Here lies Jan Smith, wife of Thomas Smith, marble Cutter. This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work. Monuments of this same style are two hundred and fifty dollars.
–Gravestone Inscription
Now that I’ve finished up with the 30 days of NaPodPoMo and have time to work on promoting this show and “building a product,” I wonder if I even should. I know a lot of marketing types and, while I admire their persistence and fortitude, they aren’t the most fun people to have around at parties. A little bit of megalomania goes a long way.
I’m more of a shy person and while I want everyone to love me, I don’t want to work at it. And I don’t enjoy controversy and trolls–which begs the question why I even am attracted to podcasting and blogging.
So what should I do? Should I spend every waking moment promoting Flyswatter Show and trying to stop myself from slicing my wrists when inevitably few will even listen, which is the case of even the most famous podcasts, or should I just enjoy what I am doing and hope someone pokes their heads in once in a while? And another thing, if I don’t have an audience, why go to the trouble? Even my family members outside my husband and children don’t listen to this–I don’t think any one of them has ever listened to even a minute of anything I have ever done. And the husband and children only listen under duress!
Eh. Oh well. I posted the show on Podcast Alley and Podcast Pickle. We’ll see what comes of it, if anything.
I think what’s worked best for me is just connecting with other podcasters. Swapping promos, leaving comments. Stuff like that. Twitter has helped a little. Getting listed in all of the major directories can’t hurt. Beyond that? I have no idea. Shows that become popular seem to do it through word-of-mouth more than anything else. And it’s word-of-mouth from listeners, not podcasters. People who say to their friends, “This is cool. Check it out.” The liberal estimate for average audience size for Hyper Nonsense is around 150 listeners. Which isn’t bad. But it’s no New Media Empire, for sure. At the end of the day, you’ve got to do these kinds of things for yourself. Have fun. No real reason to do it, otherwise.
I’ve arguably had some success in podcasting in the past. At its height, Rocky Horror Pod Show had a download rate of about 3000 per episode, which wasn’t bad, but not a hit show by any means. It was almost entirely word-of-mouth, and there was nothing else like it at the time. It reactivated a long-dormant and much-missed internet radio show called Rocky Radio–for some reason they saw us as competition and got angry that we dared to do this, which was silly, and apparently they are still going strong, so that was a good thing as well.
Coffee and Tea Show never had much of an audience though. But it was a kind of half-assed show. Ah well.
I guess I better get cracking on making promos.
I do podcasting because it is fun for me. When it stops being fun, I will stop podcasting. How many listeners does Inside My Head have? I honestly have no idea. I rarely ever look at the “stats”, and often can’t really get a good understanding of all the numbers anyhow.
Just have fun.