Choose Your Podcast Name Wisely – PCI 319

0:10 Hey everyone. Welcome to another edition of Podcast Insider. My name is Todd Cochran. I am back after being out a couple weeks, but I am co-host. Today is McKenzie Bennett. Mike's out McKenzie. How are. You? I'm good. I'm getting used to, uh, being co-host recently. Yeah, that changed. And you are road casting from home on your computer and everything, so not in the studio. So this is a nice change too, isn't it? Yeah, I'm enjoying it. I really feel like I'm doing a better job with the mic. Well, that's good than I was at the studio. , because you're, you got your desk and everything organized and sometimes it's really, it's true feeling comfortable, you know, in the studio you go into it's kind of like, Okay, well I gotta move the mic here, make sure the input's right.

0:55 Someone's adjusted it and blade with it and Yeah. You just never know. Here. I know everything works and it takes away like that, that last bit of stress involved in doing anything recording, so. Yeah, absolutely. So, alright, well, we've got some news, We've got a best practice. We have, uh, stuff going on here at Blueberry and of course I'm gonna give a report on my trip to Riyad. We've got a Blueberry Pro tip from Toby, No interview and then a question of the week. So there's been a bunch of new stuff come out in the news about spoken word and, uh, stuff going on with, uh, with Edison.

1:36 I have not been able to have time to read that report, but I guess it's. Going up. And people are listening at a younger age. Yes. That's essentially what it's saying is that they're definitely seeing a growth among younger audiences. So by that I assume they mean Gen Z, but it says that overall 46% of the US population listens to spoken word audio content on a daily basis. And that seems high to me, like in a good way compared to what it. Has been. Yeah, and there was actually, I was talking with someone about this yesterday, it appears that we're like equivalent now of a, you know, AM radio obviously is demise completely, but now podcasting is above what the audience of AM radio was not too long ago. So, and.

2:23 Which this says it just is increasing across the board. Yeah. Specifically there was a 214% increase among ages 13 to 24. That's. Wild. That is wild. And I, you know, I don't go looking for content 13 to 24, but I, I think it would be a worthy endeavor to see what's out there. But if there's 13 to 24 year olds listening to spoken word, then that means there is definitely creators in that age group that's reaching those folks. So I don't know too many, There's. So many creators in that age group. Yeah. And again, I don't know too many 13 year olds creating, creating content, but probably six 16 plus. I don't know. Again, I'm just guessing. I, I think it's become this weird thing too where when you ask a child what they wanna be when they grow up and they say a YouTuber or a podcaster Right.

3:13 Or something like that. Like this is, this has become a legitimate thing for them. My son has done YouTube for a while, but he doesn't put stuff out on a regular basis. And I went to the length of buying a real expensive dslr and he was building his portfolios. He's going to school to be a fireman, but at the same time he is wanting to do this social thing. So yeah, I fully, I fully get it and, uh, but you know, it's, it's just a lot of work. I think they all find that out. But it's cool that segment is growing for. Sure. I think they said one of the main reasons why is because spoken word content has moved to mobile. Like you were bringing up the AM before. Yep. Yep, Yep.

3:53 We're shifting away from that entirely. Everyone that is probably listening to content like this, um, who's on mobile has a, has a mobile device. So, you know, and, and, and I just, my kids are all grown now. Grown now mm-hmm. , but I remember even when they were in the car, and I can't remember when they had their first mobile probably, Oh, we try to hold off as long as we can, but I think 11, 12, something like that. Yeah, that seems good. And, um, they were always just plugged in, listened to, whatever. So it's like they didn't, they didn't want, of course, at that time I was podcasting pretty heavily. They didn't wanna listen to podcasts, they didn't wanna listen to the radio for sure. Mm-hmm. . So it, it only makes sense. And as this, you know, as the entire segment of the population continued to, to age the, I think the days of radio is in big, big trouble over long, over the long term.

4:45 I, you know, I, I, 10 years ago I said they had 10 years, but probably they got a good, good another 10. We'll see, I don't know, I'm just guesstimating here. I don't know. We'll see. But it says that, um, 58% of that time spent listening is news, audio content. Wow. Wow. Typically. Well, the people that also did this research, like it was Edison, but also npr mm-hmm. , So of the, of the findings, they said 58% of that was listening to NPR and public radio. Huh. That's, that's curious. I haven't listened to an NPR station in 20 years. So, uh, very curious. Well, uh, I guess we'll see, but Apple on the other hand's publishing insights about growing subscription podcasts and of course we're hot and heavy in the middle of integration so that blueberry customers can publish directly from blueberry into a subscription and it seems to be growing for a while. Yeah. Seems to be growing.

5:40 Specifically. They are calling out free trials are converting listeners to subscribers. Oh, that's always nice to see because that's not exactly how everything always happens. Yeah. And so is that's the trend they're seeing is offering a free trial. Well I guess that's a free podcast and then mm-hmm. . Interesting. You're. Two and a half times more likely to convert a free listener to a paying subscriber when you give them a free trial apparently. So you give them three free episodes on a new show or a new series or, because I don't know how I would, you know, I'm thinking about my show, it's just been like, God forever. So is this a new show launches or did they gi give any specifics?

6:22 So it says make sure, like if you're gonna offer a free trial to make sure that you are publishing a new subscriber content regularly so they have an opportunity to appreciate the value while you're doing, while they're in the trial window. Yeah. Huh. So I don't think it necessarily, like, I don't think it has to be a new show. If you wanted to do a series mm-hmm. , like your show is established and you've been doing it forever. And if you wanted to do a series on something very. Specific, I spin off. You could be like, I'm gonna have a, I'm gonna have part one, part two, part three, part four. Give them parts one through three in this trial and then then release the fourth one after. Right. I got you.

7:03 Yeah. You know, I, it's, we've had a number of blueberry customers that have responded to the, the newsletter where we were asked, Are you interested in doing and being on the beta and being able to set up a podcast subscription for a single show. And, uh, it could be an early release, it could be a, a bonus content, whatever you wanna do, that offer's still out there. We've had a, a number of folks, but we're looking for a few more. So if you're interested in being on this early, you know, from at least from a blueberry side publishing directly into Apple for this subscription, uh, system, uh, drop us an email. Uh, it can really come to, probably the best place would be our marketing email marketing@blueberry.com, I would think would be the best place for them to send that email.

7:52 Amazon though, uh, and I see you have a note in here, Wonder if it includes Wonder. It does. Uh, Amazon is offering ad free music and podcasts with Prime membership. So because Amazon owns Wondery, they're making all of the premium, all the premium shows on Wondery available as ad free part of your premium membership. So you get a twofer there. I I mean, I might actually try them now. You know, and it, I guess the thing is, I, I have a Prime membership already. I would've probably never had paid for a Wonder re show, but now that they have included that, well then, like you said, I might be willing to, to give it a listen.

8:36 Yep. Same boat. I would never pay for a Wondery show unless it was very specific and I, you know, I felt like it was a reasonable cost for the content that I wanted, but I never actually go out looking for it just because I know there's so much good free stuff out there. Right. But it's included, it's, you know, in my mind it's free. So. You know, the, the thing that made me kind of, uh, see here, look at their strategy was that, okay, so they're, they've all, they're budgeting money to just like on Amazon Prime for their television. They're out there spending money on video programming. So probably now wondering is probably just in a, a budget line now in Amazon, say, Okay, you know, you gotta produce X number of shows and if their hits, we'll continue them. If they're not, uh, high risk from that standpoint, but it makes sense to make it available. With Amazon having such a small, tiny, really less than 1% market share of all, because everyone's podcast can be on there. Mine, this one is on there mm-hmm.

9:35 , um, with it having such slow adoption, it, it's looking to me like they're trying to kickstart. Yeah. That's what I've been thinking too, of they're doing this one because, you know, it's nice to include more things in whatever package you're paying for, but to give these shows like a kickstart that they need probably, or not even a kickstart if they're new, but just a whole new bump in listens. Right. Anyway, so if you have an Amazon Prime, which probably most people do, cuz I don't like to pay for shipping. Uh, and I ship a lot of stuff on Amazon, definitely check out, uh, this, uh, you know, premium content. There is a report, there's been very little ad growth in quarter three. It fell during the summer, has picked up this fall. Mm-hmm. .

10:17 So the economy being what it is, um, that's a little encouraging that the ad spend has picked up a little bit. That as far as I know follows, uh, the economy in general. I remember the news outlets coming out and saying that in August, September that time that like, that sales were picking up again mm-hmm. and my first thought was, well yeah, people took the summer off for their kids and then they have to go back to school like they need to buy things. Yep. So yeah, they're doing that. It's not, I, I don't know if it's people suddenly having more capability, but it's, I think it's outta need. Well I think too, as we spent so much time locked down and now this was really the first summer where people could just move mm-hmm.

11:01 and do things mm-hmm. it makes sense now that, you know, people are back and getting cooler in some regions of the US and other places. Cuz we're going into the, the winter months here, uh, where it's starting to be summer down under. But it's, it is a, um, it's an interesting, uh, to see what that happens. And of course we'll see what happens in the beginning of next year. I guess the biggest surprise really is sound.fm, which I really was not familiar with, is shutting down its podcast hosting and they're going to, they're gonna switch their business models. So they got about 5,000 shows over there looking for new homes. I've seen some chit chatter on Twitter and various different places. So if you are or know of someone that is a Sound FM podcaster, um, let them know we're, we're gonna, we haven't put it together yet, but have 'em email us and we'd be happy to give them an a really sweet deal to move over and, uh, a number of free months, uh, to come over and be on Blueberry.

11:57 We're not changing our business model and we are gonna continue to be in the hosting business. So if you know someone that's on sound or send 'em our way, we'll be happy to take care of them in transitioning them off a platform that's basically kicking them off. Yeah. One thing I will give sounder credit for is that they are announcing it like they announced it this week, you know, November 1st, something like that. And it, uh, is not going to be shut down until January 31st. That's, you know, Yeah. That's a good 1, 2, 3 months for people to move. Yeah. Whereas we've seen instances before on December 22nd or 23rd, a company says, Oh, we're canceling or hosting service. And in Christmas they were dead and people were just, Well they.

12:38 Had it's. Crushing. Yeah. They had extinction events cuz people were on vacation and, you know, they just did not give people up time. So 90 days Yeah. Good on sounder for doing that. And, and I guess good luck on, they're going after brand safety, they're gonna be doing brand safety stuff, which to me is okay, uh, interesting move moving under our best practice. We've got a topic, choosing a podcast name, pick a distinct and memorable podcast title. So I think a lot of podcasters make a big mistake here when they do this. Mm-hmm. people ask us all the time, like, they call in and they're asking about hosting or they're asking about, you know, how to set up work or something like that.

13:19 And then once they get all their technical questions outta the way, that's when they start in on their, um, on their podcast content questions. They just do it out of curiosity. Mm-hmm. , because they know that we work in podcasts. They're like, I want your opinion. You work in this, Tell us. And one of the first things that they ask sometimes is, what do you think of this title? And sometimes you have to tell them it's not, it's not that great , you have to find the, you have to find the words, but you have to break the news to them. You, you have to have, you have to have the ugly baby discussion. You know, no one thinks their baby's ugly. Everyone thinks their baby's beautiful, but sometimes if you're sitting outside, you're like, well that's an ugly baby. So you have , you have to , all our kids are beautiful. Right. But sometimes you'll at other kids like, wow, you know.

14:06 , you might be more beautiful than mine. . But I, I think in, in real realistic terms, you gotta think about is your show, first of all , getting the show name to match what the content is and making it easy. You know, this is simple Podcast insider. Yeah. New media show. Yeah. Geek. News. I love the name of these shows. You know, these, these are simple names to remember and they're very, they're very distinct in what they mm-hmm. , uh, you know, Young Forward is quick and dirty tips, you know, and all. Of these are very apt for what the actual content is. Right. It makes. Sense. So make sure, and it isn't, it needs to be short tree four words if you can keep it in there. And again.

14:53 That's a really good point, especially because everyone's looking at this on mobile. Yep. And you know, that screen only goes so. Far and it's also something you gotta think about what's people are gonna search for, you know, and, and that, you know, there's a bigger discussion about that in episodes, but the picking the name I think is, is critical. And then of course, having well thought out and design cover art that is easy to read. Cuz many times we don't read the title, we just look at the cover art and you see a picture and you don't have to put your face on there. That's not important. A lot of people do that. I. Kind of prefer you don't a lot of the time, like I, I don't care what you look like, I care what the show's gonna be about. And a lot of the time, based on the creativity of the podcasts artwork mm-hmm. , I feel like I get a good idea of the creativity of the show.

15:41 Too. And also. Actual content that I'm about to consume. You know. And I know people are really worried about budget and I know the people can go over to Fiber and for, you know, 25 bucks or whatever get, uh, album art design. But my caution to you is, and I, and I can't even design a stick figure. So that's how bad I am. So I need, I need help for someone that can do our, our artistically, you know, more sensible than I am. So I can draw things and have an idea and then hand that over. I think if you use fiber, the risk you run up against is getting copyright violations. Cuz they've used some art from something that they probably shouldn't.

16:25 So you have to be real careful. There's a lot of great folks out there that for a couple hundred bucks will really do a fantastic job. Mm-hmm. in creating you original album art. But if nothing else, you know, try to do it yourself. Try to come up with it, and also be very cognizant of any of the art that you use in there. You can't, you have to pass copyrights. So there's, there is a few, um, there's. There's a lot of good programs out there that you're able to do it yourself or at least get started mm-hmm. and then maybe have someone add in one critical design part, you know, and then you can take that image and put it on there.

17:08 But Canva is a really good one that we recommend. We use that for a lot of our social stuff. Um, but it's you to an extent, you get what you're paid. For and if you're gonna do a brand, if you're working on brand image from the beginning, don't pick some weird font. Try to pick a font that's pretty well known so that if you want more stuff commission later, that someone isn't gonna say, Oh, what is that font you used if you're trying to carry over the brand. So, but uh, again, I think the note here says it never hurts to get a few pair of eyes to weigh on these choices. Lastly, consider SEO advantage and disadvantages with the desired title. Absolutely.

17:52 We're hiring, sadly Cho the who was with us for a couple of years as an intern, and then full time she's moved on to, she's, uh, getting ready to produ pursue her master's degree. And at the same time, uh, she's uh, in a new job where she's doing some stuff that's applicable to her master's degree mm-hmm. . And so that means we're hiring, we're hiring a social media strategist and, uh, we love to hire from the family. So. We would love to hire a podcaster. If you submit your application, please let us know via email that you're part of the podcasting family and that you're either a listener or a podcaster and you're interested in the position and your name.

18:36 So we can go drag your CV to the top and review it because I think it makes a better match in the long term. There's a level of understanding that you just automatically have if you're already a podcaster, going into trying to figure out what type of content that people want on their social media platforms and how, and what other people are already doing. Like if you're consuming something else, um, there's a lot of advantages there. But also, you know, what you said about putting it like let us know if you apply. Yeah. People that aren't putting their podcast experience on their resume for a creative position like this, you are making a mistake. And I've reviewed about 50 applications.

19:17 Only one person has any podcast experience so far in those. I've got more to go through. But, um, we're gonna be going through this process for a couple of weeks, so you got a little time to get an application in, but we do have right now some constraints. If you're an exceptional candidate, we may consider, um, but we want someone in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado and Arizona. That's where we have payroll set up already. Yeah. If it's exceptional candidate, we'll consider setting up payroll in your state. But it's a pain . It is fully remote, but we want be in those states if possible. Or if you wanna move to the States. Now the position doesn't have a, a stipend for moving. So, but again, anything is negotiable, but definitely. But.

20:04 We do have some good other benefits. Oh, absolutely. It's a full, it's, it's full on, it's a full-time position with health, with, uh, medical, dental, vision, 401k, health savings plan, some tuition, uh, reimbursement for advanced education. Mm-hmm. . So, uh, and pto. And pto. I wouldn't not. Be here if you guys would not offer pto. Yes. And p paid pto. Yes. So, yeah. I, you know, what benefits in this day and age are, are a non-negotiable. So you're happy to provide them. Yep. Absolutely. So send us, uh, send us your resume. Uh, we want to hear from you and if you don't have one ready, say, Hey, I've got one coming and here's my name. Just hold on. It's coming in a week, week or whatever.

20:47 And, and, you know, if you don't think that you're the right person for this, but you know, or you know, listen to this show, email us and, and connect us to someone who you think might be the right person. Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, change somebody's life. Bringing part of the team here. Mm-hmm. . All right. We do have a blueberry pro tip. This comes from Toby. So I'll, if everything's queued up right, I'll play this right now. Hi, it's Toby Goodman here. A few weeks ago I spoke about how disappointed I am when I see podcasters ask me what questions I'd like to answer on their podcast. These podcasts are set up in such a way that just leaves me feeling like I'm filling a content hole, and yet so many people are doing it.

21:35 You could literally copy and paste the premeditated soundbites from one interview to another. What a wasted opportunity for us as podcasters. Isn't it more powerful to create something remarkable? So our guests feel like they've been involved in a meaningful and memorable conversation. The greatest and most memorable interviews of our times have included thoughtful questions as podcasters interviews are one of the most powerful ways we can create remarkable content for our audience. In the last few months, I've been focusing on asking better questions. While I understand there is value in journalists strategically creating questions, so politicians, celebrities, and the like, fall on their own swords, that's not really the kind of questions I'm talking about.

22:25 Simply because with my interview podcast episode, my aim is to make the guest the star so that they simply feel compelled to share our conversation with the people in their world. Welcome to the world of highly targeted organic marketing, and all that's required is preparation. A few prep habits I've created along the way are as follows, Ask your guests ahead of time what they don't want to talk about. It immediately shows respect and puts them at ease. Ask for a bio, look them up on the internet and study their LinkedIn profile. When you do look at all the aspects, career, education, and interests, once you have that information, think about questions that fill in the gaps.

23:13 I recently interviewed Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lamin Abdul Mallek. Having studied his LinkedIn profile, I noticed that after helping to build a cancer hospital in Zambia, he took a break to set up a cafe in South Africa. While it's all there in the LinkedIn bio, it gave me a lot to ponder and led to a set of questions that I hope created a unique, fun and memorable interview for him. On the subject of the cafe, I asked what led to the decision. How did you convince your wife and family to move country? Why would anyone move away from working in cancer to baking cakes and making coffee? How did you adjust? What are your memories of that time?

23:55 How did it affect your children? What led to you moving away? Again, looking back on it today, what did you take from that experience? These are just a few questions I noted down about one line on a LinkedIn bio. So next time you interview someone on your podcast, think about what questions you can ask that will bring out a unique story and in turn will help you create a truly unique shareable episode. If you'd like support with your podcast from positioning to production, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach out@blueberrypro.com.

24:38 You know, oftentimes and recently I've been doing a lot of interviews, it's the person that's done the homework. Mm-hmm. listened to some, maybe some previous interviews and picked up on like one or two things that we didn't get into that they come out and say, Hey, by the way, I was recently in an interview where someone had heard about my interaction with Steve Jobs and he asked about that during the show. And all the times I've been doing interviews, it's the only person that is ever asked that without me freely giving it as part of an example of, you know, you never know who's listening to your show. Yeah. So I think it really is important that you do a little bit of homework, and I tell you, as soon as I get an email from a podcast that says, these are the questions we're going to go to, I'm like, ugh.

25:25 Yeah. You're not one for the, uh, you're not one for the bolted list of questions. And you know, some people are, but I think there's a lot of opportunity for more organic, but productive conversation. Yeah. If the interviewer does their homework, yeah, anyone can have a good conversation if you're trying, there's, and I feel like a lot of time people interviewing don't try. They're just like, they, they're, they're providing me everything I need and I'm, they're not. There's a certain on fire show that asks the same five questions, same five questions every episode, and I'm like, Oh, please just, just shoot me. It's, this is boring. I'll get in deeper, dig in more stuff.

26:06 And the guests already has listened to one or two episodes, They know the questions they're gonna ask. Oh yeah. And so it's like, Ugh. Just to me that's boring, boring, boring robotic. Yeah. Thanks Toby for that. And blueberry pro.com question of the week, question of week is, is posting slash promoting my podcast daily too much? Hmm. So I, I think this is a, perhaps, I think it's how it's done. Um, I, I don't know if I follow anything like podcast wise or really, you know, show movie wise that promotes every single day and says like, watch this episode or find it here. Or, you know, the something, something something, what I think goes a longer way and is better for everyone involved is engagement. You've, whenever you see like a tweet go viral or a video go viral or something like that, it's because the company was involved with someone not involved with the company. Some, you know, quote unquote civilian.

27:06 It's like the user, the social media user has interacted with the social media company, you know, and it's, it just ends up being a lot more entertaining and fun to be with. You know, promoting is at a lot of different levels. It could be maybe have a reel from an episode, or maybe you want to talk about this three minute segment or something to that effect. I think that's okay, but I think the average podcaster doesn't have time. I think they have so much time to do their show, so much time to do promotion. And as long as you ink out some time to do a little promotion for each episode and that, let's say that's 30 minutes and what does that 30 minutes consist of?

27:50 Does, is it, it consists of making a short reel, Does it consist of writing some copy to basically say this, this part of the episode was fantastic. You need to go and give someone a kicker to get over. I I think as long as you e out some time in your cycle to promote the episode, I think that's what all most can do. You know, if you have the Blueberry Pro team, they're gonna be helping you produce a, a number of things to promote, but it, if like just on your own, you're gonna be like, Oh man, I gotta put on Twitter or Facebook, Instagram. No, just put it a couple places where your tribe's at and be done with it. It's a good idea. Like, like you said, to schedule all of this, you know, days, weeks, whatever it is that you want out from when you're publishing this original episode. And then if you schedule quite a bit ahead of time, that does give you the opportunity to engage a little bit. You know, when you are just scrolling and on your own social media platforms, that's when you're able to get involved.

28:50 But you don't have to be responsible for posting each real right. Or tweet or Facebook poster Reddit question, whatever it is, like every single time live because that, yeah, that is what we'll take it outta you. That's what the average podcaster does not have time. For. And I think too, there is this, um, I consider promoting hanging out where my listeners hang out. So if I see something that has been talked about, that I've talked about in my show and say, Hey, by the way, I talked about that in the show show episode X, x X and about this point in the show, you wanna go listen, take a listen. And that, that to me is as much promotion as do anything else. But I guess it depends if you're hanging out with your audience and you, you have to know where your audience hangs out. And that's a whole nother topic for another show. So yes.

29:33 It is. . So if you've got a question you'd like us to answer a show, drop an email to mike@blueberry.com, audio, text or video and we may use it, it you can also post a question on the Blueberry podcasting Facebook group. Best place for support with any blueberry product or service is our ticket system. That is blueberry.com/support. Sending in a ticket will give the whole team access to it as opposed to direct emails or phone calls. And this week we've been coming to you from the new media production studio, Carter, Michigan McKenzie's undisclosed location in Columbus, Ohio, and of course, produced by the Blueberry Pro production team@blueberrypro.com. You can find our listener survey at surveys.blueberry.com/podcast insider, and of course that'll be in the show notes for you.

30:16 So you can schedule one on one with me, hosting customers only, onlyTodd@blueberry.com, this blueberry without the easing schedule a tech chalk up with Mike, hosting customers only mike@blueberry.com. And of course, the most important thing, you can send us your podcast sticker or just an empty self-addressed damped envelope and we will send you a Blueberry care package of stickers and cool swag that we've got wandered around in McKenzie, you package those up and send them out about once a week. Yeah, and you know what, this is not necessarily just a sticker. We have many fun things that we wanna share with people. Oh. And, um, the holidays are usually a pretty good time for that. Oh, so you've got t-shirts, you've got books, you have, you've got a whole bunch of stuff.

30:58 We have some water bottles. Oh, we have some notepads, we have pens, highlighters, we have, we have a whole bunch of. Stuff. So they may actually have to send an envelope or just send, send, just send their address. Right. And and you'll send them something in a Yes. Yes. It might be questionable of what you give, but I'll send you something . Okay. Dealer's choice. Oh, that's awesome. All right everyone, thanks for being here and uh, again, appreciate your ongoing listenership, uh, podcast Insider. If you think about podcasting or you know, someone that's thinking about podcasting, send 'em our way. And if they're, if you're not an affiliate already, consider becoming affiliate so you can earn some money from those recommendations. Mackenzie actually takes care of our affiliates, so, uh, get in there and make some money. But.

31:42 Yeah, we would love to see you guys make some money. Other than that, we'll wrap this up everyone. Thanks for being here. Thanks for, uh, listening and we'll see you next time here on the podcast. Insider.