So excited for our guest today. I've had the pleasure of speaking with her a

few times, but she always has her ear to the ground when it comes to

podcasting and really has the pulse of what people are looking for and what they

like. We are chatting with, of course, Ariel Nissenblatt. She's the founder of

Earbuds Podcast Collective. That's a podcast recommendation

newsletter. She's on the board of governors of the podcast

academy. And from what I understand, she has maybe

4 or 5. I know she just tripped the other day and launched another new

podcast. So lots of great content out there that we will link to and share

with you. Ariel, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having

me. What a great intro. Oh, I'm glad you liked it. So,

before we get into all the things that you're doing now, how did you first

really get started in the podcasting space? Were you just a fan, fan, a

listener? Were you creating it? Like, what was your entry point to wanting to be

here? Definitely listener first. I actually think you and I spoke in,

like, 2017. Do you remember this? That's yes. Possibly.

1000000 years ago. 4,000,000 now. You're definitely part of my

early understanding the podcast landscape story. Yeah. I

started as a listener. I really just wanted to listen

and did not think I would ever start a podcast myself because

I just thought nobody needed to hear my voice. You could hear my voice,

but you didn't need it. And I still you know, I'm not ever gonna say,

like, you must listen to my podcast about podcast recommendations, but I do try

to bring something new to the space in that way and provide some podcast

discoverability mechanisms there. But, yes, started as a

listener and then realized that I wanted to listen to more podcasts, but didn't know

how to find them in a way that I trusted. So, for

example, maybe I was scrolling on the apps, and I would see

a bunch of shows being promoted, and I would try to check them out, and

I didn't love them. I wanted personalized recommendations, and I wanted those

recommendations from people that I already trusted. So I started Earbuds Podcast

Collective, which you mentioned, in order to get recommendations from new people

every week because the the way the newsletter works is that each week is curated

by a different person, and anyone can curate a list. That

is amazing. So I I just wanna go back real

quickly to something you said. And given that, you know, you start as a

listener, you've had lots of industry experience right all the way up to

being on the board of governors over there. You said that you want

personalized recommendations, and I think that plays to a theme that I've talked about a

lot and a lot of people might agree with is that really the best way

that people discover and really start to listen to a new podcast is

by hearing about it from a person they know, like, or trust.

And that seems to be what's happening with, you know, the the newsletter

that not only are you recommending, but you're bringing in other people to curious list

of recommending. Are you seeing that that's the trend

that more people are are likely to

find and subscribe and actually engage with a

show if they've been given some sort of recommendation by someone in their

universe, even if it's, you know, written someone written an article, they appeared on another

podcast, or, you know, the friend told them about it? I think podcast

discovery is a multi channel

approach, and I think that there are a number of different

ways in for every single person who discovers a

podcast at a different time. I just think that there are too many variables in

order to make any sweeping statements about how discovery works

for any even any one person. I discover podcasts in different ways.

For example, I was about to push back and say, you know, I get most

of my recommendations from newsletters and from cross promos, not so much

from word-of-mouth, but it really is, like, every once in a while. I mean, I

bumped into a friend on the subway recently, and she was telling me about a

show that she produces for Sony Music. And I had never heard of it

before, but I was so intrigued by her word-of-mouth

telling me about it that I went and subscribed to it. But then there's also,

like you know, normal gossip is a big word-of-mouth show.

There's a bunch of shows that just get kinda passed around in the podcast space,

but I really think that everybody at different times has different entry

points to different podcasts based on, you know, what they're in the mood for, if

they need to learn something rather than be entertained by it. I think

this is potentially a unique problem in the podcast space because

TV seems to function differently for how people try to consume

it or do consume it. But I think that with podcasting,

we're we're always finding different ways

in. I'm curious with all the shows that you have recommended with all the lists

that you've curated both yourself and by others, have you gotten feedback from

any of the shows saying that they saw any, you know, noticeable uptick in

listenership, followers, anything like that? Yes. Definitely.

I can point to a few that have, like, reached out to

me specifically and said thank you for featuring us. We saw an

uptick in traffic that week. But the

smartest thing to do if you're featured in the newsletter is to milk that

for all it's worth even beyond just, like, the actual download. So, like,

screenshotting it and posting it and saying we're so excited to be featured and tagging

the person who curated the list that featured you and really just posting

it everywhere on social and tagging earbuds so that we can repost it. I think

a lot of podcast promotion a lot of promotion in

general is about perception and how it seems like you're

doing. So I don't know. I run into people all the time who I'm

like, wow. Your life looks amazing on Instagram. And they're like, yeah. I'm depressed, but

I do travel a lot. So I think it's all about, like,

how how are how is your podcast showing up on social media? How are people

perceiving it? Do they do they think it's doing really well? And if they think

it's doing really well, there's a chance that they might listen to it. So

let's say you're a show that just got named and, you know, you're gonna be

appearing in the newsletter. What would you do as

the podcaster? What advice would you give that podcaster to milk

it to take advantage beyond just promoting that announcement? Right? It's it's

great to get people to check out your show, but what do you do to

keep them? What do you do to make them an engaged listener and someone who

will not only listen and subscribe, but maybe then advocate for your

show on your behalf? Yeah. I mean, a few

things here. This reminds me of an on ramp

creation strategy for your podcast. So people are gonna discover your

podcast, and some of them are gonna wanna continue becoming your loyal

listeners, and some of them are gonna see themselves out. And the people

that become your loyal listeners, they might

need to be nurtured in some ways. And even once they become listeners for a

long time, there could be the slightest thing that turns them off. So how are

you how are you taking all of that into account when you make your show

and when you run your marketing communications and things like that? So I think the

first thing to do is to have a trailer that somebody

can listen to and decide if that show is for them. And if that show

is for them, maybe you explain some of the inside jokes, you know, in

a way that doesn't totally take away the the mystique. But you just make sure

that there's there's a way for people to understand what's going on in the show

even if it's been going on for 5, 10 years. So

I think a trailer is really, really helpful. It allows you to

put it in most of the hosting providers, you're allowed to

mark that a trailer is a trailer. And then on most of the listening apps,

you can see a designated space for that trailer. So it kind of

draws the potential listener to that to try to test out the show

via the trailer. And in that, you can introduce yourself. You can introduce

your show. You can introduce how often the show is gonna drop. What's the purpose?

Who is this for? Few other things here and there. I have a whole podcast

about podcast trailers that I go way more into depth on all of this,

But I think that really helps people when it comes to

getting a sense of who you are and deciding if they wanna stick around for

the long term, becoming your loyal listener. I I also

think, when it comes to becoming

a loyal listener, really sticking around beyond just the first episode, if you're

subscribed on sorry. Beyond just the first episode, if you are featured

in earbuds, for example, or if you get featured on Apple Podcasts, I think a

big part of that is welcoming those people in specifically. So you can say

if you know you're being featured on Castbox, if you know you're being featured on

Apple Podcasts, you can say something like, welcome to all of our new subscribers who

have joined us from Apple Podcasts. We're so excited that you're here. Thank you to

the folks at Apple Podcasts for featuring us. It means the world to us. We're

getting so many ratings and reviews, and that's just a way to actively

call out those people. And they might say to themselves, wow. I'm new here. That's

a nice welcome. That is. And, you know, if you're using dynamic

content insertion technology, my recommendation would be is to put that message in

dynamically because you don't know. Right? Your your show could get featured, but that

person might not be listening to the most recent episode. They might go back in

the archives and be like, oh, that looks like a guest who's more interesting to

me. I'm gonna check that out. And so having that, you know, present

message in archived or older content can really be

helpful. So how did you then make the switch from,

you know, passionate listener and advocate for podcasters

into someone behind, the microphone, a a

fancy Shure MV 7, I might add, at this time?

How did I make the switch? Great question. In 2019,

I was running the earbuds newsletter for about two and a half years,

and I had been on a few podcasts talking

about podcasting and about my newsletter and about my career

transitioning into the podcast space. And I it's fun. Like, there is

something fun and creative about launching a new thing. And I was

talking to my friend who's now very big on TikTok, Miriam_tini,

doing podcast recommendations. She's great. And she was saying, like, how do

you not have a podcast that that talks about your

newsletter? It seems like an easy lift. And I was like, okay. Yeah. It does

seem like an easy lift. So I I went home. I

ordered a microphone, which at the time was I just bought it from a friend.

It wasn't anything fancy. And I,

I started doing an audio version of my newsletter,

and it was very easy. It was very I was just reading the newsletter out

loud, maybe adding a few words here and there to make sure a sentence sounded

like a sentence in a spoken manner. And I did that for a few months,

and then I realized that it was boring as hell because my mom told me

that it was boring. And then I decided, let me interview the

curators. And then I decided that that was way too much of a lift, so

then I found a middle ground where I would ask the curators to send

in a voice note telling me about the theme that they chose and the episodes

that they chose as part of that theme. So that was the evolution of the

show, and I ran it from 2019 to

2023. And I took a break in December of 2023, and

that break is still going on. Okay. So that that's

how I got started in podcasting. And then from there, I started a bunch of

other shows, and mostly so that I could help advise

other people on creating shows and being able to advise on what's successful

in what markets and for which types of listeners.

What would you say was the biggest surprise that you learned

about podcasting in that journey? I mean, it's it's one thing to

tell people how to podcast, promote podcast, see them grow, but, you know, you're

putting one together yourself. You're, you know, recording and producing,

editing, publishing it. What was the thing where you're like, I would never

have thought? I would

never have thought that there would

be so many hosting providers that do very similar things. And I

think it's kind of a misnomer. It's kind of a an issue for people

when they don't know anything about the podcast space, and they go to Google and

they say, what ho what podcast hosting provider should I use? And, really, just the

thing that pops up is the thing that has the best SEO that day.

And, truthfully, yeah, there are differences between hosting providers, but for the

most part, they're hosting your, your RSS feed,

and they're distributing it. And you get various levels of,

analytics available to you and different ways of,

uploading your content and make sure making sure that it's tagged the right way and

things like that, but it's mostly the same engine, and I think that can be

really confusing to a lot of people who are just starting out. When I started,

I I've used almost every hosting provider because I've wanted to test them all out

in some way so that I could advise other people on what provider because I've

wanted to test them all out in some way so that I could advise other

people on what might be best for them. And unlike when people ask me when

they have a newsletter, if they like, what's the difference

between Substack and Mailchimp and Beehive

and

Kit and things like that? There, I have an answer for them. Substack is generally

better for writing long pieces. Mailchimp is generally

better if you want people to click and do some e ecommerce. I don't really

feel that way about pasta podcast hosting providers, and I think that that

can definitely be a limiting factor for people that are just getting started

out. That is interesting. Maybe we'll have to take some time and

talk about all the different features of all the different hosting companies. But, yeah, I

mean, truthfully, you know, my recommendation has always been think about the features that you

need, see who has it, see who is, you know, within your budget, make sure

they have good support, and also make sure they've been around for a while. We've

seen a lot of fly by night hosting companies pop up with crazy wild

offerings, and then next thing you know, they disappear and people are scrambling to, move

their podcast from one platform to And and and this is not to say

this is not to shit on any of the hosting providers. I think

a a lot of them do have subtle differences that make or break why you

might wanna use them. But I think the marketing towards the

general idea of podcast hosting providers is very much like, we

host your RSS feed. Boom. And I think we need to know a

little bit more in the 10,000 foot view.

I think that's absolutely a a a fair thing to request of

the, podcast hosting companies that are out there. But it's not just on them. Right?

It's also on, like, what does well on Google. You know?

Like, there's a reason that they do the marketing the way that they do the

marketing. Anyway Yeah. And and and you were saying about SEO. It's also a lot

of just paid. Right? It's it's who's paying what, you know, who's winning what,

auction to to be on the top of the listing over there for, podcast hosting

companies. So so you start as a listener, you have

the newsletter, you start doing podcast, and then you start getting heavily

involved in the podcasting industry, joining the board of governors,

partnering up with Podnews, you know, having worked for, one

of the podcast companies recently. I'm not sure if you're talking about that publicly

or whatnot, but, so working with the script. And what

you know, from that side of things, what have you seen in podcasting

that you, I

guess, I would say, you know, troubles you?

A few things trouble me. One in

particular is that I don't think enough creators are

paying attention to their audiences, whether they

are still ideating on a podcast or

they've had a podcast for a while and they don't know how to interact with

their audience or that or how to take feedback

from their audience. I think we we have an audience problem in general. I just

went to a conference where it was mostly focused on craft,

and I found that the word audience was barely uttered. It it was really more

like, I wanna make what I wanna make, and then the audience will come. And

I just I think that that can be the case, But in in a

lot in a lot of cases, we need to think first about who this is

for. And, honestly, that might have a little bit of an implication on

what the content is about. It doesn't have to completely shift the content,

but it might it might mean that instead of your show being 45

minutes, it's 35 minutes because you did a listener survey, and

most people average out that they like to listen to shorter

podcasts. Okay.

How do you I mean, I guess that really begs another question, which is

how do you engage with your audience? So many podcasters

publish episodes, post on social media, and they feel like

they are speaking into the void or, you know, not being heard by

anybody. So even if they wanna improve their show and get feedback, they don't feel

like they can. What do you do to really encourage

conversation with your audience? So there's definitely things you can do to encourage conversation. I'll

talk about that in a second. But if it feels like pulling teeth to get

any bit of feedback, it's probably because you just don't have a lot of engaged

listeners, and that stinks. But you you maybe you need another way in.

Maybe you need to meet them where they are. Maybe if there are 5 people

who are commenting on your your social posts, only 5

people, maybe you set up a phone call with those people and try to figure

out what is common among them so that you might be able to find look

alike audiences and maybe nurture those people as well. I think

just because you make a show does not entitle you to an audience. And just

because you have an audience does not mean that they must, after every episode,

tell you what they liked and didn't like about it. But I think one way

to make it more likely for your listeners to be in touch with you is

to tell them why you want them to be in touch with you. I think

if I say at the end of each episode, like, leave me a review wherever

it is that you get your podcasts, I'm so bored by that. I've heard that

by a 1000000 people. Why do I need a review? What's it gonna do for

you, if if I leave you a review? And,

ultimately, like, why me? Why now? So if you can explain, like,

we want x number of reviews because it looks good when other potential

listeners visit our podcast on Apple Podcasts. It's not about the

algorithm. It is about social proof. It's kind of like a Ariel was

here moment where you can kind of, like, write on the bathroom stall and say

somebody was here before this podcast is vetted, and it's enjoyed by

others. So I think if you can just get really clear about

why you want your listeners to do what you want them to do, they're gonna

be more likely to do it. It's a it's a trust thing. I think that's

a very fair way to put it. We're chatting with Ariel Nissenblad, founder of Earbuds

Podcast Collective. You could find it at earbuds.audio.

Among that podcast newsletter, there's also a bunch of podcasts she produces and other things

that you should really check out. Her stuff is fantastic. Her advice is great. She's

often speaking and helping podcasters in a in a number of different ways. So,

if you're not already, strongly encourage you to follow Ariel and see what

she's saying and doing and and how she's helping the podcasting space. Before

we let you go, we have questions that we'd like to ask everybody and kinda

worked on this first one already, but I'll I'll reask it anyway, see if you

have something else. Is is there a place you'd like to see improvement in the

podcasting space, whether it's from the listener side, creator side,

distribution, you know, discoverability, anything like that?

Yes. I would like to see

more I like audiograms. I like

the concept of audiograms and and clipping videos for videograms,

but I think I would like to see more

honest marketing advice about what those will do for

you. So just because you make an audiogram, just because you

make a videogram does not mean that it's gonna get seen by thousands of people.

Even if it does get seen by thousands of people, that does not mean that

it's gonna convert to listeners. And I think there are too many

SEO optimized or SE optimized, whatever, blogs on

the Internet that are claiming that if you do x, y,

and z, you will finally get the 10,000 downloads per

episode that you're looking for, and that is not the case. It it it's really

an individual situation. So, I guess I wanna see less

of this blanket advice and more digging down into

your individual analytics, maybe speaking with somebody who can interpret those

for you and make some suggestions based on that. You know, I think along that

same front, I agree. Like, audiograms, video clips, they do a great job of raising

awareness, getting people to see it. But I would love to see a way to

to make that connection from, oh, that's a podcast

to, great. Now it's on my listening list, or now I've bookmarked it to listen

to it later. It it just seems like from social media, the steps to get

from there to subscribe could be a few, and

it'd be nice if you have that, you know, like the way you could follow

someone on Twitter from a different website because you have that embedded

button. Right? Just the ability to embed a follow this podcast and

have it show up in your Apple Podcast or whatever app you're using would be

a really nice ad to, to improve people's,

marketing efforts. What about, tech on your wish list? I see,

like you said, you got the Shure m 7, good pair of headphones. But is

there a piece of equipment whether it's something that's out there that you want or

something that somebody needs to create that you're kind of jonesing for maybe,

ahead of this holiday season put on your, wish list? I'm not big

on the hardware end of things. What about

software? I like software, but I'm pretty happy with the

software that I use. I guess, hardware wise, would I love to

sound treat this room a little bit? Yeah. I would love some panels or

some somebody to come by and be like, here's how we can optimize,

your tiny little apartment to make sure that the sound is better.

Software, I I love testing out all of them. We're on

Riverside right now, but like you said, I worked for Descript, and I used SquadCast

and then Descript's rooms for years. And I love being able to test

out all of them and see what's working and also being able to advise on

you know, if something doesn't work, it's probably not a Riverside or a a

Descript thing. It's probably just an Internet bandwidth situation thing. So I

love I love being able to kinda stop those,

moments of controversy in their tracks. People love to pit

software against each other, and I just don't think it's always that. Yeah. It's it's

funny how we we have become very tribal in what software we

use. Right? Even going back to the hosting companies. Right? People who love 1 hosting

company, not only will they talk nicely about their hosting

company, but they will absolutely try and destroy the

reputation of the other ones. And it feels like

we're we're overly invested or or overly interested in the

success of our hosting company as if we're stockholders or something

like that. It's it's very strange, but, I'm the same way. Anytime new

software comes wrong, I'm like, oh, let me see if I can do anything fine

with that. And, you know, sometimes you can, and sometimes it's just, you

know, more of the same package to in a slightly different way.

And then this is a totally loaded question for someone like you. It has podcast

recommendations. But is there a favorite podcast you

have right now, 1 or 2, where regardless of everything else you're doing,

you're listening to a new episode of that show drops, you're stopping what you're doing,

or you will never miss an episode of said show, when it comes

along? Yes. I have been

listening to actually, I have a lot. But

I'll say for at least 2 years now, I've been listening to every single episode

of a show called Who Weekly, which is have you heard of it? I have

none. It's great. It's it's interesting always to ask if you've heard of

it or not because it's definitely made for, like, people who

love pop culture and celebrity things, but, also, it goes much

deeper, and it talks about who gets press coverage and why do they get press

coverage. And it's kind of this meta media analysis without

that does not take itself seriously at all. And I just love the way they

do this, but and it's huge. Like, they filled,

an a 1000 person, event space in New

York City, and they went on tour they go on tour, like, twice a year.

They're they're big, and yet you've never heard of them. Isn't that amazing? It's, like,

it's shocking to me, but it's also not shocking to me because there's no monoculture.

And I just think that this show is such a

great community building show. They've done a great job giving

their listeners names and finding interesting ways to nurture

them and make sure that everybody understands their inside jokes and things like

that. So I like that one. Nice. Yeah. I'll

I'll never skip that. And then, of course, every day, I listen to

a bunch of news podcasts, and some of them I feel more of a community

attachment to than others. Like, The Daily Zeitgeist I listen to twice a day every

day, and I do feel a connection to it, whereas I listen to Today

Explained every day, and I don't necessarily feel like I need to connect with other

Today Explained listeners, even though I really love the hosts. I

also listen to The Brian Loehr Show every day, which is a radio program that

they syndicate as a podcast. I think syndicate is the right word,

and they break it up by segment, and I think that's just a cool way

to consume radio. And then I listen to some non news podcast, but I won't

get into those now. You just have to trust me. Okay. Well and, of course,

if you're following Ariel on social media or watching what she does, she gives lots

and lots of recommendations, and, it's it's not hard to see

what she's into, what she's following, what she's talking about. So, get

out there and make sure you are are following everything that she's doing. We will

make sure to have links to all the social media that we have here. We'll

try and make a link to all of the different products that are available, the

newsletters, the podcast. And just as a reminder, it's Ariel

Nissenblatt, founder of Earbuds Podcast Collective. Find that

at earbuds.audio. Ariel, it is always a pleasure to

chat with you. Thank you so much for coming on today. You're welcome. Thanks for

having me.