Speaker 0: What are the promises that you and your podcast have made to your
audience? And most importantly, are you keeping those promises?
Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast.
I'm Daniel J. Lewis.
Over the course of podcasting, we make many spoken outright
promises to our audience, as well as some things that our
audience comes to expect because of certain consistencies that we
deliver. That's not bad.
But the most important thing with promises is what? To keep them.
That's something that I remind my son is keep your promises
always, no matter what.
The whole point of a promise is to keep it, not to just say I'm
going to keep it until I don't want to.
The point of a promise is to keep it even when you don't want to.
And we might be making some of those promises with our podcasts.
Yes.
There are certain circumstances that need to override that, like
emergency things, family issues, sometimes holidays things, stuff
like that.
Our audiences, I think, generally are understanding toward that
kind of stuff because we're humans.
And the kind of relationships that we get to build with our
audiences are really dynamic and intimate on some level.
So I think our audience can forgive certain things like that
because they would do very similar things in a similar situation.
But there are the other kinds of promises that we might make to
our audience, And I encourage you to try to remember what those
promises are, look back at the promises that your podcast is
making, and seek to keep those promises.
And to help you in that process, I have 3 questions for you to
consider.
You can follow along in the notes for this podcast, a simple tap
or swipe away.
Look at the chapters or go to the audacitytopodcast.com/promises.
Question number 1, what might your audience expect?
Let's take a trip down memory lane back to episode 1 of The
Audacity to Podcast, which you can still get at the
audacitytopodcast.com/one. That is the number 1.
Or you can scroll all the way back inside your podcast app to
06/17/2010, and that's when I published episode 1 of The Audacity
to Podcast.
And I broke many rules that I now recommend that you not do.
I did many of those things.
I made many of those mistakes in my first episode.
Like, I wasted way too much time in the beginning of the episode
before I actually got into the content.
And the other mistake was I explained what the podcast is about
in the first episode.
I, by the way, don't recommend that you do that.
I recommend instead you do a trailer, or if you really want your
first episode to kinda be an introduction to the podcast as a
whole, weave that in through the content that you're teaching.
And in my first episode, I did get 2 unique episode content that
could be a regular episode on its own, but I also gave some
introduction before then.
And part of that introduction was my explaining why I called the
podcast The Audacity to Podcast, saying that the word audacity
has a lot of meaning to it. It's not just the software.
It is the guts, the power, the courage.
And I said it takes guts and courage and audacity to believe that
we can take on the big broadcasters, that we can change the
world, sometimes literally from our closets and our basements,
that we can have a voice and share that voice with the world
through our podcast.
That is, first and foremost, why I called my show The Audacity to
Podcast. And it has always been that.
And that's why the tagline has always said, first, giving you the
guts.
So I started out my explanation of audacity as a concept and why
that applies to podcasters.
And then let's take that trip back so you can hear what I
actually said after that.
I know that not many podcasters out there are talking about
Audacity. Sure.
There's a episode here or there talking about Audacity, but no 1
really talks a lot about Audacity.
Now this show won't focus entirely on Audacity, I'll be talking
about all sorts of things, not just the software, the hardware,
techniques, and all sorts of things.
But when it comes down to editing software, I will be talking
about Audacity a lot more than most other podcasters are.
So that explanation came after my saying that the main reason I
called my show The Audacity to Podcast is because of what the
word means, audacity, courage, guts, power, all of that kind of
stuff. And that's why I was so excited about.
And I did also want to be a podcast that would go in-depth when
talking about the Audacity software.
That's what I said, and I didn't promise that I was going to be a
podcast about Audacity.
But because of the branding And even Leo Laporte, when he gave me
my first podcast award, said it would be a podcast about
Audacity.
And he thought the podcast was about Audacity, which it has never
been a podcast about the software Audacity.
But you heard what I said there in that first episode.
And I found it funny that back then when I thought there were so
many other podcasts about podcasting because of the 2 I found and
I was listening to at that time, I was shocked when I heard 1 of
them mention me.
And that was Dave Jackson, now a very, very good friend.
Back in episode 223 of School of Podcasting, near the end, he
talked about some of the other podcasts about podcasting, and he
welcomed me to the scene, and he said this.
Speaker 1: His first episode said it was going to be in-depth about
Audacity.
I'm up to episode 3, and he hasn't really talked about audacity
yet.
Speaker 0: What we have is a failure to communicate.
You heard what I actually said in episode 1, and then you heard
what Dave expected from The Audacity to Podcast.
And that's not Dave's fault, by the way.
That's my fault because I failed to communicate better.
Nonetheless, and bringing this back to this point, what might
your audience expect?
I did set certain expectations because of the name of the podcast
and the fact that I did acknowledge that I would be talking about
Audacity in that first episode, but I didn't actually talk about
audacity or focus an episode entirely on something in audacity
until episode 5 of The Audacity to Podcast.
And that was my fault for not communicating better or not meeting
that expectation right up front.
You know what I could have done in that first episode is hit the
ground running, as they say, and given something like, here's the
number 1 tip to make your podcast sound great in Audacity.
That would have been a great first episode because there it is
talking about Audacity from the start.
So when people come to the podcast thinking this is a podcast
about Audacity, they listen to episode 1 expecting a podcast to
talk about audacity. They hear me talk about audacity.
They get that promise fulfilled, and then they'd be more likely
to listen to the other content.
It's just like years ago when I acquired a domain for a Christian
comedy podcast and forwarded their RSS feed to my then Clean
Comedy Podcast, I welcomed that audience, and I provided more
content that would be more targeted to them so they would know,
yes, we are welcome here.
This is a completely different podcast, but appealing to some of
the same interests and humor. And so I welcome them that way.
I learned my lesson later on.
But there in episode 1 of the Audacity podcast, I didn't set the
right expectations for the podcast.
So you need to look at how is your podcast setting the
expectations for your audience.
Not the stuff that you explicitly say yet.
We'll talk about that in a moment.
But the stuff that your audience will come to expect because of
the nature of your podcast or the branding of your podcast or
anything else about your podcast.
For example, going back to another podcast I hosted, my podcast
about the TV show once upon a time. It's over at oncepodcast.com.
With that podcast, something I tried to remind my cohost
frequently of, especially when we would watch an episode of that
TV show that just felt like a time waster episode or filler
episode that didn't really move the plot along.
It did some weird things with the story, maybe rehash things that
we already saw, and it was just kind of like the monster of the
week sort of thing without really progressing the serialized
storytelling that we were used to and eager to learn more about.
What I reminded my cohost is as podcasters talking about this TV
show, we are curators of fandom.
And so we need to remember, we are talking to people who love the
show.
They are coming to our podcast because they love this TV show.
And so when they come to the podcast, they are expecting to have
that love fulfilled in some way or celebrated or reinforced and
supported and fed. They want their fandom curated for them.
So even when we are having a bad day or if we have a bad episode,
we need to remember that we are curators of fandom.
Our audience expects us to bring positive light to them through
the podcast even if it's a bad episode. Yes.
We can acknowledge this wasn't a great episode of the TV show,
but let's make a great episode of the podcast for the audience
that wants it. And so that's what we did.
We would praise the show.
We would, yes, criticize the show when it needed it, but we
didn't beat down on the show.
Some of the other podcasters about the TV show did that, and I've
heard other podcasts about TV shows that also beat down on the
show that they were watching.
And it would often leave me as an audience member asking the
question, why are you even doing this podcast?
If you hate this TV show so much or you're coming across like you
hate it episode after episode after episode, it's not meeting
your expectations. Why even bother doing this podcast?
Unless you want to ridicule the show, then maybe change your
branding to make that point that you're making fun of the show or
criticizing it because of how much you hate it.
It's your hate watch.
So what might your audience expect from your podcast?
Not that you have explicitly promised, but due to the nature of
your podcast, the branding, the ideas that your podcast talks
about, and the content that you present, what might your audience
expect?
This doesn't mean you need to meet every single expectation of
your audience and be at the whim of their every demand, but you
should take it into consideration what they expect so that you
can try to give them the content you are excited about that also
helps fulfill their expectations because that is somewhat of a
promise relationship with your audience.
Number 2, what does your description promise?
Look at your description in your favorite podcast app and see
what is your podcast actually saying that you will deliver, and
are you delivering that?
Think back to my example of episode 1 of The Audacity to Podcast.
If my podcast description said, this is the only podcast that
talks exclusively about Audacity for podcasting, which my podcast
description did not say it, but if it did, then that would
definitely make a promise to my audience that this is what my
podcast is about. This is what I'm going to talk about.
You can expect that episode after episode after episode, with
very few exceptions, will be about this thing.
That is the promise you make to your audience through the way
that you describe your podcast, as well as your branding, the
episode titles too, and the episode descriptions, you need to
make sure that you deliver on that promise that you are making
through your descriptions.
I see this way too frequently with YouTube videos, especially
when you get into the AI space because there are a lot of AI
focused YouTube channels that are basically republishing or
revoicing AI slop.
Either the video is completely AI voiced and AI, even an AI
avatar on there, or they are reading an AI generated script that
is still basically AI slop.
And the titles and the images of these things, the word, by the
way, that now bothers me so much every time I see it is insane.
Like, there's 1 particular channel.
I ended up unsubscribing from the channel because it bugged me so
much how much AI slop that they put out. Yes.
They would occasionally have a genuine video of the person
actually there looking at the camera, their actual face, not
their digital avatar.
It seemed like 4 out of 5 of their videos, and they would publish
a lot of videos, about 4 out of 5 would have the word insane in
the title or the screenshot.
It would be like, such and such update is insane.
Opus 4.7 is insane.
And other things too, like weird things that just to me screams
of you're using AI to write all of this for you, and you're
letting it write these titles for you.
And these titles are falling into a pattern.
That's something that AI can do, by the way, is that if you keep
something going in the same conversation, AI can start to fall
into a pattern because AI is really good at recognizing patterns.
And when it looks back at what it's already done, if you haven't
corrected what it's already done, it will often end up repeating
itself and following that same pattern.
So I think that's why there's a lot of insane stuff out there in
the world of people talking about AI.
But when those titles for your episodes say something like how to
do this thing, then does your episode actually deliver on that
promise of how to do that thing?
Or if your episode description says something like, follow these
steps to 10 x your growth or 10 x your success and whatever focus
area that is that your podcast is about, does the information you
provide actually do that? And can you quantify that?
Can you show that, yes, this has 10 x the results for someone
else, and therefore, you could follow these to probably 10 x for
yourself too?
So what are those promises that your podcast is making through
the podcast description as well as your episode descriptions and
your episode titles and how you promote the podcast.
Look at those things.
And number 3, what have you actually said in your podcast that is
basically a promise?
Have you said things like, get a new episode of the podcast every
week or joining me as always, my cohost.
Well, is your cohost always there?
That is a form of a promise to say things like always and every
week, and it will always be out there.
Look for those times where you're using those words that
communicate a promise of some sort, and try to refine your
language there.
If you said, we'll have a new podcast for you every Tuesday
morning, then make sure you keep that promise. Yes.
Your audience will be understanding if certain things come up
and, like, there's a family emergency, it's a holiday time, that
stuff aside.
And I really do think audiences will understand that, especially
if they've been listening to you for a while because we tend to
build relationships with our audiences since podcasting is a bit
more of an intimate medium versus many other forms of Internet
content.
So your audience will understand when something comes up like
that.
But if you're just being lazy, you just didn't get around to it,
you just didn't feel it in the moment, and you skip an episode,
then you've broken your promise.
And that's convicting to me because I know I've broken my promise
too.
There have been things I've said that I would do with the I'd ask
you to podcast that I didn't do.
There are times that I said I would be there.
Look at how many times. What would you call it?
Like, not a pod fade, but a a pod false start or something like
that.
But how many times after I went through my painful and unwanted
divorce, but how many times I said, The Audacity to Podcast will
be back or it is back now?
I came out with several episodes and then disappeared for months.
And, yes, there was major stuff happening each time and some
personal things that I don't need to get into right here.
But it was basically where I thought certain things were stable
enough that I could get back to podcasting again, and then
something blindsided me.
And that's the way it was for several years.
And then there was all kinds of guilt.
And beyond that, you heard from my first episode how I described
what some of the episodes would be about, and that was making a
promise, which as you could see from how Dave Jackson took that,
I didn't keep that promise right from the beginning.
Even though I didn't explicitly say every episode will be about
audacity, still he was expecting it.
And I said I would focus on audacity multiple times, and I didn't
do that for several episodes.
So think about those things that you have said in your podcast.
You've promised your audience.
It could be topics that you're going to cover in an upcoming
episode.
It could be an event you're going to do, something you're going
to promote, a way that you're going to help someone, or something
that you're willing to do for certain people.
What are those promises that you have explicitly said?
I will do this. That is a promise.
You don't have to say, I promise to do this and pinky swear and
all that kind of stuff, spitting your hands and shaking hands
with each other, anything like that.
You don't have to do that to be making a promise.
Just think about every time you say, I will.
That is a form of a promise.
So what have you said in your podcast as a promise?
Look back at these things.
Look at what your audience might be expecting from your podcast
and the kind of podcast that you have, the topic that you talk
about.
Look at the descriptions around your podcast, your podcast
description, your episode descriptions, your episode titles.
Look at what you are saying in your podcast.
Look at all of these types of promises that you're making.
And, yeah, it could be convicting to realize some of them, you
might not have kept. And, yeah, that is a failure.
But you can make things right, or you can set new expectations
and new promises and correct things from now on.
And that's up to you how you want to handle that.
But I hope that these questions have inspired you to look at some
of these things, consider those promises so that you can not just
remember them, but keep them.
Because that is the whole point of a promise is to keep the
promise that you make.
1 of the promises I make is to be constantly improving and
building onto Podgagement and Pod chapters, and I am fulfilling
that promise with a big feature that I had said would be coming,
and that is in Podgagement, the SEO tracking feature.
This took a while to make because I hit several roadblocks and
obstacles along the way, so it got a bit more complicated than I
expected.
But I finally broke through those things, and the SEO feature is
actually ready.
But don't tell anyone yet because it's not completely officially
launched yet.
Nonetheless, if you are a Podgagement user, you can go over and
sign up to try that out.
And in fact, if you're on my email list, then you will get a
special little promotion because for a limited time, and this
might already be passed by the time you're hearing this, but for
a limited time, I want to make the SEO tracking feature available
to all Podgagement users, even though it will be a Constellation
exclusive feature.
So that's for the higher tier membership over there at
podgagement.com. But I want more people to just try it.
I want more feedback on how does this look?
What are you expecting from this feature?
How are things operating?
Because I can only do so much testing on my own podcast.
I want others to test with their podcast, their ideas of what
they want to track for their search ranking.
But the way that the feature works is really cool, and I think it
might even be working better than what anyone else does and more
accurate than anyone else does.
In fact, 1 of the things that Podgagement can now track with the
SEO tracking feature is how your episodes are performing for
certain search terms, not just your overall podcast, but your
individual episodes.
Which of them are showing up in the search results in Apple for
those search terms that you want to enter?
So that's over at podgagement.com.
I would love for you to try it out to track your ratings, your
reviews, your charts, your helping you get feedback, written
feedback, or voice mail feedback from your audience.
You can track your ranking across nearly 34,000 charts.
Now you can track how you're ranking in search results inside
Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps to be supported soon.
And you can generate images from your ratings and reviews with
just a few clicks.
You can embed those images and reviews on your site.
And you can do so much more to engage with your audience as well
as network with other podcasters who have crossover audience with
you.
Podgagement is built around the idea of helping you to
supercharge your engagement with your audience.
That's why it's called Podgagement.
Please check it out over at podgagement.com.
And now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some
of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own
podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J.
Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com. Thanks for listening.