#17 - Why You Shouldn’t Ask Your Site Visitors to Subscribe to Your Podcast
Click here to download this episode.
In this episode I talk about why you shouldn’t ask your site visitors to “subscribe” to your podcast. This may sound like a shocking statement, but I reveal why how many podcasters may be missing the boat when it comes to converting site visitors to podcast subscribers. [inpired by this post by Michael Geoghegan]
Then I discuss why every podcaster should also be a blogger. I offer nine reasons to have a blog as a podcaster. Here’s the thread from the Podcasters Yahoo! Group that I mention.
I also give a status update on Podcasting University and Podcasting 101.
Finally, I ask for your opinion on whether Apple is the best or worst thing to happen to podcasting. Please send me your thoughts on what you love or hate about iTunes and Apple as they relate to podcasting.
You can call and leave a voice comment at 206-222-1585 or email me at jason [at] podcastingunderground [dot] com.
Karin Hoegh said,
October 27, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I agree with you and Michael Geoghegan - and I never, ever talk about subscribing anymore - without telling people that it is for free.
Subscription is such a good resemblance, though, cause it´s like receiving a magazine.
I see you have a link call it add to iTunes - but the chicklet I use is “Subscribe with iTunes”.
I am so fortunate as to give a lot of presentation to people in Denmark, who are even more new to this, so I get constantly reminded, that these concepts are esoteric.
Yuzzy said,
October 27, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Just got into your show today. I’m listening to all the shows, in backward mode. Just great. Love your show. You sure know what you are talking about. It’s not one of thse (you can do it) motivation only type of podcast for podcasters…
About your subject on show 17… First of all, got to say that, just like you, i’m not one who’s into changing all the “Podcast” to “Netcast” myself. I just think we, as podcasters, should just stand up and show Apple we wont budge… (until they sue me..)
One thing i agree with Leo Laporte is when he says that the podosphere is still too much a closed environnement. Podcasters are mostly promoting to other podcasters instead of bringnin new (non-podcasters) listeners. It’s like trying to find your soulmate at work… We should find our way out of this podosphere and try to create a bridge between the listeners and podcasters…
How? I don’t have a clue… Maybe we should start to think on having an advertisment structure that is coming out of the internet.. (Posters, radio ads, TV ads, journals… ) I know i’m starting to think of it. I’m also working on a project that will basicly be a promo exchange program. But then again, it’s one idea that does not get us out of the bubble…
Itune.. We all have to remember what was Itune main purpose. Itune was tought and built for selling Ipods. The succes has been a great surprise and is considered pretty much like an extra for Apple. Little did they know that Itune would be by far THE online store…
But a natural and very organic thing happened to their store. That is bigger is stronger… It is not intend to show new stuff to poeple. They will not put any emphasys on new podcasts or new music. Instead, they will feature what doesn’t need to be featured. Just like podshow.com, you can only find a handful of suggested new podcasts. I know i’m still looking for new a fun stuff…
Itunes should, at least, have a “newly listed” section…. If they do, i haven’t found it…
Peace….
Chris (Amateur Traveler podcast) said,
October 28, 2006 at 6:38 pm
One correction, Apple did not present or exhibit at the expo but they were present. Rob Walch introduced me to Steve from Apple who is in charge of who gets promoted on iTunes.
Jason said,
October 28, 2006 at 9:29 pm
What I should have said was that Apple didn’t really have an overall “presence” at the expo. Most people didn’t have the pleasure that you did of meeting or speaking with someone from Apple.
iTunes was voted the best podcast directory by the podcast community, but no one from Apple was at the awards ceremony to receive the award. I’d personally like them to be a bit more visible and accessible.
Jason
Rob Thompson said,
October 30, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Good tip to use “automatically get new episodes” as the subscriber call to action.
I did notice that after upgrading to iTunes 7.0.1, the chapter selection feature is no longer available. It seems unfortunate that they don’t support their own software’s capability (Garage Band 3)… The newest iPods allow chapter forwarding though.
Steve Jobs wasn’t overly supportive of the Podcast contributions during their last September ‘06 announcements. His take on this media offering was to say they have a wide range of quality. Which is partially true, but didn’t mention the shows that do offer high production values and great content.
Chris said,
October 31, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Ultimately I wish Itunes would focus on category search first and top shows and big brands second. I mirror this to a concept in retail called ‘guided selling’. Simply stated it’s an exersize in determining your customers needs through a realigning question set to ultimately narrow down the selection to the ideal product choice. The entire experience is customer serving ground up. What I see on Itunes is more of a frontage of favorites and big names that we all know and like (or not) and a much more challenging puzzle to find things that are new and different. Even if it’s all based on listener subscriptions or voting it’s still a billboard approach.
still reading? Here’s some more…
As a listener I really enjoy the Itunes convenience in managing downloads, archiving shows, performing archive cleanup, etc. It’s a feature rich application that makes it easy to listen at home or upload to a player and take podcasts on the road. In terms of finding content I’ve found some great shows surfing through Itunes but struggled to find others.
As a podcast producer I have had a different take on the experience. It took 14 weeks to get our show listed and we followed all of the right steps and followed up accordingly. Once listed we got lumped into “Sports and recreation” so we’re buried with big name sports shows from ESPN who owns 17 of the top 25 shows in their sidebar. If you’re good with the software you can find the subcategories and click outdoor and then once you’re fronted with top picks you can click some small text called “see all” and flip through 5 pages to find our show. It’s kinda like cable channels, there are so many you don’t know what to watch because the directory fails.
Hassan Monteleone said,
November 6, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I think itunes is just “one” great thing that happened to podcasting, but as a foreing podcaster (im in Guatemala c.a.) it was really hard for me to put my podcast in itunes, actually was a podcaster that lives in USA that made me the favor!!!!
It was sad to hear that in the podcast convention apple wasn´t there, what would happend, i thing, that itunes opened the door but if they are not ready to make the new step another company would do it.
Because itunes is based for ipod and ipod is the most popular mp3 player its hard not to think to be on itunes store (my podcast is “enhanced” so i don´t have any other option than itunes for my listeners to see the pictures and go to the links i put there.
Like i said before itunes is just “one great thing” that happened for us podcasters, its just a matter of time for another great thing to happend and make podcasting even more popular.
Stefaan Lesage said,
November 25, 2006 at 11:03 am
Hi,
Personally I think Apple is a good thing for PodCasting. Here in Belgium PodCasting is still in its early stages, and its getting a booming community. I found the process of adding my PodCast to iTunes pretty easy. The most important thing though is to have a good feed ( which can be checked with FeedBurner ). If the feed is good and has the required itunes stuff in it, then adding your podcast to iTunes is just a matter of submitting the RSS feed and waiting for approvement.
Regards from Belgium,
Stefaan