460. Don’t Move Your Podcast to Substack Until You Hear This

0:05 Good morning podcasting morning chat today is Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 and today sub stack one O 1 for podcasters. What it is, how it works, and why it may change your content game BC Babbles helps guide us to help answer all of your burning questions. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thanks so much for being here.

1:24 I am your host Mark Ronic and currently on stage with me. My Co hosts Dr. Fay, producer Ashley Feller, Ralph Estep, Matt Bliss, BC Babbles, Sid Meadows, Nick Naulback and Nikki AKA Tide is also on stage with us today. And Tim, good morning to you and a special shout out to you being the 1st in the chat here on Clubhouse. Great to see everybody again. As I was saying before we started, I'm feeling for some reason, even though it's what been just three days, I'm feeling a little out of sorts. I feel like a little rusty almost. I was felt like I was stumbling over that intro there as well. But let me first say, if you want to see or learn more about all those fine people I just mentioned, go to podcastingmorningchat.com/people.

2:16 I know I've been in the past directing you to go to the About page, which would probably work too. But I think if you want to go right to it, just go to podcastingmorningchat.com/people and you can see everyone's lovely faces, click on them and learn more about them. A big thank you to you, Ralph, for holding down the Fort, being the lead while I was gone. I appreciate you, Sir. You're very welcome, my friend. It was an enjoyable experience, especially about halfway through yesterday's show when I remembered I forgot to go live on video. Thank you, Mark. Glad to see you're back in the saddle this morning, my friend. I am and thank you also to all of you as well for holding down the Fort, keeping Ralph company, making the great conversations that we tend to do here.

3:02 I'm doing really well. In case anybody missed it or was wondering why I was gone, I had my remaining 3 wisdom teeth removed on Thursday morning. Everything went really smoothly. I will say I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to really enjoy the 10 seconds of drugs that they give you right before they put you out. They gave me the stuff and said, all right, first we're going to give you this stuff through your IV. It's going to relax you. I guess I kind of remember being relaxed because I admittedly I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. So I do kind of remember relaxing, but I didn't get to enjoy the full effects of it because next thing I knew I woke up and BC in a private chat was with the group shared a one of those wisdom tooth removal videos of, you know, the kids coming out of their anesthesia and saying and being goofy.

3:59 I didn't really have that. I had a quick one that I shared in a story, but it really wasn't anything too dramatic and I was disappointed. I wish I had something a little funnier to share, but it all went smoothly. And the beautiful part of it all is, is that I was diligent Thursday when I got home from surgery, icing my face every 20 minutes, 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. I did it through the entire day until I went to bed and the next day had very minimal swelling on one side, the one area that they said was going to be the more challenging tooth to remove and that was it. The swelling was gone in a few hours. No pain.

4:41 I mean, I can't say no pain, but really just it would, it would be a little uncomfortable if I open my mouth a little too wide. Chewing really wasn't a problem. But of course, the first three days I had to really basically do all soft foods, which is quite annoying. Yesterday I started introducing solid foods again. I got the go ahead from the doctor and yeah, I'm doing great. So yeah, I mean, if anyone has any questions, by all means feel free to ask. But overall, this was a success. And I got to say, really, I think the key is to ice, ice, ice that first 24 hours. So if you're somebody who's maybe in need of getting those pulled and you're a little nervous like I was and avoiding it like I was, I can assure you really the hardest part is just having to do the whole soft foods thing for the first 3 days.

5:37 And you know, the next week or two, I still have to be somewhat limited, no straws and I, you know, I still have to be careful how I'm chewing, but really not so bad in the big picture. So that's my update for you. And or maybe I should do the let's dive into the show today. As I said at the top of the show, we are going to learn more about Sub Stack and that's going to be thanks to BC, who's a pretty avid user of Sub Stack. So I think first the way I want to get started before we actually start asking you and grilling you with a bunch of questions, BC I'm curious if the group wants to share.

6:24 What do you think Substack is? In plain English, we all have talked about Substack here and I think we've danced around some ideas of what Substack is, but what do you think it is? What's your own personal idea definition of it? Go ahead, Dr. Good morning. I think it was mainly it when in the beginning it was mainly for long form writers, long form blogging, I think. And over the years it has evolved also into a place where you can have your, you can have your podcast on there. You can even something that I was toying with when I I first started with it and then I dropped it because I got all confused and everything.

7:10 So one of the things that I was thinking about was doing my newsletter and also having the audio version of my newsletter. So that would be kind of a quote UN quote podcast ish. So I like what? Kind of what James Cridland does with his newsletter at Pod News. Yeah, that makes sense. OK, Thank you, DRI. Know that Sid and Matt Bliss want to chime in as well. Go ahead, Sid, and then we'll hear from Matt. Welcome back, Mark. So as I first heard about it not too long ago, actually the what I was reading about it, it felt like it was another version of Medium. If you remember that platform where you could go and publish blogs.

7:52 And I did download it yesterday and played a just a little bit, not very much. It has a feel of Instagram like with the stories and circles at the top and the feed. It has a it has an Instagram feel to it, But I'm anxious to learn more about it. But my first thought was oh it's another place like Medium to post to DRS point post long form written content. That's similar to how I feel like I see it and admittedly, I've only gone to it a couple of times when somebody maybe posted an interesting link on social media and I wanted to check out what they had to say. So I am very green when it comes to Substack.

8:33 Let's go to Matt. Matt, what do you? What's Substack to you? I'm very green with it too. I've dived in a couple of times and I'm kind of with Dr. It is very overwhelming, easy to kind of get lost in a little bit. But the way I imagine Substack being is like a, if you've ever played a dystopian video game where you upgrade weapons and you just strap things to them with masking tape and stuff. I imagine that it's Substack is a newsletter platform with a podcasting bit strapped on and a social media kind of sharing bit strapped on as well, you know, with duct tape and things like that. At least from the podcasting perspective, that's how it's, it's felt pro for for me.

9:17 All right, let's check in with Ralph and then BC we're coming to you to talk and see how accurate we all are and then we'll get into the nitty gritty. Go ahead, Ralph. So I just thought it was for washed up reporters who weren't relevant anymore. That's what I thought at first when I heard that. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but I'm very green about it. But here as the money guy, I'm looking forward to hearing How much does it cost and what can I do with it to make money. So I'm hoping BC is going to cover those two things, but that's what I'm looking for today. So if you're the money person out there listening, we're going to talk about that today too, hopefully. All right, sounds good to me and let's see here. All right, so BCI think first tell us how accurate we are or maybe who was the most accurate. And then before we really get into all of The Who, what, where when?

10:04 I'm curious about your who, what, where, when? I want to know more about what you're doing specifically on sub stack. How were our definitions of sub stack? Conglomerating all the different takes we've had so far this morning about Sub SEC, you're not aside from Ralph, you're not all inherently wrong. Ralph had a bit of the spice you're taking, and I can see why he has that particular take. My definition of Sub SEC is that it's a really cool, multifaceted platform. It is what's really cool about it. It's not strictly one way or another. First, it's really a place where you can kind of come in and decide amongst different kinds of content what works for you first and then explore from there.

10:48 And what I actually forgot until I forgot who mentioned it, but mentioning whoever first mentioned the kind of Instagram feel, it helped remind me thankfully that there are kind of two front facing sides to this. There's actually the website of the user, which is more kind of front face into the world. And then there's the feed side of it, which you see as someone who has your own account. So it's, it's got different kind of areas for you to manage that are feeding content to to the people, if that makes any sense at all. But what I'm doing. So I actually found it randomly. And this is not a new platform. This has been around since 2017. So it's been around for a hot minute and I though I hadn't heard about it until early November when someone I follow on Instagram mentioned their sub stack and I was like, never heard of that.

11:41 Let me go check it out. And when I saw their website and I like I thought it was awesome. It looks like a really cool writing platform is some something I wish I would have wish I would have found it years ago because one of the passions I kind of realized late in my game post undergrad post being in communication was that I I loved writing and blogging and so fell in love with just the look of it. Peruse the back end of it seemed pretty simple for the setup. And it was in that random perusing that I found that it actually has podcasting capability. And so that triggered the idea to make a new podcast.

12:22 So currently I'm using it for a multitude of things. I do host my own show on there called Caffeination Nation. It's a very relatable kind of quick discussion show where I give my two cents on interesting boss and Co worker interview experiences that people have and it kind of how I think people can handle certain situations. And then from there though, and I think this is something that that Ralph will definitely appreciate as well outside of the money part, we'll get to that eventually, is that it's a really great spot for influencers, creators, speakers and business owners to really help further establish their thought leadership in whatever their sector is. So I'm also using it to push marketing insights and communications, Mythbusters and things like that to help further establish my authority in that room. I got to do more of it.

13:17 I got to find more time to do more of that. But so far, it's a pretty cool, multifaceted tool, I got to say. Thank you. And I want to encourage the group. If you have questions, by all means, let's hear them. We don't have to go in any specific order as far as my rundown here that I have in front of me. If anyone at any time has a question, by all means, please ask. And Ralph is leading the way. Go ahead, Ralph. Yeah, BC I've got a question for you. So one of the things that I do for all my content work is I write A blog post for each of my pieces of content. Now, right now I've got that on my own website. We have AI use pod page and I've got them on website. So do you see some utility in putting that on sub stack?

13:59 Would that be a good use of that tool? Absolutely, because there's a whole, there's still a whole community behind sub stacks, similar to Instagram, LinkedIn. So if you're looking to kid, you're writing your articles in front of a whole other set of potential readers who are within similar sectors as yourself, it's definitely a great Ave. for that. The blog interface is pretty nice. You've got the ability to include videos, audio clips, pictures. Of course, you can do polls, you can do certain formats for quotations. If you want to reference different studies within the financing field, it can be a really great tool for for that as well. But now my question for UBC is you don't own that platform.

14:41 Do you rent space there? How does that work? Cuz like I said, I have no idea about sub stack. I've always taken the position of drive them to what I own. So I drive them to my website. So am I now driving them to another third party site That is potentially something that could say, oh, I don't like what Ralph said today. Ralph's gone out. He. Goes well. I can't comment to that particular degree. I know we had the conversation about Meta a couple a week or so ago, but it is a third party for sure. So it's it's a place where you kind of where you do rent in space similar to any other social platform. It's not ralph.com per SE. It's not going to be your own personal website. So there is that bit of a caveat there. So for you, if you have a really strong relationship with your readers in going to your personal website, but you do want to explore potential new area, this would be really cool for you. But again, it's kind of a what you want to do first. So it's totally depending on what you are looking to explore. Thank you, BC and Ralph, and I know Nick has a question as well.

15:42 I see Jen Dub has joined us and Yvonne has joined us in the audience. And I wanted to just say we're talking all things Substack today. So if you have questions about Substack, curious about it, this is your opportunity. Speaking of people with questions, Nick, go for it. Good morning. Hey, good morning everybody. Yeah, actually don't have a question. I had a comment I wanted to make about or two Ralph's question about publishing his blog posts on Sub stack as well. I would be very cautious with that. Similar to LinkedIn articles, if you are just straight copying and pasting content from your website to Sub Stack, that could show up in search results and Google might flag that as duplicate content.

16:28 And being that sub stack is a very authoritative website, it could end up de ranking your stuff or getting your website flagged to where you're not going to show up at all. Sub stack has like a kind of a paywall feature that can lock content behind a paywall and that might protect you there because Google shouldn't be able to crawl at I don't believe. But you run into the same issue with LinkedIn articles, people copying and pasting from one to the other and ultimately hurting yourself in the long run. So I would definitely caution against just straight copying content from one place to sub stack specifically. Thank you Nick.

17:09 And by the way, Nick had reminded me in the chat that we used to use sub stack when we were doing content for Minvo, Minvo dot pro, but I just don't remember. I think that's probably because Nick, you probably did more of that than I did from info you. That was probably one of the things you did. But OK, so let's keep it moving and go to Matt Bliss. And I think Sid had a question as well, if I'm not mistaken. So let's go to Matt 1st and then we'll check in with Sid again. I just wanted to reiterate on the fact that if it's in a third party platform, the content is subject to platforms requirements often times. And it probably is important to note that if you do a search for sub stack, you're going to stumble across content in which they've maybe sort of come under fire a little bit for the kinds of people and topics they may or may not platform.

18:03 I don't know how much we should refer to it or not it. I know in the US the whole freedom of speech is important, but the moderation aspect is important for 3rd party platforms too. But regressing that a little bit to say that Sub Stack is a is a newsletter platform. It means it gives you easy access to a subset of users who are already members of a platform. They don't have to create new accounts if they're already existing members and it sends them notifications and updates that the content is there, which is a little bit different to Ralph's example of posting the blogs on the website.

18:43 My question to UBC would be that if you've seen the advantage of that show itself through the stuff that you've done so far or potentially with clients and if that would offset the advantage of having your own, you know, play zone in your own website. My big thing with hopping on the subset was because I wanted to finally put myself to in a test of consistency. And I have seen with my podcast better numbers in the past four months that I've been on it with this newer podcast than my original podcast, which is telling me informing me pretty well about what I need to be doing elsewhere.

19:24 As far as whether or not I can say right now that it outweighs personal website versus this one, I can't say I can't them yet only because I have yet to build a system that allows me to apply that same consistency across all platforms and therefore have them all under the same level of effort, which is a me thing for sure, but time will tell. Hopefully with more time I can give you a better answer on that. I do want to also quickly stay going back to Ralph's point then about you know taking his thought leadership from his personal website on to sub stack and with people's commentary regarding duplicate. Content. So that is a great point to make from the audience. So for Ralph, I would say if you were to take any of your articles and reword it to a teaser version and then try to use that, basically use sub stack as a new lead back into your website.

20:19 Take your articles, don't copy paste like I forgot to mention them but don't duplicate it but word it into a teaser format to drop people back into your personal website and just make it a new revenue or new Ave. in that sense. Thank you BC by the way, shout out to Billy Thorpe who is over in on the YouTube stream while we stream live over there. Get to see Billy over there and let's go to Sid who had something for us. Go ahead, Sid. So I have a couple of questions. So I have a an associate that I person that I know that I met on LinkedIn and then I followed her on Instagram. She recently announced she had a sub stack. And so I went out there finally found her and I noticed that she has her personal and then she has a business one I guess called the collab space.

21:10 So under her profile you see both her and then the collab space, which is kind of her take on things. So she's got 2 and that one she has 65 subscribers. It's paid and so she's, you know, she only has 70 subscribers, 65 subscribers, but you know, at $8 a person, that's 500 bucks a month, right? So certainly I know there's a revenue stream there, but so explain the two different like her purse London was the is it a business thing that she has? And then the second question I have is, is, is this have a algorithm with it? Like one of the most frustrating things that's happening right now, especially on my preferred platform, LinkedIn, is the algorithm is just all screwed up and it's pushing pay to play and boosting things and stuff like that. And you know, I wake up and I look at that platform and I see content that's two weeks old that I've already seen. I don't see, I see a lot of sponsored content. I don't see some content from people I'm following. So it's extremely frustrating right now. The reach is specifically.

22:09 So I'm just curious, is there an algorithm and then explain the different types of products you can have out there? So for your colleagues double taking on subset, I kind of wonder why she wouldn't have made that into a singular sub stack and simply taking the content from her business version and made it a different publication or section. So with with sub stacks makeup, you have the main publication, which is your website. And I'll share with Mark after the fact some screenshots of what the two different sides look like. And within your singular publications, for instance, I got BC Babbles publication. That's my entire website. But then you can create separate different sections within a singular publication.

22:55 So my free content or my podcast has its own section. My exclusive content has its own section. I'm launching a new piece of content today that will have its own section. And you can choose not only whether or not a certain section automatically has a paywall. You can also go into a single section and choose of particular posts. Have a paywall I would have in her position unless she has a specific reason for creating two whole sub stack websites for the different sides of her work. I would have made that all into one and just made everything come through a singular Ave. Regarding the algorithm, I've definitely seen a lot of engagement with my content, specifically with my podcast Caffeination Nation.

23:40 A lot of people finding it based on verbiage and based on hashtag. So I think there is an algorithm there for sure, at least based on the idea of of attracting like content and from people that I've not ever reached out to beforehand. So Short answered yes to that part, to that particular question, but as far as whether or not it can or will get as janked up as others, I cannot say. I'm curious about how easily you can derive the stuff you're talking about within the platform. Like, is the analytics on how people find the contents, how much they engage with it, how often it's put on the front page or featured or whatever, is there a lot of rigorous stats regarding that kind of stuff?

24:21 Yeah. So you definitely do get some analytics for sure. It talks about direct both on website and mobile. Same thing for whether or not you're being found through your personal website or if it's an organic Google search. If you have a podcast, when you do get in, I'll dive more into the podcasting side of it once Mark prompts me to do so. But when you do have a podcast and you do have an RSS feed, you are able to distribute 26 or so different streaming platforms and it will break down those numbers like what percentage from which platform as well. So the the numbers on the analytical side are pretty good. I understand the value of sub stack because there can be such a great conversation, but how do you kind of balance it so that you still have them go back to your contact or you just don't or you don't care that they go back to your website?

25:09 Yeah, for me right now and I think everyone's needs are going to be very singular. For me at the moment, I'm very much in the mind of making use of substecs ease at the moment. So for kind of more transparent context, I'm working on building a brand, building a business. So, and right now I've got only so much revenue coming in. And so I'm trying to take as much of my free time to utilize sub stacks ease in the sense of that it's, it's free. So one of Ralph's earliest questions, it's free. You don't pay for any part of it. And to kind of in the meantime, use that free space to draw in the community that I have.

25:51 And then once I'm able to decide where I want to redirect things, then maneuver the community to new spots. That's my personal approach. Again, I think it'll leave everyone's experience and need for it will be very singular and just based on what fits best for them at the time. BC Dr. was asking in the chat here on Riverside. When did you get started? Exactly how long have you been on it? I've been on sub stack. My first ever post was November 11th of last year and that was super simple post just said, Hey, I'm here. That's all I did. And then I launched. Actually, I launched my my podcast on sub stack the week of Thanksgiving and it's been I do it some Monday through Friday show. So it's been pretty consistent since then, which has been a pretty good experience.

26:42 Very cool. And Dr., did you have a follow up to that? I know you can do different strategies on how to get to the money, as Ralph would say. So you do a newsletter. Is it anyone can read a little part of it? And then to get to the whole beat of it, is that when you have to start paying for it? Do you know what I'm saying? Because I don't know what I'm saying, OK. You're good. So I'm going to clarify a little bit. So the newsletter aspect of sub stack, any part of your content, whether or not it's a single blog, whether or not it's an audio post or a video post, can become the newsletter. Whenever you make a new section of concert or a new section within the sub stack, that is a newsletter.

27:26 Every single post you create, you can either choose to simply post it on the sub stack or add it to a pre made template for newsletters that you can yourself design and then send it to your mailing list. There's a lot of particularity and how you want to use content, but regarding the content to paywall aspect and this kind of goes back I think a couple weeks ago we talked about it a little bit. My podcast, everyone can watch it. It's it's a free to watch podcast. Every time you go to my sub SEC, if you don't already have one, it will ask you free subscription. Enjoy the show and you can opt in or out of that. But I because I talk about something decently passionate about, which is like interview processes and like crazy bosses, annoying Co workers, water cooler gossip, all the things because I know I can get a little spirited on certain subjects. I decided to take those moments where I 100% go on to a bit of a rant and I turn that into the exclusive content. So what I'll do in the middle, if I'm recording the podcast and I know and I feel it coming on, I'm about to get a little like ranty about something, I'll pause and say, OK, this will be a beat.

28:36 This will be a caffeinated take. Caffeinated take. That's the exclusive content subtype. And so I'll finish the recording, hold back the rant immediately open a new recording rant on whatever it was I was getting spicy about, and then separate the two out. So people will get the free episode of the podcast where it's usual content. They'll get the notification. Hey, in this moment BC had to go on a little rant about something else. You can find that behind this pay wall for this piece of exclusive content. So that's how I currently approach updating people on what's going on and then where they can find some more content and ideally bring me a little bit of revenue.

29:18 Excellent. OK. And Matt's got another question for you, BC go ahead, Matt. Yeah, I'm going to be hammering you today. Get used to it. You're talking a lot about the content stuff at the moment, which is what I wanted to ask you about because we're talking very, we're talking administrative, we're talking logistics at the moment. But. It's very easy to get stuck there. Like someone starts and they say I want newsletter. How do I make newsletter? Oh, sub stack come good. Google search page one, very good. I make newsletter now, right? So if you were talking to someone who was just beginning to think about their newsletter and looking at sub Stack and the approach you've taken, would you say it's better to have a look at sub stack when you have an idea of the kinds of content that you want to create? Should they do a bit of practice for what they should start writing about or ranting about?

30:11 In your case, should they subscribe to some sub stacks, some successful ones, and reflect on how their content works so that they can practice their structure? Like how should people be thinking about their content before they get to sub stack? Yeah, great question Matt. And I would say those are both great ways to approach it for me to the things that I thankfully I've been blogging a little bit already. So I kind of felt comfortable with that. What's great about the blogging part of it, if that's what someone wants to come into it for, is that whenever you're going to release a post, you can choose whether or not it's again, it's it's just a post on sub stack and it just goes to sub stack and whatever limited or non audience you currently have up for practice.

30:52 Or if you haven't been in list, mailing list and you want it to be shot out as a newsletter, I would say for sure you want to have an idea of what you want to talk about and whether or not you want to approach beginning that development of thought leadership podcast wise or blogging wise. Try to have that figured out a bit more. And I mean, you can do drafts, of course, you know, till the cows come home. So you can you don't ever have to actually release anything. You practice writing until you feel ready for it. And then the other part of your question crap was about, yeah, following people. So what helps me decide how I want to structure and Orient all the content is the person that I randomly heard mention sub SEC on on Instagram. They cover the music industry.

31:41 They're very in depth on what they discussed. They don't just say, oh, what came out this week. They talk about artists entire career, what kind of legal battles they've had. They will discuss all of the analytics from last year's releases to help predict who should get nominations for the next Grammys and what not. So seeing that for me inspires kind of what bar I want to hit from my own perspective in marketing and communications. And so I kind of use that person a bit of us as an archetype to what I want to myself eventually kind of emulate and how I want to build up my brand without within the the sub stack platform. Thank you for the question, Matt. Thank you, BC All right, So the two areas that we definitely want to get to before this show wraps today is to learn a little more about the podcasting side of things. And I think to Ralph's point, the monetization side as well. Because look, I think most podcasters out there want to know different ways of how to monetize and they've heard probably that sub stack is a place that you can monetize. So let's dig into some of that.

32:43 First, let's talk about the podcasting side of things. Why should we, as podcasters, use this as another platform to distribute our podcast? One thing that is I think a great draw especially for new podcasters who maybe don't know what other kind of large host they want to use or if they want to pay thirtyish bucks a month for a host and they're not even sure about their frequency yet. They're not even sure about what kind of larger scale growth strategy. Not to take away that subset can't do a larger growth strategy, but first and foremost, it's free. You're not paying Substack monthly or quarterly or annually for an RSS feed. It's and honestly, I didn't even know it did podcasting when I first looked at it.

33:30 I actually found that aspect of it 5 pure chance. I was preparing my first ever post, which was just in a quick little announcement. And as I'm going through the settings of the post, it asks create a new podcast. And I'm like, oh, what's this? What's this? What's going on? And that's how I peruse ended up finding that part of it and perusing that and realizing, oh, this is a this is a whole host. This provides you an RSS feed. This does distribution and this is a a place for a whole digital storytelling platform to be held. And so I think for podcasters, newer and more experienced podcasters, it's a, it's a free space.

34:11 It still gets you onto some major platforms for sure when it comes to distribution and you can, if you recorded directly onto it, it will similar to Riverside and again, not paid for. By the way, it will similarly help you create clips so that you can promote those clips through socials. Once you post something, whatever it is, it'll bring you to a landing page where you can send it out to LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and I think TikTok as like it's forming things. It'll also create some templated visuals to give that visual aspect for those posts. So BC on average when we talk about independent podcasters, they're on average they're getting around 50 or so downloads per episode, right?

34:57 So is there a magic number that you think is important for us to start adding our podcast to sub stack or should we just get started immediately? I would say just get started. There's there's unlike any other hosts where it's when you typically have some kind of not paywall, but you have certain credentials to meet before you can make it into the ads program, whatever iteration of that they have sub stacks predominant. And this goes to Ralph's big burning question, of course, is the predominant form of monetization on sub stack is the paywall. So you can immediately start by making your podcast something that people pay to get to. If you want to establish yourself as a skilled thought leader in the blogging article writing area and then gain an audience that way and then let them know, Hey, by the way, I'm also going to build a podcast on here. This will be some exclusive form of what you're already here for that you don't quite get already and put a blanket paywall there. So there's really no magic number. Choose Sub Stack as a great place to start. If you see the numbers come in and it starts to really work for you, stay there, Milk it.

36:14 And again, it kind of just goes back. It goes back. It goes back to there's the phrasing, the singularness of everyone's need or experience or podcast for Sub Stack. Wow, Dr. you are so right. Words today are just not the thing. I don't I don't know where. She no right. My God. I hate words in the morning. Hey, listen. I'm going to bed at 12 O clock at night and then waking up at 5:50 in the morning. I hear you. That doesn't work well for me either. We have a question from Mike Short, who is on YouTube right now with us. He says. Does it make sense to use Substack to distribute episodes in addition to a typical podcast host service? So to clarify, typical podcast host service so. I think what he's asking is can you take your regular host feed and push that over to sub stack like you would do putting it on iTunes or putting it on iheart or putting it on one of the other platforms.

37:13 I think that's what he's asking there. You can, but the the thing about that is I think it technically establishes a three O 1 redirect. And for those who don't know what that is, that's when you're moving, you're officially moving hosts. So let's say currently and I and the people in the private chat will know this. I was asking about Captivate this weekend. And so whenever you I moved from pod being the Captivate. Whenever you do that, though, you have to take your new RSS feed, feed it to your old host and that issues a three O 1 redirect, which means the former host will stop holding your podcast. The new host will then have all the content. So you can do that, but you will effectively be moving your show for whatever host is already on into sub stacks.

37:58 So be mindful of that. That's why for me, Casual Babble, which is my main podcast, is still that's in Captivate and then my news show is just on the sub stack. So you can, but don't do that unless you know what that's going to do. Thank you, BC and let's go to Matt. And then I see Dr. has a question and also Janet has joined us on stage and I think he wanted to chime in as well. So, Matt, take it away. I just want to jump on the quick clarification Mike's made in the chat here. He said he meant like captivate and sub stack. He was wondering if you like Chuck them both together, but from the understanding of that you just explained there, you can either be on sub stack or Captivate. They're both equivalent hosts.

38:44 You can't distribute from Captivate to sub stack as a platform. Yeah, not to my understanding you would definitely be. It would definitely trigger a whole move from one to the other. But that being said, I do like to use sub stack to take clips from my other hosted show and create a whole article out of it. So if I'm just, if I've had a cool discussion with the founder regarding certain area of business that I want to elaborate on, I'll put that post, that video post into sub stack, write out an article about it and then share that to the audience. But that will draw them ultimately back to my main podcast. So that's a great combination. But yet don't switch the RSS feeds over unless you want to move the host. Yeah, there's a reason there's like a. Are you sure you want to three O 1? You definitely want to three O 1, right? Type in the name of your little.

39:31 Boxes here. There's a reason why they do that to you. That's it. Now 2 very quick questions for you for what you've discussed so far. In fact, I've forgotten 1, so this is going to be much easier for you. You mentioned creating podcasts in Sub Stack to directly to the paywall. Does that mean that Sub Stack offers private RSS feeds for paid users? Or is it just a standard public feed with paid? Yes, so if you're if that's a good question. So if your podcast is set as private and mine initially was, it will affect how people are able to access it. So for Spotify and Apple podcast, which are two of the platforms it will distribute to for what's kind of cool is that for Spotify, even if your show is immediately set as private, people can still find it on Spotify.

40:16 But the second they try to play it they say sorry you can't enjoy the content until you go to sub stack and you pay for the subscription. And then of course with Apple Podcast, it's a little bit different. And of course, Apple, I think across the board is a bit more involved. And I say that to mean that setting up your show on the different distribution, distribution platforms, there we go is pretty simple. But Apple Podcast and I think Apple in general is a lot more involved. So if you don't have an Apple account and you want it on Apple Podcast, got to create an account, go to Apple Podcast, set up the show, connect the things, yadda, yadda. But when your show is set to private, there's one additional step to where you have to go to the subsec, and the subsec will provide you the RSS feed and you have to go, once you've paid for it and you've gone past the paywall, throw that into Apple Podcast and then you can experience the show on that platform.

41:10 So, yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So just very quickly to clarify, if only to dissect any confusion or follow-ups at my. Time I do Babble as a result, yeah. There is a private RSS feed link available to anyone who subscribes on sub stack that they can add to their podcast player that gives them direct access to their paid feed that's technically theirs as an exclusive. You don't have to distribute it weirdly through Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever. It's dependent on the podcast player and copying and pasting that private RSS feed in order for the paid user to get access. They don't have to only listen through the sub stack A or something like that. The only one where they have to go grab the RSS feed itself is just for Apple Podcasts. Everything else the subsec owner will handle so you just go look for it on the different platforms and I'll clarify which those are real quick.

42:02 So you can distribute your show on subsec to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Overcast. Only with Apple Podcasts do does someone have to go and grab the RSS feed and then plug it in. Everything else, once it's set up by me, you can just go find it on that platform and you're good to go. So long as you've paid for it, and it won't, it will no longer stop you from enjoying the content. Thank you BC appreciate that. All right, listen, let me I want to get to the monetization stuff as well. But first I'm going to check in with Janae and I think Dr. had a question as well. Janae, good morning, happy Ramadan to you. What did you want to add?

42:44 Good. Morning gentlemen, this is and ladies, this is an excellent conversation. Sub stack. I was thinking about sub stack, sub stack, sub stack. I'm like, why does this sound so interesting? And based on what BCS shared, you know, you can start a blog, you can start a your podcast, you can start posts. If you just look at the the name sub stack, it's a stack of subscription. I'm like, well, and it's able to like do a lot of the things that other services did, like a stand alone. Like for example, Patreon came on like you can have your own paid community. Then YouTube, like all of the other platforms started offering that.

43:31 So here they're like, hey, bring all of your subscribers to this one and you can provide them content in all the different formats possible. So from that perspective, I don't know if this is the best platform for somebody starting out brand new because I think this platform was designed for somebody who's been doing it for a long time. And they're, again, trying to get more people to use their domain as is with literally everything out there to bring your stuff over here. And we'll host it for you. And two years down the road and like, hey, now we have an additional subscription model or blah, blah, blah.

44:11 I don't know, looks interesting. But I do like that they give you the ability to charge for your content. So maybe that's how they're making their money. So again, something to look into. Thanks so much guys. Thank you, Janae. All right, Dr. we're coming to you and then Ralph, I'm going to actually come to you after Dr. to for for you to ask some monetization questions as our money guy here on the podcasting morning chat. Go ahead, Dr. OK, so just a couple of things. They call their Do they call their posts actually? Notes BC. So the notes are kind of like a quick little chat and you can send it to free subscribers, or at least that's how I have mine set up. So it's kind of like the YouTube's community section of a channel.

44:59 It's just quick little posts, not major content per SE. It's just kind of like, if you want to let everyone know real quick what's been going on, that's a good section for that. One of the features that I really really love about it is the referral section where so BC who are you referring on on your sub stack? You can refer any of the other people on sub stack right? I'm currently referring and I have actually a paid subscription to the guy that led me to the sub stack. His name is Mars Music. He is again very in depth in the music industry. I love his approach to how he brings his thought leadership on what's happening in in that industry to light what's happening behind all the very public facing stories and and moments. So he's definitely right now a main reference referral from me and I'm actually paying subscription for him as well, 5 bucks a month.

46:00 There are a few people that I'm actually paying for as a subscription on sub stack. The last thing is, is that someone I know is using the strategy of the subscription is free and he's using the strategy where he's sub stack is being used as a funnel to get more clients so you can read his stuff for free. And oh, by the way, he also has now their e-mail addresses, which that's a piece of gold. Yeah, it's a great way to get people to connect with you, especially if you're providing some great content for free and it triggers the right note for them and they want to make sure they stay on top of all the new stuff.

46:40 Yeah, it's a great way to find a solid leads for your business to be sure. Right, right, that's all I need to do for. Hey, if you're if you're serious about growing your podcast, don't figure it out alone. At Ironic Media, I help podcasters launch, produce and grow shows that actually move the needle with better sound, better video, smarter strategy, and a clear path to monetization. So head to ironicmedia.com and let's build something that you're proud of. All right, And Speaking of a path to monetization, Ralph, I'm handing it over to you to ask BC some questions about that very thing. Go for it. Very cool. BC so I have a little bias here BC because I see that YouTube is demonetizing people.

47:23 I see a lot of platforms are demonetizing people and I worry sometimes that as content created, especially, I'll call them newbies, people who are new to this may put all their eggs in this basket. So BC my question for you, especially if it's a curated environment and I use that word curated as a nice way to saying somebody is looking over the stuff to make sure it fits with community standards and then you're building a pay platform there. What's to prevent them from just yanking your content and saying you don't have anything here anymore? That's a big concern for me as I work with content creators to say, hey, let's build income streams. If you're not building it in something you own, I'm concerned about that BC how do you respond?

48:04 Especially when I hear the word free. As soon as I hear word free, you get what you pay for. Yeah, that's a very fair stance to take for sure. And again, we've spoken about that a couple times on the show and it's a really harsh reality for some of the platforms out there, especially Meta and Google and whatnot. So definitely a fair concern to have. And from what I from what I've looked into and understand, there really isn't a huge demonetization phenomena for creators on sub stack at all. They have a really light moderation policy that they don't tend to moderate based on political ideology or unpopular opinions, whichever those may be. And that's just from a little bit of research on my end and I'm happy to share posts show where I got that from. I think in that realm, Subsec is a bit of a safer space. I know your your concern is from any of your faith-based content. So based on what I've read so far and what I've seen, that would not be an issue on subsec would be a pretty safe space for that.

49:04 So I think it's good for that alone. It could be a pretty nice alternative to anyone who has seen that happen on Google on Meta. And this is understandably kind of sick of those really intricate moderation styles. And they want to find a more open space to be able to connect more genuinely without fear of unnecessary persecution. BC how does this compare to like Patreon? Because I've got Patreon paid communities. And as you're talking about this, and like I said, I know nothing about Substack to be very honest with you, but I'm thinking this sounds a lot like the Patreon communities that I'm working to build where I've put stuff out there on the free side and then I've got the paywall there. Is it working the same way?

49:47 To a degree and almost in kind of a vague way. So for Patreon, you have to go and create a whole massive account of your own Patreon to then subscribe to another Patreon creators account. With Sub Stack, it's as simple as signing up for a newsletter, so you just send your e-mail whenever you're prompted. That's it. You have access to all that person's free, what's called free content. There we go. And then from there, if you want to upgrade, it's a it's you don't use even then you don't have to create a whole sub SEC account. You just go through the paper wall process. Boom, now your updates include that exclusive content. So in that sense, it's almost like there's not so much of A institution that you have to establish yourself in before you can get access to the content.

50:37 It's very straightforward. It's, it's much, the access is much easier. And then for pay levels, you can also establish different levels of payment. So for me, I've got 3 levels and each one elevates the level of involvement in the conversation people get. So I've got free subscribers where they get a lot of free content. They get Caffeination Nation, they get blog posts, they get segments from casual Babble, they get certain polls that I will do paid subscribers for me, which is 5 bucks a month or 55 for the year, which is a free month essentially from the year. They get all that original stuff plus they get to comment. My big thing is if you want to comment on the community, be supporting the community, a little tit for tat. You know what I'm saying?

51:21 So and then I have my next exclusive limited seat area, which I call nation nobles. It's a higher annual price, but that's because they will get to both Co host the show with me and they'll also get access to private round tables where they will help curb the future of the content of the show. Again, I'm very community based. I want to be able to create a space like that. So that's the kind of tier I will do. So for you, however you'd want to structure a tier system for your own content, it's pretty much whatever you want to make of it. But again, because there's not such an institution there that you have to create a whole profile for yourself on the access to, it's a lot easier for any of your perspective audience. Thank you BC Sid has a question.

52:04 Go for it, Sid. How does Subsec make money? There's no advertising on the platform. Supposedly they don't take any percentage of your revenue from your subscriptions. How do they make money? My understanding is they do take 10%. Let's say if you're charging 5 bucks a month then they will take $0.50 from each subscriber. That's my understanding. I haven't looked much further into that. I've only recently seen that they take 10% when it comes to a paywall such as that's. I'll do more looking into that, but that's my current understanding. You know, that actually makes sense because I don't know where I heard that they didn't take any of the money, but obviously that was wrong. So I'm, I'm, but everybody else is still learning about this and trying to be sure that I'm avoiding, you know, shiny object syndrome here.

52:50 And which is, I mean, just because you can get distracted from your main core of what you're doing. And the thing that I've noticed in the less than 24 hours I've actually had a sub stack account, none of my community is there. I say none. Very few people in my industry are there, so I'm not sure. They didn't make sense for me to do anything relative to my podcast there. I'm certainly not going to switch my RSS feed to over there. But I'm interested in, you know, seeing what it could potentially become, what other people are doing with it to see if it's something that I want to do. Some exploring is the right way to say I'm not jumping in with all 2 feet because it sounds like to me it should be. Maybe just on the service.

53:35 It sounds like it should be a little bit of a different type of content then what's on my podcast, but that's why I'm going to explore it. Ralph brings up a great point in the chat, he said, yeah, exactly where your where is your audience and be there. I think that's a good filter when you're concerned about shiny object syndrome, right? Like if if you know your audience is somewhere, then I think gravitating to that place makes sense. But if they are not there, but you're just hearing all these cool things about the a platform and you think, oh, I got to take advantage of that, maybe that's more like shiny object syndrome. So, yeah. And BC I saw you wanted to say something. Yeah, and honestly, even more transparent for me. But the way I kind of see a Substack is almost kind of like what a Lynx Hub wishes it was, almost like what Beacons and Lingtree wishes it could be.

54:26 I kind of use Substack despite of all of its facets. I really kind of see the platform itself as kind of an intermediary. And where I have my personal website, my business website, my podcast over here, my socials over here, I kind of see Substack as this central space where people can go one way or the other. So if I wanted to take people who found me through the website 1st and then feed them through this really cool content space into my socials, that's one way to do it. Or if I have a bunch of people on socials and I want to feed them to my business, I can pull them into this intermediary where I'm establishing thought leadership, giving my insights, showcasing what I know, and then drawing them up into my business. So that's, that's the how I kind of map it out in my head. It's not the end all be all.

55:08 It's pretty multifaceted, as we discussed, but I think it can be a great back and forth stream between your business and your socials to kind of keep people connected and also constantly engaged to the process. There's really no part in that where they're not engaged by something. That's how I would suggest people endeavour to kind of look at it if they go to explore Sub Stack in the future. Thank you BC this is in Yeah, Ralph said it in in the chat as well. Great job today BC this has been really informative and we we're going to, I know we're very short on time, but I know some people want to chime in. Let me check in with Janae first. Go ahead, Janae. The one thing that I've noticed and realized this was a article I read almost 1215 years ago.

55:55 The idea that every single new platform brings is not where your audience already is, where your audience, where can you find new people to join your world? And that's what Sub Stack actually brings to you. So if you already have a community set up on YouTube or Instagram and Facebook, this new place will bring new people to your community. And that's what that's a part of new networks, just like Clubhouse. Nobody heard of before, but now we connected through Clubhouse because it was a new platform and everybody's trying to find like minded people. So you, it's not that you're going to bring your old people to the new platform, it's that you're going to bring new people to your world.

56:36 Thanks. Yeah. And I think what my point was is use it as a filter if you're somebody like Sid who's making, you know, doing a check for himself here. Am I just into this for Shiny object syndrome? You know, it's a filter because Sid's got a lot of different things, a lot of different moving parts with his podcast going on. So he may want to hold back for now and nurture the things he's already working on before he jumps into an entirely new platform. And again, like I said earlier, but if his audience is congregating over on Sub Stack, then that's an idea that he has to consider jumping into because he wants to make sure he's catering to that audience. But I do agree with you, Janae, that yeah, going on some of these popular platforms, they can help with discoverability.

57:24 I'm with you there. Sid, did you want to add on? I agree with Janae, but I also agree with what you're saying, Mark, and what I said about my audience. My people are not there. Discoverability is really important, right? The problem that exists, which is why I asked the algorithm question. I post content on my preferred platform and my of my 5000 followers, less than 10% of them even see it because of what the algorithm is doing. I'm at a place where my audience is, but the platform is not sharing my content so that they see it. And so it's kind of what I'm thinking about is does this thing have an algorithm?

58:06 Is it going to censor out? Is it going to change every five weeks the way it appears that Linkedin's is changing because I'm putting out great content and it's not being seen by the people and I'm not seeing other people's content the way that I want to see other people's content. And this is a strategic change by LinkedIn to be more pay for play. So I'm all about the discoverability, but I also just don't want to, you know, put too many things to my plate. I will just say one word. Once again, it comes up in poopification. Every platform will will engage in this process to some degree. Linkedin's probably doing that. They've said, look, we're doing a bit of extra AI moderation here and providing some AI stuff. We need to make some money, so let's make some money. Sub Stack did something very similar a couple of years ago, maybe last year, where YouTube was popping off with video podcasts and they were going whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. We offer video hosting services embedded in our newsletters and you can host your podcast here.

59:07 And got some big creators to truck their followers along to Sub Stack and pay them a big sum of money as a result. Not often will that happen, but you know, money is the operating factor. I think a lot of you already hit that in this session, that third party products have to be supported somehow, and if the money isn't coming in, they're going to change something to make sure it does so that they can keep going. So as long as you keep that at the back of your mind, you know, we've always got choice. We've always choose. Yep. And thank you, Matt. And so listen gang, we, I know Janae, you wanted to chime in and we are way over time. And I wanted to ask one final question to BC really, what do you think is a big take away for all of us here?

59:54 What's one thing that we should? If nothing else, what's one thing that we should all walk away with as far as this whole conversation around sub stack and podcasting? While Sub Stack I don't, While no platform should ever be considered the end all be all for a really any singular solution, I do truly believe Sub Stack can be a great intermediary, especially for those who are trying to build a business and trying to find a great bridge between their business platforms and their social media and keep people engaged throughout that process. So check it out if that's something of interest to you. Again, great for influencers, content creators, speakers, business owners. So a lot of options there. Thank you BC all right, and I'm just going to appease one question from the YouTube chat.

1:00:41 It says I may have this is comes from oh, that's a fact. I may have missed it, but sub stack is not originally built for podcasting. That is correct. Have they released any plans to improve how sub stack can be used by podcasters? I guess to follow up, I would have to ask, what is it that you're looking to specifically see innovative on? So they have six different distribution channels. If you record directly onto it, it helps you create clips to help promote the show. Every post you create can be sent out to at least four different social media platforms. So it would depend on specifically what you think you're lack, what you're not seeing elsewhere that you'd potentially like to see on sub stack. Awesome, thank you BC and we are out of time.

1:01:23 A reminder that we're back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern live on all the things. You can find all the things at Podcasting Morning. What is that again, Ralph? It's Podcasting Morning chat.com slash. Join. Us join us. Thank you, Ralph. Ralph helped me set that up and it's been a few days so that escaped me. And remember tomorrow we are talking all things podcasting news. It's our news and comment edition. Come join us to get the latest around the world of podcasting. And until tomorrow, make it a great day. Everybody take care.