School of Podcasting - Podcast Tips to Plan, Launch, Grow Your Podcast

Spreaker Introduces Ad Revenue System

Jan 16, 2017

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Because of My Podcast Dana Gould

I was reading an article where West Word was interviewing Dana Gould (Who I find hilarious) and they asked him he still does his podcast (the Dana Gould Hour) while now running/writing the show Stan Against Evil. Here is what Dana said,

“I cite the podcast as the things that literally made everything else possible. It keeps my name out there and connects my audience. I think the reason that I’m still allowed to work in clubs is because my podcast has nurtured and cultivated my fan base to the point that people show up. Because if people don’t show up, you don’t get hired. And I think the podcast is very much responsible for that.

– Full article

Dana Gould Hour on iTunes

Dana Gould Hour on Stitcher

Spreaker Unveils Beta Ad Revenue Share Program

Spreaker.com is a podcast media hosting company that has the added bonus of being ale to stream your podcast live. The recently rolled out an ad revenue program. The program right now is beta, and only for US users. It allows you to have a 30 second preroll ad (meaning it is the first thing that starts your show, it goes before the show - pre-roll). There is some new terminology

Requests - The number of times your episode is called (most of us would refer to this as a download, but in this case Spreaker is streaming the file) Impressions - This is how many times an ad was in your request

Currently impressions will only appear if you're using the spreaker player on your website (again, this is beta, more features coming)

You won't have ads through your RSS feed

Some advertisers have a geographic specification so that they only run ads in certain area. I had an ad for a college in Cleveland Ohio (I live on Akron)

Podcast Glossary "L"

Levelator

Levelator is a free program (mac and PC) and allows you to drag a file into the software and it will adjust the volume level to be consistent. For example if you have an interview and you are louder than the guest, the Levelator software will adjust the audio of your guest to match your volume. You can find it at http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

Libsyn

Liberated Syndication (libsyn) pioneered the system to host and publish podcasts in 2004. And since then has grown to the largest leading podcast network with over 2.6 billion downloads in 2014. Libsyn hosts over 25,000 shows with 44 million monthly audience member. Find it at www.libsyn.com (use the coupon code sopfree to get a free month)

My Podcast Launch Kit

I had someone said to me, I don't want to think about it, I trust you. Tell me what to do.

Well, there is no one size fits all, but here are some things that I recommend:

I say use a self hosted Wordpress Website. I do not like Blue host, or dreamhost, I am moving my things to Coolerwebsites.com which is my reseller account for Godaddy. I've also used Hostgator.

I use Libsyn for my media hosting and distribution. I used them 10 years before I started working for them in 2016.

For my Wordpress theme I use Appendipty themes which run on the Genesis platform, or if your situation is a website that has a podcast, I like the Elegant themes Divi (which I will be using on this website later this year)

The Actual "Launch"

I would record a few episodes. This lets me see how much it takes to get create an episode, and then it lets me decide what my publishing scheduling.

I would ask some people who are my target audience to listen, and get feedback. The goal is to ensure you are delivering value that makes people do one (or more ) of the following:

Laugh
Cry
Think
Groan
Educate
Entertain

I would have a few "in the can" (which means recorded but not released) if possible so that if life happens you can still publish without missing your schedule.

Publish an episode or two (I don't believe you need 3, 5, 8 episodes - unless you have content coming out of your ears) and then list them in the following directories

iTunes
Stitcher
Google Play Music
TuneIn

Most apps like pocketcasts and overcast pull from iTunes.

Then you tell everyone you know, use email, social media, etc. You might try creating a Thunderclap campaign, and then use social jukebox or Buffer.com to promote your episodes as they go out