I’ve got a declaration for all of you who are doing something SERIOUS with your audio or video podcast. You OWE me. I’m your customer, and I’m your audience, and it’s your job to get me, hold me, keep me coming back for more. I’m not subscribing to you just because I know you. I’m not subscribing to you because you’ve figured out how to press record on your audio setup or your camcorder.
I am Your Audience
You want to think about this. I’m a busy guy with lots of things to do. I’m fielding upwards of 300 emails a day. I’m subscribed to about 300 blogs. I have my own stuff to create. And I have more than one day job. I only have limited time to read, even less time to listen, and if you can impress me, I’ll spend some of my precious couple of hours in the evening watching you instead of a movie I got from Netflix or the Red Box thing.
Those are the facts, kid. I’m your audience.
**DISCLAIMER: NONE of this matters, if you’re doing your audio or video podcast for fun or relationship.
What Turns Me Off
Prattle. Blather. Talking just because the mic is on. Horrible audio and dark lightning. Going way off topic more than once every episode. I could give a rat’s ass about your inside jokes, especially if I’m a new guy. If it’s a bit, and it’s something you do every episode, I don’t mind learning about it, but if you’re laughing more than me, there’s a problem.
How You Could Win Me
One way is make your show tight. Tighten it up to the most important parts. Deliver the best stuff, not just a random blathering. Prep before you hit record, and work on editing after the fact. Reduce the ums. Kill the dead space. Make the thing tight, concise, and useful to me.
I’ve got some advice: if you’re doing audio OR video work, look around and see who else is doing a show LIKE yours. Do you compliment their show? For instance, to me, Tim Shey and Next New Networks has just changed the game by opening up Pulp Secret to be a comic videoblog network. They’re running Casey McKinnon’s and Rudy Jahchan’s A Comicbook Orange inline with the other Pulp Secret show. Brilliant.
I still believe (more than a year later) that partnering up with others and making a content network (a gathering of like-minded podcasts and videos and blogs) is more important than your single-serving show. (The counter-argument is that you should make amazing, tight SEGMENTS, and then I can curate all I want.
Should You Care?
No. Not at all. If you want to just poke around and make media, keep doing that. Nothing wrong with it at all.
However, if you’re thinking you might want to do more with it, make something of it, grow it into something that might eventually sustain you, then consider what I’ve told you. Consider your own work how a producer might see it (first), and then look long and hard and OFTEN at your work how an audience might see it. Your friends aren’t your best judge of your show. Most of them are impressed you can do this stuff. The best judge are people who you haven’t yet established contact with, and who you need desperately to grow your product.
That’s your job. Make your stuff top-shelf fricken amazing!
And then tell me about it so I can subscribe and add you to my mix.
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