Spreaker Live Show #135 for Nov 15th, 2017

Show Duration: 60 minutes

Host: Rob Greenlee, Head of Content, Spreaker @robgreenlee - rob(at)spreaker(dotcom)
We stream LIVE every Weds at 3pm Pacific /6pm EST from SpreakerLiveShow.com

Show Today:
- What is a Super “Podcast” Listener?
- Podcast Suicide: 5 Errors to Avoid
- Who are Podfasters?
- Listener Comments

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On the show today:

What is a SUPER Podcast Listener? Sharing some recent researchtelephone survey of media habits, a portrait emerged of what appears to be the podcasting “super listener” — a highly engaged consumer of informative digital audio content.
https://medium.com/informed-and-engaged/understanding-public-medias-most-engaged-podcast-users-bb592cd7e03e

In April and May of 2017, Edison Research — with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — conducted a series of online interviews with podcast listeners across a group of major podcast publishers. We collected a total of 28,964 interviews with podcast listeners 18 years of age or older, all of whom listened to at least one audio podcast from one of six sources: National Public Radio, WNYC, American Public Media, WBUR, PRX and Gimlet Media. (For more on the methodology, please see the appendix.)
In comparing these results with the Edison/Triton Infinite Dial research series, a nationally representative

Some of the characteristics of this “super listener” include:
Greater content consumption (by hours and by shows listened to).
A preference for subscription (Not Paid) and time-shifted consumption.
Reliance on mobile consumption, usually in transit.
A willingness to promote content to others, and reliance on word-of-mouth.
A preference for in-depth content.
A loyalty to public media, and willingness to invest — even as broadcast consumption levels decline.


Conclusion:
This study, and our ability to compare it with two other, more representative datasets of podcast consumers, gave us a fascinating perspective on the public media podcast “super listener.” It is clear that while they don’t represent the body of podcast listeners across participating publishers, they do represent the most active, most engaged and most willing to take supportive actions. They can also be tapped as ambassadors for the medium. Finding ways to “ask for the order” and providing them with incentives to share new podcasts (and indeed, the medium in general) with their friends and family as passionate advocates and influencers might be one of the most powerful marketing tools at our disposal.

We also learned that these respondents are receptive to national and international news content via podcasts, and they trust this content — again, as potential advocates for the dissemination of this content. And finally, these younger, more mobile podcast consumers are taking content (including public media content) on the road with them — opening up contextual opportunities for new forms of content for consumers on public transit, at the gym, or in other short, opportunistic windows.

Podcast Suicide: 5 Errors to Avoid
1. Refusing to recognize your target audience
While keeping a broad appeal is good, not targeting a specific bracket is like shooting yourself in the foot. It’s like refusing to recognize that you’re speaking to actual listeners, not just to thin air.
Start with the very basics: who is your model listener? Are they a man or a woman? Are they a 23-year-old student who is getting serious about politics, or a 55-year-old launching a new career? What do they get up to at the weekends?
It may feel weird at first to draw up an identikit of your ideal target audience member, but keeping this picture in mind will help you avoid going off on unrelated directions, and even really help you in matters such as deciding your episode’s duration or getting your podcast exposure on relevant platforms.

2. Not having a pre-launch marketing plan
This is no time to be modest. At the very beginning, you have got to be your very own cheerleader – cos if you don’t cheer, who will? Your launch is a great moment to capitalize on excitement – that energy is hard to regain at a later date, if you miss that opportunity.

A pre-launch marketing plan demonstrates confidence that you can pull this off and passion in your topic and the podcasting format. That’s the kind of attitude that intrigues listeners, even before being presented with the actual content.
Give yourself a checklist for getting listeners on board with the hype from day 1:
Create a launch team of 20+ people that commit to downloading and sharing your podcast with all their networks too.
Build a database of influencers who can give a first boost to your audience
Have your social media pages building momentum, follow people in your target audience to encourage them to follow back
Search for the hottest trend related to your topic on Twitter
Set a launch date and a clear plan of the next episodes

3. Not bothering to submit to iTunes
Maybe you just haven’t got round to it yet. Maybe you are trying an alternative podcatcher service. But there’s no denying that the first place where listeners seek out podcasts is iTunes so no submitting yours amounts to podcast suicide.
Aside from the fact that many devices have iTunes pre-installed on them, making it the first point of call especially for podcast newbies, if you manage to get a high rate of downloads, subscriptions, rates and reviews podcast once it goes live, there is also the opportunity to be featured in the New and Noteworthy section in your first weeks, which will be a great boost for even more listeners taking notice.
Business podcaster Tyler Basu, whose podcast ranked at the top of iTunes’ USA New and Noteworthy charts when it launched, suggests that one clever way to better your chances is to be very strategic in how categorize your podcast. Consider also putting your podcast in several categories as well as subcategories that won’t be as broad and competitive.

4. Messing up your RSS feed
The magic touch of podcasting lies in the seamless way information syncs up, like a smooth dive into a pool. This is thanks to your RSS feed. Messing that up, well, it’s tantamount to a belly-flop: jarring and kinda cringe-worthy.

Always make sure to submit the same RSS feed on all the distributive platforms that you use, for every episode you publish. You should avoid at all costs spreading around different RSS according to the different platform that you use because you’ll never have one single link where people can access and download your show – therefore cutting you off from gathering clear, comprehensive statistics from across the board.
A singular RSS feed is easier to follow in case something goes wrong. An easy trick to keep on top of this is subscribing to your own podcast so you can quickly double-check your RSS feed is working once you publish new episodes.

5. Uploading your podcast directly onto your website
It’s nice to keep everything in one place, but that’s no reason for uploading your podcast files onto the same server as your website. First of all, hosting your podcast on your site will be a strain on your bandwidth and therefore make your website really slow. Secondly, the audio quality will not be so good.
Podcast hosting services are the answer, particularly when the podcast player can be fully embedded into your official website and customized to fit in with your branding. Host platforms such as Soundcloud, Libsyn, Spreaker and Podbean all offer embedded players, so it’s worth exploring the various different features – you’ll find that some are mobile-friendly, too, as well as being able to track plays, downloads, and likes.

6. Not inspiring emotions in your listeners

Comments:

Linda Irwin
You Tube has been marking everyone "not advertiser friendly" en masse. If you get enough, they will shut down your channel. You can appeal this if you have, IIRC, 1,000 or more subscribers. They are also hitting people that are not monetizing. We have no idea why they are doing this. Fair use means nothing even if you are making commentary.

Linda Irwin
Also when I embed Spreaker to Wix, using the "embed code" widget, you can also change the size to specifications "height= width=". Autoplay if "0", change to "1" in the code script if you want shows to autoplay.

Linda Irwin
When I submitted to iHeart 22 episodes in, I was rejected specifically because I did not have at least 100 followers. This was back in August 2015.LOL

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