Episode 19: Is It Really Podcasting?

What is podcasting? When I was first led to its little known source of energy in 2012 it was extremely hard to find someone that listened. They’d heard of it but didn’t own an iPod so they didn’t listen. Today the term podcasting is being thrown all over the place. It’s acting like the new Disco. Hot, fresh, something knew and everybody seems to be doing it. Especially writers, producers and ad agencies that are trying to convince their clients that podcasting is the new age of reach.
Wait wait wait. The dictionary in my hand like a southern preacher with a Bible… Podcasting: The practice of using the internet to make digital recordings of broadcasts available for downloading to a computer or mobile device. For many, podcasting is a logical next step from blogging.
Wowwww interesting. Because that’s how I kind of made my way into this pretty cool little sport that big business radio wanted nothing of until about 18 months ago. Now everybody’s bragging about having the most podcasts. Two years ago podcasting was so completely unique to business owners that no matter how much I tried to lead their company to better places to gather followers the structure we were building tumbled and blew away with the wind. My vision had no support. Due 100% to those controlling the budget not having the knowledge or understanding of how they were way ahead of the learning curve.
What I’m starting to see a lot of on Lnkedin are people trying to drive businesses toward podcasting. I’ve posted over 9,000 episodes on Unplugged and Totally Uncut and you’re telling me that the business decision makers are going to have an impact with podcast listeners with lesser than ten or twenty episodes? Every night between midnight and four in the morning we are bombarded with television info-mericials. Businesses utilizing the availability of unlimited time and space a podcast offers have done one thing… They’ve created the next level of selling but on demand.
I can now go to their website and hear a better description of the product being offered. I hear testimonies and interesting stories on how my life is going to change. Yep. It gets the wear the label of being a podcast. It’s content. Consumers devour it.
The problem with a company doing its own podcasting is pretty much letting your six year old child be in control of the household decisions and banking accounts. I realize how easy it is to podcast but your ego is getting in the way. Quality matters and it’s going to get harder for understudies and wanna-be’s to participate because new age listeners are finally getting a good idea of what to expect and what to tune out of.
The problem with ad agencies helping out is how they’ll rip the humanisms of podcasting from under you. I can hear it now, “You need to cover this and this and this and don’t forget to talk about this and this and wow even this.” Too much information overload! To get a non-professional talent as the speaker to cover every subject smoothly and organically like podcasting is going to be near impossible. Changing the subject during the conversation has to flow like water moving toward the ocean. If you’re going to leap head over heal on the subjects it becomes choppy and without emotion.
It’s like listening to a dialog commercial on the radio, “Hi Barbara how are your veins? Oh they hurt. I need to see a specialist.” The conversation is fake. There’s not attachment for the listener. On demand listening means exactly that. We made the choice and effort to locate the podcast we’re listening to. If there’s no genuine heart or benefit for the listener don’t expect the client to purchase the product.
It’s taken me nearly four years to finally get used to the endorsements longtime podcasters are getting paid to do these days. I hate it with a passion. I didn’t come here to listen to Mike Rowe brag about how AT&T has made his life better. If that’s the case then dedicate an entire episode to the company and let me decide if I should make the move. 30 to 60 seconds of talk still isn’t going to do it.
Back to the definition of podcasting. Key words. The practice of using the internet to make digital recordings.
The practice. Not the once. Not the twice. The practice! In martial arts we were trained to believe that we’d never master our skills until we practiced the moves one thousand times. So when I come across a definition that clearly states the practice of using the internet to make digital recordings. As a consumer I better see a thousand episodes. That’s a little overboard but you get my point.
Then again you might not. Just stay in my lane right? No. While production director of six radio stations between 2006-16 I always put one thing first. The client. When a business owner sits down with me and clearly states, “If the 3000 bucks I’m putting down on the table doesn’t get me new customers I have to go into a meeting and fire one or two employees.”
It happened! I’ve been with business leaders spending hundreds of thousands in advertising and they’re scared beyond freaky. Now companies are being asked to leap on board the hot new fad called podcasting. It’s going to bring you bigger cha ching than ever before because we’re giving our buyers content they can hear more about rather than make decisions over a 30 second commercial caught up in a stop set of ten or more.
When you invest your money in company podcasting go for the big bang and brilliantly design an enormous amount of episodes. One thought per break. If you’re Walmart selling Nike shoes. I better not hear about fishing poles and fresh bread. If you’re Panera Bread introducing new soups and rolls please do not bring up hot macaroni and cheese. Utilize the power and the beauty of what podcasting can do for you. Give you endless amounts of episodes so consumers can be focused on what invited them to put your company’s words in their smartphone or computer.
So what’s the moral of the story? There are too many radio people that still don’t know the impact of podcasting because they won’t invest in the required sweat to make it look better than another way for the wild man in control to make another dollar for the business. The reason why the big names of podcasting are making advertising dollars isn’t because they showed up in a meeting one day and shouted, “Neet oh! It’s money on the go!” They’ve paid the price. Did their episodes when they weren’t in the mood. They located their following by serving their listeners. They built the platform over an extremely long period of time.
Companies that leap onto the podcasting platform expecting to find the pot of gold are going to get pissed off when the return of the investment isn’t fast enough. They’re going to hate podcasting and will probably never put another dollar into podcasting. That brings injury to our product. Without those advertisers we’re just messing around with a hobby. We’re protecting the advertisers by writing, producing and creating shows with quality content. Great podcasters can sell the spots off a leopard without a listener realizing they just purchased something and we never once created a call to action. They made the buy because real podcasters share they don’t take.