School of Podcasting - Plan, Launch, Grow and Monetize Your Podcast: Keep Your Audience By Losing the Jargon

Keep Your Audience By Losing the Jargon - Busting Podcast Myths

Aug 29, 2016

I can handle some people explaining their strategies of launching a podcast, but there are some things that are just blatantly WRONG. Here are a couple that get my goat.

Episodes Get Downloaded When People Subscribe

If you simply launch with only one episode on your first day, and someone subscribes to your podcast, then you only get one download. BUT, if you launch with five episodes and they subscribe, then you get five downloads, which will help to raise your rankings within iTunes.

This is not true, and easy to test. Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/itunes and subscribe and see if my back catalog automatically downloads.

You Only Get 8 Weeks to be in New and Noteworthy

Podcasts based on TV shows go in and out of New and Noteworthy all the time

50+ Honest Reviews Will Get You Into New and Noteworthy

Nope. It's subscribers that really count. Not that reviews don't mean anything, but subscribers appear to carry more weight. Also boosting people to the top of the charts before they have found their own voice doesn't work.

Case in point Philip Phillips.

Who?

Exactly (season 11 winner of American Idol).

They talk about generating buzz, and getting people to talk about your show. You want to do this every week you are podcasting. You want to bring value on a consistent basis.

Here is a video that explains why I know these are not true

https://youtu.be/gp1T4aj3ucw

Rob Walch at Podcast Movement said the following things about New and Noteworthy

His KC Startup podcast was featured (front page) of iTunes and saw a bump of about 300
His son's podcast Porter's podcast saw a bump of about 1000
He said a front page listing will get a bump of anywhere from 200-a couple thousand.
Podcasters who game the system to be #2 in the Education category and rarely got over 200 downloads per episode (most were around 100ish).

The sad thing is people are never launching because they can't get the recommended number of podcasts (3,5,8, 30) ready to launch. Just launch.

Losing Your Audience in Jargon and Inside Jokes

We are all too close to the trees to see the forest and depending on who you audience is, we need to remember that we get new listeners all the time. When we start using jargon (words that only people with experience in you field, or potentially an inside joke ) you can leave them confused. This makes them feel like an outsider, and potentially tune out. Recently on an episode of the Podcast Review show both myself and my co-host Erik K. Johnson were lost in the hosts use of big words and inside jargon. Now, maybe we aren't their target audience but it really took away from the experience.

Being a person who grew up in the church Christian people who are trying to reach the world when they start spouting things like "Lion of Judah, Bathed in Blood, Alpha and Omega, evangelical, Holy Ghost, born again, unspoken prayer requests (which just means someone in my family messed up again). Be a "Proverbs 31 woman". The list goes on.

I asked my buddy Cale Nelson from HamRadio360 to come in and share some jargon.

Tascam US-32

Tascam MiNiSTUDIO Personal US-32 Audio Interface for Online Broadcasts is a brand new interface for podcasters who are looking to broadcast live and have the ability to mix in (up to) three sounds. There is also the ability to add effects. Most of the effects are pointless (make your voice deeper, higher, reverb, echo, distortion).

This is kind of exciting as this particular

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1263856-REG/tascam_ministudio_personal_us_32.html/BI/5223/KBID/5977