 Podcasters round table round 85 mixed branding and we have talked about branding before it was called branding your podcast And we're at the point 85 episodes 85 rounds We're at the point where I start repeating things like I literally was starting to type in the title for this in YouTube setting up the event Branding for podcasts and I was like, you know what a better check the archive page sure enough branding for podcasts I'm even naming it the same thing thinking I'm being original That's a good sign though. That means you have enough episodes to start repeating yourself. You got to work a little harder for it So not a problem here We got a cool round table more are gonna join us as we go along and we are gonna talk about I guess mixing our branding whatever that means to you, but I'll I'll tell you what it means to me And where that whole idea came from let's meet the round table co-host extraordinary Dave Jackson welcome back. Yeah back from Florida. Glad to be here Next week, we'll be talking about feed burner. No, I'm just kidding. That would be Florida and feed burner they kind of seem like to go hand in hand. Yeah lose both of them. It's But yeah, Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting glad to be back and Ready to have some fun and Rob is here now, which is great. Rob just checked in his microphone There's his microphone bag. We'll see if he's got it. Yeah, wait, we'll introduce the new round table Have him on board Sean welcome to your first round table Excited to be here guys Sean McCabe From seanwest.com. I'm a long time listener first time round tableer from San Antonio, Texas Excited to be here to talk about branding today Go ahead. Oh, you want me to yeah, you have to give us this give us the money shot there Okay, okay, I'll show you the fun camera setup was having some fun today because I know you guys appreciate that but Speaking of doing topics podcast topics with a similar title a couple years ago I did an episode called it all starts with writing, you know, I'm just passionate about writing Writing turns into podcast turns into videos. You can have a guide a book a conference talk Just writing start everything starts with writing. So a year later I revisited the topic and creatively called it it all starts with writing again in parentheses And it's coming up on two years now and the next episode we're doing in January is no seriously It all starts with writing. So don't be afraid to bring those back Yeah, so having some fun here got a few screens up It looks like captain Kirk. So if you're listening the audio only version I'm staring at myself in Sean's room on a big screen. He's got a chair. He's got an iPad We got lights everywhere. I think he's using a DSLR to stream. So he's at the control hub We we got a few DSLRs in here. We have some fun We stream our podcast live on video as well as make the audio version So we just got some new displays in it's green and oh, look at that. I didn't even mean to do the splits One of one of the people in our community actually made us a We're using wirecast here to do the video He made us a little web app that allows us to control the video shots there Just from an iPad and iPhone anything on the network. It's really fun. Very cool. Very cool. All right. I think he's checked in Rob Greenlee Welcome to the round table. Well, it's great to be here. Again. Thanks for the invite to join you guys Fantastic, you're filling the Daniel role this evening in our second co-host position or chair position there Wow Okay, those are some serious shoes to fill those are serious shoes to fill So we're hoping that Daniel the next time we see him will have baby on board. Maybe I should get them over a gift You know, it's funny. They still have those emeralds from the 80s. Anyways, we won't go there. Let's talk about our topic We're talking about mixing branding and so oh Blew it to just Dave. Thanks for reminding me. I don't really know how I'm gonna get to that at this moment If you're watching watching on YouTube shoot, I need to go fix the website because it's not live Bummer. All right, I'm gonna just kick it off. Maybe someone else can roll the conversation mix branding so Podcasters round table what you're watching right now or listening to was on my YouTube channel my primary YouTube channel where I teach audio video production and I put it there because when I started this show, I already had that channel And I said, hey, I've got a pretty good audience there. Let's introduce them to this new thing but recently I noticed, you know, I went deep dive on the analytics and Out of a suspicion that I wonder if people who are subscribed to this channel want to also see this show about podcasting Well, there was a lot of nice Organic crossover where people would say they would watch a video for like how to shoot a video and then they would find a Roundtable and they would join both communities, but I noticed in the stats. There was a Very obvious dip in the stats lots of unsubs Every time it correlated every time the round table came out So YouTube lets you basically just attack on another account and you can switch between them really easily So a couple weeks ago I decided well, I think the round table should have its own because I get it if I subscribe to YouTube channel I'm probably not wanting that other content. So I Don't know. I don't know how that's gonna work out, but I did it. I broke them apart What do you guys think if do you guys have any do you have two brands that you mix? If not, do you think that that was a good decision or a bad decision? I think it's always best to be clear with your audience of what they're gonna get and I think break it apart was the right choice Yeah, I have to agree with that When I first got started with my YouTube channel, I had one on hand lettering I was doing drawing custom lettering custom logos and different art pieces and Long story short built up a pretty sizable audience and launched a course It made six figures in the first three days of launching this course which kind of put me on a lot of people's radars asking How do how can I launch a course like that? How can I you know get into business and teach what I know and so over the course of several years? I eventually shifted kind of pivoted to Teaching online business helping people share what they know produce online courses grow their audience And so my focus changed from hand lettering to business and at the time I had I don't know maybe like five or six thousand subscribers on the lettering channel And I was kind of nervous because I'm thinking well if I make a separate channel about business I'm abandoning all of these subscribers Maybe I should try and you know merge the content in and I started to do that a little bit But I found I found a similar Reaction from people like you were saying Ray, you know, it just wasn't fitting what they came for So I started a whole new channel from scratch which felt like a big step back But within a year, you know that bounced back, you know started getting several thousand more subscribers And I think people really appreciated that curation and now they actually they continue to grow on their own But the audiences are that much more focused and so they're really engaged with the content that's put up Yeah, you end up you end up with super fans I would think because I did the same thing when I first started off my first podcast was about for musicians and Everything was all about how to get more fans and gigs and things like that Kind of fit with podcasting, but as I started doing more and more podcast stuff They were like, what's all this? You know, what does this have to do with running a band, you know so I split the the two off and Yeah, cuz for a while they were getting banned stuff weight loss stuff and podcasting stuff and they're just like look What's pick a topic and go with it Dave so I split everything into its own channel Yeah, I mean I had them and I thought they were related right we're talking about Podcasting and this one's talking about production, but I think they're enough and I think YouTube there's probably a different dynamic on YouTube But maybe not really I mean if you're subscribed to a podcast, hey, this probably goes back to the thing of shoving video Into your audio feed. What about that? If you guys do you guys have any experience with that? I've done that before I think people who subscribe to audio podcast don't want a video to suddenly show up I think that was more common back early on but I mean Rob did you used to see here's here's a thing I'm setting up for the podcast your studio 100th episode took way too long to get there, but I'm by doing that I'm listening to all my back catalog and I just got to the episode where Rob and I talk about the zoom marketplace And we were talking about an update to the zoom marketplace. So it was quite a while ago, right? but Still pulled out some relevant tips But in that one you were talking about you like to signify whether it's video or audio in the title You thought that was a good idea This is probably something that is not really as relevant anymore No, it's not but I mean I do like you know this this is a common theme This is you know setting the expectation with their audience and delivering what you say it's going to be I mean, I think a lot of podcasters early on were we're mixing audio with video in their feeds and I think it was creating a kind of a Little bit of a disjointed experience for for the audience I mean, I I'm a big proponent of creating a separate feed for video and a separate feed for audio and Just labeling that album art is audio and video and like I mean like I say It's less of an issue now because very few people are doing video podcast now. So But it's all about just delivering what you say you're going to deliver and that audience expects you to deliver something and they want to get it and they're They're expecting something to be in a certain format in a certain way and that fits with their life because they're They're trying to consume you on the bus or the train or wherever they're doing it And for you to throw something different at them is just kind of makes some confusion for them Yeah, and if you're gonna do video you've got to make sure That you have it formatted right for the right Like device like if this is primarily made for a tablet or a phone You don't need the huge, you know HD file you can come up with something that's still gonna look good on that screen I remember when Somebody did that once they said I think it was like almost two gigs this video file And it's just taking days for people to download it And it was like ah, and it was in the middle of an audio, you know podcast And I just remember going what's going on with this podcast It won't download then when you finally got it you saw was video was like oh, that's why and then they're like Well, why'd they do that? So it was just really confusing Sean you do a lot of both right audio and video Do you know do you put out the video to a podcast feed or does it only live on YouTube or only on your website? How do you handle that sort of mix branding? It um, yeah, it the video is not on a podcast feed I guess the main reason is we got hung up on the bandwidth. It's kind of hard to You know justify it because it's like I can pay Yeah, yeah, I can pay a certain amount and with something like Libs in we've since Ruled our own media server, but in the past we use Libs in it's a flat rate Unlimited bandwidth it was just hard for us to swallow at the time paying per megabyte per gigabyte You know video download when really YouTube is picking up so much steam and makes it so easy with their app to be able To subscribe to something and YouTube red, you know, you can turn the phone screen off still listen to the audio You cannot kind of have the best of both worlds. So with our I was doing a video show Which I did put on pause, but at one point it was daily. We did about 180 episodes of that we did create an audio podcast for the video show Which we submitted to iTunes people could subscribe on the go But if they wanted the video version that was on YouTube it was embedded on the site so we we branded it by saying go to seanwes.tv and Rather than promoting the YouTube channel, they went to the website which had a YouTube video embedded We felt like that would give us a little more flexibility. You know if we decided to Don't know hosted on our own like on wistia or actually come out with an actual video podcast The brand people had in mind was our website instead of a YouTube channel Yeah, that's an important one about branding just kind of where you're pointing people to because we do exist on a Lot of different platforms. It's like well, where do you where do you point people to and what sort of sticks in their head? I'm always promoting my YouTube channel But I don't really you know tell people to necessarily go to your website to get to your YouTube channel You might just tell them hey search for this on YouTube or you know type in rare take-off for YouTube I don't know. That's a tricky one. You could do a you know a redirect URL For your branding that way. It's whatever it is to sort of stick that probably your website We've talked about that before right the importance of pointing people towards maybe one domain. It's easy to remember but also Has your branding in it? We had a little bit of extra value there, too So rather than pointing people to the YouTube we'd say seanwes dot TV You could say you know slash 52 or whatever number and you go there and we had all the show notes written out Sometimes there were images or other embeds there as well as like a newsletter sign up So that worked out really well and you know the YouTube people are savvy So they'll click on the video and go subscribe on the channel anyway But the nice thing is when people watch it more on the website That drives up the view counts which adds to the YouTube search algorithm Except for I know now that YouTube wants you to do the viewing on YouTube, which makes sense Right they want to serve you all their other stuff. So even embedding cost you a little bit, right? They want when it comes to SEO and search and them Boosting up your video. They want people watching not on your website Not I don't know if it really hurts that much But I know you get a little bit more if you're getting those views on YouTube Which makes sense from YouTube perspective? Hey, right. I just wanted oh, I just wanted to throw out one thing I mean we can probably do a deep dive here on on video podcasting. I've got some Some things for everybody to think about. I mean, I think that There's a lot of I mean, is that cool with everybody you guys want deep dive on video podcasting I don't know if we have any video podcasters here. Well, I am kind of I'm interested in it from like a Technological standpoint, but I don't know I don't know that I would go all in on it Just because I feel like YouTube is a stronger place to You know just put that energy. Maybe you would suggest diversifying Well, I think I mean, I'm doing a show right now with Todd Cochran the The new media show and we're putting that out as a video podcast I mean it's iTunes still has a video area in their podcast store And and the only reason I raise this is that I think there's a little bit of a perception here that maybe is a little bit off on on video podcasting and David what much you chime in on this too because I think I mean I can't really speak to video podcast hosting on Spreaker So but I know that lips and supports video What is that hosting situation for video podcasters on on lips and is it just Costly because it's video storage. Yeah, that's basically it. It's yeah, it's it's the same Plan there's nothing special about it. You get the same statistics everything like that. The bad news is You know because your file is bigger. It's gonna end up costing you more money. That's where I say Yeah, I would make kind of I'm just gonna call it an LD You know low-definition version that's what like one made for the the sizes of a phone screen I would throw that down the feed for my subscribers make an HD version Throw it on YouTube and put that on my website so my visitors can get the nice HD version and My subscribers that are watching on a smaller screen can get a version. That's not gonna be quite so expensive to host Yeah, I mean, it's nice to be It's nice to be available obviously in iTunes, right if people are searching that's obviously under its own search engine So, you know having a low res option is there Of course, then that could affect your branding if it looks like garbage and people are watching on their Apple TV Or they're watching on their iPad It's a tough call. I mean, I think the biggest what killed video podcasting was hosting I mean you had used to have services like lip TV. It was free But it's just the difference in file size, especially now I just put out my first 4k video today on YouTube I mean forget about it like Forget about YouTube. They they ate that for me. So Rob We talked about this on your show just yesterday or was it today? I can't keep track, but yesterday I think YouTube would have to to handle that for us I think YouTube would have to open up and give us access to the MP4 file And then the gates might flood for video podcast in the iTunes, but it's too much burden for the average Podcaster I would say but it's I'm gonna go back to branding a little bit cuz Sean You you said Sean West TV and I'll admit one thing I've been a little confused over the years on the branding is You're not Sean West. What is Sean West? So the West always kind of threw me That's that's a good question when I first got online, maybe 10 or 12 15 years ago and trying to set up a brand for myself There were a lot of Sean McCabe's online, especially in the creative industries music art design film So I just took my middle name Wesley and first name and shortened it into something that didn't exist elsewhere Cuz I figured then I could eventually rank in the search engines for my own term And actually it's funny Google used to say did you mean see news? And I'm like, oh no, I'm never gonna overcome Google saying did you mean? But finally I did it'll actually correct you now But I actually rank for Sean McCabe, but it ended up being like just a way to come up with a name that didn't exist Yeah, I mean that and that's Ray Ortega is not very Uncommon name so you'll notice on all my social channel. I mean I'm podcast helper I've been several names the Twitter is the only one where I couldn't actually get my name I've wrestled my name through the domain. I've got the domain YouTube channel now if anything comes out I grab Ray Ortega first so I definitely rank best for my own name, but on Twitter I can't kind of can't be myself although the nice part is Twitter lets you display your name Even if you're at even if your account is something else, but you know, that's not uncommon for Podcast or someone who's an online content creator for their name to be taken So they have to sort of come up with a moniker or something else So you always see the real Ray Ortega or something like that, right? It's a difficult thing to choose in the beginning because if you pick if you choose to go with something really unique Like if you have a really unique name Gary Vaynerchuk, you know That seems like a terrible name to brand and it is in the beginning But if you stick it out long enough for enough years, then it becomes a really unique thing It's like a it's a strong hook But you have you have to stick it out, you know Whereas in the beginning if you come up with a simpler brand name, you know podcast helper like immediately I get what you're about. I don't I don't have to think okay. What is Ray Ortega about? What do I think when I think of Ray, you know, you you have a very simple name that you get faster traction in the beginning Yeah, it feels it feels there are these things I always say and when I'm helping people set a podcast I'm like you can't really screw it up There's a few things you need to do right most of it. You can't screw up. Don't worry too much But branding really feels like has anyone changed their branding significantly? I feel here's the other thing Let me throw in on top of that. I Feel like you start a podcast. It might be a show. It's called the podcasters do is called Hi cars podcast around table but at some point Ray Ortega becomes the brand and I feel like That a lot of people are their brands now because there's just so much of that person online You know so And I lost myself my original question. What was the part I asked right before that? I was saying does anyone change their branding? Yeah, have you have you done any major changing to your branding because I feel like in the beginning you either rush to start and Just throw something out there or it's just not what you end up being Or in the in a case we just ran into the other week we had a show on our network called behind the brand and There was someone out there who had a TV show with the same name They actually had a trademark for all things video around that But their trademark was all video exclusive and we thought well Maybe if we stay in our lane and only do audio They're not gonna mind that lasted about a year and then they came along and they They made us get off that name Which really sucked because I think we spent like twenty five hundred dollars on that domain getting the dot-com But you know we changed it to came up with something that was available and it was called invisible details Which I was surprised the dot-com was available for that, but You know the two guys on that show that the host of that show They basically just made it the nice thing is when you have a show about branding Everything's a part of the story. So it's like right here's here's the process We went through of changing our name and why and all that stuff Yeah, I can Talk about a little bit of an example of of of what I went through back in the early days of my podcasting I had a radio show that I did it was called it was called web talk guys And I changed the name about half halfway through the show. I did the show for about six years and About halfway through we changed the name to web talk radio and And so I tried to make that transition between the web talk guys and web talk radio and what I found is is that It's very difficult to Transition an audience away from a name that they first got introduced to and what I wound up doing over time was Kind of using both in various ways to try and shift people gradually Over because I didn't want to make a just pull the plug on everything So I kept the old website up with off a web talk guys because some of the audience like to go there And I built a new website off a web talk radio and then just over a period of about two or three years. I just kind of melded those things together and I used both Names in the show for some period of time. I don't know if it was a year or something like that Just to help people because people would come in and leave and You know new people would be coming in all the time and then I'd also get old older listeners come through so you have this kind of this Transition that I had to go through and I felt like it was really important at the time to actually do that It was a big Deal to get get a new domain name and get that whole thing You know just a little bit like what you know, you just were saying you know I had to acquire a new domain name and that was challenging And then trying to build two websites and and all that kind of stuff was also challenging but but it was In an interesting process, I don't think that we ever really escaped the old the old name though I think it's still followed us That's the truth Yeah, I did a similar thing when I first started off my podcast for musicians was called the musician cyber cooler It was supposed to be where musicians come to trade advice because it was supposed to be like a water cooler But it was in cyberspace. Yeah, this is a long time ago And then it's funny. I'm laughing because I know it is just the musicians cooler. So this cyber thing Yeah, how how like 90s is that sound? Let's exactly well and then cyber got attached to the word sex because everything was cyber sex I'm like, all right, let's lose that work. Oh So then it was a musician's cooler and it even had a big giant picture of a water cooler is the album art and People then thought it was wine coolers and I'm like, all right, never mind just so I finally changed it to the marketing musician and that's where it's been since then but It just when you have to keep explaining what your show is about and they can't tell from the name It's like this is not a good name. This is not gonna get it. So Yeah, we were thinking the pre-show Dave and I were chatting one of my Podfated Podcast podcast quicktips Dave did a coho or he did a guest host I put him in the chair I said Dave do an episode and recently for whatever reason that episode's getting a lot of attention I know this because comments on the site, which are not something I see a ton of especially for that Website and so that one is actually called like naming your podcast with Dave Jackson So Dave is just big in the space. I think it's blown up because Dave's blown up But it's very popular and I love it is one of my favorite tips And that's why I asked Dave to actually record that and sort of take over the show for an episode and Dave I think your main tip there was that, you know, if you're thinking of show a name for your podcast Go ask some people not not your wife or your friends or people right just go ask random people Or even better your target audience your target on's if you know that yeah, sure I guess you should know that and ask them Tell them the name of the show and ask them what they think it means and that was a really simple way to To say hey Dave What do you think podcast around tables about and see the feedback you get you might be surprised and the tough thing is I Know I often will sort of decide on a brand and I I almost willfully Ignorant I don't want to know I kind of decided it was tough Let's just go forward and I've probably hurt myself sometimes doing that right I mean, do you how much Sean how much stuff do you sort of test before you put it out there for your brand? We really try to test a lot one thing that works really well for us is When people sign up to different newsletters that we have whether it's for shows or different courses The welcome email that goes out kind of sets the stage tells them what to expect, you know Establish a little credibility But the main thing we do is at the bottom of that email we say hey by the way What's your biggest struggle when it comes to podcasting right now or whatever that thing is for you for your brand for your show Asking people what they're struggling with and then invite them actually say hit reply on this email I read every single one would love to hear from you just invite them to respond and basically we have this auto You know machine that's generating these ideas, you know like for any kind of content I tried to source the title of an episode or the title of a course or a blog post from what people are saying one person said You know in response to the main newsletter I was like what's your what's your biggest struggle when it comes to making a living from work that you enjoy doing and they said it feels like too many people already do what I want to do and I wrote a blog post Titled in quotes too many people already do what I want to do just literally took the words that they use And it just blew up like everyone was saying this I relate to this so strongly You know, this is totally me. They were sharing it because they connected with it But that's worked really well for us just figuring out what's going through people's heads What is what what are the words that they use to describe the things that they're going through? Yeah, and I think that's a good tip people say man You know me so well and your show speaks right to me and if you're listening to your audience You mean to do something like that to literally take what they're saying and then expand on it Can be huge and people say man, you just you totally get me and like well You actually told me that but you know, that's a really cool Little tip to take away from there I mean do some good listening and then let your audience tell you, you know guide you in some of your content it's amazing how easy it is to make people feel heard and You know, you can get them to say it feels like you're reading my mind like every every next page of your book You know, it's like you get me and it's super simple to read minds All you have to do is the one thing that most people don't do and that's listen because most people are actually waiting to talk You know, we were good at putting on this face of a listening face and saying right and then we bounce off of that word Right and say whatever we had charged up and ready to go But if we're actually listening, you know The best way to make feel make someone feel like they've been heard is to repeat back what they're saying Oh, so you you feel like this and they say yes and at that moment you have their peak attention That that's when you want to deliver your message Yeah, be less of a politician be more of a community member Awesome. Hey, so thinking about podcasting and and brand and maybe you started a show and you already have a website and I'm sure we've talked about this before but That decision to add a podcast to your existing site versus breaking it off onto its own site Which you know, Rob, you're looting the fact you had to build new websites. I mean, it's not easy Even just setting up something simple is never simple, right? So when you think about so I'll as an example the podcaster studio comm also contains Podcasts quick tips, which is the one I said isn't really going right now And you can find everything you can jump off from there I also have Ray or Tega comm which has all my properties on it, right? So but podcast around table does have its own Website, it's it's different. It's it's a little different even though it's podcasting. So what's the decision there? Sean when you are working with people to build a brand. I'm sure a lot of people come to you They already have a brand right and maybe they're if they're starting a podcast something They're just gonna be doing it about that brand but On your own personal domain, like I hopefully everyone has their name That's another thing about names like can you get your own domain is very tough to do sometimes But do you what do you put there? Right? Is it a place for your podcast your podcast have its own site? What do you guys think? Well, I mean you first have to decide what the podcast is, you know in general, especially if you want to Like you could have a podcast as a hobby that you don't intend to make money from you're gonna put money in and you're okay With paying for hosting and all that stuff But if you want it to be a marketing channel, which I think for a lot of people They do want it to be a way that they get customers that they get clients or you know, maybe That they at least get sponsors on it somehow some way to make money Then figure out what that end goal is. What is it that you're selling? What is your a business model? Do you do you sell sponsors? Do you sell physical products? Are you trying to get clients? Do you want donations? Do you have a membership? What a lot of people do is they kind of throw up all of these monetization methods and they they are Asking for donations telling people to buy mugs saying you have a membership making listeners listen to sponsors You got to figure out what your thing is and then point people to it And I would say if that's on your website and the podcast is a marketing channel to get people to that point of sale Whatever it looks like I would recommend having it on the website because it's it's that much easier It's it's that much closer to the action you want people to take and I would just say you want to establish whether or not this show is its own umbrella or it's underneath an umbrella brand so I Would say put it on another site if it's the beginning of a new umbrella brand that you want to expand or add more things Under otherwise if it's a part of your main umbrella, I'd recommend having it on your your own site your main site Dave you're a man of a million shows. Do you have a new website for every show? I mean over the years you've had a lot of shows, right? I have and I was as we're sitting there thinking about this. I'm like, why did I do that? Because I know now I have one for best podcasting gear And I just wanted to I thought if I had one site that just focused on nothing but gear gear in gear then maybe it might rank higher than Then my current one but in reality that could have fit on the school of podcasting I could easily fit there. So I'm sitting here now scratching my head going. What was the reason? I think I also want to play with a different WordPress theme that that actual podcast is just an experiment There's another media host I wanted to play with but Yeah, that's I had somebody this week that She had a blog on a honor her website and she just thought that when you start a podcast You have to have a separate website and I said, you know, well, why did you do that? She goes well because it's a podcast I go But what's the goal of the podcast again? Oh did she wanted more speaking gigs and wanted this and that she wanted to drive traffic To her website and I'm like, well, then I said put it on your website. She goes, yeah, but that's a blog I go. Well, here's news. I'm a podcast is just a blog with a little audio attached to it And she's like and all of a sudden the light bulb just came on and just exploded She's like, oh wow So she's moving everything over to her her website because it felt perfectly in line with her goals I think it's kind of what Sean was talking about whatever your goal is That'll kind of help you decide whether it's gonna stay or not when jargon throws a big wrench into everything, right? It's all these terms and sometimes just being able to explain it right changes everything what back to something I talked about a little earlier The person becoming the brand. What do you guys think of that? Do you feel do you think more people know Dave Jackson or to schools podcasting? See I would think it's yeah at this point it's Dave Jackson I remember I used to laugh because people would talk about They would find me on the school podcasting there to start listening to my show for musicians and I'm like, oh cool I didn't know you play. What do you play and they go? I don't and I'm like what and they're like Yeah, I just think you're funny and I'm like well, okay, but you're listening to show Well, it kind of pertains to podcasting if I really but they were just coming over to follow me And that always kind of made me scratch my head, but it is it is true people tune in for the content But they they stay for the host Which was always Steven in the chat says they know the Dave Jackson Apparently, there's I don't know a lot of them, but they know this one. Yeah There is a lot. I know five personally. So yeah, I think people like to follow People more than I like to follow brands. I think and community fits into that and I mean, it's hard somewhat to build a podcast without building The podcast brand, but it's always going to conflict with your personal brand And maybe it's complimentary. It just depends on On who you are and how much of a presence you have on the podcast, too Maybe you have a couple of co-hosts. Maybe your podcast Is it really all about one host? Maybe it's about the combination of all three of you I mean if you have two other co-hosts or something like that Maybe one of the other co-hosts has a stronger personal brand than than the main host or something like that I think it can be very complicated Though I think Dave is a good example of a of a podcast that has really been built on his reputation and And I think that that's that's why I think Dave you see that be the case I know I have an affinity more towards you than towards your podcast I would listen to whatever show you did it doesn't matter what what the show is I don't have a stronger affinity towards the school of podcasting I have an affinity towards you and I think that's that's what drives a lot of this stuff and And I also want to throw out a question to at all three of you is Yeah, is to Do we need a website these days to be a podcaster? well, and The only reason I throw that out is that everybody keeps talking about how important apps are right to To keep building your distribution Do you guys think that over time? We're gonna see websites become less important or an apps more important Or are we gonna see these worlds combined? Yeah, it's probably a combination thing I think a website is still something you should have obviously you don't need it to be a podcaster You absolutely don't but you should have it But that's my opinion and I think you know websites are becoming web apps and all this case Those will blend but I think websites will still there'll be something Left of what we know who's a website. It'll still exist That's a that's a really interesting thought like you know it with the with the trend towards apps Do you actually need a website? I think something else to consider? This is maybe a little further in the future could be like five or ten years from really catching on but I think Facebook, you know, you could say it's going away, but if they keep acquiring things like Instagram They tried to acquire snapchat. They tried to acquire the next thing As they go obsolete I think they have enough capital to acquire whatever the next thing is and make themselves relevant and continue to be relevant Facebook's one player Google's another Apple's another all of all of these people are trying to build their own Ecosystem within which you live, you know, Alexa in the house Google home Siri They want to be the one source where you can ask questions and get answers where you can look for content and get a feed And so I think increasingly whether or not that's you know apps in the traditional sense of what you download from the app store I think we're we're increasingly going to have to play by some of these big players rules and Submit our feeds whatever that looks like maybe they hosted on there Maybe maybe it is something like an RSS feed or the future version of that But I would also say just tying this back into the branding discussion I do think people follow people and people follow personalities more than brands I think you know people feel a little jaded it with Apple these days Maybe because of some of the decisions they're making but maybe also because Apple was Steve Jobs to them When it comes to the name of your brand the nice thing about having a more Generic name that isn't super specific to what you do is it allows you to be fluid It allows you to pivot to something else and allow that brand name to take on new meaning Yeah, I think a website especially at this point because I know everybody's all about iTunes and stuff I think a lot of people still just go to Google and they type in their topic You know underwater basket weaving podcast and they hit go and then to see what comes up So I think that's where the website because if you can't if you don't have a website How you gonna get found and you know obviously if you're in Some sort of app, you know There's whatever the Google Play Store and you know iTunes and all these other places to be found that way But I think it still pays and for me if I want somebody to sign up for a newsletter How do I get to do them to do that on an app unless there's a way to do that within the app? And then if I want to have any kind of quick link because I'm actually playing with a Podcast right now that I'm I I'm just using the build-in Lipson Website well, I can't do you know my website comm slash iTunes because there's no redirect on that and I'm like hmm I didn't realize how much I use that until I didn't have it so I Think a website definitely has some tools. It'll be interested to see I'm with Sean I think five to ten years is gonna be interested to see you how that migrates Yeah, and I mean and to throw a bad analogy Dave Dave loves a bad analogy. I you mean Roomba's and we have made services, but I bet everyone still has a broom right like even no matter how Old I think the tech of a website gets I think it still exists in some form I mean and we're talking about branding. I mean the website is that one place where you can go to get Everything I do if people really do follow people Then the website contains that now could I have a rare ticket app? I guess so but at some point They just won't they there won't be a this there won't be a Don't be able to tell you won't be tell between an app and a website It'll all just sort of be there online for you to get I think that's the place They go when you're my space page your my space which finally dissolves into nothing. They're like where'd he go? Go back to your website. Oh, he's on Facebook now my space You always gotta you have to build your own platform that you can control because otherwise you're you're at the the whim and mercy of all of these big players Facebook says oh get everyone to like you on Facebook you can reach them there They're already there and then they change the algorithms and it's a pay-to-play game and you reach You know five percent of the people you drove onto their platform now You need to pay to reach people Facebook is trying to rule out e-commerce, you know So you just sell directly on their platform and they're gonna make it really enticing But you're always gonna have to play by their rules. I do think you should go where the people are You should go where the people are hanging out so you can acquire new members of your audience But you got to have that home base somewhere you can call your own Yeah, I just wanted to throw it I mean kind of extending this conversation and the reason that I even brought it up was that I've been thinking a lot about This for many years as we've seen that the development of apps and then kind of the perceived decline of the the world-wide web and I know that there's been a lot of talk and the the HTML community around HTML5 and extending those those Those tags and making HTML much more capable of being more native app-like, right? So there's been a lot of talk in the developer and the engineering community about merging those two platforms together So you I you've had a little bit of inkling of web apps, right that whole concept Well, what what's being talked about it? I just don't I'm not hearing a regular flow of conversation about this topic But having those worlds kind of come together it'd be great as I think about my use of Technology I'd be great to just go to one place, right instead of having the audience go to an app and then go to a Website go to an app go to a website back and forth It's like we're living in this this dual world of technology where Just go one place, right It would be it would be but the thing is everyone uses a different podcast app My only point there is that the way we do it is not the way someone else does it So it almost feels like you always have to have all of those options for the way that you consume versus how I consume, right? But I think technology is getting simplified, right? So we have you know, I start looking at Alexa and you start looking at these Google home devices our our experiences with technology is gonna eventually kind of I Think it's gonna kind of like a little bit disappear It's gonna be absorbed into our everyday life and experience gonna be in our clothes on our walls in our cars And everywhere we go, it's gonna follow us, right? We may not even need to carry around a phone in the future Because it's gonna be either embedded in our head or it's gonna be in our hand Or it's gonna be just wherever we go that there's gonna be a device that recognizes us and connects to us And I'm just the air pods people think these are wireless headphones It's got a chip in here. This is this is an ear computer, you know, this is this is the start of Yeah, you know wear wearable tech, you know Google tried it with Google Glass and that iteration didn't take off But yeah, that's definitely where we're going Right and as content creators though, we will we will just figure out how to be on those platforms How do I get inside your ear? Can you please plant me in your head when you add your can you add the podcast around table module into your You know, I mean, it's just it's Consumption versus producing something and getting and reaching the person how they consume them consume things I don't know. It's it's interesting, but It's a little bit of a sidetrack from your the branding conversation. That's that's what this shows all about We just jump into the pool and then and then we Connect it though What what is a brand, you know, we we like to simplify it and act like it's a logo or it's artwork Or it's a title of a show, but it really is so much more than that It's every facet of your your business your show and and what you're doing. It's every interaction It's customer support. It's the quality of your audio, you know, the care you take with editing You know, how much you prepare whether you do show notes like all of that is contextualized within Podcasting but a brand is someone's experience. It's not having to download a two gigabyte video Podcast that they didn't realize was two gigabytes and they weren't on Wi-Fi or whatever, you know it's it's every little piece of that and The more you're on someone else's platform that you can't control the more you can't control someone's experience Absolutely, that's a great point. I was at Christmas. I thought it was amazing how all these different products now Remember it used to be you go to open the box and you have to bust out like who's got the hunting knife I've got to cut the tape off this thing and now they all have this It's like just click here and open this up and then they all have the pretty boxes and the little everything Just fits in a certain nice way and I was really amazed at how everybody at least in for me I got a lot of Amazon stuff this year and the the care that goes into that that Unboxing kind of thing that when you open the lid for the first time I was like, ooh so if you can have that same kind of experience and make it easy for people to subscribe to your show and Find what the find the links in the show notes and things like that. It's gonna make you stand out over the person who types Two sentence show notes that says in today's show we talk about some stuff Yeah, I mean especially as the as it becomes easier and easier to create content as as Microphones and technology gets less expensive as things become more plug-and-play Anyone can create content anyone can you know shoot 4k videos like Ray was saying with with this device It's it's incredible, but as that quality and ease of use goes up the content goes up Which means we have more to choose from we're gonna be yeah, there you go We're gonna be more picky we're gonna be more selective You know it used to be a novelty to be able to stream your own webinar for instance now I find myself getting emails from people with webinar starting at the same time I'm putting them up on both of my screens and I'm looking at the one that's better quality I'm looking at the one that people are paying attention who are clearly prepared and I'm gonna give them my time and attention And it's the same with with podcast if the audio quality sounds good I find myself listening to it longer even if the topic isn't as relevant just because it feels like a better use of my time there was a recent article and one of the head tech guys at NPR looked at NPR one numbers and they said that a Typical audience within the first five minutes you will lose somewhere between 20 and like 30% and they said so if you're and I did the math It's like if you have 2,000 downloads per episode that's hundreds of people, you know, it's like it's it's crazy that You know you can learn that but so when I It makes me really think now about the you know the idle chit chat at the beginning of a show I think you really need to To get to the point or at least let them know what's coming up and then not make them wait 15 minutes to get to the the meat and potatoes That's a tricky balance because you want to be personable, but you want to respect people's time So it's like you got to open a loop and say we're gonna get to this great topic You know, but also we're human and we're not gonna go too off on a tangent Well in a certain percentage of your audience will tune in for that chit chat. Yeah, too So it's it's a tough balance. They'll also those that percentage will also probably wait for it as well I mean analytics as a double-edged sword I mean YouTube there's no better place to analyze what you're doing than YouTube They give you the deep dive because they own the platform and you're on it But you know, man, I have become a pro at getting to the point at cutting down the fat I mean, that's what YouTube wants in general and it'll show you exactly Who's listening how long where they dropped off where they rewound? I mean you can really dial that in and that obviously can lead to some obsessive behavior It's not always good and it can take out some of the humanizing parts of your brand So it's definitely a balance, but maybe you like I said, maybe you can shift it or put it in a segment That's later. I don't know just be mindful of it like that the fact that you have two audiences Every piece of content every show you put out. There's two audiences. There's people who this is their first episode They just discovered you how are you gonna give them value? How are you gonna hook them and set the expectation for the future as well as? Continue to go deeper with the people you already have just being mindful of those two audiences So here's a great question is since you open that can I which I really like a lot of people always want to talk about Upfront you should have all this information You should be catering your intro to the new listener and I don't I disagree somewhat I I think the new this or they're there to find out what's going on catch up see if they like it But the returning subscriber the person who's been with you for two years. They don't want to hear that same stuff every time Yeah, we have 36 30-second skip button But is that what's that about your brand that I know to automatically hit 30 seconds skip four times when I get you know Who wants that so what do you guys think? Huh, I do it. I do only on the new on the no agenda show It's about four or five skips because they have a whole thing We're good morning John C. Devorak and all the boots and they say the same thing and a good morning Adam Curry and blah blah blah blah And they go through this whole intro and it's fun. It's entertaining But I'm like I know it's like three or four skips and it used to be you could just fast forward tilt They had it like a jingle where it's like Punching people in the face or whatever it was and when you heard that, you know, oh cool They're finally getting to the content. So I just learned it was like skip skip skip skip. Oh, there it is Okay, cool. We're good. I I mean I got I grew up in sports And there was kind of a little bit of approve yourself and sort of earn your way in type of thing Right, whereas you had to catch up to the rest of the team and to feel like you're part of it So I like catering trying to cater a little bit more to the person who's already decided That I want to be here every week. I want to hear you every week and I think that new listener I think there's even a part of it. That's fun to sort of figure. Hey, what's going on here? Do I like this? I don't know that to me and then that could be part of your brand, right? I mean, I play music That's probably not something you would should play if you're trying to capture Everybody right? It's that hard rock people like I'm out of here But what do you guys think about that the new person to your brand versus the returning person? Yeah, I think you got a cater to your existing audience I think that that's your priority because that's your backbone But I I was listening to the Ellipson podcast just earlier today the feed and I heard them say on that that that show we know that you skip all of the Podcasts every time Everything of the show and I thought to myself I do the same thing They should just tell us go to 13 minutes. That's where Rob comes in. No, it's not it's nothing. It's Elsie I just don't care about all the other stuff. I want to hear them talk And I it's a great example of and to be honest even the music that if I It's a race between hitting the play button and the sick 30-second skip button on the feet to not hear that I'm just like it's the worst music ever I know I know someone created for the show, but man, it just drives me insane So but Sean you are you know, you're someone who with your brand you're drawing drawing in people for income Right? I mean you want to bring them in and hopefully you get paid at some point But you have a lot of people who have signed up as like premium users. So how do you balance that? Yeah, you would think that I'd want to have an intro that's catering to the new people to bring them in tell them Hey, this is what the show is about this way You should stick around subscribe go to the website sign up for the newsletter do this a little spiel But it's kind of like more of a Netflix show, you know, you if you go to season three episode one You expect to be in the middle of it or like, you know a coffee shop if you always go to a coffee shop every every Saturday at 10 a.m. And You notice there's there's two guys next to you at a table next to you They always meet at 10 a.m. You know that they're talking they're just having a meeting they're catching up It's like hey James, you know, hey George and and they're talking You you kind of get into their world a lot faster You feel like you're a part of the crew you feel like your buds and so I mean that's that's kind of how we do is that Hey, good morning, Ben. Good morning, Sean and that's it like then then we just get into the show we're casual and Yeah, maybe it takes a little bit for people to kind of figure it out But once they do I feel like there's a deeper connection there That audience has to earn their place at the tables out you're saying I Kind of like that. I mean, I don't expect the show to cater to me in the beginning I the here's the thing I got there for a reason did I just I didn't like press play buttons in the dark And like and like how did I get there? Why am I pressing play in the first place? How much do I know did your description tell me something did your name tell me something? Do I know you do? I know someone on the show, you know, how am I what's my first interaction and You probably do why don't I doubt that most people don't have some type of context when they already get there Don't don't they want to feel like They belong, you know, they're accepted like there's something here to be a part of Yeah, you look at any show whether it's a Netflix show or a podcast or a YouTube vlog or something, you know, you jump in the middle It should feel like this is a club that people get, you know that that people are they have their own language You know, there's inside jokes like you want to be a part of that and I think we should give people more credit when it comes to podcasts I'd say most people tuning in to your podcast You're probably not the very first podcast they're tuning into they probably know podcasts and we should give them more credit They get how podcasts work. I think people are willing to dive in if I look up a show that I heard at a conference I'm gonna expect that there's an established context and I'm gonna say, you know, I'm gonna give it a try Just like I might a TV show We have an interesting question in the in the chat room. They're talking about is changing your music Branding I said, I think so and then they said what about bumps and to go back to what Sean was talking about I think branding is all about the overall experience of The podcast to me volume level is branding. So if all of a sudden, you know, one person is super loud I used to listen to one Barry Katz very famous He's been every comedian's manager one for another and and Barry would like blow the windows out of your car And his guest apparently had their microphone on the floor or something I don't know what the deal was so you would tune it up to to hear the guest because that's who you tuned in to listen to And then Barry would come on and literally just break your windows I was like who is who is doing the engineering on the show was amazing And eventually I ended up quit listening to that show because I had to ride the knob to listen to it They finally kind of from what I understand and fix that but to me that's branding. It's it's it's the overall experience Floyd so some comments good comments in the chas I hear the music for a show and know it's starting If it changes, I'm wondering from the right place says I think a shows James has a shows intro as a stamp To listeners that your show is starting And I think you know, I remember when Jay Leno took over the tonight show and when it wasn't dad at that Then that which was Johnny Carson's thing. I was like what what they changed the music people Oh man, I was freaking out, you know, and now I'm like, I'll I'm all about Jimmy Whatever his name is Fallon. Yeah, you go all about it. What's the name? No, I'm all about what's his name? Yeah, I'm all about that guy, but um, I mean I changed my music three different times I mean be that's part of your brand too is that you change right after years like your show changes We all get bored with our website. We want to redesign it every year every two years or whatever and we when you know We're supermarkets. We're gonna change the aisle on you, but you have to change otherwise I'll give you an example. I went to church I go to a different church that I grew up in but for Christmas Eve I went back to the church that I grew up in and I'm here to tell you every Christmas Eve service It is the I mean the same woman sings the same solo. It's the same thing and I was like It's what it's just it's done poorer because everybody's older now It's like wow you got a chick you got to give your audience something to go I mean that the the whole Howard Stern thing was people tuned in because you didn't know what to expect and that doesn't mean You just just change everything But there's got to be some element of surprise I would think a little bit every now and then you got to throw a curve ball. I don't know. What do you think Sean? Hmm. I'm man. I have a favorite thing at every restaurant. I go to it's not the same thing But at every restaurant like I know my thing and yeah, you could try something else and it might be better But it might be worse So like I'm big on consistency, but I think you're right you do have to you've got a you got to give people something You've got to keep it fresh. I Think the best advice I could give is just listen to the audience, you know, what what's what's interesting Yeah, they'll tell you when it's wrong. I mean, I'm always telling people always be experimenting I mean we have this amazing medium where no one tells us what to do, right? We talk about having to orient the new audience and we have radio who has to tell us every 10 minutes What the heck we're listening to and who we're talking, you know, we're not radio and before something comes in and says Well, here's some guidelines for you. I I hope I want to see more experimentation I want to see things that I've never seen done and if you grow up These are people producing media who have never even they have no training no background in media And so I'm hoping to see some cool stuff I mean we've got kids coming up who probably never heard the radio didn't watch TV and they're gonna create content I'm like, I didn't think of that. So I hope people try. I'm only saying grows you go I think you change as a content producer over the years and it's a tough one because yes People don't like change if you've established something a show, you know, there's that thought of oh, man I have 5,000 subscribers like I don't want to do anything because I don't want to lose 50 of them, right? But you may actually gain 50,000 of them. You don't know, but hopefully you are Experimenting at least a little bit you got to remember those aren't just 5,000 downloads to like their actual real people You know, someone was tweeting at me earlier today and they listen to the podcast and they said, you know It's it's been life-changing for me And I was responding and engaging with them and I could tell it was it was really special like every reply You know, they were liking the reply It felt it felt so cool to them and I think that's because podcasting is just such an intimate medium Like who else do you let three inches from your ear except your spouse? You know, it's it's a very It's a very precious thing In fact, like who else do you have that will listen to you for 30 minutes or an hour non-stop without interrupting you? I mean, it's the closest relationship you can get so if one of those 5,000 people not downloads, but people reaches out Give give them time give them attention and they'll tell you what your show should be Well, that's also a case for not not making big changes to now But I said and I think in it that's yeah, you just scared me more now I'm not gonna change that darn thing because I don't want it to but no, that's just it The the people are that connected to you. It's that important to them and make it that important to you For their feedback, right? Really listen. So try stuff, you know, gosh I'm trying to think of something I've tried for people You know, Dave messed around with the compression on his show or did some some stuff to get the big boom And people told him real quick. What the heck are you doing? And he went right back he fixed it, right? So, you know, he's learning. I don't know what the problem was Oh, I'm on the wrong microphone. I'm turning up knobs on a mixer that I'm like, it's not working. Yeah, so So fail fast. Is that the motto here? If you're gonna try something don't be scared Don't be afraid and listen, right? Yeah, I think that's the key. Yeah for that feedback. Ask for that feedback right away Yeah, Google Forms is a great free tool that you can easily make forget MailChimp nothing that they're not MailChimp Survey monkey, you know, not that there's anything wrong with that But but Google Forms you can have more than 10 questions and get more than 100 respondents and it's free And yeah, I'm not saying throw the baby out every week and something different But I just know, you know, you have it's you have to listen to people and give them what they want Speaking of forms for anyone that's made it this far in the broadcast I just want to congratulate you and Ray gave me permission to just go off on on tangents I want to give just a little I don't know what you call it a hack a tip a strategy something I've never shared anywhere because it works so good. I wanted to keep it to myself But you mentioned forms. I'm like, I gotta I gotta I gotta share this So I've done this we just recorded our 300th episode of the Shawn West podcast And we've we we always do something special on those centennial episodes You know first hundred we gave away a thousand dollars worth of prizes then 2000 then this last time 3000 You don't have to give away anything huge one of the people in our communities gave away a $50 Amazon gift card But I'll tell you what I did We had a live show we streamed it live, you know on video we edit it later for the podcast feed but we said we're doing this giveaway we're giving away these prizes all you have to do is go to this form and You answer one question. It just says how has the Shawn West podcast helped you? That's it simple question. That's all you have to do to win all of these prizes. We're gonna pick a winner at random It's just you guys here who are live. It's a special thing and you know, we had we had hundreds of entries But what we did this this is like the this is the trick So whatever form you use we use gravity forms on our website, which is a WordPress site Which will automatically send a confirmation email. It says hey, thanks so much for taking the time to say this really appreciate your support Here's for your records. Here's a copy of the form you submitted Then it says would you do me a quick favor? Simply copy paste what you wrote here and go over to Shawn West comm slash iTunes and paste it as a iTunes review would really help out the show You just got them to write that podcast review that they always said they would write later when they're driving in their car They just wrote it. There's no excuse copy paste and overnight. We've gotten, you know, 30 50 80 podcast five-star podcast reviews It's worked tremendously That's who ya That's good one there Certain certain to put you in no new and over the yeah, yeah, that's cool I mean it is and that's there are there are these high threshold tasks like send us audio feedback or write us a Email or I even answer this poll or question So anything you can do to make that easier I think really helps because those things, you know People say oh man, I'm not getting any feedback on my show and it's like, you know How are you making it easier to get that feedback? So that's probably a great example, you know, you got them to write come to do something They said they wanted to do but just didn't do it. Yeah, Lee. Have you guys I have you guys had the experience where? You've asked for feedback on a showing and obviously you get feedback I get it. I get short shorter feedback on the comments area but emails usually are like They're kind of like massive emails. I don't know if you guys get these emails from people but they're they're like Five or six paragraphs of stuff and it comes in on a regular basis, too I'm always shocked because it goes back to intimate relationship. They feel like you're their best friend. Yeah Yeah, I mean it and it's really kind of frustrating because it's almost like it's too much It's like the surefire way for me to answer you last is to make a big email It's just because I can't get through as much and has to give so much attention So it's really tough too because I super appreciate that you took all that time to write that email But I'm like, yeah, I can't get through this well I can I can get through but what I want to do is I want to take that email to the show and share it with the Audience we should and it's it's just so much there You can't I mean I'll like take two sentences out of this massive email and talk about on the show Which is fine, but it's just like this audience member has invested so much in Trying to communicate with us. Yeah, and it's usually it starts off with when you said this in episode blah, blah, blah Yeah, I had and you can see right where whatever you said was the lightning bolt that said I give me a keyboard Somebody get me a keyboard Yeah, and they just don't go into town So that's always kind of interesting to see what pushed their button that finally got them to to respond That's what I love about those and then it always ends with I'm sorry this I didn't mean this to be so long That's that's what yeah exactly. Yeah So that's a little bit of a clue to how to get audience Audience engagement and feedback like that. I mean, I mean it's difficult to get that kind of feedback because it's hard to process it but it's also really Really interesting to get it too because it reveals a lot just like what you said Dave about what what triggered them to To communicate and it is oftentimes a controversial topic or something that they have a passion for I'll tell you what I did to quote-unquote solve it But in the first, you know year of podcasting I get a lot of emails like that I'd have a lot of great deep conversations But it was one-on-one and and we were the only two people who ever saw or benefited from that discussion And a lot of times gold nuggets came from that and future show topics and and I'm like what I'm having all these one-on-one Conversations, I wish everyone could kind of talk together and be in the same place And that's when we fill our community So now we do have a place where people can go and they can talk together So when we get long emails like that We're able to say, you know pick one thing that they said and respond to that and say that oh, this is great You know, it's you clearly have a passion for all of this We have a lot of people in our community who would love to talk with you more about that I'm sure you could get a lot of clarity as well as some additional value. You might want to check it out Yeah, I mean I've just announced that I haven't done one yet But I'm launching a Q&A on YouTube because you know a good problem to have is feedback and too much feedback And I pride myself on answering every single YouTube comment and doing it within Hopefully hours at least 24 hours getting back quick something you don't see on YouTube I mean most YouTube channels the comments are just it's never the creator It's everyone else and there's a lot going on there and yeah, it's a lot of bad too but there's a ton of good on YouTube and You know, so I'm creating I'm pulling out the best comments and then putting them into a Q&A That's kind of popular on YouTube right now But for me it allows to share share that feedback with everyone else I mean, yeah, I will do a long email reply If for that only that one person and that's fine But it it's content at that point you can you know, you can even ask the person Hey, if you mind if I use it on the show or whatever, but it can be really really good content I mean you can do a regular listener email show as well, which is something I know some people do with a lot of success that brings up the topic of where does the Conversation happen just like the monetization methods people are throwing up all these different ways of trying to make money Similarly people are throwing up all these ways to have a conversation Oh tweet us use the hashtag send us an email fill out this form leave a comment on YouTube leave a comment on the website Leave a comment on the share on Facebook. Where does the conversation happen? It is tempting to encourage it to happen everywhere, but if it's happening everywhere more often than odd It happens nowhere because maybe two people find each other there But it like you were saying Ray, maybe you point people to one place and like that That's the place where it happens and it just it builds buzz and you get Just I feel like you get so much better feedback, too So what's your general call to action Sean? Are you because you know for podcasters? This is really tough It's a hard thing not to say You know send me an email go to my website check out my YouTube channel subscribe on iTunes follow me on Twitter Like where do you sit with the multiple calls action versus just one? Solid call to action. I mean we we have the unique advantage of having our community So we we don't have comments on the website for that reason we point people there we say hey We stream the show live This is where the conversation happens if you want to be a part of the conversation you want to interact live You want to talk with like-minded people join the community and that's that's our call to action Hmm nice For me I just tried to put all the ways you can contact me whether it's email voicemail Speak pipe now you can do a video thing and upload it. I just put that all on one page So it's school podcasting comm slash contact as opposed to tweet me like me Snap me chat me whatever it is me, you know If that all nine yards, it's like it's all on one page And then the thing is though you have to remember whatever you put there you have to check Because I'm amazed at number one. I'm amazed at how many people don't have a way to be contacted on their website I was I'm in the process My last episode was the the one where it's my favorite podcast is so if you were listed as somebody's favorite I'm going to that person saying hey guess what Dan thinks you're his favorite podcast And I'm amazed at how many people I can't contact them I have to search and search and search and then finally one guy today I'm like well, I guess I'm gonna contact you on Twitter because that's the only thing you did And I was like wow, I just I was amazed at how hard it was to find how to contact people. So Yeah, I think yeah, I mean I think that's huge Dave I mean that's a real pet peeve that I have is not being able to have a way to contact someone Especially their podcaster. Jeez, you know, that's crazy One one final thing that sort of relates to that and tying you back to branding and then and then we'll let everyone go because it's a Livestream and we could do like four round tables tonight Which is the beauty of the show, but You know having a Twitter account just for your show so I have podcast helper everything funnels there It's I really love interacting there I love having podcast helper across all brands because it the funny thing is you know If you go to Instagram and you do at podcast helper It'll mention me on Instagram But then you can just slide the tweeter the tweeter the twit twit Wow can't oh the Twitter button And it'll and it'll also mention me there because my brand is the same on both platforms But what about when people want to say hey a really love podcasters round table? Yeah, you could say that but with if I don't have the Twitter account available for them to then at reply I have no clue. They're having that conversation unless of course I follow You know I do a search and I follow that or something So I don't know if that's on you know, I think it's nice to be able to Mention someone whether it's on Facebook if I'm on Facebook and I'm writing a post I like to if I'm like, oh Dave Jackson. Let me find his face face page So he knows I'm writing it he gets notified maybe he can share with his audience whatever it is But do you guys have accounts socially for all your brands or do you funnel it to one brand? I Do think it makes sense to to be somewhere where people could tag you or find you But going back to the point that Dave made which I think is a very important point Wherever you're gonna be you better make sure you're checking those things It's it's worse to have ten accounts that you never check than three accounts that you're really good on You know we're raised responding to comments within hours I mean if think of any brand any company that you buy a product from if they have a phone number if they have a live chat if They have whatever channel They better be responding there because your interaction with them there or your lack of interaction If they're they're negligent if the wait time is really long if the person is incompetent that definitely affects the brand So yeah, have an account have something that people can tag or mention But if someone clicks over to that are you there? Are you going to respond? Yeah, it's amazing how you could Have something that looks like a benefit to the to the end user But then actually ends up being worse because the experience is bad right one of the best things I ever did is I always thought that likes on Twitter were I didn't know what people use likes for it's much it's different these days than in the early days of Twitter, but I had put on tweet deck in Chrome and Actually could start to be able to see when people like stuff I wasn't seeing this before and if people were just doing it like a thumbs up They were using like the way we think of like of now, but I think also was like bookmarks and stuff You know There are things even on the platforms that is going on. There's interaction. You may not it a it feels really good It lets you know people are actually listening or interacting because a like doesn't do anything It's not a mention or anything like that So, you know check out what the platform has to offer you may be having people interact with you and not even know it You kind of got to know what how the platform itself works And I think Gary V talks about you know creating content that's native for each platform So you kind of you know again, I guess goes back to what Sean saying like not only not only do you have a presence on that platform? But you need to be present, but I think you also have to sort of know how that platform operates in order to have a good Relationship with the person that's interacting with you there Yeah, I mean as we get ready to roll into 2017 when I worked in customer, we might do that in this round right here Yeah When When I worked in customer service every year, they'd be like hey, it's January. What are we gonna do? And they'd be like let's do a customer survey, and I always have to go time out What are we doing with the results because they'd always just want to do it And then they go like hey we look at all the stuff we learned to my great What are we gonna do with the results though and they used to drive me crazy that that? So many places the worst thing you can do is ask your audience for their feedback and then do nothing with it That's it. They're like well, okay I think because in the same way that we're sitting there going hey is this thing on when when you give the your audience a microphone and Ask for feedback and then don't do anything with it. They're going hey is this thing on he's not listening to me, and then they'll check out so Yeah Awesome. Well Yeah, that gap in the conversation is my chance to take the offer amp here So we will say goodbye for now. See you later. That's what I actually prefer to say. I sing goodbye Dave Jackson What's a show where can we find you? Thanks for joining us. Yeah, find me over at school podcasting comm Awesome short and sweet. There's his brand Rob. Thanks for joining us. Rob fills in here. We're down. Uh, we're down a co-host tonight But we like to bring Rob can talk about anything he's been in podcasting forever So when people want to ask you a question about podcasting, were they gonna find you Rob? Speaker live show comm is the best place. I do a live show there every week Almost I almost dove in to interrupt you this in the in the round table style of interruption Rob you've changed so many different times branding is sort of tricky for you because like in two years If you're not at Spreaker and people are gonna go to that. How have you mitigated that? I mean that you have Rob greenlee calm I do have Rob greenlee calm that I I pull all those shows together into one one experience on that side on my own Personal Rob greenlee calm. Yeah, cool. All right That's what keeps it together. No, that's what keeps it the glue See the website your own website is our own glue answers your own question. I don't have a App I don't have an app yet for Rob Rob greenlee yet. So All right. Well, thanks again and Sean. Thanks for joining us for your first round table. Really appreciate it Yeah, thanks for having me on raid. This was a blast great to talk to you guys You can find me at Sean West comm. It's s e a n WES comm if you slash podcast, we've got a show there every Wednesday about the intersection of creativity and business Very cool. All right. Well, that's it podcast around table comm for all the episodes You want to sign up and then give the I normally tell people Hey, if you want to be on the round table, you have to let us know you're out there Podcasts around table comm slash guest you'll get on the list I'll pull you from the list throw you into a chair and we'll have hours-long conversation about podcasting So we'll see you next time on round 86 wave. Goodbye. See everybody