Podcasting as a Marketing Tool | Get Fact Up #65

Andrew: G'day world. Andrew Groat and Chris Hogan coming to you live from the MeMedia Studios here at Burley Heads for, Get Fact Up! And today we're talking about?

Chris: Podcasting.

Andrew: Podcasting.

Chris: Podcasting as a marketing tool.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Chris: Or a content marketing tool, yeah.

Andrew: Are we podcasting?

Chris: We are podcasting right now. We're doing a podcast about podcasting.

Andrew: We are. We're more vodcasting, so video on demand casting.

Chris: Is that what it is?

Andrew: Yeah.

Chris: Oh, okay. Of course. Of course, it is!

Andrew: I actually don't know what "pod" means?

Chris: It's just from iPod, it's just stuck around since then.

Andrew: Excellent. Cool, let's get cracking on! So podcasting as a marketing tool is actually really effective and I think there's plenty of high profile entrepreneurs that have been alluding to podcasting as a great way to get out to your audience, and that audio is a great way to engage with your audience, especially during those down times that people have. Those mundane tasks that people have throughout their day.

Some of those might be driving to and from work, some of them might be walking to and from the post office, or while you're on lunch walking to and from the café, or sandwich shop where you're getting your sandwich. And the other ones are on the weekends, so mowing you know, I have to mow lawn so-

Chris: So you listen to a podcast as well.

Andrew: ... I listen to a podcast.

Chris: I mean, you can listen to a podcast while you're working, you can ... yeah, driving, driving's a big one yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, so some people I know that have pretty lack lustre jobs, actually do have a earpiece in one ear, and they're not that engaged with their work, it's packing boxes or something or other, and that's how they get through their day.

Chris: Yeah, and stuck on the train, there's heaps of times when-

Andrew: Exactly.

Chris: ... when you need something like that. The thing is, the reach of podcasting is huge at the moment. There's so many platforms out there that you have access to and everyone's looking for this sort of content. 

And it's strange, I was talking about this today, like the success of podcast, it's a little bit surprising when you think the format would've died out by now. But I think it's because it's so personal and endearing, and when someone's done it professionally, it really gives you a window into the people behind whatever industry you're talking about. What it's like to be in their shoes and their world. And you learn really vicariously through podcasts I think, so it's a cool format.

Andrew: Yeah, a lot of people that I listen to. So one of my good friends got me into listening to podcasts only a few years ago, and the first one I started listening to was Joe Rogan. Now, he's not for everybody, he swears a lot, and he's very opinionated on certain topics, but he'd get some really interesting cats on there, and they have great conversation and tell life stories that are just fascinating. Or they're researchers, they're authors, and they're sharing how they came to write about the book that they wrote, and man, there's some amazing stories that come through.

Chris: It's funny, because if you think about these podcasts, and you just feel like you're getting smarter listening to them, it doesn't matter what they're talking about. You're like, "These are smart people talking. I'm getting smarter listening to this." It's just how you, especially Joe Rogan, you feel that way about him, but most of the time he's just talking about crap. Like he's just, he's waffling on about stuff.

Andrew: He really is.

Chris: But you genuinely feel smarter listening to it.

Andrew: You do. You absolutely do. So some of the podcasts that I love is Joe Rogan, London Real was the next one that I think I got into, which is fantastic. Then there's Ben Greenfield's Fitness, which is awesome. Doctor Rhonda Patrick, she's a research scientist and goes heavily into nutrition and is big on mental health and how to improve mental health. Doctor Michael Greger, I'm not sure that he actually has a podcast, but he has appeared on many podcasts and he's also a researcher on nutrition.

I'm heavily into nutrition, I love nutrition, so I listen to a lot of those types of ones. But then there's the business ones like Tim Ferris, he's got a great podcast. He's always talking about optimising time and stuff like that, and the guests that he gets on, he's talking to them about how they made the best of their lives and stuff like that.

So I guess there's lots of different niches where people can actually plug into with podcasting. Like there's already heaps of podcasts out there worldwide.

Chris: Yeah, that's it. A lot of people might think, "There's so much there, is it saturated?" But it's not really.

Andrew: No.

Chris: The amount of people watching and listening to podcasts doesn't mean saturation, because if you got a unique podcast, you're not really competing with anyone else. If you have a really general podcast, then maybe you're gonna have problems. But yeah, if you have something unique, you're only really creating some space for yourself, and if you're committed to it, you're gonna get an audience, because what you're saying is gonna be interesting to someone.

Andrew: So let's get onto ... If you're not listening to podcasts and you're happen to be watching this video because you came to it via our YouTube or Facebook channel, then obviously, we are producing the video version, which I call vodcasting, and that's great.

But if you wanted to listen to the podcast, there's heaps of channels to do that on, and I think there's a whole world of discovery out there for you that you're gonna be totally blown away by, once you start tapping into those podcasting channels.

Chris: So yeah, I've put a couple of the big ones here. Like the obvious ones. I would say you don't want to be on all of them, just find one or two that work well. iTunes is the most obvious one, because you say, "Podcast," people just immediately think iTunes, so you kind of have to have a podcast on iTunes if you want to be in podcasting.

Andrew: Yeah.

Chris: It's not easy to get on. It's a bit of a weird service, so there's all these things that sort of facilitate getting onto iTunes. We can talk about that some other time.

Andrew: Yeah.

Chris: Stitcher. So only eight million registered users on Stitcher. It's by far the smallest, but it's only for podcasting, so if you have a podcast on Stitcher, the audience there is there to listen to a podcast, that's what they're hungry for. So if you want to be taken seriously, you should probably be on Stitcher. You got SoundCloud, which is sort of pitted as the "YouTube of audio." It's definitely the biggest audio streaming site.

Andrew: 175 million unique listeners, yeah right.

Chris: Yeah, there's a lot of features that are really good about it, like the inline commenting, and you could do a lot with the artwork, and there's messaging and things. My problem with SoundCloud, I've got personal issues with SoundCloud, because I used it for a while, they killed all of the community features. They pushed the pay too much, so they've really dampened their growth and they don't get taken quite so seriously now. It's good to be on though, it's good to be on. It's easy.

Andrew: And there have certainly been rumours about their financial difficulties as well.

Chris: Yeah.

Andrew: And potentially shutting down, so yeah.

Chris: Yeah, they're running a massive loss.

Andrew: Don't put too much effort into that one maybe.

Chris: It's there as an extra thing to be on, because it's not that hard. But the big one is YouTube, and I've put some stats here. You got 13 billion registered users.

Andrew: 1.3 billion.

Chris: 1.3 billion, yeah. There's a dot between those numbers, yeah.

Andrew: 1.3 billion, yeah.

Chris: Five billion videos viewed a day, so there's some serious reach and serious traffic happening on there. And out of all the platforms that we've spoken here, that's definitely the one to be on.

It's free, user base is huge, you don't need to be registered or even logged in to watch the videos. Like all the other ones, you have to have an account, so it's really, really accessible. And also, YouTube's owned by Google, so you're exposing yourself to search engines and stuff like that. Yeah, it's got the biggest-

Andrew: And just to touch on YouTube for a second, because most of you, we alluded to, "Hey, you're listening to something while doing a mundane task," whereas YouTube's a video platform and, "Well, I can't watch the video while I'm doing that mundane task like driving, or mowing."

But I actually do, so if I can't actually find the podcast that I want to listen to in iTunes, I'll actually start up the video on YouTube, and ... I've got an iPhone, so I don't lock my phone, because once you lock it, it turns the video off. So then, I just chuck it in my pocket and yeah, it gets a little bit warm, because it's using a lot of battery power and bandwidth, but so what?

Chris: ... But their answer to that is YouTube Red. YouTube Red's like the next version up. You don't get the ads and you can lock your phone while listening to it basically. So that's where they've turned it into an actual streaming service. Everyone's like, "I'm not paying for YouTube," well everyone pays for Sound, everyone pays for Spotify, everyone pays for iTunes and stuff, like that's not really that much of a jump there.

Andrew: Cool. So I mean, there's heaps of niches out there that are probably undiscovered that absolutely anyone could start up a podcast on. I think one of the biggest downfalls of podcasts is the fact that it does cost a little bit of money to get started, and it does cost money and time to keep operating, so absolutely we need sponsors.

So Joe Rogan, I feel, is probably one of the best examples for sponsors, and Tim Ferris. These guys, when they deliver a sponsorship message, it's always at the beginning, and they always do it from their own personal experience. So that-

Chris: That's right. It's in line with what they're doing and it's very honest as well. They're like-

Andrew: It's authentic.

Chris: ... "So here comes a sponsorship message." And it's always about stuff they use, like for us it's Rode, but we're literally using the Rode microphones right now, so what's the big deal saying, "We're sponsored by Rode?" Right in front of our faces right now, so.

Andrew: Exactly. So those guys, when they actually do deliver their messages, they're absolutely saying, "From personal experience I love this product because ..." And then they tell their own story. They put their own flavour in it, they put their own language in it and if they want to swear, that's what their audience wants.

Chris: Yeah.

Andrew: So I think, if you are gonna make the decision to embark on a project, make a decision whether or not you're gonna swear or not, who's your audience, and then match your product to fit that audience.

Hardware. Getting started, we want to just break into it really briefly. We've got some kit here that actually allows obviously the two of us to talk to one another in the same room. We can have up to four and I think even six people in the same room with the kit we've got, but most of you are probably gonna start out either on your own or with one other person.

So, let's just cover some of that gear.

Chris: So, you've got your Rode Podcaster Mics. They're good because they're USB powered, it can go straight into a phone if you don't want to have the whole mixing desk set up. Pretty cheap. How much are they, because we got a couple of those in there and they're like 160 or something like that?

Andrew: Oh, so the Podcaster Mic is different to what we've got here. It's actually a white version and these are the Rode Pro-Caster. The Podcaster will plug into a USB on a laptop, so that's really good if you're a one-man-band.

Chris: Yeah, it skips all the extra hardware and stuff.

Andrew: Absolutely. Then, if you do actually go to multiple mics, then you'll potentially need a mixer, or sorry, you will need a mixer. So there's different cabling and stuff. Not too hard to figure out once you've got the mixer, because obviously you just match that hole with that hole on the mixer. And one of those great mixers is a Yamaha.

Chris: Yeah, they're cheap.

Andrew: Yeah, they're pretty cheap. We've actually got a ... What do we got? A Zoom H-6, which is six channels, it allows up to six channels, but it's just a little bit more investment. So close to, I think, $700.

Chris: Well, the good thing about those is they're super portable. The idea of that is to be able to podcast anywhere and do live video and all that sort of stuff we do. Then the next step is if you want to go video, you're obviously gonna need a camera. So you start with the Sony Handycams, they're like 500 bucks each to 4K, they're great.

Andrew: Yeah.

Chris: Next one up is you got the Sony NX. I'll probably stick with Sony for this sort of stuff, but you got the Sony NX range, which is what we're using right now, but that's a bit of a jump up.

If you're gonna go with video, you also need lighting. Stick with LED lighting. It's cheap, super bright. It's what we use here. And then you got boom arms as well, which is, they're just handy to have. It's really good because you can manoeuvre around and things like that.

Andrew: They're Rode boom arms as well. They either clamp directly onto the desk or they actually give you a plugin if you want to drill a hole, you can fit them directly into the desk. There's heaps of videos on how to set up podcasting studios. Actually, Rodes got some good ones on their website. This is just meant to be, I guess, an introduction as to why we think it's good. Yeah, a little bit of kit, and get out there and have a crack I reckon.

Chris: So why would you do it? Honestly, it's one of the best forms of content marketing. It's why we're doing it. We're literally doing a 15, 20 minute video just showing our expertise in podcasting. It's a great way to showcase yourself in the industry, isn't it?

Andrew: It is. It is.

Chris: And people like listening to it. It's great. It's not often you get a captive audience and you get to showcase your skills.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Chris: I think that's where it's good, yeah.

Andrew: And of course, I mention it every time, if you do want MeMedia to help you with your podcasting, or vodcasting for that matter, we do have all the kit here, so absolutely you can hire this space, or hire us to even set you up. Why not? We can give you plenty of tips and tricks around actually doing that, because once you embark on the video space, then how many cameras are you gonna have? Then it's a matter of editing and all that sort of stuff. There is cheaper ways to do that, and we've spoken about that before, that's live video, yeah?

Chris: Yeah, for sure.

Andrew: We've spoken about that before, so go back and review that episode, it's really cool. I think that's all we got time for today? We're trying to keep it a bit short. Shorter? We won't even go into predictions. Let's keep it nice and neat. Thanks very much for watching Get Fact Up! Thanks very much Andrew.

Chris: No worries, thank you.

Andrew: And keep watching. We are on YouTube, Facebook and our website is memedia.com.au. Cheers.