Larry DeKay from the Business Writing Today podcast wants to know how iTunes rankings are measured. The official answer is “I don’t (not does anyone else) know. There are thoughts about reviews helping. Some people think you can get new and notable in iTunes only if you have more than three episodes (this has been disproven). Larry is confused that podcasts that have faded and are not currently producing content are ranked higher than his podcast. As podcasts are time shifted, you could have a podcast that was created years ago still be popular today. The bottom line is nobody really knows. Here is a better use of your time:

Instead of getting hypnotized by stats, take that time and focus on creating the best content you can make. Spending time digging through stats typically does not help you grow your audience. It’s hard (especially when you’re new), but focusing on making GREAT content will help your audience grow faster than looking at sats.

Great news From France

Hue Patrice from France who produces the http://rockaixpress.com podcast, and he put some of the tips we’ve discussed. As he put it, he creates fewer mistakes, and his audience is growing. The story doesn’t stop there. He recently won a European Podcast Award. In his e-mail he said, “So, I just want to say to your listeners who have a podcast or will have soon a podcast, that your tips work well, they have worked for us, it will work for you, and I want to say a HUGE thank you for helping me to reach my goals, and won an European contest, that’s awesome! I must continue to work hard for making a nice podcast for my audience, but I wanted you to know that a french listener has reached his own goals, helped by an enormous desire to succeed, a ton of passion and your voice playing in his iPod.”

Keep up the good work.

Building Your Virtual Family

I recently did a review of the B-Movie Podcast, on the Podcast Review Show. In my opinion, they have INSANE amounts of information about these old movies. IN my opinion taking over 30 minutes to get to that content is something I would change. This got his audience’s attention, and they came over to the site to defend their favorite podcast. Here are some snippets of the comments.

“It’s not a convenience store where you run in, grab what you need, and hit the road.For regular listeners, a lot of the material that a newcomer might think is extraneous — such as the audio clips or the pre-review roundtable discussion — gives the show much of its laid-back charm. To cut that material in order to get to the review more quickly would, I think, do more damage than good.”

“Those of us who listen to the show aren’t just listeners, we’re a “virtual” family. I love to hear about what others are watching because it introduces me to new shows and movies I otherwise might not have ever heard of or tried. If I just want a movie review, I’ll go to IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.” “Tighten” the show up by eliminating all of this and the show loses it unique color and flavor. It becomes another run of the mill show that can easily be missed.

“It isn’t designed to just get in, rattle off a movie review and get out. It’s designed to spur conversation and to introduce the listeners to new shows or movies or even music. “

“The B-Movie Cast has none of the snark or condescension that many other seem to feel toward this subject matter. Those of us in the B-Movie Cast family — and that’s what it is, a constantly growing family — _love_ this stuff. One thing might be better, and that’s finding out about a new movie you might love that you’ve never heard of before — and the B-Movie Cast does that too, even for a guy like me who’s been watching this type of stuff for 50 years. Vince’s show has told me about things I missed or never even knew about before. And when you’ve seen as many films as I have, that’s something special.”

“I listen to LOTS of podcasts but yours is one of my favorites. I enjoy the honest organic feel of the show. It’s a real comfortable and pleasant show to listen to. It’s like hibernating during a nuclear winter in a psychedelic cabin while snuggling up on a cuddly werewolf skin rug next to a martian fireplace with a sexy 60′s bikini spy babe (probably Elke Somers) and drinking a steaming warm cup of vampire blood. Thank you so much for covering so many genres of classic film, TV shows, and all else stuff under the sun. I am having a blast rediscovering old movies I forgot about and other ones I never would have seen if it weren’t for you. Keep up the great work! Long live the B Movie Cast!”

What We Learn From This

1. If you think nobody will listen to your podcast because its a “niche” topic, think again.

2. While everyone may watch their local news at night, you rarely hear of people who watch the news getting together on a website, and describing themselves as “family.”

3. Audience appreciate a host who has true passion and love for his subject. They will respond with love and passion for their host.

4. YOU get to decide what makes it in (or not) to your podcast. If you want to create a 3 minute or 3 hour podcast, its up to you.

Defining Podcast Success

My last episode had 515 downloads in two weeks. If I compare myself to Leo Laporte who has THOUSANDS of listeners I will feel awful. However, if I got in a room of 515 people that would be a lot of people. There are podcast pioneers (starting in 2004) that have huge audiences. They were kind of luck in that they got the “Milton Berle” effect (having no competition). However, people like Michael Butler, Keith and the Girl, and Dawn and Drew have talent.

Promotion is Queen

I have a podcast that is in iTunes that I have not promoted AT ALL. I have about 10 downloads per episode. So listing your podcast in iTunes will not get you tons of listeners. You will need to promote your show to grow your audience. Someone asked “How many episodes do I need to get an audience?” it takes more than putting out a podcast.

You need to let people know about your podcast. I use business cards from places like Vista Print, and PSP Print and Over Night Prints

NO EXPO FOR ME

Unfortunately due to personal issues, I will not be attending the Blog World New Media Expo. You can still go (great pricing on hotels is still available) at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/expo

The Importance of ID3 Tags

I got an email from a listener of one of my listeners:

“I recently also subscribed to Weekly Web Tools and downloaded all the back episodes. When listening back to them, they are all out of order, since they are sorted by title if there isn’t a track number set. Most of the other podcasts I listen to have the podcast number in the track number field and/or put the episode in the track title, so all my other podcasts have played back in order on my iPod.

Make sense? Not a biggie if it’s too much trouble. I’ll be caught up soon, so it won’t matter as much then.
BTW, best wishes, and I hope the honeymoon is still going!  ;-

John

With my weekly web tools podcast I was using the Gigavox audio builder lite until it was sold, broken by podango so my ID3 tags are inconsistent on that podcast. You can see a few things from this email.

1. People will go back and download you back shows
2. People appreciate the little things that make it easier for them (like ID3 Tags)
3. Podcasting builds relationships as he knew I was getting married.

The great thing about this tag (track) is if a person downloads you back catalog (like this listener did) they can listen in sequence. For more information about adding ID3 tags to your mp3 file (you can use iTunes) check out the frequently asked podcast questions section at schoolofpodcasting.com/help

Free Podcasting Tools

Podcasting Toolbar
I have updated podcastingtoolbar.com this is a toolbar that puts lots of great podcasting resources a few clicks away. You have podcasting news, podcast discussion forums, free podsafe music, social media, links to shop for podcast gear, podcast reviews and more. I sue it to check all of my gmail accounts with a few clicks. It works on Internet Explorer and Firefox

Check it out at www.podcastingtoolbar.com

Tele Prompt Software

While I’ve played with other teleprompting software titles in the past and they were kind of clunky. This software not only has an easy to use interface, but it has a built in recorder. The great thing about this is in the past you had to have your audio recording software going, and the additional tele prompter software. Now this software allows you to record inside the tele prompter software (so you only have one program running). You can save as a WAV file and then through that into audacity, or whatever audio program you are using to add your intro and outro music (and don’t forget your id3 tags).

There is a free version available if you want to check it out at teleprompt.com (the paid version is $69).

Start a Podcast Today

You can reach a global audience, get your message out today start.schoolofpodcasting.com

1. Start iTunes
2. Click on Music on the left hand side
3. You can either scroll down to find your episode, or use the search box in the upper right hand corner.

If you podcast is not listed, click the File menu and choose Add File to Library. Navigate to your episode and click Open

1. Click ONCE on your episode (and only this episode do not have more than one item selected).
2. If you are on a Windows machine right click on the episode (which should be highlighted) and choose “Get Info.” If you are on a Mac use the Ctrl Click and choose Get info
3. The Summary tab will be displayed. Click on the Info Tab. The NAME field is the name of this episode. The Artist is your name. Make sure to spell your name identically in each episode. The Year is obvious (optional). The Track should be the episode number (optional). The Album is your Podcast Name (the name of the show – not the name of the episode). The Genre should be Podcast. If it’s not podcast, click there and type it in. The composer you can ignore. Comments is where you can enter a blurb about the show, your website etc. Once you enter your comments, highlight them and copy them.
4. Skip the Video, Sorting, and Options tabs.
5. Click the Lyrics tab. Paste the comments from step 6 into this area (lyrics are easily viewed on an iphone).
6. Click the Artwork tab.
7. Click the ADD button in the bottom right hand corner.
8. Navigate to your 300X300 jpg image. Click on it once, and click the open button. It may look like nothing happened.
9. Click the OK button.
10. Click the Play button (as your episode should still be selected) and you should see your album art show up.

I started a new podcast at www.datesfromhellshow.com and subscribed to other podcasts on online dating. I was surprised as time went on that most of my “competition” wasn’t putting out new episodes. So if I had seen a large number of similar podcasts and decided “there is no room for me” I would’ve been wrong. While there may be numerous podcasts similar to yours, they may not be putting out any new content.

Back to School Special

Earn 20% of at the School of Podcasting using the coupon code ” bts ” now through the end of September 2008. Don’t be Tardy!

Blubrry Tools (part I)

One of my Podcast Fast Pass clients is using tools from www.blubrry.comThe first one I started using was their PowerPress Plugin. To me this is like “everything and I love about Podpress with all the things I hate about Podpress left out.” It does your itunes, puts a streaming player on your site, it has the ability to work with Podtrac (or Blubrry stats), and provides the ability for listeners to download the file or play in a Pop Up window (all of which is customizable). The only down side is you can change the color of the player.

Blubrry Premium Stats

I’ve also started using their premium stats service on one of my client’s sites. It provides QUICK stats, and show everything like referrers, what they are using as a podcastcher (itunes, zune, juice), it show you their operating system. I do like Libsyn stats that show the total times a podcast has been downloaded. So far so good.

The stats are set up using what I call “the Podtrac method” where you put in a redirect before your media URL. The best thing is if you are using their powerpress plugin, you enter this redirect location once and forget about it (and the plugin puts it into the episode automatically). This is again one of my favorite features of Podpress (that broke a while back in version 7ish…) and now works great in PowerPress.

What’s the difference between blurbrry stats and podtrac? It appears blubrry gives you more details (a few), except podtrac also provides a tools to measure demographics (age, income, of listeners). The blubrry network also works with Podtrac (when you are using blubrry to help find advertisers). PoPodtrac makes it a bit easy to see the stats per episode at a glance. However, blurbrry gets you great stats (as in you can dig deaper) per episode (so you can see operating system of this episode).

Why would I use these stats?

More and more people are talking about using Amazon S3 to host their media as its very cheap (.15 gig for storage and .17 per gig of bandwidth).  So you have the “back bone” of amazon.com and the ability to track your downloads (as S3 doesn’t have any stats out of the box).

Meet the Members: Fred Castaneda

Fred has 9 Different Podcasts including:

Struggling Entrepreneur
www.strugglingentrepreneur.com

Gain Control of Your Day (free and Paid Version)
www.gaincontrolofyourday.com

Jungle Warrirors (Great Audio Book)
www.junglewarriors.org

CASABLANCA to VE Day (Another great audio Book)
www.premiumcast.com/a-paratroopers-memoirs

Austin Podcasters Meetup
www.austinpodcasters.podomatic.com

Combat Infantrymen’s Association (Austin Tx)
http://www.cibaustin.org/

Whats New at IMB
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=267037423 (itunes)

Arriba folklorico music and dance of Mexico
http://folkloricomusicdance.blogspot.com/

His exposure via podcasting may be leading to a career as a consultant for movies.

People Choice Podcast Awards

These kick off on September 15th at http://www.podcastawards.com/ be careful with these. Too much begging for votes = bad content = loss of listeners.

Additional Sites Mentioned

PremiumCast.com

Zune H2 Portable Recorder

Show number #114

Today I answer some questions from the School of Podcasting’s Frequently Asked Podcasting Questions Area at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/help

How do I contact someone for an interview?

Most of my episodes are NOT showing up in iTunes?

How do I make an RSS feed for Each Category? (Full Answer Here – New Window).

Thanks to Danika from http://www.tribshow.net/ and Mark from www.a1artistspotlight.com for the questions.

Are you looking to start your own podcast? Come check out our step by step tutorials RISK FREE at www.schoolofpodcasting.com