7 Things To Do, Today, To Make Your Podcast More Valuable

by Paul Colligan on December 8, 2007

7 things you can do, TODAY, to make your Podcast more valuable. Yes, these are extremely “superficial” in nature but will score you big points with those putting a value on what you’re offering to the world.

1 – Spend less than ten bucks on a domain name for your new production company. Start acting bigger than your Podcast by having an entity that produces your Podcast. Ever wondered why everything I have is under the name “Podcast Partnership?” Ever noticed that Galacticast is managed by 8 Bit Brownies? Ever noticed the footer that calls Grape Radio a Willnick Production? Advertisers don’t want to deal with directors, they want to deal with producers. You’re a producer – spend $10 looking like one.

2 – Get some album art for your Podcast that doesn’t look like you know your way around Photoshop. Your gift to the world isn’t Photoshop, it’s your Podcast. Get some album art that looks like album art. You can do this.

3 – Don’t advertise anything on your Podcast site that says “I got this for free” – If your free blog template requires a link back, either consider getting one that doesn’t, or pay the designer what they ask to remove that link. Fine, be cheap, just don’t advertise to the world that you are. Is it time to buy for hosting?

4 – Be very careful about using your Feedburner chicklet to advertise how many subscribers you have. I don’t care how high or low the number is. You control the message about the size and makeup of your audience, not a tiny graphic from Feedburner/Google.

5 – The merits of a donation button can be argued until the cows come home. I will declare without wavering that a poorly placed donation element can look like desperation attempt. Valuable Podcasts don’t look desperate.

6 – Make your production look as desirable as possible to the outside world. Consider advertising for so “big names” through their affiliate programs, etc. If I see eBay, GotoMeeting and Rhapsody all at your site – I’m gonna think great things. You can set all of those up in few minutes via CJ.com.

7 – Trust me on this one. It’s a minor change but tremendous. Stop referring to it as “my Podcast”, refer to it as “the Podcast” and “my business.” “Our Podcast” works great as well. You don’t produce a Podcast, you have a business that produces a Podcast. Start referring to it that way and the world will see it that way.

None of these are hard. All of these are doable.

Do you have anything to add to this list?

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  • Mike
    Steve,

    "Perhaps this comes from my bias of thinking of sales as an inherently dishonest and disreputable profession" isn't just off-topic, it's highly offensive. Surely there are some dishonest people passing themselves off as salesmen, just as there are dishonest people using the outdoors. But, to trash an entire profession does nothing to build your credibility as a commenter or as a podcaster.
  • I think the point about the FeedBurner chicklet is a good one. People look at it and think that is the total audience size when it's not. It's only the # of subscribers as tracked by FeedBurner. FB does a great job tracking that, but there are many podcasts that have not set up their feed the right way and are not getting 100% tracking through FeedBurner. That's no to mention that download-only listeners are not counted in the number.

    The problem is not with FB's tracking tech. The problem is that the chicklet does a poor job of conveying the right message.
  • Steve,

    I understand and actually support what you're saying but ... that Chicklet doesn't tell the whole story.

    If you have a Podcast of 42 users who each spend 100k a month on what you tell them to, the chicklet doesn't tell the whole story.

    If you have one listener, and that listener is Bill Gates, the chicklet doesn't tell the whole story.

    If you have a chicklet that says 100k listeners but once could trace them all to a click factory in the far east, the chicklet doesn't tell the whole story.

    Too many people look at your Chicklet, think they have the whole story, and then go on from there.

    BTW, that's why I said "be careful" and not "don't use."

    Paul
  • I'm a little wary of his item #4: "Be very careful about using your Feedburner chicklet to advertise how many subscribers you have. You control the message about the size and makeup of your audience, not a tiny graphic from Feedburner/Google."

    Saying that "you control the message" is too close to, "don't let the facts ruin a good tall tale." Perhaps this comes from my bias of thinking of sales as an inherently dishonest and disreputable profession. We freely publish both our Feedburner numbers and our audio file download stats on the "About.." page of our site.

    In #7: "Stop referring to your podcast as 'my Podcast'..."

    I always thought, from the earliest days, that podcast was too geeky of a term for a more general audience. We've always referred to our work as an "audio journal". Indicating that our program is available from a wide range of distribution channels. When, earlier this year, we allied with a major environmental non-profit organization, we became not an independent production, but a project of the larger organization.

    And I agree with Dave about production quality -- especially careful editing. I often don't get past the first two minutes of most podcasts I preview, because they've left-in too much irrelevant junk. Most people would rather get 20 minutes of nightly news than 16 hours of C-SPAN.
  • Take some pride in what you are putting out. Take 1/2 an hour to at least do some basic editing like normalizing and compressing the audio. Keen? then spend the time and edit the whole thing in real time. Be particular about how you sound generally.

    As an indy podcaster I have to think about who it is I am competing with. It is the big guns with a wad of cash and a recording studio... I want to sound better than them or die trying.

    You don't need fancy software to do any of these things, all it requires is an investment of your time. If you want cheap then try free: Audacity. The rest is up to you.

    My beef is podcasts that sound crap and if you want to be part of the stage and mix it with the big guns (and I am not one of them) then you have to level the playing field, any way you know how.

    If you need help then find it anyway you can. Learn by the mistakes of others and minimize your own.

    Me I spend at least 2-4 hours (depending on complexity of the edit and mix) editing every ummm errr and error out, get the timing right, making it sound as good as it can and mixing it right with attention to detail. Is it worth it? I believe so. Plus I am a perfectionist and if I didn't do it I could not live with it.
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