It's not every day that someone just decides to develop something on their own and create a tool that is useful for the podcasting audience, but that is what our guest did today. We are excited to talk about it. We are chatting with Scott Wyden Kibowitz. He is a photo photographer, community manager, and podcaster. You can learn more about him at scottwyden.com. Of course, we will have a link in the show notes so you can easily find him. Scott, thank you so much for joining us here on the show
today. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome to be here, Matthew. Thanks for for for connecting, and and I'm looking forward to this. It's my pleasure. And we were connected by, Greg Wasserman, I believe, and, he's been on the show before. And, he is very good at making connections with people, so I'm excited for, this conversation and, this relationship.
So before we get to this tool that you've built for podcasters, which kinda helps with rankings and and things like that, tell us how did you get started in the world of podcasting to begin with? Yeah. So I'll try to keep this brief, I guess, but, I as as as, as young as podcasting is, I've been podcasting longer than
podcastings have podcasting has existed. What that's what I like to say because, when I was younger, I was, I I would hang out with a friend on my street, and we would just take a boombox and just record ourselves talking about whatever it is, record conversations, make up stories, whatever. You know, sort of like when you you play with your Ninja Turtle toys or your Star Wars toys, and you make up these stories. We were doing
that on tape. So I've been doing this for as long as I can remember, but, really, it it was straight out of college when I, I originally went to college for music recording. I wanted to own a recording studio, record bands for a living, and then I shifted my my, focus in college to photography technology.
And once I was out of college, I sort of combined the 2 of them, and while I was working in the photo industry serving photographers, I was also hosting podcasts and educating photographers, having conversations with photographers in a podcast, and it's evolved over the years, of course. But so, I've been doing it for for about 20 years at this point. And that is your The Workflows Photography podcast? That is one of the, many podcasts that I have right now, but that's the
one I have for work. So I have a few personal ones. Some are experimental, some are for fun, and then I have one that I have, with my full time job is, is the Workflows Photography podcast. Yeah. Gotcha. Alright. Very cool. You know, it's funny. Photography podcasts, I was so shocked when I was really getting started in the podcasting space and talking to people about all the different topics. And, you know, somebody said, oh, I
do a photography podcast. I'm like, really? I mean, this is an audio medium. Like, what what what good is a photography podcast? And then I was shocked and and corrected, when I saw their podcast thing, like, photography was one of the most popular categories of shoes, that could be out there. There were just hundreds of photography podcasts in existence. This is, like, way, way, way back in the day. Why do you think that is? Why are so many photographers also, in the podcasting
space? Well, I think that it's there's it's twofold. The one that's existed for a while has always been the business side of the photo industry. So that's what our show is, for example. It's it's we're we're helping photographers with their workflows from the business perspective.
There are shows that it talks about the art, and I think it's it's a little tricky because it is hard to visualize what you're talking about when you're talking about the photo, but, I there are ways that photographers have been able to communicate the, the feel of when they were making the photo, why they did it,
things like that. And so there's many different types of photography podcasts, and I and, the more recent one I'm seeing come up are now this is one that I'm starting to teach photographers that they should be doing, is the the podcast for the photography clients. So while they might still show up for search results for photography, it's more, for their clients or their vendors that they work with to find them. So there's a wide range of
different types of photography shows out there. I think that it's even though it's a very specific niche, it's there's so many levels to it. Have you found that having a podcast was helpful in acquiring new clients or in how you build relationships with the people in your industry that you were trying to connect with? Yeah. 100%. So during the pandemic, I started a podcast called Jersey Brand. So I live in New Jersey, and, there was a there was a
big, big shift. Wait. You said you're in New Jersey too? Yeah. Down south. Oh, I didn't know that. That's funny. I'm I'm, I'm in the in Monmouth County. So Ah, we'll talk more about that offline. Don't wanna give away your exact address, but I'm sure we have a lot of similar friends. So, there was a shift where a lot of people a lot of photographers were offering during the pandemic because they couldn't get up close and personal with their clients. They were doing, porch family sessions.
So the photographer would go, and, the the family would go out to their front porch, their front lawn, whatever it might be, and the photographer from a distance would photograph those families. Very inexpensive, very fast, fun, but, like, the best you can do during pandemic times. And so
I said, wait a minute. We could do this for businesses. So I started a podcast called Jersey Brands where I just as I was driving around, as I'm walking around, and I see different things, what local businesses are doing, I would record an episode on my phone of I noticed x, y, z company is doing this in this billboard. Here's what I would have done different if I ran this business. And it caught the attention of a couple local businesses that went up hiring me to do porch business
sessions. So I wind up photographing the business and their employees wearing their company shirts and branded masks and stuff in front of their stores. So, I that was my own personal win when it comes to a podcast, but I've been working with other photographers that have, let's say, like, wedding podcasts for their wedding couples or their vendors to find them that have also been, successful in in the, like, accolade of, hey. You must know what you're doing because you've got a podcast
about this. So that in itself, helps helps them get more business. Because photography and because, like, right, the work that you're doing is very localized. Right? You're not driving to Oregon to do a porch photo for a family. Right? That it just doesn't, you know, make sense. What were you doing to attract or market your show to the local audience? Good question. Yeah. So for that for that, Jersey brand show, all I did was push it out on social, especially local Facebook groups.
Just just say, hey. I got a a podcast about some of the businesses that you shop at, and and, those businesses are in those groups, so they see it. So when it's a local one, you gotta spend your efforts, doing what you may hate doing, which is spending more time on Facebook, but spending time in those local groups interacting with those people and those businesses, whichever your your audience is. Gotcha. So let's let's fast forward a
little bit. So the reason why we were introduced is because you came up with something called the podcast rank report. Tell us what that is and why you decided to put this together. Yeah. So the podcast rank report is, a metadata search, so to speak, of where your podcast ranks for a specific keyword on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We know that YouTube, right, is part of Google, and their SEO, so to speak, is for YouTube is more like Google. So I didn't focus on YouTube at all.
I went specifically to the to the the core, you know, audio first players that most people are having their shows listened to listened at the most. And, what it does is it actually you put in the name of your of your show, you put in the keyword that you wanna see how you rank well for, and it's going to do a search behind the scenes of that and spit out a number. I rank 50. I rank 48.
And it breaks it gives you a bullet point of where you rank on Apple, where you rank on Spotify, and then, actually, we'll give you the list of 1 to a 100 on Apple and 1 to a 150 on Spotify so that you can you can see for yourself in the data, yes. This was correct. I am with 5048, whatever I just said. And it emails you this within about 2 minutes. The reason why I made this was very selfish of me, because Test them just to let me know. Yes. Yes. I wanna know how my shows are doing
for specific keywords. There are many tools out there that tells you, in general, how your show is doing, but it's not specific to what your audience might actually be searching for. Right? In the case of our show, the Workflows Photography podcast, I know that our audience are searching for photography as the keyword or what they what shows they might wanna follow or subscribe
to. So I didn't want a, more generic tool that just says, oh, you're ranking in the top 100 for for entrepreneurship or top 100 for arts or visual arts or whatever. I wanted a specific keyword, not the category of how well I'm doing. And there was only one tool that has ever existed that did this, and they went out of business. And I was very disappointed when they went out of business. Yeah. I used to use that for, for podcast audits with clients.
It was a great tool for, keywords and and kinda understanding your your show SEO. Yes. Exactly. So, I wound up buying a one of those no code type platforms because I am not a developer, and I knew that this once I figure things out, that tool could be the back end for what for this podcast rank rank report. And it took me a while, but and it took some help from the one of the developers of this no code platform, because I am not a developer, and it worked.
And I so I tested it and tested it and tested it, and then I built the front end using, Gravity Forms on WordPress so, that way, like, it I can use my WordPress site to to to to track what people are are, submitting and also send the email with the, with the results and things like that. So it's a combination of of multiple tools coming together to make this work. But it works, and it's, it's amazing. And I scratch my own itch.
I'm very happy about it. I'm curious. How often do you think or or does your, you know, reports show that people are really searching the stores for podcasts based on keywords or I don't know. I I find it the search of podcast, you know, confusing, annoying, not super helpful. And so I'm just curious, like, really how big of a piece of the discoverability share does this keyword search really play into podcasts, or is there anything that you've been able to extrapolate from the data thus far?
One thing I have noticed is some people think that the keywords that they're trying to track is an obscure keyword that no one would probably search for. So I think it, you know, it there's there's I think there's 2 types of of podcasters out there. There's the podcasters who know, maybe there's 3 types. There's there's the podcasters who know, I want like like, in my case, I want my show to rank when somebody searches for the term photography. Right?
Then there's the podcasters who, don't really understand how they want their show to rank, or, or or, like I said, think that a certain keyword, is is what is important for them even though it may not be. And then there's the 3rd type would be the podcaster. They just really don't care. They're just doing it. There's podcasts, and they're not so concerned about how they rank and whatnot. And I will say that, I don't
think anybody truly understands podcast SEO. I don't think the algorithms are the same for Apple versus Spotify. I just, I do a lot of testing for the the show that I have for work, and I did a test of workflows hyphen photography podcast, workflows photography podcast, and the workflows photography podcast. And I'll tell you, when I added the word the in front of it, which is a stop word, our rank got better on Apple and way worse on Spotify.
So something something is very, very strange about, about podcast SEO that I hope one day somebody truly figures out, and and it can really help everybody. Maybe I mean, I don't really collect any data, so to speak. I I have the data of what people search for and the name of their show. But from that, I can pull out things like, common and I actually put this on the landing page for the report, common stop words that
shows are using as well as common symbols. High the two two common ones so far are the and symbol and the, hyphen symbol. So, and it's not even that common. It's, 12.12 percent of the shows that have been submitted so far have the hyphen. 3.03 have the and symbol. So it's not many, but 36.36 have the in it. That I can understand as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I'm not, I'm not I'm not here to track people's data in that sort of way. I I am interested in seeing what I could find, like, that
kind of cool information from it. But, but, yeah, I I don't know. It's it's a it's a complicated thing, and I just know that when I was building this and I shared it with a bunch of other, podcasters, and I was like, would you find this valuable? They all were like, yes. So I'm like, I knew if it would work for me and and others want it, why not? Why not? So, yeah. And if you're curious about the report, check out scottwiden.com/podcastdashrankdashreport.
Again, we'll put a link right there in the show notes so you can very easily find it. Also, while you're there, do me a favor and click on the upvote button, for product hunt and, give Scott's platform a little bit of love. And you can check out everything else he's doing at scottwiden.com. It's w y d e n, scottwyden.com. So Scott before we let you go, we have a couple of questions that we'd
like to ask everybody who come on the show. The first one is I mean obviously, you know, it might be search because that's what you seem to be
working on right now. But having been in the space for a long, long time, right, recording in your boom box way back in the day, are there is there a place or are there a few places in the podcasting world where you'd like to see some big improvements whether that's on production, discovery, distribution, just anything where you're like, man, podcasting would be so much better if blank. So I know that there's a lot of different individuals plus businesses trying to push for
more standards across podcasting. Right? You've got, Transistor, which is the host that I use that, really tries to utilize all those standards in everything they do, but there's some there's some breaking points that different platforms don't not supporting, don't get back. So for example, I would love to see things like reporting to be more universal
between platforms. There's things like YouTube, which is really trying to push hard with the podcasting, but most players don't see the YouTube stats back in the in the in the hosting to so you have to look at 2 different places to figure everything out. So I would love to see more of a of a, universally adopted system make their way throughout the whole e the whole ecosystem. Right? Podcasting's funny, because yes, there's competition between the hosts, yes, there's competition
between the players, but it helps everybody. If they all if everybody adopts one standard and they just all utilize it, it helps everybody. So I would love to see that happen. Alright. Fair enough. Again, you you probably have a lot of these things, but is there a piece of tech on your podcasting wish list, whether it's hardware or
software? It could be something that's out there that you just haven't bought yet or could be something that hasn't been made yet that you'd love to see, created that would help you as a podcaster. Yeah. So I have I use a Rodecaster Pro 2 on my
here with me right now. Right? And I've been working on a travel kit for when I go to trade shows and wanna talk with people there, and in the past, I would just use a DJI Mic 2, clip clip me and clip the the guest, and and I would record and have it go right to the camera, plus record in the in the mics themselves as a backup. I would love to see, I have a one of the little Zoom, I don't know. I forgot which model it is, but it's one of those Zoom portable, Like a h4, h5, something like
that? Yeah. One of those, but it's it's, one of the older ones, and it's it has the 4 XLR ports in it. It doesn't have 32 bit float, and I find that when you're at trade shows, that is needed. So I would love to have something equally as portable, not doesn't need all the bells and whistles, but it needs 32 bit float, needs to be lightweight, small, and have 4 XLR ports, plus headphone outs.
I'd love the fact that what the 8 the the Zoom has I think it's 4 double a batteries, like, simple, but I could still plug it in USB and power it that way. So Zoom's probably working on it already, but Well, actually, there's a Zoom they they refresh their line. There's the Zoom H6 essentials that does do 32 bit float. It has the 4 XLR ports. It's only got the one headphone jack, but, you know, you put a headphone amp in or I don't
know. When I'm when I'm recording in a loud conference, I don't usually make other people wear headphones. I might put an earbud in just so I can hear if they're on mic, but, that's probably the closest thing that we have to it right now. Although, again, more to discuss with you all fair after this call. So, stick
around. And then lastly, are there podcasts on your playlist that, you know, no matter what it is you're doing or whatever else you're listening to when they drop a new episode, you were stopping, you were listening, you're never gonna let an episode go past you? 100%. There's one, and it's my, let me not think about anything important and just enjoy the conversation, smartless. Funny, always. Just laid back. I wanna be a guest one day just because, you know, it's it's so it's such a good show.
Yeah. And that is if I was to if you said to me, 2,025, you have to subscribe, pay for 1 podcast, that's the one it would be to have no ads. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Well, we've been chatting with Scott Wyden Kivowitz. You can find him at scottwyden.com while you're there. Make sure you check out his podcasters rank report and give it an upvote, while you can, Scott. It is a pleasure. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you.