Hi, and welcome to this special bonus episode of In &

Around Podcasting, the industry show that shares powerful

podcasting perspectives. As thousands of podcasters descend

on The Podcast Show in London, including my erstwhile co-host

Mark Asquith, we thought we'd take the opportunity to look

back at the first few months of In & Around Podcasting. We've

covered a wealth of important topics and been delighted to

bring some fantastic insights around these topics from both

industry insiders and indie podcasters. So sit back and

enjoy this recap. In episode one, we talked about the narrative

around the death of podcasting, that some naysayers are

promoting, down to reduced budgets, industry layoffs, the

dropping of exclusive podcasts and more. Verity Sangan shared

how she believes a lot of this can come down to a lack of

strategy in podcasting.

This is where I think a lot of this argument comes with

podcasting is dead is because I think that there are a lot of

people who have tried with podcasting. Maybe they have been

part of the, you know, statistical 80% or whatever it

is that you don't get past episode three or what have you.

And maybe podcasting didn't work for them. But then one of the

things that I'm really interested in and I'm such a

strategy girl everything for me is strategy. And people get fed

up of hearing me say the word strategy sometimes, I think. But,

you know, it's this idea of if you start anything, I think then

you aren't going to see the success. And I'm saying success

in inverted commas, because I do believe that success is going to

look different for different people. And it's that idea that

unless you do have a plan and you do have a strategy, then

you're not going to see that success. And I think you're then

going to continue to feed into the narrative of, well, yeah,

podcasting is dead because it didn't work for me. It didn't

work for Joe Bloggs or whoever. I didn't immediately become the

next the next I was going to say Seth Rogan then - no Joe Rogan,

very different person. I didn't become the next, you know, Joe

Rogan within a week. So what was the point? And I think that just

feeds that narrative.

Episode two saw us taking a look at the Podcasting 2.0

initiative and how that's making the listener experience better.

Here, Joe Casabona shared some great points on how the industry

can position the benefits of the features, which are what both

podcasters and listeners are really interested in.

I think it really is kind of up to the industry folks to...

it's almost like saying like as a carmaker, I don't want to oh

well, only less than like less than 1% of people die from car

crashes. So I'm not going to put airbags in my car. Like, well,

that's a crazy thing to say. But I think like again, from the

kind of feature standpoint, there are, as I watch the

Podcasting 2.0 space and some of the features that get

implemented and the things that I think are going to be most

helpful, that's that's kind of where I land. So like

transcripts I've been bullish on, like transcripts are necessary

for a podcast. Like I my show, my current show, my flagship

show also launched in twenty sixteen. In twenty seventeen, it

had transcripts because, you know, I think that it's an

accessibility play, it's a search play. It's a lot of

things. And so it's really cool to see

Apple and other people kind of implement this and give native

support to it. Things like chapter markers. I think that's

that's technically Podcasting 2.0. Maybe

that's like support it if you want. It's like kind of hard to

add. Maybe other apps do it better, but I think about what's

going to make the biggest impact based on my clients or students

goals, right? We want to grow the show. Transcripts are

necessary for that, chapter markers if you're going to

upload it to YouTube now. Right. And there is like the medium tag

now. So that's pretty cool to see. Maybe we maybe we do that

It's I guess it's all very goals based is the most succinct way

for me to put it.

In episode three, we had a wonderful discussion around AI

and podcasting, including the ethical dilemmas around its use

and what it means for creators. Deirdre Tshien used an example

of how a creator leads by human expertise, and AI takes that to

enhance the content for results.

A lot of it is introducing them to the

strategies that we really lean into that actually gets them

results. So, you know, an example is Katie Brinkley, who

is a social media guru. She talks about a four post social

media strategy and why I love the four post social media

strategy is because, again, it's not content for content sake. I

mean, yes, you're still creating content, but you're creating

content in order to drive a particular like action, whether

that's engagement on social media or whether that's opt in

to a lead magnet or into a workshop. Right, Because we're

talking to entrepreneurs here. And so like so for me, if I

could share these strategies that are very human led and hey,

AI can yes. Help you, you know, shortcut and make it way more

efficient to give you the base of, for example, these four

posts. But one of them, for example, one of the posts is

actually what she calls a community post, which is all

about your story. Like, AI cannot actually generate that.

Like it just cannot because it can't, you know, until we have

chips in our brains or whatever, like it actually doesn't know

your memories, it doesn't know your story. So you actually have

to be part of that process to like help create that post. I

mean, yes, AI can give you inspiration, which Capsho does

do, which is like, Hey, maybe based on the topic of your

podcast, this is a story that you can bring to life or, you

know, it'll give you some ideas, but at the end of the day it's

still you.

Episode four saw Mark and I review Podcast Movement

Evolutions along with where live podcast events have

opportunities. This includes defining industry events from

consumer events.

But yeah, that would be, that would be a just my bit of

feedback would be if it's going to be I think if it's going to

be industry just LA just feels industry you know L.A. or New

York personally feel that industry. You've got a hot spot

over there. You've got, you know, that that whole concept of the

podcast industry. And I think that's why London does so well

and why the podcast should do so well, because here in Europe,

London is the hub. You know, you've got Global, you've got

the BBC, you've got The Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph,

you've got all of these people that are really taking up the

top spots, even some of the networks like Sky, like, you

know, people like Channel Four and ITV, some of the rewatch

stuff, they're all in one place and it feels like LA is like the

spiritual counterpart of that in the US. So I just feel that it

could be don't know if it would benefit from it, but I just feel

it sort of sounds logical and feels logical. And I know there

are logistical and financial incentives and challenges to

overcome and whatever else, but it feels like Podcast Movement

industry stuff sort of needs a home, like it needs to be just

bound to somewhere where you might be able to add a bit of

demarcation between, okay, here's the creative stuff and

here's the industry stuff.

In episode five, we took a look at why the smaller

podcast apps have a future. As Apple and Spotify continue to

mop up the majority of listeners between them, Sam Sethi stated

the case for smaller apps to make interactivity between

podcast and listener key and how that can help set these apps

apart.

Discovery of content is a critical thing. One of the

things that Apple and Spotify don't have is any interactivity

back to the creator, and that's a big thing. So the ability to

leave comments, living with a cool boost. So, you know, we've

got this new language that's got to be adapted to people, but a

boost is simply just a comment with a payment. And then again,

that means that you can leave two things. You can have

comments back to the creator who can then in the next episode go,

Hey, I was just doing the show and Mary said, blah, blah, blah

about the show. And you've then got that audience participation,

that community, and then there's fan to fan. So that two people

might be talking about your show and can leave a comment so they

don't have to include the creator. So I think what we're

looking at is new ways of enabling listeners to interact

and discover content and new ways for you as a creator, to

reach your audience, create your fan base, create your community.

Those are things that Apple and Spotify aren't very good at

doing is creating that community element and that interactivity

element.

In episode six we talked about a topic that probably

every podcast has faced before, and that's podfade, with new

data showing that a large percentage of podcasters don't

make it past episode five. Here, Ashley Hamer explains how

finding your specific niche and planning episodes several months

ahead of publication can help prevent podcasters from giving

up so early.

But for for the ability to actually just keep making my

show week after week, it's it's really the that thing I was

saying about internal motivation. Like I, I didn't see a podcast,

a science podcast that specifically talked about, you

know, the taboo topics in in our world. And I wanted to make that

and I wanted that to exist. And so that kind of driving force is,

is really powerful. It helps me keep going. And then and then in

addition to that, I think every podcaster needs to have a really

long list of, of episode topics. You know, it's really easy to

come up with five. It's not that easy to come up with thirty. And

that's kind of your deciding factor of like whether this idea

for a podcast actually has legs and, and also I think everybody

needs a plan for what to do if you do need a break because a

lot of people I mean, you know, I think we all need breaks here

and there. My my show is seasonal, so I can I have a

certain number of episodes that I want to cover and then I will

take a break maybe for a couple of months. One time it was for

an entire maternity leave. So, you know, but but I think that's

that's important to you don't have to just keep going. You can

take breaks and I think that can make your podcast last a little

longer rather than just feeling like, Oh, this is too much. I

can't just keep doing this week after week, I'm just going to

stop.

Just prior to episode seven being recorded, Spotify

announced it had left the IAB, the industry standard for

podcast measurement. So Mark and I jumped on it immediately and

brought James Cridland on to talk about what this meant for

the industry.

Yeah, and I think, you know, Rob Walsh on The Feed

keeps on saying, and I think this is great advice, keeps on

saying the numbers are actually unimportant. What's actually

important here is the trend. Are you increasing every single week?

If you're not increasing every single week, then that's

something to worry about. But as long as you're increasing, as

long as that trend is showing you increasing and as long as

you can see when you do something new that the figures

go up faster, then that's all that really matters. So I

wouldn't for most of the podcasters listening to this. I

wouldn't be particularly worried about the fact that Spotify no

longer has the certification. I mean, if you're hosting on

Spotify for Podcasters, then I would I would always be saying

you might want to be hosting somewhere else. But in terms of

in terms of worrying about whether those numbers that you

get are absolutely, you know, accurate, I wouldn't I wouldn't

worry too much. It does change when you are talking to

advertisers who clearly want more accurate numbers.

In episode eight, we took a look at what monetization

looks like for podcasting and does the CPM model work or does

podcasting need a more sustainable approach to

monetization for small to medium size podcasts? Tom Webster had

this to say.

Podcasting has has historically been sold as a

digital medium, and if you look at it as a digital medium, its

metrics are found wanting, right? You don't get all of it. You

know, what's my click through rate? We don't have a click

through rate. You know, you could sort of get you can get IP

address and user ID and and you know device basically and you

can choose to do some work around that. It's not great It's

not perfect. What if instead you look at it as well it's a

different thing, right? It's a you look at it as an analog

medium with incredible metrics. Then you have a slightly

different sale here because what it provides is more engagement

than display. It provides more engagement even than than video

with its short form, you know, very skippable ads. So you're

basically saying we provide the incredible engagement of analog

medium with incredible metrics. You know, having said all of

that, I'll just say again that there are a lot of elements of

AdTech that have just not caught up to where we need to be and we

need some more innovation there.

And finally, rounding this collection up, episode nine

saw Mark and I are talking about YouTube and its role in

podcasting. Despite support of RSS feed ingestion added last

year and more podcast listener features added to YouTube Music,

many audio first podcasters are still asking whether YouTube

actually cares about podcasting. Something I speak about here.

Yeah. And I think that's all it's an add on, right? It's they

want you to create within the creator studio and upload your

videos there, use all their tools and then check a box, this

is a podcast, great, we'll send that as a playlist. And that

will be audio playback on YouTube Music. But it seems a

complete opposite from an Apple where they physically want you

to create audio. I mean, Apple's supported video since two

thousand and five, back in the old iTunes days, but they just

don't really push it as an option because they know

YouTube's got video locked down, but Apple gives you tools to

create audio only content and feed that out, etc. It just

feels like YouTube's doing the complete opposite and there's no

real benefit. I look at my analytics, I get maybe one or

two plays, views, listens, whatever you want to call it, on

my RSS ingested feed episode. And then I look at when I do the

video version of that, I'm not a big. I've not got a lot of

subscribers still, under 50. I got on my YouTube channel, but I

get a decent amount of views because that's how the

algorithm's set up. So it's not... the RSS is there, but it's like,

is it really there if no one's really using it, you know, or

thinking of YouTube as audio, really, I don't know. Thanks so

much for listening to this bonus episode. I think you'll agree

that there's been some great discussion so far and we're only

just getting started. Thanks so much to our amazing guests so

far and to you, the listener, for being here with us each week

and for making the show one that's quickly found its way

into the listening habits of both podcasters and anyone

interested in the podcasting space. If there's someone you

know that would enjoy the show, to be sure to recommend us by

sending them to In and Around Podcasting dot com, where they

can catch up on any episodes they've missed. And if you enjoy

the show and wanted to show that by leaving us a review, you can

do that over at In and Around Podcasting dot com slash review.

Thank you for all your support so far. And we'll be back next

week, same place, same time with more industry insights. Until

then, keep doing what you do in this wonderful industry that

means so much to us all. Bye bye for now.