 Podcasts was roundtable, round 159 ads for everybody. All right, podcasts, really they're not something you have to explain to anyone anymore. So with everyone knowing what a podcast is, makes you wonder are the advertisers also recognizing this and are they flooding the space to reach people who might not otherwise hear their messages in places they're not listening anymore, right? I only have so much time, so you can exchange some of your listening or viewing time for podcasts that's happening more every day, yay us, let's go. But does it make it any easier for you to get an advertiser in 2021? How do you even start looking for an ad? If you even want them, I think we're gonna hit on some of that. So that is our jumping off point. Let's meet the roundtable. Co-host Dave Jackson, welcome back. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting.com and I have some thoughts on this. That's why you're here. That's good, we can continue. All right, let's move forward. Shane, first time roundtabler, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. Shane Rogers, I'm co-host of Midnight Facts for Insomniac's podcast. Very cool and that Zad is going to put me a sleep? Is that the point or is it a sleep podcast? I hope not. It's gonna entertain you when you can't sleep, is more the idea. You can't sleep, all right. Common problem I am sure in our crazy world. All right, well, hey, let's start off, Shane, with the story that you dropped into our Google Doc and what is that about ads? Yeah, so the title of this article was Maturing Podcast Industry Broadens Appeal for Advertisers and it was really about celebrities kind of moving into the space and how that's affecting the demographics. And in the opinion of this particular article, it seemed like they were saying it's having kind of a positive effect. It was interesting because it seemed to me, reading it, I think from a podcast or perspective, it seemed like there were some negatives there, but they were implying that overall it's good because mostly because the audience is growing and it's becoming more of sort of the audience that advertisers are looking for, not just hardcore fans who are kind of into that one podcast, but sort of casual fans who are maybe dipping in to a bunch of different podcasts, but also tend to pay attention. They were saying that podcast listeners maybe retain more information than the average consumer of media, which that seems good. But it was interesting because they were talking about celebrity shows and they were saying that it really is bringing in a more kind of casual, less dedicated, less hardcore fan. And that that was good for advertisers, but I'd be interested to hear your point of view because to me that doesn't sound great for podcasting as a whole. It sounds like we're sort of losing the hardcore fans, the kind of maybe the people who are really wrapped up in podcasting and getting more of the sort of casual consumer. Yeah, I could see that. I somehow got roped into, it's just one of those where you kind of look back later and you go, how did I end up listening to that? But it was, my favorite thing was they were being very courageous, I'm gonna hold off on their names here for a second, because they had decided to take on the world without shaving their eyebrows. So it was two female hosts. And they're like, we're gonna go out there and be courageous and we're not, that was it. It was unwaxing or non-wax or something like that. Turns out to be Sylvester Stallone's daughters. And I was like, oh, that's why you're getting listened to and I listened to it. Why? Because they had their dad on it was episode 50. Then what was really kind of sad about it is it's obviously, it starts off as a YouTube channel because as you might imagine, Sylvester Stallone married someone who was hot and his daughters are not exactly ugly. And so they're very YouTube friendly. That's, I guess that's a polite way without sounding like a creeper. And they had Sly on it was weird because this is a guy who's been in the media forever. And it took him like four or five minutes to get his microphone set. And he's like, I don't know, just give me the microphone. He's like, okay. And what was cool about it is they started, like they knew stories about Sly that I never heard. And they got him to kind of open up and he was uncomfortable talking about it. I was like, oh, this is really good. It was just a bummer that we had to sit through like six minutes of like, I don't know, give me a microphone. It's like, there's this thing called editing. So that was really cool. Not a tech person, they needed an editor. Yeah. And so that was interesting, but I will not go back and listen to another episode unless they have their dad back on. Cause I looked at the other episodes and it was like, no, and it was kind of like what we look for in a guy and it's just all this other kind of just stuff where they had their little sister on and I was just like, yeah. So I could see where, you know, if we get a bunch of celebrity people on, I mean, I only listen to Mark Marin when I understand who the guest is or Conan O'Brien or Joe Rogan. If I happen to be in Spotify and go, let's see what Joe's been up to the last two months. So maybe that's what they mean by the casual listener. We're all cherry picking. I was gonna say, I mean, with interview shows, don't we all cherry pick, right? I mean, even a show like yours, Dave's School of Podcasting, depending on how you title those, I could see cherry picking happening there too, right? If the title catches somebody. I mean, that makes it, that is what's difficult about sort of revealing what's in a podcast episode. Also why you have to be careful to not put like five different things that are interesting in a podcast episode because, I mean, typically you're not gonna cram that all into the title, right? So it's hard to unearth that. So yeah, I bet most shows get cherry picked. I title these, they probably get cherry picked too. And it's, you know, listenerships at the whim of a good title, which is no different than YouTube, right? Like if your thumbnail and your title doesn't capture someone, they're not clicking, right? So that show probably not designed for you, Dave. No, that's true. That's the other good point. But, you know, with celebrities coming in, and we have another guest, hopefully joining us, I think he's stuck in traffic. Modern problem that we don't experience that much anymore because we don't go anywhere, but he must have actually gone out for some bite to eat and got stuck. But, you know, and he has some opinions about celebrities coming into the space and sort of drowning out maybe some of us have been here a long time, more of the independence, making it a little bit harder. When it comes to advertising, all the advertising, big advertising is gonna go towards the celebrity and it's really about coming with a community, right? Like people in our space that started here even before us or with us, someone like Aliyah Laporte, he came with an audience, right? So of course he's getting advertisers, he has the community. And you know, I often talk about how you don't, that's not the advertiser you want in general anyways because it's pretty generic. You're stuck to a script and it's just not personal. Maybe it's not the best fit for your audience, doesn't maybe barely fits your niche. So, you know, there's a lot of interesting things about celebrities entering the podcast space and it's funny because I see it all the time and you think, oh, there's another celebrity doing interview show, who cares? And really, who cares? It doesn't matter because they have a community. It's going to at least have a chance to do well because there's a giant amount of people that like them, right? So they listen to the show, they don't have to worry about like being successful in podcast. They have to be successful with their audience, right? And so, go ahead, Jane. Yeah, I mean just, but those people like them for a certain thing that they became famous for and a lot of times what they became famous for doesn't translate particularly well to sitting in a room on a microphone and just talking to someone or, you know, God forbid doing their own show where all they do is just monologue. So, you know, that's what I find interesting is I think there are some celebrities. I mean, Leo Laporte, I think probably came from radio. Right, was he? Yeah, which obviously is going to translate over and he was doing interviews before that but, you know, someone who's just an actor or just, you know, a musician. I mean, I know I didn't listen to the Obama Springsteen podcast. Those are two people that I happen to like a lot but I just couldn't really, I couldn't figure out anything that they might talk about that I would really want to sit down and listen to and, you know, I'm not going to make any judgments on that because like I said, I didn't listen to it and maybe it was totally brilliant. Well, I love both those guys. I'm a huge Springsteen fan musically but, you know, I don't know how much I want to sit to have them listen to them sitting around talking to a politician. So, you know. Well, the fun thing was it's two really rich guys sitting around talking about the, you know, the average guy going on and my dad telling me to get a haircut and I'm like, okay, I get it. It's like, yeah. Well, that's always been Springsteen's thing. I mean, the blue collar guy who wasn't blue collar for all that long, you know. From nothing to go to something and then welcome to the haters. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think that it depends on the celebrity. I think that it's easy to sort of paint all celebrities with the same brush and say just like people with the built in following coming into podcasting is a bad thing or a good thing. But I think it's a mixed bag. I think it really depends on whether or not they have an enthusiasm for podcasting and whether this is something that their particular skill set translates to or if it's something that they're just kind of shoe horning in because it's the thing that everyone's doing right now. Yeah, I remember I try, I'm a Amy Schumer fan and I think she's pretty funny. And I listened to her podcast and because, you know, she'd gotten a decent size check from Spotify to do this podcast and I listened to it and it just reeked of like, well, I'm a celebrity. I'm just gonna riff off the top of my head. I'm a funny person. This should be great. And it sounded horrible. And I now know why there was a series on I think it was HBO and it was, she did a documentary of giving birth to her kid and it shows her recording her podcast and they're literally in like a sunroom surrounded by glass everywhere. And I was like, well, I now know why it sounds like it was recorded in the fishbowl is cause it was. And it was her and a couple of friends and they were just kind of riffing on each other. And it just like, you know, just maybe have a couple of bullet points of, here's what I think we're gonna talk about today kind of thing. So that was one that I wanted to like. And it was just like, I listened to probably two episodes and I was like, yeah, this is, it was really just, it just sounded like there was zero prep involved. And she has enough money for an engineer. I mean, she could have, that also indicates that maybe how seriously she's taking it and also just not having respect for the medium. Like she's gonna come in and she's like, oh, it's just you set up a couple of microphones in your foyer and you do whatever you want. And that to me indicates that someone hasn't really taken it seriously and doesn't care that much about their podcast and or doesn't, didn't bother to take the time to learn about this industry. Yeah. I just know, I tend to agree that with the celebrities coming in, not everybody's gonna sound like they were recorded in a fish bowl. And so I think the days of the laptop microphone are, we've kind of said this a few times. It's like, you know, you have to pretend you're Oprah, you get a microphone, you get a microphone, you get a microphone, the days of, you know, having five people around a blue Yeti, that's just not, not to say that people won't listen, but there will be people that goes, oh, I have six shows on this subject. I can listen to this one where I can't really hear it very well in my car with the sound of the freeway outside kind of bleeding through, or I can listen to this one where it sounds like the person's right in my head. What one would you listen to? So, but that, I always worry when I say that, that people are gonna think you need to go spend, you know, $3,000 on a microphone. I'm like, no, but you, you know, how about 70? You have to care, right? And we were talking about, before we pressed record, we were talking about microphones, because of course we were, right? But we were talking about the microphone that I'm using now is a new microphone ad coming later. We'll talk about ads and why we're doing them all of a sudden. But, and Shane's microphone, which is, you know, pretty much top of the line, you know, already 20, right? Like a beautiful broadcast microphone. And I was talking about how this microphone fills a price gap for sure, but that the SM58, which Shane said he also started on, is fantastic as a hundred bucks. It's gonna like just serve you. You're gonna have to pass it on to like someone else after you have to pass away. And it sounds great. You can use it as a hammer on the, you know, on your off-time. They joke about that, but I literally saw my boss do that. So it's true. And so I should pull mine out. I just put a new dent in my windscreen of my SM58, but it was a band-related thing. So it fits. It fits the, it fits the- Aesthetic. The image, the aesthetic. But yeah, just care a little bit. We've talked a million times that ATR 2100s, all those things, right? Mics are not expensive. But I think, Dave, what you're saying about the days of the laptop mic are over and with these celebrities, you know, certainly they can afford it. And Shane's point fantastic about, it really goes to say about how much they care about it or how they view the space. I got a following, clearly they want to hear me talk. I'll just throw a podcast down the feed and we're good to go. And there's, we have enough of that in our back pocket to know, nope, that won't work. That won't always work, right? Enough celebrities have come in and failed that the word is probably out, whether it's from their agents or whoever, that like, you can't just do what you want. You can't just put a microphone in the room, have a conversation with your buddies and it's going to work. Or they find out for themselves. They try it and they find out for themselves. And maybe they think, oh, I'm different in this case, right? So, you know, they're just learning something that we already learned coming in as new podcasters. We felt like we probably had to do more or have it ready because we weren't coming with the audience. We're trying to find an audience, right? So there's this coming with an audience and not giving enough. And there's starting with a no audience, giving it all and not able to find the audience, which audience privilege. Yeah, audience privilege. Shane, we opened up with this whole thing about advertising. How do you think, you know, advertising plays into this? You know, a lot of podcasters complain that they can't get ads or they're being drowned out by celebrity shows and they're going to get the ads because they have big followings. I don't know, any thoughts about that? Have you experimented with ads on your show at all? We have it. You know, we actually are at the point where we're starting to get ready to monetize, but we're really focusing on Patreon. To find a sponsor that I think we'd be happy with and that, you know, I have a co-host so we'd both have to sort of agree on it and we both have to be really behind the product or service or whatever we were advertising. And at this point, you know, and we are definitely at a point where I think sponsors would be interested. We're lucky to be doing as well as we are with downloads and with audience. You know, we're definitely, we've come a long way and it took a lot of work. You know, we did some advertising, we did experimented with different ways and we have a little Discord community now and we've got, you know, we've really built a fan base that I know would be receptive to the ads and that gives me a sense of responsibility with advertising. I feel like if I'm going to promote something and potentially actually people are going to respond to it, I want it to be something that I care about or that I have some investment in or use myself. And, you know, I don't really even know where to get started there. I'm also really just reluctant to kind of break up the podcast itself with ads. So we're at the point where I think we're gonna start with Patreon and then move into that space. So I'm not a great person to give my experience with ads but I'm definitely open to other people's experience and I've been kind of reluctant with ads so far. Speaking of breaking up a podcast with ads, Dave, I think we're gonna do our first ad. I don't think I've even technically ever done an ad read before but since we're talking about ads tonight, I thought we'd have a little bit of fun. We'd roll in a couple ads and by roll in, I mean live, host red ads, the way they should be, Dave, but I do have a script here but it's from our buddy Daniel J. Lewis, co-host who hasn't been on for a little while but part of it is he's building a business and he really needs your help and his target audience is the round table, right? The round table audience. So I have a piece of copy here. I'm just gonna read it. I didn't get a chance to modify it enough for the show but that's how you grow ads, right? Maybe we'll make it our own later on and we'll do another one but let me read what Daniel has here and this is the first host red ad on the podcast for the round table. We should have split it up, Dave. Anyways, you need to know what your audience is saying about your podcast. That is true, right? Oh, look, I'm ad-libbing. This is like a real host red here, Dave. And with my podcast reviews, that is Daniel's website. You'll be notified anytime, anyone, anywhere in the world. I like how that flows, Daniel, nice writing. Leaves a review for your podcast on Apple, Stitcher, PodChaser, Cast Box, all over the place, right? So if someone leaves a review on one of these places, you're gonna get notified. I've used this for a long time. Thank you, Daniel. Even though podcast ratings and reviews don't affect your podcast ranking, insider info there, Daniel has gone down the rabbit hole. He didn't write this part, by the way. I am still going to add that. Daniel knows, Daniel knows what affects your podcast. You know what, this is 100% why I would get this product because no one does more research on the back end and the technical parts of podcasting and has access to the numbers and crunches the numbers than Daniel. So you can believe what he's saying. You listen to this show half the reasons, a third of the reason is probably Daniel. He'll be back. So trust what he's saying. So it doesn't affect your ranking necessarily, but podcast reviews, they're still extremely powerful ways to grow, engage, and even, wait, does that say grow? Oh, I'm sorry, Daniel, I messed up the copy. It's a powerful way to know, engage, and grow your podcast audience, people love on this show when we talk about growing your audience. So that's a big thing. So make it easy for your audience to follow, rate, and review your podcast three weeks free. I think that's pretty special to the round table. Three weeks free if you go to My Podcast Reviews and there would normally be an affiliate link here. The round table gets no money. Dave gets no money. I have an affiliate link for this. We're not tossing that out, mypodcastreviews.com. This is for Daniel. Check it out. And you have to try it at least for free for three weeks because it's gonna be pretty cool when you get that email that someone reviewed. I swear for the round table, there's stuff in other stores that I didn't know that people were leaving reviews for. Like no one has the time to go out and check all this stuff. You might, but why would you wanna do that for the rest of the time? It would be hundreds of clicks if you're gonna check all the countries, all the stores, yeah, it's nuts. So anyways, mypodcastreviews.com. Check it out. That's an ad on the round table, all right? It worked for me. I'm sold. I'm gonna go try it right now. It's barely an ad. That's just value, right? Like, it's nice. Somebody says in the chat room here that if you're not getting Joe Rogan numbers, it doesn't make much sense. And it kinda depends on your, as it always does. What doesn't make sense? Running ads. And so he's taking stuff, like I played with programmatic advertising, which is where you get like GEICO and all these pre-made ones. And I was making .0017 cents per download. So I would get done, if I had like 300 downloads, I'd make like, you know, $1.70 or something like that. It was ridiculous. So that's where, if you have somebody says, we can help you make money from day one. Okay, I was making money. But not really enough. Now on the other hand, those were all like, I would pick where I wanted them inserted and they would be done. And you kind of hope that whoever did their advertising was at the same volume you were, that kind of thing. But in the end, it wasn't, to me, I just felt like it's not worth making my audience sit through and add about something that I could care less about. So in the end, I just quit doing it. But if I had a hyper, like if I did a show and I'm, I don't know, brain surgeon and I had some sort of tool like some sort of brain surgeon tool that brain surgeons use, you could charge big bucks for that because you've got their target audience. So it always kind of depends. And I always say when I did the research for my book, the people that were actually doing podcasting for a living, it wasn't just advertising. It was advertising. It was affiliate marketing. It was, you know, in some cases they had their own services like my podcast reviews that they were selling, all sorts of stuff like that. So it wasn't just advertising because unless you're, I don't know, Jordan Harbinger, I think was the guy I talked to that had enough downloads and his show was long enough to where he could put like six ads into it and he did it really well to where he could kind of kick back and go, all right, I think I'm gonna be able to eat this week. But it's tricky. It's, especially if you want the Casper mattress and the stamps.com, those guys are looking for, you know, at least 10,000 downloads per episode. Yeah, plus our podcast we have, you know, I'm a co-host so we have two people, we'd be splitting it half and half. So it would be even less, you know, lucrative for us. Yeah. Martin made his way out of traffic. Welcome, Martin. Yes, hi. Hi guys. First time round Taylor, although like been in the community forever, I think. Yeah, yeah, I have been listening to you guys for a very long time. Oh, so good to be here and see you finally. Martin did the right thing. I always say it on this show. Like if you're out there and you've been on the list for like a long time, even a little time, like just touch base again, let me know you're out there because that's- Poke. Yeah, just poke, right? What, was there an app that used to be able to do, I thought it was Facebook, right, or something? Facebook died a couple of days ago if you didn't hear. So yay, we're better, we're, they're back. Martin, what's your podcast? That's right. I have a few. I do The Mandalore, which covers all of Disney Plus Star Wars TV shows. We just finished up The Bad Batch, and we're looking forward to doing the book of Boba Fett starting at the end of December. I also have Tomorrow's Legends, which you can see on the wall, or just behind me up there. Two posters, Tomorrow's Legends covers, Legends of Tomorrow, Stargirl and Superman and Lois. And then I also host my own show, which is called Cybercast. And that's where I have guests come on, and we just talk about things that we're passionate about. So I've done Alien Life, The Possibility. I've interviewed a psychic medium, you know, who can apparently talk to the spirits beyond. I've talked about mythology with a pair of university professors, you know, Zeus and Apollo and Hercules, all those kind of guys. So whatever topic we share an interest in, we just have a good discussion about. Very cool. And so we've been riffing a little bit on, it's so funny, because Shane, this is the way the round table always seems to work out. Shane brought us a story about celebrities getting into podcasting. I don't know if you're able to tune in live. But you sent me an email, sort of riffing on the whole celebrity podcast thing, right? So I don't know, maybe let's dig back into that a little bit. What are your thoughts, Martin? Well, like you said, we talked off air a little bit about that. And I agree with your points where if a celebrity hosting a podcast is bringing people who otherwise never heard of a podcast before to the podcasting world, that's a good thing. But what I find is happening out there is that people who don't know about podcasts, when they hear that celebrity is hosting it, they just think it's a whole new form of entertainment to follow their favorite stars. They still don't know about us doing, our own hobby podcast and stuff like that. And they just think it's another form of entertainment. So what happens is you have a celebrity who is very popular, very well known, already has thousands, sometimes millions of followers and they pick up that they're now doing a talk show on a podcast, they automatically have a million downloads and a million followers. While we've been doing it, I've been in this game for seven years now and I'm still struggling, it's still a struggle, a fight to gain an extra few listeners. And I don't have advertising on my show, I don't do any marketing or promoting, it's basically word of mouth and that we gain most of our listeners from and posting to Facebook and our Twitter accounts. But I just find it's an unfair advantage that they just immediately have a million followers, just like that and whereas we've got to work very hard at it. And a lot of times, if you listen to some of these celebrity shows, they don't even know what they're doing. I mean, they're horrible hosts, they don't know how to ask questions or ask interviews, even though they've been interviewed themselves a thousand times, they don't know how to do it. And when I listen to some of them, it's like, you know, I do a better job than they do, but I still cannot find the listeners. Like I might get 200 to 500 downloads from episode in. I have a question about that because you do, you know, we've said before in the past, like one easier path to getting listeners from the get go is to do a fan podcast, right? Because it has a following. These people want more of the content that they love, right? So you're following, like the Mandalorian is a show that I absolutely love. Well, good, sign up to my podcast. You hear, maybe this is part of the problem, right? That's a tricky one because it's, I'm curious, I was thinking in my head, like I don't know about it, it hasn't been presented to me, but the question is why would it be if you didn't present it to me like through an ad, right? Advertising against something else that I'm watching about the Mandalorian and clearly you're not gonna be able to advertise on Disney Plus, right? There's only like that. So is there an official podcast for the Mandalorian? I don't know if any of them are official, there's probably 15 or 20 at least. And I think this is part of the, I don't know that it's unfair per se that like celebrities come in and they have a massive following, we can't find one. I think that it's oftentimes we might not be, I don't know if I wanna say doing the right podcast, but our niche can be tough, right? Like you can't, it used to be, if you started a fan podcast about a popular TV show, you were covering it, you were the one, you were the source, Daniel did this and the once podcast and he had a massive, it was like a massive following because there wasn't many people doing it. Now you got Mandalorian. Heck, when Mandalorian started, I probably thought to myself, hmm, I should have brought, am I going to enjoy the show? Yes, I am, probably should start a podcast, right? And I think that's so common these days that like people love a thing and they just start a podcast about it, which is awesome, but also harder for someone else to stick out in that genre, Shayne. Yeah, I mean, I think the question is are, because the way that you described it, it sounds like, and I 100% agree, a lot of the people that they bring that these celebrities bring in are only gonna be interested in celebrity podcasts and or that specific person, they're not looking around, they're not gonna be browsing all the other podcasts in that arena, but even if only a few of them do, even if only 1% of them do, that still does benefit podcasting as a whole. I guess the question then is, are they taking any listeners from established podcasts? Like if you have a podcast about the Mandalorian, and then, I don't know, Bruce Springsteen, who we were talking about before all of a sudden, he's a big Mandalorian fan and he comes in with his podcast about the Mandalorian. I think the question is, it's great that he's gonna bring a lot of people into podcasting, but again, most of those people are just there to listen to Bruce and are you gonna lose some of your listeners or some of your listeners gonna go, whoa, Bruce Springsteen has a Mandalorian podcast, I'm gonna go listen to him. And I don't know, that's what I'm curious about. Like, it feels like if your podcast is good and people like it, they're gonna keep listening and maybe they'll add Bruce as their side, listen. But I guess that's what I would be worried about and I don't know if there's any actual statistics out there about that, but that's kind of where I would be concerned is like, are they starting to siphon listeners from other maybe smaller niche shows? I think the defense against that is to just be amazing. Be good, yeah. Just be amazing. That's in. And the only reason I said this is very anecdotal, obviously, and biased in how I consume, I love the show Westworld, and that is not a show, I also don't say it like two words like that, that was really weird, Westworld. But that's not a show you generally follow without a podcast and that is trending in shows, I watched Dark or there's several shows that like, you need a spreadsheet to follow them. And when I feel like that, I go to podcasts and I rarely look, actively look for new podcasts, but with Westworld I did and I sampled many and one just stuck out. And it is not an official, it's on the ringer, so it has a big network behind it, but these guys are just super nerds about it and they've organized the show into segments. It just worked for me and it was amazing. In fact, it annoys me that during the off season, they don't have a podcast. I would listen no matter what they made, no matter what. I wish they were doing the show all year long. It was my favorite podcast. And so for me personally, it's just like, if you can get yourself in the mix, you know, it is tricky to get people to not just take the first one they find, right? And we've talked about iTunes rankings and all that stuff. I say iTunes, Apple podcast, whatever. Dave. Well, one of the things you can do, because there's gonna be, you know, when they get to the end of the show and they're like, we wanna thank our executive producer, our music conductor, our blah, blah, blah. I'm still trying to get Springsteen doing a Mandalorian show out of my head. I'm just like. What if Bruce Spring, what if the boss is the Mandalorian? Oh no, never mind, we already did that review. Oh no. That's spoiler, never mind. This week the baby Yoda is going down the road. But you can do stuff that big shows don't. I remember when Serial was up for a bunch of awards and people are like, oh, there's nobody's gonna beat Serial. I'm like, yeah, but you're actually there. It was the People's Choice Awards. I go, I don't think Sarah Keenig's going, hey, everybody vote for us at the podcast awards. I'm like, so you might have a smaller audience, but they actually might be more loyal. You're the person there that's actually responding to their email. And so you might have a smaller audience, but a more connected audience. And so, but you're right. There's gonna be that one show that stands out. And I remember being, you know, the 16 year old kid with the limited funds, you'd go to a concert and it'd be this band, that band, this band and this band. And you're like, ah, man, I want to buy all their albums. But that second band was awesome. And so that's where nobody likes to hear that answer. It's like, well, how do you get more listeners than the celebrity? You have to be better than them. And you're like, but that's hard. And I'm like, uh-huh. And they go, but it's hard. Yeah, it is so. It's hard, but it's not because you have an opportunity for the celebrity that comes in and really kind of blows it. Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean, my favorite was Dice Clay used to do time stamps because he thought he was on the radio. So it'd be like 12 minutes into a show and he's like, you're listening to the dice man. And you're like, yeah, I hit play 12 minutes ago. You don't have to remind me. Kathy Lee Gifford was another horrible podcast host. So there are those celebrities that just kind of don't get it. If they can boost the search for your topic and you can be found in that search, that's a real opportunity because a lot of times like we've talked about, they are going to sort of drop the ball. And it's funny when it comes to fan podcast that I almost will never, unless it's the only option, I was trying to look up which podcast I just looked, what show did I just start too many? Oh, foundation. And I think the only podcast for foundation was like the official podcast. I don't want the official podcast. This is where Indies rule the world because, and the Westworld was not the official, the one that I love is not, it's called the recapables, Westworld, something like that. But when the official one comes on, they can't say stuff because they know stuff, right? And they have to even careful about spoilers. The one that I listened to, they just riff and they're like, what if it's this? What if it's that, right? And they even, and they still get people from the show on. I'm amazed, like dude, go after the people who are on the show, the lower end people who can talk about set design, like people who aren't being pummeled, like not maybe the lead star or something. And Martin, I'm sure you've had, like people who work on these shows on your show, but that's also a cool thing to do. Well, I've managed to even get intros recorded from the stars for my show. So I know I sent them to you a while back. So there's a few, like I got Steven DeMal doing an intro for Arrow Squad and- Very cool. Those are cool. Tom Kavanaugh does the intro for Tomorrow's Legends. And I just, you guys know John Barrowman? No. John Barrowman, he's from Doctor Who and Torchwood is what he's popular for. Anyway, he just recorded an intro for me and I'm just processing some music and stuff behind us. So that'll be our new intro for that. What is he, what, I wonder what we could do with that? Like you got this awesome thing. It's not gonna get any more exposure. It's not necessarily going to bring any more people to your podcast. But if you could get, like if you get them to, I would put that stuff in social, I would try to get, like put the promo only and I would try to get that person to retweet or something. If they did the intro for you, if they could just hit their social following with a retweet of your like audio gram or whatever, then that whole audience knows this person I love did a thing for this show and they would check out your podcast. At least a very small percentage would check out your podcast. Dave, you were dying to say something. Well, the thing that an independent podcaster can do, so let's say I was doing a Ted Lasso podcast. Got to be a bunch of those. Not this week, but the one before where the one coach, it was all the one coach going around and getting drunk and having dreams and very trivial, yeah. Yeah, and if that was me, I'd be like, hey, it was experimental, it was different and you know what, it was a waste of my time. I was like, I didn't like that episode. You're not gonna hear that on the official, like Ted Lasso, they're not gonna be, so I remember Wayne Henderson and Troy Heinrich did a show and it was some Stephen King show and every year they're like, please cancel the show. We don't wanna do another season of this. And it was just, but people loved it. It actually had a decent following because the audience was the same way. They're like, well, let's tune in this week and see just how bad they can make this. And so you're not gonna get that on an official podcast and that's where marketing a lot of times they'll have a different demographic. It's a TV ad, we need somebody that's a 50 year old white dude, okay, now we need a whatever person of color over here and this and that. And when somebody tunes in and they hear another fan, you can identify with that versus like, oh, this is the assistant producer, blah, blah, blah, which is cool to get their point of view. Don't get me wrong, because they can give you behind the scenes stuff but sometimes people like, yeah, I can identify with her because she's just like me. I feel like there is room in, for most people who are really into something or even just kind of caught up in something. I've been really interested in the Elizabeth Holmes trial. So I've listened to a bunch of different podcasts and they're all sort of attacking it from different angles and some of them have more access to kind of insiders and some of them have just more insight from maybe personal opinion or from doing a lot of research. And so I'm getting different things from different podcasts and some of them I kind of like more than others but it's not like I have these silos where it's like, here's my Elizabeth Holmes podcast and here's my podcast about Westworld. Like if you're really into something you're probably checking out a few and then you're gonna maybe gravitate toward the ones that speak to you more that you find more useful. But I think that you still will have room for more than just one podcast about that thing. I think this is Fred. I think he changes his screen name fairly often but I'm gonna guess this is Fred. I don't know. But he asked a question. This is from the chat for audio only listeners. Actually, you know what? Let's use that as a tease. Let's do another ad. I totally buried the lead on this episode which is, and by episode I mean round, that's what we do here, right? We jump off a point and if it goes somewhere else that's what we do. We were gonna talk more about advertising. We will get into it, hopefully you're still listening. If you're not, there's a 36, the 30 second skip button. Why would you skip our first ever ads? They're not really ads. They're fun. All right, I'm gonna do mine, Dave. The last one wasn't 30 seconds. All right, this portion of the round table is brought to you by my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash ray ortega. If you're watching the video version of this, if you're not, youtube.com slash podcast, oh wait, podcasters round table. It's kind of two ads in one. This is gonna make noise. Sorry, only audience. Oh no, I'll adjust the camera, not the microphone ray. I got it right before I did it. The microphone you're seeing here is the Shure MV-7X which is an XLR version of the USB version, okay? That came out with this. You'll find out who I think this microphone is for. Why would you buy it on my YouTube channel? The review is probably out when you're watching this. I'm gonna go edit that tonight or finish the edit. Edit video and it takes so long. That will be related to our next question. But yeah, youtube.com slash ray ortega. For the review on this microphone, if you want reviews on audio and video gear, check that out. All right, let's get back to the question from LibertyDude which is related, how many on the panel think it may be valuable to offer a video companion like YouTube channel for a podcast? I feel like we have talked about this for years and I also feel like this is changing. It's definitely changing. And this brought up an issue for me the other day. Okay, so this podcast, we live stream it. It has very little post-production. Don't do anything other than cut the ends, right? Unless there's like something I need to bleep out which I drop a marker on the podcast and then it gets put online mostly like the video. So recently, I swear I've been watching a lot of podcasts because I'm finding them for a topic that I like because I consume a lot of YouTube. But then what I'll do is maybe 13 minutes in I don't wanna watch anymore or maybe I'm going to bed. It's time to just close my eyes and listen. I need the podcast version. And you know what I need? I know I finished, I know I left the video at 13 minutes. Your 13 minute mark on your podcast better be where I left off. Which is tricky because we always talk about editing and the importance of editing your podcast. So it's presenting a real issue. So let's answer the question, how many on the panel think it may be valuable to offer a video companion for a podcast? This one obviously, this one being the round table has one. It's more of a tool for us to connect on video. It's not about the video. Shane, do you have a video element? We don't. And this is a great and relevant question to our podcast because myself and the other co-hosts have different philosophies on this. He really does wanna add a video element. He would like to do some type of YouTube even if it's just clips from the podcast. And I see his point and I think that the overall answer as far as the research I've done on it is that it certainly can't hurt and it might help. So why not? And I guess the only why not for me would be like that's a lot of extra work. And the question is, is that extra work work that we could put into the podcast, the audio element that is already working for us or is it just gonna kind of divide our time and attention from what's working and what we need to focus on? So I think if you have a ton of time and you can do it without it detracting from what you're already doing, then by all means, why would you not? It's not gonna hurt. No one's gonna look at your video and say, well, now I'm not listening to that podcast that was gonna listen anyway. Maybe, I mean, I don't know. Maybe if you're like super unappealing to look at or something, maybe that's gonna be an issue but I don't think so. I don't think too many people are gonna look at it and be like, well, I don't like that guy's look so I'm not gonna enjoy his voice. So I think it can't hurt but I think that it can't hurt as long as you have the time and energy for it and it can hurt if you can't divide yourself that way. Well, as I mentioned, this show is done. The video element is more of a tool to connect because StreamYard makes it hashtag not sponsored but we're doing ads today so go check out StreamYard, why not? We're literally using the free version of StreamYard which has been that way for years. Shane, you're the lucky winner of the StreamYard Skype headset duck today. If you don't know what that means, you guys should check out the video. It is the price you pay for using free but thank you StreamYard. We're doing more ads than I thought today Dave. But to your point, it does not really add to production. I would say for a podcast that wants higher quality, if you met on like a Zoom or a StreamYard and then you wanted those high quality files to edit later on but you wanted to put out a video version that didn't take much work like we're doing right here, then I would do the double ender thing, right? Everyone records their own audio. You sync that. You put that attention into the audio only podcast like you're already doing and you let the StreamYard version fly. You're done with it, right? So you could connect on StreamYard. Your audio quality doesn't suffer because you're doing a double ender and you have yourself a video podcast. So I don't know, Shane, if I'm making the case for your co-host and now you're just, you're... Well, the thing I've found is there are two completely separate audiences. So there are people over here that bow at the altar of Cutie Pie. I don't think it's changing. And then over here, you have people that are like all Mark Maron and all the time because I've had people sign up to the School of Podcasting and they found me on my YouTube channel because I always say like, how did you find me? And they're like, oh, I found you on YouTube. I'm like, oh, cool. And they're like, oh, you do audio stuff too? And I was like, really? Seriously? I'm like, yeah, I just do YouTube. And I was like, wow. So it's definitely, like Shane said, if you're not doing anything, do something because it is the second largest search engine. Being found there, like again, if I go to YouTube and I'm looking for Westworld content and I find your podcast, I mean, you're not there. You're either there or you're not. And people, you use YouTube as a how-to search, but I think it's more than that now. I think it's a content search changing. I don't know, Martin, what do you think? Do you have a video element? We don't, but my co-host on The Mandalore, he has another podcast called Inside the Force and he does a full-on video show with his because he does four different types of shows within that main title. And it's a lot of work. So I'm kind of split between what both of you guys are saying where Shane is right, that if you don't have the time, you can't make it look good. And what my co-host does is he's got the really nice graphic borders around the screen with beautiful titles and great, like all these little fancy elements that takes him a lot of time to put it after because he wants to present a nice video show as a companion to the podcast. Me, myself, I don't have the time to do that. I mean, Strive You Streamer before, this is a nice simple way if you just want to throw a quick live show up there. And we do that when we do award giveaways, if we're celebrating a 50th or 100th episode, we'll do little prize giveaways and we'll have our listeners or our Patreon supporters come on and join us on the show and it's all live. And we'll just do that and post it to our Facebook page or whatever. So yeah, I would like to do it as a test run to see how many more listeners I might get. But there's also another thing you can do. You can release your podcast to YouTube as an audio-only element, with just a stagnant image on YouTube. So, because like you said, there is a lot of people there on YouTube that just go there looking for stuff. And if they want to just play your audio video in the background while they're house cleaning or whatever, at least you're getting that listener. Yeah, that's the one I don't like so much only because they feel tricked once you press play and nothing else on a video. But it's an option. But there is this search engine element to it. It is about being found. I enjoy, especially when getting into a new topic which I've done recently, I enjoy seeing the people in that space. It's almost like if you come into podcasts about podcasting and you want to learn the community, seeing the people, it's one thing to listen, but it is, it's just instantly identifiable as like, oh, Dave is School of Podcasting and Dave is. So I enjoy, and again, I'm jumping from one the other. My question is, when are they going to make that connection where you can almost seamlessly jump from one to another? Like jump off to the podcast version. All right, we're in the app, right? There should be a link that just opens up a podcast app. I'm totally giving away, I wish I was a coder. This is a thing that should be done. It comes up on your YouTube little clickable screen there and boom, Dave, why are we giving away these ideas? Dave, you have a stream yard affiliate link that you dropped in the chat. I did. I didn't even know, I've been in a stream yard forever. I didn't think I even knew. Can't help myself. You shouldn't help yourself. Help yourself to the links, Dave. Speaking of, can we get another ad in? Dave, do you have an ad? You know, since we're talking about advertising, I think we should talk about this. That's right, kids. It's the profit from your podcast book, proven strategies to turn listeners into livelihood. 70. Dave, Dave, Dave, can you please, please bring on Binky and the Wiz? Yeah. Because you're great, but I'd rather hear Binky and the Wiz advertise your book. Oh dear. Man, I got to tell you about my favorite book, man. Profit from your podcast. You're going to make a million bucks with this, man. Oh dear. Binky, you're so crazy. Anyway, find it at profitfromyourpodcast.com. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. I have no voice now, but that's okay. We don't need you any longer. You've served your purpose. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about. Who wants to jump off next? Come on. Someone had a thought during my ranting. I think the video thing is interesting. I mean, I am, like I said, really conflicted about it. I will say that there's two things. One is that I've heard from other podcasts about podcasting that it's, and maybe you guys know more about this, that YouTube, the YouTube algorithm kind of buries any static image. If there's no, it actually detects if there's any video and if it's just a static image, that it kind of pushes it down in the discovery so that to kind of discourage people from actually doing that, does anyone know if that's something that's true or just a rumor out there? Well, what I don't do, because I have my YouTube channel, and even that I get kind of confused because they have school of podcasting stuff on there. I have other shows that I do, and I'm trying to keep just the short stuff public. And so I put, for a while, I had a couple of the static stuff, and that's the problem where Ray was talking about. If you start to build an audience over there and they're expecting a quick five minute video, and all of a sudden here's this 45 minute thing and there's not even video. So I set up a separate channel for that. And I get eight downloads maybe, an episode somehow because I'm like, oh, it's free, doesn't cost me anything. I'm having, in this case, Libsyn automatically pushes it out there. And I was like, it's not hurt my other channel, doesn't cost me any time, doesn't cost me any money. Why not? That's it, that's what I would say is when I started the round table, I mixed it into my normal, the channel that I advertised before on my own channel, Ray Ortega, and it helped as much as it hurt. It helped podcast your round table because people said they found the show through YouTube, but then the people who subscribed to Ray Ortega, that's not what they subscribed to. So in terms of the algorithm, I think it's not so much the issue is that you have a static image, even though they may factor that, knows. It's that the retention sucks, right? People, they tune in, okay, cool, they discovered you, they started listening, but YouTube's advertising something else on the other side, it's more compelling, it's actually video, so they jump off. So once your retention, so you get clicks, people drop off, it's telling YouTube, yeah, I got people to click, no one wants to watch for any duration of time, especially, you know, that podcast is probably four to five minutes to an hour, you're not gonna show up in the algorithm because YouTube's seeing that people are clicking, it's not holding their attention, you're done, right, as far as the algorithm goes. So, but you still, you know, I don't know how that affects necessarily, you probably won't show up in search, so we're saying, hey, do it for the search, but if people are finding you in search, they're clicking and they're not listening, YouTube is not going to show that, right? So that's where I think, you know, it's tricky because I think what Dave is talking about and what I do with the round table is move it to its own channel. That's not necessarily going to help, but it's not gonna hurt if you have another successful channel, and it will get you there, you know, it is tricky because if people are not going to listen or watch for any significant amount of time, I talk about a website, how a website is almost, having your podcast embedded on your website is really a sampling metric, like people are going to say, if they find your website through search, they click on the player, they're like, you know what, that sounds like something I like, they jump off and they subscribe in their podcast app, they're done with the website. On YouTube, that can hurt you because of the algorithm, but again, I think if you were able to reach two more people that you weren't able to reach before and the channel is only for that podcast, meaning you're not hurting some other content you're making that is actually doing well and designed for YouTube, go for it. Yeah, as I look at my stats, the highest number I have is eight views, and of those eight views, the average percentage viewed of that episode was 11%. The highest episode I have that was watched was 67%. So it's- That must have been some really compelling content. Yeah, that was overthinking your podcast launch. So yeah, so it's- And that might actually been for my patrons, now to think about it, because I have unlisted things there that I then throw in Patreon, so for patrons. But something to think about, I think Shane hit it on the head and that is if you've got the time to do it, but that's where you have to kind of ask yourself, would it make more sense to create a YouTube video or spend time in a Facebook group networking with other people that actually might be my target audience? And I think for sure, don't sacrifice the audio in any way to get on to YouTube, I would say. But if you do find yourself having that extra time, if you're not recording interview podcasts, like we're sort of doing here, roundtable or whatever other people, if you do have that extra time, it's more valuable, I would say, to create a video that is for YouTube, for that audience. Look, what are we talking about? Advertising, finding an audience, all that stuff. If I could create a video with visuals that help this show is not visuals, right? I would probably be better off referring people to the roundtable on a micro view, which I do on my other channel, from there, right? Like if you're really into the reason you use this microphone for broadcasting, right? So if you can make a video that sort of cross-promotes the podcast, but it's actually really video, again, like a review for something you're doing, right? Maybe, you know, maybe Martin you're reviewing, maybe Mandalorian comes out with a new awesome poster that maybe has some spoilers in it, or something you're breaking down. You're like, let's look at every detail of this poster as the upcoming season, what can we find out? Like I would love to see that on YouTube, right? Like a hundred percent and people would love to break down. I could just see the image anyways. I can always think of fun things, but time, right? Don't steal from the one format that you really want to do, that you're really doing. Do that well, because again, you're gonna take that celebrity audience away from the celebrity who's not doing it well. That is the hope, right? That is the hope. Way to bring it full circle, yeah. I mean, you guys said it too in the beginning that comparing yourself to the celebrity podcast, you may not have the followers, but if you do a show better than they do, because I find a lot of the celebrity podcast, or like you said, the official ones, they're basically recaps. And I myself don't tune into a podcast to just listen to what I just watched. I don't need a recap. So on our shows, we dive deep into what just happened on the TV show. What could that mean? What's gonna happen next? And we speculate. That's what we go to these shows for, and that's what I find these official ones celebrity ones don't do. And we do get a lot of listeners that come to us and say, hey, like I've listened to 12 other Mandalorian podcasts, but you guys actually get into it, and we really appreciate that. So slowly, the numbers do slowly tick up. I'm like, great, tell your friends. Let her birdie know. Slow, slow is the tortoise Wednesday. And like Dave was saying, the engagement is such a big factor because if I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen's podcast and I have some feedback for him, he's not gonna get back to me, but I get a lot of emails about the podcast and I try to respond to all of them. And so we're gonna have people who are very, very invested in our show because there is a back and forth there. It's that there is accessibility of the hosts and you don't get that with a celebrity. Scale is a huge advantage. There was a time when I tried to answer every single YouTube comment. I still do the inbox is full, but when it never, it always surprises me. When I answer a YouTube comment, I can't tell you how many people literally answer. They reply to my answer with, oh, I didn't expect you to reply. They asked a question like on YouTube, it's more of a, people aren't even expecting you. And when you show up in the comments and you know what, yeah, know what, YouTube provides that opportunity. Podcasts do not give you that. I cannot just comment on your podcast. What do I have to do? Like email you? Who's doing that, right? Like not many people. So YouTube does have that advantage and you better be taking advantage of that. Like you can because you're not at this crazy scale where 50 million people are asking you a question or saying something stupid or the boss is lame, whatever they're saying, right? You can respond, do it. Like when you respond, you just cemented like a relationship. Now you're having a conversation. They're in, man, they're in. This kind of goes related to this question in the chat. I'm not gonna say it right. Makai, I'm not saying that right. Who can say it right? I'm blowing it. He says YouTube is very tempting because it has a built-in revenue model, yes. It takes more work to monetize a podcast that is audio only. 100%, right? We started off trying to talk about ads, but it is hard. Another thing that YouTube has is it's not instantly monetizable. You do have to now have a certain amount of people watching. I am blown away though. If you're, it goes back to doing a podcast really well. If you do a YouTube channel and you do it well, if your purpose is more than just being there for search, you'll grow an audience and you'll reach the threshold that you can actually monetize, which makes total sense. It's not unfair, I get it. I am surprised by how well that works. I get a check in my account every month for people who apparently click on the terrible banner ads, but it's not just that, the pre-rolls. And so with advertising, this works on Instagram too, where any data by ads, and it's annoying, I've bought so much junk off Instagram because it's actually relevant to me. And so YouTube will show, Martin, before your podcast about the Mandalorian, we'll show a preview of the Mandalorian. Guess what? People are watching the whole thing. I'm gonna watch all 30 seconds and you get paid and it's amazing to me how fast those pennies add up. So YouTube does provide this model that makes it easier to advertise. Not saying it's gonna work for you. It might, if you're lucky, it pays your podcast hosting. But hey, your podcast hosting is paid. It does take, I mean, that's a significant investment of time to really build up a fan base enough to be making money on YouTube, any kind of significant money. And I think you talked about utilizing sort of the interactive features of YouTube and that's absolutely true, but there are other alternatives kind of made me chuckle because you mentioned how people are sometimes surprised when they get a response or something. We have a Discord channel with a couple hundred people in there and Discord has been amazing for us. And it's funny when we get new people, I get little notifications sometimes. And I'm not in there very often, but Duncan and I, the other hosts will hop in and say hi to someone and they're just shocked. They didn't expect that we would be in there. They're like, oh my God, I can't believe that the host is in here. And it's really fun and that's a great way to sort of foster a community that not only are you interacting with them, but now your fans are interacting with each other too, which makes a big difference. Well, it's a good point because I know when I started off as a feedbacker and for me, like seven, eight years ago when I first discovered podcasting, I always thought as the host as like minor celebrities, these guys, obviously they must have something going on. They're hosting podcasts, they're talking to the world. So I got very excited when I submitted feedback and they would respond to it. So when I started doing my own shows, I made that the number one rule with my co-host. They say, we respond to every single feedback no matter what. We played on the show, whether it's a voicemail, we read the email and that, because that's how you get, like you said, you get the fans to stick around there because they get excited, like you guys are saying, they just read my email on the podcast. Like there's thousands of people around the world that just heard what I wanted to say. And that's a great way to keep them all involved. And same thing with YouTube comments. I mean, I don't know how many times I comment on YouTube and I don't get a response. So it's great that you do, Ray. I'd like to see that happen more often. But YouTube, I think because it's so big and there's so many thousands of views per whatever it is you're looking at it. I just can't imagine being a YouTube creator trying to keep up with all of that. Yeah, once you get to a level, it is very hard. But it's magic. I guarantee we all have the same similar story of podcast feedback that we sent in that was then read on the show. Mine is probably, one of mine is Dave's. I mean, you know, before Dave and I was friends, like I was listening to the show and I sent in my five, what is it Dave? What's the- The last five and five. Last five and five. And, you know, I was at a point in my life where podcasting was definitely not what I was doing for a living. And if only someday it could be. And it's pure magic, man. And in the early days, I was at internet business mastery, stuff like that. You do not know really who these people are, what their life is. To you, they're huge. I mean, you said it perfectly more. And that they're talking to like a global audience. And to you, it is huge. It might be, you don't know, and you send them feedback and you're part of it. And it's amazing. And again, the independent man, you have to lean into your feedback. If you get any, like it's so hard to get any in the first place. So you better lean into the feedback that you get. Scott says he hasn't heard last five and five in a while. Dave should always bring it back. And speaking of Scott, who I'm wearing his shirt, what was that like? Dot com. Scott does a cool thing where he's now, cause he has these like just bizarre stories where, you know, like a bear ate my face off or I was smuggling cocaine at my butt and the balloon broke. All sorts of fun stuff. Let's drop a marker there, Dave, once. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And, but Scott started reaching out to his audience and said, hey, if you have a story that was, you know, bizarre, send it on in. And where does he put them? How do you get people to listen to the end of your show? He puts them at the end. So you get Scott's great production and the story and the whole nine yards. And then at the end, he's like, here's some listener stories. And I was like, ah, that's the old putting the bread at the back of the store kind of thing. And I guarantee you when people hear that, I mean, Ray, how long have we been doing this forever? Right? And I sent in a clip to no agenda of Eddie Trunk talking about Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. So I wasn't even in it. But when I heard it, I was like, that was my clip. I did the thing. Yeah. Well, I got a great story on our Mandalore podcast. We just recently had, when we were doing our Bad Batch coverage, we had a guy named Frode all the way in a small town in Norway, sent in feedback and we responded to it. And he was so excited in his next week's feedback. He just could not believe that we read his feedback on air and we mentioned his name and he's excited. And we actually had a hundredth episode contest recently and he won. We just threw all the names on a hat and he won and he is excited, like a five year old at Christmas time that we're sending him a package of some goodies from our podcast and he's just over the moon. And what does he do? He tells all of his friends, hey. Yeah. And that's what we want them to do. And I think it's important to also point out that like we're excited too. Like getting feedback is amazing. You're like, I started a show, nobody's listening. And when you start a show, you look at the numbers like five people listen, 10 downloads, 15 downloads. And that's all it really is. You're excited because they're new numbers and it theoretically says there's someone listening. How far they listened? We now know that a little bit better. Then someone sends in feedback and you're like, I'm excited as you are. This is a real person listening to the show, right? So it goes both ways. And Shane, when you talked about Discord earlier, I meant to bring that up because we used to always, every podcast probably has a Twitter. You maybe have a Facebook page, which honestly I gave up on years ago. After building a decent community, you just couldn't actually talk to the community. So forget you Facebook. Discord has been like, it's all the rage for community building. And by the rage, I mean, it's good. And like it used to be like a gamer thing, but now you have like sort of the crypto space, web three, that's coming in and everyone's building communities there. So I've been exploring that a little bit more and I'm in several of them. And so if you haven't checked out Discord, and so I'm wondering about that, like have any of you, where do you build your community? Like that's a tough thing too, right? Because we always talk about building on sort of third party platforms. I talked about Facebook and how I built on Facebook and Facebook sort of said, nope, can't talk to the people you managed to get here. That's a problem, right? Discord right now is still totally open, but Dave, where do you build your community? You have your own. You have your own. Yeah, I have a Facebook group, but come probably 2022, I'll be moving to circle.so, which is it looks a lot like Slack and Facebook had a baby kind of, but it's super, if you're a control freak, you'll love it because you're like, okay, I want my members to be able to talk to each other or not. This is like podcasting though, where we always told people don't sort of build, you know, own your website. It's not, well, that's the thing I like about it. It's not free. You have to pay for it. So I own the content. I don't have to worry about Facebook. You know, we'd have to worry about it going down. Number one, I'm worried about people selling my membership. You know, I did a thing this morning. I had to fill out a survey for something and they're like, we're gonna need you to let us do this and this and this to your Google account. And I was kind of like, I'm not real crazy about that. So it's nice that people have to worry about, I have found, cause I have a, of course I do. I have a podcast called growyourcommunityshow.com and I've talked to numerous people now who have moved off of Facebook and you end up with a smaller group, but a more engaged group. Because when you go to Facebook, Facebook is trying to put all, they're trying to distract them. Like, hey, here's another ad, here's and this and that. And then, you know, all these reports are now pointing out that Facebook loves to just stir the pot and get us all riled up. Well, meanwhile, we're like trying to talk to them about podcasting and the Mandalorian and everything else. And Facebook's just trying to get them to click on something else. And it's like, so that's why these people where they end up with a smaller group, but they're number one, they're there. They had to take an actual step. You know, they had to click on something to go there. And then they chose to be there. Where on Facebook, if you wanna have fun, go to Facebook when we're done here, go into your groups and see how many groups you've subscribed to. And you'll be like, wait, oh man, 1987, I subscribed. You know, it's ridiculous how long to go because it's super easy, but that's the problem. Not that you want it to be hard, but you get the people who really wanna be there when they have to take a baby step to get there. Yeah, it's a real issue right now because it's hard to do sort of on your own website, right? There's plugins and all that stuff, but it gets difficult. And so you typically do have to build on top. Again, don't forget the email list. Like at least get everyone, try to get everyone on your email list because if you want to move, if Discord suddenly changes things, goes to algorithm-based and doesn't show your stuff or something, and you can move, right? At least you can contact them through email. So it's unbelievable how important email list still is, but I think it's pretty still important. Still pretty important, I mixed up my words. Let's try to go back to where we started real quick. And it turns out like Chris Nessie in the chat and I think Scott Johnson, there's a couple of people in here who talked about, they just sold like decent ad spots. So we will get, yeah, Chris Nessie said he recently sold a mid-roll ad spot for 715 episode. Now we're talking, right? Now we're talking. That's a big deal. So Chris, we almost had you here, but we want to give you enough time. We will do this again. So anyone who wants to get more into advertising, we will talk about that because a couple of people in the chat definitely have some good experience with that. But I am curious, is it easier if you wanted to get into podcast? I mean, if you wanted to get into advertising for your show, again, we don't do it here. I kind of made fun of it, not made fun of it, but had fun with it. In fact, Shane, do you have an ad? Sure, I actually, well, you know what? We have an ad that we created a long time ago and I'll just play it because then I won't feel as cheesy reading and add out loud. Interesting. He's gonna play it from his phone. He likes friends on me. I just learned something. I'm having fun now. Check out the new podcast from comedians Shane Rogers and Duncan McEwen. Midnight Facts for Insomniacs is an entertaining deep dive into obscure facts from science, history, and pop culture. Visit midnightfactsforinsomniacs.com and click listen now to join the Midnight Masses. There you go. I like that. How many people have an ad like that for this? Like who made an audio promo for their show? And where, Shane, where do you find that useful? So we have an ad that we created So we actually put that on Spotify. That was the first thing that we did as an advertisement was we bought the ads on Spotify and that's what we used. And it grew like wildfire in the beginning. It was really helpful for us. I can't, I can't, I can't encourage you to do that enough. It was worth the price. It was for me. I mean, we, and the thing about Spotify, it's $250 minimum for an ad buy, but you can stop it at any time. So what happens is you're only getting, you're paying basically per click and over a certain amount of time you can follow. And I don't think we didn't end up doing the whole $250. We just did the ad buy and then as we saw it sort of growing and we got to I think, you know, a little over a hundred which is what we wanted to spend on an initial ad buy. And we just stopped it there. But it was, it was really, it was really very successful for us. We got a ton of, a ton of listeners through that. Wow. Cause we always talk about like the, the overcasts advertising, which is not even audio, it's just a banner ad, which is really good. But you, once you buy it, you buy it. So if it costs you $400, you're in for the month for 400 bucks. So that sounds very interesting. So hopefully people who are really interested have stuck around and we'll explore that. And then Dave. Well, I was just going to say, you know, back in the day, we used to trade promos all the time. So Scott Johnson in the chat is what I was going to bring up. He says he trades audio promos with other podcasters and be like, that is as old school as it gets. Does it work? I'm sure, I'm sure why wouldn't it work? Well, and Scott's doing it very intelligently. He's finding other kind of, like Scott knows that true crime people will probably like his show, even though people don't die typically in his episodes. But it's, it's that same kind of audience. So he understands who his audience is. And so he understands who it makes the most sense to swap promos with. Yeah, I think you just have to find like a similar demographic and also a show that you're into that you would like that you would want to actually promote to your listeners. Yeah. Yeah, never promote something that you wouldn't eat or sleep or drink or whatever it is. Cause, you know, every podcaster starts with the same two things. And that's no listeners and integrity. And, you know, the minute you promote something that's awful, they're not going to believe anything you ever say. Yeah, we've had a couple offers to do promo swaps. And not that the, the podcasts were bad at all. It's just, I listened to them and I'm like, yeah, this isn't something that our crowd would be interested in. Yeah, don't want to waste their time. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny cause I talk about email lists and that is about the oldest way to sort of generate and keep in touch with the community. But promos, I can't imagine why that still wouldn't work. The biggest networks in the world, right? When it comes to podcasts, Gimlet or anyone like that, they were built on one successful show that they then advertised every other show they made against, right? Right. And so they all do it. And for good reason, it's like, we're making like content, go check it out. And word of mouth, right? Number one. And Martin, I don't know, have you explored any, you have a lot of sort of worlds that, I mean, if you're in the Star Wars world, there's just like a ton of opportunity. There has to be a ton of shows like yours. Do you work with any other podcasts in your genre to sort of say, hey, let's share an audience or let's, maybe I'm doing Mandalorian and you're doing, I'm trying to think of, I don't know, there's been a lot of spinoffs not yet, but. Oh, they're coming. Yeah, I know they're coming. The Disney is it now, they're coming, that's for sure. But that's a way, right? Do you do that? Yeah. The most that we've done is maybe guest host on other shows. Yeah. My co-host will guest on other Star Wars shows and he always mentions the Mandalore. I would do that as well. And I'll go guest on his Inside the Forest show and we talk about Mandalore. So that's the most we've done. We do have promos that we run on Lipson's The Feed podcast. That's the place that we run promo ads at. And other than that, I haven't tried purchasing advertising before or purchasing promo spots before to try. I'm learning from you guys areas that I could give that a shot in. But yeah, mostly just visiting other podcasts. I find if you guest host on another show, you are now connected to however many listeners they have. They've just heard you and they might check your show if they like what they heard from you. Right, you have two opportunities there, right? You have the content. So like, oh, sure, I watched Mandalorian. But then it's really about you, right? Because people are going to, they may come for the content. They're gonna stay for the host, right? And we've said that a million times, but I say that as someone who I told you earlier on, I consumed a bunch of podcasts about a show and I picked the ones where the host for me were the fit. Like these people were the fit. They presented it in the way that I wanted. So people get to hear that from you. They get to hear you directly on microphone. It's a fantastic way. And hopefully, there's gonna be Star Wars fans in this and who are listening to the round table. There's some, we hope that we can spread a little love with the podcast that come on to here. Maybe get one more listener. Shane, who is, who do you say is your target audience? You know, I wish we had more demographic info. That would be something that would be really nice to get. One great thing about Spotify actually, is you can see, they do have pretty good demographics. And so you can see what age range is clicking on your ads. So that gives you a sense of like what people would be interested in the type of content that we're presenting. And you know, we find, and also through like Discord and some of the groups, we can see there are some trends there. We tend to, but again, that's kind of hard too, because those, you know, Spotify and Discord, both sort of trend a little bit younger. People who are utilizing those services tend to be on the younger side anyway. So it's hard to tell like, I don't know what our Apple demographics are. But overall, you know, we, I think we have a pretty wide range of, you know, ages, races and backgrounds. But I would say, you know, the probably the average, we did try to do that thing that they recommend that you do in podcasting, which is like create your perfect listener, like the idea of who are you putting this out for? And it really is kind of us, you know, that's what we came up with is that it's basically, you know, kind of, it's not necessarily guys. We actually have a, we skew a little bit more female, but it's definitely people who sort of have an irreverent sense of humor and maybe are kind of plugged into a lot of pop culture stuff. And also have an interest in things like, you know, history and facts and politics and just are sort of plugged into the zeitgeist a little bit more. So one way to solve this, I would think is I'm gonna give you a bunch of cash, not true. And you're going to advertise against another podcast. If you get to pick one, what show would that be? Advertise, in other words, on that show or? Yeah, on that show. Or, you know, Host Rail or whatever. What show would you reach out to? If you had the choice and budget was not a problem. So we've actually found that a couple, lots of people have told us that they've found us through similar podcasts. So I know that podcast services are recommending us through on certain, you know, to certain demographic and people were listening to, for instance, The Dollop and Stuff You Should Know, which are both podcasts that have two guys talking about facts. And what we do every week, our Discord actually chooses our topic for the week. And then I do a deep dive on that because I'm really into research and was very like studious in college. And then I present that to Duncan, the other co-host who doesn't really know anything about the topic. And it's very similar to Stuff You Should Know or The Dollop. And so I know that we've gotten a lot of listeners from those shows. So definitely one of those would be the ones that I would reach out to. That's a hidden tip, I would say here. If you're listening to the show and you're trying to think about who are you actually trying to reach? Like who's going to listen to my podcast? What podcast? And because you probably know this because you are in a niche or you listen to other shows like I Know Who Dave Is because I'm in podcasts about podcasting, right? I was clearly listening to Dave's podcast before I started my own about podcasting. So I know who Dave is. Like early on, if you'd asked me, hey, the podcast or studio or podcast run table, where are you going to advertise? It'd be like, well, have Dave give me a shout out, right? So think about that in terms of your own niche, in terms of the shows you listen to, like where would you advertise your show? And that'll give you some idea of maybe who your target audience is, I don't know if that's helpful at all. Yeah, I know I get people on a regular basis. They're like, I heard you on the thing and I'm like, oh, the school of podcasting? Like, no, the other one with the guy, the thing, the table and my God around to, yes, that one. So I get a fair amount of people that hear me over here. So. I can't wait till we do live shows again, which Dave, I don't know how long it's been since we appeared in person. I'm going to make a little foam round tables and just throw them at the audience, just bounce them off people's heads, just a little foam round. It's the one with the table and just we're talking about swag. Anyone have swag? Wait, Shane has a shirt if you're not watching on video. He has his own branded shirt. Oh, and a poster. I'm here. So Mandalore, you know what? Yours looks very official, Martin, because it looks like it's made by Disney or something. That's cool. And I got the two posters up behind me there, too. We give those away as prizes, so. Nice. Yeah. Dave wears other people's stuff, so. Well, you know. That was the one thing that we did a lot of actually in the beginning was little giveaways for merchandise and stuff. And we did find that to be useful. Well, I think Martin, do you have any? Do you have an ad? We can roll in here. I got my sound board. Will it play through this? Good question. Depends on how you have it hooked up. Hit a button and we'll find out. I will play Archimedes Legends promo that I sent to Lipton recently. Here are your hosts, The Flash, Harley Quinn and X-Force 11. Hey, that's us on The Flash. I'm Harley Quinn. And I'm X-Force 11. Hello, Legends. And that's Gideon. And we're Tomorrow's Legends. We talk about the superhero shows based on DC Comics, Legends of Tomorrow, Star Grill, and Superman and Lois. And we're going into our seventh season in the Arrowverse. So we'd love for you to come and join us for all the fun. That's right. So check out Tomorrow's Legends wherever you get your podcasts. Who writes this crap anyway? Nick! Hi, Martin. So who in there was a celebrity? Well, the very guy at the end that you said, who's this crap anyway? That was one of the characters from the show, but I just stole the clip from the TV show. Oh, okay. But you said you've had people make it. It's funny because we talked about, sort of a way about celebrity podcasts, but you have celebrities in your podcast doing promo. I can let me just switch it over. I'll play you one. You're Stephen Amell. Hey, this is Stephen Amell. And you are listening to Tomorrow's Legends, The Podcast. Don't fail your city. There you go. That was the star of Arrow, so, yeah. All of that's very cool. Do you think it does? I mean, it does lend credibility at some level, right? It does. I mean, if fans who love the show hear that the main star just intro'd your show, they automatically think, well, it must be good. If he's recommending it, it's got to be good. So I'm gonna vote for that one. Which is important too, because it probably should be, like you better not have someone who's right, you want to do them good too, right? Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting concept. And it's funny, when I've met some of these actors, like some of them, like Stephen Amell and Tom Kavanaugh, they're very willing to do it. But other actors, no, you got to talk to my agent, and the agent has to talk to my production company or whatever, and you got to jump through all these hoops. So when it happens, it's wonderful to have them. The key is to ask, and you'll be surprised who can, who will and can say yes, I think. So it doesn't hurt to ask, right? It's kind of like the YouTube thing. It doesn't hurt to put it out there. In general, don't put it on your highly successful YouTube channel. You're just trying to switch up the content on people. Well, Troy Heinrich from The Blacklist Exposed started off asking to interview one of the writers, I think, and he did that on Twitter, and that led to the executive producer, like, hey, how do I get on the podcast? So you never know who will say yes. And I just listened to Dave Grohl's book called Storyteller. It's actually a really good book. And the reason, because a lot of people hate that guy because he shows up everywhere. You know why he shows up everywhere? He doesn't say no to anything. And then he delivers, and people are like, well, he was pretty good over there. Let's get him for the Academy Awards. And meanwhile, he's like, why are they asking me? It's like, because he doesn't say no. So consequently, ask people. They may not say no either. He just tricked me. I just said I love Dave, and I meant Grohl. But I had only two Dave. There we go. Add a marker to that. It'll be my new ringtone. Hey, editor, will you take that out? Talking to myself now. Just so we don't totally spoil it for someone who came here listening for ads. Shane, I think you said you guys are about to venture into some type of monetization. I was going to ask Dave, how do we even start looking for an ad if you want them? But let's do, Dave, do you have the intro music for this? Are you ready? Ask Dave an expert question. We have no intro music. That's what Dave's scrambling right now, looking at the sound board being like, is there a button I'm supposed to press? But Shane, why don't you tell us a little bit more about how you're thinking about transitioning from really not, I guess, monetizing to monetizing? Is that something you're thinking about? Did I get that wrong? Yeah, no, it's something we're doing. This is a scary, weird time for us because we're actually going to be completely changing our format. Well, not our format. But we're going to be changing our release schedule. And what happened really is that the podcast kind of blew up. And I didn't expect that as much during COVID. We have, do you know why? I mean, we did do some advertising. And I think that was really effective. And then we had some sort of super fans who just kind of took control of that. Like we didn't create our Discord. That was created by fans. And they have been really, really proactive about like, I have a fan that runs our Instagram now. So that's been just, you know, I think we were able to get, we had a little bit of a fan base to start with. So I do, I do do stand-up comedy. And that's something that I've done for about 10 years. And before, it's the worst. Like it's strangled you through the... That is sneaky! That is... But it is, you know, it's something I've done for a long time. And so I had a little bit of a fan base to start with that, you know, certainly not, I'm not in a celebrity level. I mean, this isn't something where I had a big advantage, but there was a small fan base to begin with. So that helped us get a leg up. And what's happening now is that, you know, during COVID I just had so much time. Obviously we all did. And I was able to pour that all into the podcast because I wasn't writing comedy. I wasn't, I didn't want to do Zoom comedy. So I was just doing the podcast. And we started doing it weekly. And we, you know, we stuck with it. We're about to hit 100 episodes. And it became, you know, it became a real sort of driving force in both of our lives. But now getting back out there and now I'm starting, I just did my first, you know, show last two weeks ago at the Punchline in San Francisco. And it's, and now I'm missing doing stand-up. And so I'm really starting to get back into it. And I'm realizing that with the way that we do our podcast with, I do this deep dive research every week for these episodes, it's not sustainable. I can't do this and do the other things I want to do in my life. And I don't want to give up the podcast at all. So we are going to switch to a bi-weekly episode release schedule, which I think is, it's scary right now. You know, we're doing the more downloads than we've ever done. And it's, you know, we're not huge. We're not Joe Rogan, but we're doing north of, you know, 20,000 a month. And it's a, you know, that's a, that's a big deal for us. And we really- It's a big deal period, Dave. They're in the top, that's like five presenters. Yeah. I mean, I think that's cause so many podcasts do like, you know, two downloads a month. But, but it's, it feels good. You know, there's, there's people out there listening. And so it's a little bit scary to switch it up at this point. But what we're going to do is every other episode now, we are still going to do an episode every week, but I won't be doing the research for all of them. We'll be doing, every other week we'll release a regular episode the way we've done. And then the off episodes will be just Patreon and Discord exclusives. And we'll be kind of more free form. And just we have some segments that we're going to do and things that I don't have to research. And I don't have to do a lot of editing or anything for them. So yeah, we're about to roll out, you know, Patreon and see how it goes. And also at the same time, we're going to crash our downloads because we're going to be releasing to the, to the main public and, and, you know, through the, the public channels, half as many episodes as we have been. So it's a, it's a little bit of a scary moment for us. Well, at least you don't have to serve an advertiser that expects X amount of downloads, X amount of episodes. Like, yeah, that's the other reason sponsorship kind of wouldn't work for us right now because we're not going to have those numbers pretty soon. Right. Dave, if someone did want to even start looking for sponsorship, like if that's something you're interested in, how would you approach the round table? We do our own sponsors, but if we want to sponsor, what would you, what would you advise? Well, there is, first of all, I always look for something that you use that you think will fit your audience and approach them directly. Microphones. Yeah, microphones and go, hey, would you like to sponsor, you know, an episode of the podcasters round table? I don't do CPMs because I don't get gazillions of downloads. So I do a CPM stands for a cost per thousand downloads. So that's where you end up making, you know, $1.50 cause you got, you know, $25 CPM, but you only have 300 downloads. And if you're only getting 300, they, they, they don't want that, you know. Yeah. So, you know, that's where you can try to find something that fits your audience. And then in some cases, advertising doesn't make as much sense as using something and this is where people go, oh, you're saying that cause you work for Libsons. So, but like a glow.fm, Patreon, Simplecast, or not Simplecast, Supercast, there's a bunch of these where it's like, if you want to do a bonus episode a month and then they pay you whatever, you know, that's another way of earning income. Cause sometimes you don't have the numbers for sponsors and you're not niche enough to have that. Ooh, that really fits. You know, this is a, you know, it's a show about cancer and we're going to get a cancer treatment as a sponsor. Okay. Well that's, I'm, I'm doing the interesting show. It's interesting people doing interesting stories on the interesting podcast. Well, there's no shoe that goes with that. You know what I mean? So that's where you can do the crowdfunding thing. Interesting shoes, I would say go with that, but whatever. Right. But I mean, they're, they're going out to his audience, right? Yeah. I can force a board and, and you know, with the, anyways, go ahead. What do you say? Well, there, there are tons. If you, I mean, if you just Google podcast ad agencies, there are places that will actually go find them for you. There are places like, oh, I forget the one. I want to say pod, it's not pod ping. Well, there's pod corn, I think, which is for like smut. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I always have to, you have to be careful not to go cod porn because that's a weird fish industry. But pod corn is one, the advertised cast is another one. There's a bunch of agencies out there that, depending again on how many downloads you're getting, they can help you find spots. And, and again, even if you're getting significant, I mean, even in Chains case, if you were getting 20K, like it's still pretty, still not that much money when you're, when you're having a third party do it and you're getting a little cut. And this goes back to YouTube where like, I'm probably getting pennies for, for the ads that people are watching or clicking on. And like, if that was my only ad model, I would have to have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and just tons of views for every video. But when it comes to YouTube, like where I make real revenue, like if you want to call it that, it's not like I'm trying, but affiliate links, right? Like, so when I do a review on a microphone, of course I've enabled advertising. Actually, I don't enable advertising. Here's a little tip. What I do is first, I don't enable an advertising on YouTube for the first two weeks-ish. So that subscribers get the video unencumbered, right? And then I turned it on because in my case, I'm doing videos that are really finding their audience every video because it's all search, right? I might do a microphone, then I do a camera. Those audience don't, they're not always the same, right? So it's not a subscriber based audience. So I wait to turn on the ad, then I get some ads, whatever, maybe could make a couple hundred dollars. That's amazing. But the affiliate link that I'm gonna also link from this microphone is going to make more money, right? So it's almost like I'm supporting my own thing, right? So that we're talking about your Patreon, your affiliate link, like your other thing. Like in most cases, there are better ways to be spending that time or that call to action for your audience because it is invasive. We've put a bunch of ads in your episode today, right? It's invasive. If you can make it fun and relevant, it's not so invasive. But I have plenty of shows I listen to where I skip the ads, but once in a while they break through because they're entertaining because the Binky and Wiz does it and I listen. And then it makes sense. So, I think again, if you want an ad, you really have to evaluate what you really want. Like who your audience is, what they want. Again, you don't want to, you have an audience. You don't wanna serve another audience, which is an advertiser necessarily. And you think, oh, I didn't write a book or I don't have a thing, but you affiliate links are a great way to go because almost certainly you're talking about something that you can buy on Amazon, right? And I have, I mean, full disclosure, like I have stopped listening to podcasts because they have too many ads. And that's something that influenced my decision to, you know, we're definitely not at the scale where a CPM model would make sense for us anyway, especially with two hosts where we'd have to split everything 50-50. But even if we were, you know, I'm really sensitive to that because not everyone is. A lot of people just skip the ads and they don't care. But if there's, you know, four ads in a 30 minute episode, I'm out. Like that's just too much for me. It's an interruption and you're breaking up the story. It is a problem. Well, that's something that a lot of people don't think because I have sponsors now in the school of podcasting and I forget how many months I have, but I usually go like a quarter on, a quarter off because I do have to, like when I'm sitting down and I'm planning my episode, I have to figure out, okay, I need to get the ad sometime in this timeframe. How can I do this in a way that, well, I try to tie my ad into whatever the heck I'm talking about. But it takes, it's a little more extra work. And then you have to, in some cases you have to write down the timestamp and send in a report and things like that. And it just, it is, it's a little more work. And that's where you go, oh, I did all that work and I made what, $2.17, I'm like. And interrupted your audience. And interrupted my audience and the flow. Yeah, it's, so that's why I like the, I'm a big fan of the bonus content or 10 years from now would be great when everybody's streaming crypto to me. I love that, but a little too soon for that right now. Although you can, but feel free. I'm accepting Bitcoin. Now's the good time to get it. Cause it's, it'll be worth more in those next 10 years. Maybe not, not financial advice as all the shows that I listen to have to say. So, all right. The only revenue that we count on is from Patreon because, because we, most of my shows are reviewing a TV show. People don't want to hear advertisement. They want, want you to talk about the show. So we try to skew them towards our Patreon account. And we don't make a lot of money. We make enough to cover our hosting fees and a little bit more maybe, but that's about it. So that's our only source. Yeah, it can be tricky. I mean, again, if you don't show up for the love you're just not going to stick around. It's just, it's a labor of love. All right. Well, as we head out here, let us know what your podcast is and the URL for that so people can check it out. And anything else we want to add is fine, but Shane, thanks again. First time round table is wonderful. Oh, thanks so much for having us. And yeah, that's Midnight Facts for Insomniacs. Two guys talking about interesting topics in a funny way and it's midnightfactsforinsomniacs.com. And yeah, check it out. I think do you lean into, because that, I hear that and I think, okay, right, it's a little broad. Do you lean into, and I've heard you earlier say facts. Now's a very, I think important, more relevant time for the word facts. Like I would lean into the facts part because I'm still thinking who would listen to that. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we were really worried about not having a niche necessarily when we started. And that may still be something that will always be a challenge for us, but it really, the facts are what's important, but also, I think we get a lot of people with insomnia coming to listen to us and thinking, okay, maybe this is about insomnia. Oh no, but I liked it. And it's not something where we're ever gonna niche down super far, but we are, we're definitely sort of, the facts are important. Like we have looked at a lot of current events and things that are going on from an angle of kind of getting rid of the hype and just talking about the facts, but also having fun with it. Yeah, I mean, I think, look, for anyone who's out there listening and you have a broader interest show, it can work. I mean, what you even just said, just a little bit of peelback there says, it's working, like so, there you go. Yeah, and we've done everything from the manosphere to QAnon to lost treasures of history. Like it's just, it's a really broad. And so we do have people who certainly dip in and just listen to the episodes that interest them. But surprisingly, I think just because we have such a great fan base, they'll listen to things that they weren't interested in at all just because it's us. And maybe they find that, oh wow, that was actually kind of fascinating. I think that's the perfect example of come for the topic, stay for the host. I think that's it. I mean, you're hitting stuff that people are searching for and they find you and they're like, hmm, actually kind of like the show. Like how they present it. So, awesome. All right, well, everyone, check that out. Martin, also first time, but long time listener. That's Dave. Yeah, definitely, glad to be here with you guys. Thanks for having me on. The Mandalore Podcast, it's, I'm just using the Lipson website. So it's the MandalorePodcast.Lipson.com. We talk about all the Disney Star Wars shows. So Mandalorian, The Bad Batch, Book of Obfet coming out soon. And whatever else they're coming on. There's Obi-Wan and... Do you do that all in one show or do you break those out? We cover it per season. So if it's just The Mandalorian, we're covering The Mandalorian. And then when it was The Bad Batch, we just did The Bad Batch. So yeah, that's broken out. So, wait, what's The Mandalorian show called? Mandalore or the all the shows? Everything is under Mandalore, yeah. Okay, but have you ever thought about breaking those out? Is there own thing? Because I don't know that I'm going to subscribe if I'm looking for Mandalorian content specific. If I see that there's other shows, right? In the universe there. I mean, a lot of people are because they're nerdy. Yeah, and we're just hoping that if you're coming to us to listen to Star Wars, if you came to us first about Mandalorian, then that's all you're gonna listen to, that's okay. But you also get all this extra content if you are interested in Star Wars as a whole. Oh, I never heard of Bad Batch, okay. What's Bad Batch? I'm gonna check that out because I heard it from you guys, so. I don't know, maybe that's the way to break out the YouTube channel, I don't know. Dave, would you want to split that up? Like, I kind of want to split it up. I, hmm, see, it's a musician in me, it's like, I mean. You could still do an all-encompassing show as well as, now we're talking extra work. Yeah. I'm dying to also break them out into their own fees. Yeah. Because I want to know how it would work. Yeah, it's, I'd be tempted to break it out because you, I mean, I love electric blues, right? But on the other hand, if you're like, oh, good. Well, here's some Steve Ray Vaughn, awesome. And here's some, you know, something, here's Orange Peel Johnson. Okay, here's, you know, there's a reason I don't watch every show on Netflix, even though I love some of the stuff that's on there. But on the other hand, he's talking about shows on Disney Plus and you, so you've already kind of got a door fee, you know what I mean? You're already paying for this content, so obviously you love it. So I can kind of see both. That's one where I would throw out a survey. Or I'd look at my- Dude, Dave, if I turn off Disney Plus when Mandalorian is not on, I'm telling you so I'm only interested in one show. I would be tempted also to look at the stats. Like, if I get this many downloads- For one, is one show spiking? That's a great way to break it out. You're like, look, Mandalorian episodes get exponentially more listens. Whoa, that should tell you. That's a great way. Dude, Dave, that's it. That's how you break it out. And then you have to worry about, you know, I know people who listen on Apple tend to not unsubscribe than people on Spotify, because Spotify has a really weird follow feature. But I would be worried that if I gave them too many stuff, they're like, eh, because to me, if I get like six episodes that I go, wow, I didn't really get much out of that. That's what I'm gonna swipe left and go, it's been nice listening to your show. I might be back later, but for now, you're out of here. So that would be my worries. If I give them too much stuff that they're like, ah, it's not what I'm looking for, that they'll eventually unsubscribe. But that's where a survey can answer that question for you. If they're like, no, no, I love it. Keep it coming. Right. Yeah, it's gonna pick up some new ones, but. Yeah, it's a fine line to walk. And so far, our numbers have been pretty even across the board, no matter which show we're covering. So we're getting the feeling that it's just Star Wars fans that are coming to us that they want to listen. I'm still dying to know what it would spike if it was just by itself. But anyways, these are A.B. tests and experiments to run. Like, we don't know. No one knows. Yeah. Yeah. It's just ideas. We enjoy riffing. Exactly. The end of an hour. So that's not the worst of one. And then my other one is Tomorrow's Legends. And that's where we cover the DC. What's the URL to get and all that stuff? Tomorrow's Legends is tomorrowslegends.lipson.com. Okay. Just, I mean, any podcast catcher will find us our Facebook group page, Tomorrow's Legends. We're all around. And that's the same as Twitter. And then Cybercast is my personal show. And again, that's Cybercast. It's about like Siberian Tiger, S-I-B-E-R, dotlipson.com. And that's just me all by myself. And I have different guests all the time with every episode talking about stuff. I do film reviews on there as well, just for fun. So, yeah. Awesome. Dave? Yeah, you can find me, skulapodcasting.com. I help people plan, launch, grow and monetize their podcast. Very cool. Dave is so short that I have kids invading the studio. And I'm like, this is the place where I need you to riff. But it's- And don't forget our main sponsor, of course, tonight. That's mypodcastreviews at mypodcastreviews.com. Definitely. If you have listened this far. Far, yeah. To a show about podcasts, mypodcastreviews is something that you wanna check out so that you get notified when someone actually gives you feedback. Amazing. All right. Other than that, podcastersroundtable.com, YouTube.com slash podcastersroundtable, if you actually wanna see a face or two and then decide to go right back to audio because that wasn't a good experience. We'll always be here for you. We love you. All right, next time, I think we're around 160 Dave. So we will see you on the next one. Thanks, everyone. This was like super long. It was. Like longer than almost all of them, which means the combo, at least from my, I was really enjoying it. So nice job, everyone. We will see you next time. Let us know if you actually listened this far. All right, wave goodbye. We're out. Bye.