Launchpad And Edison To Measure Podcasts

2-13-2013

Norm Pattiz's company, Launchpad Digital Media, has hired Edison Research to create standard metrics to measure podcasts. Edison will collect and audit data from all Launchpad podcasts and generate monthly figures. Pattiz, who is a keynote at Convergence next month, said, ?We formed Launchpad to apply proven, successful monetization methods to the expanding world of on-demand digital media. To do that you need to speak the advertisers? language. These new metrics will put the sizable podcast audience in terms advertisers can understand and utilize effectively."

Edison Research President Larry Rosin said, "We are excited to begin this new relationship with Launchpad Digital Media. The metrics Edison will be providing will further help legitimize podcasting for advertisers and help emphasize its growing prominence as a platform for listeners to consume and control their content.? 

Launchpad is a division of Norm Pattiz?s Courtside Entertainment Group and currently represents on-demand and streaming podcast programming, which delivers over 90 million downloads every month.

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Keep Your Podcasts Fresh, But Not Too Fresh

by Brian Baltosiewich

There?s something for all of us to take away from the Facebook Follies this past week. In case you?ve been in a coma, Facebook rolled out a drastic change to their platform and the public backlash was, let?s say, considerable- and overwhelmingly negative. Now personally, I believe they released an interface so wonky and hard to navigate intentionally- so that when they roll out the next version (coming, we?re told, very soon- in fact some ?developers? already have it) that it will be that much more better than this clunker we all feel like we?ve been saddled with and the Facebook folks will be perceived as heroes who really listen to their audience.

Anyway, the lesson in here for us is about comfort. Everyone likes to be comfortable. It?s why we hang on to those old slippers for so long, or that recliner in your living room that?s fraying around the seams but has the groove in the seat you just can?t part with. I?m not suggesting that any of us can compete with what Facebook has accomplished, but what we can take from is this: We love to be comfortable. Facebook, as much as we may complain about it, is comfortable and we?ve become dependent on it. So change as drastic as what they released this time around is jarring.

When you have your own podcast site, you will be immersed in every part of it- from the look, to the content to the format of your show. From day one, you?ll start to dream about it. It will become part of every moment. You?ll think about it in the shower and at red lights. Your spouse will be talking to you and you?ll look at her and nod but you?ll be thinking about your website. And you will want to change it.

Resist that urge. Even if you?re sick of it, your listeners aren?t. They?re not thinking about it 24 hours a day like you are and not spending nearly as much time there as you are. And they?re comfortable with it, warts and all. Not to say you can?t tweak it, but be careful with huge overhauls. At Radio Exiles we?ve been through one major change in nearly three years, from a strictly utilitarian site to what we have now. That one transition was disruptive and challenging, and there was some backlash from some of our listeners.

Take comfort (see what I did there?) in the fact that once you?re sick of it, it?s just beginning to take hold among your audience. Stay consistent, resist that urge to completely change the site or your show and focus on growing your audience and just being a better podcaster. Your comfort matters, too.

Brian Baltosiewich has been a broadcast professional for more than 20 years.  His podcast website, www.radioexiles.com features professionally-produced podcasts from radio pro?s who have lost their gigs.
Reach out to him at brian@radioexiles.com or through their twitter account @radioexiles and on Facebook at radioexiles.com

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How To Get People To Listen To Your Podcasts

Brian Baltosiewich

You?re podcasting! Welcome to the club. Now how do you get people to listen? Let?s say, hypothetically, you?re not a national figure with bottomless pockets and millions of built-in listeners. Start with the local markets you worked in. Send releases to everyone you can think of in the media in those markets. Podcasting is unique enough and it?s early enough that you may be breaking new ground in those markets. That alone is worthy of a feature, and you?ll probably get it, especially if you were a name in that market.  At least you?ll get a few lines in the local paper.

Make sure all your friends know what you?re doing, get them to talk about you to their friends. This is grass-roots, and you have to mobilize all of your troops. If your family won?t spread the word, well, then you have bigger problems than I can help you with. Make sure your podcast is available through as many sources as you can find. iTunes, Stitcher, etc. Look up podcast aggregators and  get on them. As we talked about before, it would be great if you could just have your own site where listening became this cool exclusive club, but that?s just not the world we live in. Your listeners, once they?re turned on to you, will want you the way they want you and you have to accommodate them or they will find someone else- and quickly.

Finally, say what you will about social networking, but the fact is it works and you can reach a LOT of people FREE. You have to work at it. It could be your full-time job, frankly. To be successful at social networking you must interact with your listeners and be witty and stand out in the crowd. Some of your followers on Twitter, for example, will be following hundreds if not thousands of other accounts. Research things like hashtags and @ messages to rise above the rest. Use them to attract listeners interested in specifically the things you are talking about in your podcast.

You don?t have to get caught up in all the different social networking options, in fact, you won?t be able to. There are just too many. Focus on the most popular- Facebook and Twitter. Use them to drive people to your podcast, don?t just be content with getting followers and ?likers?? you have to drive them to your product.

Above all that, though? be consistent. Be there when you tell listeners you?re going to be there. If you start with a new show every Monday, then you have to have a new show every Monday if it kills you. Miss a day, and listeners will be discouraged, and then they?ll move on to someone else. It?s easy to get caught up in all this. Find a balance between producing your podcast and marketing it. Don?t let one affect the other adversely. This is easier said than done.

The bottom line is, there are no rules, there are no tried and true marketing techniques. You?re on your own and you must become a relentless self-promoter.

Brian Baltosiewich has been a broadcast professional for more than 20 years.  His podcast website, www.radioexiles.com features professionally-produced podcasts from radio pro?s who have lost their gigs. Reach out to him at brian@radioexiles.com or through their twitter account @radioexiles and on Facebook at radioexiles.com

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