This episode is for those of you who are in the audience that want to use science communication to help get the projects or the science that you're working on out into the real world using social media. And we're going to talk about three things that I think you need to know to make sure that you can succeed in doing science communication for ocean conservation. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And this is a resource, this podcast, this company that I've built is a resource to help you find out all the information you can on the
ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean. And you can find out more information at speakupforblue.com. That's speakupforblue.com. And if you want that information to come to your inbox Monday to Friday, you can sign up to our newsletter at speakupforblue.com. forward slash newsletter that speak up for blue dot com forward slash newsletter. You put your email in it's free. You get it Monday to Friday. You'll get three articles on
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start the show. I'm super excited about this because I love to talk about science communication and today We are gonna go over the three things that you need to know to be successful in science communication. This has helped me be successful for almost a decade in podcasting, doing video, doing other social media. I've done some great things in podcasting.
I've done some pretty bad things on social media, but I wanna talk about some of the lessons that I learned and what I do to become successful or I try to continue to do to become successful. the first thing to know right before I get into the three items is like sort of like a little caveat is pick one thing if you're just starting pick one platform whether it be a podcast whether it be a video whether it be long form or short form Pick one platform that
you are going to focus on because it will make everything easier. If you try to be on every platform at the same time and you don't have the time to keep up with it, it's going to be difficult because just doing one is going to be difficult in and of itself. I publish three times a week. I spend probably about six hours a week trying to get all this done. That's including the research, the recording, the editing,
the posting, and the promotion. There's a lot to go in to making sure that people know what you're trying to do, just even on one platform. Now, you can use other platforms to promote, but those aren't as consistent as it's going to be for that one piece of content that you're going to put out, that one platform. So make sure that you decide what's best for you. And we'll talk about workflow in
a second. But what's best for you and what platform works best for you, what you like the best, what's easiest for you, what comes naturally for you, that's going to be a big deal. And we'll talk all about that in these three things. So the first thing to know is that, yes, there is going to be a fear to begin whatever project you want.
It doesn't matter how badly you want. It doesn't matter your personality. If you're good in front of people, if you're good in front of a microphone or you're good in front camera you're comfortable you're not there's always a fear to begin especially in science communication because there's an imposter syndrome right everybody has it we all talk about it we're all surprised I can't believe you have an imposter syndrome everybody has it even
the smartest of professors the smartest of researchers the smartest academics the smartest government people. We all have imposter syndrome. We can't know everything. We can't be experts in everything. So yes, when you put something together, know that yes, it's okay not to be the smartest person in the room. It's okay not to know the most about this information. You cover topics, you put it out there, you find out as much
as possible, and there's some people that are going to say you're wrong or don't agree with you. That's okay. It's okay not to know everything. I've been doing this for almost 10 years. I don't know everything. I know generally what's going on, and there's certain things I know a little bit more of than others because I read up on it because I'm most interested in that. But I get to know more and more each and every day. And I get to
repeat that behind this microphone and behind this camera. And I'm able to get it to you enough so that in a sort of a package where you can understand that enough to go and do whatever you want to do with that, whether tell a friend, a family member, or do some action around it where you're doing conservation projects, where you're working in a career, or something like that. The goal for
me, and it might be different from yours, was just to inform people. So when you're doing science communication, inform people from what you know, keep it easy, keep it simple. You're gonna hear that a lot this episode. So yes, you're gonna have imposter syndrome, it's okay. The way to get over it is actually just to put out information. Start recording, you don't even have to publish it, just start recording so you get
comfortable behind a camera, you get comfortable behind a microphone. I started off just with the microphone because doing the microphone and looking into the camera for me at the beginning was uncomfortable as hell. Hell, I did not like it one bit. It would throw me off. Seeing myself in the camera, I can see it on my screen here. I can see it on the camera screen up there. It throws me off every once in a while because I'm like, what's going on? What's going on in the background? Do I have
everything? Do I look okay? It gets very distracting. So I didn't do it for a while, just to be honest, until this past July when I started posting regularly videos and I started to record myself. You eventually get used to it, but at the beginning, it can be challenging. So anyway. Just understand that it's going to take a while to get used to it, so just start and just go. When you start to publish, yes, you are going to find negativity on the internet. It happens. It happens. It's
the internet. Don't let that get in the way of you putting stuff on. The first video that I ever posted for YouTube, I remember correctly, because I will never forget this. It was one of those videos where I actually talked about a couple of different stories. I think it was three different stories. One of those stories was about Sea Shepherd and how I didn't like the violence they used at the time to do their whale wars. I still don't like it. I still don't like using
violence to do some type of conservation and say that's conservation. they have a pretty big following and they can get aggressive online sometimes so i got to hear about it when i posted that that episode on the same episode i also posted about rosie o'donnell how she caught a uh a scalloped hammerhead shark in florida it was in federal water so it was legal and you know I didn't like the way she did it because they are protected, they
are under the Endangered Species Act of Florida, they're protected under Florida law, but it wasn't federal law, so it was just, it was a bunch of things, I didn't like it, I mentioned my opinion on it, I mentioned why it was important to protect these animals, and the fact that it should be federally protected as well as state protected, but some people didn't like it. The first comment I ever got was STFU. You
know what that stands for. If you don't, you can look it up. But it's one of those things where you're just like, oh, wow, that was fun to see. But not everybody is going to like your episodes. Not everybody is going to like the content that you make. People are going to criticize. Just try. Just try to put anything that you title climate change on there and see the bots that come out and say, nope, you're wrong. You should watch this YouTube video.
It dispels all of the other journal articles that talk about climate and how bad it is for the planet. This one dispels it all. It's not climate change. Don't worry about it. Just watch this one YouTube video. Well, that's not how it works, right? But that's what happens. You'll get that. But there are more people that want to know and want to learn the information that you have to give than there are people who want to criticize. I
guarantee you, right? It all comes in the delivery. If you're aggressive with people, people will be aggressive back. If you come out and say, hey, I'm just going to be a resource for you. then people tend to be like, oh, this is great. Like if I wanna find something out, I will find something out. They may not agree with you all the time, but at least you can answer somebody, right? You can answer somebody's question that they might have, right? And you can even start by looking up on chat GPT
or Google and be like, what are the questions around the ocean? What are the questions around coral reefs or whatever those questions are and start answering those so that people can be like, oh, okay, like I had this question, this is a common question, but I had this question and this person answered it. You know, and I think that's an important part is to be that resource for the people when you do science communication, just inform people what
they need to learn and whether they want to learn or not. Those are the people that are going to, you know, answer or respond or even click a like or even, use that information. You may not hear from them for a while, but they're going to be there, and they're going to want you to keep providing information. That's what's happened with me. I've seen it happen to a lot of other people. People look up to you. People think you're like a celebrity at
some times. It's kind of weird, but it's fun. It's really fun when you start to see people who really depend on the information that you provide. At one point, people were like, hey, I noticed that you took a week off. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't put out any content for a week. And people were like, hey, Andrew, I noticed you didn't put everything OK. You didn't put out any content today. You didn't put out an episode today. I was kind of waiting for it, hoping you'd get it. And
then you're like, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't do it. But it's coming. Don't worry about it. I took a week off. You know, you gotta tell, sometimes you get to a position where you gotta tell people you're gonna take a week off. Regardless, it's something that's important. Just don't worry about the fear to begin. Everybody has it. Start recording first. If you don't wanna publish right away, that's fine. But then start publishing. And then just
publish it and you don't even have to look at it. Just because it's already tough when you look at it when editing. We're gonna talk about workflow in a second. But once you post it, don't even look at the statistics. We'll talk about that in a second. All right, so the second thing. The first one was fear to begin. The second thing is trying to stay consistent. And I say try, and I know it's weird, because you're like, when you're consistent, you're consistent. It
doesn't waver. But trying to stay consistent is a better effort than not being consistent at all. And I see this happen a lot. I'll see people try and make an effort. And I've done it myself, make
an effort on a platform. say tiktok and they'll start posting videos every day sometimes twice a day sometimes three times a day and then all of a sudden they get burnt out because they realize how difficult it is to actually begin so the key to try and stay consistent because consistency matters when you start to publish stuff online because people want to come back and be like all right andrew's starting to publish Like what he says so far, so
I'm gonna come back and if he publishes on a regular basis I'm gonna keep coming back and keep coming back now the platforms like that because they keep coming back to that part like your Profiler or your video or whatever it is and then people are like, oh cool Like the platform starts to say well if this person likes it that other people are gonna like it So we're gonna serve it to more people. That's how things go viral. That's how people get loyal you know,
followers and so forth, and so that's what helps. So the consistency actually helps, right? It may not be the way to grow to a million, but the consistency matters, because if people know that you're continually going to be putting three episodes a week, or one episode a day, or one episode a week, people will come back and they will understand that this is the episode, I'm going to value it when I see it, and I'm going
to look out for it. Some people, like I said, will wait for that timing, and like the first thing in the morning, that's what they want to hear, what they want to watch, that's important. So that's always great, but to be consistent doesn't mean you have to be the best. It doesn't mean that your editing job has to be perfect. It doesn't mean that you have to be discovery style
good or National Geographic style good. If you're doing a vlog and it may not be the best editing or may not be the best of what you want to do, it's okay. Put out the product. It's the internet. The internet and podcasting and videos and YouTube is not made to be the best quality, the best audio, nor the best content. A lot of the times the content of YouTubers that do the best aren't necessarily people who actually have great content. It's just people who've gotten
popular for a number of different reasons. It could just be they have a silly show that people are entertained by. could be that they're playing a video game that people want to watch. I've never gotten over people watching other people play video games, but that's a thing. That's just not my generation, but that's a thing, right? I've seen, you know, the culture around that and how that grows channels. I even have a friend, Emily in the
Sea, I think is the YouTube channel. And Emily does these, for a while she does these vlogs, but then for a while she started like, I'm going to do a video game. And it was like a marine biology video game. And she started doing that, and she got like 80K people watching her play this video game. And she did a few of them, but then she's like, this is not the content I want to do. I want to do vlogs. And her viewership went down because people weren't, like that crowd was not
a vlog watching crowd. But she still does really well on YouTube. You should check her out. I'll put a link in the comments below or in the description below. But that's something that's really important, right, is to stay consistent. You don't have to be the best. You don't have to have the best quality. You don't have to be the best editor. I've spent a lot of money on this microphone. I've spent a lot of money on this camera and
this lighting setup, but that's over 10 years of doing stuff. It's Christmas money. It's birthday money. It's money I've got from editing podcasts and so forth. I've got better equipment. quarter, I've spent thousands of dollars. You do not have to spend those thousands of dollars. You can get a very similar sound that's podcast ready from just your MacBook if you want, right? Because it has a microphone on there. You can go out and spend $100 on a microphone and
get a podcast sound. It may not be the best, but it doesn't have to be the best. Right? It just has to be good enough to get your content out so that people will listen. You still want good audio, but you don't have to be the best of the best. You know what I mean? Not everybody is going to have a radio broadcast or a CBC or an NPR style show. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on each episode of their shows. Right? If you are on the internet, you just have to make it sound good enough
to get it across, to get the viewership across. And of course, you're going to get better, which we're going to talk about over time. You will get better as you remain consistent because you're going to try more things, right? That's the big thing is you get to try more things once you get used to your work process, your workflow. Okay, your workflow is everything that goes into putting an episode together, right? So it goes down to the idea, the
research of that idea that you come up with that you wanna discuss. There is the recording, there's the editing, there's the publishing, and then there's the promotion, which is probably the most you spend on, the most time you spend on that 80-20 rule, right? You spend 20% on the production and you spend 80% on the promotion. That's a big marketing rule that I've learned that it's helped. I still haven't mastered it because I spend more time doing the stuff because I really enjoy it.
But promoting it is a little bit more difficult to do. And that's probably why I'm not bigger in terms of followers over time. But that's something that you hear every creator talk about and you've got to promote. But that workflow is important because it's hard to set, especially when you're just starting off because you're experimenting. Right, you're trying to be the best editor. You're trying all the stuff I said, you don't have to be the best. You're trying to
do that right off the bat. Everybody makes that mistake. Everybody wants it to be perfect. They don't want to stumble over words. They want to edit the crap out of your episode. And when you're just doing an audio, it's really easy to edit because nobody sees the difference. The visual aspect isn't there. It's just audio. So if you cut something, as long as you're not cutting in like in the middle of a word, people aren't
really going to hear it unless it's really badly edited. But for the most part, I found editing just audio makes it a lot easier because you can cut some pieces out and make it sound like it wasn't even cut out. And it made it easier, especially when I do my solo episodes. I didn't want to mess up in the way that I speak. I didn't want to have too many ums. I didn't want to have too many ahs. But that's how we speak. It's raw. It's podcasting. That's what I love about podcasting. It's
who you are as an individual. I always said people really enjoyed the stories that I told or the information that I gave at parties or at a function or something when they asked me about marine biology or ocean conservation. So that's how I tend to speak. I tend to speak like I would speak to anybody that I'm at a party with, or I'm at a function with, or I'm just talking to my friends. And that's the way I speak. And that's sort of my style
of doing things. Some people like to be super professional. They want to be a radio broadcaster, and that's fine. But don't let all of that take up your time so that you don't publish consistently. Because that's what I see a lot of people do. They perfect the crap out of the stuff, and it takes four to five hours to put out an episode. but then you don't even do the promotion, right? It's all in the editing, right? Or it's all in the prep.
Just get the information out as much as possible. It'll allow you to be more consistent and then you can get better later on. We'll talk about that as the third thing, but we'll talk about that in just a moment. But the big thing is, is getting used to that workflow, setting
yourself up for something easier. So for the longest time, I've kept my editing down to a minimum where I would record and then I would just do audio, I would record, and then once I was finished recording, I would chop it up into little pieces, not little pieces, like three different segments. Actually, two different segments. I would have my pre-intro, then I would have my musical intro, and then I would have my actual intro with the rest of the episode, and then I
would have the music at the end. That was all a template. I just had to plop in the recording, cut where I needed to cut, and I would put it together. And I would put it together within 10 minutes, unless something happened where I lost the recording or something happened with the audio, which happens all the time, or more than you think, and I had to just kind of fidget around with it a little bit. You
know, I was able to do it. If the mic didn't get picked up and it was just my computer that picked it up and it wasn't the greatest sound, I would still put it out because I'm like, I spent enough time recording it and enough time putting it together. I wanted to make sure it went out. It wasn't always the best. I think I did it a couple episodes. It wasn't always the best sounding, but it was different. And a lot of the times the mistake happens when things are changed. For
instance, I record on Riverside. It's a software that's designed for remote recording. And I do it, I record my solo episodes, I record my interviews on it. It's a great piece of software. Highly recommend if you wanna get into science communication, especially digitally, you use that. But they just came out, I was using it off the web, off the web browser, but they just came out with an app. When I did the app, settings changed. It
wasn't always the same setting. My microphone didn't pick up. It was my laptop microphone. which wasn't bad, but it was different. And I didn't like it. I knew I didn't like it and I could have re-recorded the show, but I said, Oh, I did a pretty good job on the first time. So I'm just going to edit that and I'm going to send it out. Right? And then when I'd switch from audio to audio and video, I had to change my setup process. I had to change my software. I didn't just go with
an only audio software. I went with a video software. So I had to learn DaVinci Resolve. That's a free software, although I paid for it because I wanted certain aspects of it because I was doing another project. We'll talk about another time. But I had to change my process. That took some time to get used to. I had to figure out the software. There were some complexities to it because I've never really done video editing or it's been a long time since I have. And then I kept to
my process. And so I made that workflow new. Now I'm into that workflow and I'm starting to change up because I'm like, okay, now I'm on YouTube, I'm on Spotify. How do I get people to listen to this on those platforms a little longer without changing too much of my process, but it means I'm going to have to change my editing and the way I did structure the show. That's going to take some time to come to it, but I'm not going to let it stop me from posting
consistently. I'm going to learn in the background. I'm going to do some editing tricks. I'm going to do some experimentation, and you might get some benefits of that. You might not get some benefits of that, but I'm going to continue to do that, and once I get into that new workflow, if I find that it's working, I'm going to have a new workflow, I'm going to have some hiccups, but I'm going to go through it, but I'm going to stay consistent. I'm still going to put out some episodes.
I may not look great all the time, but I'm still going to be there, and I'm still going to say what I want to say and get that information out there. It's important for me to get that to you. That's my why is to get this information. Be that resource to you. Stick to that workflow. The last thing on this part of this trying to stay consistent is you will have to make sacrifices for consistency. And there's going to be some sacrifices in quality, just as I mentioned earlier,
but there's also going to be sacrifices in time you dedicate. you know, to other things that will have to be sacrificed in order to remain consistent. If you decide to do one a month, one episode a month, then you may not have to make as many sacrifices depending on how much time and effort you put into each episode. But if you do, for me, like three episodes, I have to come up with a workflow where I batch record, so I try and do all my three episodes of that week in one or two days. Then I
have to edit them, I have to prepare them, and I have to come up with a workflow to do that. I have to sacrifice five to six hours on those days to ensure that I get this done. If not, I'm piecemealing it together, I'm staying up late, I'm not getting the right sleep, my whole schedule becomes shuffled, and I'm gonna have to sacrifice something other
than that that's not good for my health. So here I try and find some time every week and I say I have this block of hours, I'm gonna do research all week to make sure I know what I'm gonna say, I'm gonna write it all down so that when I'm ready to record, Bam, I'm recording, I'm recording one episode, I'm recording two episodes, I'm recording three episodes all at once. It doesn't always happen. Like this time, going away for the weekend, I'm doing two episodes now. I'll do the next
one probably on the Thursday before I publish. It'll be a little last minute, but it'll be good. But I'm gonna make sure that I have time to record that as well as the week after's episodes, right? So you have to find the sacrifices. You have to make some sacrifices in order to get the consistency that you want. Now, we've gone through the fear to begin. We got to the second thing, which is trying to stay consistent. Now here is the third thing. Get better at what you do. To get better at
what you do, the first thing you need to do, keep it simple. Keep it simple. Start with a minimal viable product, right? You're putting out an episode, keep it as simple as possible and build on that as you go around. It's an evolution, people. It's an evolution. You have to realize that you are going to evolve slowly. And there's going to be some things that you experiment with, that you come up with, and people
are really going to like it. And it's going to go. It's almost like natural selection. Oh, this is the way to go now. We're always going to use this piece. And sometimes it's not, it's gonna go extinct. You're gonna have to drop that quickly if you find that people don't like that, people aren't watching, or
the numbers drop. It's an experiment, but it's an evolution. And the ones that survive are the strongest numbers that get you what you want, and people giving you comments back, like, I really like what you did there, but also going in with your instinct, like, I really like doing that, that's a really creative piece. But build on that, just nice and slowly. You know, as you build on that, you start to get stronger and stronger. And after about 20 to 60 episodes, you start to have
this product that's getting better. If you start by keeping it simple, it's great. If you start by keeping it complex, like with editing and everything like that, it's going to be harder to put out consistently and it's going to be harder to get better. People understand that you're not going to be perfect
when you get behind the mic the first time. or the second time or the third, but they're going to expect you to get improved over time and you will as you get used to your personality will come up behind the microphone behind the camera. We're going to start to see some smiles. It's not going to be all monotone. It's going to be nice. It's going to be fun. You're going to change your voice pitch every once in a while. You're going to you're going to start with some fun segments, right?
All that different stuff. Like I'm starting to think about things that I can do creatively with now that I have video that will help get people more tied into the episode. especially people who are visual watchers instead of just audio listeners. But you have to keep it simple right from the get-go so that you can get more complex and you can get better. There's always room to be better. You can always improve. You're never
going to be perfect and that's okay. Right, because you're going to put out information consistently, but you can always have room to be better. That could be the way you speak, the way you get your message across, the way you edit and you start to start to learn about effects and you start to learn about transitions. You start to learn all about all these background noises and things like that that can get better, maybe some music and
all that kind of stuff. And you can get better and better as you go along. You don't have to be the best right off the bat. Like I said, it's an evolutionary process. And growth doesn't always mean success, right? People always start podcasts or video podcasts or a YouTube channel where you're vlogging, everything like that, and you start to look at the views or the downloads that you get depending on what you're doing, right? How many followers you have, how many subscribers you have, how
many views you're getting, how long people watch your content. Obviously, that's a big one. probably I think the most important over time, but everybody wants to grow. Everybody wants to increase in the number of downloads, increase in the number of views, increase in the number of subscribers and followers. That means success. No, that doesn't mean success. Your success depends on
your why. For me, I always want the person who's listening to this or watching this to learn something new about the ocean that could change their behavior in the future and how they look and view and act for the ocean. That is my why. So every time someone new listens, I get a little closer to my why. So I don't need millions of people to listen to my podcast. I just need one
more person. every single time just one more person or one different person who's discovering the podcast for the first time and they're listening to this and all of a sudden they're like hmm that could be good it's not always successful that that person who listens they may not like what i have to say or they may not like my style they may not like the content it doesn't matter but one more person is listening to it so i have that much closer But growth for me, I don't have to have
millions of viewers or downloads or anything like that. I just want one more person. Because somebody said this to me one time. I think it was Dave Jackson, who is a big podcaster. He's a Hall of Fame podcaster. He teaches people how to podcast. School of Podcasting is a great site if you want to learn how to podcast. He talks about all the different sites. He's really great. And he told me one, he said on his podcast one time, think about
like the people who start off and they have like one or two downloads. Maybe it's their mom that's downloading or their dad or their brother or sister or siblings. And that's okay. But after a while, you'll start to get five, you'll start to get six, you'll start to get, and some people get like 100 and 120. And then people are like, oh man, I only have 120. I only have 120 people who download my
podcast and listen to it. And then he said to me, he said on the podcast, and I think he's speaking to me, that's how good of a podcaster he is. He said on the podcast, he said, imagine filling a classroom full of 120 people. Those 120 people in one classroom, imagine what that would look like. It would be standing room only. Right, because what, in a classroom you can fit, there's what, 20 some odd desks? Seems to be more and more these days, but that's okay. 20 some odd desks. and
you fit 120 people in there. It's packed to the brim. People are probably waiting outside, listening in just for you. So think about that next time when you have 100. You'll be like, oh, I need more downloads. No, you don't necessarily need more downloads. You have 120 people that are listening to the message that you're saying, and that's important, right? And if you get too big, all the people might be
listening. They just might be listening because other people listen to it. They're just like, oh, I don't really like it, but I'll download it, but I'm not really listening. But if you get a core group of people that are listening, those 120 are always listening and maybe interacting with you at some point, even if you get like 10 to interact with you on a regular basis and just have discussions about the ocean or about what your topic is about, that's
where the growth is. That's the engagement. That's the success. Because like for me, I'm starting a conversation on the ocean. I want you, the audience member, to continue it. So I want you to reply back. That's the reason why I give out my how to protect the ocean Instagram account. It's why I have my email readily accessible through the newsletter. I want people to email me back. I want people to DM me because I think it's important that we have discussions. Hence why
I started this podcast. It's a one way street, but it can be two way very quickly. And so I ask every episode to, hey, give me a shout, DM me, respond to the newsletter if you want. Right? We can have conversation on this. That's the important, that's my why, that's my success. It doesn't mean I need a million downloads. It doesn't mean I need a million viewers. I'm gonna take more viewers if they want, but I want them to learn. That's the
point. I don't want them just to watch for like five seconds and then get out. I want them to watch a majority of the episode, form a thought, respond to me, or respond to somebody else, or take an action. So growth doesn't necessarily mean success or lack of growth doesn't mean that you're not successful. I should probably say it more that way. So I want you to think about that when you're starting and you continue to do the science communication stuff. A lot of people in podcasting will
stop after seven episodes. I don't know why seven is the magic number, but after a while, after about seven episodes, people, a lot of people, most people will stop their podcast. And it could be for a number of things. It could be that the consistency is hard to maintain. They made it either too difficult or they just don't have the time or they didn't expect the amount of effort that they wanted to put in. It
would take them that long per episode. coupled with, or in and of itself, not seeing the huge downloads that they expected after seven episodes. And I don't know why they're expecting huge downloads. They obviously didn't do their research in podcasting. Because even with podcasting, it's very difficult to grow these days. There are so many podcasts out there. And so it's hard to grow your numbers, especially if you're not focused on promoting, or especially if you're at the beginning of
your podcast journey in terms of the first seven episodes. And if you're not willing to put in the work, that's fine. If you don't like the numbers you have and you don't wanna continue, that's okay. But most people stop after seven. If you remain consistent and stay for at least the first three years, you're gonna see immense growth right from the beginning, from zero to maybe 1,000, maybe more, it
depends. But that's what you're gonna see. You will see growth, but you may not see the crazy growth, and that's okay. That's okay. As long as you have people listening, you are successful. That's my opinion. You can make money. There aren't many podcasts that are making millions and millions of dollars like you see like the Joe Rogans. the Alex Coopers and things like that.
It's very, very rare to make that amount of money. But there are people who have businesses and it's around their podcast and make money off of their podcast where they can have a full-time job as a podcaster. There are people who do that. I don't, but there are people who do that. And if you put the money in and you put the time in and you get the money, then good job, congratulations. Tell me how you did it. But the big thing is, you know, start, don't be afraid to
start. Try to be as consistent as possible and get better at what you do. Don't stress the numbers. Those are the three things that you really need to know if you want to start science communication in ocean conservation. If you have any questions, I would love to hear from you. Hit me up and DM me at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean. You can also respond to the newsletter that this goes out on if that's how you heard about this show. And you can just respond to that and
just say, hey, Andrew, I heard your show today. I really loved it. I have some questions around science communication. I would love to listen and I'd love to hear. If you have a comment, you can put it on our YouTube under these video in the comments below or on Spotify. They allow commenting now. And you can watch the video on this one. And yeah,
let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear what you want to do for science communication. Or if you've already started, I'd love for you to share your channel or your platform or your account on whatever platform you're on. But I think this is a really important episode for me to tell you, because I've been doing this for almost 10 years. Actually,
really longer than that, but podcasting for almost 10 years. And it's really changed my life, not only and the fact that people recognize me a little bit more and listen to me a little bit more and understand what I do, but also it's changed my life and the confidence that I'm able to do in presentations and speaking in front of people. It's gotten me jobs in and out of marine science and conservation, and I think it's just
an important skill to have. I want my daughters to have this skill. They've done some podcasts where they haven't published anything, but my one daughter is going into zoology. I'd love for her to be able to follow in my footsteps and do science communication for wildlife biology,
what's important, what will be important, and what's important to her. But it's something that I think everybody should get into because more people need to learn about the things that are affecting our oceans, our planet, nature in general. And being able to do that is to be able to connect with them where they're at on social media, on these digital platforms, and be able to inform them. Because people are looking for resources to learn
from stuff and quality resources. And if you get scientists and ocean conservationists who do great work and want to share that great work, whether it's an organization like a large organization like WWF or Oceana, or Ocean Conservancy or whoever, or if it's an individual like you and I that just want to share and share our passion for ocean conservation and science and also making sure that people know what's happening with the ocean or what's happening with
our planet, I highly recommend that you take this up and you contact me at HowToProtectTheOcean. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a fun episode to do. I look forward to having more conversations about this with you. Have a great day. This has been the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo,