Welcome to Digital Podcaster. I'm your host Dylan Schmidt. Today is a podcast coaching episode. And I'm speaking with Sam Stanford who is the host of the everything steam podcast. Steam stands for science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. And Sam was kind enough to join me to chat about his podcasting experience so far. And what everything steamed does on his podcast is take complex ideas and make them digestible for the everyday person like myself. And Sam loves sharing his knowledge with others and he sees podcasting as a great medium to do that. On everything steam Sam interviews, experts, and shares information about various topics related to steam. Personally, I've found academic topics, like what he talks about, on steam to be a little bit dry. But what I love about Sam is he doesn't deliver them in a way that's dry, he tells stories and shares his knowledge in a relatable way. What you'll find Sam and I chat about in this episode is the struggles of not getting much engagement and growing listeners for your podcast. Also how he's able to stay consistent with his show. Despite all that, a big focus on this episode is the idea of community and an email newsletter. So here's my conversation with Sam Stanford host of everything, Steve. Welcome to the podcast, Sam. Hey, thanks for having me, Dylan. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad to hear you coming in. Right from Phoenix, Arizona. I spoke with my I was just telling you before we hopped in press record, I my my dad lives there. And I think every time I talked to him, I get a weather update of Phoenix. And it's it just it's funny watching it as it gets hotter and hotter. And it's like, Oh, it's 100 Yeah, we're just laying in the pool all day. Like, it's a lizard life out there. It truly is. It truly is. You know, I It's kind of funny. Whenever I left, Pennsylvania, literally about a month ago, just a little over a month ago, it was 4045 degrees. And then when I got here, it was like 8085 90. Now it's 90 every day. And I think like I said the spike that I've seen so far has been 100 degrees flat. So it's quite quite a changed quite a change. But my body's done. Pretty good. Surprisingly. Yeah. Yeah. That's what your your water intake levels, like, closely. Of course. Yeah, awesome. Awesome. So your podcast is called everything steam. That's right. And steam stands for science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. And so you talk about the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or reality TV? No. So I had seen the word steam before. I didn't remember what it stood for, but not the gaming platform. And like, that was I was like, Is this going to be? And then also, I've heard of STEM? Yes. Which do you know what STEM stands for is it's everything except for art. So the reason why we are accompanying or we're, we're bringing art into the mix, because art is paramount to having success in STEM. Right. Because to be able to get from a hypothesis was just like a really formulated idea to a theory, which is something that is practiced and proven. You need to have communication, you need to have conceptualization, not only the math modeling of it, but also the experimentation, but you need the conceptualization, you have to talk about it, and you have to visualize it. So that's we need art, we've, we've used art forever, in science forever, all the way back to Galileo and way before then, whenever we were writing stuff on stone tablets, and now we just do it today, digitally. So arts there, it should always be there. But I digress. That's That's Steve. Yeah, I mean, yet. I mean, they My name is Dylan Schmidt. But my middle name is existential crisis. So I might have one or two of those here. That's like the third time I've said that on this podcast. I'm just realizing the joke, but it's true. So everything steam is steam. Normally. It is esteemed comment, I guess, because I know. Like I said, I've seen stem, but is steam like your own thing, or is that it's a common thing. It's gaining traction. Actually, the company that I work with, that's literally in 40. Some countries has steam ambassadors, and I'm one of them. And we'll go to like schools or have like virtual events and we'll like educate like kids or adults, whatever it may be. I mean, there's, I mean, we just try to get, you know, information out there so people can To enjoy and understand life better, you know, like, rather than just walking around, not knowing what the true color of the Sun is, you know, you actually know. And it's, it's it's enlightening. And it's interesting, you know, it makes life more fruitful rather than just mundane. You're putting the blinders on every day going to work and coming home, seeing your family and go into bed doing the exact same thing. So, yeah, it covers so much. I mean, just in the acronym steam. Yeah, yeah, without it, we would be probably sitting in caves. And, you know, being scared of the predators around us and not having cars and, you know, not having air conditioning and stuff like that. I was clever enough, I would have came up with an acronym for dead. I'd say without it without steam, we'd be dead. If you like we'd be it's just a bad joke. So you have a podcast, everything's steam? And is it just you? Or do you have someone else that you do the podcast with? Right? So we've entertained a lot of different things. My team and I, I've always been the host, but we've tried different co hosts, sometimes I'll rotate into CO hosts. The problem that I've found is that whenever you have a co host, and then a guest star, it's really hard to get a one on one conversation that like this seems really fluid. Because there's always someone that has something to add that's just a little different than you. And it throws off your entire thought process. We've done it, it's been successful. But it's not something that like my team and I are really excited about doing in the future. And we have these really interesting guests that come on with like, a lot of followers and the followers would more than likely want to hear what they have to say rather than what myself and my co host would have to say. So we were kind of doing away with that we've done some different things. And we're figuring out that the one on one v one Convo is just as magical compared to the others. Yeah, that's, it's fascinating. You say that I had a guest on my podcast that has like a huge tick tock platform. And, and he was like, such a great talker, or I'm just like, I'd say like one word, then he would just go on for like, what felt like 20 minutes. And I'm like, this is fine, because I'm listening. And I want to hear what he has to say. Yeah, but have you found I found this, but I'm curious if you found it too. Like how little talking? If you have a guests on how little of talking to you actually have to do to keep something going? Yeah, I mean, I, I do a pretty decent job of directing conversation. We've had some stale points. But I mean, that's, maybe that's just me. And you know, you can easily edit that out if you wanted to. You know, it's really not that bad. I've every guests that we've had on weaves, like my marketer, marketer will reach out to people that have a good platform already. So typically, there are people that you know, can talk or interested in talking, and we try to grab people that are really passionate about that. Wow, I hate saying this, but particular topic of discussion, because that's literally how intro each each episode, but like, that's, that's literally what we do. And I've I've never had like a guest that, you know, had to put words in their mouth. It's always been like, Okay, you're going, that's awesome. I have things to say. And whenever I get to say it, I'll say it. But like, you know, they're more here, their people are here for them. And less me, you know, but yeah, yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned your marketer, what what areas of your podcasts do they help with? So my marketer actually just helps with getting people scheduled and finding people. And then unfortunately, I wish I had more cash flow. If I had more cash flow, I would get a marketer for social media, and then I'd just be so set. All I'd have to do so like I do a lot of the social media stuff. And then I do editing, and I do the content creation, like it's me and the guest. So it's practically like a full time job. It is like a full time job. Most days of the week, which really stinks. So I work two to two jobs every day, but I'm hoping that things take off and there's less on my plate, but be really nice. If I could just get rid of either the social media or the editing I, I would it would be bliss. And how much time do you spend editing? Like how long? How long is like a podcast episode for us? Oh, man, we've had 45 minutes and they've gone as long as 90 minutes. It just depends on what we get into talking about and I don't like to cut content, unless the person that I'm interviewing or talking with really doesn't want that on there. And I've never had that issue before. We've always just went and it's it is what it is. And then I go in and do some of the fun including, but the more that we do these podcasts, the better speaking, I like, my speaking gets better. So I edit less. And it's actually really nice. But yeah, and the more episodes that we do, actually, the better the guests that we get. So like there's less editing to do there too. So it's kind of a nice little learning curve, so to speak. It's very good. Yeah. And do you know, estimated or off the top of your head? What episode number you're on? Yes, we're going to be posting episode 22 Next week. Nice. Congrats. And how long ago? Did you start it? I started last year. So the reason why it's, it seems like there's not a lot of episodes in a full year's time. Well, no, actually, our year will be in June. So we're 11 months right now. But I mean, it's still like, it seems like it's not a lot, but like we do it every other week. Whereabouts for a while was kind of tough, because, you know, it was hard spots with jobs and stuff and trying to figure things out, but we're doing it bi weekly now. And things are lining up quite well. Just just took some time to get like a real construct going that, you know, that was that was more cyclical. So it's getting better, for sure. But we have a lot of episodes coming up that are kind of slotted. So now it's just like, I have to do my research at the show up, we have to have a good, good show and get it edited and get it out there. So it's just now it's, it's it's like riding a wave instead of having chop. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. And where are people like, what is what made you? What inspired you to start the podcast? Oh, boy, there's a couple of things that inspired me to do this podcast. One is, the first one is for my professional development. I want to be able to host talks someday I want to do in person talks, and spread like knowledge about like steam, but also encourage, like young people to be excited about STEAM. I think stemming off of that the education system makes me want to do this. Because what we see across the board is people that just push back against science. And they're not. That it seems like there's a barrier between the people that do science and the people that don't. I mean, when I'm saying science, I just mean like steam in general, the sciences. And I think it's good to realize that people do science too, like, like, there's so much humanistic egotistic stuff going on in science. And I think we need to spike curiosity and young kids. And I don't think our education system does that correctly. Like you get one or two professors or teachers in your life that like really, like really gets you excited about it. But like there's so many topics to be studied, there's, there's so much information out there, one professor or one teacher teaching one subject is not going to do it, it's going to again, you're going to be horse with blinders. And you're only going to like one thing rather than being excited to learn something new. And that's what I want to bring to the table. So with the pandemic and everything I did a lot of self reflection looked. And I've been studying like different, like, like myths like misinformation paradoxes, and what we've seen throughout the pandemic, it's just pushed me to like, Okay, we really need science communicators. Not like we got a lot of great people obviously doing science. And that's obvious. I mean, just with what Moore's Law has brought to the table with technology, and how we've been able to create a really good and effective vaccine, and all these other amazing applications. But the problem is, there's not a lot of people, putting it in lay terms for everybody, and making it exciting and making it relevant. And I think that's, that's the barrier. So we need more people to punch through the barrier and talk to the normal folk that aren't in science aren't a viral epidemiologist that isn't a scientist that, you know, isn't a geologist, we need to get to these people because it makes their life better and way more enjoyable and a lot more transparent. So that's why I'm doing this. That's incredible. And so you're like the purpose of your podcast is to serve if I'm hearing you correctly, I'm not like saying what it is So correct me here but the sounds like the purpose of your podcast is to bridge these higher, this higher almost higher level learning or these may be more complex things that will be people find them complex, but you're bridging the gap between kind of everyday person and these complex ideas. Sounds like? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much we have a couple of spin off episodes where we've had fun with some topics, like we did, uh, I have. So my background, maybe I should explain my background. My background is in physics, and I'm a structural engineer by trade. But I also have a minor in Mathematics. And I've done different research in the physics fields I've done. I've worked in a nano fabrication laboratory, I've ran a 3d printing laboratory. I've done a lot of different things that have been spread out. And I think that's the reason why I'm so hungry for different different stuff. But yeah, we've so like, I have friends that are that are physics majors, math majors, engineers. And we've we did like a podcast one time where we just kind of talked about like thoughts of Armageddon, where we had like, all these scenarios, and we explained how we think that this could actually end life on Earth. And it was just like, it was a fun thing. It was a tribute to my friends. Because, you know, my friends have helped me a lot with this podcast. So I was like, trying to get you on and you know, get your name heard somehow. So we've done some cool stuff like that, for sure. Making them a part of it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's Yeah, but you're you're pretty much spot on. Acting as average. That's, that's cool. And it seems like something that a lot of people look to podcast for. I'm not sure familiar with the podcast, I think it's called Stuff You Should Know. Oh, okay. I think I've heard about that. Yeah, there's Stuff You Should Know. I feel like I'm saying that title wrong for some reason. And I've listened to it so many times. And then there's another one called 99%. Invisible or that one? I have not, but have you heard of probably science? That's a good one with Matt Kirshen. I have heard the name but I've never listened to it. Is that like a competitor? But is that like comparable to your podcast? Not Yeah, he's been around for 10 plus years, so I wouldn't say that I'm around. I'm not saying like, you're like, you know, you know, gonna edge them out or like you're stealing or you're anything like, like, stealing audience Listen, not nothing like that. Like, but like a similar, like, did that podcast inspire you to start your podcast? I would say is and like star talk is a good one with with Neil deGrasse Tyson. I like it. And what's the one with science rules with with Bill Nye? I think I think he has a good show, too. But yeah, I mean, I definitely looked into those podcasts. They definitely inspired me, I would say, you know, they all do that exact same thing. They literally answer to the public's questions and and that's really cool. I would like someday have a like a Colin show. I think it'd be really awesome. And just or just answer your questions we typically do like we'll get feedback from from the audience. And then we'll like or, I guess, not feedback, because that would be a post a post deal. But like we solicit like questions and stuff, like we did that for the podcast that we recorded last night on we call it a bird ology, but it's the study of birds, it was just easier. It's more lays so people understand that we're actually talking about birds. But yeah, I had a park ranger on that studies, birds and migration patterns and stuff. And we talked about like birds in the environment. How anthropogenic influences are changing that and stuff. And that was a really good podcast. But yeah, we solicited some questions and we addressed he addressed them in the episode that was that was nice. So he addressed the our bird, the birds aren't real movement. Oh, yeah, like, pigeons or drones. I forgot to ask him that. In the podcast. I was just gonna joke. I know. I was I was wondering what his response was going to be. There was a I was watching on I think it was a vice video on the guy. I just killed a guy that started the birds aren't real movement. And like, just the whole misinformation of the whole thing. And like, he basically comes on device video, and it's like, look, I made it all up. It's so silly. People even believe this. And I'm gonna keep it going. Because why not? And like, they're just, you know, people that believe it. And then there's people that are just in on it being a joke, and they continue to, you know, make it a joke. But then there's people out there that are like, no, actually birds aren't real. It's a government. ploy to I don't know. Birds have been around for 65 million years. We only have fossil evidence, but that's okay. That's actually funny. You know, I did mention misinformation a little bit. And like, so the reason why this is going on, and this is, this is my hypothesis. It's not even close to a theory, but it's something that I feel like could be backed by science. But I think the reason why we have such misinformation is because technology has evolved so much faster than what Our natural evolution can keep up with. So like, if you're familiar with Moore's law, it's the the speed in which, you know, the time, the time period in which you get a newer technology that's better and better, smaller and smaller, you know, takes up more space, but outputs more. And evolution, like naturally is such a very slow process. So I think the problem is we've, we've, we've created so much technology, and like 50 years, we'll just say 50 years, whereas it takes hundreds of 1000s of millions of years to develop our brains. And it's like, I don't think our brains have been able to keep up with the level of technology. We're just, we're still tribalistic, which answers the call to the bird, the birds aren't real movement, right? People just want to be in a tribe, because for hundreds of 1000s of years, we had to be in a tribe to survive. And if we weren't in that tribe, you were dead, because you just couldn't keep up with reality. And I see that today, we're still really primal. And that goes to show how animalistic we are in terms of some really hot button issues. And I think if if I think the only way we can solve a lot of these problems is by answering the call towards misinformation with good information, but making it relevant and making it interesting. Yeah, I totally agree. And I feel like, like, you know, piggybacking off of everything you said, like, I feel like there's just this huge misunderstanding of technology. And we kind of think it's sometimes better than it is, or sometimes worse than it is, you know, it's hard to, like, accurately accurately pinpoint where technology is at right now. Because it's moving so fast to say, like, there's AI, you know, being developed, you know, as we speak, getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And, you know, but at the same time, there are certain things that are not as far along as people would assume they are, you know, right causes a lot of confusion. You know, and especially for people that, like you said, haven't spent, you know, you know, especially people that are just a little bit older, that didn't grow up as much with the Internet. You know, it's, it's, it's not their fault. They're duped into thinking certain things, may or not, may not be accurate, because, like, you were I, you know, who grew up with the internet, and a lot of the technology like we have a deep understanding of it more so than, than some people and, you know, we can spot something that like, that looks really fake like that. That is a that's a scam basically. Yeah, that is a scam that email, don't open that email, you know what, something like that using a scam, email or scam text as a, as an idea, you know, but there's a lot of people out there that, you know, we'll go to a website, you or I might be like, this is ridiculously fake, like, Don't enter your information in here. And, and people, you know, get scammed. As we're speaking probably, you know, and, and it's just yeah, it's just humans are so soft at the same, you know, and like, we're like, extremely resilient, but at the same time, yeah. manipulative, like we can be easily manipulated for sure. Yeah. To not our advantage. And we sometimes think we are, you know, it's to our advantage, but that's part of being manipulated, I guess. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Sorry. I didn't mean to draw us on a on a big tangent like that. I know. We're supposed to be talking about podcasts. No, I this is the this is no, there's no, there's no like, this is this, this podcast, I help people with podcasts. And the last thing I usually talked about his podcast. So a common the common theme amongst us listening, that we have a passion for podcast is at the end of the day. And like I told you before we hit record, like, you know, really, there's so much more that goes into podcast I I struggled from the very beginning making a podcast about a podcast because it feels like a you know, I don't know, this just seems boring for one very limiting and not. It's not expansive, and it's just, it's just doing podcasting. And podcasters a disservice because there's so much that you want to talk about, and if anything, this is an example of how you can have one common theme to talk around and bring people together. Same with what you're doing with your podcast. And that same idea, right, like you can talk around one theme, and there's different areas of that and that some of that is you know, talking about whether or not birds are real. You know, so yeah, so definitely do that. And I'm sure a lot of people would listen, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll find that birds aren't real guy and have him on not No, I don't think I could do it. I couldn't do it. You know, that brings me to a good point. So my podcast is based on, you know, education. It's not like Dylan, you and I can get together and we could just do a breakdown of, I don't know, the newest, the newest Star Wars trailer since its, you know, may the fourth So may the fourth be with you to anybody. That's a Star Wars fan out there. That's listening. But anyways, because you're an engineer, you would break it down and you go, this actually the footstep that took no, I'm just kidding. Y'all are so smart. I just have to poke fun at it. But But seriously, though, like, the way that we're doing this podcast takes a lot more effort, right, I have to do my research, I have to read into what they do. And that way I can have a meaningful conversation. Yes. Whereas like, if you and I just got together, we played a game and then we did a fun podcast review. There's minimal, like there's low effort. Yeah, you don't need to use a lot like, Okay, you do have to be able to connect the dots. But it's just a different. It's a different way to prepare, way different way to prepare to prepare for that game. You just played the game. Yeah, to this, you have to study something, and really commit to memory and understanding of a topic and then go talk to somebody that's super professional. And yeah, of course, you need to like I need to sound layman like I need to, every once in awhile, hit that aha moment, like, oh my gosh, like, that's real, like, wow, like you because then you have to relate to who's listening, if you just go throughout the entire episode, and you never have an aha moment, or you never have that relatable experience, they're not going to relate to you. And it's not gonna feel personable, and they're just gonna dip out and never listen to your crap again. That's what I'm trying to, like, that's, that's something that took me a while to figure out because I would do all this research. And I would contribute a lot to the conversation. Now, it's, I'm still contributing to the conversation by pulled way back. And it makes, it might make me look like the dummy, or the person being educated on the topic, that's fine. But like, I know what I'm I know a lot about it. But I'm not, I want to feel relatable. Like, I want to feel personal, I want a social aspect to it. You know, I want that aha moment. And also, like, I want to have that aha moment, I want them to teach me something. They're the professional. They're the they're the note, all right, and so that you have to, you have to pay attention to that you don't, if you're doing what I'm doing. If somebody's listening, and they're trying to do what I'm doing, you need to understand that. Don't try to be the, you know, the big tough person in the room that needs to know everything, because it's not relatable anymore. It's just, I don't know, it can be professional, but it also should be layman. I keep it about at 20. I think you're at 20, where we talk about the subject, but then 20% of it's kind of technical. That way it gives more leniency. Love that. Love that end it Yeah, like you said, it means doing a great respect to the listener. And just like you said earlier, people are listening, especially if you have a guest on that they're trying to hear what the guest is saying, Nope. Because there's a third party listening that can't talk. You know, if you're, then there's certain times where you got to keep, you know, keep the conversation going in a certain direction, you got to share what you do know, yes, but you know, at the expense, like I've listened to podcasts, where they'll use acronyms and all these things that I'm like, I have no idea what this is. I don't necessarily stop listening to the podcast, but it feels like there's almost an inside conversation going on that I'm just not a part of. There's only so much I can handle that in an episode itself before I'm like, Am I Am I a part of this conversation because it you know, people, there's like a meme of like a kid standing next to a picture. It's like, this is what like listening to a podcast is like in the picture is just a group of people talking and a kid like by himself looking at the picture. And, you know, that's how it feels as a listener. And if you don't include the listener in that, they're going to be like, you know, you guys forget about me, you know, and I get that because I felt that I felt like I've gotten away but but the awareness you have around it is just going to set you apart from so many other podcasters you know, because there's some people that just let that go or don't even don't even pay attention and that goes so far. Just a little bit goes such a long ways, you know, for sure. And I think sometimes the topics can scare people. You know what I mean? Like they because let's be honest, like whenever you're going to look at a podcast on Spotify, you see the episode art you read the title? And well first of all, you look at the episode art I know you do, like like you want to link visually, yeah, yeah, you want a visual aid? You're like, oh, wow, that seems like a cool episode, then you read it in possibly even read like the little little excerpt. And then you get into it. But like, I think I think the sometimes like, okay, for example, we had a physics podcast with three physicists, myself and two others, and we broke down the four fundamental forces of the universe. So it's called the four fundamental forces. More than likely, if you're a layperson, probably not going to listen to that. But if you do, we had, we it's not like, so if we wanted to make a technical, imagine us just sitting there reading a book, that's an entirely mathematical like, it's just all mathematical equations, right. But what we did was we made it kind of like, almost a storytelling thing, where I set it up in the beginning, I'm like, you know, after this point, after the Big Bang, the force has coalesced in, in sequence, and sequence. So it was the strong force and the weak, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravitation. So we kind of broke down all four of those forces. And it was actually quite interesting and beautiful. It was a storytelling aspect. And we kind of said it, like, you know, at the end of it, we came together full circle and said, like, you know, physics is, is the understanding of of reality, where, where there's physics, then physics becomes chemistry, and chemistry becomes biology and biology is life. So that's why you need to have a root understanding of physics. That way you can understand what life is. And it was it was a good episode. But I think, like with what I do it you have to understand if you're doing something like I like what I do, the naming of the podcast is super important. Right? Yeah. It is in great point about the episode art, I will say regarding episode titles, like just like the episode are very few people will dive in unless they have like questions they want answered before they you know, give time to very few people are reading the episode description, for sure. But the episode title itself is is a funny thing, because you know, it. It's like YouTube in a lot of ways. Like, do you watch a lot of YouTube? Yeah, you want to make a click Beatty, right? Yeah, you want to make it click Beatty. And same with the thumbnail your episode art. For the most part, a lot of people don't change their episode or their show their podcast art. So they'll just leave it the same. But with YouTube, at least you know, you can. I mean, I'll actually I mean, depending on the podcast, I'll argue that I don't think that changing the episode artists depends, but if you want like those new people coming in, you want it to be catchy. Right? I, I would actually argue it doesn't matter that much. So because you're you're I mean, it doesn't matter that much. Because the thing about episode art is it's so dang tiny. Very true. flirty is tiny. And you can only do so much. You know words you can't fit much words on they're not that different than YouTube because they say YouTube thumbnails you want to put a lot of text on there. But you don't have much to work with like you do on YouTube or something like that. I'm not I'm not making a case for doing specific individual episode. I'm not making that case. I'm just saying. The Adele like a deeper dive into Episode Title. Like the art of episode titles is is like, like, if we're relating it to YouTube. It's like doing the thumbnail and the title at once in the episode title and the importance of a podcast because that's the biggest thing like when someone's people will binge podcast episodes and they'll scroll back. They see episode title and they'll go ah, that one caught my attention. And it's different for every podcast like some you know, you click Beatty it clickbait you know, for someone listening that's like what I know, you know, some people aren't familiar with clickbait as the title but it's when like, they'll be like, you'll never believe what happened when for physics lock themselves in a room for 24 hours or whatever it is, you know, yeah, Mr. Beast, the popular YouTuber is like, definitely great at he's the top YouTuber, but he does, you know, they're talking about clickbait in those things but but yeah, with that being said, you know, some people, you know, it almost as a disservice, you know, for certain podcasts, especially if it's an accurate like, I feel like your podcast is borderline like academic. You know, it's it seems a bit more academic than your average, based on what you've shared so far. And this is trying to come from more neutral. I'm not trying to like, Come like I'm already in your audience, but Like my interpretation, I guess, of what you're sharing, and, you know, some, like, you know, if you go to click Beatty, then you're gonna, you won't even be able to describe what the episode is, or you're, you're gonna lose it or, or it won't look as professional. Right as because it will just look like hokey, I guess, in a way, you know, it's like, what? What are the data say? Yeah, definitely you wouldn't, we don't want to skew too far away from what the topic is. But you also want to make it to where it's, you know, it's an eye catching read has to be there has to be there has to be something that I put together. And I was just updating this list. That's why episode titles are near and dear to my mind, in my heart, but I went through and I studied, like the top podcast, like performing podcast episodes across the board, different categories. And then I studied top YouTube videos across different categories. And then I stole them all. And then I put them in a sheet. It's like an 18 Page sheet. And I made a title a day. So I've made 365 titles. And this sounds clickbait in itself. It's not, I made, I put all of the titles in a PDF. And it is available in the episodes, I'll put it in the episode show notes. But it's digital podcaster.com/ 365. It's basically plug and play. So I made it available for like any industry, this is not an advertisement it just because we're talking about it. But basically, it's like a template. So you could technically use it if you were doing a podcast episode every day for a year. But you just like it will say like something about something like it's all taken from top performing pieces of content with millions of views. And it's interesting, even if you just looked at it from you know, what are the common themes here? Because there's certain ones that maybe see more click Beatty, and there's certain ones that are just like, wow. But it gets the the wheels turning of like how to frame episode titles in a way that are is really easy, because it's just like a template. Like you could just take your topic, and then plug it in. I wish it was an app. It's a PDF for now. But it would be cool to just I mean, yeah, I know. Actually, I'm gonna write that down. There you go develop the app. Gosh, that's a great idea. Cuz I've been. Yeah, it just should just be a random generator. You should definitely cut this out. So nobody steals your idea. You have too many ideas, too many ideas and not enough time. So I'm not even worried. But But yeah, they could steal, they could steal my idea and then put it into an app, then steal that idea. Please. Work again, then it'd be like, there's a copyright on there. I'll take your I'm just kidding. But yeah, I just find the episode titles interesting. Because even sometimes less is way more. Like, you know, you could just write physics with a period after it. And it's like, and just that curiosity that creative like physics, I want to know more about physics, all the stuff that us humans fill in when there's space. Sometimes, you know, we fill in space on our own. Sometimes we're like, we need more information. In the balance between the two. I find it very fascinating when it comes to episode titles in particular, like what makes someone click something one word can make someone clicks something. I've been studying advertisements. This old advertiser, I don't think I don't know if he's alive anymore. David Ogilvy wrote a book called on advertising. And he in the book, he shares, different headlines that he uses in his advertisements, like top performing ones, Volkswagen, all these different companies. And there was one last night I was reading, it had a picture of a Volkswagen, that headline, and then a bunch of text, and it just says lemon. And, you know, like, people refer to cars as lemons. And, you know, that means it's a bad car. But that would get your attention if you sat next to a car cuz you're like, why, but that advertisements sold a ton. It was one of the top performing advertises minutes of the day. And it just one word like lemon. You know, that's what kept me with the idea with physics. And it's just funny how people's interest? Yeah, sorry. There's just no, you're talking about episode titles forever, at least 365 of them. So tell me about some of the problems of of podcasting. Like you mentioned, a couple of them like, you know, it's it feels like a second job. There is social media that you have to do. Are you doing? Where are you doing? And are you doing any other content? In addition to your podcasts like is were you like, publishing about cooking recipes, or like, were you doing anything that has nothing, maybe particularly related to your podcast? Yeah. So I write research blogs that are related to a clothing line that I just started publishing, literally, on Earth Day. It's kind of funny, it was very cliche. There's so many darn clothing lines. came out on on on Earth Day. But really Yeah, yeah. So I, I went in with a small business partnership. And I read these ecological blogs, research blogs. And for just, for example, like I did one on on bees and pollination and their population decline. And you know, the relative importance to not only just loss but the environment itself. And so like it's, what you can do is you can buy a t shirt, right that has that sustainably sourced, it's gonna get even more sustainable. We're just just starting out with the partnership, but it has a symbol of the bees on the chest. And then on the on the sleeve, it has a scan QR code. And when you scan the QR code, it takes you right to my research blog, and you can learn about bees, and in everything that's involved in that research blog. So it can it combines learning, sustainability and fashion, which is really cool. And it's something that I've been doing, I've been trying to develop it since last October, I had a fantastic idea. I'm like, let's, you know, let's do something sustainable. But let's also do something that's, you know, even even, like, it's even more worth paying the money. And we're also putting a couple of dollars per purchase towards like a nonprofit organization. I think we're partnered. We're partnering with one tree planted, and then we're going to try to switch that up in the future. But yeah, we're, we're, we're working with one tree planted, so it's good, you know, like we're, and then one tree planted works on reforestation from deforestation activity. So yeah, what's the name of the clothing line? It's called Eco light. Eco light. Yeah. Li ght, not just li te DECA like That's awesome. Awesome. Okay, so you're doing research blogs? Yep. Yep. And then I'm also a mentor on the wisdom app. So the funny thing about the wisdom app, like I got, I got an ominous email last year, asking me if I wanted to be a mentor on this app. And I'm like, No, consider it. And I looked into it. And I'm like, Okay, this could be a cool platform. So the funny thing is, like, I got into it, and I've done a couple talks, I think I've done four talks on it. And the funny thing is, whenever you get on there, it's all like spiritual or meditation or, you know, like common common knowledge stuff. And I'm just like, there's no science communicators on here. So like, I could go free reign on this bad boy, I wish I had more time I would, I would do more on it. But like I yeah, I'd get like, anywhere from 50 to 100 people on there. And I just talk, which is kind of cool. It talks about like, stuff like, last time I was on it. We talked about like, the natural cause of climate change. And then talked about the anthropogenic influence of climate change. I talked about light I've talked about, I think I talked about time, which is fun times always fun to talk about, and how we measure it. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of some of the things that I do. I mean, outside of all that with, with work in developing, like, I just started developing a tick tock, that's, you know, in tandem with the podcast, and I'll upload it to YouTube. And it's called Science at lightspeed or something like that. And I'll do like fun videos under a minute explaining some certain things, or I'll react to a certain video and explain that or whatever. And that's something fun, just just trying to get out there trying to make a name, my marketer said, You need to make the problem, the reason why you're not getting the numbers that you want, is because you have no name. And you have to build a basis and be recognized for people to start, like getting into your stuff. You know, like, yes, like, people will find your, your podcast if you advertise it. But if your name is already out there, it's just more people that you're going to pull in. So I think that the hardest part of all that it's just time management, for sure. Time management and has been. Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. And tick the how's the Tick Tock doing? Good. Like, in my opinion, I think it's going great. Like, I started by following absolutely nobody. And now I follow like, 10 people just because they're people that I like to I like to watch. But we had was like 1,000% growth in like, a couple of weeks. The problem is I went on vacation came back, and now I have to have to pick back up. But yeah, I mean, just within a certain amount of time. I think we were almost 200 followers without even doing anything, which is kind of cool. Like, in my opinion. I think that's cool. And with the people that I'm going to have on the show coming up, they're like huge on tick tock so if I could do like a collaborative stitch post with them. I think it would just be, it would, it would create huge percentage growth. I'm not all about the percentage growth more like I would like to see more feedback. I think feedbacks like, probably the best. So like seeing comments from people on on, you know, YouTube or, or tic toc or whatever. I think that's, that's all the better, but and what so, so your your channel to get feedback is through comments on social media videos primarily. Yeah, like, oh, like, I'll usually I used to, like leave like the last five seconds of the TIC tock to be like, you know, comment below for such and such like I would, I would pose a question and say, you know, let me know, in the comments or something like that anymore. I don't typically do that. Because I tried to fill all the seconds that I can in the 60 seconds of something like relevant and important. And if they find it really interesting, then they'll comment. But yeah, it's growing. It's growing slowly. But the problem is, if I if I did this full time out, you know, if I didn't have a full time job, yeah, you doing fantastic. The problem is, I can't do that. So yeah. And as someone who's like a engineer. Steam, there's some. I would say like, as far as repeatable processes go? Do you have one for what happens after a podcast? Do you? So are you talking about like in terms of social media? Yeah, social media, basically everything. So you mentioned everything before the podcast, and then recording the podcast. And then after a podcast. I have one client here that is like it's the tiniest fly. Can science explain that? I'm just kidding. Sure. But what happens after a podcast Do you have because if you got the research, like basically, everything like you come prepared to an episode, you know what you're going to talk about, but there's a element to for conversation, then you record it, and then what happens afterwards? Right. So the main focus platforms that we go with is typically Tik Tok, and Instagram and also, Facebook, Twitter is not so much. It's, I've had a hard time with engagement through podcast on Twitter. So I've, I still post everything that we can on Twitter, but my, my typical way that I do it is after, before I meet with a guest, I'll usually throw a story out there and say, like, I'm having this guest on super excited, you know, and I'll share like, you know, like a post that they had on their profile so they can go check them out. And then we'll record and then I'll give like, kind of like a countdown post where it's like, you know, hey, it's it's coming out, you know, this day? And I'll do like, then closer to time, I'll do like a poll, you know, you know, what are you excited about? Like some sort of a question, it'll come out, I'll do a post that day across the social media platforms. And then a day after or two days after, what I'll do is I'll say like, you know, did you catch the video? Or what did you think about this? I'll put a poll up that like has like different, you know, answers or whatever, just to get like some engagement. But you know, it's so in the stories, IG stories maybe yeah, I'll do Yeah, mainly an IG stories, but like for Tik Tok out, like, it'll come out. And then I'll post like a tick tock, I'll do like a cool fun fact about it or something. And then like, say, you know, if you want to learn more, I had such and such on and, you know, link in the bio, check it out, kind of deal. And then with Twitter, what I'll do is I'll usually share that video on to Twitter and also share like the podcast link, etc. And just see if it does something. It's kind of tough. What I any feedback that I get on Twitter, it's usually like, like commenting on other's posts and stuff like that. That's been kind of successful, but like, it's also takes a long time to sift through the feed to find those posts, comment the correct thing and get engagement. It's worked. For sure. But yeah, I'm able to track it. Like do you know how many people are coming from social media? Yes, I don't I don't think I put them put enough emphasis just because I strung out. You know, like, Well, yeah. Or I should say, does the link in your bio, for example. Oh, yeah. Does it tell you? Yeah, coming from I use a link tree. So link tree tells me that that so it's telling you like this many people clicked it. Got it and the numbers are looking good. Or for the followers that we have I think so. Got Yeah, okay. And I mean, that like, looking good is kind of vague. So yeah, I guess I just mean, it's not going down and no studies looking at Yeah, yeah, for sure. I would like to see more growth on Instagram, I think we're getting there. What I've started doing is re mixing reels that have like from like a reputable, like, say, like National Geographic or something like that. And it will be just like, a real of like with music and then like something going on, but like nobody's talking about it. Like, I'm going to remix this, and I'm going to talk about it and explain it. And I'll get engagement that way. And we've gotten followers that way. I'm so I'm like, maybe I'll just continue to remix some reels, and post that out. So maybe that's a good tip for somebody listening. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I would not encourage anyone to, like focus on Instagram these days. Okay, I mean, not not saying like, don't pay attention to it. It just I feel like Instagrams going through an identity crisis. Like they they don't exact. I mean, it's, it's kind of, you know, they're testing out vertical photos now, where the whole thing, just like how Instagram reels, you know, they're making photos like that. I mean, just literally just before this episode, I don't look at my Insight Analytics too much. But the, the amount. Let's see, if I have this. I could show you if you're you're you're listening. But I'm, I'm showing Sam this graph, the big number, it's kind of hard to see it's a little, but there's this huge this graph and the biggest number reached. Alright, let's just share the numbers 55,000, Around 55,000 people reach through reels 3400 reach to through posts. That number is insane. Like 55,000 versus 300. And I'm seeing this across the board. But for other accounts as well, but reels is like, it's just unreal. didn't mean that. That was good. But I'm also like, I feel like you might be able to appreciate this. I'm running a experiment account where I started at the same time. And it is starting on Instagram and Tiktok. And the growth is like the growth is so much higher on Tik Tok. Because the discoverability is so much higher on the algorithms better for sure. For sure. I think I'm in like 70 days in this experiment, we're looking at like, about 6000 followers on Tiktok. About 540 on Instagram. That's the only post nothing has changed in the content. Other than the news. It's the news. It's news for people who don't like the news, because I don't really care about the news. Just depressing sometimes. So that the there's a control this the script, and then it's very repeatable, very repeatable, it's very dry, very opposite of like me. And all that to say, Instagram growing on Instagram is just like, just like it's just painful to watch. I guess I it's painful to watch people do that. If you focus on Tik Tok, you can use that content on Instagram. Instagram experts don't like hearing that because they're like, probably making money on Instagram. The reality is like it's moving towards tick tock until Instagram figures out what the heck it's doing. It's like the focus is on tick tock, and then driving to YouTube shorts. Discoverability is great on YouTube shorts right now. Yeah, post something this morning and have 5000 views by the evening. Same with tick tock. Instagram, it's so much harder. So I only say that because I bet if you just if you just even just made tic tock your you know, your thing you would you would find a lot of success and growth there. Yeah. So as far as what you had mentioned, you had mentioned get more views per show. Are you emailing people in my emailing using any, like email marketing or anything like that? I have not. No, I didn't know the best way of going about that. Like and making an email list. Is that what you're getting out? Yeah. All right. I'm gonna say this like, because I know we're also short on time. So I'm just gonna, are you open for some friendly suggestion? Absolutely. Yeah. I'm always open, friendly manipulation. So how we actually talked about at the beginning to when we talked about, like, tribal people are tribal. You know, you're building a tribe with everything steam. People want to be a part of, of the tribe that you're creating. And one of the great ways that you can build your tribe stronger is through social media. Yes, it's great discovery tool, but a part of that is through email, and how you get people to sign up for your email list. And you're gonna love this because it's not going to cost too much money, or hardly any money is you could use something like MailChimp to start at least on MailChimp. It's how you send out mass amount of emails because whatever you do, do not use just like Gmail to send out, BCC to everybody. I've seen a lot of people do that it's illegal, you have to have an unsubscribe button. Those emails don't have unsubscribe, but I've been on a couple of those where I'm like, What does it even like, let me offer this crazy thing. So MailChimp is is like the most powerful tool you will have to getting more listeners or not MailChimp itself because it's not the app is the email marketing part is the communication you're going to have through your tribe using email. Because social media you just get lost in the noise is great as Tik Tok is, nobody really goes to their following page, they just they'll follow you. But 200 followers on Tiktok is not the same as 200 followers on Instagram. And Twitter followers on Instagram doesn't even mean that much anymore. Because there's a lot of bots and it's a mix up. So or follow it like if you if you have to across the board to and your followers 200 on tick tock Twitter followers on Instagram 200 email subscribers, children, email subscribers are going to be the most valuable at the end of the day, it's not suspect susceptible to an algorithm nearly as much it's like 99% less susceptible, there is a still a little bit because deliverability, things like that. But the same thing that you're doing with your episode titles, where you're conscious of hooks, things like that you could incorporate into your email. And you'd have more flexibility there too, because people are not like, they don't look at emails as fast, especially if it's you. And they and they've already spent time with you on your podcast. Especially if it's like they they starting to build a relationship with you. Email is where it's at, for you for building your tribe, because it just gives people a closer access. And you're talking about something that is like, not like as fluid as like pop culture. And and the fact that you have incorporating other things like your clothing line, research papers, thinking QR codes, freakin magnets. You're talking about laser beams? Exactly. You know, you're talking about these things that require links, you know, and you can't add, you can only you're like using one link, you know, it's like, you can only do so much on social media with what you're doing. And to be able to talk to somebody, if you're if you're, you know, at whatever you know, you do. And you can mention, like a quick little link for someone to Oh, yeah, get on the email list here, it's going to be so that person will likely stick with you so much longer, and become so much closer and be able to share your podcasts word of mouth, and share more about your word of mouth. And you can simply tell people at the end of the email, reply to this email with whatever, and usually just one call to action. So it's just like, you can send them an email about a new episode. And you can actually take your time, you don't have to fit it into three seconds. Like in this episode, you know, it's like, you can actually like, think about it. And you don't have to, like formulate this weird thing. You have some time and an email. And you can actually kind of create a little bit of a story. And you can have people reply to the email. And now you have instant feedback. Which a comment on Facebook is or wherever a comment on any social media is one thing, but you don't know if they've actually listened. And they're commenting on the video, it's not they're commenting on the episode. And if they're replying to an email, they're just a deeper level of listener that is going to really grow rather than like, you're going to have so much more of a fan to put it like, loosely, you know, than you will ever get from building from the ground up which what you're doing then from social media. So if I could offer anything, it's just that email was like people would be like, Thank you. Thank you. I don't have to look through this done. I mean, we all love like social media, but most of us, some of us, we all love hate it, you know, whatever. Yeah, but a lot of a lot of us say is like a listener or something would be like, Thank you for not making me go on Tik Tok to learn about something that you want to share with me. Thank you for sending me an email. So I can click to the research paper that you mentioned. Thank you for like making me smarter through email, you know, and that could be the headline, the clickbait thing is literally like, make your email smarter or something like that with some type of promise that's for the lay man where I'm like, Oh, um, I want to be smarter through my email. You know, and it's that way, if you don't have an episode coming out every week, you could still write a super simple email like you're writing to a friend. And that would be what I feel like what I offer the most is based on what you've shared with me. How you can move the ball with like, very little time. You don't need a special marketer for that. You don't need a social media person for that. It's literally right Like 500 word email to a friend, it would take you 20 minutes, you could even use artificial intelligence, something like jasper.ai to bust out an email, once you have it down, you could bust that thing out in like, two to five minutes. So, and you're just gonna get, you're gonna get like, you're gonna get more engagement, you're gonna get feedback that you want real feed, good feedback, and more listeners, because then at the bottom, you can also share, share this email with a friend. Something like that. Yeah, that's great. That's probably the best advice I've heard. For podcasts. Like, that's funny, because like, I don't know, a lot of people that have done podcasts. So like, all of that has been like people giving me ideas, and and I sift through what I think is a good idea that I take advantage of it. So the email list thing, taking advantage of that tonight, I'm starting to it's the least amount because everything you said was like, I'm busy. And I want to grow this. And it's amazing, like, everything you're saying is amazing. But it shouldn't require much of you. And it shouldn't require more money. It's just like, you know, it's that, like, it's almost like what's old is new again, too, because, you know, tic TOCs new. But email marketing is old, and everyone's on tick tock right now, while it's still great, tick tock school emails, more personally, in terms in this more personable? Like you're not, you know, you're not going to get Yeah, you're not going to get strange comments. You're like, Is this person a listener? Or is this not, but you have a history of them, too. You're like, oh, this person has been following me for another year. And then next thing, you know, you're like, these people are like, spreading it like wildfire. And I guess my last piece of advice, I guess, for whoever would be listening to this, is that, especially with with doing a podcast like this, you're gonna get a lot of people that want to tear it down, rather than build it up, especially in the comments. And one thing that I've noticed is if you're asking people, like, if you're asking people to, you know, give feedback, or you're asking people for help on social media, typically, it's crickets. But whenever you post something without asking for feedback, you get the you get the correctors the people who want to correct you with every little thing that, that that said, or that's, that's done with videography, or something, it's like, it's kind of funny. So like, you have to have thick skin as well. Do you want that? No, I'm sure I'm just Yeah, I mean, it's true as well. Yeah. I was heavily on Reddit for a while just like trying to gather guests and, and get my name out there and share, like the podcasts and stuff. And man is Reddit just full of people that just want to just want to say, well, actually, you know, it's, yeah, well, you know, that Anon, Adan amenity of Reddit that that actually shared in a previous episode, like, I just, it's something is uncomfortable, you know, and they're very susceptible. You know, especially with podcasts, or if you even hint at promoting something on Reddit, or you're like, it's taken away. And people you know, marketers love to try and figure out how to crack that Reddit code, but the truth is, like, just go with the path of least resistance like it for sure growing something or getting feedback or any of the things that seem like magic or seem like there's a this complete art to it is really just realizing like, oh, okay, I need to do this, this and this. And it's mostly I've been from what I've seen, it's read it like is, I always find it so fascinating, because it's like, what the it's in the top 10 I think of most popular websites. Yeah. Yep. But we know we know celebrities use it. Yeah. And there's all these like, I mean, presidents have done a amaze on it asked me anything's that's it, but at the same time, like don't promote. It's, I find it fascinating. I love it off. I love a steam episode on Reddit. I'm gonna listen to that. Yeah, right. So podcast, everything steam. You said you're doing bi weekly episodes right now? Yes. On all of the platforms. Yeah, you can grab it on pretty much any platform. I think at least there's like eight or nine of them. I would say if you're really interested. We are also trying to grow YouTube so you want to check it out on YouTube. You can do that as well. We do. Like I said, the science at lightspeed where we have like one minute episodes I also am working on a playlist for React reacting to different like like the stitches that I do on tick tock So that's also on there as well. And then we're putting out we're now putting out every episode that we do on YouTube, which is good, because we're doing face to face stuff. It's a little more personal as well. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me on. This is great. Thank you again for joining me on the podcast today, Sam. Make sure to check out everything steam, which is linked in the show notes. If there's anything that stood out to you in this episode, I would love it if you sent me an email to hello at Digital podcaster.com that helps Future Show topics and episodes. I appreciate you listening very much. I'll talk to you soon.