WHAT’S THIS EPISODE ABOUT?
Do You Listen to Yours?
I really do love the “Questions from the Community” segment that kinda plays in and out of the podcast. Sometimes that’ what I call it. Other times, I just say, “This question came from a podcast community member.”
Whatever. It’s all the same.
But today’s episode was inspired by a great question I believe most new podcasters think but don’t actually ask other podcasters. The question was,
“Once published, do you listen to your own episodes? Why or why not?”
You’ve thought this before too, right? “How many times do I need to go back and listen to my show? Do they downloads count? Me listening to my own podcast? Is that cheating? Should I really be doing that?”
I’m here to tell you that there are a number of legit reasons why you would go back and listen to your own podcast episodes. Let’s talk about those first and then we’ll dive into why relistening to your own show isn’t always a great idea.
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1. Listen for Sound Quality (Magic Mastering)
What does your podcast sound like to your listeners?
Have you heard it in your car?
On your phone?
On a tablet?
On a smart device like Alexa or Hey Google?
In all of the ways a listener can hear your episodes?
I suggest doing this at the very least once a quarter. The reason? You want to know what your audience is experiencing! What if your audio sounds great when you listen to it on your software while editing, but it sounds like dog poo when someone listens to it in their car!
You want to know how your audience is hearing your sound quality.
So, I tag this as a valid reason to relisten to a podcast episode once it’s aired.
Another reason (within the reason) is that my audio – for this podcast – changes from my editing software (Hindenburg) after I upload it to Buzzsprout’s Magic Mastering feature!
What does that mean?
That means, my audio sounds good when I edit it. But after I run it through Magic Mastering…it sounds incredible! From time to time, I’ll listen to an episode to hear the difference in sound quality to make sure it’s still a feature I want to use and recommend to my community. And it does not disappoint.
Check out this article from Buzzsprout to learn more about Magic Mastering and how it works!
2. Finding a Great Clip for a Sound Bite
Now, if you’ve published your show and you’re sitting down (let’s say it’s the day that it airs), this would be a good time that you could go and find an audio clip that you can use to share on social media or wherever you would share a visual sound bite.
If you email it to your audience…
If you put it on your website…
If you put it on social media…
Whatever you do with it…
But trying to find a good audio clip would be another reason.
This is one of those things that I typically do in the production process. But I do wait until my episode has already aired because I want Magic Mastering applied to the audio that I’m going to use for my sound bite.
PRO TIP: If you use Buzzsprout (or Headliner) for your sound bites then I would wait until after Magic Mastering has been applied, and then do your audio clips because it’s going to sound a lot better. They do something in Magic Mastering that’s called true-peak volume.
Whenever I share a soundbite or a sound clip on Instagram and Facebook, it’s already at a decent level (meaning you don’t have to turn up the volume so loud).
Have you ever listened to a clip from someone else’s show and the volume is so low!?!
You have to crank up the volume on your phone or your computer. And then the next time you go to listen to something else, you’re like, “Oh my gosh! I’m bleeding from my ears because I didn’t have the volume up before!”
If you’re creating sound bites after it’s already been published, then I would do it once Magic Mastering has been applied if that’s something that you’re going to be using.
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3. Grabbing Quotables for Marketing
This is one of those things that could be a fantastic job for virtual assistant! You could have someone else listen to your episodes and look for those aha moments or key takeaways that you know your audience would really respond to on social media or wherever you’re posting quotables. You could also use these on your website! There are so many different things that you could do with quotables.
Grabbing these quotes to use for marketing purposes is a really good reason to go back and listen to your podcast episodes.
And if you’ve never done this before, you can absolutely go back to previous episodes and do this. I’m actually in the middle of getting ready for a launch coming up in September and I’m doing this with someone else’s podcast! I’m going through and grabbing quotables from her show.
Don’t worry…I’m absolutely going to source where this quotable came from and all the information (as you should if you do this for your own podcast or someone else’s)! But I’m going through and grabbing quotes that I think will be very useful to my audience.
And I’m going to put them on a sales page. I’m gonna put them on another promotional page. I can use it in emails.
Pro Tip: This is a quick marketing hack that you can use within your podcast promotional strategy: grabbing quotables from awesome takeaways, great points that you make within your show that you know your audience will relate to.
4. Create Amazing Show Notes
I want you to create amazing show notes. And I know most of you are like, “But show notes take so much time!” Again, this is something that you can hand off to a virtual assistant. If you have the ability and the budget to hand this task over, I absolutely think that you should!
Because once the audio is done, they could create a transcript, and then they could create awesome show notes from that transcript. They can format it, they can do all kinds of really cool things, but I definitely want you to go back and really listen to your show and create amazing show notes.
Here’s another episode I did about when to release your show notes that you might find helpful: Release a Blog and Podcast on the Same Day?
5. Make it Appear in Your GoodPods Feed
This is something I’ve seen other people try, but I put out so many podcast episodes that I don’t really know that I want to do this. However, if you publish a podcast episode once a week, I want you to do this.
I know I’ve been talking about Goodpods so much lately! For those of you who aren’t familiar, Goodpods is an app on your phone where you can listen to podcasts. It is my preferred podcast player now!
I don’t listen on Apple Podcasts.
I don’t listen on Spotify.
I don’t listen anywhere else.
I listen to podcast on Goodpods.
And the reason why I think that you should do this is that I want you to listen to your own episodes on Goodpods. I know you’re thinking, “Why? Why would I do that? What’s the point?”, right?
Because when you do that, your episode will appear in your newsfeed so other people can organically find your show. I’ll give you an example…
If I’m on Goodpods and I go to The Proffitt Podcast, I go to this episode, and I click on the episode to start playing it within the Goodpods app, it will show up in my newsfeed that I listened to this podcast!
And what’s really cool is Goodpods is on the rise. There’s not a ton of people there right now. It’s an app that is quickly becoming something really cool for podcasters, but it’s not overcrowded like Instagram or Facebook. Whenever you listen to podcast episodes, your show has the opportunity to get in front of other people – organically!
It really is worth checking out!
Questions to Ask Yourself Before Listening to Your Own Podcast Episodes
Okay, so now that we’ve talked about reasons you should go back and listen, there are also some reasons you should not go back and listen to your own podcast episodes. And I’m talking about going back and listening again and again after an episode is published.
This really has more to do with mindset.
If you find you’re someone who goes back and listens to every episode, multiple times, I want you to ask yourself:
-
Are you just looking for mistakes?
- Is that the only reason you’re going back to listen? Are you just being super hard on yourself and going back and trying to find mistakes in your own episodes?
- Please do not do this! You can go back and listen to all of my episodes and find all of my mistakes. I make them all the time, even within this episode.
- It’s okay to make mistakes. But I do not want you going back and being super hard on yourself -looking for all of your mistakes. It’s not healthy. I don’t think that it’s going to motivate you as a podcaster. It’s just going to bring you down.
- Just keep podcasting you’re going to get better and you won’t make as many mistakes.
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Are you second-guessing your content?
- This something a lot of new podcasters do. They’re like, “I’m just going to kind of put this out there. I hope that it works. I hope that it resonates with my audience. But I don’t know, let me go back and listen to it. Let me make sure….No, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I should have done it differently!… I should have done this. And I should have done that. And I just don’t know…I want to take it down.”
- Have you done that? Where you say, “I just want to take down this episode. It’s not good. I should have just not done it. I just don’t know. Let me listen to it again. Is this really that? Good? I just don’t know. I just don’t know…”
- Stop second-guessing yourself! Once you put it out there, it’s out there. Don’t take it down! Don’t mess with it! It’s there. Just get better. Just keep going, right? We say this all the time, “Keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.” We say it over and over and over again. Don’t second-guess yourself. Just keep going. That shouldn’t be the reason you go back and listen to your episodes.
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Are you trying to decide if you should add more content to an episode?
- If you’re listening to an already published podcast episode and you’re like, “Should I go back and re-record those other four thoughts that I had?”
- Nope! No, no, no, no! You shouldn’t do any of that. If that’s the reason you’re relistening to your podcast episodes…listen to me because what I want you to do instead is create another podcast episode.
- Instead of elongating an already existing episode, create a brand new one. This does a few things. It adds to your content calendar and gives you the ability to add a new episode. Plus, it makes the current episode that you have focused on that one topic. Then, create a new episode about the other topic that you want to add to it.
- If you realize you forgot one thing, create a new podcast episode and say, “Hey guys, I forgot to add this to the last episode. So let me reiterate the other points I made in the previous episode…and now I want to dive deeper into this one thing that I forgot.”
RECAP: Do You Listen to Your Podcast Episodes?
- Reasons You’d Listen to Your Podcast Episodes
- Listen for Sound Quality
- Find a Great Clip for a Sound Bite
- Grab Quotables for Marketing
- Create Amazing Show Notes
- Appear in Goodpods Newsfeed
- 3 Questions to Ask Yourself for Listening
- Are you looking for mistakes?
- Are you second-guessing your content?
- Are you trying to add more content?
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
- Magic Mastering from Buzzsprout
- Goodpods
- Release a Blog & Podcast on the Same Day?
- The Poddy Report
- 500+ Podcast Ideas for Any Industry
- Proffitt Podcast Online Community Facebook Group
- TheBestPodcastBook.com
- Facebook Group for Podcast Book Launch Team
- The Ultimate Podcast Checklist
- Proffitt Podcasting Course
- Podcast YouTube Channel
- 5-Day Podcast Bootcamp
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