Most of you probably know Joel and Josh as the co-hosts of Always Listening, formerly known as Pod on Pod. You may not know that these two have been part of two podcast networks and that’s why we asked them to come on this podcast.

They share their experiences with us, we talk about the different types of podcast networks and cover the numerous advantages and disadvantages to joining a podcast network.

The post Podcast Networks with Joel Sharpton and Josh Shirley – #25 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Podcasts will now be part of the Google Play/Google Music.
• The New Media Expo Virtual Ticket is now available.
• Season 2 of Serial is “exclusive?” to Pandora….or something.

Service of the Week

Tawny talks about Swipes, a task management app.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – The Longest Shortest Time
Nick – CBS All-Access
Corey – Overcast

The post So, where have we been lately? – #24 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

Interviews are a great way for you to help bring exposure to your podcast. If not done properly they could damage your reputation. On this episode of PGT, we offer up our best tips and techniques for recording quality, professional sounding interviews.

News

The Los Angeles Podcast Festival is coming up Sept 18-20th! There are around 40 podcasts involved in this year’s Los Angeles Podcast Festival. The list includes WTF With Marc Maron, With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus, Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler, Doug Loves Movies, and many more.

Tickets are available for either the live event or the live stream (for those who can’t make it to the event itself). You can buy a ticket for a specific day or a Weekend Festival Pass. Whatever fits your schedule. The live stream ticket is $25.00 for the entire three day event. All LA Podfest performances will take place at the Sofitel Los Angeles in Beverly Hills, California. Click Here for More Details.

SoundCloud Takedowns Trigger Massive Purge
Earlier this month, the company began a massive purge of files in response to takedown requests from the major record labels. These deletions don’t appear to have yet affected any podcasts hosted by SoundCloud. But it seems inevitable that this will happen.Click Here to Read More.

Nintendo Fires Employee For Appearing on a Podcast
Oops. Next time make sure you check with your employer first before you go on a random podcast as a guest. Do your homework! Click Here for More Details.

Interview Tips and Techniques We Use in our Podcasts

Who are some of the better interviewers in podcasting/radio that you enjoy hearing? When you’re interviewing someone, what is your goal going into the interview? What kind of preparation do you do leading into an interview? What kind of questions should you be asking? Most importantly though, to be a good interviewer you need to LISTEN.

Service of the Week

If you haven’t heard of it by now then you’re in for a real treat. The service is called Slack and it’s an online gathering place where you can have chats amongst teams, families, etc. Slack makes it easy to keep everything as documented as possible.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Coffee Break Spanish thanks to Always Listening Podcast
Corey – I’m Dying Here Podcast
Nick – Heads Up game app

The post Good Interview Tips – #23 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

We don’t have a lot of news to share on this episode, so we follow up with our conversation last episode about blab.im. As with any new service, there’s a lot to learn the first few weeks. On this episode, we share what we’ve learned and experienced.

Traditional media attention for your podcast

On last week’s episode, Nick talked about his plans to see media attention on International Podcast Day. We use this as an opportunity to share our experiences and opinions on seeking traditional media attention for our podcasts.

Service of the Week

If you’ve thought about getting t-shirts for your podcast, but don’t like the quality or prices of the online t-shirt shops like CafePress or TeeSpring, we’d suggest considering getting your tshirts through Go Van Gogh’s. Corey has Ivy Envy’s tshirts printed there and has nothing but good things to say about the quality and service.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Fear the Walking Dead
Corey – The QC STEP Podcast
Nick – Short Time Podcast with Mario Lopez

The post Traditional Media Attention For Your Podcast – #22 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Nick talks about a podcasting conference coming up, Podcast Mid-Atlantic. We share some details about the conference and discuss some of the unique and creative things they have planned.
• International Podcast Day is September 30th and on our episodes of PGT between now and then, we will share a tip on how to celebrate IPD and share the “good news” of podcasts.  This week, we suggest sharing this Ira Glass video on Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter for Podcasters

Trying to tackle Twitter in one sitting is a challenge, but it’s one we’re ready to take. Since we talked about Facebook last week, we talk about how our Twitter strategy is different than our Facebook. We cover several topics: Personal accounts vs. brand accounts, marketing vs. personal, promotion vs. conversation, use of hashtags, negativity on Twitter, etc.

We’d love to hear about your Twitter strategy. What works? What doesn’t work? What do you like and dislike about Twitter. Have you discovered unique or creative ways to engage your audience or grow your audience through Twitter. Record an audio clip and email it to [email protected]

Service of the Week

We’re talking about the hot new kid on the block, blab. We have given the service a try and share our experience. We also talk about how this service could be used by podcasters.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – The Truth
Corey – Trivial Warfare – Episode #30
Nick – Fiverr

The post Twitter for Podcasters – #21 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Nick attended Podcamp Pittsburgh and gives us a recap of the two-day event. The organizers have put many videos of the sessions on YouTube. Nick mentioned Chris Brogan’s presentation and you can watch it here.
• International Podcast Day is just over a month away and we’re already gearing up for the event.  International Podcast Day is a great opportunity to share podcasts with the people around you.  We haven’t figured it out exactly, but PGT will be celebrating IPD.  Stay tuned for information.
• Midroll has announced a premium podcasting plan, Howl Premium.  We discuss this model and the podcasts that will make their back catalogs available for $5/month.

Facebook for Podcasters

Using Facebook to promote your podcast and engage with your listeners can be a very exciting and productive thing, or it can be very frustrating. Each of the three of us have different experiences and results with Facebook and we share how we use the platform.

Tawny talks about using Facebook groups, Corey shares what has worked for him and why Ivy Envy has more engagement on Facebook, even though there’s more followers on Twitter and Nick expresses the frustration a lot of page owners feel, the lack of “reach”.

We share a few tips and tricks and we’d love to hear your what has and hasn’t worked for you. Record an audio clip and send it to [email protected]

Service of the Week

FreeImages.com is a great resource if you need stock images for your episode artwork or social images, but don’t want to pay for those images.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Strangers – The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read
Nick – America’s Next Weatherman
Corey – Trailer Park Boys Podcast

The post Facebook for Podcasters – #20 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

The details on Podcast Movement 2016 have been announced and it’s coming to Corey and Tawny’s backyard – Chicago, Illinois! They share a few travel tips for people coming into Chicago. We also share our idea of Podapalooza. We’d like to hear your opinions on this potential event.

We also talk about Podcasters’ Paradise Cruise, which is this November.

Podcast Movement 2015

We each deem PM15 a success and the bulk of this episode is spent evaluating and sharing our experiences. Podcasting conferences are always a great opportunity to connect with friends in the space and meet new people that we share this passion with.

What is typically a little more unknown is the caliber of keynotes and sessions and we share where this conference ranked compared to others we’ve been to.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Productivity Power Up
Corey – Platypus Houston
Nick – iClever FM Transmitter and iClever magnetic mount

The post Podcast Movement 2015 Wrap-up – #19 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Glenn Beck turned out to be a huge (yet polarizing) “get” for the Podcast Movement fellows and unfortunately, Beck had to cancel for health reasons.
• Upon hearing the news of Beck canceling, you might have been thinking “ANOTHER major speaker cancellation for a podcasting conference? WTF?!”  Well, that’s exactly what Podcast Movement’s response to the development was…WTF! Marc Maron!  Maron is one of the biggest names in podcasting and the dude just interviewed President Obama on his podcast and he is now scheduled to speak at Podcast Movement, 2015.

Podcast Movement

The three of us will be heading to Fort Worth, Texas for Podcast Movement and we dedicate almost this entire episode on the conference. We talk about which sessions and speakers we’re looking forward to the most, we share our opinions on the apparent quality of the sessions and we share some tips for first-timer podcast conference attendees.

App/Service of the Week

Nick shares how you can use the Bizzabo app to help you get the most out of Podcast Movement and other conferences.
Bizzabo on iOS
Bizzabo on Android

Picks of the Week

Tawny – DO IT Podcast (Addy Saucedo) – Episode 002 – Spreading a Generosity Philosophy (with Kim Trumbo)
Nick – Trivial Warfare Podcast
Corey – The Memory Palace – High Above Lake Michigan

The post Podcast Movement Preview – #18 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Podcast Movement is less than a month away! The three of us will be headed to Fort Worth, Texas at the end of the month and if you are too, we want to hang out.
• Nick shares exactly HOW popular President Obama’s conversation with Mark Maron was.
• Corey hates Stitcher.

Meet-up Tip

Corey was on the road with the family and while on the road, teamed up with another group of Cubs fans to host an Ivy Envy meet-up. He talks about the benefits of combining meet-ups with other communities.

Copyright Issues

The three of us are considered hobbyist podcasters, and we each have made changes with how we use copyrighted materials. Some of our changes were forced and some were precautionary moves. We talk about the different types of copyrighted materials you could knowingly or unknowingly be using on your podcast and we talk about how to avoid some of these issues.

Nick was actually served a cease-and-desist letter by the NFL and he shares how extreme their interpretation of copyrights is. If you want to avoid messy situations later, this would be a good episode to listen to.

Service of the Week

A number of episodes ago, Corey talked about how he was going to use Bossjock for his daily podcast. He talks about how he has adapted to the service and what he likes/dislikes about Bossjock.

Picks of the Week:

Tawny: The Truth: Remember the Baby
Corey: Vegetarian Zen #106
Nick: Podcast Junkies

The post Podcasting Copyright Issues – #17 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• We discussed our thoughts on Marc Maron’s interview with President Barack Obama. The episode was published on Monday, June 22 and can be heard at potus.wtfpod.com
• Podcamp Pittsburgh tickets are on sale. The event will take place August 15-16 in Pittsburgh, PA. PGT community members Krystal O’Connor and Michael Sorg are part of the Podcamp’s organizing committee!
• For the first time in six years, National Public Radio, better known as NPR, is on track to break even financially thanks in part to the rising popularity of podcasts.

There is no right or wrong way to edit podcasts. Sure, there are some standards we should hold ourselves to, particularly -16 LUFS for loudness. But there really is no right or wrong way to do things. Many of you are using software like Audacity because you’re on a shoestring budget. Maybe you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber and you lose to edit your shows in Audition. Or better yet, maybe something even more advanced like Pro Tools? Garageband if you’re on a Mac? There are many different brands of software that allow you to produce your shows spectacularly.

The reason I invited Rem and Jason on is because they each have different ways of doing things with their shows. Jason is more of a the less time I’ve got to edit the better kind of guy. It also helps that his content for the most part can be time sensitive. So the minutes are precious. Rem on the other hand is covering movies that have been release for quite some time. It’s very important that his audio quality stands out with what he’s doing. Each achieve great audio quality in different ways for the shows that they’re producing.

App/Service of the Week

This week’s service of the week is the Adobe Creative Cloud. The biggest reason this is our service of the week is because last week they released their 2015 version of the cloud and the associated applications! Apps like Photoshop, Audition, and Premiere Pro all got updated to the 2015 version.

Picks of the Week

Rem: Anker Astro E5 16000mAh Portable Charger External Battery Power Bank
Jason: Grumpy Old Geeks, < Nick: Rockit by Extrasensory Devices – This device let’s you do a mix-minus using an iPad and Facetime.

The post Audio Editing – #16 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Registration is now open for New Media Expo 2016. The conference will take place April 18-21 in Las Vegas. Registration is now open and if you’re planning on attending the conference, now is the time to get your tickets.
• Podcast Movement is just a month and a half away and they continue to announce speakers.  The three of us will be attending Podcast Movement and we’d like to do some sort of PGT meet-up.  Stay tuned for details.

When we started this podcast in the winter, we knew that the months of May, June and July were going to be tough. The three of us coach 4 kids sports teams, our kids are involved in other spring activities, we have family vacations and the months are just hectic. We thought we’d be able to just roll with it and find time in our schedules to record PGT episodes. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

So on this episode, we talk about the idea of releasing episodes on a consistent basis. We talk about how important we think it is as podcast listers and in the role as podcast producers.

We also share a few tips on muscling through periods in your life when finding time to get behind the microphone is difficult.

App of the Week

This week’s app of the week is WordSwag. Wordswag is one of the apps that Tawny and Beth discussed in their Podcast Midwest presentation. This is another app that allows you to create stimulating images without Photoshop skills. Wordswag steps things up and allows you to do a few more things than some of the other options, though.

Picks of the Week

Tawny: Podcasters Roundtable #52, Spotify Happy Hipster Playlist
Corey: 11/22/63 (affiliate link), The Audacity to Podcast #222 – The Future of Podcasting, The Gimp Show #30
Nick: Grace and Frankie

The post Podcast Consistency – #15 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• On last week’s episode, we talked about Spotify adding podcasting to their service.  This week, it was announced that Libsyn and Spotify have partnered in this endeavor.
• Podcast Movement makes a huge announcement: Glenn Beck will be keynoting at their conference this summer in Ft. Worth, Texas.  The response to this announcement was very mixed and we share our opinions on Mr. Beck’s involvement with the conference.
• On this episode, we also share that the three of us will be attending Podcast Movement.  We’re very excited because this conference has lined up top notch speakers and you know the networking will be incredible.

Listener Feedback

Joel from Me and the Geek and Pod on Pod talks about how he’s using Overcast.

Patreon

Nick and Corey use Patreon to help fund their podcasts and that’s what we’re talking about this week. We’ll talk about what Patreon is and how we set our Patreon campaigns up as far as levels and perks. We share how we present our Patreon campaigns to our listeners and encourage them to support the podcast. Then, we talk about how our podcasts have benefitted from the Patreon campaign and how we’ve been able to improve our podcasts through this support.

We’ve love to hear your thoughts on Patreon or how you are using the service. You can email your audio clips to [email protected]

App/Service of the Week

On this episode, Tawny talks about one of the services she and Beth will feature in their Podcast Midwest presentation this weekend, Canva. Tawny explains Canva and how you can use it to create engaging images for your podcast.

Picks of the Week

Tawny: Nerdette Podcast – Cards Against Humanity episode
Corey: Drake Shake and The Grapes of Rad
Nick: Turn

The post Monetizing with Patreon – #14 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

Spotify is jumping into the podcast game, apparently to compete with iTunes and their new music streaming service. The three of us use Spotify and talk about what this means as a Spotify user and also as a podcasters.

Listener Feedback

We have a few pieces of voicemail to play. These both slipped through the cracks. Gary from KiwiMana Podcast (a beekeeping podcast from New Zealand) calls in to talk about feedback from listeners and how how they use that feedback with their show. Jeffrey K Holbrook from Daggers of the Mind agrees with Dave Jackson that Tawny is the PGT secret sauce, and then he gives us a nice audio bumper to use.

Stats

One of the dirty words for podcasters is podcasting stats. The three of us talk about our philosophies with statistics. We talk about what stats services we use, how often we look at stats and what we do with the data.

Derek from Gotham TV Podcast and Defenders TV Podcast talks about some of the issues he has with stats for his podcast.

Troy from Packers Fan Podcast, The Blacklist Exposed Podcast and Under the Dome Radio and has an interesting strategy with stats and we decide to try his strategy with this episode.

Service of the Week

Tawny provides us with a service of the week on this episode and it’s Prezi. Prezi is a visually stimulating alternative to PowerPoint or Keynote. Corey uses Prezi quite a bit for work. If you’d like to see a Prezi in action, check out this video that Corey did, teaching high school students how to fill out tax forms for their first job.

Corey and Tawny will both be using Prezi for their presentations at Podcast Midwest.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Voice Over Journey Podcast
Corey – The Truth: Can you help me find my mom?
Nick – Profitcast

The post Podcasting Stats – #13 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Soundcloud opens it’s podcasting features to everyone. You can find the TechCrunch article here. We talk about what this means for podcasters. Neither of us use Soundcloud, but we talk about how other podcasters in the PGT G+ Community use the service.
• Podcast Midwest is just a few weeks away. This one-day, single-track event is in Chicago on May 23^rd. Tawny and Corey will both be presenting at this conference. If you’d like to attend, use the promo code “IvyEnvy” to get $30 off registration.
• Nick shares that he recently heard about a Podcamp event that is supposedly taking place in Canton, Ohio. However, he hasn’t be able to find ANY information on the event. We use this opportunity to share Addy Saucedo’s Podcasters Unite directory. If you’d like to learn about the online and offline events that might just be happening near you, check it out.

Recording Your Podcast On-Location

Doing a public recording of your podcast with a live audience can be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. In this discussion, we talk about the reasons that podcasters might want to consider doing one of these recordings.

The three of us have each done them for our podcast, Nick as recently as last week. We share our experiences, as well as tips for doing them. If you’d like to read a blog post Corey wrote on this topic, you can read it here: 8 Tips for a Successful Public Podcast Recording.

App/Service of the Week

This week’s app of the week is the Ivy Envy iOS app through Libsyn. Corey talks about the app and how thrilled he is about the app and it’s features. We talk about the different ways you can use a Libsyn app with your audience.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Quantum Leap: The Impossible Dream
Corey – Left, Right and Center
Nick – Health app on iOS

Next Week’s Episode

Next week, we’ll be talking about stats. That’s a pretty broad topic. If you have any thoughts on stats, or if you have any thoughts about any of the topics we discussed on this episode, we’d love your feedback. Email us your audio clips – [email protected]

The post Recording Your Podcast on Location – #12 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News:

Serial won a Peabody Award! This is the first time a podcast has won this award and this is probably the most notable award a podcast has ever won. We talk about how this lends podcasting more credibility in the eyes of traditional media and the public.

Norway will shut down FM in 2017. The way that people consume audio is different and people are becoming more familiar with digital audio and streaming audio.

Podcast Midwest recently announced two new speakers – co-host of this podcast, Tawny Fineran and her Mommy’s Cocktail Hour co-host, Beth Round. Tawny shares what she and Beth will be presenting at the conference. If you’re in the Midwest or would like to travel to Chicago, Corey is also presenting at Podcast Midwest and we’d love to hang out with you. Use the promo codes “IvyEnvy” or “Cocktail” to save $30 on your ticket.

Audio Quality

Because we’re dealing with an audio format, audio quality is a topic that is discussed at great lengths by podcasters. Many of us go to great lengths to hone in on the best quality audio we can produce. Other podcasters don’t find audio quality as important. On this episode, we welcome in Rem Lavictoire from the Sci Fi Movie Podcast. Rem and his co-hosts record triple-enders and Rem champions good audio quality. In this discussion, Rem tells a very entertaining story about how far he will go to make his podcast sound as good as possible. Ever heard of a time-shifted conversation?!

We also talk about how audio quality can be secondary to content. Listeners probably don’t expect the audio quality that most podcasters expect from themselves.

App/Service of the Week

Jason Bryant from Mat Talk Online makes his second straight PGT episode appearance. On last week’s episode that was recorded on the expo floor at New Media Expo, Jason talked about Clammr. We invited Jason back on to talk about this service and how we can use it to promote our podcasts.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – 100 Words or Less: The Podcast (Episode 153 with Jim Adkins)
Corey – Grammar Girl

If you have any thoughts or opinions on audio quality, we’d love to hear from you. You can email your audio clips to [email protected]
If you haven’t joined our Google+ community, do it! Podcasters Group Therapy Google+

The post Audio Quality – #11 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

Picks of the Week

Nick – Buy the Virtual Ticket from NMX
Corey – True Story

Next Week’s Episode

We’ll record the next episode of PGT next week on April 28th. Stay tuned to our Google+ Community to find out what exactly we’ll be covering!

The post PGT Live from NMX – #10 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

Episode #10 of PGT will be recorded at New Media Expo, whether it’s on Podcast Alley or in the corner somewhere. Nick and Corey will be at NMX and if you’d like to join them for episode #10, follow them on Twitter for more information. @NickSeuberling and @CoreyFineran are their Twitter handles.

Podcast Reviews

Reviews for your podcast are beneficial for a few reasons.

• They improve your visibility in the rankings in the different podcast directories, like iTunes.
• They improve your credibility.  If someone is searching a certain topic in a podcast directory, one with more reviews will appear more credible.
• They make us “feel so good.”

In this conversation, we discuss these ideas and share our strategies for encouraging listeners to leave us reviews. Tawny talks about an iTunes review campaign that Mommy’s Cocktail Hour did, and the events that led to that campaign.

We also get into negative reviews. The three of us have each received negative reviews, sometimes complaints with the podcast and someone personal attacks on individual hosts. We talk about how we have handled these in the past and what we’ve learned from them.

App/Service of the Week

Since we are discussing reviews, Corey talks about a fantastic service that collects your reviews and delivers them to your email inbox once a week. My Podcast Reviews is a service developed by Daniel J Lewis from The Audacity to Podcast. This is an affordable and easy way to see what your listeners are saying about you. Corey has an affiliate link for the service – My Podcast Reviews

Nick talks about the TuneIn app. This is another place that people might find your podcast, but TuneIn does not pull from iTunes. If you’d like to be listed in the TuneIn app, you will need to submit your podcast to them and Nick explains how to do that.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Satellite Sisters
Nick – Best of Friends Podcast
Corey – Kasper Hauser Podcast

Next Week’s Episode

As mentioned, Episode #10 of Podcasters Group Therapy will be recorded at New Media Expo in Las Vegas next week. If you’re going to be at the conference, we’d love to talk podcasting with you on the episode.

The post Podcast Reviews – #9 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

Regional one-day podcasting conferences are starting to pop up, and the group responsible for most of them is the Podcast Movement guys, Jared Easley and Dan Franks.

• Podcast Midwest was recently announced.  This will be taking place in Chicago, Illinois on May 23^rd, 2015.  Jared and Dan will be hosting the event and a few speakers have been announced: Colt Cabana, Vernon Foster and co-host of this podcast, Corey Fineran.  Early-bird tickets are now on sale at the website.
• Podcamp Western Massachusetts is scheduled for April 25, 2015.
• There will be other regional podcast conferences announced and when they are, we’ll share them here on Podcasters Group Therapy.

Podcasting Influences

For the main portion of this week’s episode, we’re talking about the people that have influenced as podcasters. We are grateful that Dave Jackson took time out of his busy schedule to discuss this topic. We each share our podcasting influences and we play a listener clip that Bob Zerull from the I Hate Critics Podcast.

With New Media Expo just a few weeks away, we use this opportunity to talk about the conference with Dave, who is the Director of Podcasting for NMX. He highlights a few of the sessions in the Podcasting Track that you will not want to miss. He also gives some tips to people that will be attending the conference for the first time.

App/Service of the Week

We’re not talking about Meerkat! But, we’re talking about Periscope, which is Meerkat’s competitor. Nick and Corey both game Periscope a couple of test-runs and had some issues. We share our thoughts on Periscope and hope to never talk about Twitter video streaming apps again.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – One Bad Mother Podcast
Nick – About Sports Radio
Corey – The Houston Baseball Coach Podcast

On Next Week’s Episode

Next week, we’re talking about listener reviews. Why would a podcast want them? How do you get your listeners to leave you reviews? What do you do when you get a bad review? We’ll cover all of these topics and more, next week. Have you found creative ways to encourage listeners to leave you reviews? Have you received a bad review? How did you handle it? We’d like to hear from you. You can send us an audio clip to [email protected] or you can call our voicemail line – (309) 517-0624.

PGT on Google+

The next Podcasters Group Therapy Hangout session is Monday, April 6^th. Join our Google+ Community to participate. Let’s hang out and talk podcasting.

The post Podcasting Influences – #8 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News

• Corey talks about his trip to Arizona (and Colorado) on behalf of his podcast, Ivy Envy. He talks about using Meerkat to conduct a Reddit AMA style session. He and his co-host Andy Round also had the opportunity to serve as audio engineers for the Cubs radio broadcast for a game and he talks about how that came about.
• The Podcast Awards voting is over!!!
• New Media Expo is just a few weeks away.  Nick and Corey will be presenting at NMX and tell you what they will be presenting on and when you can attend those sessions.

Hosting Meet-ups for your Podcast

Ivy Envy’s recent meet-up at Spring Training.

We also look at some of the concerns a podcaster might have about hosting a meet-up and address some of the things that might be holding podcasters back. What if nobody shows up? Well, we talk about that. Meet-ups also don’t have to be a big production. We talk about keeping it simple and really focusing on the benefit of hosting meet-ups for your podcast.

App/Service of the Week

This week, Tawny talks about A Beautiful Mess, which is available on iOS and Android. This is a really powerful image editing app that will allow you to create impactful images for your podcast. If you don’t have Photoshop skills, A Beautiful Mess allows you to do create brand consistency with your images. Check the app out and if you’d like to see how Tawny’s podcast, Mommy’s Cocktail Hour uses it, check out their Instagram – @MommysCocktailHour.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Simple Life Together
Nick – Wirecast
Corey – The World of Phil Hendrie

Next Week’s Episode

Next week, we will be talking about podcasting influences. We’re going to share who helped shape us as podcasters. We’d love to hear who your podcasting influences are. Record an audio clip and send it to [email protected] or call our voicemail line – (309) 517-0624.

The post Hosting Meet-Ups for Your Podcast – #7 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

News:

• Voting for the 10^th Annual Podcast Awards continues. There are several podcasts in our Google+ Community. Please consider including the podcasts from our group in your ballot. Podcast Awards voting continues through March 24^th. We’re hoping to see SEVERAL of the Google+ community members take the stage in Las Vegas in April as winners in their respective categories.
• Looking back at Episode 5 of PGT we talked about Podcast Avatars and John Bukenas from our Google+ Community was kind enough to send us this avatar.
  
  “The avatar for this podcast is Brad. Brad is a 35 yr old dude. He’s married or divorced with children. Brad is looking for a new hobby or interest that fits his lifestyle change from single guy to married man with children. He works a white collar job in the technology field. Brad is just starting his career or has been promoted to middle management. Brad started listening to podcasts and decided he could be a podcaster. Brad is as interested in the technology of Podcasting as the finish product. Brad loves to talk podcasting but has no one in his personal circles of friends and family share his podcast interest.”
  

Video Podcasting

Ray Ortega got his START in podcasting as a video podcaster which is not something you see very often from podcasters. Why is this? Well, to be honest video podcasting is very involved and takes longer to produce. Usually for every hour of audio that you record you have approximately another hour of editing/producing. With video, for every hour of video you produce you can expect to spend an additional 4-5 hours of production in order to make your video really stand out.

The other factors behind video podcasting that really limit you is the fact that hosting your large video files isn’t cheap. Sure you can try to host your file on free sites like Archive.org but it could take you hours just to get that file uploaded. Then who knows how long that file will stay around on their servers.

Youtube is a great place to be found for video podcasters, however, Youtube is NOT a video podcast host. You can upload your videos there but there is no way to put your video into an RSS feed. There are ways to use Youtube to promote your show whether you’re producing audio OR video.

App/Service of The Week

We talk about using Google+ Hangouts on Air to live stream our different shows. Are you using Hangouts on Air to live stream your shows? What challenges did you face when you first started recording live broadcasts?

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Vegetarian Zen
Ray – Meerkat
Nick – Couple Things Podcast

Next Week’s Episode

On next week’s episode, Corey will be back to tell us all about the awesome thing’s he’s been able to do in Arizona, all because of his Ivy Envy podcast.

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News:

• Voting for the 10^th Annual Podcast Awards continues. There are several podcasts in our Google+ Community. Please consider including the podcasts from our group in your ballot. Podcast Awards voting continues through March 24^th. We’re hoping to see SEVERAL of the Google+ community members take the stage in Las Vegas in April as winners in their respective categories.
• Corey was a judge for a category with the Podcast Awards and talks about how podcasts were judged. A surprising number of podcasts were lacking things like: visible RSS feed, visible iTunes link, ways to contact the host, etc. If you are focused on audio content, it’s easy to forget that your website might need updated or might be lacking certain things. If you were not a finalist in the Podcast Awards, you’ll hear what the podcasts were judged on and you can get your website in order for next year’s Podcast Awards.

Your Podcast’s Avatar

We heard Jeff Brown on Dave Jackson’s School of Podcasting last week. While determining what our topic would be this week, we found ourselves discussing one of the topics that Jeff talked about on that episode with Dave, your podcast avatar.

Jeff explains this idea of developing an avatar for your audience and using that fictional individual to base decisions on your podcast and the content you produce. Creating your podcast avatar isn’t something you HAVE to do before you launch your podcast, but it should be considered. Jeff also talks about using singular language and connecting with your audience by making them feel like you are speaking directly to them.

We then talk about what we feel is our individual podcasts’ avatars and we attempt (notice I said attempt) to create an avatar for THIS podcast.

App/Service of The Week

Nick talks about using Adobe Audition to achieve the loudness standard of -16 LUFS. We talk about this idea and Nick refers back to this video by Mike Russell of Music Radio Creative.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – She Podcasts
Corey – I Hate Critics interview with Diamond Dallas Page
Nick’s anti-pick is Meerkat

Next Week’s Episode

On next week’s episode, we’ll be joined by Ray Ortega from The Podcasters Studio and Podcasters Roundtable. We’re going to talk about video production with your podcast and if you’re talking video, there’s no better podcaster to talk with than Ray. If you do your podcast in video or have found creative ways to enhance your podcast or brand with audio, we’d love to hear about it. You can email us audio clips – [email protected]. Also, if you have any questions you’d like us to ask Ray, send those over too!

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The News in Podcasting

• Podcasters in our Google+ Community have 10 podcasts that are finalists in the 10th Annual Podcast Awards.
  
  BEST PRODUCED
  ONCE Podcast – hosted by Daniel J. Lewis, edited by John Bukenas, Noodle.Mx Network

  BUSINESS
  Beyond the To-Do List Daniel J. Lewis, Noodle.Mx Network

  GENERAL
  The Productive Woman Daniel J. Lewis, edited by John Bukenas, Noodle.Mx Network

  MOVIES/FILM
  Sci Fi Movie Podcast – Remi Lavictoire and Tim Allen

  POLITICS
  Congressional Dish – Jen Briney

  RELIGION
  Are You Just Watching – Daniel J. Lewis, Noodle.Mx Network

  SPORTS
  Ivy Envy – Corey Fineran, Relentless Podcast Network
  Inside the Jungle – Nick Seuberling, SPNT Podcast Network

  TECH
  The Audacity to Podcast – Daniel J. Lewis, edited by John Bukenas, Noodle.MX Network
  The Waves of Tech – Dave Lee and Steve Lee, Netcast Studio

• There has been some recent news about the future of G+ and we discuss the impact this could have on podcasters.  We focus on G+ Communities (since that’s where this group is based) and Hangouts/Hangouts On Air, since a lot of podcasters use that service to record with hosts in other locations and to live broadcast.
• We have a ticket to New Media Expo to give away!  To enter to win this ticket, we’d like to hear you finish the following statement: “I love podcasting because…”  You can submit your entries in audio or email form.  Email [email protected].  The cut-off for entries is 11:59pm Eastern on Monday, March 9^th.  Last week we talked about NMX and now we’d like to get you in the door!

Breaking Podcasting Rules

Podcasting is a medium that allows for a lot of creativity. When you decide you want to podcast and buy your domain, hosting or microphone, you aren’t delivered a podcasting rule book. The idea of this episode is that we want to talk about the things that we do that fly in the face of the podcasting experts and the conventional wisdom.

Tawny – Swearing and Sound Quality.
Nick – Self Hosting his audio
Corey – No Mailing List. Condenser Microphones. Use of Licensed Music.

We also have some great feedback from podcasters in our Google+ community that talk about how they do their own thing. Albie Burdge from The Quantum Leap Podcast tells us why he compresses his audio at a higher quality than most experts would suggest. He also explains that his podcast episodes are significantly longer than conventional wisdom tells us episodes should be.

Bob Zerull from I Hate Critics Podcast does his own thing by not niching down. He also calls podcasting “punk rock” because you can do your own thing.

Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting talks about a unique interviewing style he has that would probably go against any professional opinions on how to conduct interviews.

JD Sutter from Porchlight Family Media shares that he does his own thing by not adhering to a weekly schedule, but instead releases podcast episodes once a month.

App/Service of the Week

This week, Corey talks about Meerkat which allows you to stream live video from your phone to Twitter. Simply open the app and click “Stream” and your Twitter followers will be notified that you are live broadcasting. Viewers can ask questions that are displayed on your screen. When you end the broadcast, you are able to save your video, but the video is not available to the public unless you post it on YouTube, your website or any other location.

This is a really interesting way to connect with your audience. The three of us talk about how we might use Meerkat with our podcasts.

Picks of the Week

Nick – Comments on his statement last week about “podcasting” on Soundcloud with no RSS feed.
Tawny – Invisibilia, especially the “How to Become Batman” episode.
Corey – Pod on Pod

Next Week on Podcasters Group Therapy

On the 5^th episode of Podcasters Group Therapy, we’re going to be talking about our podcasts’ avatars. We’re also going to workshop during this episode and try to create an avatar for this podcast. We want to hear about your podcast’s avatar. Do you have one? How did you decide what your podcast’s avatar is? After our discussion on this episode about doing your own thing, do you NEED an avatar for your podcast? We want to hear from you, send your audio clips to [email protected].

The post Breaking Podcasting Rules – #4 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

The News in Podcasting

• Stitcher Smart Radio is experiencing some updating issues. If your podcast is on Stitcher, you probably received an email from them to let you know updates were moving slowly. Corey shares his experience and explains why Ivy Envy not being updated in Stitcher is a very big deal for his show and his listeners. We also use this opportunity to each discuss our podcast’s audience on Stitcher.
• The finalists for the 10th Annual Podcast Awards are to be announced this upcoming Sunday, March 1^st at 9pm Eastern. We decided that it’d be fun to do a G+ Hangout for our Podcasters Group Therapy Google+ Community during the announcements. If you have not yet joined our G+ Community, do so to participate in this Podcast Awards Hangout and our PGT Sessions, which we do every other Monday night. The next PGT Session will be on Monday, March 9^th.

Conferences for Podcasters

New Media Expo 2015 (Las Vegas, Nevada) is coming up soon and Podcast Movement (Fort Worth, Texas) is announcing speakers every couple of days. In this episode, we describe these conferences. We talk about the sessions, the networking during the conference and the evening networking events.

Most podcasters are doing this as a hobby and/or on a budget and if you’re in that boat, we do our best to explain the differences between the two conferences and describe what kind of podcaster each conference seems to be geared toward.

App/Service of the Week

On this week’s episode, we talk about some of the different apps that exist for listening to podcasts. Nick and Corey are both using Pocketcasts by Shifty Jelly. Tawny moves around a bit more with her listening apps. She talks about Stitcher, Pocketcasts and the iOS Podcasts app. We also talk about other services like TuneIn.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – Ivy Envy Podcast: Baseball Card Episode – 6.59
Nick uses this opportunity to talk about people who use the term “podcast”, but their show lacks something very essential to the term, an RSS feed.
Corey – Effectively Wild Podcast. This is a baseball podcast that discusses the game with an advanced statistics slant. On Friday’s episode, the hosts shared the news that an Independent League baseball team, the Sonoma Stompers, have asked them to run the team’s front office for the 2015, implementing the concepts they discuss on their podcast. We believe this is the first instance of a podcast being given the keys to ownership of an entity.

Listener Feedback

John Bukenas shares his “Holy Crap!” moment with us. John is “currently podfading” at Let’s Reverse Obesity. We also get a “Holy Crap!” moment from Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting. Both of these “Holy Crap!” moments have to do with listener feedback, and I think all of us get that feeling whenever we hear from our listeners.

Next Week on Podcasters Group Therapy

Next week’s episode will be entitled “Doing Your Own Thing”. The idea behind this is that you don’t have to do what the professionals tell you. We will share instances from our podcasts and podcasting journeys when we have bucked the conventional wisdom. We’d love to hear about the things you do with your podcast that go against the podcasting conventional wisdom. Send your audio clips to [email protected]

Follow Nick on Twitter – @NickSeuberling
Follow Corey on Twitter – @CoreyFineran
Follow Tawny on Twitter – @tawny_lynne

Join the Podcasters Group Therapy Google+ Group

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The News in Podcasting

In the news portion of this episode, we talk about the announcement of The Academy of Podcasters Awards. The Academy of Podcasters Awards is presented by Podcast Movement and Stitcher. The ceremony for these awards will be held in Fort Worth, Texas on July 31^st, the night before Podcast Movement starts. We talk about both the Podcast Awards and The Academy of Podcasters Awards, comparing the two and discussing the difference between these two awards.

Podcasting Workflows

Each of us have a different podcasting workflow, which we define as topic development to socially sharing the episode. We cover everything from 5 minute episodes recorded entirely on BossJock and don’t have show-notes to regular long-form 45-60 minute episodes to video podcast production. We also each explain how we include co-hosts in the recording. Two of our podcasts also involve live broadcasts and we describe that set-up, too.

We’d love to hear what your podcasting workflow is? What services and equipment do you use to produce your episodes?

App/Service of the Week

This week, Corey talks about Twitter Analytics. Twitter Analytics is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your Twitter strategy. By displaying the impressions, engagements and engagement rate, you are able to determine what types of tweets are most appealing to your followers. This information would be crucial if you are an entrepreneur using your podcast and your Twitter account to sell a product or service. Even if you’re a hobbyist podcaster though, if you’re going to use Twitter, you want to be effective with it and serve your followers in the best way possible, so I think Twitter Analytics is useful to anyone that has a strategy with their Twitter account.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – I Hate Critics Podcast episode on 50 Shades of Grey
Nick – NeoSounds.com
Corey – The Walking Deadcast

Next week, we’ll be talking about podcasting conferences. Why should you attend conferences? If you can only go to one podcast conference, which should you go to? We’ll discuss these topics and many more on next week’s episode of Podcasters Group Therapy.

Follow Nick on Twitter – @NickSeuberling
Follow Corey on Twitter – @CoreyFineran
Follow Tawny on Twitter – @tawny_lynne

Join the Podcasters Group Therapy Google+ Group

The post Podcasting Workflows – #2 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.

Podcasters Group Therapy is an extension of a Google+ community we started for podcasters after we met at New Media Expo 2013. This started off as a private mastermind-type group, but after New Media Expo 2014, we decided to open the group up to the public. Our goal with the group is to hold “Therapy Sessions” every other Monday. This is a time for podcasters to come together in a G+ Hangout to share successes, struggles and brainstorm ideas in a supportive manner with other podcasters.

By being an extension of the G+ group, you can expect a similar vibe with this podcast. We will discuss a podcasting topic on every episode, sharing our thoughts and opinions, as well as the thoughts and opinions of other podcasters in the G+ group via audio clips. Who is our target audience? Anyone that has a podcast or has aspirations of podcasting.

Podcasting Success

This week, we’re discussing a topic that applies to every podcaster. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a hobbyist podcaster, we all have our own definitions of podcasting success. We play audio clips from other podcasters: Bob Zerull (I Hate Critics Podcast), Rem Lavictoire (SciFi Movie Podcast), Ray Harkins (100 Words or Less), Daniel J Lewis (The Audacity to Podcast) and Ray Ortega (The Podcasters Studio) and hear how they define podcasting success.

App/Service of the Week

Corey talks about Ringr, a new app that allows you to record double-enders via your iOS device. If you record interviews for your podcast with people that aren’t as technologically or audiologically (is that a word?) savvy, you might want to consider using this app. The quality is far better than a phone call through Skype. Tawny also talks about her recording situation and why Ringr might actually work for her and her co-hosts on Mommy’s Cocktail Hour.

Picks of the Week

Tawny – All Songs Considered episode with Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie
Nick – Dave Ramsey Show
Corey – Awesome 80’s Podcast interview with Donald Fullilove (Mayor Goldie Wilson in Back to the Future)

Follow Nick on Twitter – @NickSeuberling
Follow Corey on Twitter – @CoreyFineran
Follow Tawny on Twitter – @tawny_lynne

Join the Podcasters Group Therapy Google+ Group

We want to hear from you. How do you define podcasting success and what was your podcasting “holy crap!” moment?

The post Defining Success in Podcasting – #1 appeared first on Podcasters' Group Therapy.