(01:45) – Introduction to Carol Flagg and Vodcasting

(03:38) – Impact of COVID-19 on Podcasting 

(08:09) – The Rise of Vodcasting and Technological Advancements 

(14:48) – Google and YouTube’s Role in Podcasting

(16:48) Future Trends in Vodcasting and Content Consumption

(20:09) – The Integration of LinkedIn Live with Podcasting 

(26:44) – Creating a Vodcasting Brand 

(31:42) – Challenges in Podcasting

(26:58) – Monetization and Premium Content

(40:19) – Metrics and Measuring Success 

(43:23) – Syndication and Expanding Reach

[00:00:04.270] – Kriste Goad

Hello, Curious Marketers. Welcome to another episode of the How It’s Done podcast. Today, we have a special guest joining us to dive into the fascinating world of vodcasting. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it is a dynamic blend of video and podcasting that’s changing the way we consume content. We’ll explore the benefits of vodcasting, the technology behind it, and how it’s changing the landscape for content creators and audiences alike. Whether you’re a seasoned podcaster looking to expand your reach or a curious listener, eager to learn more. This episode is packed with insights, so settle in and let’s get started. Today’s guest is Carol Flagg. Carol is a managing partner of Answers Media Network with over 25 years experience in the publishing industry. She is also responsible for new business development and sponsorship sales. Carol leads the company’s social media and email initiatives and also is the producer and host of the podcast, What’s My Tagline. Carol, welcome, and thanks for joining me.

[00:01:27.760] – Carol Flagg

Oh, thanks, Kriste. It’s great to be I had the pleasure of having you on my show a few weeks ago, and so it’s great to flip the tables.

[00:01:36.220] – Kriste Goad

I love it. I had so much fun on your show, and thank you so much for having me. Like you say, for the podcast swap. Really appreciate it.

[00:01:45.600] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, love that.

[00:01:47.070] – Kriste Goad

Well, let’s just kick things off with you telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and explaining what exactly is vodcasting.

[00:01:56.340] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. So part of explaining that, as we go along in our time together. I think I’d like to talk first about part of our Answers Media Network, the Healthcare NOW Radio, which is a live streaming radio station and podcast network with over 40 shows. We’ve been streaming Live and podcasting since 2012. We actually have quite a long legacy of doing audio content. We’ve been watching the growth of podcasting, and especially in this B2B space, and especially in healthcare B2B. Obviously, podcast traditionally was in the realm of music, basically, and still, of course, is a big part of music. The word vodcasting has been around for a very long time. It’s not a new term for marketing content. It’s actually an old term that is getting a resurgence, and there’s quite a few factors driving that resurgence. I think I’m here to talk today with our history, our background and what it is we do, what the impact of vodcasting is going to be having on podcasting going forward. As you said, vodcasting is just the marriage between the audio content, the MP3, if you will, and the video content. If they had a baby, it would be a vodcast.

[00:03:18.210] – Kriste Goad

I love that description. That makes all the sense in the world. Tell us, what are those latest trends that you’re seeing? I understand there’s a lot going on, a lot driving this.

[00:03:30.980] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, there’s a lot driving it. One of the biggest factors impacting just podcasts in general is the fact that the COVID pandemic was a bellwether event for podcasting, especially in this B2B area that we deal with. The pandemic hit, people were working at home, they had more time to listen, to explore podcasts, they had more time to start podcasts. There were podcasts everywhere. Part of this timeline between the pandemic happened to coincide really with the 2017, 2018 Apple updates, iOS updates. During that time frame, iPhone, that is when all of a sudden you had a podcast embedded. It was part of your iPhone. When you turned it on, you bought it or you updated it, boom, there was this podcast icon and app sitting on your phone.

[00:04:32.850] – Kriste Goad

It was very accessible in the palm of your hand.

[00:04:35.430] – Carol Flagg

Boom. Keep in mind, smartphones are still the number one device that people listen to podcasts on. I mean, they just are. But that was a big change for the podcast industry and started this flourish of a podcast and interest, taking it out of the realm of music. Boom, COVID hit a year later, one to two years later. Content marketers in the B2B space and in our industry were looking for options. They were looking for ways to get thought leadership out there. They were thinking about podcasts. Podcasts were really starting to get on the rise. Joe Rogan was on Spotify. There was just all this talk about podcasts as the new form of consumption for media. Youtube, of course, was still out there. This really predated the rise of TikTok. And so podcast really became the in thing. Everybody started a podcast. The most famous people in the world had a podcast. Every media person had a podcast. Companies had podcasts. All these things happen.

[00:05:46.710] – Kriste Goad

Every health care marketer got a podcast. (wink)

[00:05:48.570] – Carol Flagg

Everybody had a podcast. Not realizing getting into it, how difficult it really is to do a really good podcast.

[00:05:57.000] – Kriste Goad

It is a commitment and it takes time, and Yeah. It doesn’t just happen.

[00:06:02.420] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. It’s not incredibly expensive, but it’s a bandwidth issue. It’s also about a content issue, and it’s a production issue, because at the end of the day, a podcast is a piece of entertainment. If you’re going to put a podcast out there, it has to rise to the occasion. As the whole world improved on their podcast creation efforts, a lot of podcasts fall by the wayside, but a lot of more interesting podcasts came up the ranks. The world does not need another podcast, but the world can always use really good content, right?

[00:06:37.580] – Kriste Goad

I love how you just said that. Yeah, it’s true.

[00:06:42.050] – Carol Flagg

There’s millions of them out there. So things began to happen, and we ended up getting through COVID. People start going back to work. People don’t have time to do podcasts. People don’t have time to listen to podcasts. Podcast plays flatten out, and the world begins to evolve a little bit, right? No surprise. Everything that goes up must eventually come down and flatten. It’s just the nature of anything that we do, the nature of the beast. So things began to happen from just an overall podcast trend as to what was happening out in the market space. And content marketers, many of them that you probably work with, I know some that we work with, began to think, Well, how are we? What are we going to do to increase our exposure and increase our engagement? Understanding that podcasts are like videos. On a YouTube video, you know the number of views you get, but you don’t know who’s viewing a podcast or the same way. Content marketers were like, Well, what can we do to… If we can’t get better analytics, what can we do to at least increase our footprint? Some content marketers began to take their recordings of their sessions and put them on YouTube just on their own.

[00:08:09.290] – Carol Flagg

We began doing that. We began putting not recorded video sessions, but we began putting our audio content up on YouTube. People were beginning to ask, Well, why would you do that? YouTube is for watching videos. I’m curious how that came about. That just seems strange. Yes, it is a little bit of a head scratcher. Are people just going to watch a podcast on YouTube? But in concert with that, things again began to intervene. One of those things that began to intervene was Google itself. So Google owns YouTube. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that Google is the number one search engine in the world, and YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. As these things began to happen, and podcasters, and when we’re a network, we were putting all of our audio content on YouTube, we began to see this SEO traction. Again, no surprise. Google’s goal is to drive viewers to YouTube. We don’t put ads on our network, but many podcasters who have their podcasts on YouTube allow for ads as a revenue source. There is revenue in podcasts. So Google was like, This is really interesting. How are we, I think, going to compete with Apple, especially, for this lucrative ad dollars?

[00:09:49.080] – Carol Flagg

How can we, as a video platform, get into the podcast world? The answer is a vodcast. Things began to happen. Number one, Google had their own podcast network called the Google Podcast, which was really closely associated with Android. The Apple and iPhone are like, yin-yang. So Google Podcasts were very much associated with Android. And Google made the announcement, it was about a year ago, but it’s taken a year to transition, said, We’re going to get rid of Google podcast. And if you go to Google Podcasts right now, there’s a big note on there that says, Go to YouTube. And there’s even a note that says, If you have a podcast show, go to YouTube. They’ve made this move to take podcasts and make them really accessible on YouTube. Now, again, we have to remember that the ideal environment for listening to a podcast, which is an episodic experience, much like a video is an episodic experience, is still your smartphone. I mean, the vast majority of podcast plays come from your smartphone. What Google said and what they’ve done is you as a podcaster, and you know that everything that you do is tied to your unique RSS feed.

[00:11:30.810] – Carol Flagg

You live and breathe by your unique RSS feed, which is in Apple and Spotify and Pandora and Amazon and a million other places. But the point is, it is that unique RSS feed that auto publishes to all the networks you’re in. You don’t have to go in and add every episode to Apple. It does it for you because your feed is in there. You’ve got a podcast hosting platform. The feed goes out, the episode gets published, bada bing, bada bang. So YouTube said, Well, we can do that. And that’s exactly what they did. They began to reach out and market a message that you as a podcaster could now put your feed into YouTube. Youtube then converts it to a video. You don’t even have to do that. You put your RSS feed in.

[00:12:22.840] – Kriste Goad

It’s really timely for me because I was just looking at this very issue.

[00:12:28.240] – Carol Flagg

Yes. It’s very timely Certainly. Again, it’s really timely because at the end of July is when Google podcasts really does go away. They’ve been talking about… They’ve had that marketing message up there for quite a while. Now I’m a podcaster. I have a platform where I host my podcast on my RSS feed everywhere. Now I just take that feed and I add it to Google. It brings over the description. Everything.

[00:12:51.520] – Kriste Goad

It brings over the album cover. You switch your platform and you set it up.

[00:12:57.560] – Carol Flagg

That’s exactly right. Only it converts video.

[00:13:01.110] – Kriste Goad

Amazing. What does that conversion look like?

[00:13:04.090] – Carol Flagg

When you put your RSS feed, YouTube will say your video will be available in the next 24 hours. I mean, they just automatically convert.

[00:13:11.260] – Kriste Goad

I guess my question is, what is on the screen?

[00:13:14.270] – Carol Flagg

It’s your album cover and your playlist.

[00:13:17.020] – Kriste Goad

Yeah, it makes sense.

[00:13:18.580] – Carol Flagg

Okay. I mean, you can put your RSS feed into YouTube and you can have them convert. You can pick a date. I want all of my episodes converted. I want the last year to be converted. I want the last six months. And it will really convert it and create a playlist for you.

[00:13:36.510] – Kriste Goad

This makes so much sense.

[00:13:38.330] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. Now, the beauty of the playlist like that, though, is when you go to your smartphone and you play a podcast on YouTube, it is literally pretty much the same experience you have playing it on Apple or Spotify or anywhere else. It’s literally you hit the play button and you’re listening to your content. And they’ve made it that easy for everybody in the podcast landscape to create a, I’m going to call it a baby vodcast, initial vodcast. Because it is a video, it’s a podcast converted to a video, but there’s no images. It’s just your album cover and it’s playing. And so that experience on your phone is exactly the same on any other network. It’s like, oh, play the next episode, play the next episode. It functions in the same way. Because of this move, YouTube is now challenging. It’s already challenged Spotify for podcast, listen, dominance, but is now challenging Apple because it’s YouTube, right? It’s Google, right?

[00:14:48.280] – Kriste Goad

Yeah, that’s wild. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.

[00:14:50.550] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, they want market share. But their first step, though, you have to put yourself into two Google and YouTube shoes, right? They’ve created this easy environment. In 30 seconds, I as a podcast, I can submit my… I have to open up a YouTube account. Okay, so I’m okay. That’s- Check. Check that off the box. You probably already have that anyway, right? Yeah. You have to have a YouTube account. You create a channel in a studio. It’s a creator studio. It’s all free. It doesn’t cost you anything. You submit your RSS feed, and it’ll populate just like it would if you submitted it to any other podcast network. So check the boxes, check, check, check, check, of adding their RSS feed. They’re going to show, for example, if you go to Google and you search a term, you have this experience all the time, you search a term and you get your paid and then you get your organic and then videos. It’ll serve you YouTube videos related to your search term. That is what has begun to happen. So that your podcast, vodcast, will begin to show up.

[00:16:15.230] – Kriste Goad

Do you think that this is going to drive podcasters like myself who haven’t yet incorporated video? You and I, as we’re recording this podcast, are looking at each other on video, but we don’t publish it as video. Do you think that this is going to be a game changer? More and more podcasters are going to start sharing as a vodcast with an actual company listening video?

[00:16:46.980] – Carol Flagg

Yes. Thank you for getting me to the next segue here. There was a recent article, maybe a month ago, a month ago in the New York Times about vodcasting. As a podcaster, now you have to really begin to think about consumption of content and growing your audience. People aren’t going to be on their laptops and tablets, they’re not going to, unlikely, listen to a vodcast. If it’s not an actual real video where there’s images and People talking. That’s not the experience that you get. People obviously watch videos on their phone, but they listen to podcasts on their smartphones. That’s all taken care of. Put your RSS feed in. On your YouTube channel, it says there’s a tab now for podcasts. So right there. It’s that RSS podcast feed that is getting fed out on YouTube for the end user to listen to. You can have that experience as a straight up podcast. What this article is pointing to from vodcasting, and a lot of the big media companies and the big podcasters are exploring this, is that in-studio production value. That’s a YouTube video experience. That’s a true vodcast. Certainly, we’re talking over Zoom. You can record over Zoom, and you can put that up on YouTube.

[00:18:38.790] – Carol Flagg

But this New York Times article pointed out that that’s not quite the same thing. We’re coming out of COVID. People are like, Zoom is a video on YouTube anymore. Again, production value. People are like, We don’t need to see Carol Flagg, who hasn’t even showered today and still has her pajamas on talking with Kriste on YouTube. They don’t need to see that. What they are interested in seeing is

[00:19:12.370] – Kriste Goad

I don’t know. Some people might actually be interested.

[00:19:14.070] – Carol Flagg

Oh, they might like that.

[00:19:14.960] – Kriste Goad

There’s a lot of strange things going on out there, Carol.

[00:19:17.740] – Carol Flagg

I have 20 family members that might be interested in that, but that might be it. My point is that everything evolves. Everything It evolves. The vodcasting part of this, this marriage between a podcast and a video is evolving. That first step of the evolution, RSS feed in a YouTube, create a podcast list, start marketing that you’re on YouTube, people will do it. People will find it and they’ll play it. You have a tremendous SEO value because, again, Google and YouTube are search engines. There’s a tremendous SEO value that you can’t get from people searching on Apple. I mean, it’s just not the same search engine experience, right?

[00:20:07.330] – Kriste Goad

Right.

[00:20:09.620] – Kriste Goad

There’s all kinds of platforms. The platforms have evolved tremendously, too, obviously.

[00:20:13.890] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, some of them. Some of them.

[00:20:16.090] – Kriste Goad

Self production, editing, all of those. Many of those do include video, so it makes it a lot easier.

[00:20:23.990] – Carol Flagg

It does.

[00:20:24.980] – Kriste Goad

To have a high-quality production and video included and not have to pay a million dollars for some big professional studio and things like that.

[00:20:34.210] – Carol Flagg

That’s correct. That’s where some of these more sophisticated podcasts are going from a podcast standpoint. Again, from a production standpoint, if you’re listening to a podcast, the audio quality has to be good. It can go from good to excellent. You don’t want it to be really bad. That’s why some podcasts at conferences can be really hard to listen to because it’s like, Oh, do I want all that right background noise in my ear? But some of these more sophisticated podcast production, podcast hosting platforms, are beginning to recognize, not at beginning recognize that podcasting is that next step of that evolution. The top of the food chain is like Oprah sitting with somebody in a studio recording a vodcast. Of course, people are going to watch Oprah on YouTube, right?

[00:21:31.630] – Kriste Goad

It’s TV production quality, right?

[00:21:35.560] – Carol Flagg

Well, you can watch YouTube on your TV. I mean, obviously, you can stream it. Hey, do I want my face on a 40-foot TV screen? I don’t think so, right? But understand that with streaming services now, YouTube has become even incredibly more popular, right? And so you have to think about it from a vodcasting standpoint, there’s vodcasting 101. It’s just my album cover and my feed available on YouTube that people are going to listen to on a phone. Then it becomes, Okay, what is this podcast going to look like from today’s YouTube experience, which is on your phone, on your tablet, on your computer, on your 40… You’re not 40 feet. It feels like 40 feet, 40-inch, 60-inch, 80-inch TV screen. You’re right. These higher-end podcast hosting platforms are beginning to address that from a production standpoint.

[00:22:42.590] – Kriste Goad

Okay, super interesting. I need to know because you say that podcasters can also utilize LinkedIn to record episodes of their own podcast?

[00:22:55.650] – Carol Flagg

Yes.

[00:22:56.550] – Kriste Goad

Okay, what is that all about, Carol?

[00:22:58.460] – Carol Flagg

Yes, I love it. There’s LinkedIn, of course. Linkedin is really hot right now.

[00:23:07.070] – Kriste Goad

It is. They’ve got the B2B audience pretty locked in.

[00:23:12.100] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, they did. A lot of this, of course, is a reaction to what’s happened over on X, a Twitter transitioning to X and what’s happened from an algorithm standpoint over on that end. Content marketers are going, This is just not worth the time and the effort. Maybe even culturally, they don’t want to do this anymore. To do these organic posts that don’t really get them any social media ROI. Linkedin has really taken advantage, and they’ve really flourished and grown.

[00:23:50.610] – Kriste Goad

They truly have become really a media network.

[00:23:55.310] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. Remember back in the old days? I say the old days where LinkedIn was a super closed-in system. It was like, you could only talk with people who were first connections. Everything was really you had to connect, and it was very locked into these circles and groups. Now, of course, that’s not true. They changed that quite a while ago. True to a social media network, you follow people now. You don’t have to connect with them. You follow them. It is just more expansive as far as how you can get in touch with people and connect. And now it’s all about not how many connections you have, but all about followers. Because of what happens on social media, you get followers, and all of a sudden, your presence grows and whatnot. So a while back, LinkedIn début their LinkedIn Live. They were like, Wow, people are doing meetings on Zoom and all sorts of applications. How are we going to take advantage of this? Linkedin Live. At first, they were very… You had to apply to get LinkedIn Live. I mean, you had to have… It was really not the easiest thing to be able to do on LinkedIn Live.

[00:25:20.340] – Carol Flagg

Now it’s like, do you have 30 followers? You can start doing LinkedIn Live. I mean, the bar is low because they understand the value of LinkedIn Live, what’s happening out there from a LinkedIn Live phenomenon out there. So LinkedIn Live is just like that. It’s a LinkedIn Live event. You have a conversation, you invite people to attend, you can invite any of your first connections, you can obviously market it, you can do a post on it, an article to drive people to your LinkedIn Live. And you can have guests on, and there are regular shows on LinkedIn Live. They do nothing but LinkedIn Live every single week, and they grow a following. But the beauty of LinkedIn Live is that depending on what application you use to stream your LinkedIn Live event, it records. And so now you can take that recording and you can promote it after the LinkedIn Live event, and you can put it on YouTube. You can do all sorts of things with it.

[00:26:25.760] – Kriste Goad

Just like people who get your podcast.

[00:26:28.640] – Carol Flagg

So that’s what we’re beginning to see. We are beginning to see a number of podcast shows, again, back to this vodcast idea, really expanding their reach into LinkedIn on the B2B side.

[00:26:44.100] – Carol Flagg

So I’m a show. I’m a podcast show, and I do a new show every other week. And I’m going to do my new show, record a new episode every week at 3:00 Eastern on Friday. I pick a standard time. My guest shows up, I’m there, I record, and I start building an audience. That’s what’s happening. That is also a podcast because that same person is taking that recording and converting it to an mp3 to put on their RSS fee for Apple and Spotify, blah, blah, blah. But it also lives now as a vodcast, as a video format on LinkedIn Live to reach out to that audience, and then you can take it and you can go ahead and put it on YouTube. We’ve been experimenting with LinkedIn Live. Yeah. It’s just like you take this, what was just not that long ago, a pure audio MP3 experience Getting your episodes into Apple and Spotify and Pandora or wherever your RSS feed is, think about how much that’s just changed in a very short time frame. Your podcast is on an RSS feed and YouTube is a podcast. It’s readily accessible on your phone to listen to and have that same experience that you have on Apple.

[00:28:11.930] – Carol Flagg

You can do it on YouTube. I It means you could increase your recording production and up your game from a pure video standpoint. You’re still recording an episode of your podcast, but now it’s a video production that now has the traditional YouTube experience, streaming it on your TV or streaming it on your laptop or whatever. And now we have LinkedIn Live.

[00:28:36.970] – Kriste Goad

You guys have been experimenting there?

[00:28:39.700] – Carol Flagg

We have been experimenting with LinkedIn Live. I’ve done it a couple of times, and we have a couple of radio hosts who are starting to do it for their shows. And they treat it just like a podcast episode. Hey, we’re recording here. Here’s a countdown. Yeah. Hey, good morning. Thank you for tuning in. So They’re inviting you to their podcast episode recording is what they’re doing. It’s a form of a video on LinkedIn where people can engage with you and comment, maybe ask questions. Now, it takes time to grow like anything does, but with consistency see, and especially if you have a lot of followers, you can really make some quick traction. Linkedin does recommend that you use one of their recommended third-party applications. We use StreamYard.

[00:29:31.110] – Carol Flagg

That is our number one choice. It’s a free app called StreamYard.

[00:29:34.690] – Kriste Goad

What’s it called?

[00:29:35.560] – Carol Flagg

Streamyard. S-t-r-e-a-m Yard, Y-A-R-D, StreamYard. They have a premium platform, but they have a free platform that you can use as a single user. And what you do is you just create your event in StreamYard, and then your guest shows up or your co-host or whatever, or you, if you’re a solo podcaster, and there’s a big button. And you schedule it on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn immediately creates a notification. You don’t even have to do that. It immediately creates the event page for you. You don’t even have to create the event page. Crazy event page. Isn’t that great? Create the event page for you. Everything is ready to go on LinkedIn Live. The day or time of your event, you show up, you enter the studio, your guest enters the studio, you hit the Live button on StreamYard, and you’re streaming live over LinkedIn. Boom. It couldn’t be easier. It couldn’t be easier.

[00:30:37.070] – Kriste Goad

What I’m going to have to do is get busy and do all the things that you’re talking about with me today. The whole reason that I ever started this podcast to begin with back in 2019 was podcasting started becoming a thing. Clients started like, What is this podcast thing? Maybe we should do a podcast. I’m like, I feel like it’s more difficult than just, Let’s do Let me start my own so I know what goes into it. It really was a learning exercise for me and let me beta test this thing so I know what is involved. If my clients ask, Should I do a podcast, I can give them a really informed opinion about that. We’re going to start experimenting with all of these different podcast platforms and vodcast platforms and testing that out, too. So it’s amazing. What challenges have you faced as you’re doing this same thing, and maybe how have you overcome those?

[00:31:42.720] – Carol Flagg

That’s a really good question. So just to remind everyone, and people who have a podcast show know this, and people who might be thinking about a podcast show, the hardest part of the podcast show is the show, right?

[00:32:00.110] – Kriste Goad

Say more, Carol. Tell our audience more what you mean.

[00:32:06.470] – Carol Flagg

It’s the development of the show. It’s what you’re going to talk about. It’s defining who your audience is. It’s about defining what’s unique about your show. Again, the world does not need another podcast. The world needs more unique voices. It’s creating good conversations if your format is a host plus a guest. It’s sustainability. If you’re starting a podcast or you got a podcast, what does your next two years look like from a content creation standpoint? The hardest part is the content creation.

[00:32:36.300] – Kriste Goad

That’ll throw a lot of people off right there.

[00:32:37.780] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. Well, that’s why a lot of podcasts start and end pretty quick, right? It’s the branding It’s the graphics. That is the heavy lift.

[00:32:51.330] – Kriste Goad

And then the promotion. Let’s not forget about that. You don’t just make it and people start watching it, even if it’s on all these channels, right?

[00:32:59.820] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. Well, as I say, unless you’re Oprah, you don’t start a podcast and think, Oh, I’m going to get a thousand plays. No. You’re going to start a podcast, you’re going to get 10. So, yeah, you have to market it. You have to grow it. That’s why we have a syndication network, right? Because people need help with expanding their audience. The thing about vodcasting, what we’re talking about today is, again, as the podcast shows, you’ve done and continue to do all of this hard work.

[00:33:29.040] – Kriste Goad

Right.

[00:33:29.850] – Carol Flagg

The work to at least get your podcast in an RSS feed on YouTube is about five minutes of work. That is no work.

[00:33:41.890] – Kriste Goad

That is the easy part.

[00:33:43.540] – Carol Flagg

For big returns, It’s just the SEO value. Even if you don’t get any views, because remember, we’re on YouTube, so there are views. It’s even academic, just for SEO purposes to do it. Take 5 to maybe 10 minutes if you don’t have a YouTube account. If you have a YouTube account, it’s five minutes. It is worth it. Do it now, do it immediately.

[00:34:09.070] – Kriste Goad

I want to do it right after I get off this.

[00:34:11.310] – Carol Flagg

As soon as you get off the phone. I’ll send you- I’m not even kidding, Carol. I’ll email you the link. I share the link all the time.

[00:34:17.970] – Kriste Goad

I actually got the link because I got the email from Google. There you go. We were on Google Play, and we didn’t see a lot of engagement on Google Play, but we kept our podcast on Google Play because it’s got to be connected to search, right?

[00:34:36.870] – Carol Flagg

Yeah.

[00:34:37.460] – Kriste Goad

Anyway.

[00:34:38.330] – Carol Flagg

Exactly right.

[00:34:39.390] – Kriste Goad

I digress.

[00:34:40.420] – Carol Flagg

Right. Linkedin StreamYard is a free app for a single user. Take a couple of hours, do a couple of test recordings that are five minutes long, and you’ll be ready to roll there, too. Again, it’s not a lot of bandwidth to explore this whole new arena in LinkedIn, where you can engage with people, engage with your potential customers in the B2B space, who may not even know you have a show or a podcast.

[00:35:13.470] – Kriste Goad

One thing, too, Carol, that just pops into my brain is you could just start there. That would be a really low barrier to entry to start a podcast or vodcast, right?

[00:35:26.540] – Carol Flagg

For a vodcast, you still need For a vodcast, you still need that unique RSS feed no matter what you do. You could start on LinkedIn Live, and you could then get a free online tool and convert your video to an MP3, but you still have to have a podcast hosting platform. We use SoundCloud. There’s lots of them out there. But you still have to have a podcast hosting platform to create your unique RSS feed. If you want to be an Apple and Spotify and Podbean and Pandora. But you have to be on YouTube. It’s no joke. They want ad revenue. They’re going to-

[00:36:14.860] – Kriste Goad

They know what they’re doing.

[00:36:15.350] – Carol Flagg

They don’t want Apple. It’s not really appropriate for what we do, but it’s another part of this evolution where now as a show, you can, Hey, user, you like my show? Pay me $2.99 a month, and you can have premium content or add free content. Or you can still follow the show for free and get a push notification. But do you want premium content? Maybe you want to see the outtakes from Oprah’s. I keep using Oprah because you want to see the outtakes.

[00:36:58.760] – Carol Flagg

I mean, I am.

[00:36:58.760] – Kriste Goad

I am an Oprah fan. I mean, I am. I’m an Oprah fan. Love me some Oprah, okay?

[00:37:03.800] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. I use that analogy all the time. People are like, If I start a podcast, will I get thousands of plays? I’m like, If you’re Oprah, you will.

[00:37:13.450] – Kriste Goad

Well, okay. I do want to talk about metrics before we run out of time. But before we do, can you quickly tell us about your syndication? On your network, why would someone come to you? How do you approach this? What’s the syndication value there?

[00:37:31.740] – Carol Flagg

Yeah. Most of the experiences that we come across when a company syndicates their podcast show, it’s a company-sponsored podcast, not like a solo person. It’s a company that has a podcast, they have a thought leader or a thought leaders who are hosts. They go through, again, 95% of the hard work is the actual podcast show itself. They go through that hard work, they go through that bandwidth, and they put it out on Apple and Spotify and blah, blah, and they think they’re going to get thousands of plays, and they don’t. They get 50. They market it. They send out an email campaign, and they get 50 plays per episode. Many of these companies abandon the effort. But some companies, the smarter content marketers, they go, There has to be a way to get this out. So they start investing in additional marketing channels, understanding that, Hey, you’re a monthly podcast. You’re never going to crawl your way through the algorithm in Apple. You’re just not. Forget about it. Not going to happen. So they come to us, and so we syndicate shows, which is not an unusual thing in experience in terrestrial radio or satellite radio, where We syndicate the show.

[00:38:45.980] – Carol Flagg

We don’t own the content, but we’re syndicating it and distributing it on Healthcare and our radio. I’m a company. I’m getting 20 or 30 plays per episode. How do I get 200 plays per? Well, come join our network. You’re going to put your episode out there under your show. We’re going to come in two weeks later and we’re going to redistribute it under the Healthcare and Our Radio brand with 40 other shows. We benefit by the fact that we publish and distribute so much content every day. One, two, two, three, three episodes a day are going to Apple. What happens on Apple? I follow Healthcare Now radio on Apple. I get a push notification. Oh, There’s a new episode from Health Care Now radio, and when they go there, they see the album cover. It preserves the branding, and they listen to that episode, and then they find other shows that might be of similar interest. That’s what a network is about. If you go to pbs. Org and you look at all their shows, you’re going to say, There’s 50, 60 shows there. I want to look at that show. I want to listen to that show.

[00:39:55.880] – Carol Flagg

I want to watch that show. It’s the same. It’s the same thing. Instead of being a solo.

[00:40:02.890] – Kriste Goad

Yeah. Not everybody really understands that. I think you explained it so well. Any marketer out there could understand it. That leads me to, before we end with our burning question, Carol.

[00:40:19.710] – Carol Flagg

Oh, the burning question..

[00:40:21.920] – Kriste Goad

I love that. It’s on brand. But how do you measure the success of a podcast? A vodcast. Give us those baselines because you’ve been doing this long enough. You’ve got a network. You know what the numbers look like, especially from the world that we live in, healthcare B2B. Share with our listeners what they can expect. What are common metrics and what to look for and what are the numbers to have in mind and setting expectations?

[00:40:55.480] – Carol Flagg

As a marketer, I guess, I’m going to use the word discouraging, but it’s just the reality of where we live. And that understanding that when you talk about podcast networks and YouTube, it’s not gated information. They’re third-party platforms. They can’t give you anything else, they can tell you the region, they might be able to tell you how long, they might be able to tell you… In some cases, Apple will tell you gender and age ranges, but only for the people that subscribe. People can listen to your show on Apple and not follow you.

[00:41:32.080] – Kriste Goad

They never subscribe, even.

[00:41:34.510] – Carol Flagg

They might never, right? So the analogy, interesting enough, between the podcast networks like Apple and Spotify and YouTube are the same. Your barometer is plays and views, but you can’t even say, Well, how do I-

[00:41:56.350] – Kriste Goad

It’s your target audience. Yeah, you don’t know.

[00:41:57.790] – Carol Flagg

Or even like, Am I the top podcast for nurses? You know what I mean? There’s no way to really measure that. There’s a lot of conversation right now about, especially since we flattened out on podcast plays as we’ve gone through COVID. Again, what goes up must come down. It’s not down, down, down. It’s just flat, which is what happens. About this idea of understanding that not all plays are… Whoever is listening to your show or your podcast, not all plays and views are created equal. If you believe in YouTube as a content marketing vehicle and you believe in SEO as a way to get traction and expand your brand, and if you believe that content on Apple in the form of an MP3 podcast is a way to build awareness and build thought leadership, then you’re going to keep going. So measurement becomes less, I think it’s become less important. It’s become more important to expand the tentacles of the reach for the effort that you’re doing. That said.

[00:43:23.010] – Kriste Goad

In terms of the various platforms you’re on, as well as how you’re leveraging that content. For your brand.

[00:43:31.670] – Carol Flagg

That’s right. Now, again, talking about our network. I mean, obviously, I’m not making a sales pich, but part of being part of a network is some of that effort is done by the network to increase your brand. There is a source out there, and they update it quite a bit, and they talk about, Well, how do I rank my podcast? Now, they’re talking about all podcast shows across the spectrum.

[00:43:55.880] – Kriste Goad

From Oprah down- To the kid in his garage It’s just putting his own music out there.

[00:44:03.750] – Carol Flagg

If you have between 100 and 400 See here, I’m trying to think here. If you have over 100 plays, but less than 450 plays, you’re in the top 50%.

[00:44:24.060] – Kriste Goad

That means that how it’s done is in the top 50%? Yes.

[00:44:28.840] – Carol Flagg

It’s a very- It’s confusing.

[00:44:30.200] – Kriste Goad

When I started doing this, I’m like, Man, those numbers are low.

[00:44:33.490] – Carol Flagg

Yeah, that sucks.

[00:44:34.800] – Kriste Goad

You just said it. I’m like, Wait a minute. What? I need to start advertising.

[00:44:39.500] – Carol Flagg

Right. But it’s not all that dissimilar from YouTube. People put corporate videos on YouTube all the time, and they don’t get any views. They still do it, right? They still do it for all the things that we talk about as marketers. And then they find out, well, boy, the videos where they’re actually having thought leaders doing conversations to get better traction. Well, yeah.

[00:45:08.990] – Kriste Goad

It’s like when you’re posting pictures. People want to see pictures of you doing something as a real person, right? Because those get more interaction than just marketing content, right?

[00:45:22.170] – Carol Flagg

Right. I think if you’re a B2B podcast out there, the B2B healthcare, Hey, come to We’ll help you out. But be that as it may, that aside. You have to understand that wherever your barometer is today, it’s probably a little less, however low it was, it was probably a little less than it was during COVID, right? During COVID, maybe. Yeah. It’s probably a little bit less than that. Now it becomes a situation of, Okay, what can I leverage to get more out of what I’m doing. When you put your RSS feed into YouTube, they’re converting it to videos and you’re listening to it on your phone, that’s a view. Now you can track those, right? It’s on your playlist. They’ll tell you how many views. You’ll get analytics. If you open an account, it doesn’t cost anything. You’ll get analytics. So now you can take those views and add them to your play. Because even though you initially put your unique RSS feed in there, it converts it to a video. So now you’ve got plays and downloads, which are the same thing in the podcast world. Plays and downloads on the pure audio side of it.

[00:46:42.850] – Carol Flagg

And now you’ve got views for your vodcast side of it. If you do LinkedIn Live, you can then start looking at, Well, how many impressions did I get? Especially in the aftermarket where you’re resharing and reposting, Hey, check out what I did here. And then you start getting impressions. Linkedin Live gives you analytics. They’ll tell you over time how many impressions you get.

[00:47:05.060] – Kriste Goad

So you start adding all those together.

[00:47:06.970] – Carol Flagg

You start adding all of that together, right? Exactly.

[00:47:10.930] – Kriste Goad

Great knowledge and advice, Carol. Thank you.

[00:47:13.830] – Carol Flagg

You’re welcome.

[00:47:15.120] – Kriste Goad

Well, okay. Unfortunately, this time has gone by so fast because there’s so much good.

[00:47:21.030] – Carol Flagg

There’s a lot to talk about.

[00:47:22.220] – Kriste Goad

There’s so much good to talk about and so much happening, right? So much change, and you’re on top of it. But unfortunately, our time is coming to a close, so I always like to.

[00:47:34.540] – Carol Flagg

Oh, here we go.

[00:47:36.180] – Kriste Goad

The burning question.

[00:47:38.110] – Carol Flagg

Now, I’m afraid. I wasn’t afraid until now.

[00:47:43.180] – Kriste Goad

Well, okay. I’m going to throw you a softball one then.

[00:47:47.680] – Carol Flagg

Oh, okay.

[00:47:49.970] – Kriste Goad

It’s like one of three questions. I’ll say all three, right? And you can pick one, but it’s either, what are you reading right now? What’s your favorite form of media? That was the softball one I was going to throw at you because I thought you might say vodcasting. The harder one might be if you could have lunch with one person dead or alive, who would it be? What would you eat? Why stuff? Those are my three general ones if you want to pick one.

[00:48:19.490] – Carol Flagg

Well, first of all, I love the burning question because obviously it fits perfectly into your brand.

[00:48:25.140] – Kriste Goad

Exactly.

[00:48:26.100] – Carol Flagg

For those listeners out there who did make that connection, hello. They probably did. So interesting enough, just personally speaking, my two favorite forms of media is I am a huge Audible fan. I’ve been listening to Audible for probably 12 years.

[00:48:51.470] – Kriste Goad

I do too- So good.

[00:48:53.550] – Carol Flagg

It’s so good. So I don’t even read books anymore. I listen to everything on Audible. It started. It was the Beijing Olympics with Michael Phelps. I was watching it on TV. I was swimming back then. I was like, What does he have on his ears? It looks like he’s listening to music while he’s swimming. Of course, I immediately go to Google and come to find out that, yes, back then, this was so many years ago, it was the iPod. Remember, we had the little iPod?

[00:49:20.770] – Kriste Goad

I remember. I still have mine.

[00:49:22.450] – Carol Flagg

It was a waterproof iPod. That’s what started me down the road to Audible, listening to books while I swam. And now I listen to books when I walk and at the gym and when I go to sleep at night. So I am a huge-

[00:49:40.790] – Kriste Goad

Diving down the road.

[00:49:41.900] – Carol Flagg

Audible fan. Our podcast is on… Elk and I radio is on Audible. All your podcasts, get them on there if you want.

[00:49:51.250] – Kriste Goad

Okay. I never thought about that. So that’s another platform you’re telling me I can put my podcast in there?

[00:49:55.810] – Carol Flagg

You can put your RSS feed in there and it’ll be on Audible.

[00:49:58.600] – Kriste Goad

Shut up.

[00:49:59.970] – Carol Flagg

Sorry. That is amazing.

[00:50:01.170] – Kriste Goad

Where have I been? You got another favorite form, though, you were going to say.

[00:50:10.240] – Carol Flagg

My hobbies, my passions in life are art, painting, baking, and travel. And so YouTube is a phenomenal learning experience for all three of those. I spend a lot of my time on weekends at night while my husband is watching TV with my Airpods in, looking at YouTube videos.

[00:50:48.410] – Kriste Goad

Well, now you want to talk about this as a podcast for curious marketers, but curiosity, right? That is the epitome of a curious person. You’re just constantly learning no matter what. And that’s the beauty Audible and YouTube and podcasting is constantly learning new things from people from all different angles, right? Yeah. I love those, Carol.

[00:51:20.270] – Carol Flagg

Kriste, this is so much fun.

[00:51:21.820] – Kriste Goad

So much fun. Thank you again for joining us, Carol. I learned so much, and I know, I hope, but I know that our listeners did, too.

[00:51:31.980] – Carol Flagg

Okay. Thank you.

[00:51:33.500] – Kriste Goad

As always, we will make it easier on our listeners, and we will include links and background and show notes all together, making them easy for our listeners and now viewers. Yes. Now, we didn’t even talk about this one, Carol, but be sure to check out our podcast on our website. Our website. We also publish it on our website. So that is another platform, right? Absolutely. You can look at more things there. Anyway, check us out on our website, growwithfuoco.com/howit’sdonepodcast.Or wherever you get your podcast or, in honor of Carol in this conversation, podcast. And don’t forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. You can find Carol at healthcarenowradio.com. Again, my guest has been Carol Flagg, Managing Partner of Answers Media Network and Host of the podcast, What’s My Tag Line. Thank you so much, Carol.

[00:52:43.920] – Carol Flagg

Thank you so much for having me on today.

[00:52:45.810] – Kriste Goad

That’s it for now. Thanks so much for listening. We’re looking forward to keeping great conversations coming your way as we grow this podcast. There’s even more great content from our conversations on our blog. Be sure to check it out at growwithfuoco.com. That’s growwithfuoco.com. Stay tuned until next time, and no matter what, stay curious.

• Recommended Reading
  • Answers Media Network
  • Migrating Your Podcasts Shows From Google Podcasts before Google Podcasts goes away on August 30th, 2024 (previously July 30th, 2024)

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