350 - Tips for a Beginner Podcaster

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Tuesday, August 5th, 2025, and today we're here for every new and aspiring podcaster, sharing honest answers, smart strategies, and the little things that make a big difference. So if you're. Listening live on Clubhouse or Chatter. Hit the share button. Bottom left hand side of the screen on Clubhouse, top of the screen on Chatter. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting. Morning, Chad. Thank you for being here. I am your host, Mark Ronick and on stage with me. We've got a full house. We've got Nick Nalbach, Amanda Sharp, Sid Meadows, Dr. Faye, Jonathan Howard, Alex Baelish, and of course, producer Ashley Feller is here with us. And thanks to those of you who are in the audience right now. Dr. I'm going to check in with you first. I just want to know is something going on with your sound? You have a different setup or a different. I do, I'm using my zoom P4 but do I not sound clear? You sound clear, you just sound different. OK, I appreciate that and I don't really know if I can change a lot of that on the Zoom P4 because I am traveling this week.

2:08 I am in Atlantic City, my in laws have a condo out here so we get to enjoy it without having to spend money on a hotel or somewhere else. We get to enjoy this for a few days before we head out to the Pittsburgh area where we will be volunteering at a summer camp for kids with the disability called CMT Charcot Marie Tooth. It is a neurological disease that affects people's basically their limbs, their extremities, hands, fingers, wrists, toes, feet, ankles. It makes things very challenging for them. And there's currently not really a cure out there, although they're making strides. But what we're trying to do is every summer that the CMTA does a thing where twice a summer, once on the West Coast, once on the east, they host a week long summer camp. For these kids who maybe in usual circumstances, say at school or wherever, they may feel a little different. They may feel a little bit out of place because they can't always do all the things that a lot of the other kids can. And providing a space like this really makes all the difference for these kids.

3:28 They get to shine. They get to feel like themselves. I remember when my friend Jonah, who's the director of the camp, I remember him telling me once when he really recognized that this was something special. I think driving up and down the camp in a golf cart, making sure everybody's getting up and ready to go to breakfast. And he's driving up and down and he sees all the bunks and he sees all the kids out and, and counselors, some counselors as well, out sitting on their porches of their decks, all putting on. They're different braces for their legs or maybe strapping into their wheelchairs.

4:09 But they're all out there doing the same thing and doing something that in normal circumstances on in their day-to-day, they're the only ones sitting out on their porch putting on those braces and feeling out of place in many cases. And in this case, they just feel welcome. They feel like one of the pack and there's something really super special about it for them, so I'm really excited to be a part of this. I've been around CMT all my life because of my friend Jonah, who I've known since I was a young teenager, so I'm very familiar with it and really excited to pour into all these kids. I can't wait to to share more about this experience because this will be my first time at this camp.

4:50 But for now, yeah. You know that that is what has spurred Alan Jackson's retirement. You know that. I did. Yes, I did know that the CMTA, which again, I've done podcasts for them and I've done a lot of stuff because of my friend Jonah. And yes, I had heard that a few years ago he had made that announcement. It's a really challenging disease for sure. And. As you know, it's, it's, it's very kind of under the radar. It kind of gets swept in with that hole. I'm just reiterating this for the room. It kind of gets swept into the muscular dystrophy family, but got some, some distinctions. I don't know what they all are. I'm sure you know a lot more than I do about it, but I don't. Yeah, Yeah.

5:32 I think, don't quote me on this, but I do know that CMT is a neurologic disease. It's basically not sending all the right signals to those extremities that I was explaining earlier. Whereas muscular dystrophy is just that it's a muscular disease and it is the deterioration of those muscles. So there are differences. But yes, for many many years CMT was just considered another element or another type of muscular dystrophy, but nowadays completely it's been recognized as completely different. I think to your point, that's why it's so great that you're spotlighting it, because if it doesn't get diagnosed properly, that's where it gets misdiagnosed because it gets swept into that family. So yeah, it's great that you're doing that. Absolutely.

6:23 Thank you, Jeff for coming up on stage and pointing that out as well. So I will share more about that down the road. Another housekeeping item for everybody, I've been every so often I've been asking you for your vote for podcast awards, Podcast awards.com. We were nominated for two different awards, the Adam Curry People's Choice and the Education Award. And unfortunately we did not move on to the next round of, I don't know if it's nominations or what, but it's the next round. We did not get that nomination. And I blame myself to be honest with you. And I'm not that bent out of shape, don't get me wrong.

7:06 But Dr., do you want to say something before I go on? Just wanted to ask how we got nominated. Is this one that you submitted us for? Yes, OK. Yeah, most of these awards, that's the case with you. Submit yourself and then you find out whether or not you're part of that nominee list. But yeah, I the lessons that I learned from this is that I didn't do a good job promoting it. If I really wanted it, I should have worked harder to promote it. And what does that mean? Well, for one, I didn't even ask and reach out to friends and family, which I think is a real shame because we do often encourage or at least a lot of people here, podcasters all the time, you know, their fan, their friends, their family that have become a podcaster. Oh, please, you know, follow my podcast, subscribe to my podcast, please comment on my post. You know, we're asking friends and family to help. And a lot of times we've talked about here in the past that yes, it's nice to do and it gives you a little bit of a bump. And those people may not be your target audience. So you may get that initial bump from them, but then eventually they'll go away, right, Because they're not necessarily interested in that content, where in this case, I think this is the prime opportunity to take advantage of friends and family and ask them for your vote, right? Yeah.

8:22 They're not your target audience, but they are a number, and they will help increase your odds if they need to vote for you. If that's the way that this particular podcast award works. And I just failed to do that, I never put it out there. And I don't know why, to be honest with you, I think I just forgot. So it's a, it's a lesson learned that if I'm going to apply to different awards, I need to make sure I'm exhausting all my options. I'm reaching out to all the different people who may care enough to give me that vote. So I encourage you, if you're doing that kind of thing, make sure you're you're reaching out to all your different resources, all your different contacts or something like that.

9:03 But I will say a big Congrats to Steven Koeffer, who is a community member more active over in in our Facebook group as opposed to here on the podcast in morning chat in the mornings. And he and his Co host Paul, they've made it through the nomination round into the final slate. Their podcast film Fights with friends podcast is nominated in the TV film category of the 20th anniversary podcast award. So kudos to Steven and his as Co host Paul. They do. They are stunt actors in Hollywood, so they talk a lot about that and a lot about TV and movies in general. So kudos to them.

9:46 I'm really excited to see somebody in this community that has been nominated. For podcast award. Very cool. Let's dig in to the mailbag today. I want to try to keep this based on some of these questions that we have. I want to keep this as a theme for mainly for new and aspiring podcasters. So we're going to go through 1-2 pieces of mail. And then I also have a rapid fire round where I have basic questions for you as an experienced or more experienced podcaster than say a new or aspiring one for you to Give your opinion. And of course, I'll open it up to the room as well for everybody to chime in. So more on that in a moment.

10:31 First, let's dig into the mailbag. This is actually something that we found to help keep us on theme for new and aspiring podcasters. This comes from the Buzz Sprout podcast community over on Facebook. It comes from someone named Kristen and Kristen says I was looking at how our podcast shows up in the Apple Podcasts up next feed and notice that our show description isn't showing up and let me explain that so she. It's good because. She provided a snapshot, a little screenshot where you see her show next to three other shows and it's the the next episode of her show and those three others and each one has piece of.

11:13 Art. Cover art. And it has a title. It starts as a description. The whole description doesn't display in this particular view. And this particular podcaster, Kristen, she's showing that her screenshot of her podcast just shows the episode title. It doesn't show any piece, any part of the description. So she goes on to say, I suspect it's because of a super long title. Ours is the one on the left. That's the one I just described to you, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. So then her questions, do you number your episodes? Because she includes a number in the title of her episode, making it a little longer.

11:55 And she goes on to say, I feel like this is an OG podcaster thing harkening back to my early days. And then she asks, do you use episode specific artwork? And the popular question I know we've answered in the past before, how long are your episodes? So let's talk a little bit about how we are titling our episodes. Let's start with her first question. Who here number puts a number in the title. So for example, here at the podcasting morning chat a few months back, we decided I decided to put in an episode number at the very beginning of the title. I find it, it's important to do. I'll bite my tongue and not share why, but some people may say you don't need to do that because there are other places that you can number your episodes. So I'm curious first, what is what do people do? What have you done with your podcast? If your podcast is on a hiatus, what have you done previously? If it's going on now, what do you do now? Do you put in an episode number in your title? Let's go to Alex.

13:02 Go ahead, Alex. Hey, good morning, everybody. It depends on the podcast, but for what we do on what is from, it's kind of important because it's a series and people are looking for specific episodes, you know, having it in the title. We also put the season, we put the title. I still try to work with the AI to come up with a jazzy kind of title of it. But at the end of the day, if the title is called, you know of the episode, it's going to be in there in quotes. But we also try to, I try to jazz it up a little. But yeah, now for that, I think it's important to have the number, but it's not. So it's not so much for us as it is for the listener to find the right podcast episode.

13:51 It just makes it easier for for people. Yeah, that's how I see it too. And that's, that is the old school way. A lot of us used to do that because back in the day you couldn't. There wasn't another place for you to add numbers. You know it, it evolved over time. 20 years ago when I was podcasting, that wasn't really an option. But as the years went on, more and more podcasters wanted it and eventually that started to be incorporated into these different podcasting hosts. So now you can do that and same on Apple Podcast. If you're giving episode numbers to your podcast episodes through something like Buzz Sprout, it will then translate show over on Apple, Spotify and all the rest, but none of them necessarily display the number of your episodes. It will organize them appropriately, but it doesn't necessarily show it as you know, episode today for us, for example, is episode 350.

14:47 It doesn't say anywhere clearly 350. It would then be hard for a listener to go and find a specific episode. There are lots of us that say, oh, go back to episode 222 where we talked about XY and Z. Well, that's really hard for somebody to find if there is no, No title or I'm sorry, no episode number clearly displayed. So that's a reason why I like to put it in our episode titles so that somebody could easily find it. So I'm with you there, Alex. Is there anybody that's on the other side of the fence? Just no, don't do that. I mean, good morning, everybody.

15:28 I'm not on the other side of the fence, but I do not do it. I guess I would say I'm straddling the fence. If you want to do it, do it. If you don't, don't. But if I recall correctly, the reason that we do not put the episode number in because we used to put it in, I think the reason we did not put it in was because at a time podcast was including the number. And now they don't include the number because I just looked at Apple and Spotify both and they don't include the number on either one of them. And I think I remember a time when Apple included the the number of the episode. So that's why we stopped doing it. And it was a long time ago, too. Yeah, so I maybe I've since forgotten that, but I think they originally didn't display numbers then they, it sounds like yes, then they did according to Sid, and now they don't again. So I personally like to include the number in there. I have heard some people say, I don't know this to be true 100%, but I've heard people say that Apple actually frowns on that if you're putting a number in the episode title. I don't know why they would really, but apparently that some people say that they do.

16:36 Go ahead, Jeff. No, I don't, sorry. It's Jeff. I don't know if This is why they would do it, but I would say that both the for and the against, you know, to your point, Mark, it makes it easy to track down an episode. If you're tracking it down by the number, it's easy for you to say, oh, you need to check out episode 77. But I would also say that I've got a lot of friends that are watching Suits on Netflix and they think it's brand new. And they wouldn't think it's brand new if you'd put the production date of the series and the title. So you know, there can be some advantage to repurposing content and making it feel more timeless if you don't put a timestamp on it in the beginning.

17:22 That's a good point. I like that. That's a good point. And I've also heard another reason to avoid putting it, which again, can't confirm it, but another reason would be it could hurt you with SEO because people aren't searching, they aren't asking their questions with a number in front of their question, right? I don't know, Nick, I'm going to come to you. Do you think there's any validity to that? I'm coming to you because you know a thing or two more than I do about SEO. Do you think there's any validity to it hurting you by putting a number in your episode title? In the grand scheme of things, I don't really think so. I don't think it's going to help you, but I don't think it'll really hurt you. And the big thing, the only thing that I could see being a potential is typically you want whatever keywords you're targeting to be as close to the front of that title as possible.

18:11 So if you have an episode number in there, that's characters that are being eaten up by it, but I think it it would be so minuscule that you wouldn't really notice or that SEO would be a factor. OK, so there you go. Nick says probably not and I want to see if anybody else. Yes, Sid, did you want to add something else? Well, if you felt like that you wanted to include it for searchability or things of that nature, you could always put it in the description rather than in the title, right? If you were concerned about something being in the title, you could put it in the description and just start at episode 681 or episode 200 or whatever. Just put it in the title. Not seeing me on the title. Put it in the description or the show to start the show Note with that and then it's at least there.

18:56 Yeah, I like that idea too. Awesome. OK. And then Dr. you had something and then we'll go back to Nick. Yeah, I wanted number one, I wanted to remind everyone in the room that we have a poll going on. You can vote on this. So that's fun. It's. Where is that? Never seen it before. Where's that happening? Refresh. It's at the top of the page. Maybe I have to update my app? I don't see it. There because it's cool you can see what the results are. And also for the ones that don't put the number in, would you put in a title such as the three best ways to blah, blah, blah, the five top reasons, the blah, blah, blah, would you put in a title such as that?

19:43 And isn't that the same kind of principle about, you know, algorithms and blah, blah, blah? Because I, I'm a number, I'm on the numbers cap. I put the number in. In the title. Yeah. Yeah. Well before the title. Right, right. OK. And then and. It's not season 3 episode, it's just it's just the number and then maybe a period and two spaces is what I do. Mm hmm. Yeah, like so and what we do here it's three fifth like our today's number it's 350 dash and then the title, that's how I do it, right? Yeah. So your question is what exactly Dr. For the ones who don't put in the number, are you likely to put in a title?

20:28 That would be because if everyone knows that putting in these titles is kind of, it's very attractive to people. The three top reasons that blah, blah, blah are the five worst blah, blah, blah, they if you do something like that, that's always eye-catching. So why wouldn't that be applied to the same principle when it comes to algorithms? I think it should be, it should work just the same. Yeah. And, and I think by the way, I think doing titles like that, five Reasons, 3 Tips for Blank, etcetera, I think those are very effective ways of capturing attention in the titles for sure.

21:10 Yeah. Nick, you wanted to add something? Yeah, I first wanted to comment on what Sid was talking about, and then I'll after what Dr. said, I want to comment on something about that. So with Sid saying the episode description, like put the number in the episode description instead of the title. As a listener, I don't prefer that just because a lot of the podcast apps like don't give you the little snippet of the episode description. Sometimes it's just the title. If all of them were consistent and they all gave that number in the description, or I could still scroll through and if I was looking for a specific number, this is kind of where that would come in. I'd have to actually open up the episode and be like, OK, what episode did I Scroll down to you? OK, now that's not the one.

21:53 Go back, keep scrolling. OK, jump to the next one. Open that up. Like I I'd like being able to say, OK, Mark told me I need to check out episode 50 of this podcast. I can quickly Scroll down to 50 in the title and be like, OK, that's the episode I need to listen to. That's where it to me as the listener, I really enjoy that. It makes my time spent on it a lot less demanding to get to where we need to get to. But to DRS point, because you're really Dr. talking about the fact that there's a number in the title at all, right? Right, correct. I think the the five best or the three worst or don't make these mistakes, these five mistakes or whatever, I feel like that is more plain to the psychological or the psyche of the listener or the person that's looking for the episode. That's more, that's less SEO driven and more attention grabbing for someone that's scrolling through where an episode number in the title isn't really going to grab anybody's attention unless they're like, holy crap, our podcast is on episode 350.

22:54 Like that's cool. I think that's where the the difference is. It doesn't have as much of an SEO impact as it does a human impact. OK. That makes sense. Yeah. Thank you for answering that. You know, one of the other things that I got myself in a little bit of trouble is for those of you that like to batch, I used to say the episode number in the actual recording and I got myself in a lot of trouble because sometimes I might not release it at that point. And then I had, you know, it's like episode 10 and it's really not. It's episode 8 or whatever it was. And I know it seems like it seems, you know, maybe that's just my organizational or lack of organizational skills, but I stopped doing that. And I know that's probably like a duh moment, but it's just one of those things that you could get yourself in a little bit of trouble.

23:46 So I'm not so much worried about the title as much as saying it in the in the audio. This is episode whatever. You might get yourself in a little bit of trouble, but then you're starting to do all this like when did this release? When did that release? And then you might have, then you might have like extra episodes, for instance, you know, we would have our normal episode after the show airs, but then we might do other episodes in between. So then that screws up that. But we're kind of a it's not that it's that unique, but it's more of a structure than it is what most people do. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because, yeah, batch recording, as advantageous as it can be for a podcaster, it does create its own set of challenges and you really want to be as organized as possible if you're going to do batch recording. I mean, I have a client who, as far as batch recording goes specifically probably my best client in that regard. They're they work way ahead of schedule. Their seasons are done and being released and they're already on to the next season.

24:54 Yeah, as far as their recording goes. And the challenge is, is that sometimes then they want to rearrange their episode. So they'll submit their episode to ironic media for us to edit and they'll say it's episode, you know, 100. But then later down the road, they're like, you know what? We'd rather that be episode one O 2 because we've got this great guest that we, we just recorded with and we want that one to come out first. And then everything gets screwed up and you have to go back and change a lot of folder names, file names, etcetera. And it can get a little sticky. So yeah, you have to be careful when you're batch recording and make sure that you've got a really organized system. That could probably be a whole episode in itself talking about how we stay organized with batch recordings. Anyone else want to weigh in before I? Well, before you, before you move on to the next subject, I wanted to give the, I wanted to give the results of the poll. They're no longer on the screen and the math doesn't work out, but this is what it said.

25:58 So 84% said yes they do number and 17% said no they don't. I know it doesn't work out. I know it's like weird but that's what it said. OK, well there you go. But it seems the one thing that seems certain is the vast majority are numbering episodes. My question is, Dr. does the poll say numbering episodes within the title or is it just more generic? Do you number your episodes? It was more generic. OK, OK. Well, I would guess that the majority of podcasters are numbering their episodes. The big question is, are how many of them are including it in the title. I did see there were a couple of answers.

26:39 Like I said, this came from the Buzz Sprout Facebook group. And I see here that Dave Jackson, one of our Empowered Podcasting speakers, this September, he'll be in Charlotte speaking there. He says I keep track of the number but do not use it in my titles. I do use specific artwork as I display it on my website. My episodes are as long as they need to be. He's answering one of the other questions and not a minute longer. As Valerie Geller says, there's no such thing as too long, only too boring. That I agree with. That's why I say, I do say that when my clients first come to me, how long should my podcast episodes be? I say as as long as they keep me entertained. And by me, I really mean by their target audience because I might not be their target audience. But I think that is the key.

27:32 That's why I do think for the most part, most people can get an episode and all the information out within around 30 minutes in most cases. So I do give you that as a as a rule of thumb. But ultimately, if it goes longer, fine, as long as it's still interesting, as long as there's still value and entertainment that's being provided to the audience. So thank you, Dave Jackson and. And Daniel J Lewis is pretty much echoing what you and I both think about numbers in the titles, which is we're doing that for reference sake, so you can refer back to it quickly. Absolutely, yeah. And I think actually, I see here Daniel J Lewis had also said he's come around.

28:16 He's changed his mind about that recently. So he used to be in the camp more of no, do not put the episode numbers in the titles. But I think he's come to to learn that. Yeah, that is, if nothing more. It's the reference point. It's much easier to find an episode number in the titles than it is to find the full title, the all the words, because there's just a lot of words to sift through. When you have a number, it's just easy, and it's sequential, so you can really jump to it relatively quickly. Right. And especially, especially if you are going to be talking on stage and referring to an episode, if someone talks about asks the question about monetization, you need to have those numbers in your head. What shows were they specifically about monetization? Well, if you tune into episode 3275 and 55, then you'll find out all about monetization.

29:11 You know, it gives you like a reference point to give people. Absolutely, 100%. And Nick, did you want to chime in again? I was going to say like, think about this podcast that's we've put out so many episodes and it'd be impossible to not cover the same topics more than once. Like I know we've had episodes where we've talked about episode titles and numbers and titles in the past. And if you were trying to send someone back to this specific episode, you you tell them like, hey, we talked about should you or shouldn't you put a number in the episode title? Someone could be scrolling forever looking for that title or looking for that episode and then find multiple episodes where they're like, oh, they talked about it here, they talked about it here. Which one did you want me to go to? Right where the number you can say, OK, yeah, you go to 350. Check out that one.

29:58 We had a really good discussion on it. Referencing is makes it way easier. Yeah, absolutely. And what about episode specific artwork? That was one of the questions. Do you use episode specific artwork? We here at the podcasting morning Chat we do and I for the longest time was not one that just cared about doing that. To me. It was an extra step that just I didn't feel like spending the extra time on. But I've come around since then and a lot of that's because of AI and it makes it so quick and easy for me to do. I just ultimately what I'll do is I'll go into ChatGPT 4 O and I'll sometimes give it a transcript. If I can't think of a concept for the episode art in general, I'll just give it the transcript and say give me a few different concepts for podcast episode cover art based on this transcript. And that gives me whatever, however many I ask for, let's say 345 different concepts and I pick the one. And then sometimes I just go with it. Sometimes I'll tell it, yeah, do this instead of that. I'll give it a little bit of specific instructions and have it spit it out.

31:05 But that makes it, it just makes it so much easier to do. Whereas, you know, having to go into Canva and building something fresh, even working from a template, I just it just annoys me to have to sit there and try to manipulate a template each and every time, especially doing a daily podcast. So I like to lean on ChatGPT and do it that way. And I find that the artwork is pretty dynamic. I think it captures people's attention. I noticed that when I forget to do it particularly, Yeah, on Spotify, I noticed that my downloads are not as high as the other episodes. So I think it does something, whether it's maybe Spotify pushing it out more because it looks at the episode as more of a complete package and or maybe it's just that when people are looking through podcasts, it's grabs their attention. Maybe it's a combination of both. Who does specific SO?

32:04 I do I'll jump in and Ashley and Dr. both had their hand raised too. Mark I do. I started it this year with this season and I did it just because I saw other people doing it and I really like the way it looks when you see the multi, the screen with the multi episodes on it. And so basically we just made a graphic in Canva and it's a template and says the name of the podcast. And all we do is drop the person's name in the bar and then put their headshot in there. And I the only reason I did it is because of the way that it looks when you're looking in the multi view. I just see it looks really good. And so that's why we did it. Awesome, There you go. There's so there's a vote for individual episode art.

32:47 And yeah, it can make a lot of sense when you have a guest. That in itself changes up the art every time. If you're using templates, it should be relatively quick. If you're using an image of you and your guest, well, yours can always be a static image. It's the same one and then you just swap out the guests. And you know, if you're putting a title on the episode, you'll swap out the title too. But that that's a good example of pro episode cover art. And I saw so Sid said Ashley and Dr. said something. Let's go to Ashley, who we haven't really spoken to yet to this morning. Good morning, Ashley. What did you want to add? Good morning. Yes. I add individual art for every show I work on, and I love getting the artwork from you every day. It's kind of like sitting down and reading the morning comics at the different every day, and they're usually very cool. But yeah, even for my happiest life, we take a point during the production.

33:39 I get out my good camera, we find a good place in the room, and I take a decent picture of the host and the guest so that we can use that for the artwork. Because I think of it, you know, you wouldn't put out a magazine the same cover every time. I sort of think of your podcast cover as sort of the same thing. It's an attraction to whatever that episode is. Right. And same thing in music too, right Ashley? You're not putting out a new album with the same exact artwork every time. So I think that's another example. It does, it changes things up, it create creates variety, it creates its own unique experience for sure. Dr. Did you want to add something? No, I forgot what it was, but we have another poll question up there. Do you use episode specific artwork? And right now, yes, I do is at 67% and no I don't is at 34%. I like the polls, all right.

34:33 Who's making? These doesn't add up. Yeah, I know it. Doesn't you know why? It's cuz SIDS. I've been throwing them up. No, you know why? It's cuz SIDS vote has more weight than the rest of ours. I see. I will say in terms of the art, that's the way I was taught was to do specific art for each episode. I've been doing that for years. If you're a new podcaster and you end up doing like seasons, what I try to do is I try to have like a theme for every season and then change it up as as needed so that people when they're going to it, it's a different. Experience. Well, they just know it's a different season. I guess I'm a product of, you know, the VHS or the DVDII was watching The West Wing this past week and 1/2 or whatever.

35:20 And you know, like season 1 is blue, season 2 is green, whatever it is, you know, and, and that's kind of my thought towards it. Again, that's just the way our, our network always did. They always tried to have specific art for each episode but same type of theme. Yeah, it's, it's all the branding strategy. And Speaking of branding, I'm going to go to Jonathan because not only is Jonathan one of our branding experts in this community, he's also got a brand new podcast. So I want to hear about what Jonathan is doing as far as, you know, adding numbers in the titles, what is he doing for cover art, etcetera. So go for it, Jonathan. Let's hear a little bit about your podcast and what you're doing in regard to this mail back question.

36:02 Yeah, so for numbers, I absolutely include the numbers. It's just easier to track. And I know I'm going to have a bunch of episodes because they're short episodes, they're 10 minutes long, so I'm going to have a ton of episodes. So they need numbers. Yeah, and by the way, Jonathan, say the name of the new podcast. Oh yes, the story lab, Story lab, story lab. Yep, I do have numbers in it. I don't do custom art for each episode because I do one for the season and keep the one for the season. I just like it to be branded and and if I do different, you know, it'll just feel a little bit different and won't quite have that same impact with the branding. You can obviously use templates and stuff that will give it that feeling, but I tend to like to just do one season 1 cover and see how it goes. I do however have slightly different cover for YouTube because YouTube is more.

36:55 You need a different cover on YouTube because it needs to be more towards the customer that's there. And YouTube also has put it out there before that it does make a difference as far as searchability, as far as discoverability, that they put a lot of weight on the album art, the cover art, whatever you want to call it. That's really important if you're putting videos up on YouTube. It, you know, Nick and I have talked about this before. We've tested it with some of the next Gen. podcaster stuff that we've done. And even changing the cover art over on YouTube, if, let's say that episode didn't do particularly well, you could change the cover art. And sometimes that gives it another boost and it pushes it out again to more people.

37:39 And if it's more effective, you may get more eyes and ears on that episode. So it is something to consider for sure. And I was, I'll say this, you know, the, the original part of this mail back question was about the fact that this person's description wasn't being displayed at all. Because what I believe looking at it, their episode title was way too long. And when you're adding episode numbers, that's another that's additional characters you're adding to your title. So you have to be really careful. And I would say you want to keep your titles to around 60 characters because I think that will a not get cut off on the various platforms. And it does vary.

38:23 For example, I think it used to be 60 characters for Apple. I think they've since extended that to maybe double, but I still think it's safer to try to keep your episode titles to around 60 characters in length because then the title doesn't get cut off. And then in different displays on something like Apple or Spotify, then you'll even get some of that description to display as well because the title isn't taking up and eating into the character space of that description. I hope that makes sense. I think it does. OK. Now what I want to do, we've got about 15 minutes left and what I want to do is some rapid fire stuff. So I'm going to go down the line with these different questions that I'll call this segment Newbie Nuggets.

39:11 In other words, I'm going to ask you some questions that are relatively common questions that a lot of newer podcasters, aspiring podcasters tend to ask. And of course, I'll go to one person, but anyone can chime in and share along the way. Amanda, we haven't heard from you this morning. What's one thing that you wish you knew before you launched your first podcast? Well y'all know I just. Go for it So. I I don't feel like I'm. OK. And widely accepting that I'm going to learn along the way. So I guess that would be my advice is just be prepared to learn along the way and fix things as they arise or pivot as you need to, but just start.

39:54 OK, so that that's actually there is a lot of good advice in there, right, Because they won't start because they're afraid they think that they're going to make mistakes. And what your advice is, is don't worry about the mistakes where you're going to make them. And so just go for it and learn from those mistakes along the way. Absolutely. The most prepared will still find mistakes and create mistakes along the way. So yeah, like you can only be so prepared, so just just go for it. Right, there's Amanda. Anybody else want to chime in? What? What's one thing that they wish they knew before launching their first podcast? Dr. How about you? I'll let you think about it, because two other people just raised their hand. I want you to think about that, dear. It's really funny, Mark, because she hasn't actually launched her podcast.

40:40 That's. True. That's true. All right, so I'm going to go to Ashley. Ashley, what's one thing you wish you knew before your you launched your first podcast? To start. With the right microphone. And what I mean by that is when I first started, someone had given me some recording equipment and I just didn't think this is a condenser mic, which means it's going to pick up everything within a square mile. So when I first started, I started with the wrong mic in a very echoey room. And until I went out and got a cardioid dynamic mic, my sound was not that great. So it's important to start with the right mic. That is the number one reason why you'll we'll hear lots of podcasters say they hate the Blue Yeti microphone because it's a condenser mic. It's really no, no fault of the Blue Yeti. It was designed to be a condenser mic, which means, yeah, it does pick up a little bit more of the room noise and it's better to be in a more controlled sound environment if you're using that kind of microphone. And it's probably much easier for a new podcaster who doesn't have necessarily all the conveniences of a soundproofed room to use something more like a dynamic mic. Like you're talking about the Samsung Q2U, the Shure MV7 does the Rode podcaster mic.

41:58 Is that 1A condenser or is that one dynamic I can never remember? That's a dynamic. OK, so there you go. So that one to the Rode mic as well, that's a dynamic 1. So those are the ones that tend to be the the better ones to start with, especially if you don't have the room environment for that. Jonathan, did I see your hand up? You did. I would say that there's so much more than just recording when you're doing your podcast. It's great to record, and that's awesome. Love doing that. But then there's all the other stuff, the editing, the show notes, the title, all of that. And it takes probably the same amount of time as recording, if not more. Thank you, Jonathan and Sid, go ahead. This is not going to surprise me by that. I'm going to say this, but you need a plan and a strategy for your show because it should be part of your business. It should be something that brings people to you that potentially can work with you.

42:57 I mean, I think Jonathan's a really good example of what he is doing with his podcast and how it's going to bring people into his ecosystem that can drive business. So you absolutely have to have a plan and a strategy. Yeah. Thank you. I think that one's probably very important one to mention today. Yeah, have that plan, have that strategy. And you know what, maybe your plan and strategy isn't around your business, right? Maybe you don't have a business yet. I still think having a plan and strategy for your podcast to help it grow, to help get more people, more of their ears and eyes on your content, on your message. I think the best way to do that is to go in with a plan or a strategy for sure.

43:39 All right, What about? The biggest mistake? A new podcaster can make. Is that too too similar to this one? To the last question we had, I don't. Think so. I'll go real quickly for it. Overthinking. Don't overthink it. To Amanda's point, just start right? Do we get caught in this trap of, oh, it's got to be perfect and I got to do this and I need to have that and you know, blah, blah, don't overthink it. You know, we'll go back tight to the strategy and the plan. A strategy for your podcast doesn't have to be 35 pages long, right? Needs to include some very basic things. But you know, the most important of those is who are you talking to? So you know, I would say just don't overthink the situation because overthinking it will stop you from progress.

44:22 I agree with that, Sid. Thank you. Yeah, don't overthink it. And Ashley wants to chime in. Go for it. I would say one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and I've made this one, is naming your podcast like it's an inside joke between you and your best friend. It's really important to give your podcast a name that is searchable and will be relevant across cultures and all kinds of people. For example, I'll be brief when when I first named mine, it was the Saint Andrews Jezebel podcast. I didn't think there's a Saint Andrew Andrews in almost every country, so doing a local podcast that really wasn't such a great idea because they were finding about local things happening in, say, Australia and other places.

45:03 Yeah, I'm with you there, Ashley. Makes total sense. And Sid's got something again. Go for it, Sid. I'm working on an idea for a new podcast and I doing some research and brainstorming and like really trying to figure out what I want to talk about. And I'm getting there. But I started looking at names and you want to talk about a challenge in looking at names and especially if you've got a popular keyword, right? Oh my gosh, that's hard. Like I was looking at Apple and Spotify to see if things were name similar. I was using ChatGPT to search and see if there were URLs available. I mean, it is really hard to name a podcast today. Yeah, it really is.

45:47 And what's really frustrating is, is I find a lot of times when I'm trying to come up with a, for an, for a client, when I'm trying to come up with a name, where we go and we look and we see it's taken and it's a podcast that hasn't been alive in months or years, right? It's just been a dormant podcast. And then you have the debate, do I do it anyway, 'cause they're not doing it anymore. It's really challenging to find a name. And sometimes that's why I think just being very direct and blunt to the point what what whatever that name is, but just what? Just don't be too clever with it. Just go straight to straightforward that name, whatever it is, don't the the more clever you get.

46:32 I tend to find not only is it hard for people to understand, but to what everything Ashley was saying earlier. I think it's important to just come up with something straight to the point that everybody knows right out of the gate, right? Well, here's the last one. I want to go with audio quality or content. What's more important? And I'm saying audio quality on purpose. I'm not saying video in this instance, because we've shared it before, that good audio is more important than good video in it, at least statistically speaking. Because if people can't hear what you're saying or it's too jarring to their ears, they're not going to stick around. People, statistically speaking, are more tolerant of low quality video than they are of audio.

47:23 So I'll ask the question again, audio quality or content, what's more important? Go ahead, Dr. You can have the most pristine audio that you can ever imagine and your content be super boring. Super boring. That's not good. So I gotta say, I gotta say content and you know, audio, there's such, there's degrees of from eh to Oh my God, this is horrible. I can't listen to it anymore. There's so many degrees in between those that it's kind of relative, I think, when it comes to audio. But content, yeah, you can have great audio and bad content and people are going to turn you off right away. OK, so that there's a vote for audio quality, right? Making sure I just I don't want to screw it up audio quality for.

48:19 Content. No, for content. My bad. I knew, I said. That's why I questioned myself. I'm like, wait, was that right? Yes. OK, got it. Content more important to Dr. than audio quality. If she had to pick between the two. How about you, Jonathan? I think content, good content always rises to the top. So even if the audio isn't as great as the best audio out there, if it's good content, it's going to, I believe it's always going to find a way to rise to the top. Of course, if it's awful audio quality, it's not going to help it at all. It's not. It's going to really take away from the content. But yeah, I think it's the content. And Sid, I have a funny story about titling podcasts for you after the show.

49:00 Oh well, now, now you have to share with the rest of us. Fine. So I was going to call my podcast Storytelling Spotlight two months before I like got it out there. I went and searched and I originally searched Storytelling Spotlight. There wasn't 1, so there was 1-2 months going in. So I changed it to a title that I was using over across the street and that was fine until two weeks before when there are now 3, two others and myself Story Lab podcasts. I was like, what just happened here?

49:41 Did you grab the URL Jonathan? I have the URL and I have the Instagram and and all that, so I have it. But yeah. Well, that's good. I think you. Should trade market? Yeah, sorry, you should trade market now. I probably would too, because yeah, you you probably can prove that you had the name 1st. And then if, if it's that important to you, yeah, maybe you want to look into trade marking it. I know that Dr. was looking into trying to get Gordon Firemark to join us again. And I think the challenge is that he's West Coast. He is very West Coast. Yeah, yeah. What you might be. Able to do this is the middle of the night for him. Yeah, Dr. What we might be able to do is a couple years ago we had Gordon join us live in the morning and it was because he was at Podcast Movement.

50:25 Traveling. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so this year, it'll still be a little bit early in Texas, but Sid gets up with us at 6:00 in the morning his time. So maybe Gordon wouldn't mind doing that, too. We could always reach out and see if he'd like to join us and we could. Love that. Yeah. We'll. Look into that. All right, listen, it is just about 8:00. I think this is a good place to stop and a good place to remind you that we're back at 7:00 AM tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern Time tomorrow, and we'll be doing all things news, podcasting news, news you need to know, news that we will share and comment on and give our thoughts and opinions. And you can too by joining us live here on Clubhouse or on YouTube.

51:08 We do it live on YouTube as well. And normally we've been doing it on Chatter. But my equipment isn't set up here. My travel equipment isn't able to handle doing both, at least not yet. I might spend some time today trying to play with that. So normally on Chatter as well, but not today. Maybe not this week either. We shall see. But until tomorrow, make it a great day. Everybody take care.