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Inside the Gear at Podcast Movement
Stepping onto the bustling floor of Podcast Movement reveals the beating heart of our industry—where innovation meets passion and creativity flourishes. This episode takes you behind the scenes of the premier podcasting conference, uncovering game-changing technology and hard truths about building a sustainable show.
We kick things off with an up-close look at RODE's impressive new RODECaster Video system that promises to revolutionize video podcasting by handling 95% of post-production in real-time. Imagine walking away from your recording session with a polished, edited, graphic-laden final product! The wireless ecosystem surrounding it shows how the technical barriers to professional-quality production continue to fall.
The conversation takes a revealing turn as we expose the dark side of podcast growth services. You'll hear shocking stories of creators spending up to $7,000 monthly on fake download services that delivered nothing but bot traffic. When one podcaster turned off these services, their downloads plummeted from 20,000 to just 58—their true audience size all along. This cautionary tale underscores a fundamental truth: authentic growth comes slowly through legitimate marketing channels, not overnight from suspicious services.
For those intimidated by video production, we share the liberating advice to start with the thousand-dollar camera already in your pocket—your smartphone. As one expert reminds us, even MrBeast created his first 100 videos on a phone! Simple techniques like positioning yourself near natural light can dramatically improve quality without expensive equipment. The message is clear: begin creating now rather than waiting for perfect gear.
Ready to take your podcast to the next level? Subscribe for more insider knowledge and practical strategies that cut through the hype. Join our community where we believe in building shows with integrity that connect with real listeners who genuinely care about your content.
Hello, we are here at Podcast Movement.
Speaker 2:I'm here with B&H. Obviously, video podcasting and audio podcasting is what we're here for, but I think it's interesting to be able to show how all of this different technology can work together, able to show how all of this different technology can work together, even across brands, to show various cameras, interfaces, tripods, all of the things microphones, obviously being my world. Yeah, so the thing that I'm showing here today is the RODECaster video. It's a six camera, auto switching, live streaming, all in one, all of the things. So, yeah, it runs.
Speaker 2:Essentially, 95% of your post-production process happens in real time, so when you're done, you can walk away with a finished edited. That's amazing Graphic-laden. For the most part it is there. The benefit is it saves all the ISO files so you can go back in to tweak anything that may have been missed. It didn't cut away quick enough to your liking, yeah, and then we're just trying to show the ecosystem of how that works. So, with our road mics, uh, and how they, you know, these will wirelessly connect into that so you can have wireless uh audio. It sort of cut down on wires, obviously, um, but yeah, it's been a great show and, I think, a lot of energy around what that can offer to the world of video podcasting.
Speaker 4:My brand is the podcast lawyer. You know, when we're presenting ideas for these programs and hoping to get selected, you want to just not be another boring lecture, right? And so I was thinking about, well, how can we make it a little more interesting and more engaging with the audience? Hoping to get selected? You want to just not be another boring lecture, right? And so I was thinking about, well, how can we make it a little more interesting and more engaging with the audience? And I just came up with this idea let's do like sort of a game show quiz and get people actively involved. So we came up with two legal truths and a lie, and I thought it went really well. We really struggled to come up with some that were a challenge, just to, you know, keep it more interesting. I mean, people sort of have some ideas about most of these legal principles, but yeah, I think he had built a word always into something that I latched on to, that there are no absolutes.
Speaker 3:And Episonic is a artificial intelligence-based tool that helps take the heavy lifting of all of the things that podcasters hate doing right.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And offloads that to a virtual producer, researcher and content strategist. Right, I had originally had podcasts all around online dating for people over 50, right.
Speaker 5:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Okay, and so I'd have these guests on and they would come on and talk about topics that they were experts in, but I was not right. So they were talking about attachment theory, they were talking about Enneagrams and how that plays into dating, and so I would always have to go out and do the research to say, okay, well, what are they talking about when they say this and when they say that?
Speaker 6:Now I can just hand it off to my producer. Just be a brief, but you can watch the whole thing to see why. The answer is no. But we talked about you know. There are many services out there that will claim we're going to get your organic downloads, we're going to get your real audience and any service where you sign up for it. You see instant growth and you turn it off and you see instant drop. There was never any real audience. That was all artificial, it was bot related and I went through and showed people like, hey, if your stats should look like this, I showed what real good numbers look like. And I go. And then here's, when people paid for it, what it looked like, and I gave an example. I went out and I found 10 different shows that were doing that and I asked them how much they were paying per month and that varied anywhere from $170 a month to $7,000.
Speaker 5:Oh, wow.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and most of them were in the $250 to $600 range per month. But on the one on the $700, I gave the example that when I called them, I was talking to the husband and wife that do the podcast and I said well, looking at your numbers, it's pretty clear that you guys are paying for marketing. And they were the like yeah, and I'm like would you mind me asking how much you spent? And he's like seven thousand. And the wife goes is that that service I told you not to use? Oh, no, and she did it in a slightly more biting tone yeah, that I can't imitate, but my wife does really. Oh, I know, I know that and I know that tone.
Speaker 6:I've done it yeah and I, and when I, when I know that tone and I know that tone, I've done it, yeah. And when I hear that tone, I know I'm going to hear about it for years into the future and I know that they're going to hear about it for years into the future as well. These people got no impact. Yes, those 7,000.
Speaker 3:Even that 7,000, no impact. No impact. Is it more of an organic slow growth? Is that the best way to do?
Speaker 6:it. There are services you can pay to have your show marketed that actually will work if that marketing is on other podcasts in your genre or in a podcast service like Overcast, where it's where podcast listeners are again on your genre, and you will see some growth and it'll be slow, but when you turn it off it doesn't go away.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 6:These are services where they went from zero to 100, like that right Flip the switch and in some cases, where the one person turned it off, they were getting 20,000 downloads a day. They turned it off and it dropped to 58.
Speaker 1:Because that's actually where their audience was. That's the real one that was the real audience.
Speaker 6:It's like you turn it off and that's that's actually where you're at that's where, in that person I felt really bad for because I reach out to them they didn't even know that they didn't pay for a year and a half. They thought they had this audience. This really established audience and when the guy realized the numbers were not good, he turned it off and so he basically was like crying like, oh, I thought I had this audience. I have to reevaluate everything. Why am I even doing this?
Speaker 6:And and that's unfortunate, that's the biggest issue on this is people get this fake sense that what they did was working on marketing. They don't have to do anything else. Yeah, because anything else they were doing before wasn't working, like having little clips and video and social mentions and going out on other people's podcasts. Well, that only grew the show a little bit, whereas this paying $250 or $500 or $7,000 caused the show to jump up instantly and wow, that was really easy and ego equals download squared Walter's first law of podcasting and their ego stroked and was amazing and so they stopped marketing. And then, when there's a lot of times when people do this, not only does the show come down, it comes down below where it was before.
Speaker 7:As I was podcasting and solving my own problem of setting up the cameras, the lights and camera, and I have a little background in film production. So as I set my own stage and showed up on camera and during the pandemic, we were talking to a ton of people, we were spending time on Zoom and people started asking me why does your camera look better than my camera? Or we were both using Zoom. Right, Are you using Zoom? Like yes, so why does it look better? So I was like, well, it's all about lighting, it's all about the camera, framing, the audio, the treatment of your room. And they're like whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a lot of stuff. Do you mind consulting? I was like, all right, I'll consult. So I formed a company, Home Studio Mastery. Then since then, since three years, I've written a book called iPhone video, um, mastering iPhone video production and all of the things that will help people, you know, get started.
Speaker 7:You know, if you get started, you're going to figure out what you're missing and you're going to be able to, uh, create better content and evolve with it. Um, to get started, use a thousand dollar camera. That's already in your pocket. Thehone yes, use this one for everything. Mr b started with this. You know his first 100 videos were all on here, right?
Speaker 7:All of these people use the smartphone because what's that's doing is you're not going to the shop to buy high-end shoes to start running, you're just going to get whatever you had. Start running. Because when you do that, when you start doing, start doing those little bitty things at a time, it's gonna help you evolve. It's gonna help you take account of what you're creating and how can you do it better, and that's where further investment goes in. But first thing is first is invest your time into creating big concepts on camera. I mean, we're sitting here in front of this beautiful window getting this natural light. This is the first thing you can start using, and anytime you're trying to take a photo of yourself, look where the light is coming from. Use that light as you found it, because the camera doesn't like the light. It likes when the light is on you.
Speaker 5:So we edit for independent podcasters and we serve about 15 to 20 shows local, national, everywhere in between I used to have some international clients. Yeah, so Burberry Barrel Podcasting edits podcasts. So we cut the crap, we take out your curse words, your repetitions, your accidents, your pregnant pauses and we clean it up sound-wise, do a little bit of sound treatment, sound enhancement, so you sound smarter and more professional than when you start.
Speaker 1:So I'm a podcast expert. I work primarily with marketing and kind of bridging that gap between what do you talk about and how do you market your podcast in a way that feels sustainable for impact-driven entrepreneurs, women and multilingual. I mean, I started going in 2020 2020, so it was the virtual one, because covid um, and then it was funny because I was in dallas and so I was. I heard about this. I just launched my business and everybody was like, oh, you know, there's this event. I'm like, but it's, it's virtual. So I'm like, sure, okay.
Speaker 1:And then in 2021, I went to my first one in tennessee okay, it's Nashville. And then I just loved the energy, the kind of like the collaboration, the vibes, and I was like I'm going to come back. It's a little overwhelming in the beginning, but I am an advocate for coming to podcast conferences because that's like you're in the room, you learn so much, but you connect with folks who are doing the same thing. They're excited to be in the room and talk about what they do, share practical tips, and so it's just such an amazing opportunity.
Speaker 8:Hey, I'm here with the Podcast Academy. If you don't know what the Podcast Academy is, you ever seen anybody go to the Emmys and they say I would like to thank the Academy for this award? I never thought it was going to be me. So that's where we are for the podcast and all of the whole industry. Right, that's amazing. We host the Ambies. The Ambies are the version of Ambies for the podcast industry, and this is international. International.
Speaker 1:That's amazing yeah.
Speaker 8:Okay, for sure, ambies just opened up for nominations in August. Yes, and so they're going to be in February in Brooklyn, new York. Okay, and I mean it's backed by Wondery, iheart, I mean DBC Universities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so what are they looking for, like? What are the categories?
Speaker 8:So the categories they opened up a few more this year, so there's more Spanish speaking ones that are available now and more independent podcasts that can submit as well. The majority of the podcasts that do get submitted are usually backed by companies like Amazon or MAC or Paramount usually backed by companies like Amazon or Macy's or Paramount those types of things because it's usually the ones that the best comedy podcast all around is probably going to be a Conan or something like that. Right, so that's what it usually is. But more and more independents are being able to submit their podcast to be considered for that, and so there's several rows of judges to make it there.
Speaker 1:Okay, do they have like the different like you know, like yeah, like small, like the small audience, big audience, or does it like it's all together, it's all together Okay.
Speaker 8:It's all together, yeah Right.