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Podcast Planning For The Worst Day Of Your Life
Episode 3414th September 2021 • Podcast Pontifications • Evo Terra
00:00:00 00:12:28

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Unfortunately, the confidence one gains with podcasting bestows neither

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invulnerability nor immortality.

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When you're taken down - or perhaps out - do you have a good

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plan to inform your audience?

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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

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Ultimately, all of us will stop podcasting - you, me, everybody.

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On a long enough timescale, one day, our audience will never

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hear our voices ever again.

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Or, at least, we'll be unable to, for whatever reason, publish an episode

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the way we've published episodes for an extended period of time.

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We likely want to let people know what's up.

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How well are you prepared for that?

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And, no, this is not me trying to sell you life insurance.

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Just me helping you think about what you can do when the thing

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that you do, you can do no more.

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Now, broadly speaking, I think there are three approaches to how you

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can plan for this eventual reality.

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Number one, and for the majority of podcasters is do nothing.

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Do nothing because it's going to happen, and whatever it is that's happened

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that is keeping you from podcasting or keeping you from talking to your

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audience is likely keeping you from doing lots of other things as well.

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So for most podcasters, explaining their absence during this time of ultimate

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crisis is pretty low on the priority list, especially if you're podcasting

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as a hobby or a fun exploration of your creative side, or some other

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less-than-totally-serious prospect that got you into podcasting, which,

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again, describes most podcasters.

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The second option is do something.

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Maybe not everything, we'll talk about that in a minute.

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But first, do something because surely you can do better than doing nothing right?

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Now, the good news is because you are a podcaster odds are that you

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know at least one other podcaster.

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So in a time of extreme crisis, someone that you know really well who's also

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into podcasting could probably step up and post an update on your behalf.

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But that assumes one thing, you've actually done some planning and

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designated who that person is.

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Do they know how to publish an episode, even if it's just an episode

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of them explaining your situation?

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Do they know how to do that on your particular platform?

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We can all do it, but do we know the right way to do it?

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Do we have all the access and the codes?

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Of course, before that, that assumes that you've set some parameters with

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the regular people in your life, the non-podcasters, so they know how to

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contact the person you've designated as your Do Something Person on your podcast.

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Lots to do there, and that's just do something.

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The third way to approach this is do everything because there's several

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flaws in that do something plan.

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The biggest one being that you probably publish more than just

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an audio episode of your podcast.

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You publish more than that most likely.

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More to the point, there might be people who consume your published content

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who rarely listen to your podcast.

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Maybe they prefer to watch the videos that you publish on YouTube,

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whether they're full videos or clips.

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Who's going to post an update to YouTube if it's not an automatic

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publishing from your podcast?

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Maybe your audience only reads the articles that you create

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out of your podcast episodes.

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Who's going to update them?

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Who's going to write something and post that article?

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Perhaps they've only subscribed to your newsletter.

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Maybe they only read your reposts on Medium.

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Or maybe only your extended Twitter threads or whatever else that you do.

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How will those people be notified of this big, big problem?

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Now, if it sounds like I'm describing me and my process I guess

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I kind of am because I'm really well-connected to a lot of podcasters.

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So, yeah, my friends could step up and pick up a lot of the

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slack and get something published out there in lots of places.

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Also, I use a production assistant.

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Hi Allie!

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Allie could do a lot of what I do right here.

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Also, good news for me, a lot of what I do is automated.

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It pushes out notifications automatically when things publish.

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But that's not everything.

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A lot of my publishing processes are very manual, completely

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undocumented, and known only to me, locked up inside the gray matter.

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You might be in a similar situation.

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So what are my options?

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What are your options if you really want to keep everyone informed?

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Well, option one, obviously, is to make it documented, get it out of my head.

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I could write every single thing that I do down and put a

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solid What's Next plan in place.

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That seems like a logical thing that I should do.

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But am I going to do that?

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Honestly, I doubt it.

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I know that I should do that.

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But things that I should do, I want to do, and I will do, but there's things

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I should do that I never ever do, and I'm not so sure I probably will do this.

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Which means, chances are, I will fall back to number one and do nothing.

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If you don't hear from me for a while, maybe that's what's going on.

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I'm curious, what would you do?

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Do you have a good plan?

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Do you have a partner?

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Do you have somebody who can step up and take all of the slack?

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Because I don't, and I wonder what that means at some

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point, maybe I'll get better.

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I don't have any Boostagrams for you today.

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I do want to do one little correction.

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Yesterday, I mentioned that someone had donated on Breez.

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Well, that was Matt Madeiros from Castos.

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Breez just didn't send over his message.

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So thank you very much, Matt, for the sats and for the nice message.

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And if you received any value from today's episode, please consider

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returning some of that value.

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Lots of places to do that.

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Check out podcastpontifications.com/sponsor.

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Some excellent options right there.

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And on this cheery note of an episode, I shall be back tomorrow with yet

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another Podcast Pontifications.

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Cheers!

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Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo terror.

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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.