🎯 Best Use of Your Time as a New Podcaster (and How Blubrry Helps) – PCI 445

Hi, everyone. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. I'm Mike Dell, VP of customer relations here at Blueberry, and welcome to Podcast Insider. If you're a new podcaster feeling overwhelmed by everything you could be doing, then you're not alone. Yep. Today, we're gonna break down where your time is best spent in the early stages of podcasting and how Blueberry's tools can help you stay focused and grow without burnout.

You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in. I heard a good comeback to somebody that said, I'm burned out, and the person came back and said, you were never on fire. It feels like it, though. It absolutely feels like it. Self induced, you know, incineration sometimes.

Yep. Yep. Especially when you were starting a podcast sometimes. Yep. Yep. And if you're feeling overwhelmed,

you know, you're not alone at all. I mean, you know, we've all of us started podcasting. It, you know, of course, back then. Including the two of us. Yeah. You know, it's just there's just so many things that you have to, you know, it it's not hard. It's just a lot of things. Mhmm. And, you know, and we're gonna talk about, you know, what to focus on and, what's the, you know, what's the thing to, to worry about and the thing not to worry about.

And the so called what are the right things that you should be worrying about, and those are a little bit different for everyone. So we're gonna go through, you know, some of the ways that you can take the pressure off of yourself, I think, and just kinda maybe focus. Yeah. Definitely.

So, what the number one thing we got written down here is, create consistently good episodes. Now that doesn't mean perfect, but Yeah. You want it to to be decent. You know, no one will stick around for crappy content. You know, no matter how well it's promoted, you know, you got to have clear audio. We had a little, little little thing. I'm in a different location than I normally am. Took a little bit to figure out the audio situation, but I think we did alright or I did alright.

And, of course, Mackenzie's got a brand new computer, so we're all on different hardware than normal. Yeah. The we spent a good couple minutes this morning just kinda fiddling around with our own equipment together. Yep. You know, while on Zoom together saying, okay. Does that sound any better? Because it does on my end, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't on your end. Right. Exactly. So but, you know, thing you gotta do, you know, with with Blueberry, how we can help you is reliable podcast

hosting. You know, we have no limits on the the bandwidth. You know? So if you get a million downloads, you're not gonna pay any more than if you get 10. You know? And you can have as many episodes as you want within the the limit of whatever plan you sign up for. And if if you're wondering how to do that to you know, what what level of plan you need, let us know, and, we can walk you through that.

And one of the best things that Blueberry offers, in my opinion, is AI generated transcripts. You know, whether, whether you're using this for your actual content or not, to make something else out of it. Todd and I just had a good episode about using your transcripts to create a book. They're they're wonderful for accessibility. So in my in my book, it has to be accessible to be considered good. Yep. And then, you know, one thing we're really good at is our stats.

You know, you really wanna know, you know, how how many people are downloading or listening to your show or and it it's good it's a good way to measure success. It it lets you know, you know, hey. There's people out there actually listening to me. Cool. You know, helps motivate you as well. Absolutely. And, you know, that is that is one of those things, when you're starting your podcast, people say, yeah.

But I only have 50 downloads. And then you remember, could I be giving the same presentation in front of 50 people, and would I think that is a small amount? Right. Exactly. Definitely keep that in mind as you're going through your stats dashboard. You know, like, you know, a room full of 50 people, and you gotta entertain them for an hour. That that's harder than you think. You know? The the podcast you know, podcast is nice because, you know, you're not live in front of a bunch of people.

You can, edit. You can, do, you know, do all kinds of things to, make the content good. Again, don't overthink the edit. You know? People do breathe. People do make weird noises once in a while. And if you edit all of those out, you're gonna sound like an AI. You don't wanna sound like an AI. Definitely don't do that, but, we do want you to have good audio quality. So try to get a good setup before you actually actually record. And then

if you don't wanna do editing, you know, to the max after that, that is one of the reasons that we have partnered with Auphonic for media mastering. It's just an add on. It, you know, finalizes your media file when you are uploading it to Blueberry and, just clear cleans it up is what we call it. Yep. You know, getting getting it as good as possible in the raw recording, of course, helps. But, you know, Auphonic will will help a a bunch too, you know, through

our media mastering. And, you know, our our podcast here that we're recording this morning will, be run through Auphonic at some point in the edit process, and and that makes it sound better because, you know, maybe the recording, Mackenzie's not as loud as I am or vice versa. And, it levels it all out. You know, if the dog barks in the background, well, you're gonna probably still hear that, but, it's still gonna be okay. It is a helpful tool.

Yeah. And, one of the next things that we wanted to talk about, which is semi related to media mastering, is,

that you can guest on other podcasts, you know, or they can guest on yours. And then you're gonna be able to make sure that you sound okay. Guesting on other podcasts is kind of a neat way to, you know, expose your podcast to other, audiences. You know? And podcasting isn't so much a competition.

You know? So, you know, somebody that listens to a podcast about podcasting like we're doing, they're likely gonna be listening to James Cridland and Sam Sethi or Todd on his new media show or, you know, a bunch of other podcasts about podcasting. And so, you know, being a guest on that type of podcast may gain you some listeners, you know, and always having more listeners helps. Yes. Yes. It does.

But definitely something you don't wanna forget is when you were getting all of those new listeners, your website. Yeah. You know, what are you putting on your Blueberry gives you a free podcast website if you would like one. It's totally optional to use and at no additional cost. So we recommend that you use that. You add a you know, you can use the media kit that we provide, which is great for trying to get guests or being a guest. And, on that website,

create an about the host page. You know, you can send this to people saying, like, this is what my show is about. Here's, here's what we generally talk about. This is just a little bit more info about me. It just it helps cut down on that, on that convincing because you already have something

that'll do it for you. Right. And, you know, and the thing about having your own website, we always preach around here, is, you know, you gotta give them some place to go that's not reliant on what technology they have. Everybody's got a web browser. You know? Not everybody has Apple Podcasts. Not everybody has Spotify. You know? They can get it, obviously, but, you know and and then share individual episode pages,

or your, you know, your posts. So if you're, you know, publishing on WordPress, one of our free sites or your own WordPress site, send them to that page for that episode, because that is a direct way of, getting him to that episode. Make sure there's a player on there and, you know, robust show notes. You can see an example of that over at podcastinsider.com. Amongst the blog posts, you'll see podcast episodes with players. Yeah. And, I mean,

if you're doing your show notes correctly, then it's gonna be even easier for specific episodes to show up in search results as well. So that that'll help you in the long run too. Right. And that I think the next thing you got, and this is kind of in your wheelhouse, but market one episode really well. Yeah. Sometimes you, you get overwhelmed with creating a show with longevity that, you know, you're like, every single episode has to be perfect. But but trying to get people to listen to

every episode can be really difficult. You know? There it's and it's probably gonna be broad in topics. So trying to get one episode some really good exposure is, a lot of the time, will what lead people to listening to the rest of your catalog.

You know, if you're doing a good job of really marketing one or even a handful of episodes really, really well, then they're gonna be able to to understand what your show was about and decide based on those episodes if they wanna listen to the to the rest of the show and in in its entirety or, you know, just subscribe or whatever. So definitely make sure that you are available on all major platforms for that, and that you have,

you know, everything set up with Blueberry correctly, including that website that we spoke about earlier. Right. And, you know, and even if you're not using the Blueberry website, you can use any website. You know? Mhmm. And, you know, with our publisher, you can grab an embedded player to stick

on a page on your site. You know, so, you know, whatever you're using, Wix or Squarespace or, you know, hand rolling your own RSS, whatever, you can you know, it doesn't have to be the built in website from Blueberry, but we do offer that for this reason. And then Yeah. Make sure you track what's working. Again, back to the stats. We have IAB certified stats, which means that, your stats are you know, we don't care what the number is as long it is it is the number.

And, you know, we make sure that we're not counting bots and all this, so you'll get, you know, the true measure of how many people are consuming your content. Yeah. You know what's also cool is when you're trying to do, like, a campaign of sorts for a specific episode, you can set this date range with the event tracker in our stats dashboard to keep an eye on what happens in this time period I where you're calling out these specific episodes, and you're really able to see,

is this working? You know? So that you don't have to, like, go back to that specific episode and try to figure things out. You can just call it out already, and we will Yep. Look at look at that event, and it'll tell you, you know, what happened, you know, during that time period that you've been promoting. Yep. Exactly. That's a I think that's an underrated feature that, I don't know if people really know that much about. Well, maybe we'll have to do a office hours about that at some point.

That would be a great idea. Yeah. Might might might be good. Anyway, look for the email shortly. Again, as we say, you know, document. Don't overthink. You know, so many people wanna start a podcast, and they spend all their time on things that really don't help. You know, they they make it, you know, like, they call it, you know, I forget what the term was, but, basically, you get locked up worrying about little piddly details, and you don't ever get any content

out. So don't do that. You know, don't be perfect.

That analysis paralysis. That's what I was looking for. Yes. Yes. But, I I think, podcasting sometimes requires a little bit of false bravado. You you just need to, you know, convince yourself it's all gonna be okay. Yeah. Yeah. So so many people get the imposter syndrome. Well, I'm not good enough to do this. Well, yes. You are. You know? That's

that's the thing. You know? It's you know, listeners will appreciate, you know, that you're there every week or every month or whatever your your cadence is and, you know, and just you don't have to be perfect. Just be yourself and, and, you know, and things will improve. I I tell people that, your episode might suck a little, and your next episode will suck a little less and so on. It'll be okay. And it gets better as you do it. You know, I'm 400 and something episodes into

my personal show over twenty years. Jeez. That's slow cadence there. But, you know, I get on the microphone, and I just talk. I I don't worry about perfect. You know, I on this show, we we try for a little bit more perfect, but it still doesn't always work. We yeah. We try for the consistency, I think, that, you know, you always call yourself out on for not having with your own personal shows. Yeah. Exactly. But, you know,

we're yeah. We're putting out episodes that every week, but some are better than others. We understand that. We're and we're we're not trying to delude ourselves that, you know, some aren't. So we just we use our tools the best that we can and, you know, try to put out good content and just combine all that together and don't overthink it. Yep. Yep. So let's see. Set up systems early. And and what that means is

you kinda get your workflow figured out. You know, you record, you do a, you do b, you do c, you know, and if you get that all kind of in a checklist form, I guess, or, you know, make it a habit, that'll save you time later because you'll you'll be able to, you know, whip through that workflow a lot quicker or at least, you know, at the same amount of time rather than, you know, being stuck on something that, oh, oh, I forgot to do this,

and I had to go back. And, you know, it's just having those habits built in early definitely helps. You know, have one login for hosting and distribution and stats, and that's, us. Website will have a different login, but, if you use the website. But, you know, have that all kind of figured out, and it's it's not hard once you do it couple times. It'll be, as we say in the flying world, muscle memory.

So This this definitely relates to the don't overthink it because we set all this just all of this stuff up, for your success, then you're not then you're gonna have less things to overthink. Yeah. You're you're essentially making it sell making it easier on yourself.

Right. But, you know, with with Blueberry, we, you know, we have all we have built in episode scheduling. So say you, you know, record once a month but put out a weekly show. So you record four, you edit four, you, you know, do the do the show notes for four, you know. We kinda do that here sometimes. We batch it up. If we can, I absolutely love to do that? Yeah. If we're ahead enough, then we do for sure. Yeah.

And then, you know, that way, you've got that taken care of, and it takes a little pressure off you, you know, as far as planning for the next batch of episodes or or whatever. And it could just really helpful during the summer when you go on vacation or any time of the year when you're just not gonna be there and don't wanna have to think about it. You know? Sure. Sure. Yeah. There there's you and Todd to release the episode if I'm out on a Monday, but I prefer to just schedule it so that

you guys don't have to. Yeah. And that, that is the way that that is the better way, and it it you know? But you don't have to batch episodes, you know, if you're just, on the fly, you know, pick a time once a week or once a month or whatever your like I said, whatever your normal schedule is and, you know, spend x number of minutes, hours, whatever it is, you know, creating your episodes.

And, you know, once you get that cadence down, you know, Todd always says battle rhythm, but that's a military term. But it it is kinda it is kind of appropriate because, you know, like with me, you know, I I've never been able to do that. What the thing is is I'm not as motivated for my personal show as I am for this show Yeah. Because, you know, you know, I've got a few listeners here and there, and, and and that's

fine. It's a hobby for me. But, you know, if you're trying to be consistent and grow your audience and all that stuff, you know, that's one of the big things. And and having, you know, batching episodes or scheduling or, you know, just just having a checklist of sorts to, to produce your episodes is fine. Of course, later on, you can go to, you know, some optional stuff like private podcasting and other monetization things once you grow an audience, and so that's something to look forward to.

Absolutely. That's one of the best things about Blueberry is that you can use a variety of tools that will help you just do this as a hobby, a very carefree podcast, or you can do it as a professional and and make money back and have it be part of your actual, you know, business on a day to day basis. Yeah. And I I tell people when I'm talking to them on the phone, you know, for sales or whatever, and they ask me all these, what's this do? What's that do? What's the

other thing do? And and and I say, yeah. We have a lot of tools, but not all tools are for everybody at a particular time. You know? You you you don't want a, b, d, and f and not, you know, maybe not a couple of the other options. But, you know, you can always move into those if you need to or want to. So, you know, don't get overwhelmed with making decisions right at the beginning. Yes. That is our final tip is so that if you are feeling overwhelmed, it is

to just start small. You know, focus on making a handful of solid and engaging episodes and decisions in that in that same sense. Yep. And then, like I said, promote the best one, at You know, you always wanna promote each episode, but, you know, maybe go whole hog on on a particularly good one and, you know, get get it out there to people. And, and as we've talked about earlier, you know, be a guest on some relevant shows or

have guests from relevant shows. That's another thing we didn't write down here, but, you know, I've I've found that inviting other people in your genre to your show, to to guest is also, you know, something that, you know, they'll promote it most of the time, and and that helps a little. Yeah. All of these types of decisions are gonna help you set up your overall infrastructure for your podcast, which means you can just focus on your voice and your content.

Right. That's a wrap for today. Thanks for listening. Remember, whether you're focusing on good content, smart promotion, or guesting on other shows, you don't have to do it all at once. Yep. And, of course, with Blueberry's hosting stats transcripts, free podcast website, you've got all the support you need to keep it simple and keep it growing. Be sure to follow or subscribe to Podcast Insider for more podcasting tips and support from the Blueberry team. Over at podcastinsider.com.

Thanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com. That's Blueberry without the e's because we can't afford them.