Hey, it's your host Ellen Yin. Welcome back to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders the business questions you can't google. Today's bonus episode is a replay of my guest appearance on MetriTalks, a monthly roundtable series with creators and marketing experts hosted by Metricool, our favorite one stop shop for social media management. This MetriTalk focused on all things launching, producing and growing a podcast show. Our conversation was moderated by Anniston Ward, who you may remember from her previous appearance on our show and episode 183. "Access secret social media analytics you've never seen before with Metricool" I'll link that below in the show notes. We were also joined by fellow podcast hosts Latasha James of the Freelance Friday Podcast. Keep listening to hear our thoughts on best practices for booking guests. big mistakes to avoid that cause bad audio as a guest or host creative ways to collaborate with other podcasters for growth, what I regret not doing earlier in my own podcast, podcasting predictions for 2024, and more! To catch up on other MetriTalks after you listen to this one. We'll link Metricool's YouTube channel below in the show notes. Make sure you go and subscribe.
We're just gonna dive into it. I want to kind of open it to you guys. And if you want to, you know, tell us the name of your podcast and maybe just kind of one or two sentence description.
Yeah, so I host the Freelance Friday pPodcast. And it really is just a show for freelancers of all kinds, social media managers, designers, coaches, consultants, creators, anyone to listen in and just learn kind of what's going on in the social media industry, how they can better market their business and run their businesses more efficiently.
Amazing. Hello, everyone. I'm Ellen Yin, I'm the host of Cubicle to CEO. We are a business and entrepreneurship podcast where we ask top founders, the business questions you can't google so everything we do is through the lens of financial transparency. So each week, we bring on a CEO or a founder who shares a real time case study in their own business, and shares what strategies they're using to grow their revenue, the financial data around that. So if you're looking for something a little bit deeper than, you know, someone's backstory, our podcast is a great resource for that.
Amazing. So when did you both launch your podcast? And what did kind of the first few weeks or months look like?
Yeah, I launched my podcast, I think it was back in 2018. It actually started as a YouTube series for me. So I have a YouTube channel as well, where I talk about social media entrepreneurship, things like that. And actually, at the time, back in 2018, I was just doing a lot of logging, I was still working a corporate job. So definitely relate to Cubicle to CEO, for sure. I was still in that world just kind of side hustling and taking on freelance gigs here and there. And so I started a series on YouTube. And people loved it, I was getting so much more engagement than any of my other content.
And a lot of people were telling me, you know, I can't wait to get home from work to watch this episode, or I listened to this episode at work, just you know, in a different tab, almost listening to it like a podcast. And I was like, Oh, maybe I should maybe I should start a podcast. So yeah, I started it that way. It was very DIY. I mean, I had like the janky as little microphone I had. I actually at the time, I was living in a downtown Detroit apartment. And it was like a high rise and there was just always construction always. And so I just turned my closet into a studio because I would sometimes out of record at like 5am just whenever I could get quiet time. So it was a it was a fun, fun period of my life.
Honestly, closet acoustics are so underrated but it really works. Any condensed small space, especially with carpet or clothing really helps your sound come across more warm. So I totally get it Latasha because I used to sit next to a window that face the highway. So every day, you could just hear the semis roaring past us. So I love hearing that start.
My podcast launched July of 2019, so four years ago, and it actually really just started as a passion project that kind of stemmed off of this group coaching program of the same name that has since been retired. But originally it was a program built for exactly, Latasha, like you were saying freelancers, consultants, coaches, service providers who wanted to scale to their first 10k months so I had a program around that and then I decided to kind of add the podcast as an extension of that that summer. And I growing up always wanted to be an interview host I was my dream job. I wanted to work in entertainment news and hear people's stories. And so it was a way for me to practice that passion of mine. But it's really cool to see how something that starts small can really evolve into something so much bigger because now our podcast is the main product of our business. And our entire company is literally around the podcast itself.
So if you could, you know, give advice to someone that's starting a podcast, what is something you kind of wish you knew, when you were starting your podcast?
I can jump in and say, don't be afraid to aim high. If you have a guest, if you have a an interview show, I was so nervous when I first started to ask people to be on my show. And honestly, people love to talk people love to talk about themselves. People love to share their stories. And I think as long as you're doing it in a, you know, professional, approachable way. Most people say yes, and even me, like the only time I really ever say no to podcast interviews is if I truly like don't have the time, I don't really look at numbers a ton because you never know where that podcast can be. You know what if somebody said no to Ellen's podcast in 2019, they would probably regret it now you know? So just don't be afraid. Just shoot for it. And if they say no, that's just a part of a part of life a part of business, move on, dust yourself off and try for the next one.
Yeah, I really concur with that point, Latasha, because I feel like when you can create your own media platform, it opens so many more doors, because you're automatically entering into a relationship with a give, instead of an ask, right? I think a lot of times we think about asking someone to be on our show as an ask and it is. But in many ways, you're actually giving more than you're asking because you're giving them a platform and an opportunity to spotlight the work. They're doing their business or whatever, you know, type of show you may have. So I think that's such a great point to shoot beyond maybe what you think your show can book.
Another piece of advice I would just think about when you're starting a podcast is to really get clear on what the purpose of your show is. Because people start podcasting for all different reasons. Like I said, at the time, I didn't really have any big plans for it, it was just something that I genuinely enjoyed doing this audio format was something that I felt like was a strength of mine. If you are coming into the podcasting world, because you're wanting, for example, to use it as a way to nurture your audience or to sell into your own offers, the way you would approach a show like that would look completely different than for example, the way that we're building our show now as a media company, where the podcast is the product rather than a conduit to lead someone to another back end offer, the way we market and talk about our show. And honestly, structure is completely different.
So getting clear on your objective, and then also being really realistic with yourself about how consistent you can be, it's so easy to look at what everyone else is doing and say, Okay, I see that most podcasts and let's say the business nations, we're both in that tend to publish new episodes once a week. And you may automatically think if I start a podcast, I have to have that same frequency when in reality, if you can only realistically commit to doing an episode, let's say every other week, so two times a month, I would honestly recommend that you do that rather than try to overcompensate and then quickly fizzle out. Because podcasting truly is one of those channels where consistency and being able to build in a reliable pattern for your listeners. So they know what to expect. And win is so much more important than I would say most social platforms. So really try to be honest with yourself about what you can commit to at the start, and then you can always expand from there.
Those are both great points. Yeah. I think managing and creating a podcast I've, you know, personally always been like, oh, I want to do it. And then I start like, wow, this is a lot of work. And then you know, the whole editing process, too. So kind of moving into that. What does a typical recording day look like?
Ellen, I'd love to hear to hear your take on this one. Because I think we have a very different experience. That's my hunch. But I'm curious.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, honestly, this practice Anniston has evolved quite a bit over the years. These days, we typically try to concentrate multiple bookings in a single day to you know, make use of our time a little bit better. So, right now at least we're typically recording on Thursdays and Fridays. I try not to book more than three podcasts in a day because it is very intensive on your vocal cords and honestly, just the mental capacity to be present with your guests and be an active listener. I think people don't realize how much energy that really takes to show up fully for each guest. So I would say typically two to three recordings in in those days, and I try to concentrate it so that it's only once or twice a month. So it's not every single Friday, for example that I'm recording.
And then we try to have about like two to three months worth of content planned ahead of time. So we're always kind of looking to book for the next quarter rather than in the moment. But that was not the case. You know, at the beginning, I think when you're just starting a show, and you're trying to get traction, and honestly trying to get interest in having guests on your show. There's a lot more in the moment, like, okay, we're recording on Wednesday, and this episode is publishing on Monday. So that is totally normal it and it still happens from time to time when something you know, falls through. But as you kind of really hone in on your process, I think it becomes much easier to plan ahead. And as your show gains traction, if you are a guest format type of show, you'll start to see a lot more inbound interest and requests. And so you have a lot more flexibility and selection rather than you having to pitch every single person who appears on your show.
Yeah, love that. So maybe you are not so different. But you are a lot more organized than me which I had a hunch. Yeah, so I primarily run a solo show, I do the occasional interview, but it's primarily a solo show. So it is a little different in that regard. And that what's nice about that is I don't have to coordinate with another person and kind of batch close together. Because that can be you know, that's a whole other thing, the scheduling process. But yeah, so I also batch my I try my best to record between two and three episodes per setting. I also record for video to YouTube is my primary platform, actually. So I record, you know, do the video setup. And that's a huge, huge thing for me is I don't want to waste the hair, the outfit the makeup, you know getting ready it is it's a lot. So I try my best to get kind of my best bang for my buck with that and record a few at a time. I also do plan, I definitely don't plan two to three months in advance. So I kind of have like a running list of ideas in a, I use Asana for my sort of content calendar task management system. And I just throw ideas in there when I get them. And then I kind of move them around based on what's going on in the world and the industry in my life.
You know, sometimes some topics are like, Oh, I just had a course launch. So let me you know, do one of these course topics that I have hanging out here or I don't know, you know, maybe Metricool releases a new feature. And I want to talk about that, you know, so I have a little bit of flexibility with it. But I do try to have a ton of ideas banked so that if it is a day where I'm recording, I always have something to pull from.
Yeah, that's a great point to Latasha that you brought up, which is the fact that sometimes planning way too far in advance can actually make your content come across really stale. Because things, especially in our world, in the online business world or in social media, the landscape is moving so quickly. So I have seen some people run into issues before when they try to batch like six months out in advance. And by the time that you know the episode comes out, it's just not relevant anymore.
Yeah, that's true.
So I guess if you were to schedule something, and then you know, either things changed, or you wanted to add in new updates, I guess, is that ever an issue? Or like if you're like, Oh, you need to tell your guests kind of this updated information, or
I usually, I haven't really had to go back and ever, you know, remove or redo anything, but I actually did I just recorded a an interview with somebody about a month ago, and I don't like to, to have that long between actual published date, but I got sick, I was out of the office. And it just it is what it is. So I actually did remove one of the questions I asked just because it wasn't, it was more timely, we were talking about the launch of threads, Instagram threads, and it was just kind of like, it sounded very much like it was recorded a month ago. So I just, you know, at my discretion, I just took that one question out. So sometimes you have to do things like that.
But, you know, usually the topics that we're talking about, or at least for me, you know, the topics are pretty evergreen, and that we're talking about online business strategy, where you know, we're talking about the fundamentals of freelancing these are things that don't really change a ton. Maybe some of the details of the tools or the tactics or the those types of things might change. But someone's story is always relevant. You can always learn something from it.
Yeah, very true.
I would tend to agree with that, you know, luckily since we're not in the news space, not everything is like last minute trying to keep up to date. But I will say something that took me a long time to feel confident in doing as a whole so I'm really glad to hear Latasha that you're also doing this practice is the idea that you do not have to include every single thing a guest says just because they said it in your recording. I think for a long time I felt like It was maybe disrespectful or rude to not include like every single second that we recorded with a guest. But I've come to realize over time, that my responsibility at the end of the day as a host is to our listener, more so than to our guests, right, we're offering our platform to our guests to give them a chance to be highlighted. But in reality, our listener is the true decider of the show. So we always filter through that lens.
And we and you know, if a guest, for example, spends five minutes talking about a point and in reality, there's only like a 60 second clip that really addresses the the question at hand, we have no qualms now about cutting four minutes out of the audio and saying, Look, we don't need our listeners to have to go through all of this fluff to get to the core of what they're looking for. So being okay with that, and feeling confident in being an editor, whether you're doing the editing yourself or not. But just being very confident in dictating what goes in stays is something that I would also want to make sure any podcasters are aware of.
And I think there's a difference between editing to change the narrative. Yeah, if there's just something something just doesn't fit, or someone's been going on too long, or whatever. I think that's different than Oh, I didn't like how they answered this question, or I disagree with it. So I'm gonna remove you know, that's a little Yeah, that that's not necessarily the most ethical, I think,
Absolutely. I think that's such a great distinction.
Yeah. Moving into the editing process. Do both of you edit your own? Do you have, you know, a team or someone else who edits your podcast? And either way, what does that look like? If you're editing it personally? What are kind of some tools you use? Or if someone else is editing it? How do you tell them - Hey, you know, how do you tell them how you want it to be edited? So parts that are important aren't cut out?
Yeah, I've done both. I actually have been editing videos for I always say, I've been editing videos for half my life. It's what I went to school for. And like, I'm very particular about it, videos and audio. And so I didn't love the experience of working with an editor. I wish I could take my own advice of doing that. I always tell people do as I say, not as I do, because it can save you so much time to just hire an editor. But yeah, it's for me, it's almost like a language. You know, editing is very much an art and almost the language that I'm speaking so I edit myself, all my videos and audio, I use Final Cut. Like I said, I record my podcast in video together. So I just use Final Cut Pro, which is my video editor. To edit my show, I for the longest time used iMovie. So you know, most everyone has that if you have a Mac as well. So very accessible. And then one tool that I really love for like getting cut downs and clips on my podcast is descript. It's a video editor as well, it allows you to almost edit the video, like a Word doc, it shows you the transcript on screen, and then you can kind of pull clips that way, pull your transcripts. So I really liked that tool. And it's very user friendly. If anyone's new to editing.
Yeah
Ooo love that. I'll be completely honest, I don't think I've ever edited a single episode of mine. So we're kind of this is kind of showcasing, you know, you can be on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. And I want to commend you Latasha, because editing is such an intensive process. And I will say I think sometimes we as entrepreneurs feel like, there's like a right way to do something and a wrong way to do something. But I think in your case, because editing is a skill set that you have and that you've been trained in and that you actually it seems like enjoy. There's literally no shame and no matter how big your show gets, it's like if you genuinely enjoy editing, like continue to edit yourself, you know, for me, it is not the case, unfortunately.
And so I remember when I launched my show, I actually hired a podcast launch like strategist who specifically specializes in launching shows, and I believe they edited our first like five episodes for us that we launched with. And then from that point on, I've always had an internal employee do it. So it's nothing fancy, we just use GarageBand. We record in Zencastr at the moment, and same thing recording audio and video at the same time. And then for our video editing, we actually recently outsourced that to, you know, an independent freelancer, which has been so, so helpful. So I think that you know, you can definitely test both ways. But really it comes down to where do you think your strengths lie and really leaning into that rather than looking around and saying, Okay, what is everyone else doing?
Totally agree.
Both of those are great. I love that you both have two completely different experiences. But I mean, no one would know listening to it because you know, they, there's so much work behind the scenes of it. So it's cool to see the different ways and then moving into kind of the management side of it. What are some of your favorite management scheduling analytics tools that you kind of use on a day to day for your podcast?
For my actual podcast host I use what does that it used to be called Anchor spot Spotify for podcasters was the what they rebranded to so that's where I actually upload like the audio to and then obviously that the video I just upload to YouTube natively. So I use those analytics somewhat but when it comes to social analytics for the clips and all that, of course I pull the reports from metrical but as far as the audio itself, or the video itself, I'm just using those those native analytics tools, really.
One of my favorite analytics tools is chartable, which is like literally how it sounds chartable except for I think the A in table may not actually be in the word I can't remember. But it's great, because since podcasting, as a media platform is very fragmented, meaning you know, each player kind of has its own native insights. So it's Spotify has its own insights, Apple podcast has its own insights, and then all of the other players that you know, have less market share. Chartable is great, because it kind of allows for a broad look at okay, across all possible players, what are your podcasts insights? What are your analytics, what are your rankings, so I really love using that tool, it's free. And then from a hosting side, we used Buzzsprout for many, many years, we just actually recently migrated over to Spreaker, which is a platform owned by iHeart Radio, I believe. And that move was really to have more flexibility with dynamic ads, and that capabilities. So you know, jury's still out, we just migrated over. But so far, we're really liking the insights and analytics there.
And as far as management goes, I mean, we can go as in depth as you want. But similar to Latasha, we use a project management system. So in our case, ClickUp, that helps us map out the workflow of each episode. And then we do a lot of our prep work upfront. So with the nature of our show, being case study driven interviews, we actually go back and forth a ton with potential guests to really narrow down the specific case study, we're going to cover in each episode and get a lot of the details upfront, before we ever decide to book them. So it's almost like a very intensive application process. There's a questionnaire, a lot of back and forth emails. And because we do so much of that prep work upfront, it makes it much easier on the back in doing the production side. So that's kind of my high level, but I'm happy to get into more details if you'd like.
That's awesome. And then last have kind of, I guess, do you have any favorite accessories so like, you know, any of your favorite mics that you use? Or if you use any kind of audio, enhancers, anything like that?
Well, Latasha, I feel like your setup is looking beautiful. So maybe you should start.
Yeah, thank you. I love this mic. This is everyone always asks what it is. It's the Shure MV7. So it's kind of a condensed version of they have like a very big, very expensive, more professional one. This is kind of a in between, which I love because I use it for like zoom calls like this. And also use it to record the show. And it's not too expensive for for a good podcast mic. So that's my favorite. And then I just have it on a boom arm, which is really nice. I can move it around, it's very quiet. Again, I use it for like zooms and stuff too. And then how I record is I use a Rhodecaster. Rhodecaster Pro 2 is the one that I use. And it's great because you can plug up to four microphones into it and record at once or you can just do it you know, like I said, most of my shows are actually solo shows, so works that way too. So that's how I get that high quality audio. And then like I said Final Cut, I just go ahead and you can replace the audio and your video with your road caster audio. So that's a really quick like, I didn't know that when I first started. For the longest time I was manually syncing my audio. And someone was like what are you what are you doing? Why are you doing this? So you know, you live in your learn. I was doing that up until like a year or two ago, but you don't have to do that. So yeah, those are my favorites.
I am embarrassed a little bit to admit this, but I'm just gonna say because I'm keeping it real. Also, the timing is so perfect because I legitimately stayed up so late last night and I ordered I did a complete overhaul of our tech I ordered like boom arm finally I had ordered the Shure. I think it's the SM7B. So that might be the larger mic that you were referencing, Latasha. I had embarrassingly ordered this like six months ago and it's just been sitting in my house because I was too lazy and too overwhelmed by the tech to actually like buy all the necessary equipment like you know the I don't even know the right industry terms, but the thing that you're doing About what feeds the audio into your like a mixer to exactly the mixer. And I had also been procrastinating on like updating my lighting equipment and buying an actual nice cameras because I'm you know using the built in webcam on my iMac right now. So all this to say I went on quite a shopping spree last night. So all the equipment is coming our way. And I'm happy Anniston to share the links to the exact equipment that I bought because I did do quite a bit of research and you know if you want to share it with the Metricool community, happy to share those links if you want.
But all this to say, I hope this encourages any of you who are watching this, that I'm four years into this podcasting thing. And like I said, we are a media company and our podcast is our actual product. And even so, we've been just kind of scrapping along with really, really inexpensive simple equipment. Like I said, I'm using the webcam in my computer right now. I have this little like ring light thing. It's not even a ringlight. It's like a little bar that I got on Amazon for like $50 that sits right on my desk. I have been using this trusty little blue Yeti $99 mic for years. And yes, our podcast is in desperate need of a tech glow up. And I'm glad that we invested in that. But it really just shows that as long as people can hear you clearly like the audio isn't distracting. And the lighting isn't so poor that someone's like, you know, squinting to try to see you as long as you have a baseline of okay, my audio and video are at best, not distracting anybody, then I think what matters more in the growth and success of your podcast is the content is the connection is the consistency. So I hope that encourages some of you.
I just want to second that because I completely completely agree and like I love to nerd out on tech stuff now. But yeah, when I first started again, I was recording in my closet, I was manually seeking my audio. I did not even the Blue Yeti, I started with the Blue Snowball. So that one I think is like $40. And it was fine. You know, you start with what you have. I mean, even like iPhones nowadays, the video quality on iPhones is so good. Even the audio quality, I'm sure you can make it work. I've heard people record just with a little like iPhone microphone start, like that's the biggest thing start and improve over time, I'm still that my set is still not where I want it to be. You know, I'm always gonna continuously make an improvement. So yeah, starting is important part.
Yeah.
That is so so true. I actually, real quick. Before we leave this topic, I did think of two things though from just years of recording that I would suggest as things not to do, because they can be distracting. One thing is a lot of people automatically default to using their Air Pods when they come on as guests. And Air Pods actually have really bad audio quality, the mic is not great. So honestly, if you're going to use any sort of headphones, it's actually preferable if you use like the corded ones, the mic on that one is better than your air pods. So that's definitely one thing to think of.
The other thing is, the Blue Yeti mic that I just showed you guys, is a very common mic like starter mic that podcasters will use because it is affordable. But one big thing that has helped us get a better sound quality out of not that great of a mic, to be honest, is okay, I'm gonna show this to a lot of people, when they get a Yeti, what they do is they point the mic like this straight at their mouth, that's not a great way to get the sound quality, you actually kind of want it like parallel to your mouth. So it's like standing straight up, and you're speaking into the side of the head rather than the top. Also turn the gain on your microphone down. So it's not catching all this, you know ambient noise and then use the dial setting that looks like an upside down heart. So those are another few quick tips.
Amazing. Talking about Air Pods. I guess I didn't really understand. I mean, I always would just pop them in for meetings. And when people they'd be like, you sound so echoey even if I'm on the phone with my mom, she's like what's happening in the back. So it really picks up a lot of extra noise, which you don't think about, you're like, Oh, they're noise cancelling or whatever. But yeah, so those are all great tips.
Even the MacBook microphone I find is better. Like if I'm in a meeting and I'm on the road or whatever. I'll use my air pods and do that for the going into my ear, whatever that setting is. And then I'll just use the MacBook laptop audio for my microphone. So I had to learn that too. I was like, Why do I sound like I'm underwater?
Oh, it always sounds like you're underwater.
Yeah. Okay, now I'm going to kind of open it up to the podcast industry as a whole and talk about you know, any strategies or topics or any tips that you have found that have worked well for you in 2023. So far.
I'm gonna say video for sure. I think like I said, I'm a big advocate big believer in YouTube YouTube's really how I started my business. So it's great for that reason, just for building community over there building the SEO value. But also, nowadays, you know, every social media platform has most ever has some type of video component to it as well. So even if you're not posting your podcast on YouTube, do you think you should it doesn't hurt to but even if you're not doing that, clipping those for tick tock Instagram or LinkedIn, I'm really not a huge like tiktoker. I can't I can't get myself to do it for some reason. But I've been able to build a solid decent following on tik tok really, just from repurposed clips, I mean, that's kind of where I can commit to showing up and YouTube shorts. I mean, there's just so much so much video content out there, that's, that's needed. So I'm always encouraging people Hey, once you get in the groove of recording those first few episodes, just put a put a video camera, use your webcam, whatever, just record some video as well, to get that extra SEO and, and social media placements.
100%. And metricool makes it so easy to you know, with the auto scheduling of the reels and the in depth analytics and tik tok, I remember Anniston when you came on our podcast and talked about some of the mind blowing like deep, deep insights into like seeing the referral traffic source on tik tok through metricool that you can't even see in the native app. I think that is so so key to growth and visibility. Because one thing I think a lot of new podcasters don't quite understand when they jump into podcasting is that even though podcasting is the fastest growing media channel overall, it as a as a like a channel or as a medium, I should say it has very low discoverability. Like it's not it doesn't really function the way that social or that videos do in the apps, like if you're on Apple podcast, right? It's not like the YouTube experience where you're watching one video, and there's like five recommended videos that that makes it really easy for you to discover new channels, doesn't quite work like that yet, in podcasting, and so Latasha is so right that if you can repurpose short form videos across YouTube shorts, and Tiktok, and Instagram, it just gives you a better chance of reaching a wider audience to discover your show, and hopefully lead them back to following you on the actual native app players.
But another thing that I think works really well, especially in 2023, is collaborations with fellow podcasters. And anything that helps you reach new listeners who are already podcast listeners, that's really really, because social is very helpful as a tool to get your podcasts out there into entice people to come listen. But the truth is, it will always be harder to convert someone who is for example, discovering on your show on a social platform, and then asking them to adopt a new behavior and, you know, download a show or you know, download an app player than it is to reach someone who already listens to podcasts, and then just has to add your show to their rotation.
So a great way for example, to do the collaboration side of things is to find other podcasters in your niche in your industry, and do intro swaps, which is where you know the first like 30 seconds of their show, you insert your audio clip, you're like, "Hey, I'm Ellen from Cubicle to CEO. I'm so glad you're listening to Latasha's show if you love learning about freelancing tips, you're also going to love the interviews that we have on our show, et cetera, et cetera." And then and you know, Latasha, you would do the same thing on my show. Or you can also do feed drops. So for example, like, let's say, I was interviewing Latasha on our show, and I feel like we pulled out some really great insights that maybe she's never shared before on her own show. We could say, hey, Latasha, do you want to actually republish this entire episode on your show, so that your listeners get to hear you in the guest spot instead of the host spot. So it provides different insights. And then our show gets more visibility because of people like my interview style. They'll be like, oh, wait a second. I didn't know about Cubicle to CEO. I'll go check out that show now. So fee drops and interest swaps are a really great way to get started with cross platform in platform, I should say, collaborations.
So smart. I love that.
Both of you have you know, had your podcast for around four or five years. How has the podcast industry changed since you first started and how have you kind of had to adapt to that?
Yeah, I don't want to be a broken record here. But I mean, video has just exploded. I mean, when I when I first started it, there weren't really a ton of video shows. You know, there were just the huge shows. But I mean, it's really blown up in those few years. I'll also say that describe durability and how people are finding podcasts has changed a lot. I mean, back when I first started, I was reading a lot of blogs, a lot of newsletters. And I do not by any means want to say that those things are dead because they absolutely are not. They're still huge parts of my strategy as well. But yeah, I think just having that short form content, which has been really nice, actually, for the podcasters in particular, because kind of, like piggybacking off of what you said Ellen, taking someone from a blog to a podcast, those are very different experiences. Whereas taking some of one from a YouTube video to a podcast or Tik Tok, even where it is audio and visual over to a podcast, that still might be a bit of a challenge, but it's not as big of a jump as like, Hey, I'm a newsletter reader. And now I'm going over to a podcast platform. So yeah, I think the short form content and the video content really is has been the biggest the biggest change for me, I think.
Yeah, I would agree with that observation, for sure, just to see how prevalent it is now for most, or I shouldn't say most, but for many podcasters to be both video and audio. I will say though it was interesting to me. So I recently attended a Podcast Movement this past summer. And one of the stats that Spotify share that was really interesting to me is despite all of these innovations in this space, one of the top two referral sources for people finding podcasts to this day is still word of mouth. And I think that is important to remember because podcasting, again, it comes down to the quality of your content, like unlike many other media forms, podcasting is one of the few like YouTube that is not necessarily attention deficit, right. It's like people are actually dedicating a significant amount of time to having you in their ears. And so the quality actually really does matter, I think sometimes more so than quantity in comparison to other channels. And so really thinking about how do I incentivize my already active listeners to share this with their friends, their family, their networks? That's really, really important.
Awesome. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up and ask if you have any predictions for 2024 anything new, that's going to change?
That's hard. Um, I think this isn't really like a great Hot Tip, because it's just kind of like obvious based on the stats, but like podcasting is only going to continue to grow. More listeners are coming on every single day, more podcast shows are being started every single day. But another piece of encouragement that I would share is it's easy to look around you and think nowadays, especially if you're in the online business space. Oh, everybody has a podcast like why should I start when everyone already has one like it's so saturated, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, I think of the millions of podcasts that exist only I think 400,000 are actually considered active podcasts, meaning they've published an episode in the last I can't remember the exact timeframe, but it's either like 30 or 90 days. It's not a lot like think about any platform out there. Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, anything, right? There's, there's not a single other channel out there that only has like 400,000 active users. So when you think about it through that lens, it's actually a very, very blue ocean right now. So I think if you want to start a show, now is a really, really great time to get into it. And like Latasha said at the beginning, start before you're ready, you are not going to be able to research your way into knowing everything there is to know about podcasting, some things can only come from actual practice. So just do it. And I promise you, if you stick with it, you will get better.
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think to two quick things that I think one is just a return to long form. Not that short form is ever going away. But I think it really took off over the past few years when people were at home a lot. And you know, we were all just kind of looking for entertainment. But I think people are being a little bit pickier with their choices now, and they're wanting that value. They're wanting that, you know, meaningful connection again, and so I think long form content, whether that's podcasts, YouTube, even blogging and things like that are people are coming back to those warming up to them a little bit more. I think the other thing that I'm seeing and that I'm really excited about is just the rise of creator led content for brands.
So you know, I think, you know, a few years ago was all influencer marketing, which is great. But I think also a lot of brands are using things like podcasting, bringing them in house and maybe hiring a creator to host a podcast for them or interview people for their show or kind of like you said like podcast swaps and things like that with brands. I think brands are really seeing the value of owning that creator, you know that those creator led brands to and kind of want to get in on that. So I'm excited for that.
Thank you guys so much so much valuable content in here. For those who are watching, go back and take notes of all the equipment and tools that Latasha and Ellen shared because truly, really great quality content and really helpful for anyone wanting to start a podcast. Now maybe I can start my podcast!
We'll be your first subscribers and ratings!
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