Your Podcast Needs To Be Everywhere

Your podcast needs to be everywhere - or at least in as many places as it can be.

In 2007, I was working for a radio station in Vermont, where (fun fact) billboards are illegal. I was trying to convince my boss that the station needed a page on this new thing called Facebook. "Ben," I asked him, "if you could have a billboard in South Burlington in Interstate 89 with your morning show on it, would you do it?"

"Of course," he said.

"That's why we need to be on Facebook," I said. "We need to be where our listeners are."

14 years later, the same is true of podcasts. Be everywhere your listeners are, so more people can find you. I told you last week about Tom Webster of Edison Research talking about YouTube. Among weekly podcast listeners, 18 percent said YouTube is their primary destination for listening to shows - behind only Spotify and Apple. Do you really want to miss out on nearly 1 in 5 weekly podcast listeners?

Also, Apple is still having issues. Yes, the recent iOS update was supposed to fix the bug that was stopping downloads, but according to PodNews, many creators still aren't seeing their new episodes pop up in Apple Podcasts, a full 72 hours after submission. If your show is only on Apple, and this happens to you, why bother to even publish the show?

Yes, you need to be on the Holy Trinity of Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. But you should also be on YouTube. While you're at it, it wouldn't be the worst idea to submit your show to Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon and more. None of these services represent even 2% of podcast listening, but why not take a few minutes to connect them to your host's RSS feed to make sure your content goes everywhere your potential listeners are?

Once you ARE on many different platforms, there are ways to share one link on social media and let your listener pick their app of choice. There's a great guide from Podnews on how to do this here: https://podnews.net/article/universal-links?utm_source=podnews.net

Onto other news this week:

I mentioned last week the importance of SEO and show notes. Google Search is still one of the key methods of podcast discovery. There's a seminar next Saturday, August 28th, on writing show notes. Here's my affiliate link: https://www.podcasteditoracademy.com/show-notes-summit-2021/?aff=jagindetroit

iHeartRadio now has a partnership with the TuneIn app - this will create better reach for their radio stations and podcasts. Also, smart speakers aren't a huge chunk of podcast listening, but they are growing. And out of the box, Alexa defaults to TuneIn when you ask it to play a radio station. iHeart is also teaming up with France's NRJ Group to translate some of its biggest shows into French, starting with Stuff You Should Know.

The fine folks at Podcast Movement have come launched Podcast Movement University, which is currently free to join and has a bunch of classes to watch. https://university.podcastmovement.com/

If you weren't able to make it to Podcast Movement in Nashville, they've got a highlight video up on YouTube.

Quickly, two technical items. Audio Technica has released their new AT2040 microphone, for about $100. The good news: it's hypercardioid and dynamic, which in English means it's designed to pick up your voice and very little background noise. The bad news, it's only got an XLR connection - you'll need an interface to connect it to your PC or Mac. https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at2040

If you're a Windows user and are looking to start editing but don't want to spend money on software yet, The Windows Club has a guide to free Windows audio editing apps - Audacity, WaveShop, SoundEditor, and Jokosher. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/open-source-audio-editor-software-for-windows

And finally, my man-crush is getting his own podcast. NFL Goat Tom Brady will be teaming up with Larry Fitzgerald for a weekly show on SiriusXM called, what else but "Let's Go!" Starting in September. it will air live Mondays at 6 on SiriusXM's Mad Dog Radio (Channel 82), and will be repurposed as a podcast after each episode.

Finally, if you want to get my podcast news every week, you can get it sent straight to you inbox, and not hope some social media algorithm decides to show it to you. I'll only email you once a week, and I won't sell your info. You can sign up at jagindetroit.com/subscribe.

Find jag on social media @JAGPodcastProductions or online at JAGPodcastProductions.com

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