The Currency Of Connection For Creators

We're discussing why recognition from real people can matter more than downloads and share how to ask for feedback and challenge listeners to reach out to a creator they appreciate!

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Transcript

Jordan: 0:00

So this week we came across two posts that kind of hit the same theme in different ways. And one is from a creator who spent years like putting out videos that no one watched until they got a message giving them like recognition. And then another one is from a Buzzprout podcaster, Dave, who said he was ready to just kind of quit podcasting until someone reached out and talked to him. And so what I want to talk about real quick in this episode is just how powerful it is to get recognition as a creator. And it's a much better, I want to say currency than downloads are as a metric.

Kevin: 0:39

I love this. Jordan titled the outline for today's conversation, The Currency of Connection. And I think that's a beautiful way to frame this. So it's so easy. And it's so like it's a trap that we continuously fall into. We do, and we talk about this all the time of the success of my podcast is dictated by numbers, whether it be download numbers or the number of platforms you're on or audience reach, like number of countries that are people are listening to, or how much money you use the word currency of connection, because that's a draw for people. So oftentimes people are like, my podcast isn't successful because I'm not making any money on this hobby or this passion or whatever. But it is refreshing to read to come in today's conversation and say, we're going to talk about the currency of connection and say, yes, like this is this is so powerful. It's so rewarding. And it can be such a huge motivator when you're pursuing something that you love and you're not sure how successful it is or how much of an impact you're having.

Jordan: 1:35

Yeah. What we are discussing, there was an Instagram post that uh Kevin shared with us earlier this week. And it was about these two creators who won the Road Creator of the Year Award. And they were talking about how recognition can be more valuable than views. And through this post, they talk about how they've been making YouTube videos together for over a decade. And then they included a screenshot of their stats. And honestly, their numbers were abysmal for like five years.

Alban: 2:05

No, the first 10 years.

Jordan: 2:07

10 years?

Alban: 2:08

Yeah. It's uh it's Colin and Samir. I don't have either of you ever watched their videos?

Jordan: 2:12

No.

Alban: 2:13

So they talk a lot about the creator economy and how other people are building careers and they're growing their audiences and they're making money online. They've probably interviewed a bunch of creators that you've watched or enjoy.

Jordan: 2:26

Okay.

Alban: 2:27

And for like 10 years, they said they did their first video in 2011. They are now getting million, they can get millions of views on things. But that never happened for over 10 years. So it was really 2021. And think about 2011, creator economy wasn't really a thing yet. And they did 10 years before they started actually getting some real traction. And I'd probably guess before either of them could quit their day jobs and go full time. It'd be interesting to actually go figure out when they were able to do this as the full-time focus.

Jordan: 3:02

Yeah. And we saw this with um MK, I'm gonna butcher this MKBHD.

Kevin: 3:07

MKBHD.

Jordan: 3:08

Yeah. We had talked about this like six months ago, eight months ago, something like that. He had a very similar experience.

Kevin: 3:14

Yeah, he did. And it's it's not uncommon, but it's also not something that gets talked about a whole lot. I think most of the people who have found success, whether it be in podcasting or in YouTube or in blogging, or in, you know, becoming some sort of influencer in any social space, the reality is that they often appear like an overnight success. And I'm not saying that there aren't overnight success stories. There are a few of them. But the vast majority of the people who have success in any of these spaces have years and years of hard work and creating wonderful content and teaching and entertaining and conversing with some of um the best minds in the world. And their audience hasn't found them yet. Right.

Jordan: 4:02

Yeah. And one of the one of the things that they included here where they were talking about the one thing that kept us going was the DMs and comments, especially this one. Now, I mentioned that they had posted a screenshot of their stats, and things did not pick up until mid-2021 for these guys, right? And they have a screen grab of Mr. Beast writing, I love your videos on March 17th, 2020. So this was before they really took off someone who they admire in the space commented that he likes their videos. And that made them go, oh, this is so cool. Like, this is the recognition that we really wanted. So they were just saying that like views are numbers on a screen and they're important and keep your career going, but recognition is better. And it reminds you why you started creating in the first place, and it's what kept us going.

Alban: 4:55

Absolutely. I mean, we can think of it as an overnight success, but there's 10 years that were probably really painful.

Jordan: 5:02

Yeah.

Alban: 5:03

And they could probably be embarrassing at times. I was just at an event where with tons of other marketers, and all the way from the CMO or a VP of marketing at IBM's there, all the way down to the smallest one-person companies. And everyone talks about YouTube and shows their YouTube channels. And there's lots of times where I'm like, yeah, it's probably not fun to be in an event where you're talking about, oh, we're starting a YouTube channel and you're comparing with other people who are getting millions every time. And so it's 10 years of that for them. But the recognition, knowing even if we don't make it to real money, even if we don't get to quit our day jobs, wow, remember when we got we got a comment from one of our favorite YouTube creators, I love your videos. Um, we're getting all these comments from people who tell us that they felt something really special when they watched the videos. It's so true. And one way we know it's true is because we got something like this in the Buzzsprout community group, yeah, which is a podcaster, Dave, telling a story of why he's continuing to podcast, but it's also a reminder, and our whole team sent it around. This might also have been you who found it, Kevin. It was our whole team sent it around because it's a reminder of why we're building Buzzsprout.

Kevin: 6:20

Yeah, and I think I think it's good enough that we should read it.

Jordan: 6:23

Okay.

Kevin: 6:24

I think we should read it in full.

Jordan: 6:25

Yeah, so Dave posted every now and then we might feel sorry for ourselves that our numbers of listeners might not be what we want. Then out of the blue comes an email or feedback that brightens your day and remotivates you to keep on. It lets you know that you are making a difference. I have a podcast where I tell the story behind the story found on America's historical roadside markers. Recently, I posted an episode about the story Derwent Farms. It was the residence of Robert E. Lee following the ending of the Civil War. I received an email from a listener whose family owned that property when he was a child. He said the episode brought back wonderful memories and goosebumps from listening. It was wonderful feedback that comes right on time for me. Remember your purpose and keep podcasting.

Alban: 7:08

I love it. Yeah, I I get goosebumps hearing it. Um very easy to look at numbers and go, you know what? That's a cool number, but it'd be really cool if it had two more zeros after it. And you could just like keep adding an additional zero until it's the biggest number you could come up with. There's no end to the amount of views or downloads or likes that would be enough. But when you have a connection with a person, someone writes you and says, I actually grew up there and you told the story right. Holy cow, there's no better compliment that you could get than someone who knows it better than almost anyone. They grew up there and they said, You got it right. Uh really incredible. Dave, thank you so much for posting that in the community group. It's a good reminder of uh why we are glad we have that group and why we enjoy spending time there.

Kevin: 7:58

I really love that. Like, you know what Dave's not gonna worry about, at least for a couple months, probably, is how many downloads his episodes are getting. The the reminders don't come in frequently enough. And that's why we've built things like fan mail. We're trying to make it easier for your audience who does feel some sort of connection or they're they're moved in a certain way. You taught them something valuable, you made them laugh when they needed to laugh. Whatever it is that you're doing for people, you don't need hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people to accomplish your mission. You could just be 10. It could be 10 people who are listening, and for one or two, it made a difference, and that's enough. Like that's really what you're just trying to do is just connect with a few individuals by sharing whatever it is you have to share. But you don't always know that that's happening. We can't look at server logs and interpret the level of connection that you have. So we do need people to reach out. And oftentimes it feels a little bit like as podcasters, oh, I don't want to pander, I don't want to ask for ratings and reviews, or please send me an email, or I'm so close to quitting this thing unless one of you reaches out. There was this, it's not a show that I listened to, but it was a podcast clip that got shared around. There's a there's a TV show called the um Big Bang Theory, and I never watched it a lot, but Tom from our office, he watched it and he was like, Oh, they made this joke about podcasting. And there was uh one of the main guys, Sheldon, I think, and he had a podcast and he was shutting down his podcast. There's something about flags. It was like just like completely, totally like super niche podcast that like no one would listen to. That was the joke. And right as he's getting ready to shut it down, or he just shut it down, or something, like the one fan wrote in and said, like, I can't live without the show. Please don't shut it down. And he was like, Well, I gotta keep going. I can't shut it down now. Like, it's gonna have to keep going forever. And I'm like, that that is podcasting. Oh, but we we get lost so often. We get tied up in I'm not reaching the thousands, or I need you know, 20,000 fans to download every episode because I only make a $2 CPM on these programmatic ads that are running or whatever. Like, no, no, no, no, no. It's not that's if that's what you're in podcasting for, you're gonna be consistently disappointed.

Jordan: 10:06

Yeah.

Kevin: 10:07

What we're looking for is connection. And if you value that currency, that connection currency, then you will find podcasting very rewarding. And you also have to let your people who are listening know that that is a currency for you. So please, like, just like if you can't, you don't want to do listener support, you can't pay me any money, or I don't have enough podcast, like I don't have enough things to do ads or something. Like the currency for me is connection. I want to know that I'm making a difference in your life.

Jordan: 10:34

It's really interesting that you mentioned that. So my husband, he and his friend have been doing their podcast. They're like, I don't know, I want to say 10, 20 episodes into this thing, right? And not a single person has written in. And they're they're getting consistent listens, but nobody's writing in, no one's engaging with them. And then I finally told him, I'm like, you have to tell people that no one's talking to you. And he's like, oh no, I don't want to do that. And sure enough, the episode where he finally just said on the podcast, you know what? Not a single person has written in to say hi or given us their thoughts. Not one. So if you can do that, that would be great. And sure enough, after doing that, he got like three fan mail messages from the episode. And he was so pumped. Granted, one of them was uh Brian from our support team, who is a fan of the podcast, which is awesome. But it, I mean, I was just like so excited that he finally was like, you know what? I'm just gonna tell everyone, not a single person's written in. And he got a bunch of messages after that, and he was so happy. So it it does, it does feel weird to ask, but yeah, telling people like, hey, I actually really do want to hear from you, that resonates with them.

Alban: 11:50

Yeah, I've uh flipped this a bit for myself that it always seems like your favorite creators are probably really popular, even if you don't see the numbers, you're like, they're so popular. This blogger's probably getting tons of emails and comments they can never keep up with and replies to the newsletter. And you imagine that. And so you think I'm just gonna be more noise in their life. And I've started just writing more emails to people. If I find a blog post I really like, I try to find an email and email them. I've now emailed some YouTubers that I'm like, I really like that video, and their YouTube email is a you can see it. So I go and send off an email. Most of them have not gotten replies, but some have gotten replies that people are so excited. And I'm just thinking, no matter what the number is, if I really like it, take a couple minutes, shoot an email, tell people what you really like, why it's important, because I think the human connection is the piece that's missing. We all are putting views and downloads and likes and hearts and all of these things. And we're putting those between. We're saying if you have those, that probably equals human connection in the end. It really doesn't. I think the personal email, somebody reaching out, telling you, hey, you talked about where I grew up and I really enjoyed it, that's gonna matter so much more than all these things that seem to represent people.

Jordan: 13:13

So, like last week I posted because my favorite player on this season of Survivor was voted out. And I like made a story and he actually added me on Instagram and then DM'd me and talked about how touched he was by it. And I was just like, whoa, okay, this is cool. Like so it, yeah. If you just like let people know that you're rooting for them, like they love it.

Alban: 13:38

It it matters a lot on both sides, and so it's a good reminder. We should tell our listeners we love when you reach out to this show, and we love reaching out to people that are great creators, and we all should be doing more of it.

Jordan: 13:51

Absolutely.

Kevin: 13:52

Yeah, every time we talk about this, I feel like it's a good opportunity to remind myself and to remind anybody else who podcasts that it's not just asking for feedback and and looking to get feedback for your own creation, but also like be a good steward of it. Go out there and any podcast that you listen to or any content, whether it's a blog that you read or a YouTube channel that you follow, reach out to those people and let them know how their content and their creations and what they're doing online is impacting your life.

Alban: 14:19

The stakes are so much lower, but I'm reminded of the Gandhi quote be the change you want to see in the world. If we want for people to connect over really cool online media, for social media to actually be social, for podcastings to really connect people, we've got to go out of our way and actually be the ones to try to influence the entire ecosystem in that direction. And the way you do that, reach out to the creators you really care about, tell them about the impact they're having and tell your listeners, I would love to hear from you. That matters much more to me than another thousand downloads. So um I think that's a good, you know, maybe tell us when you do it. Reach out to somebody this next week or so, and then just shoot us a fan mail about what happened and maybe we could report on that. I think that'd be really fun for our next episode.

Jordan: 15:08

Yep, you have your homework. Actually, it'll be it'll be two episodes from now because next week we're gonna be in Tampa and we're doing our bus route meetup. So if you are going to be in the Tampa area and you haven't signed up yet, go ahead and tap the event brite link in the show notes to let us know that you'll be there. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.