like the constructive feedback, you've got the confused or misinformed uh feedback, and then you also just have people who are patrolling you. And so

Craft Feedback Versus Taste Policing

Jordan 17:11

the constructive feedback or criticism, this is stuff that is like very specific, it's well-intentioned, and it gives you something to work with. They're not just saying you suck at podcasting, they're saying, hey, I actually really enjoyed this episode, but it was hard to listen to with all that noise in the background. That's constructive feedback because they're saying, hey, I was trying to listen to it, but this was preventing me from enjoying the episode. And you can like take that in, figure out how to fix the problem, and then improve your show upon it. And you really listen to what people are saying, even if you don't agree with it, because people can have constructive criticism that's more of just a personal opinion. Maybe it's just the way that they like their things. You know, we all like food cooked certain ways. And so, you know, some people like their bacon really soggy and some people like it burnt to a crisp, you know? Like, and so you can have constructive criticism about how to cook bacon, but you know, it's different strokes for different folks when it comes to that.

Kevin 18:10

And if you don't like your bacon crispy, you can just unfollow this show right now.

Alban 18:14

I'm definitely a I'm 100% a crispy bacon person. You can't, the stuff you get at the hotels, it's terrible.

Jordan 18:21

It's so gross. Yeah.

Alban 18:24

There's a really good quote on this from I think it's Ira Glass, who said, when you get feedback, they ask, is this craft feedback or is this taste? And craft, it can they can be very similar. So his example of craft was people would write in just like the almost the exact example you gave, and they'd say, Hey, sometimes you kind of mumble, and so you mumbled this bit and it was hard to understand on the radio. And then other times they would get, gosh, that person has a really annoying voice, tons of vocal fry. I don't like it. And he went, one of those is craft. It's never a valuable thing for me to mumble. The other is you don't like this person because you don't like their accent or the way they've got some vocal fry or something that you really didn't like. And so they took it and they said, Okay, we so we try to separate those into the two buckets. We're thankful for all the feedback, but the one we're gonna listen to is the one that's on craft rather than the one that's just like taste policing.

Jordan 19:23

Yeah. And then when we get too confused or the misinformed listeners, this is, I think I should preface all of these with like, it's important to like when you feel like someone's being critical of you, don't answer right away. Make sure that you process it. Like you, you have to process this because sometimes things can feel really critical, but then when you think about it a little bit more, you realize it maybe wasn't intended to be so. And so with these confused listeners, you know, this is people who are like, Well, I don't understand why you're suddenly changing your opinion on this because, you know, a year ago you were talking about this and now you're talking about that. And it's like, okay, well, there was like a transition period in there. So let me clarify. And when you clarify things, make sure you're being really kind. You might not be only uh replying to them. There could be other listeners who are just like silently experiencing the same thing or or having the same confusion, but they just didn't write in. And so when you respond, make sure that you are clarifying it for everyone to see.

Alban 20:21

Yeah, completely agree with that. We see that when people write into Buzzsprout, if we get five people who write in, that's like 35 people who ran into that issue. It's not just those five. And so you know that there is a lot of people who won't be writing in. And so if there's people writing in saying, hey, I heard this weird audio issue, it's worth if you get a few of those to really look into it because it's probably a little bit more widespread than you think.

Kevin 20:44

Jordan, to your point, I think humility is the most like disarming way to combat criticism that I've ever encountered. And I try to lead with humility as much as possible when I encounter it. Meaning, like if somebody says, I don't like your voice, uh, the topic you covered, you covered it wrong. Uh your opinion on this is wrong. Like saying, Oh, I'm, you know, maybe I don't know something that you know. Like, please at let me ask questions, let me help understand your perspective. Um, I've been wrong plenty of times in my life, and I might be wrong this time. So, like, let's engage in this conversation. Let me understand better. Like leading with humility, oftentimes disarming. It doesn't come off as being defensive. Um, and so I love that as a first strategy. But there's also like a time and a place to just stand your ground and say, uh, this is my position, this is my show, this is how I do it. And whatever. Uh, let's just say, like, I'm just noticing there's some people walking back and forth in through these glass windows. If you're watching on video, I'm standing in an office and behind me are glass doors and there's people walking back and forth. There, I could foresee somebody writing into the show and say, Oh, I love your podcast, but it's really distracting that there's people walking back and forth behind the glass when I'm watching the video. Okay. Like I would say, I'm sorry that's distracting to you, but I'm not going to tell everybody that while we record, On Tuesdays at 130 in the office, you can't move around. And I don't have another place right now to record because our podcast studio is being used by somebody else. So, like there's certain constraints. I'm gonna say, Yeah, I I get it. I'm sorry, maybe watching the video is not for you, but that that's the best I can do right now. And so I don't know. There's like you can address each case on a case-by-case basis, but I I love the I love the idea of like starting from a humble position. It's very hard for somebody who's attacking you to continue attacking when you respond in humility.

Jordan 22:29

Yeah, and there might be various reasons that they're reacting like harshly to your episode or giving like harsh feedback. They they could have completely missed the concept, they could have misunderstood what was going on. And maybe they just wanted like a different show than what you have. I mean, we've had that before where people have written in and said, you know, you guys talk too much about personal stuff. I just want facts, I just want podcast stuff.

Alban 22:55

We've heard that feedback plenty of times, yes.

Jordan 22:57

Yeah, yeah, and it's just like, man, maybe we're not the show for you. Like, there's plenty of great podcasts about podcasting where they are all business, like no, no tomfoolery around, but this is not that show.

Alban 23:09

Yeah, and it's also not a show that we could really make very well. I think for us to have to enjoy it, it's got to be a little bit silly. It's a little bit, we're trying to not take it too seriously. And we're we're all indie podcasters, and so this is the this is who we are, and it is okay if you want a little bit more straightforward Pod News Weekly Review style show. There's a great show called Pod News Weekly Review that you could go listen to. Yeah, but they talk a lot of personal stuff too. Then you're out. There's no shows that will leave the person aside.

Kevin 23:43

This is as good as it's gonna get, so don't even bother looking anywhere else. In the design world, which former life, I did a lot of design work and in like branding and identity work specifically, the rule of thumb to stay alive and healthy in that space was to do like two for them and one for you. It's hard to get work in when you're doing like branding work, but oftentimes you get a lot of branding work that's just not super fun. It's like, oh, a bank needs a new startup bank needs a logo, and then there's a new real estate firm down the street that needs a new logo, and you're like, oh, these are like, I don't want to design another bank logo. Like bank logos are just boring. They're not great work. So this idea came around to do like two for them or three for them and one for you. Like then just go like do a fun project, whether it be a personal portfolio project or a friend needs something or a small business that's starting up that doesn't have very much money, that you typically wouldn't take that work, but it would be fun and exciting. Like, do that just to keep your creativity like engaged and being able to express yourself and stretch your skills. So, how that applies to podcasting, like we'd kind of take every episode like that. We kind of do like two-thirds of the show is intentionally uh beneficial for the audience that listening, that that listens. And then a third of it like is just for us. Like we're having conversation, we're laughing with each other, we're enjoying each other's companies, we're getting fresh perspectives on topics. Now, all of that stuff is surrounded by podcasting specific content, but we also have to keep the show fun and engaging for us, or else we're not gonna be able to engage that the podcasting content with any enthusiasm or excitement. And so I like that formula for all shows. I like, regardless of what you're talking about, there are gonna be times when you're like, I'm just doing this content because it's listener-requested content or it's something in my industry or about my topic that I have to cover, but I already know all of it or already taught on a bunch of times. How can you still work in something for you in that episode? Like make sure that you're getting you're doing stuff for you and you're doing stuff for your audience. And as long as you balance that pretty well, then your audience is gonna find you. They're gonna understand you, they're gonna start to enjoy some of that content. There's lots of examples, but there's a lot of podcasts I listen to strictly for the content. And when they go off, I get a little bit annoyed. Um, and then there's other shows where I listen to, and I like it when they go off topic because I love the personalities, even though I'm not super engaged in the content. But there's a full spectrum.

Jordan 25:57

Yeah. I mean, we we did a whole episode on that. I I can't remember exactly what it was called. It was something like how to keep podcasting fun, or like I don't know, you remember that episode? I'll I'll find it and I'll link to that in

Trolls, Boundaries, And Positivity Files

Jordan 26:10

the show notes. All right, and then let's talk real quick about the third uh classification of criticism, which is the least fun, and that is the trolls or personal attacks. So these are things that are typically like vague, they're not constructed, not construct. Oh my gosh.

Kevin 26:26

Jordan, it would really be helpful for me as a listener if you could get your words right the first time without stumbling over them, or else I'm not gonna be able to listen to your show anymore. Unsubscribe, boring.

Jordan 26:36

Unsubscribe.

Kevin 26:37

Unsubscribe one star.

Jordan 26:39

You suck. Okay, yes. So these are the vague, like not constructive, just mean spirited comments that you get from people, from random people on the internet. And really the best way to handle this is to just ignore it, delete the comment, block the user, mute the person, whatever you need to do. Like we have this ability on fan mail for this reason because sometimes people will just say mean things and you can block that person. Now, if we are getting these negative reviews or even just like one negative comment, like I said, it can feel so much heavier than all of the positive feedback that we get. And so I think that it's actually a good thing to really focus on the positive feedback, on the positive comments and the words of encouragement and stuff like that. And so it's really good to keep a folder or um maybe like a file on your phone or in your email where you take screenshots and you just like keep all that stuff together. So whenever someone says something that's mean and very untrue about you and your craft, then you can look at that and just be reminded of all the good stuff.

Kevin 27:50

I I like talking about positive feedback because I think I don't know, should I say this? Is this true? Is it true that I think we get on average, probably more positive feedback? This doesn't feel true as I'm saying it, but I feel like the numbers are there, at least for BuzzCast. We get more positive feedback than negative. And yet it just like it's 10 to 1 on how it feels. It just every time there's one, it like takes 10 of those positive ones away. And I'm wondering, what can we do? I like this idea, Jordan. When you were first saying it, I was like, I will never do that. I will never keep a scrapbook of positive things that people say to me. But that's not true. I do that. I just did it this weekend. I just got a Father's Day card from my daughter. And I like the first thing I did was like, I'm probably gonna lose this physical card at some point in my life, but I don't want to lose it. And so I took pictures of it, and so now it's like favored in my camera role, so I can look at it whenever I want. And I think that would be a healthy thing for people to do in the podcasting space too. Like, certainly, if you're getting negative feedback, certainly there's got to be some that's at least neutral, right? Like, start start low, bars low, at least neutral. I didn't hate the show, I didn't love it either. Not sure if I'll ever listen again. Like, okay, that might be a win. If everything else you got was really nasty, just take it as a win, screenshot that, put that somewhere safe, and keep coming back to it and say, like, again, I like the idea of podcasting is a journey. It's not like I'm gonna record my first episode, I'm gonna skyrocket to the top of the charts, I'm gonna be successful. It's gonna be this like anything that we do in the hobby space or in the new endeavor space is like you're trying to get better. And so are the comments getting better? Is the feedback getting better? Are my connecting with more people? Maybe that means more negative too, because your show is growing a little bit. So you're getting exposed to more people. That's it, still might be a small percentage, but more people don't like it. But hopefully more people do like it. I think it's a good idea. And like I said, I didn't think I would do it, but I think I might. Yeah.

Jordan 29:42

You know what we should do is we should have a separate like chat in our BuzzCast project and make it only for like positive feedback, and we'll just like screenshot like any comments and it's just like a positivity feed.

Kevin 29:56

Well, you know, I forget about this feature because I don't know why. I don't I don't update the website, I'm not in charge of that. But there is the feature in fan mail where when you get a fan mail message you like, you can pin it to your podcast website.

Speaker 6 30:07

Yeah.

Kevin 30:08

And we don't talk about that very often, but we've got, I don't know, 10 of them on the Buzzcast website. And anytime, like if hey, anybody listening to the show right now, if you want to click, what does it say? Text the show or send a message to show or something. If you want to say something beautiful about Buzzcast, we'd be happy to add it to the podcast website. Yeah, but that can serve as that's at least a starting point as an easy scrapbook idea.

Jordan 30:29

Yeah, I love it. All right, so taking everything that we've discussed, are we ready to get into our fan mail and feedback?

Kevin 30:37

Is it all positive? Yeah.

unknown 30:40

Okay.

Alban 30:40

All right. So can we review before we I have not looked at all these, so I just want to review some feedback, you don't need to take it because it may not be uh may be confused, and so you can clarify. Some stuff may just be trollish. I doubt any of these are trollish, but if they are, you can kind of just ignore it and let it go. Some of it is going to hurt because it's really something I already think. What else? What other techniques can we take into this?

Jordan 31:09

The breakdown is just if if someone is giving you constructive feedback, you just give it a response, a thank you. If anyone is confused about something, you just make sure that you clarify. And then if someone is being mean or cruel, then you just set up boundaries. Done.

Alban 31:27

All right. So if I don't like it, I could just say troll, and we can just move on. Lock. Yeah, for sure.

Going Through Our Own Listener Feedback

Alban 31:32

All right. Let's start with number one.

Jordan 31:35

The first message that we got is from Fernando. And Fernando says, Hey, Buzzcast team, I make a narrative travel show, and lately the pushing towards video has me feeling slightly out of place on my own platform. And so then he says, I get why you're doing it, video's exciting. And then he said that it's left me with a nagging worry that audio first podcasts are quietly being treated as yesterday's format. And I'd love to know that this isn't the case and that there's still a home here for those of us who care about the craft of audio.

Alban 32:07

100% agree.

Jordan 32:08

Yes.

Alban 32:09

I have that feeling too that so many of the shows that I love, I I hear them and they're like experimenting with video. And as soon as they do that, I'm like, please don't. Like, don't go down this path. And I I know we're doing it. Maybe I should try to clarify a bit of why BuzzCast is doing video. I proposed it to the team was because if BuzzBrout is going to have video and we're going to teach video and we're going to try to help people become better video podcasters, at a minimum, we need to be, you know, editing video podcasts. We need to be learning what works, what doesn't, feel the pain points that we have in BuzzBrout when we upload big video files, all of that. Um the show is still audio first, but I I feel you. Like what I love about podcasting is almost all of it is tied to the audio part of podcasting. I also want to know there's still a home for those of us who care about the craft of audio because it is something special that's not the same as what we see over on YouTube.

Kevin 33:13

I firmly believe that audio podcasting is the greatest version of podcasting that exists. I would say almost every podcast that I consume still as a listener is still audio, at least audio first. It may have video components. I don't know. And like Alban said, we we have to dog food the software that we create. And we there's a lot of people who want to get into podcasting and are interested in the video side. And as the biggest podcasting platforms, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube have all totally embraced video. Of course, we have to support video as well for people who want to do that. That dog fooding shouldn't be mistaken for passion. We are at least the three people who do this. No one's passionate about dog food. No, right. We are literally just eating our own dog food, only so that we can create the best products that we're capable of creating. Like Alban said, understanding the pain points, understanding how we can make that easier for people. But you are definitely listening to three people who are passionate about audio podcasting first. And I believe that that's around for the long haul. Now, yeah, it might not be the fastest way to grow. It might not be the hottest new thing in the podcasting space, but it's definitely where our passion lies and we'll we will continue to fully support and build features for and make audio podcasting. We'll always have a home and be a first-class citizen in the bus brought platform.

Jordan 34:31

And Fernando, like we've we've said this a million times. Our opinion has not changed. If you should only do video if you want to do video. If you do not want to do video, do not do video. I have podcasts of my own that will never see a television screen, ever. Like they they will not because it doesn't make sense. There's no point in that. So yeah, just rest easy that you're not out of place. You are right where you belong, and we're with you, man.

Alban 35:00

All right. I'm reading ahead. Devin from Kingdom and Amelia wrote in and said, I don't mean this as a critique of you, but I really don't see the value of video for a podcast such as yours, or the reason that it warrants so much excitement. Yeah, that I mean, we kind of just addressed it, but the purpose for us to have video is for us personally, the three of us, to feel it, to see stats, so we can experience the whole process and then report on it back to you. So that if you are in the 20, 30 percent of our audience who's interested in video, then we're also speaking to those pain points, not just to the 70 who are audio only. Would I watch this show on YouTube? No. So I know that. And I don't think that me adding like this background to anything makes it a better show. Uh rarely is it going to improve the quality. It's just gonna be we can distribute to YouTube, we can distribute to Spotify, other places that want video content. Now more people can experience it.

Jordan 36:00

I got one compliment on the video, like to me personally, and it was someone that was excited to see my cat in the background.

Alban 36:09

We got one last week that said, like you and Kevin were so beautiful they couldn't pay attention to the podcasting.

Jordan 36:14

Yeah, it was something like that.

Kevin 36:15

We're still waiting for clarification on that. That might have been a technical compliment.

Jordan 36:20

I think he was just like, ooh, oops, and didn't write back. All right, we survived it. Those were our critiques.

Alban 36:30

Both of those were positive, and I feel like both of those were warranted. So thank you for reaching out.

Fan Mail

Jordan 36:35

All right, let's move on to some of our other fan mail. We have some responses to our last episode, the quick cast, about our experience with video podcasting and how much of a struggle that has been for us. Uh, Chris from STEM every day said, thanks again for the good info and video podcasting. You said 10% were watching the video version. Was that 10% new listeners or just normal audio listeners switching to video? Alban, do we have a way to discern that?

Alban 37:03

Yeah, I so I I looked at it. My take is that these are existing people who are listening to the podcast who are flipping over to video for a period to see what the video looks like, that they're not new listeners. So it should change when we start releasing the show on Spotify. And we're also going to see, I think, the most when we start putting video on YouTube. And that's coming out shortly. I will be much more interested in platforms that are built for discovery, YouTube, Spotify somewhat, are they gonna be able to drive new listeners? The value of Apple Podcast Video is this is an existing audience and you've built this audience, and you're always gonna be able to get in front of them because we're not trying to help everybody else discover content and crowd you out of your own space. So it's what we would expect. They're mostly our existing audience, and they're getting a little bonus, which is they can check out the video sometimes. Um, but let's report back maybe in a few months with some more concrete numbers.

Kevin 38:08

All right. San Jose, California wrote in and said your opening logo sting is perfection. The animation is so good. And then they said, here we go.

Jordan 38:19

Thank you. Uh I actually made that with uh Canva and a couple YouTube tutorials. So thank you very much.

Alban 38:26

I I really liked seeing you lead into the video editing set, Jordan. I've been impressed with uh a lot of different things that you've made. You made these little like sound bite things for us, and those look really good too. Quite a few um creative, creative editing projects here.

Jordan 38:42

I I will say it has been kind of fun to like figure out these little things because you know, there comes a point where you're like, oh, I've got a bumper, oh, I've got an outro. And it's like, crap, do I just have like a blank screen? Is it just us kind of like hanging out on the screen, or do I have something that's a little bit more interesting? So that uh that's kind of fun. You get to be artistic with those things. Um, we also got some video editing messages. First up, we got a message from Marvin saying, hey guys, I add it in the script, and it can make those changes to split screens much easier without having to create separate tracks. And Scott from Talk History said the exact same thing, saying that uh that's multicam editing, and the script has an automatic multicam editing feature that will save you so much time. And to that, I say I tried the script and I don't know what it was. I was having problems with it. It wasn't like as smooth for me. And I'm more comfortable with Adobe products. And I think I didn't want to learn like a whole new thing, and it was just kind of a struggle.

Alban 39:39

But you found like a nice plugin for kind of the multi-cam editing. What plug-in did you use?

Jordan 39:44

Uh, that's Autopod. And it's yeah, it's this great plugin. It's really funny because now that I'm like kind of learning about this stuff, I've got so many people talking about like, oh, you have to get autopod. And I'm like, I love autopod, it's the best. It saves me hours. So um I highly recommend it. But yeah, the the switching between there are some tools that are really great, but it's it's somewhat similar. But I think they're talking about like that like auto split screen thing, so I don't have to create an extra track, which would be nice. So I don't know.

Alban 40:15

Jordan, you got some other feedback from Dave Jackson from School of Podcasting, who really liked the episode we did and the stats and where we're at with video. Uh-huh. He said you need to make three tracks, four tracks, five tracks. You didn't say anything about the software you're using, so I'm gonna guess it's Da Vinci Resolve. Missed missed the guest, but uh I'd love to know what Jordan is using for editing video. So you said Adobe products.

Jordan 40:39

Yeah, I'm um using Adobe Premiere Pro just because it syncs up with Adobe Audition. They're both very expensive in terms of like software because it's one of those subscription-based things. So long term it costs more. I have heard from so many people that DaVinci Resolve is actually really great and they have an awesome free plan. So I thought about using DaVinci Resolve, but then I went and have the integration with Audition. And so I just like my stuff to be um the same. Um, and then we got some families from Delicious Culture with Jean-Francois.

Speaker 41:16

Jean Francois here from the Delicious Culture with John Francois podcast. Got two quick questions for you guys. One, why are you not on Spotify's Sirius XM, like anywhere else you get podcasts? It seems like I can only find you guys on Apple. And also, I want to know if it's worth it to leave Spotify for creators. Um, I know that I cannot get video for Apple Podcasts if I'm staying with Spotify for creators. It looks like I have to go to another platform like Buzzprops. I already have video on Spotify and YouTube. So uh let me know your thoughts on that.

Kevin 41:55

Let me jump in on that. Uh first, we are new to Spotify. There's a long history of why we haven't been there for a very long time, but that stuff has changed. And so we've come around to having Buzzcast be on Spotify. So if you search for us, you should see us there now in both audio and video. Similarly with YouTube, we never saw the benefit of just being an audio first podcast on YouTube. Now that they have video and we're creating video and we can actually put video first content out there for people who want to watch on YouTube, we'll be there as well. Other platforms like uh Sirius XM and stuff, we should be on all those platforms. I don't know exactly how you're searching for us or why we're not showing up.

Jordan 42:29

Actually, Sirius XM doesn't allow just normal podcasters.

Kevin 42:33

So so that they snubbed us. They don't like us.

Jordan 42:36

They they snubbed like 99% of podcasters.

Kevin 42:40

Okay, okay, and now on to your second question, which is should you consider moving from Spotify to a platform like Buzzsprout? Uh, I mean, obviously, who are you asking? You're asking the people that created Buzzsprout. So, of course, yes, you should, for lots of reasons. And even if you weren't doing video, video is a great reason. If you are a video podcaster and you want to get into Apple Podcasts for video, then yeah, you need a platform that supports it. Buzzsprout supports it today, and there are some others as well. Spotify actually has said that they are gonna support it. So I just don't know what your timeline is. But if you hang around long enough, maybe they actually will roll that out. I don't know when they're gonna roll it out. Yeah. But unlike with Spotify and unlike with YouTube, you can't upload yourself directly to Apple Podcasts, the HLS video version anyway. You have to go through a provider, and Buzzsprout is, in my opinion, the best provider for that. But there's lots of other great things too. Like we talk about fan mail, like how you just interacted with us right now. Like you get that with Buzzsprout. You get an amazing support team. Of course, we do tons of educational content. And I think we just have the best overall tools in the industry for putting out a podcast, whether it be audio first, video first, or both. So I would at least encourage you to give a shot. And I hope if you give it a shot, you'll see the difference and it would resonate with you, and you'd say, Oh, I should have been here all along. Um, but if not, Spotify, there's a lot of people who host on Spotify, and it's a good platform for a lot of people. Not everybody, though. People with taste come to Buzzsprout.

Alban 44:03

Brent from Midlife Circus gave us another voicemail.

Speaker 4 44:08

Hey, this is Brent of Midlife Circus, a podcast about everything that comes with midlife as a Gen Xer. I won't name any names, but I'm guessing at least one of you fits our target demographic. We recently moved over to Buzzsprout from another host, and I was nervous about it. Worried about losing data, losing continuity between episodes, and everything in between. None of that happened. The transition was smooth, the interface is incredibly easy to work in, and the analytics have been great. A real bonus for us has been the fan mail feature. It's become one of the best ways for our audience to connect with us. Do you have any ideas for getting listeners to leave more messages? We get a ton of value from them.

Alban 44:48

Jordan, did you set this up perfectly for Brent to kind of be responding to the one from uh Jean-Francois?

Jordan 44:55

You know what's funny is I did not. That just organically happened. So oh wait, I meant to say, yes, I did intentionally do that. And that's why I'm the producer.

Alban 45:06

Another home run for Jordan. Very good. Thank you. Brent, thanks for writing in. Uh it's really great to hear that the move over to Buzzsprout w has gone well and everything has stayed continuous for you. As far as fan mail, we've done a few episodes about fan mail and how to get more people to reach out and leave you voicemails or write into the show. So we will link those in the show notes for you.

Jordan 45:30

Yeah, we actually have an episode also about how to get listeners to actually do what you ask. And so I'll link what we're just gonna have so many great episodes in the show notes for this episode. But I highly recommend using it as a call to action. You know, find ways to integrate it into your content, find ways to shout people out. There's a whole bunch of different things that you can do with fan mail to get people more engaged, especially if you're integrating it into your podcast. I think that's probably just the biggest because people love feeling like they're part of the show and feeling like they know the hosts and that the hosts are familiar with them. Like it's great.

Alban 46:09

Yeah. I mean, we have 10 on this episode of people who wrote in and we included their fan mail. And that's only from week after week when people write in somewhere about half of the messages we receive end up making the show. But a lot of you reach out about the topic that we're talking about. And I think because we read those on the podcast, we make them part of the content that it makes it more likely that people will continue to reach out.

Kevin 46:35

I'll give you my two quick tips. One, remind your audience that they don't have to wait for the episode to be over to interact with you. Like they can go to the show notes at any time while the episode's still playing, tap that link and send you a message. Um, if they do the voicemail message, it'll stop the audio, of course. But if they can just, if they just want to type a text message, they can do that while they're listening. And so encourage people like, hey, as we're talking, as we're going through this, if if you have something to add to the conversation or you've got a different opinion, hit the text show link and send it to us. Let us know real time. Because when you wait, you forget. The other one is I personally happen to listen to, and I don't know if you do too, uh, a lot of shows that are hosted on Buzzsprout and have fan mail turned in. So anytime I'm listening to a show that has that fan mail link, I go ahead and just tap it. Even if I don't have anything to contribute, I'll give them a compliment. Um use it, use it. Like be a user of it first, support other podcasters that are on Buzzsprout that are podcasting. Um, so if you see that link in anybody's show notes, tap it and be a good podcast citizen. And then maybe somebody will come back to you.

Jordan 47:30

Be the fan you want to see in the world.

Kevin 47:32

There you go. We say that so much. It's true.

Jordan 47:34

Well, if you want to be the fan that you want to see in the world, go ahead and tap the Send Us Famma link in the show notes. And until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting. All right. Well, I'm

Post Show: All Fun And Games...

Jordan 47:49

back from Jacksonville. We had our meetup, our marketing team meetup.

Alban 47:53

It's always good to have you. It's always good to have everyone in the office. Now, Megan on our team is uh in North Carolina. You're in Idaho. I'm here, Kevin's here, and it's good to get everybody together.

Jordan 48:04

Yeah, it's pretty wild having like a full remote marketing team, but I love it when we're able to like finally get together, do some like brainstorm sessions, go out and like have meals together and do fun little activities and stuff.

Alban 48:17

Yep, we went to a jumbo shrimp game, the Jacksonville AAA baseball game, and Kevin got us the ultimate club seats down there, like padded seats right behind home plate.

Kevin 48:28

That yeah. Well, it wasn't me. That was uh John Pollard who put that together or technical lead for Buzzsprout and uh and baseball seat connoisseur. I I think in a lot of ways it's it's better. I like it anyway, having a minor league team in Jacksonville because when you can go to the game, you can get really great seats. I don't know, it just seems a lot more accessible. You can go kind of go any night of the week. The weather turns out being good, and there's a game in town, you can just run downtown and I don't know, see the game for $20. Major league baseball games are just there's they're super fun, but it's way more expensive, way more planning, just a lot more rigmarole. Like a minor league team is great. Like every every city needs to have a minor league team.

Jordan 49:08

I gotta be honest, I've been to like two MLB games. I've been to a Mariners game and I've been to a Nationals game, right? And I had way more fun at this minor league game than I had at any of them. It was such a blast.

Alban 49:20

Well, part of it might be that like you were on the field for a game. A bunch of people from the team ended up somehow. I guess John bought enough tickets that the girl came down and was like, all right, who wants to be on the field? And got a bunch of team members out there, and Jordan was one of them.

Jordan 49:35

Yeah. So uh Kara and I and Dave and uh Brian, we played like a granny panties game where we had to like throw these like beach balls into like these big hoop, I don't know, onesie sort of things. And then they had to like run across the field. It was a terrible game, and they set up my balls way far away from me, and they put Kara's right next to her, and so she had like an unfair advantage, but it was it was fine. And then Alban, you also went on stage or on stage on the field.

Alban 50:05

Yeah, Lloyd and I had some game where we had to like they gave us uh stuffed animal eggs, and then you had to use a blower, like a leaf blower to blow around some circle thing. The games don't really make sense, but I think they're just trying to have something that takes 45 seconds, it gets the crowd engaged a little bit, and then they move on.

Jordan 50:24

Well, it's really funny because I think that the Buzzsprout crew, like it's just a very competitive bunch. You and Lloyd were just all over it. You were kicking each other's like things out of the way and like pretending to brawl and stuff. It was really funny. It was it was great.

Alban 50:40

So we we before we walked on, Lloyd's like, so what are we gonna do? Are we gonna get in an argument? Are we getting in a fight? What's gonna happen? I was like, I'll just tell you right now, Lloyd, whatever you do, you didn't go too far. 100%. And he goes, Whatever you do, I'm taking it to the next level. Oh, and so it starts off with like, you know, one of us blows the other one's egg, and then someone kicks one, and then Lloyd rips off my hat, and then I tried to tackle him on the field, and then we got kicked off by the team.

Jordan 51:09

You know what? I actually think I have video for that. So if anyone is uh watching, I think you'll get a nice little replay. Yeah, I will. And then the next night we were we were a little bit more like subdued. We went to a pasta making class, which again we got really competitive about it.

Kevin 51:26

Oh, I didn't hear. You got competitive in the pasta world.

Jordan 51:29

A little bit, yeah.

Alban 51:31

Okay, well, so we had three of us. Kevin couldn't come, and so I went, All right, Tom's Italian. We'll invite Tom to come make pasta with us, and I'll get Tom on my team. We'll have a leg up. And the lady who's running the class just loved Tom. And so he's 101% the favorite student. And she kept coming over, she's like, It's not because you're my favorite, but I'm gonna help you guys and show you these techniques, and so like we're doing stuff, and Tom and I are like, Oh my gosh, we're so good at ravioli, we're bragging about it. And then they throw it all in the same pot, and then everyone eats it as a shared group.

Jordan 52:05

But we had a lot of fun, but it was really funny because Megan used to be a school teacher, and she said, I also had favorites in my class, and it was a little bit of like a wink wink that it was the kids that needed more attention.

Speaker 6 52:18

Right.