Buzzcast
Buzzcast is a roundtable discussion about podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We'll cover current events and news, podcast strategy, tools we are using, and dip into the Customer Support mailbag to test our podcasting knowledge. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's working in podcasting, Buzzcast is the show for you.
Buzzcast
Turning Casual Listeners Into Superfans
Your most loyal listeners aren’t just tuning in, they’re fueling your podcast’s growth, engagement, and revenue! In this episode, we unpack what makes a superfan and why cultivating just 1–2% of your audience can make a bigger impact than chasing thousands of casual downloads.
We cover the listener spectrum from casual listeners to community members to superfans, the psychology behind deep connections, and practical strategies you can use to turn passive listeners into advocates for your show. From setting boundaries and personalizing interactions, to creating memorable moments and building community spaces, we share the tools that will help you move beyond downloads and build real, lasting fan relationships!
Mentioned in this episode:
- The Technium: 1,000 True Fans
- Amie McNee: I went on one of the biggest podcasts in the world
- Pat Flynn's book: Superfans
Contact Buzzcast
- Send us a text message
- Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods
Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!
All right, thanks, I just had to turn off my daylight. Your what Daylight? Do either of you have one of those lights that simulates daylight, like a really bright light?
Kevin:No, no, I have windows and a sun.
Alban:Well, I have windows, I have those, we have lots of those in Florida. We have lots of sunlight, but there's these lights that are made for people with seasonal affective disorder, affective something.
Jordan:Is that real? Yes, of course it's real.
Alban:Oh, 100%. Yeah, Kevin, if you lived further from the equator, could you imagine not seeing the sun for like four months? Yeah, but is it a real like disorder? Yeah, it's in the DSM-5. Dsm-5.
Kevin:I don't know what the DSM-5 is All right, this is-. Getting technical I am way out of my depth here. Okay, I'll take your word for it. It's a real disorder. I just don't know anything about it.
Alban:It's just like you feel sad because you're not seeing the sun pretty much. Yeah, okay, and one of the ways to influence people positively is to get a lot of bright light in your eyes sometime during the day so that your circadian rhythms kind of like even out. And some days I wake up doing stuff in the house and then I just go right to work and so I may be not in the sun for the first few hours of the day. So I got this big old light and I turn it on and really bright in my face for the first few hours, just to kind of help wake me up and make me feel like, oh, I was outside today, even if I actually didn't get out in the sun. Does it work? I mean, it's bright for sure.
Jordan:Does it have to be like pointing at your eyes, or can you put it like off to the side, so it's not just like?
Alban:No, it's. It has to get into your eyes, ok, but it's less uncomfortable than you think. I mean, going outside is bright. The outdoors are really bright compared to anything indoors ever. True, that's true. So those are some Lumen facts.
Jordan:Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. I'm so excited about this episode because today we are going to be talking about how to turn your listeners into super fans. I know that's like a big promise and we'll kind of like go into what defines a super fan, but it really is just a handful of your listeners that are going to be responsible for most of your growth engagement, the money that you make, and so it's really important to make sure that you at least have a few of your growth engagement, the money that you make, and so it's really important to make sure that you at least have a few of them. So first, if we look at what defines a super fan, on one end of the listener spectrum we have the casual listeners, and these are the people who like find your show through a search or social media or they just check you out because you popped up on the algorithm and you know, maybe they like the episode, but they don't have a habit of listening or they may not have actually subscribed to your episodes.
Jordan:And then you have the fans and they're like the steady listeners, and these are the ones who will subscribe and follow and you're kind of becoming part of their routine. And then there's the connected community members, and these are the people that are going to follow you on social media. They're going to join your groups and just kind of like, stay connected with your podcast and make sure that they're keeping up to date with your newest episodes. And then after those people who everyone wants, the connected community members but after them are the super fans and they're the ones that show up every week. They've listened to every episode, maybe twice over, and they will send in the fan mail, they'll send in voice memos, they will buy merch, they're going to bring friends, they're going to recommend you to everybody and they're, like, actually invested in your podcast. So definitely taking casual listeners up to that end of things is exciting.
Kevin:Yeah, I like the name super fans for sure. Not saying that we shouldn't use that, but I've always considered these people like advocates that's the word I would use. I would say they're like your podcast advocates. Does that feel the same to you guys? Do you feel like we could use those interchangeably?
Alban:Yeah, yeah, I think when you talk about like a business funnel, from awareness all the way down to considering and making a purchase, the final level is an advocate for the brand Right, not just someone who will purchase but will actively go out and tell people about the product and get people other people to buy it.
Kevin:Exactly.
Alban:But, funny enough, I had a third word, which is true fans, because I'm thinking of Kevin Kelly's blog post. A thousand true fans this is from I don't know 2008, where Kelly is going through kind of the dynamics of the internet and is making the case. You know, if you're a band, you used to have to have tons of fans so that you could get any monetization off the ground. But if you really think about it now, with the way the internet's set up, you just need a thousand people that are true fans, that really love what you do and are willing to pay. So it's not a thousand listeners to your podcast, it's a thousand people who write in, who advocate, who care. And the reality is it's much better to have a thousand people who really care about what you do versus millions of people who are just like, well, yeah, that's a good episode. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Like you want a few people who love what you do.
Alban:Yeah, 2008. That was kind of a mind blowing blog post to read and I think now we all kind of take it for granted that, yeah, all you really need are a thousand people that really love what you do and you have a business opportunity. But that was not the case. You know 2006, 2007,. People didn't understand it.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:Right, and just to clarify the point of that, wasn't that you need a thousand true fans, or advocates, or super fans in order to podcast successfully?
Alban:No, the point was, if you have a thousand, that can be a full-time job, versus when people would think. You need actually millions of listeners to even sell concert tickets. You need to be on the radio so everyone knows your show, so that when you go to town you can sell out a show. Kevin Kelly is making the argument. No, actually, if you have a thousand people online that are diehard fans, then you can actually make a business just off that. That can be your full-time thing, and it was an argument of it's much more accessible than we imagine.
Jordan:Yeah, this reminds me of a Substack article that I read. It was featured in Pod News and it's Amy McNee. She's an author and she said I went on one of the biggest podcasts in the world and it didn't sell any books, and she was talking about how she got invited because Jay like read her book and she was like, oh my gosh, like this is going to be it, this is going to make me blow up. And so she like went on the podcast and everyone's like texting her like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is it for you. And then, I don't know, a couple months later, I guess, nothing happened. She did not sell any other books, and so she realized that there wasn't going to be some sort of like big break that was going to, like you know, skyrocket your sales or make you a bunch of money or get you a bunch of like avid fans. It's going to be the people that are already fans of what you're creating, and those are the ones that you have to pay attention to.
Alban:Yeah, I might contrast this with a few weeks ago. We talked about Stephen Colbert leaving. We were like, oh, should Stephen Colbert start his own podcast? Oh, yeah, and there was the Nate Silver article where he said I used to go on things like Stephen Colbert and it never sold any books. But if I go on what he called a niche podcast, that's the right audience, it will sell books.
Alban:We all kind of confuse raw impression numbers and actual engagement, which might turn into book sales or paying for something. There's another piece of the equation which is how likely is this audience to resonate with my message? And so, yeah, it's great to get a huge audience. Everyone wants the Super Bowl at level awareness, but you've got to reach the right audience. And then what I take from the super fans and true fans, all of this is there actually are some people you are perfect for and there's a lot of people who might go. That's nice and there's a real value in finding who those super fans are. Who are the people who will say this is my favorite podcast, this is what I truly love, versus somebody else who might say, yeah, me and 500 other people kind of like it.
Jordan:Yeah, we're touching on this right now, but super fans are definitely worth obsessing over. It's worth like putting a lot of effort and energy into because they make up 20% of your overall engagement, even though they're like a smaller number, and they're also word of mouth marketers. So they're gonna be the people like telling everyone about your podcast and sharing it and saying you have to listen to this and posting stories about it on Instagram. And then, if you're monetizing and sharing it and saying you have to listen to this and posting stories about it on Instagram, and then if you're monetizing, nielsen Research actually did a study I think it was like last year or something, and it was about how super fans are super spenders and it was basically talking about how, if someone is a super fan of a podcast, they're 60 to 70% more likely to purchase products from that podcast and they drive the most subscription support, merch sales, live ticket sales, all those kinds of things. So if you're wanting to also monetize your podcast, then it's definitely worth putting time into your audiences. So this is kind of becoming a little bit of like a hot term in this year and I'm hearing it a lot, but I think it's really important when we're talking about super fans and making sure that we understand, like the psychology and also the boundaries that need to be put in place with super fans.
Jordan:And that's because podcasts are such a strong force for parasocial bonds, such a strong force for parasocial bonds. So a parasocial relationship if you haven't heard it, you probably have heard this term before but it's basically like when you're in this sort of like one-sided relationship with somebody that you like listening to or watching on YouTube or things like that, it's like you know this person so well that you feel like you're actually like really good friends, but they don't know you at all. And we actually had one of our super fans. We would say write in about this. Sara from Wish I'd Known Then said I'm definitely a super fan of Buzzcast and Buzzsprout. I've been thinking about why, and I think it comes down to two things connection and value. So I'm paraphrasing here. She says hearing team members and even the co-founders on the podcast or at conferences makes it feel personal, like I know them. And on top of that, buzzsprout provides real value through its easy to use tools and commitment to open podcasting.
Alban:So I like the idea of a parasocial relationship. I like that. It's like using it as a term I find it useful. I really dislike the name. Parasocial to me has this connotation of like parasite and you know it's one way. It's almost seems like it's saying it's unhealthy, and maybe it is. If there's like an obsession level there. Maybe there's like a level.
Alban:Yeah it's not good, but I have lots of podcasters that I've listened to for 10 years and I feel a connection. Because I've listened to him for so long, I know lots about their views. The way they see the world is interesting. You know, you know personal anecdotes that you've probably heard them say the names of some of their family members. You kind of have an idea of where in the world they live. I find that to be a really valuable thing. You know something that allows you to feel a bit more connection to the podcast. Or you know, even I get this to a lesser extent with maybe bloggers or YouTubers- yeah.
Alban:But every time I hear it when people talk about it, it's almost like it's a negative, where they're like oh yeah, people think they know you and they don't really know you, which is kind of true. But on the other hand, like a lot of our super fans, I feel like they do know us a fair amount, you know, and I've talked to people at podcast conferences. It's not like they know fake things about us. They actually do know some of the hobbies we're into and our views on podcasting and if they've listened for a long time, you know, sometimes there could be a pretty big, large wealth of knowledge. So I don't know, I've always kind of bristled at that phrase because it always seems like it's paired with like a negative connotation.
Kevin:Yeah, I agree A hundred percent. I mean, the para prefix is just meaning the one-sided relationship, but usually in a connotation that it only benefits one of the parties, right, and I don't think that's true in podcasting. I think it's more of a symbi-social relationship. Did you just invent that?
Alban:I think.
Kevin:I did invent that I've never heard it before but it is one side in that one party knows the other party and the other party doesn't really know what's happening. But there are mutually beneficial things that are occurring on both sides. So one person might be getting entertainment or education or something, and while they're receiving that benefit, they're also getting to know somebody. The other side of that relationship is, as the podcaster, you might not be getting to know your audience, but by having fans you're building a following, you're building influence, so you are benefiting as well. It reminds me of I can't remember the names of those fish that like ride on the bottom of the bigger fish, like they ride on sharks and they ride on whales and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like the big whale doesn't even know that these little fish are just like riding on them all the time.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:But for the little fish they're like eating the algae and stuff off the bigger fish and they love the bigger fish. They're like this big fish is great, it's growing all this algae, I'm getting all this free food and the big fish is just like. I have no idea what's going on because I'm just too big and I don't have eyes down there, but for some reason I don't have any algae on me, and this is awesome.
Alban:I love that we tried to. I'm like I don't really like this parasocial relationship. You're like, yeah, symbiotic relationship, symbisocial, symbisocial. And then you come up with it, Send by social, Send by social, and then you come up with it's kind of like we're the giant whale and our listeners are eating the algae off of us.
Kevin:I'm just saying we might not even know. You know we don't know them like they know us. Yeah, yeah, but there is a benefit on both sides, and without the listeners we'd have algae all over. So that's just what I'm at the end of the day.
Alban:Yeah. Another reason why it's not one sided is we know we're podcasting. It's not like this is the Truman show, where our lives are being broadcast without other knowledge, and then it's like, wow, that really isn't cool. Yeah, we're intentionally like, very intentionally, we show up every week and we record and Jordan intentionally edits it and puts it out. Yes, we're hoping people listen, we hope they build a connection with the show. And the joy is when you go to a podcast conference and someone like Dee comes up and says, hey, I've been listening for a long time and then what might have been a one-sided relationship for a little while becomes two-sided and we get to know her. Yeah, and Sarah Rossett comes up to the booth and we get to know her and you just start to connect with people over time rather than it being, you know, one sided. So I like your new name, kevin the symbisocial relationships. That's what we need to be building.
Jordan:So maybe parasocial relationships are reserved for the fans and listeners, like somewhere in there, and then once you get into the super fan realm, then you get into that like symbi-social, where you start getting to know them as well and there's like a deeper relationship and connection there.
Alban:So maybe that's the goal.
Jordan:We want to get out of the parasocial relationships and move into something a little bit better, right?
Kevin:Yeah, or at least I like recognizing that there is a benefit on both sides of the relationship. So I think the term comes from this place of the relationship is really only one-sided. But it's really not. It's only one-sided in terms of the personal knowledge of somebody. We don't know a lot about a lot of our listeners, but we do know some. But regardless of kind of where they are on that fan spectrum, there is some benefit and so I don't like the term. That just feels like one side of the relationship is leeching off of the other.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:Yeah.
Alban:And the whole point of this episode is that the super fans are the ones who provide disproportionate value to the podcast. Yes, they're the ones who are willing to advocate. They're the ones who leave five-star reviews. They're the ones who write in on fan mail. They're the ones who show up when we go to a conference or we have a meetup. They're the podcasters who give us feedback when maybe we said something and they're like that really didn't land well, here's a better way you could have said it. That really didn't land well, here's a better way you could have said it. Like every bit of the things we say we want, almost 80% of it comes from something like 2% of our listeners.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:And 98% of our listeners. We appreciate everybody, but it's like there's 2% that are disproportionately valuable because they provide so much of the feedback and engagement and so, yeah, I really think it's so valuable to us and the opportunity that we have as podcasters is, how do we cultivate the one to 2% so that we have even more fans of that level?
Kevin:Correct, and this is such an important topic in podcasting, because so many people in podcasting are only focused on those download numbers and if you listen to the show for any amount of time you've heard us talk about, like, don't focus on the numbers.
Kevin:The numbers have to be so huge before you're going to get any sort of meaningful monetization out of just straight up downloads that, like you might be better off buying a Powerball ticket. The odds are probably slightly better, but not much. To be honest with you, pat Flynn wrote a book called Superfans and the sort of the key takeaway from that book was that, instead of like competing for attention in a market, he encourages you to focus on building relationships and he's making the point that a small group of dedicated superfans can drive more growth and long-term success than chasing, like, thousands and thousands of passive followers. But so many people just fall into that trap of if I just get my download numbers to 5,000 downloads an episode or 10,000 downloads an episode or 20,000 downloads an episode. First of all, it's almost impossible. It's so hard to achieve that and when you do, the money's still not great.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:You could be doing 10,000 downloads an episode and you're still kind of I don't know what. What would that turn into Jordan? A couple hundred dollars a month, maybe.
Jordan:Uh yeah, I would think so.
Kevin:Right, not a business.
Jordan:A lot of these, like marketing and ad agencies, require you to have 20,000 downloads to even have a conversation with them, to even be considered to work with them or with networks, things like that. But the thing is is if you just had like a handful of subscribers, you can make that money way faster than if you had tens of thousands of downloads. It's so much easier.
Kevin:And easier, not just in terms of the number of these types of fans that you need, but easier in terms of you have more control over it. It's very hard to move your podcast from 100 downloads to 500 downloads, to 1,000 downloads, to 5,000, to 10,000 to 20,000. Scaling that up is very hard. It can be very expensive. Creating super fans that's not the process at all. That's about sharing your life. That's about being real. It's about being personal and creating memorable moments. Doing things as simple as like inside jokes to make people feel connected with you and serving them again, teaching them or making them laugh or whatever it is that you're podcasting for. Whatever your why is connecting that to a group of listeners is what builds them into super fans. And that's why it's not going to be everybody, because everybody who tunes into your show is not going to connect with all the things that you say, but a few will. And if you keep leaning into that, if you keep exposing more of who you are and they keep seeing that, then it starts to spread and you start to create a snowball effect as well. Because what if? Like? My term for super fans is advocates? And what advocates do? They go out and tell other people about it. Yeah, and so as soon as you build one, that one could turn into two or three, and the two or three could turn into nine and the nine could turn into.
Kevin:Now I'm here, it goes, my math, what's nine? 27. But that is self-sustaining and growing as opposed to. Okay, I've got to. You know, 50,000 downloads an episode. How do I get to 60? How do I get to 70? Well, they're, they're just passive listeners. They're not out marketing your podcast, they're not telling all their friends and neighbors about it. You've got to spend money to continue to promote your show and to continue to market your show, and that burden, still, it still falls on you.
Jordan:Yeah, and I like what you said about like making sure that you are authentic and like exposing yourself, but there's a little bit of a threshold to that too. There's a boundary line that you don't want to cross. Yeah, you want to connect with your listeners and you want to make them feel like they're old friends or something like that, but you can't give them too much information, and I don't know if this is like actually thing, but you don't want to like self-docs yourself, and so you need to make sure that you have like healthy boundaries with your listeners too. You know, if they expect you to write back to every message, and then pretty soon they're like harassing you or something like that because you don't write them back, like that's not good either.
Alban:Yeah, I mean, I think that this is a little bit more difficult, I think, probably for women, just because, kevin, I think the fear of someone showing up, while really negative, is not the same as if you're a woman podcasting. I would not say where you live, you know you don't want to give people that information. I think that anything that crosses over from online persona to personal life there is a line that you try to keep. Yeah, I never post any photos of my daughter out on the public web. It doesn't feel like a smart idea, you know, because there's lots of people out in the world and one out of every hundred thousand people is going through a psychotic break or something. You're not a great person, so you just don't want to become the target of that.
Kevin:It is one of the reasons I really enjoy audio podcasting over video podcasting. I feel like audio podcasting really puts the content and the ideas forward and when stuff in the video space or the social space whether it be photo sharing or video sharing or short sharing or all that kind of stuff oftentimes you will come across content that I don't know. I don't want to be pessimistic about any creators out there that exist, but you can see that it would be easy for a large swath of a population to become infatuated with the way somebody looks or presents, but it's not necessarily the content that they're following this person for.
Jordan:And.
Kevin:I don't think that happens very much in podcasting. When I'm listening to audio podcasts I might have a persona in mind of what this person kind of looks like in real life. But oftentimes I have really have no idea and that's not an important part of the relationship or the connection that I have with that podcast. It's what they're saying, it's their ideas, it's the entertainment, it's the education, it's the conversation, it's the exploration of ideas and concepts. That's what I'm connecting with.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:And the visual side of it and oftentimes you know what is then associated with the negative infatuation side that comes along with. That is very much absent from audio podcasting.
Alban:Yeah, I mean. The difference is when we go to conferences, people who have been on the YouTube channel get recognized much more than people who haven't been on our YouTube channel. And the reason is sometimes somebody will hear your Jordan laughing, turn and go. Oh, is Jordan here?
Kevin:I think Jordan gets recognized more for her laugh than anything else.
Alban:For her look is the nature of the medium. If you're a YouTuber like Casey Neistat and you make any level of fame, you're skateboarding around New York. Millions of people know what you look like and are just shouting at you the whole time and that's just like. That's what you get when you become famous from YouTube. And there is something really nice about. I could probably see Sarah Koenig. You know one of the most famous podcasters and not know it was Sarah Koenig.
Kevin:Like.
Alban:I've seen a picture of her, but it wouldn't be like instantly recognize her.
Jordan:I wouldn't recognize her.
Alban:Ira Glass. I think if I saw Ira Glass, if you said, is Ira Glass one of these three people, I'd get it, but besides that, I'd be like you didn't jump out to me who it was. Yeah.
Kevin:This literally happened to me the first time I met Jordan. I don't know if you remember this, jordan, but we met at a podcast conference, I can't remember which one it was. You were facing away from me. You walked over towards the booth. You were facing away from me talking to somebody, and I recognized your voice and I'm like oh, that's Jordan. And I think I said it out loud and you turned around and you said was it the hair Cause she if you've ever seen her in person, her hair is recognizable. Yeah, and I said no, it was your voice. And we said you know, hi, we introduced them. It was the first time I met you, but I recognized your voice first. You know I had seen a picture of you, but I didn't really I don't know, I didn't know it well enough to pick you out of a crowd.
Jordan:But, as you were. That's funny. I don't remember that, but that sounds exactly like something I would say. Yeah, I think influencers and YouTubers do have a lot more to worry about with like getting recognized or people developing like infatuations for them, rather than podcasters. But I mean it does happen to podcasters as well.
Jordan:There was a story I want to say a year or two ago about a podcaster that got a stalker, you know, unfortunately, and it didn't end so well. And I remember when I first started I think a lot of podcasters will do this, probably because you don't expect people to care or recognize you in a way. So I had set up like a Patreon when I first started, and whenever someone would subscribe I would have their address and I would send them a thank you card with a sticker for subscribing. And then I remember I got my first package to my house and it was from a listener, and I went oh no, I need to put a PO box on those letters, and so I went and got a PO box and so that's not in there anymore, but I just I didn't think anyone would care enough to do something like that. You know it, just it didn't occur to me.
Kevin:Yeah.
Kevin:But now that I'm older and wiser I know you do not put your address on anything during working towards building super fans, and I think one of the key strategies for building super fans is to interact with people one-on-one and, as you can engage in that, remembering details about them. So it's not always we've been talking about what are the appropriate boundaries, about what you share with your life, with your audience. But once you get that connection back, once you get that piece of fan mail, once you meet somebody in person, once you get a voicemail or you get an email, being able to respond to that and then turning the conversation around to focus on them and what is real about their life and what you can remember about them, that is what's really going to make that connection happen for them.
Jordan:Yeah, like show that you care about them instead of just saying that you do.
Kevin:Yeah, that's right.
Jordan:Let's actually get into, like the strategies to convert listeners super fans. So, yeah, I would say that really paying attention to your listeners and engaging with them is great. Obviously, consistency. So you need to show up for your listeners when you are going to publish an episode and make sure that you're consistent with it, because if you are just posting an episode like haphazardly, like maybe you do one every week for a little bit and then you skip a couple months and then you come back for a week and then you skip a couple of weeks again, they're probably going to tune out. They're not going to be as engaged as opposed to if you become a regular routine in their schedule.
Alban:I mean, that's just good advice for friendship, it's true.
Alban:If you tell people I'm gonna show up to trivia on Wednesday night and you don't show up half of the time, eventually people are gonna be like, yeah, I really liked that guy, but I don't really see him all that much, so it never really feels easy. And so, being consistent, paying know, paying attention to people when someone does share, I always find this strange when people write in to a podcast and podcasters are like, oh, it was nice to get that, but I didn't talk about it at all. I'm like, put yourself in their shoes. They're listening to a show, they know a lot about you, they like you, and then they took the time to write something saying I really appreciated this about your last episode. And then, if you ignore it, then to them it feels like, oh, the first time I reached out they said, no, I'm not interested. You actually want to kind of honor the effort of your listeners, of your super fans, who say I really enjoy this podcast, and thank them because they're the reason you actually have a show to do in the first place.
Jordan:Yeah, that being said, when people write in, it's not always easy for us to work that kind of stuff into the episode. But just letting listeners know like hey, I actually do read all of those messages Um, I do that on dreamful all the time. Like I will tell them like hey, thank you so much for sending in the fan mail. I read all those messages. It means so much. And then I get on with the episode, like just making sure that they know that you're reading it, even if you're not responding or you get too much of it. That's always good too.
Kevin:Yeah, that's really good.
Kevin:I like that and I like the idea of we've cut back on the amount of fan mail that we read on the show.
Kevin:We always have a very long segment at the end and it was just starting to consume too much of the podcast and so now we're being a little bit more selective and we're pulling the pieces of fan mail that fit into the topics that we're discussing on the day.
Kevin:But I still imagine, like we talk about this idea of doing fan mail episodes where we just kind of go through all the ones that we never got to before, or having special mailbag episodes where we talk about unique questions or topics that were brought up by people in female so or just like you said, jordan, just even acknowledging that this show isn't a place where I read out the fan mail that comes in, but it's very meaningful to me, it keeps me motivated, keeps me podcasting and thank you so much. If communication comes in in different formats, like the social media channels that you're active on, or email and other opportunities where you have an opportunity to respond through the medium which it came in, then I would agree, take the opportunity to at least respond and just say thank you so much. That means a whole lot. It doesn't have to take minutes and minutes of your day just to write a thank you back to somebody.
Jordan:That's so true. I think it's a really good idea to invite your listeners to participate in your podcast. It makes them feel like a little bit of a sense of ownership. With the podcast, you can work in a Q&A, you can work in fan mail, voicemail. Conan O'Brien he's got that weekly fan-based episode and it's so funny because he cares so much about his fans that he's actually working the fans into the podcast and so he's episodes where he just has like this super fan on and he just talks to them and I think that's just such a cool thing to do because it's separate from his regular podcast. But he felt like it was like special enough and I really think that those people must have just felt so honored and then also shared his podcast like a million times to be like look, I was on this.
Alban:Yeah, jordan, you put this in the outline and now I'm thinking I really like the idea of how do you create a community that's adjacent to the podcast, because we just talked a bit about it. Can be hard to respond to all the fan mail and all the boostograms when we used to do that, and it would just feel like it was 20 minutes and five seconds of it were meaningful to one person, but to most people it was like none of it was meaningful to them, and it does make me think there is a value in the two-way communication, whether that be social media or like a private text message chain or a WhatsApp group or Discord or something. I'm not really proposing this, but I am wondering would it be a valuable thing for even a show as small as ours to have, like, hey, we have a WhatsApp group and there ends up being like 30 people in there and it's just where people can share ideas for the show and chat about the show, and then the three of us are members of it.
Jordan:I mean, our listeners can tap the text, the show link in the show notes and let us know if they'd want to be involved in something like that. Right, yeah?
Alban:It's one of the things if it went well, I could see being awesome, and if it went poorly, it could be such a burden on everyone We'd be like. Well, no one ever writes in the group and you know it's never any fun or it's a nightmare to moderate. And the three of us don't show up, and then, when we do, people are fighting.
Kevin:I don't know if we have to kill the whole idea there. Like I think you're onto a tactic that might be right for some shows, but it's not necessarily going to be right for every show. But that might be right for some shows, but it's not necessarily going to be right for every show. But the bigger point is probably right for every show and that is figure out a way to connect with your audience, to get those people who want the next level of engagement, provide opportunities for them to step into that.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:There's nothing worse, I think, for like a fan.
Kevin:I've been a fan of musicians and stuff over time and it's tough sometimes when, like I want to go to the next level, I want to learn more about them, I want to figure out how did they get into songwriting, are they actively recording, are they planning any tours for the next year or whatever, and I go online and I start searching for this stuff and I can't find anything. It's like, okay, you put out some music, but like other than that, you're a ghost. This is terrible. I can't become a super fan, like I'm trying to, and I can't because you haven't provided me any opportunities to do that. So, whether it's a discord or a WhatsApp group or just a webpage where you put a little bit more information about it, or a fan mail link in the description of your podcast or whatever, provide, figure out what's right for you and provide your fans the opportunity to take the next step on that listener spectrum of you know, casual listener all the way up to super fan to be able to progress through the journey. Yeah.
Jordan:And I mean, if you're having a hard time getting people to actually communicate and engage in those groups, you can always do small challenges or have them like ask questions for them to share information about themselves and connect with each other on that. And some podcasts including like true crime podcasts and stuff they'll do book clubs in their like community groups and it's so funny because just like once a month they'll like do a post and then everyone just like talks about the book that they just read. So there's so many things like that you can do. And actually Wits and Weights podcast wrote in to our fan mail and they kind of pulled a Conan O'Brien here. They said one of my super fans reached out and said my show helped him start lifting weights and walking because the information was so practical and sustainable. He had been quietly implementing what he learned and in his case it has literally saved his life because he lost over 300 pounds.
Alban:Holy cow, yeah so.
Jordan:I invited him on as a guest because he's a huge inspiration and it's humbling to hear from a fan like that, and I'm so grateful for a platform that lets me share what has helped me so I can help others. I think that's so cool.
Alban:Yeah, I want to go listen to that episode. What a, what an incredible feeling to do a show and then someone reach out and say, oh, this had such a massive impact on my life. That's incredible.
Jordan:Yeah, I think they said that the episodes coming out like next week or something like that, so we'll have to keep an eye out for that. Okay, so some other strategies for making your listeners into super fans obviously be authentic. Be yourself. So this means talking a little bit more about yourself. This is why we have the post show. I guess it's not why we have the post show. We didn't say like let's make super fans through a post show. It was more of just like a let's just do this thing because it would be fun to do for the people that like stick around to the bitter end of the podcast.
Kevin:And I think it actually had a benefit that we weren't exactly expecting of turning listeners into people that like knew us a little bit on a deeper level, because we are sharing all of our personal stories, even if it's weird or embarrassing A lot of times if you stick around for those you know the idea of the post show and I'm not claiming that it was my idea, but I am saying that the idea of a post show resonated with me because years ago I heard a conference speaker talking about this idea of byproducts, which is you're doing things anyway and as a result of doing things, there's oftentimes byproducts of those things. And so if you're a woodworker, you're cutting up wood all day and at the end of the day you're left with sawdust. And so, like then, woodworking factories and wood processing plants figured out that they could sell that sawdust because it could be used for other things. You can make particle board out of it, you can make gunpowder out of it, there's whatever. There's a lot of different uses for sawdust, and so it was just a byproduct of something they were doing anyway, and it turned out to have value beyond just sweeping it up and throwing it away. The challenge was think about what you're doing anyway. What are the byproducts of that, and is that of any value? Can you turn it into value?
Kevin:And for us, the post show it was one of those things we would get on to record the episode and just to sort of warm up our voices and get the energy levels up.
Kevin:We were having conversations that weren't about the outline, and sometimes those would take place in the beginning, sometimes they would take place at the end, and so at some point we just said why are we not recording this and putting it together? You know people tune into this podcast to hear about podcasting, but the more people can connect with us and hear maybe a funny story that's going on in a personal life or in the business or something like that, some people might like it. It's not valuable enough that we want to interrupt the main content of the episode for that, so let's stick it at the end. If anybody wants to stick around and hear about this funny thing that happened to one of us over the weekend, great. If not, the episode's over for you at the closing theme song and you can move on. That is just a byproduct that pretty much came for free, minus Jordan's editing time, so not discounting that she does work on those post shows to make them, you know, compelling and tight a little bit a little bit.
Kevin:But the larger point being is that you're going to have some byproducts of the things that you're doing. So whether you're you know, whether you're you're just doing your podcast, or you're using your podcast because you do a coaching business, or you're you're a comedian or whatever, there's going to be byproducts of that. So if you can use some of those to create shorts or to create a post show or to create funny social media posts, or you come up with a catchphrase in one of your episodes, use it again and again in more catchphrases, and then you have something to put on a sticker or whatever. Those byproducts are that kind of fall out of what you're doing anyway. Those allow people to engage at again at just the next level.
Kevin:There You're helping people take one step at a time on this journey to super fandom or advocate or Sim. By what relationship? Sim by social Sim by social relationship. Right, like, how fun is it for us when we, when we go to a conference and not only do we get an opportunity to meet people, but I just see somebody walking by and they've got a you know one of our stickers on their laptop. I'm like, oh my gosh, how cool is that.
Alban:I think the the post-show first off. That was your idea, so I think you do get credit for it, it was yeah.
Alban:The other is it makes the hosts feel a little bit more 3d Like. What you know about them is a little bit more rich. Kevin's not just the guy who hates Spotify's way they're acting and podcasting. He's also a dad who's really proud of his daughter who does D1 swimming. And Jordan's not just the person who edits the podcast. She's also really into board games and she hates the humidity. And you learn little things about us.
Jordan:That's my new Twitter bio. You learn little things about us.
Alban:That's my new Twitter bio, but you start learning about people and to some percentage of our fans, that stuff ends up being like oh, I'm also like that. And so when we're at conferences now I've had conversations with people like, oh, I heard you did this run. Yeah, I just did a similar run, and they're telling me about theirs and it's like now we're connected over not just podcasting, which we both love, not just over the show, but now we're connected about some of our hobbies.
Jordan:Yeah, or they're giving you like sock recommendations.
Alban:Alpaca socks. So many people are like oh, I ended up buying those socks.
Kevin:And I'm like oh, I've actually experimented with some new socks, those first socks, those were just the gateway socks.
Alban:Now I'm onto the hard stuff. Oh man, yeah, I. Uh, we will have to do an update on the socks.
Kevin:Yeah, pat Flynn calls them. I think that it's been a while since I read the book, but I think he calls them something like memorable, memorable moments or something like that, and so I was calling them byproducts. But memorable moments is probably a better way to define that, like giving your audience an opportunity to create memorable moments, to be able to connect with you, to take that relationship, like to deepen that relationship.
Alban:My youngest brother does not create any sort of content, so he does this just in his personal life, not as a content creator, but he is a super fan of franchises. He loves the Office, he loves Yankees baseball, he loves Jaguars football. If he gets into something, he knows everything about it and he tells everyone about it and so you learn about it. And then when people want to connect to him, it's really easy because they're like oh, I saw this rerun of an office episode and it reminded me of you, and people who know he has expensive pens will end up giving him a pen for his birthday. A lot of opportunities for people to connect when they want to Some people who kind of are a bit more secretive, which is much more comfortable in personal lives.
Alban:You're not vulnerable. You know. No one tells you like office, what a dumb show which my brother gets. Sometimes when he says what he loves, people say no, that's silly. But what he gets in return is the people who want to connect. It's very easy for them to connect to them, and I think that's a little bit of what we're doing. You're being vulnerable in a way that people are probably most of the time rolling their eyes, going like good grief, do we really need to hear about like someone's sock exploration? But for some people that are like really into oh no, I really like thinking through what I'm wearing, you know my clothes choices Then for them they're like oh, this is like a kindred spirit. This is someone I connect to.
Jordan:Yeah, and this doesn't just apply to independent podcasters or individual creators, because kind of what Sarah had written in earlier about how, through the value that she gets from Buzzcast and Buzzsprout and she feels like she's connected with us so much. I mean this goes even to like branded podcasts where you get to know the people behind the brand and so you know you can share like origin stories behind the scenes stuff. I mean we do this all the time where we let listeners in on our thinking behind some things, or we also will let them in on an experiment that we're doing that isn't available to all BestBuy users, right, right, and I think that that also creates a stronger bond with our listeners and with the customers on platform.
Kevin:Yeah, we're going to do that today At the end of this episode. Stick around for the post show as we tease something.
Alban:I have no idea what this is. I don't either. I'm so excited, keys. I have no idea what this is. I don't either. I'm so excited. Sometimes Kevin writes a check that we have to cash. I'm going uh-oh, what's this going to be?
Jordan:Are we doing the buzz cruise Finally?
Alban:Kevin's like we're doing a buzz cruise.
Jordan:Jordan and Alban are playing it All right. So another tip for creating super fans is to make sure that you are giving personalization to your listeners, and so these are like little things, little interactions Kevin even mentioned this like paying attention to what your listeners say and kind of banking that for later so that when you have a next interaction with them, you can follow up with them about you know their dog that they mentioned, or something like that. So make sure that you pay attention. When they write in, you can um, don't be creepy about it, but you can look at their social profile. I've done this before with listeners that will write in like sometimes I'll go find them on social media and then I'll just let them know like hey, I saw that you celebrate your birthday recently. That's so cool. Most people are very excited that I have connected with them on something and I actually like sought them out.
Kevin:This is one thing that the Buzzsprout customer success team does so well and, depending day to day how busy they are, there are days when there are hundreds of support tickets that are coming in and they're just trying to get everybody the best answer they can as quickly as possible. There are days where it's a little bit slower and so they have a little bit more time to get to know the people that they're helping, and I know that everybody on the team loves to do this when time allows and somebody writes him a question and they end up looking into the podcast and helping them, you know, taking screenshots or whatever they're doing to answer the question. They might also click on one of their podcast episodes and listen a little bit and then, when they write back in the response, they say here, you asked this question, here's how you do exactly that, and it took a few seconds to listen to your episode, and I can't wait to try that banana bread recipe that you mentioned in episode 143 this weekend.
Jordan:So cool yeah.
Kevin:So encouraging, it's so rewarding. You know, usually when they have time to do that, the people always write back and just be like that's amazing, I can't believe. You listened to that. Thank you so much. Of course, you did a great job answering my question, but that's like almost not relevant anymore. Yeah, because you just created this magical personal moment with somebody who reached out to you for something completely unrelated, and then you just personalized it and just did something really special.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean, people just want to feel seen right, they want to feel seen, they want to feel understood, they want to feel heard, and so just the little tiny steps that you can take to make people feel that way is going to really strengthen that relationship with you. And I think that's probably just a tip for life, like what Alban was saying, just a friendship tip Show up and pay attention to people.
Alban:Yeah, as we talk, I'm remembering more and more stories of reaching out to creators online.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:And some that responded that made me feel really good and others that responded in a way that I felt like disconnected from the stuff they were creating. One that was really nice was a podcast. It was just about books they started getting into like crypto and they were getting into they're using the fountain app to interact with their audience and they're like hey, we're testing out this boost to grams thing. I had a wallet so I loaded it up with a little bit more money, I sent him a boost and I have a unique name and I'd listened to this for a while. One of the hosts found me on Twitter and sent me a message and was like hey, you're the first one to send us one. Thank you so much, really appreciate it and would love to know what you thought about some. You know some episodes and then you know, we ended up like chatting on the phone a few times and I start we messaged back and forth about episodes.
Kevin:Alban has no boundaries. I had him over for dinner and I babysat their kids.
Alban:I uh, that particular thing didn't happen, but I'm sure I could find an example of meeting someone online and people are like you kind of became friends with that person a little too fast. But yeah, it ends up being like a very positive experience. Others have been a podcast that said hey, if you man another Boostergram story. They said, if you send us a Boostergram we will talk about it on the show. And I did. I know it went through and they never talked about it and so for two or three weeks I kind of listened to them and thinking I wonder if they're going to mention what I wrote in. And then they never did and you're kind of like I feel just like a little disconnected from the brand. You made the promise. I did the thing.
Jordan:Yeah, there's no follow through.
Alban:There's no follow through.
Kevin:Yeah no-transcript word of mouth army to promote the nation for Girl Dad Nation, like I don't know, just seems like he's put some thought behind it and that is also stuff that super fans would get into, would hook into, would use that same terminology. I imagine if somebody who is a super fan of Girl Dad Nation meets him in person, they might say something like I'm part of your army, or something.
Jordan:Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, singers have this.
Alban:Swifties.
Jordan:Why can't podcasters? Oh, you know what Crime junkies.
Kevin:Yeah, I don't know what crime junkie fans are called. Are they called junkies?
Jordan:They're called crime junkies. It's not very creative, but you know crime junkie junkies yeah.
Kevin:We haven't latched onto this for buzzsprout, but I've heard people who come up to us at conferences and they say, like I'm a buzzy or buzzsprouter, buzzsprouter there's.
Jordan:I've heard sprout head before Sprout Head.
Kevin:Yeah, right. So if we were smart and strategic, we would have a name for people who are fans of Buzzsprout and for people who are fans of Buzzcast.
Jordan:And then we make merch for it.
Kevin:Buzzcast Junkies.
Alban:Yeah, buzzcast Junkies. We need a better name for the Buzzcast nation.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:So maybe if people send those in Sproutheads didn't land a sprouties hasn't worked, but I'm sure there there's, there's one out there.
Jordan:There's gotta be something.
Kevin:Yeah, but the point this is circling around is it's like you create these moments, some people connect with these moments.
Kevin:Then you make those moments personal by connecting back with them and getting to know them personally, sharing a little bit more about yourself or learning a little bit more about them, and then you're bringing these people together somehow, whether you're, you know, part of the girl dad nation army or you're part of the buzz head crew or something like that. You're, you're bringing them together. You're you're putting a community. We do have that Facebook community. We also have a very active community that's starting on Reddit.
Kevin:We have a couple of different community things. We do meetups once in a while where we bring Buzzsprout customers or Buzzcast fans together in certain areas of the country that our team happens to be at certain times, whether it be a conference or just an all-team meetup that we're doing. But there has to be some way to form, as your super fans or more mature fans are moving through that spectrum of fandom and they're moving up, they're going to want to connect and they're going to want to be connected to something that feels larger than themselves. So I'm not the only whatever Guns N' Roses fan out there in the world. Right, like, who else is a Guns N' Roses fan? And how do we, where's the fan page and who's the fan club chairperson and when are we getting together and all that kind of stuff.
Jordan:Yeah, and I think that one way that you can incentivize or reward your listeners for becoming super fans and, you know, being really connected and being big advocates for your podcast is to make sure that you give them like a sense of like exclusivity.
Kevin:Yeah.
Jordan:We do this all the time with the people in our community groups, with the listeners of Buzzcast.
Kevin:I mean, Kevin, you just teased that in the post show we're going to say something that even I don't know. So I'm kind of in the same.
Jordan:Yeah, I'm in the same boat as our listeners. Right now. I mean, I'm suspended. I'm just so excited. But you can use that to give them like more interactions and so you can provide them with like bonus content. You can give them special private newsletters or behind the scenes content or like our post show after show talk and early access to content. Also taking time to meet these listeners face to face and letting them know if you're going to be in a city, because they are such big fans that they're going to stick around and hear that message from you.
Jordan:So we got another message from Louis, from Love Thy Lawyer, and Louis said excellent and informative episode with Dave Jackson. You discussed how it feels to be met by fans of the podcast and to meet podcasters of whom you are a fan, and as I was listening it occurred to me that I'm a fan. I have met all three of you and I've had the privilege of interviewing two of you for my own podcast. So thanks for all your work and support. I've met all three of you and I've had the privilege of interviewing two of you for my own podcast, so thanks for all your work and support of the indie podcast community.
Alban:Count me as a fan. Thanks, louis. Yeah, I did an episode with Louis beginning of this year. It came out and it was a blast. I mean, if he'd reached out cold I'd have been like I don't know if I want to be on another podcast talking about being a lawyer 10 years ago. But we met at Podcast Movement and I was like I have such a good time talking to you that when he reached out about doing a show, I was like, oh, absolutely.
Jordan:Yeah, because he's a delight.
Alban:Podcast Movement. This year I met someone who was talking to me about college football and he's like I need someone who's a Georgia Bulldog fan to come on. And we talked about Georgia football for so long that he was like you're the guy. I'm like I'm not the most informed, and he's like, no, no, this is fine. And I'm like, ok, I'm in. Maybe if it was a cold email it wouldn't. I wouldn't have gotten super excited about it. But when you know the person a bit, you're, I'm going to still have a good time.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:Yeah, and as we're wrapping this segment up, I just actually prepared something for this episode that I thought would be a great way to close it, and it is a quote from that book that I mentioned earlier the super fans book from Pat Flynn and I flipped through it recently to prepare as we were coming into this episode, and one of the my favorite quotes to pull away from it is Pat says when you become a super fan of something, it's not because of a person, a product, a name or a brand. You become a super fan because of how that person, product or brand makes you feel, and I love that. I thought that when I read the first sentence, I was like wait, it is that right? And then, when he connected it to it's actually the feeling that that person or the brand or the experience you know gives you. That's what makes you a super fan.
Kevin:And so remember that as you set out to connect with your audience in the future and start on that journey of turning casual listeners into super fans, they have to feel something, they have to have. You have to get emotion involved. It's not just the product features or it's not just, you know, getting a laugh. It's feeling something when they interact with you, when they listen to your podcast, when they read your blog posts, when they use your product, when they experience you in person. You want to make them feel known, make them feel seen, make them feel important, make them feel like you care about them and as the more authentic you can do that, the more super fans I think you'll have.
Alban:Well, we wouldn't be doing our job of honoring our super fans if we didn't read some fan mail. So the first one, uh, warren from Jaded HR wrote in I was wondering if you knew of a podcast app that plays podcasts at a consistent volume. One records at a really low volume, luffs, and I turned the volume up. The next is so loud it makes my ears bleed. This blows my mind that this is still a problem really in any form of media on YouTube, on video, on TV, like things should be normalized. We should normalize volume, and podcast apps should do it, podcast hosts should do it, podcasters themselves should do it. And it's wild to me when somebody has an experience where, like you know, the ad is way louder than the podcast itself.
Kevin:Yeah, I am not a sound engineer, but I honestly don't think that we have the technology to do it, sadly enough. Really, I could be wrong about this, but I do think it's a little bit like, you know, sending men to the moon we just don't have the technology to do it yet, or we lost the technology to do it.
Alban:So this is Kevin's luffs conspiracy theory.
Jordan:We lost the technology to normalize audio.
Kevin:Right. So my understanding and this is an amateur's understanding of how loudness works in recorded digital audio files but in order to get that dynamic range so that if I'm speaking very softly it sounds very softly, to you and then if I'm speaking super loud because I'm super excited, you hear it is very loud and very excited.
Kevin:The audio playback engines have to be able to have this dynamic range and you would lose that dynamic range if it tried to normalize everything. And so, because of that, like to counter that instead of playback engines like compressing everything to this very narrow spectrum where everything kind of sounds the same, whether I'm, you know, whispering sweet nothings in your ear or I'm super excited because my team just won the Super Bowl. What they do is they tell you when you record it, record it at these specific specifications.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:And so there is a standard that all podcasts should be mastered to, and I think it's like negative 16 decibels or something like that.
Jordan:I think it's negative 17 loves, or negative 14, depending on who you ask.
Alban:Ooh, I think 16, 19.
Kevin:Just an amateur. There is a standard and all podcasts should be kind of matching that standard and if they do, you don't have to adjust the volume when you go from one podcast episode to another.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:But everybody doesn't do that. It's one of the things that our tool, magic mastering, does automatically for you. So if you're not sure if you're doing it correctly for your podcast, you can just turn on magic mastering and then feel confident that you're helping the world. But there are standards, and that's my understanding of why the playback engines don't do it, because then everything would just kind of sound the same don't do it, because then everything would just kind of sound the same.
Jordan:To remedy this problem, some podcast apps like Pocket Cast and Overcast have added features or tools that you can enable. Overcast has voice boost and then Pocket Cast has volume boost. I know that Warren listens on Pocket Cast, so this might be a feature that he's not aware of. But yeah, in Pocket Cast apparently you can do it on, like certain podcasts or something like that.
Kevin:Yeah, I still think one podcast could still be boosted. It could still be louder than the next one. Yeah, you know, I think voice boost basically is like an EQ setting that kind of brings out the, I think, like mids and high tones more than the low tones, so that it's a little bit easier to hear spoken word.
Jordan:That makes sense.
Alban:Versus, like most car stereos, are kind of tuned to play back to hear music. Well Right, these are not going to remedy all the way. The remedy needs to be mastering or recording, but to me I think they do seem to level it out some. So there might be some normalization that's happening which may fix some of the issues, but like it's one of those problems I just can't believe isn't solved everywhere.
Alban:Like if there's a podcast that records really low volume, there's free tools you can use online to level your audio, get to the right levels. Or you could run magic mastering, you could run offonic, you could run any number of voice cleanup tools and while they may not be as good as magic mastering, they're going to fix this, they're going to get you to the right loudness. But man, it's brutal. I mean we passed laws because of how bad it used to be in the 90s when commercials would play really loud, when the TV show was really quiet. People got so mad about it. We passed laws and yet podcasters are still doing the same thing 30 years later.
Jordan:All right. And then we got another female message from Tom Raftery from Climate, confident and Sustainable Supply Chain, saying I find it ironic that you discussed SEO at the end of the episode, when I followed the advice of last week's episode to roll out subscriptions, only to find that kills the podcast's SEO.
Kevin:Good going, Alban.
Alban:Well wait, Tom, Maybe SEO. Search engine optimization is Google finding freely available information on the web, and it's Google finding things that are being given away for free, and unfortunately, we've all realized that's not the best way to make money online.
Alban:The best way to make money online is to have some things that are free so people find it. And then you have some stuff that's gated and so people have to pay for it. And when you're right, you know putting something behind a paywall does quote unquote kill the podcast SEO because people won't find it for free. But that's the business model of a Buzzsprout subscription.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:So if you paywalled all of your episodes, they are no longer going to be freely available on the web and Google may not find them. It's one of the reasons why people will sometimes paywall just period. You know some of the episodes are the most recent ones. They do early release. You know different strategies have different tradeoffs, but SEO and paid content are always going to be a little bit at odds.
Jordan:Yeah, I'm trying to find, because that was my first thought too was I wonder if he paywalled all of his episodes, because you don't want people to be able to find that information if you want to be just kept for subscribers. Yeah, I found Tom's podcast and it looks like he has the most recent four episodes available to listen to, and then the rest of the back catalog, which is super extensive. Wow, he's got a lot of episodes here are paywalled. So yeah, that could affect it for sure.
Alban:Yeah, it's one of the reasons I mean why it might make sense to have, you know, every other episode be out in the open, because then that's a findable SEO optimized episode, yeah, and then you maybe have the other ones that are going to be paywalled. So those are the entice people to upgrade episodes and you can kind of find the right balance. Ben Thompson from Stratechery does once a week, does a really big blog post. It's always been on the open web. That's where they find the blog, then they share it and they discuss it and then if people really like those Tuesday posts for a while, then eventually they'll upgrade and read the daily posts that are all the other days. So you could look at a strategy like that.
Jordan:So our next episode. What do we? Oh, are you guys good with podcast? Myth busters.
Alban:Yes, I like it.
Jordan:Could be fun.
Alban:Kevin, are you in for that?
Kevin:Yeah, I mean I take pity on Jordan, who has to come up with all the myths that we're going to bust.
Alban:I've got a, I've got a myth that, uh, I believe might've been started by Kevin. It's a good idea Then. Uh, then I keep seeing it show up in blogs for 15 years and people say it like it's gospel and I'm like I'm pretty sure Kevin just said I started something that people are saying like is gospel yeah. And you said it as a this might be a good idea in an old blog post, and it just caught on and then everyone just took it as like this is the only way to launch a podcast.
Jordan:Okay, well, obviously we've got to find that one, because if we could bust Kevin's own?
Alban:thing. What we need to do is get Kevin to bust his own myth. Yeah, there we go. It's not, kevin didn't say it as a myth. Kevin said this is a good idea.
Jordan:And then people idea that people said like no, you must do that. That's what we're going to do for the next episode. So make sure to send in maybe bad advice or weird podcasting rumors that you've heard through the Texas show link in the show notes, and we will try to bust those myths on the next episode.
Kevin:It doesn't have to be bad advice. Sometimes the myth busters say it's confirmed. Oh, that's good, it works.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah, but we don't want people just sending it advice.
Kevin:Well, they confirm it. They say it's plausible somewhere in the middle or it's busted All right?
Jordan:Well, we'll send in advice that could potentially be busted, not just random advice Like. I don't know, I don't know how to what the qualify for this should be. I love this idea to commit to it.
Alban:We need people to really send in some plausible podcast myths.
Kevin:Yeah, and Jordan, you have to load up the actual Mythbusters, like sound effects for busted confirmed all those and we need, we need fully themed Mythbusters, show art and chapter art and all of it All right, I'll get right on that and let's get these, Get them in early fans, because we're going to have to get together and build some contraptions to really test these things out.
Alban:So if you have a podcasting myth, click the text, the show link in our show notes and send them in to us. And, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Kevin:All right, you guys ready to do this live? Oh yeah.
Alban:Yes, but Jordan and I have definitely got some nervous faces right now.
Jordan:We do. I'm apprehensive.
Kevin:Nothing to be nervous about. Okay, I'm going to start with a question, though how do you guys feel about save the dates?
Jordan:If someone invites you to their wedding or something like that.
Kevin:Yeah, just the concept of sometimes you get this thing in the mail and it's not the invitation, it's the save the date.
Jordan:I'd rather just get the invitation and then RSVP and commit to it. You don't like to save the date.
Alban:Well, the save the date is we haven't figured out all the details yet, so we don't need your RSVP, but, like be aware, your cousin is getting married on this day, so you're probably going to go.
Kevin:Or like we're sending this super early, so no excuses. We're taking away whatever excuse you might think you're going to come up with to get out of this thing because we sent a save the date and so you better be there. That sounds anti save the date. That says we're saving, we're saving the date for you better be there.
Jordan:That sounds anti-save the date. That says we're saving the date. We're saving the date for you. We're going to mark this off on your calendar.
Alban:I have no choice, Okay. So what are we saving? The date for Kevin Are we saving?
Kevin:the date, just so we're clear on what this is. I'm communicating this now so anyone listening understands that you have no excuse not to come.
Jordan:Oh, my God, is God, is it a buzz cruise?
Kevin:It's not a buzz cruise. Why do you keep going after that? October 22nd 2025. Approximately six weeks from today. Yeah, the next Buzzsprout meetup is happening in person. Location Tampa Florida.
Alban:Follow-up question.
Jordan:Is it pirate theme?
Kevin:I like. Jordan jumps in with the enthusiasm. Pirates we're going to have pirates. Alban. Jordan jumps in with the enthusiasm.
Jordan:Pirates. We're going to have pirates Alban very conservative, very cautious Question.
Alban:We need some clarifying questions first, First question is is it pirate themed? Question number two are we planning it?
Kevin:Yeah, Well, people on the team are planning it.
Alban:You'll probably have some involvement All right Then let me answer right now and get out ahead of this and say a hundred percent.
Jordan:Whoever we got to send that message up the ladder to, let's do that.
Alban:Yeah, I love it. I know we're going to Tampa as like the larger Buzzsprout team meetup Correct, so we'll all be there to get everyone who's remote together in one place. And one of our favorite things is we in Nashville two years ago, last year, last year Did a small meetup with BuzzProp podcasters and the value is for everyone on the team who doesn't go to conferences a chance once a year to meet real customers and real life is huge because you realize it's real and the work you're doing impacts real people's lives in a meaningful way.
Kevin:Right and I love these local meetups.
Kevin:As we travel around the country just to get together with our team, I love that we can do something small in person and hopefully within I don't know people who are within an hour or two driving distance can come meet us.
Kevin:It's not a big percentage of the podcasting world that has the time or funds or resources or maybe even desire to attend a podcasting conference. You know to take three days out of their schedule, potentially a lot of money, time away from work, time away from family. To come to a podcasting conference doesn't speak to a large percentage of the podcasting world. But if we happen to do a meetup in your area and every year we sort of do them in different, you know different larger cities around the country it's a great opportunity for you. Just hop in your car and come, come meet the team. So I love that you don't have to commit to three days to go to a podcast conference to meet us. We just might be in your neck of the woods at some point in the future. Last year it was in nashville and it was fantastic.
Kevin:I think we had 40 50 people who showed up awesome the majority of those people I had never met before because they don't go to podcast conferences, and so I love that, and so this year we're going to try it again. We're going to tampa this year for our whole team meetup, and so on wednesday, october 22nd, sometime like after work, we will get the details. As Alban said, this is save the date. We don't have the details worked out yet, but mark it on your calendar, no excuses. Meet the Buzzsprout team in Tampa.
Alban:So if you're in Tampa and you're a Buzzsprout maniac or whatever we're going to call our super fans, then we hope to see you there. They'll be fun, kevin, I like that. We're going to do another meetup. Those have always been a blast.
Jordan:I love it too.
Kevin:Yeah, hopefully. I don't know. We don't need to guess numbers. I'm happy at the size that it was in Nashville, but if it happened this year that we you know, we pulled a hundred plus, oh my gosh, that'd be crazy. How fun would that be. How fun would that be? How fun would that be? So if you're a casual listener and you're within a couple hour drive, please plan on attending. We'd love to meet you and see you there. We'll give you some food, we'll give you some drink and some conversation. We'll bring stickers and swag and maybe some t-shirts and stuff. We'll make it worth your time If you are a what was the like? A more medium level listener Jordan.
Kevin:Engaged listener Listener maybe you can drive, maybe you live within two or three hours. I would say it would probably be worth it for you, and if you are a super fan, a brand advocate or a true fan, I think there is no distance too far.
Jordan:You drive all night International flight.
Kevin:You need to book a private jet. Whatever it takes Tampa October 22nd sometime in the evening. Details to follow we will see you there.
Alban:You really can't joke about that, because we we once bought some tickets to a conference and someone went, oh, I flew in from like Africa or something, and I was like, I'm so glad you're here, but, man, I don't know if, like, I would have told you you had to come. Like I'm glad we got you a ticket and I'm glad you came and I hope you learn a lot. But the commitment went up so much I was like, man, we've really got to make this worth your while.
Kevin:So hey, I'm not telling anybody what to do, I'm just. I'm just saying what I'm. We're not turning anybody away. Could you just roll back that last clip right here, to come from Africa, you're getting in All right, save the date, it's going to be a blast.
