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Having a set of processes and procedures to keep you and your podcast
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moving is an obvious success factor.
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But when those processes and procedures start to fail, can you adjust quickly?
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Not every experiment works.
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At least, not the way you wanted it to.
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Successfully deployed tactics sometimes have a shelf life and
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their effectiveness wanes over time.
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Best practices are often eroded by the winds of change.
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What you read in a book from last year was written the year before that,
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making that advice out of date well before it was even seen by your eyes.
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Now, I'm being a little disingenuous making these blanket statements
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because there are plenty of time-tested methodologies and truisms you can almost
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always count on, even in podcasting.
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But at some point, you're going to find that something you thought was
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a staple of your process is no longer delivering for you or for your show.
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And if you're like most podcasters, me included, you'll keep doing that
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thing, sure in your own conviction that it's the right thing to do and that
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whatever deficiencies you're currently experiencing are just a momentary blip.
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Soon enough, things will start to snap back to where they were before.
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Maybe, but maybe not.
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Look, it took me the better part of two years to recognize that my
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approach to Medium wasn't working.
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No, "wasn't working" isn't strong enough.
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It took me the better part of two years to recognize that my
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approach to Medium was stupid.
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See, two years ago, I was seduced by Medium's Partner Plan, a plan that,
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well, if not promised, then certainly intimated the possibility of fat
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stacks of cash I'd get by metering the articles I posted on Medium.
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Now, if you're unaware, I write an article for every single episode of Podcast
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Pontifications, an article that covers the exact things I said in the podcast
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episode, but expanded and reformatted for people to read instead of listened to.
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I post that article on my website.
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I mail that article to all of my subscribers to Podcast Pontifications In
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Your Inbox, which is a free service that I think you should totally sign up for.
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Just hit that big subscribe button on the show's website.
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Or there's also a link in the episode details of your listening app.
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And I also started posting that same article on Medium.
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Medium was, and perhaps still is, a preferred reading destination/platform
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for many people and lots of human curation takes place on the platform.
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Now, I've been a user of the service for several years now, both as a regular
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reader, as well as a content creator.
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And I knew that the content that I was writing would likely resonate
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with at least some of the audience.
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So I thought I'd try my hand at making the Medium content I posted premium.
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Well, that didn't work.
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I barely made enough money from that program each month to cover the cost
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of my own paying to be in the service.
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It didn't start working well, and then stopped working, by the
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way, never really worked for me.
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But I was caught up in the idea that it might work.
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And I was seeing my follower count on Medium rise rapidly through the program.
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But during that time, my coffers remained, let's call it, unlined with little more
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than a few dollars every month coming in.
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But for two years, I kept putting things under Medium's paywall.
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Until last weekend, when I finally suffered the multiple-hour pain of
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unmetering a few hundred stories, one story at a time, because, of
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course, there's no bulk editing tool to accomplish that task.
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So why did it take me so long to figure out that wasn't working?
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Momentum.
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I'll tell you about that.
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Momentum is typically something you want in a time intensive
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creative pursuit like podcasting.
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It's the lack of momentum, or at least the inability to quickly achieve momentum,
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that makes so many novice podcasters burnout after just a handful of episodes.
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And we need momentum in podcasting.
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We need that force pushing us or carrying us along.
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It may be hard for you to remember what it was like when you first started
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podcasting, but I assure you, it was incredibly hard for you to keep going
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after the initial excitement wore off.
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And here's the dirty little secret, the more podcasts you start from
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scratch during your career, the faster that initial excitement runs out.
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So you're going to start looking for momentum in your procedures and
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practices much quicker because that's the only way to keep you going.
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But momentum on its own can push you in a direction that is off the beaten path.
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Momentum doesn't recognize when the environment around it changes.
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Momentum is resistant to evidence that a tactic may not be working any longer.
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Momentum is what carries your car over the cliff when you fall asleep at the wheel.
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But, momentum doesn't have total control over you as a podcaster.
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You have agency.
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So you can pump the brakes or crank the wheel or take some other action
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when you find that momentum is working against you, or at least not
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working out like you wanted it to.
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The trick is having enough bandwidth and foresight to analyze the effectiveness of
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the momentum you've developed, analysis that isn't too quick to jump at the
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small fluctuations, but also doesn't take you two frigging years to figure
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out when something just isn't working.
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To do that, you have to know why you were doing as much as what you were doing.
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You have to know the difference between foundational tactics [and
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promotional tactics], processes that have results that are by their nature
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difficult to quantify, which can quickly show diminishing results.
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You know, it's very easy to conflate the two, promotional
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tactics and foundational tactics.
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It's very easy to conflate that even for seasoned pros like me.
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But with that, I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
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Cheers!
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Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
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He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
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Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
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section of your podcast listening app.
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A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
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podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
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transcript, both created by Allie Press.
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Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.
