Do not start a podcast for the numbers, to be famous or make money.When you start podcasting and you put out that all important first episode, there is a tendency to become instantly discouraged that your show is not the next The Nerdist or This American Life.
9 times out of 10, the most successful podcasts either have a famous person behind them, money behind them or they capture the zeitgeist for a moment, get some press and have money behind them.
That doesn't mean you should give up now or that with hard work, a little financial investment, good, relevant content, time, patience and an understanding of the ever changing world of social media marketing etc., that you can't claw your way to a good audience but, honestly, if you're podcasting for the numbers, the money and the fame... give up now.
There are a plethora of blogs out there that will tell you how to "make money podcasting" or "what's the perfect length/style/frequency for a podcast" etc. and if you're looking for that then please, with my blessing, go elsewhere. This blog is intended to be stories about podcasting and web site management from the everyday schmo. The person doing it for the love of it.
My rule has always been:
I do whatever the hell I want to doI am a creative, weird person who wants to put his love of comedy, movies and music out into the world in his own style. If I want to do a four hour show about the Phantasm franchise, I'm going to do it. If I want to start my episodes with five minutes of alienating, obscure, British style comedy, I'm going to do it. I'd rather one person passionately love my stuff than a thousand people have it on in the background. That's just me.
Podcasts should be creative! The internet is the wild west right now and just about anything should be possible. So you want to be Tom Waits or New Kids on the Block?
It's easy to feel intimidated or have your ego bruised when, in every single podcasting group on Facebook or Reddit, there are always multiple jackasses who will write crap like "I just put out my third episode and I got 10,000 downloads!" - no you didn't asshole and stop ruining it for the rest of us! - If it's your third episode you should be happy with 10 downloads. I don't care if your podcast is about movies, comic books, the stock market or blow jobs, no random nobody is getting 10,000 downloads their third time out the gate.
I've been running a website and podcasting on and off for 7 years. I am not famous, I am not rich and I do not have a huge audience. I'm sure most of the know-it-alls out there could tell me where I am going wrong and there may be people reading this that think it's sad I am still plugging away at it but I have a fantastic creative and intellectual outlet, I have made many, many lifelong friends, met and/or interviewed some of my movie heroes, travelled all over and seen that, in the right group, people aren't selfish and want to share. I'll take that over just about anything.
Ok, so as an example about just how hard it is to get the numbers and how unlikely it is that you'll ever be rich and famous podcasting, I am going to use my recent show where I interviewed cult favourite Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Burn Notice, Brisco County Jr., Ash Vs Evil Dead).
- Bruce Campbell has, at time of writing this, 448,000 Twitter followers
- The After Movie Diner (my website and podcast) has 3,186 organic and non-paid-for Twitter followers.
- The After Movie Diner has 1505 followers on our Facebook page and a Facebook group with 575 members.
- A single tweet advertising the interview was retweeted by Bruce Campbell and by a group of positive, sharing podcasters I am a member of.
- The tweet got (at the time of writing)
29,923 Impressions
354 Total engagements
113 Likes
41 Link clicks
35 Retweets
23 Profile clicks
Bear in mind that, all that really matters out of these numbers is the link clicks. - Our Facebook page post, which we didn't pay to boost, numbers -
4,744 People Reached
124 Likes
41 Shares
311 Post Clicks
78 Link Clicks
Again, look at the link clicks - in other words people who saw the post and went "huh! that looks good, I want to hear an interview with Bruce Campbell" and clicked the link. - We got 250 visits to the page on the website with the interview on it.
- We got 214 listens/downloads of the podcast interview file attached to the article on the website.
So, right there, just as a little example, with a potential audience of around half a million, we got 214 listens so far.
Now, before people say - "well did you market it? what platforms are you on? are you networking?" etc.
Now, before people say - "well did you market it? what platforms are you on? are you networking?" etc.
- The podcast is on BlogTalkRadio (I even got them to make it a featured show for the week), iTunes, Stitcher, Spreaker, Podcast FM, Google Play and YouTube.
- I shared the web page on multiple horror/podcast/Evil Dead/Bruce Campbell groups on Facebook.
- I also shared it/advertised it on Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Pintrest, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Periscope, Google +, Creators/MoviePilot, Instagram and via my MailChip newsletter with 170 subscribers.
So I covered as many of the bases as I could, for free. I think I did alright.
Now, over the coming days I will, of course, get more downloads and listens but I put all this out there to demonstrate that you can be an established podcast/website, feature an interview with a fairly famous person who has a dedicated fan base, get it shared all over the place and market it as much as you can (without spending money you don't have) and you won't get anywhere close to 10,000 downloads/listens.
All that being said, I have been a fan of Bruce Campbell's since 1993 and have been trying to get him on our show for a long time (that's another blog post) and so for this to happen and for my friends, listeners and strangers to send messages of congratulations, support and praise for the show, that's all I'll ever need.
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