Evo Terra:
Worrying about growth, new tech, and other podcasting distractions
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can cause you to forget that your audience is your audience, not a nameless pool that
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you have to fight for week after week.
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Lean into this.
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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So I'm not a big fan of the word authentic.
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On the one hand, it's often overused - goodness, is it overused - but on the
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other hand, it's often used incorrectly.
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I mean, what the heck does anyone mean by the words "Authentic American Food?"
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Right?
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But one place where I am okay with that word is when
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you're talking about yourself.
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You are authentic.
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Now, I'm rather incapable of being anything other than my authentic
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self for anything longer than, like, a dozen minutes, maybe I can fake
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it that long, but I just can't.
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So for those of you out there who can, by choice or perhaps are forced to
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by necessity, be someone you are not for hours on end, perhaps your day
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job, my sympathies, or my hats off to you, whichever it happens to be.
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I hope that whichever of those groups that you fall into, that you are able
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to at least let your podcast be a safe space for your authentic self to come out.
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I was listening to a conversation with Cameron Esposito at She Podcasts over
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the weekend, and they brought up a very interesting point that I jotted down.
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I knew I wanted to talk about it on the show.
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Cameron said this, this is my approximation of what was said.
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"Your audience is your audience.
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It's okay to talk about things that only your audience cares about.
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The masses don't matter."
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I think that's solid advice for any podcaster to remember.
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Your audience is your audience.
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And I think it's a way for podcasters, when they need to, to reconnect with
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your show and, in turn, your audience.
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I'm going to use a friend of mine, Suzy.
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She runs The Casual Birder Podcast, and she doesn't know I'm doing this.
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So if you're watching Suzy or listening, hi!
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I'm using your show as I work through this as an example because I don't
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want to talk about me all the time.
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Now, Suzy's show is exactly what it sounds like - it's a birding
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podcast, The Casual Birder.
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It's that singular thing that both she and her audience have in common for that show.
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And for Suzy, talking about birds is literally why the audience tunes in.
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She doesn't have to worry about anything other than that.
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She doesn't have to worry if she's talking too much about birds, it's
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literally in the title of her show.
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So with that, let's say Suzy starts to wonder, "What else can I do?"
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Maybe she engages some consultant who suggests that she, and you'll forgive
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the pun here, stretch her wings and talk about, maybe, exercise tips or travel
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so that maybe the show could reach a wider audience at some point in time.
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If that's the advice she's given, she can safely ignore that advice.
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If she wants to, that is.
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You don't have to ignore that advice.
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She can also take those ideas and think back to the idea that this is my audience.
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I want to take those ideas and refine them down to something highly specific
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just to the audience that she has, therefore doing her best to ensure
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that she still is talking about things that the audience still cares about.
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It's very easy to get caught up in the desire to grow your show.
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And yes, I think that growing a show is important to at least some
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degree growth of a show is important.
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How important is is very, very debatable, but if your quest for
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growing your show drives you too far away from your authentic self.
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That is self creating.
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If you will creating content for both you and for your audience, things that
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you care about, you may do just the opposite of that to thine own self.
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Be true.
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That's probably why your audience is listening in the first place.
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Let's do some booster games and get out of it.
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Now it's time for the boost to boost the boost booster Graham
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corner, Instagram corner.
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I don't know a thing about crypto.
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Thank you, Mr.
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Doug Berger from or using buy me a coffee.com/eva.
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He says, love those little note, change it around.
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Love these little nuggets of knowledge to help me be better at podcasting.
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Thank you, Doug.
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That's the whole thing about podcasts.
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Pontifications it's for serious broadcasters who want to get
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better at podcasting so we can make podcasting better.
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In fact, Doug and others out there, if you haven't yet signed
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up to be a member for free of the advancing podcasting committee.
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Which is a community filled with other podcasters who want to become
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better podcasters and therefore make all the podcasting better.
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Please do.
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So I encourage you highly.
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It's free to join.
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You'll get plenty of value out of the interactions with other people
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they're advancingpodcasting.xyz.
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That's it.
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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.
