Month: April 2022

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podcast

586- Mastering your craft of podcasting

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we relate to you a set of podcast episodes, delivered during the week of September 20-24, 2021, that deal with the topic of improving your podcast show, as well as improving your “craft” of podcasting. These episodes were published in the podcast show by Evo Terra called Podcast Pontifications.

And what I would suggest is that this may be a good start for an actual project that you may want to plan and begin to better yourself as a podcaster, as well as learn some great techniques to improve the quality of your podcast shows.

Now, I have known Evo Terra since 2006, and I had met him in person when he attended one of my sessions which I delivered at the first Podcamp in Arizona in 2007 (when I spoke about podcast improvement for monetization and delivery). I had also interviewed Evo several times during the past 16 years on this show about his contribution as a “disrupter” of the status quo (for the beneficial reason of improvement of the craft and not just for the sake of doing away with the current workflows for podcasters). And Evo has a lot of suggestions that do provide value to both the new and aspiring podcasters, as well as to the professional podcasters.

So, in reviewing the suggestions and topics and products and other deliverables mentioned by Evo in his several episodes that centered around the theme of “improving your craft” to become a better professional podcaster (and not just a newbie), I also found myself noticing that much of the improvement can come from increasing your skills as a story-teller and a planner of content. However, this content goes beyond just podcasting show notes and blogs — it also dealt with how you can improve your craft by taking tips and suggestions from other types of media (including the press and books and narrations).

So I would suggest that you consume the content for these 4 episodes that Evo has published and see if the resources mentioned and the tips that are given can add to your professionalism in building a better podcast — especially if you have a business podcast.

Some of these are the following (and this is a non-inclusive list):

  • Make your podcast education a continuing education program and be SERIOUS about it by planning and budgeting for both time and money to include the knowledge that will make you better in the area of CONTENT CREATION AND MEDIA;
  • Resources that deliver training and workshops that can help you to improve your game in podcasting (he cites 6);
  • Looking to the Podcast Academy for insight and knowledge from others in the podosphere for inspiration; and
  • 5 resources to “help you think like a SERIOUS podcaster.”

Although some of these resources mentioned and the roads suggested may have some financial costs, it is up to you to investigate how they can help you — after all, they are suggested by someone who has been a center of podcasting for over 16 years in the podosphere and has written some of the first books on podcasting.

So, for this short episode, we hope that you can evaluate if these resources and suggestions will help you to “improve your craft” of podcasting (and not just the mechanical part or the recording or editing part) in ALL areas of content creation, publication and distribution. If so, then you can, indeed, better yourself as a professional podcaster and as Evo says, “MASTER YOUR CRAFT OF PODCASTING.” And this can help you lead your business and podcasts to success.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com and Evo Terra of podcastpontifications.com. All rights reserved.

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podcast

585- Tips for increasing Podcast listeners

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss a past post by Ben Krueger, podcaster for cashflowpodcasting.com, that deals with the 16-year-old topic of “How to increase podcast listeners.”

Now, I have known Ben Krueger personally since I had shared a booth with him in the exhibit hall of the very first Podcast Movement conference in Dallas, Texas, in 2014. And I do respect Ben in what he posts and his suggestions for improving your podcasting careers — but mainly for new and aspiring podcasters.

Ben Krueger

Now, in this post, Ben answers the question of how a podcaster can increase the listeners to his podcast show. And Ben provides for us this evergreen topic in this post.

Now, the age-old question of how to increase listeners has been addressed from a myriad of podcasters, including the “old faithful” of experienced podcasters — from Dave Jackson, Rob Walch, Paul Colligan, Daniel J Lewis, Todd Cochrane and others. In fact, I, myself had given seminars and courses and classes in person at various conferences and podcamps in the past 16 years to address this topic. So, in my opinion, there may be some new items to address recent areas of the podosphere with new tools — but, all in all, this question has been beaten up totally, although it is a question still for podcasters everywhere. And Ben gives this post the attention it deserves, lest we forget all the hints of increasing your listener base.

Now, Ben summarizes the key elements for podcast listener increases at the beginning of his post with the objectives and understanding that podcasters must have when analyzing podcast listenership:  “If you want to get more podcast listeners, you should start by focusing on creating content for a clearly niche and then building out a marketing strategy. This marketing strategy will ensure those who can extract value from your content are fully aware of its existence. To know how to increase podcast listeners, you must understand where your target audience is spending their time.”

So, in this post, Ben then addresses these topics, with details for each one of  these areas:

  • Where can I promote my podcast?
  • How can I then promote my business podcast show?
  • How can my podcast make money (including advertising)?
  • How do podcasts go viral?
  • How many listeners are good for a podcast?
  • What is good podcast growth? (Remember: “Podcast growth is the scale at which your audience continues to expand over time.”)
  • How do I make my podcast successful?
  • Why do podcasts fail?

And the summary of action items can be rolled up into the words of wisdom by Ben at the end of his post: “With the right approach, attracting new listeners to your podcast can be remarkably easy. It’s all about experimentation and testing different marketing channels to see what forms of marketing resonate with your target audience.”

So you have to be willing to test your actions in podcasting and publication — as well as the beginning steps of planning, marketing, promoting and creating episodes in your show that PROVIDE VALUE to the listeners.

So we hope that the topics and the details for these ideas can fill in some of the gaps and try to answer some questions and ideas you may have about growing and increasing your numbers of listeners to your show, and thus help your podcast show to be more successful in those areas.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaealandmike.com and Ben Krueger of cashflowpodcasting.com. All rights reserved.

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podcast

584- Possible aimlessness in your Podcasting business

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme of a Podcaster’s dealing with aimlessness, in spite of what could be viewed as a successful podcasting business at the time of evaluation.

In order to do this, we refer to a podcast episode from Todd Henry’s show called The Accidental Creative.

Now, for a small business owner or entrepreneur or professional podcaster that has an outward appearance of having success at the moment, the feeling of “aimlessness” can begin to erode the confidence of your work and your duties, and it can start to allow the feelings of stagnation, fear of failure, a loss of purpose, and others.

What is aimlessness for the entrepreneur?

As Todd explains: “A lack of a clear through-line in your work — a lack of the overreaching “WHY” within your work or your commitment to your tasks for reaching success. When there is little connection between the core why of your work, it is difficult for you to do your best work ” and reach a satisfaction result from your work and results.

And this is true, even difficult, when you are doing the work that you may really love — Todd explains this, and I must say that this also applies to professional podcasters who are totally committed to their work and love what they do. The aimlessness is like an asymptomatic virus that attacks our soul and our spirit to prevent you from reaching your goals for your business and doing your best work. Sometimes, it can even lead to have little or no hope in deadlines and lack of appreciation for your tasks and results of your accomplishments (and even delay them).

Todd continues: “When you succeed, you can still feel hollow when you have accidental success, if there is not any intended purpose behind it.”

To overcome this, you still need good strategies in order to get to the final result of “victory” for your work, instead of futility. “Aimlessness can be destructive, removing the joy of success and the gratification resulting from your hard work.”

Aimlessness does not have cohesion between yourself and your work. You can start to feel this way when you recognize the early symptoms of certain states — like burnout, for instance.

Now, Todd addresses this issue with some strategies in defining your battles and aligning yourself to fight your opposing forces to make progress. And he sets these strategies within the framework of “passion”  (and he correctly defines what real passion within your work is about). And more importantly, he explains about “productive passion.”

We recommend that you consume this episode to see if the strategies explained can be meaningful to you, your work and your business. He explains how you can discover this “productive passion” — especially if you want a small workbook which he offers from his web site to walk yourself through his strategies — with the following ideas:

  • understand the theory of “compassionate anger”;
  • what moves you emotionally?
  • what obsesses you (i.e., “the splinter in your mind”)?

So, we hope that you can identify your current productive passion and find value from Todd’s episode as described here. In this way, you can see if there is a possible road to aimlessness in your current situation and work, especially if you realize that you have not been spending your hours in good time/energy focus. We sincerely wish for you the best in getting your business on the road to success, especially when discovering and overcoming aimlessness.

Thank you for your attention.

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

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

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podcast

582- Recording a Podcast episode on Skype

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme that is over 15 years old — that of using Skype to record a podcast episode.

This theme brought back very old memories for myself, as I had been using Skype since 2006. And it was included in the post delivered by Ben Krueger at cashflowpodcasting.com. Now, since I have personally known Ben since 2014 and trusted him with coming up for podcasters with value deliverables and suggestions, I was interested to see about this older method of doing remote interviews and capturing audio.

My own podcasting history with Skype

Since 2005, I have been involved with the podosphere, and for over 16 years, I have been a podcaster with many of my shows including the format of remote interviews — and most of them using Skype.

My experience with the earlier versions of Skype was very dismal — it took quite a few hours to get the configuration right so that it worked. And there was an application program that provided for capturing and creating the audio for recorded interviews — PowerGramo (which is no longer available). And like other competitors at the time, one configuration of PowerGramo allowed for each of the 2 podcasters on the remote interview to be recorded on a separate track. This was wonderful and allowed slight synchronization and slight editing to get the tracks ready to save and add other content (like music and intros, etc.). Of course, this was a paid application (one-time charge) and it proved very reliable.

And the benefit was that I could also pay for an additional service from Skype called “Skype-out” — this allowed me to “dial” into analog phones or cell phones in addition to “dialing” into another Skype user via the internet. Thus, when doing an interview with someone who considered himself “low tech,” my interviewee would not have to deal with Skype (if the interviewee did not have it installed and configured for his use). This was a great benefit, as I could schedule and conduct interviews over the telephone without any problem (except using software like early versions of Izotope or Levelator  (as well as other software like Auphonic) to try and correct problems with the audio).

And finally, there was another configuration of Skype for the reverse, called Skype-In. However, for my own situation, I was the main initiator for an interview, and I did not require this at all.

But when Skype was acquired by Microsoft, my old application that worked as a Skype add-on (which was PowerGramo) no longer worked at all — and PowerGramo soon was retired after that. And then the configuring of Microsoft’s Skype became such a jumble of “electronic spaghetti” that I gave up in frustration in using my “old faithful” combination of Skype and PowerGramo. Instead, I sought out and sparingly used other applications like Evaer, etc., to do remote recordings and capturing the interviewee’s audio — but it was really not a good substitute for the PowerGramo app (RIP). And so I reverted back to my trusted double-ender method to record podcasts, even though I had to deal most of the work for both editing, finalizing mp3 files and synchronization to create the golden mp3 file.

And to this day, I have relied on the double-ender for interviews — which basically limits my current interviews to other podcasters.

Ben Krueger on recording a podcast on Skype

In the 2021 post by Ben Krueger, the theme of using Skype is discussed in detail by Ben with his declaration that he would “be breaking down everything you need to know about how to record a podcast on Skype.”

In addition to having a properly configured Skype program on your PC, you will need to have properly configured call-recording software to create an audio file from the interview or discussion (remember, I had used the older program, PowerGramo, as my call-recording software). Ben gives examples with Ecamm Call Recorder and also  GarageBand, Audition, or Audacity. He also mentioned  Piezo by Rogue Amoeba. He also mentions Audio Hijack.

He continues “If you have a PC, you will want to use the professional version of Pamela for Skype.”

Also, the topic of using Zoom comes up when trying to record a podcast by using the in-built recording feature. And then he highlights a tip for creating video: “Even though you may not see an immediate use for the video content, you should record it regardless. Further down the line, you may want to leverage the video content from your recordings on platforms like YouTube and Instagram.”

So these tips may be good for you to try to prepare remote interviewing, and Skype may or may not be the best choice for you as a podcaster. If you want to try Skype for remote audio capture, then I would suggest that you consume this post with all the details that Ben gives you.

And remember that a double-ender is still a great solution when you are interviewing a remote podcaster. It may seem like more work. But the creation of your audio file, downloading your interviewee’s audio file, synchronizing both tracks of audio, adding your music, intros, outros, and other content (like bumpers, etc.) may well be worth it — for you can form a good workflow for you to have a great-sounding interview of episode with your co-host.

I will continue to rely on my double-enders and only use Evaer as remote recording software when needed to capture the remote interviewee when the double-ender is really not an option.

I hope that you, as a podcaster, can decide if Skype is for you, along with all the other options mentioned above. Whatever the case, I wish you success in creating a smooth workflow that works for YOU, and that your remote interview or co-host episodes will add to your success for your show.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com and Ben Krueger of cashflowpodcasting.com. All rights reserved.

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podcast

578- The craft of podcast story-telling

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we review some themes from Evo Terra in his podcastpontifications.com podcast show — in particular, why podcasters may not consider themselves as good story-tellers and learning the craft of story-telling.

In his recent episode where he discusses story telling, Evo tackles the self-imposed limitation that podcasters may have when they believe that their story-telling expertise is not good enough for podcasting — and the possibility of being “out-podcasted” by a good story teller. He states: “But not every podcaster is as confident in their storytelling abilities. Many struggle with storytelling on their shows, either because they have an actual deficiency when it comes to storytelling or because of that pesky imposter syndrome that won’t shut up as it tries to convince competent, capable podcasters that they’re worse at storytelling than they really are.”

Evo does have a few suggestions that have worked for him to master his craft of telling stories:

  • become an avid reader;
  • listen to podcasts that tell stories;
  • use the OUTLINE method to get a draft of the story you wish to tell, and then refine it with good story-telling materials and tools;
  • keep some stories “in your back pocket” just in case you need to bring one up and relate it when you are being interviewed or recorded in a podcast;
  • Practice the craft of telling stories constantly (and for many episodes) in your show: “As with any skill, you have to practice. Yes, even those who have mastered their craft—regardless of what that craft is—have to practice.”
  • Practice speaking your story out loud, as this is one way that it helped Evo to internalize story-telling;
  • Move your mindset to positive telling of stories to others.

For this podcaster, I have studied the art of story-telling, as my studies in my college undergraduate work was in writing for television and film — and story-telling was a key part of learning the craft. And always, the feedback is most important.

However, as a podcaster, mixing the story telling with the fact-based narration or deconstruction of events and situations is also something that is learned over time with much work and practice. And I would suggest that outlines and the writing of good show notes for your episodes would also be a major boost in perfecting your story-telling abilities — and your listeners will be able to comment on that more positively than other podcasters who become critical (and sometimes for the sake of just being critical of other podcasters).

Thus, I would suggest that you listen to the episode about story telling from the August, 2021, episode from Evo Terra in his podcastpontifications.com show and then review your own methods and workflow and processes and tactics that you may now use in story telling — and improve on them or incorporate new ones for your show.

I agree with what he says that your podcast show will “out-podcast” other shows when you tell good stories in your content and deliver that kind of value to your listeners.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Evo Terra of podcastpontifications.com and michaelandmike.com. All rights reserved.

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podcast

576- Podcast skills today may not sustain you tomorrow

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme of podcast skills and the perspective of Todd Henry, podcaster of The Accidental Creative and also The Daily Creative.

Todd has spent a great deal of time in letting us know that we have to keep “sharpening the saw” (an expression used by Steven Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) which means that we need to sharpen our skills continuously, as well as do up-front key planning for success.

And Todd gives us food for thought in this famous quote from Pablo Picasso:  “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

And the key idea that is the take-away from Todd’s micro-episode is: “The skill that you are known for today will be unlikely to sustain you tomorrow. You must continue to grow.”

And we learn the podcasting craft and then come into our own genius in podcasting after much experience — from imitating others to get the experience, then diverging and delivering our own style, framework and VOICE in the podosphere (because we now have learned what works for us due to our growth). Todd can contemplate success when we experience making a “unique mark” and delivering a “unique contribution” in the podosphere.

Sound familiar?

Well, Todd then throws a bit of reality as he splashes the waters of realism in our face — we will hit what he calls “the crisis phase.” And he describes this phase in this manner:  “But, then we hit what I call “crisis” phase. This is when we suddenly realize that the work is fine, that it’s delivering on expectations, and that everyone around us seems happy with what we’re doing, but we feel stuck. We’re doing what we’ve always done, and we’re doing it well, but we know that we are no longer growing.”

Now, does that sound familiar?

So before we can stagnate and start to get nervous about our future growth, Todd suggests that an avenue of growth may lie in going down the road of learning and in building your skill — in fact, building a new skill:  “Then, you will be able to incorporate it into your existing work and use it to find new ways of accomplishing your goals.”

For the creative podcaster, this is the inspiration that comes with skills transfer or skills-learning that can invigorate you as a content creator and skilled professional.

And it is up to each one of us as podcasters to go beyond our limits and see which new skills we can learn (or adopt) or internalize so that we can go beyond our limits today and have what we need to grow our craft and sustain us tomorrow.

Thank you for your attention.

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