[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. Today's
[00:00:05] Josh Kennedy: topic is lessons learned from a decade of podcasting. This is episode 100 of this new short format. James, how quickly that has come around. When did we start this new short? October?
[00:00:18] James Breese: I can't say September. I think it was so, but on that note, uh, and we'll also go a bit of cheering.
[00:00:25] Cause we haven't done those for a while, have we? No, we haven't,
[00:00:27] Josh Kennedy: we haven't done those for a while, but yes, 10 years, 10 years of podcasting. We started back in 2014. The podcast has changed over the years. It's been in many guises. It's had many titles in actual fact. Um, do you want to throw out some numbers first?
[00:00:42] Why not? How many, how many listens and downloads and what are we looking statistically?
[00:00:47] James Breese: It's crazy. So I was looking at the stats before that apparently if you get. Over a thousand downloads in the first week of your podcast is going live. You're in the top 5 percent of podcasts. If you get [00:01:00] over 5, 000 downloads, you're in the top 1 percent of podcasts.
[00:01:03] So it's quite interesting to see those numbers because it's not actually as big as you think. I was expecting a lot bigger numbers. In terms of that, cause we're so used to seeing our own numbers. So in terms of how many episodes we've done over the years, we've done well over 800 podcasts, I think, in total, particularly the news, the new ones we're doing as well, getting up, up into speed we've done, you know, the first situation was the Strength Matters podcast.
[00:01:27] We did over 190 episodes of that with interviews of guests. I think that was right back at the start where we all began. And then we went into this everyday athlete mode, fit over 30 mode, different iterations of a podcast over many different years. But it's kind of cool. We've, we've had over two and a half million downloads over the last 10 years.
[00:01:47] I'd love to have been over 10 million downloads, but sadly that's not the case. It's obviously, obviously we haven't got the face for podcasting. We haven't got the face for podcasting, obviously. We never used to do
[00:01:56] Josh Kennedy: video, did we? The video is a very much a new thing for us. It [00:02:00] always used to be audio podcasting because again, it's changed, hasn't it?
[00:02:04] The world of podcasting has changed a lot since we started doing it back in 2014. Uh, it was a much more quieter. market. There weren't that many health and fitness podcasts. Um, you know, there weren't our good friend, Ben Coomber. He was top of the tree at that point. He stopped podcasting probably a year or two ago.
[00:02:22] Now he got to nine years and then had enough. So yeah, 10 years we're doing, we're doing all right. Yeah. 10 years. It's just, it's changed a lot over the years. I think we were sort of new and fresh when we first started. Uh, myself and my cohost, we had a good energy about us and stuff. Um, and then obviously.
[00:02:41] It changed the everyday athlete podcast. And then if you have a 30 podcast, I think for me, when it's, when you're presenting with somebody else. Uh, you can always rely on that person. I think if you're doing it yourself, uh, which I've done a lot of as well, you know, me, James, I love a good bit of prep. Uh, never used to prep used to be off the cuff.
[00:02:59] [00:03:00] It used to be very much off the cuff, all the podcasts back in the day. Um, but, uh, when I'm just solo presenting, uh, I have to prep. Um, so I was, and I remember one of our guests, Kate, um, Oh God, how do you pronounce her surname? Solo, it's Kate Solo Vu. You'll help me here, you know from
[00:03:18] James Breese: PN. Kate Solo, that's what we always
[00:03:19] Josh Kennedy: call her anyway.
[00:03:19] Kate Solo, yeah, there you go, that's not her full surname. But she, um, I recorded episode with her back in 2017 and she commended me on how well my questions were, uh, were presented and stuff. It's all about the prep. There you go, that's my biggest lesson, it's all about the prep. Well there we go,
[00:03:37] James Breese: that's the thing, so when we first started It was more just interviewing.
[00:03:40] We started interviewing people and talking to people about what they were doing. And it was a new novel thing. It was just like no one was doing it. So we were one of the first people to get into the fitness podcasting space and doing it. And we were crazy. We had about 50, 000 downloads a month.
[00:03:55] Consistently, because it was all new, the shows lasted from 45 minutes to two [00:04:00] hours in some cases, and it was all based around the interactions of the guests that we had, and they went at that time, people were listening into it, and they wanted to consume that information, but as the Strength Matters changed over the years, and more and more podcasts come up, because the average podcaster now.
[00:04:14] They record five, seven episodes, then they disappear. Basically, that's what they do. They do it for a little bit, disappear. And then that's it. The podcast, that's what the stats show. So what we wanted to try to try and reinvent ourselves into the, to what we were doing as a, as a team here at Strength Matters.
[00:04:29] So obviously it went from Strength Matters to the Everyday Athlete, to the Fit Over 30 podcast, as we went through those changes. We're back now at Strength Matters, the Strength Matters podcast, because it's, we're back to working with coaches and trainers, back to the roots of what we were doing right back at the start too, which I think is important, but podcasting has changed over the years.
[00:04:47] It's a reason why we're doing these more bite sized podcasts of less than 15 minutes and keeping them down from Monday to Friday. Daily podcasting almost, because people want more bite sized information they can take on board [00:05:00] because there's so much information going around here, the world at the moment, that you've got to focus on just making sure one thing is clear.
[00:05:05] So today is all about lessons learned from a decade of podcasting. And what we do know is this, is this. Is now people need, you need to have prep. So you've been prepping all the time with the, with the work you've been doing, but we now have to prep for our podcast to make sure we're focusing on one thing.
[00:05:21] So people can absorb that information and they can snack on it. Like bite sized chunks, come back in, flit in and out on the podcast. Whereas when they miss out a couple of podcasts over an hour long, they feel they can't jump back in again. So the world has changed. You've got to be doing podcasts now for your business in more bite size formats, we think, less than 15 minutes.
[00:05:40] Get your face on YouTube and video on as well, because we want to consume it. People are actively watching that.
[00:05:50] People are doing that. And like I said, focus on the topics that you need to answer, ask and answer the questions that people want to know about. Whereas people can get lost in the waffle of a lot of podcasts. I [00:06:00] see so many podcasts now lasting two hours long. I haven't got time for two hours, two hour long episodes.
[00:06:05] Josh Kennedy: They are still popular. Cause you think of like Hooberman, he does podcasts two or three hours long. Um, and obviously he gets plenty of downloads. He's very, very well known his, um, since he started podcasting. Um, A couple of years back, I think it is, but I think there's definitely, um, so there was a place for that and we still do longer interviews with, uh, with guests as well.
[00:06:28] But, um, I think the bite size ones are going very well from the feedback we're getting. It seems like bite size podcasts are going down very well. Yeah.
[00:06:35] James Breese: So again, that's, so again, if anyone can take away any, any, any points of interest or they're thinking about podcasting for their fitness business right now.
[00:06:43] Focus on consistency, posting consistently onto the actual platform. Make sure you're answering questions that people have. In their heads, and you know, your topic and your research. And now we're very much down to, we've got two training topics. We have, we have marketing and fitness marketing [00:07:00] on one side.
[00:07:00] And we have the, the strategy and stuff, what we're doing for training on the other side. So make sure you have topics to talk about and it's specific. So people know what they're going to listen to when you start talking off the bat. We've gone with the waffle chat. We used to talk about football. We used to talk about Everton football club all the time, random chats at the start.
[00:07:16] That's gone. Yeah, it's completely gone. Just cut through the waffle because people are fast forwarding it. But the point is be concise as much as work as you can do. Be consistent and make sure your audio quality is good. That's why I've got the mics up here. It's all about audio quality. So Josh stands with a massive, sits with a massive, I was going to say something rude, then in front of him, they write all the time, so.
[00:07:39] Josh Kennedy: And, and do you prep because people, as we found out, people don't like waffle. They like you to get. to the point and be concise in what you're talking about, don't they? So do your prep guys.
[00:07:49] James Breese: Exactly. And on that note, uh, waffle over that's the end of today's podcast, a hundred episodes, season seven. And it's a few lessons we've learned to a decade of podcasting.
[00:07:58] And over two and a half million downloads, which [00:08:00] is crazy. So thank you everyone for listening in and tuning in and putting up with us both.
[00:08:04] Josh Kennedy: Exactly. Thank you for listening. Long may it continue here to another hundred episodes. And that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe.
[00:08:12] And if you want to find out more about our system of training, go to strengthmatters. com forward slash system.