Month: April 2021

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podcast

503- Podcasting simplicity for content creators and entrepreneurs

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss a recent article that tried to describe resources that would make podcasting simple and easy for entrepreneurs (and content creators). The headline for this article from podnews.net is “Caproni: Podcast Publishing for entrepreneurs.”

So, investigating the content of this article, we find the claims that these resources (Caproni) would render “delightfully simple podcast publishing…” for a series of audiences (i.e., rebels, entrepreneurs, etc.) who have no time to learn and manage any tools,  and so growing and publishing a podcast can be done with “one easy use tool.”

Now, for this podcaster, I tend to be more skeptical, because for the past 15 years, I have seen announcements and press releases that have been claiming to be the “one-stop-easy-shop” for doing this. And every time I examined the tool, I was not only disappointed, but many times the tools left a sour taste in my mouth (and the claims were just marketing hype).

So, with this article in podnews.net, you can actually go to the link to get more information and a demo and actually sign up for a trial of the resources. The trial will last for 5 months or your fifth episode, which seems to be a reasonable time for testing.

The article not only lists some of the podcasts hosted on this platform, but also makes other claims with the section called “Batteries included podcast publishing” and the sub-section called “Sell ebooks, pdfs and digital goodies marketed via your podcast… because you get to keep all of what you make.”

How can this be? you may wonder.

Well, the article claims that “everything you need” is available to you, including:

  • “Publishing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts & more!
  •  Website on your own domain
  •  Analytics
  •  Unlimited podcasts
  •  Multiple login accounts
  •  Grow with referrals: Feature landing on Spring
  •  Publishing on YouTube: Feature landing on Spring
  •  Automated transcripts: Feature landing on Summer
  •  Full control via API Private Beta”

Of course, like all marketing promotions, the testimonials follow from their customers. And as for the pricing, you can choose to sign up for either $18 USD per month or $48 USD per month after your trial. And the quote that they have about acquiring the tools is: “If you love it, keep it. If not, we can migrate your podcast to the platform of your choice.”

Now, I myself would not have tried this, as I am not a journalist employee of a publishing company that does reviews for compensation nor do I have a column in either a hardcopy or electronic magazine.

However, for an aspiring or new podcaster, this may attract the eye of someone who desires simple, easy and powerful tools to assist in getting podcast shows up and running in the podosphere. And with a free trial of 5 episodes, you really do have enough time to see if the time savings for learning other tools is a great benefit for your own show.

However, for the seasoned podcaster who has his own workflow that really works well for today (and planning for improvements for tomorrow), this may be something to be investigated whenever there may be some free time available in the future — but possibly not a priority today, as there are other projects besides publishing (like planning, marketing, promotion, sales, development of new products and offerings and social media activities).

So I do applaud the creativity of the developers of these tools, but again, I strongly recommend that you check out some of the podcasters who give their testimonials on the site and see exactly where they are in their skills curve and determine for yourself if this is a good investment for you — because the most valuable and costly investment is that of YOUR TIME to acquire, install, learn, exercise and use the tools and then analyze the results in a cost-benefit analysis.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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podcast

502- Celebrating 500 episodes — a second comeback

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we report that we had just celebrated (2 episodes ago) our 500th episode of this podcast show.

For myself, this is a great accomplishment for one show. Now, this is not the only podcast show in which I had completed 500 episodes — I actually had a show that did this from 2007 to 2013, and although it had podfaded, it was called The Struggling Entrepreneur.

But for now, this current show is a COMEBACK for me to the longevity of the podosphere and its episodes. By publishing this, and by seeing the resulting statistics of downloads, etc., I am very much pleased by the acceptance of the themes and relevance to our audiences — both for audio and video (as well as written show notes).

What does this mean for myself?

It means that podcasting has grown and that I myself predict that it will be here for a very long time — either until the podosphere shuts down (which is unlikely, since this is today one way of getting your message out without being shouted down by a censoring media and social media oligarchical world), or until we run out of themes, topics and passion for publishing our message in the world (and that will never happen, for the message will be created and distributed in one way or another).

As I contemplate the success of my current 3 shows, as well as the success of my prior 15 podcast shows during my 15 years as a podcaster, I have seen the podosphere evolve into a wondrous avenue of communication and publication.

I remember when I was a CORPORATE podcaster, with my own show about the technologies and offers and offerings from my firm (a fortune 500 company), and how that incorporated into an integrated strategy for blogs, podcasts, videos, pdf files with whitepapers, as well as interviews and promotions. This was a great success in the early days of 2006.

Also, I have seen the podcast conferences bloom — since the very first conference of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo since 2005, to the tech that allows a much easier way to create your show and episodes and then publish them with better quality and less tech knowledge than before — and then from the virtual tickets and telesummits on podcasting to the webinars and the online courses about podcasting.

And I had seen the growth of podcast shows — from amounts of 4-digits of shows in the early years of the podosphere to the current number today of over 1 million shows (almost 1.5 million), with just about every theme possible. I have also seen the proliferation of tools — both electronic and hard copy — to help the aspiring and new podcasters be able to plan, create, publish and launch a podcast show within a matter of days or even hours.

So we recently posted episode 500 (and sometimes not even counting the BONUS episodes that had no number), and we look forward to continue on the journey of podcasting into the future with new listeners, new audiences, new devices, new technologies and new themes and topics. All you have to do is examine the success of the blogosphere to see how many millions of blogs exist, and the rate of increase in blogs after their popularity was exploited — these should give you an idea of how blogs, video, audio and other technologies can affect the success of communicating our messages with our passions (and our attempts at monetization) can help us continue our journey.

So, if you are a new or aspiring podcaster, we hope that you, too, can join us for a great ride in the podosphere and have the success that you can plan for, as well as experience, with your podcast shows and episodes.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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podcast

501- Strategies for being a speaker in a podcast event

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we deliver an updated version of an earlier episode that has been mostly repurposed. It deals with listing some strategies for you to become a speaker or presenter or demonstrator in the exhibit hall or “virtual exhibit area” at a podcasting event or conference.

If you have attended New Media conferences or other podcast events (such as those mentioned, above), and if you have never been a speaker at such an event, perhaps you are wondering if you should throw your name in the ring and be a speaker or panelist at one of these events.

If you are relatively new into podcasting — or if you have been a podcaster for a time, but have been reluctant to apply as a speaker to an event — you may want to consider the strategies dealing with the commitment of being a speaker and participate in these events.

In this episode, we will quickly try to examine in an overview format both the benefits, as well as the detriments, of being part of a key event as a podcaster.

So what is my own background as a speaker in Podcasting (2006 to 2021)?

This Podcast Reporter has been involved as a speaker and presenter in podcasting events since 2006. In San Francisco, I began as a speaker at the 3rd Podcamp. After that, I had been a speaker at multiple Podcamps in San Antonio, Texas, and other locations nationwide. Also, I had spoken at the New Media Expo (in 2011), as well as The New Media Expo podcasting tract until 2015 (the last NMX show). I also shared the stage with Jay Ehret of the Marketing Spot podcast show at a ProductCamp, as well.  I was also a session speaker since the very first  Podcast Movement conference, etc. And then my product line advanced into not only podcasting, but screencasting and video content creation and marketing.

In addition, I had been an instructor in multiple locations and taught the course of Podcasting 101 to various audiences (both public sector and private sector). And I have been a podcasting consultant and video training screencaster for the last 9 years.

Thus, I would like to review the attractive benefits — as well as some possible detriments — for you as a podcaster in becoming a new speaker at these events.

A Key Strategy: Review Events and pick the one(s) best for you

Since conferences are money-making events for those who plan and stage and produce and hold them, there is usually a lot of confusion and hype in reviewing a show or conference. You have to go through the exaggeration and hype to get to the real matter and content of the conference to see what audiences can benefit and what you can get out of it for your business or podcast.

BENEFITS: Why be a speaker or panelist participant

  • Recognition as a subject matter expert–
  • Opportunity to grow your audiences and subscriptions–
  • Obtain skills to improve your public speaking and training —
  • Enjoyment of educating and training others —
  • Benefit of conference costs: the admittance to the event and a possible virtual ticket —
  • Face-to-face meeting with key podcasters and others (for live in-person events) —
  • Possible education and training in podcasting —
  • Striking up joint ventures or other business relationships —

Launch or Pre-launch activities or venue for your offerings —

  • Promotion of your podcast, products, offerings or services —
  • Possible success in sales of your offerings or services —
  • Leads for future profitable ventures or sales —
  • The enjoyment of educating and helping others —
  • Enjoy the in-person or virtual community with other podcasters —
  • Possible “Sneak-peek” at offerings in an exhibit area or demonstration arena, either in-person or virtual —
  • Create content in a “podcast” booth or “pavilion” booth or setting
  • Gain credibility in getting interviews as a speaker or bumpers

Possible Detriments: Just be content as an attendee

  •  Commitment of costs i.e., funding travel, lodging and other expenses (for in-person events)–
  • Time away from your business (a hidden cost, but one that could be very critical in both virtual and in-person settings)–
  • The internal fear of not living up to your expectations — “fear”–
  • Perception of the reception of your presentation from your audiences–
  • Perhaps the inability to promote or sell your offerings —
  • Bad timing prior to your launch or pre-launch —
  • Family life or personal life or business commitments are not right —

Get content from interviews with podcasters or bumpers

Alternative: Do not attend in person — Only get the Virtual Ticket

  • The Virtual Ticket (if offered) – benefits
  • The Virtual Ticket — missing the Q/A, in-person buzz and exhibits —
  • Perhaps the best value for your budget, time and business —

What is your strategy for you and your business in Podcasting?

As you can see, there are several conferences available, and they seem to grow in number (even the virtual events) every year.

You have to determine if you want to have the notoriety of being a speaker, the ability to place this on your resume or CV, and enjoy the benefits of presenting or participating as a panelist in an event or not.

For myself, if my health would allow me, I would still both attend the in-person sessions and/or  speak at a podcast show or event. As a podcaster, I would still embrace all the benefits — because it would be right for me and my business.

However, YOUR business strategy and podcasting strategy will help you to review your options and determine which is best for you.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All rights reserved.

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podcast

535- Podcasting from facebook will only mean more censorship

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the horrid idea as reported on podnews.net of facebook going into podcasting. With their horrible past performance of censorship, this will mean the beginning of censorship and attempted de-platforming of content (as well as podcasters) in the podosphere. And if twitter tries this, also, then the podosphere will become infested with this malignant growth called censorship, deplatforming, woke and cancel culture. This will probably ruin the environment of free speech that now is the podosphere, and it will also begin to ruin the environment of the podosphere.

As of the reports from the podnews newsletter and podcast episode for April of 2021, there is not much detail about the infiltration of facebag into podcasting. There is much more to be aware of.

We shall be following this type of information about this attack on content in the podosphere from facebag, and we will freely speak and comment about our views on these happenings.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and podnews.net and michaelandmike.com . All rights reserved.

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podcast

534- Searching for the truth in Podcasting

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we reflect on a podcast episode delivered on 19April2021 by podcaster Dave Jackson of The School of Podcasting. The title of the episode was “Podcasting Can Give Your Audience Something They Are Dying To Hear: The Truth”.

For a few brief moments, I delivered my own opinion on how podcasting can be the last medium where you can hear both sides of the story and seek the truth, so that you can then form your own viewpoint and opinion from your own critical thinking and freedom.

However, you have to find shows that do give both sides of the story and are not restricted to spilling out a narrative with one bias and political ideology that condemns anyone who doesn’t follow it to the cancel culture punishment.

So, in this short episode, I applaud Dave for delivering this message to us, and I refer to episode 533 of this podcastreporter.com series (coming in the near future) that deals with the idea that podcasting can be a vehicle to tell the truth and your own story and give out your message without being censored (as are all the other platforms in the social media, lame-stream media and politicians).

We hope that you will also reflect on Dave’s words, as well as this episode, and that you (as a podcaster) will continue an uncensored march to deliver your message without fear, intimidation or cancel culture punishment.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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podcast

500- The daily episode podcast show — a possible return

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we deliver an updated and repurposed episode that deals with the theme of daily episodes in a podcast show.

As you will hear in this audio episode, we refer to a common show since 2013 called Entrepreneur on Fire. This was successful not only in downloads, but in financial success for its podcaster. As many of the subsequent shows tried to copy the format, the themes, the daily publishing of entrepreneur interviews, they did not equal the financial success, and thus they podfaded.

However, since I had been podcasting six years prior to that show with my own entrepreneur interview show called The Struggling Entrepreneur, I realized that the format of the copied show (which was a “cookie-cutter” approach asking the same questions with each small business owner) was not anything that I would do. I did plan my shows to allow for spontaneity and personalize each episode interview to the guest so that my audience could receive individual VALUE from each interview.

Now, in this episode, we mention that daily episode shows are not new. In fact, I mention three different shows as cases-in-point:

  • The One-minute “how-to” podcast show;
  • The 60-second marketing tips; and
  • The One-minute manager.

So, if you are an aspiring or new podcaster, you may be contemplating creating a podcast show that will publish daily episodes (however long or short they may be, and for whatever topic you may have). If so, please be advised that this will be a great commitment and it will incur a lot of work.

And if you do decide to launch your daily show, I wish you well in your endeavor and I hope that your show will be successful when you deliver your unique VALUE and your individual competitive differential advantage with your content to your audiences.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All rights reserved.

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podcast

530- Interviewing a podcast guess who is too nervous

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss a recent youtube.com video with the topic from buzzsprout.com site that deals with interviewing scared guests who aren’t used to being interviewed or even podcasting.

The video can be viewed with this 6 minute video:

So we have a young podcaster who tries to define what the process will be in a few steps in dealing with your podcast guest before the recording of the interview will be:

  • Send the guest an outline of the content prepared for the interview;
  • Call your guest before the interview ;
  • Send your guest an episode and propose it to your guest and ask for the interviewee’s input;
  • and a bonus tip is given by another podcaster — suggest having just a “conversation” to make the interviewee more comfortable.

Now, for this podcaster, I have done interviews as podcast episodes for the past 15 years. And luckily, I never encountered a guest who froze solidly because the guest could not stand the idea of being recorded (mainly because the thought of making mistakes was too great).

In fact, you should be aware of some advice given in an evergreen podcast by Max Flight that deals with another side of a podcast guest — that of “Being Interviewed.” It describes the other aspects of being an interviewee that you should also consider:

As a side note, you yourself may be called upon to be the GUEST and BE INTERVIEWED. And we have a past audio episode from this series that is delivered by Max Flight on the issues and the preparation of being interviewed:

I also had a workflow where I did speak to the guest ahead of time, reviewed the outline and questions that I proposed to deal with him during the interview, as well as run through a few ideas to make the guest feel comfortable. And it has not failed me yet.

Thus, we hope that you can create a good workflow for your podcast interviews that will make your guest comfortable and the result can be to have a good interview, well-paced and informative, that will deliver the most important thing to your audience –VALUE of the subject matter with a good cadence and a comfortable audio that will make your audience appreciate your show.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and buzzsprout.com. All rights reserved.

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podcast

499- From passion to podfade – a Podcasting journey

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we deliver a repurposed episode about my journey as a podcaster — from passion to downsizing to podfading some of my podcast shows.

As you will hear in this audio episode, there are some “speed bumps” in the journey of a podcaster from beginning to success and growth. And some of them may be:

  • personal declining health and major health crises;
  • family health situations that necessitate taking a break from podcasting to attend to elder family members in need;
  • reaching the limit of content that would be of value to the audience, as it may be time to podfade the show; and
  • the need to downsize your podcast shows and your participation for other reasons that will not allow you to continue podcasting and publishing episodes with the same fervor, audacity, timing and tempo that you once had;
  • and others

We hope that this can be of value to the older podcasters who started with me in this journey since 2005, and are now approaching some of these “speed bumps” that may interfere with the podcasting passion — and force the podcaster to downsize and eventually to podfade one or more (or all) of the podcast shows.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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podcast

498- For Podcasting — shedding bad mental habits for 2021

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss a recent episode from the podcast show called The Accidental Creative called “A Mental Habit to Shed in 2021.” The podcast is from Todd Henry.

For small business owners and podcasters, the topic of creativity is paramount when entrepreneurs do their planning and the execution of tasks for the upcoming post-pandemic year — as we feel that the virus crisis and fear-mongering will die down, now that vaccines will be available for those threatened by fear.

For myself, I can relate to this theme and prognostications both as an entrepreneur and podcaster.

I would strongly recommend that you consume this episode from Todd Henry’s podcast show, so that you can get an idea of what he considers as negative mental habits that will only drain you of your creativity, your strength and your positive traits needed for survival and success in the business world — especially post-pandemic (or, as we say, “post-scam-demic”).

As you will hear in Todd’s episode, there are three main habits that you need to steer away from, especially if your mental traffic becomes obsessed by methods of “keeping score”:

  • Avoid unhealthy ways of “keeping score” of results due to serendipity of others or the benefits of others — this is one area where you can accept your place today and move forward in your environment toward your success as you will create value for your customers and stakeholders and listeners and audience;
  • Avoid tracking too much or paying too much attention to things which you cannot control — and we should then focus on our larger sphere of influence, and not our specific sphere of concern ;
  • Avoid killing your drive and creativity by having an excess viewpoint of your own expectations — as we are too critical for the perfection of results that we expect of ourselves.

The question from Todd Henry to his listeners is:  “how will you define greatness of yourself and success for yourself in 2021?” — especially in a post-pandemic (i.e., “scam-demic”) world.

For the entrepreneur and podcaster, these 3 tips can deliver great results in improving your mentality and avoid using your “mental cycles” needlessly — instead, you can use them for your creativity and have the ability to nurture positive cycles that will have you focus more on the road to success.

For podcasters, this means planning your show and its themes, ideas, futures, etc. It can also mean being more focused and upbeat during the recording and post-production stages of creating your episodes. And most importantly, it means having the strong will to CONTINUE with your show and not podfading just as the negativity of the world situation tries to engulf us.

For the entrepreneur, it can mean sharpening up your business plan — or revising it for a post-pandemic world — and adjust to the situations now at hand, instead of worrying about negative situations which you cannot control. It may mean considering a move to adjust your business and its plans by pivoting within your overall strategy in a thoughtful manner.

As both a podcaster and a creative entrepreneur, I have found these three tips of great value when adjusting my focus and moving past the frustration brought about by the lame-stream media and the hype of the scam-demic. I hope that you can also find more positivity and peace-of-mind by not “keeping score” via someone else’s agenda or fear-mongering, and by focusing on the future success of your business.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Todd Henry of theaccidentalcreative.com. All rights reserved.