Chapter 12

Speaking Directly to Your Peeps

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Encouraging listener feedback

Bullet Starting a discussion group online

Bullet Finding conversations on the web

Bullet Handling listener feedback, good and bad

Communication can be defined in a multitude of overly complex ways. For the sake of argument (and not to copy each and every dictionary entry we can find), we define the term this way:

The exchange of information between two points.

Note that last part — between two points. To us, this implies a bidirectional flow of information, to and from both parties.

If you've had the pleasure (note how well we can say that with a straight face) of attending any productivity or team-building seminars, the presenters really drive the message home: Effective communication is not a one-way street.

Over the past few years, podcasting has evolved into a more effective communication method than traditional media (such as radio or television). We all have communication tools at our disposal — email, websites, phone lines — so why do podcast listeners seem to get more involved with podcasting? Two simple reasons:

  • There seems to be a closer bond between podcast consumer and podcast producer. The simple fact that anyone can do this makes the producer seem more like a real person than a personality and therefore, easier to relate to.
  • The podcasters are asking for feedback — and getting it. Audience size doesn’t matter. We’ve seen some instances of shows with a couple hundred loyal followers where the podcaster has to spin off a second show just to handle the listener feedback.

In this chapter, we show you some real-world examples of how to foster communication between you and your audience, touching on a variety of methods and venues.

Gathering Listener Feedback

It must be a natural human reaction to fear the opinions of others. Perhaps it's insecurity, but we think it has more to do with our culture's constant reinforcement of the “How are you?” — “I'm fine. You?” — “Fine.” meaningless chatter that precedes most of our conversations.

That cultural crutch, however, is left next to Tiny Tim’s seat when it comes to podcasting. Listeners, for whatever reason, are compelled to actually give real and meaningful criticism. And podcasters, for the most part, take to heart those responses.

Of course, we’re speaking in general terms. Yes, there are flamers and trolls out there with less than helpful opinions at the ready. Podcasting can't change basic human nature for the ill-evolved, unfortunately.

You can foster good communication with your listening audience in a multitude of ways, such as:

  • Allowing and responding to comments on your blog
  • Creating and visiting online discussion groups and forums
  • Responding to listener email
  • Participating in online social networks
  • Leveraging voicemail, as seen in Figure 12-1

So let’s get cracking on how we make these methods of reaching out and touching someone work for your podcast.

Photo depicts a show goes live, remind your audience on social media that you have a voicemail line and that you’d love to hear from them.

FIGURE 12-1: When a show goes live, remind your audience on social media that you have a voicemail line and that you’d love to hear from them.

Fostering Comments on Your Blog

In an ideal world, all communication, feedback, rants, and raves about your show would take place in a neat little box, keeping things nice and tidy for you. But because that won’t happen, your best bet is to build a website that both enables and encourages the communication in your own backyard.

In Chapter 11, we demonstrate how much adding show notes can improve reaching new audiences on account of SEO. Well, here’s one more reason show notes are important to your podcast — show notes serve as mechanisms for interaction.

In the world of blogs, this interaction is referred to as comments. Visit just about any blog you can find, read a post, and you’re likely to find a small Comments link at the bottom. Some podcasters get dozens of responses per episode. Some get none. Although there is some relation to the size of your listening audience, the frequency of your podcast, and the number of comments you’re likely to receive, it really has more to do with the connection users feel they have with your podcast.

Remember If you’re already using a blog, you usually don’t have to do anything special to turn on the comments feature. Most software comes configured to accept comments by default. If you decide comments are not for you or your podcast, turning off that capability is simply a matter of selecting the right option.

Much like two co-workers chatting about last night's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, two or more listeners using your website to talk to each other about your show speaks to the attachment they feel to what you have to say (or play). From the very first moments of attachment, you can nurture a community around your podcast. Here are some simple ways we recommend to foster your following:

  • Mention that you have comments on the blog as a standard practice as part of the intro, outro, or the break.
  • Include a one-line promotion of your podcast in your email signature.
  • Ask questions during the show and direct listeners to your blog to leave their comments or opinions.
  • Actively respond to received comments.

Communication develops amongst the listening community itself. Rather than talking to you, listeners start talking to each other, and the conversation — and sometimes, the community — takes on a life of its own.

Warning Sometimes, comments that take on lives of their own mutate into hostile takeovers, and the conversation is lost amidst an onslaught of personal attacks either to other posters or to you, the podcast’s and blog’s host. Neither your community nor you need this kind of conversation. You may want to consider moderating blog comments. Moderating still allows people to post comments, but you get to approve those comments for public consumption. When someone posts a comment, you get an email. With a couple mouse clicks, you can chose whether to approve it. You have to do a little more work, but moderating ensures all comments meet your quality standards.

You may find your name or podcast mentioned other places on the Internet via search engines (discussed both in this chapter and Chapter 11). We recommend you get engaged with those discussions as well. Be sure to check back in a couple days for additional follow-ups, or if you are responding to a blog comment or forum, check to see if they have an option to alert you to replies.

Focusing on Online Forums

An online forum allows individuals to post their thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics — of their own choosing. Through a concept known as threading, multiple discussions can exist independently of all the others. Topics can get buried quickly in email discussions. Forums work differently, keeping all threads and topics available for clutter-free commenting at any time.

Remember As easy as it is to create places for these types of conversations to occur, someone else may have already done it. Spend some quality time searching the Internet for your name and your show. Maybe a devoted fan has already done the not-so-heavy lifting for you.

Using a hosted forum, like a hosted blog, takes away much of the burden of downloading, installing, and configuring the software. On the other hand, you don’t have quite the flexibility with a hosted solution as you would with a package you host yourself. One of the easier hosted forums to use is Tapatalk, as seen in Figure 12-2. To get started, just follow these steps:

  1. Browse to www.tapatalk.com.

    If you have a Tapatalk account, enter your username and password.

    If you don’t have an account, click the Sign Up button.

  2. Log in.

    Click either Google or Facebook to log in with one of those accounts, or click Continue With Email to create a new account using your email. If you choose the last option, check your email to validate the email address.

  3. Create a new group.

    Click the Start New link on the Start Your Own section. Enter a group name (your podcast name). The short name automatically fills in. Provide a short description of your show, pick a color, and optionally upload a background image. Validate that you are not a robot and click Continue.

    Photo depicts Tapatalk offers free forum hosting that you can use for your podcasts.

    FIGURE 12-2: Tapatalk offers free forum hosting that you can use for your podcasts.

  4. Configure your group.

    On the home page under Groups, locate your group, click the three vertical dots (the kebab icon), and modify the group settings to your needs.

  5. Send invitations.

    Using the same etiquette as a distribution list, let the world know your forums are available. You can send an email or announce it on your podcast.

    Remember Keep in mind the issue of how some people might see invitations as spam.

That’s it! You can now customize your forum, start new posts, and spread the word of your newly created forum. Much like discussion groups, you can promote your forum by

  • Posting the address on your website
  • Adding the address to your email signature line
  • Mentioning the forum on each of your podcast episodes

You can find plenty of hosted forums options by running a Google search. Most are supported by web ads or voluntary donations. Moderating a forum takes three to four hours a week for troubleshooting, answering user requests, and keeping the spammers and forum troublemakers at bay. Four hours is a modest investment considering the return is a strong community.

However, keep in mind that forums and communities take time to build steam. Be persistent, post every day, and constantly encourage your listeners to interact with you and your podcast in this manner. But above all, be patient!

Tip Remember when we said podcasting has an element of marketing with it? Here’s another opportunity to take your name to the people. Developing a public forum means your information becomes available to a lot of potential listeners. They may find your forum and become interested in your podcast, rather than the other way around.

Like blog comments, you might find your name or podcast being thrown around other forums. We highly suggest you sign up and participate in the discussion. Respond to the comments — positive or negative. (See the section about not-so-positive comments later in this chapter.)

Social Media

Social media has become a part of our lives over the past decade and a half. Online communities built around these platforms are made up of profiles, posts, tweets, pages, instas, and snaps for people of all ages and backgrounds. They can serve as one-stop shops, or combine popular forms of communication into a hybrid that gives you all the best features. Some of these platforms have been online longer than podcasting has been around, but podcasters rely on these platforms as a ways and means of reaching new audiences.

We cover many of the more popular networks out there. Yes, there are more than the ones highlighted here, but these are the ones getting a lot of the attention.

Remember You can find plenty of social networking sites out there, and many more will probably appear (and disappear) in the time it takes this book to reach your hands. What’s important is finding the network or networks that can get the word of your listeners back to you, help you create a better show, and make you a better podcaster.

Facebook

The house that Zuckerberg built, Facebook (www.facebook.com) has evolved from the “alternative to MySpace” (yeah, remember when MySpace was cool?) to a one-stop shop offering a blog, bulletin board, online scrapbook, video streaming, and forum, all in one convenient location. Facebook gives registered users the ability to create online Groups where comments can be circulated across others’ networks as well as your own. You can also establish a Page where you control the message being sent out to the public and boost posts that will appear in Facebook News Feeds around the world. Facebook provides your listeners a quick interface both through your computer and your mobile device to not only offer feedback on what just went live, but also preview what’s coming up next on your podcast. You can also use your Groups and Pages to solicit voicemail or offer up polls that serve as instant content for your show.

Tip Facebook also offers Facebook Live (as we talk about in Chapter 17), a video streaming service where your mobile device’s camera captures where you are and what you are thinking. While you are filming, comments and reactions are shared with you and your audience. If you are sharing video in your podcast feed, you can easily download your video and drop it into your feed. If you would prefer not to offer video, then extract the audio from your Facebook Live segment and use it as a new podcast episode. Facebook Live can be used as either a promotional device for your podcast, or as content for upcoming episodes.

For more information on Facebook, pick up a copy of Facebook For Dummies by Carolyn Abram.

Twitter

Twitter (www.twitter.com) continues to be a fantastic and instantaneous way of beginning conversations, garnering feedback, and getting word out about your podcast while not becoming a distraction or productivity time-sink as Facebook sometimes tends to be. Twitter, either through its website, its mobile app, or a third-party application that is Twitter-enabled, gives you 280 characters to say anything. You can use Twitter to direct people to your blog when a new show posts. Listeners can post (or tweet) what they’re listening to and comment on it. From various tweets, topics can be created on the blog or forums, resources can be cited, and quick announcements can reach a wide variety of listeners in moments.

Twitter delivers the instant gratification of tweeting but gives you only 280 characters to do it, preventing you from losing your intent in a drawn-out posting. It’s based on the premise of answering the question “What’s happening?” If you find someone is listening to your podcast, ask them for feedback. Good or bad, begin a simple chat and ask for the opinions of others in your Twitter network. Use Twitter to post teasers on upcoming episodes, ask for validation from comments found elsewhere, and tweet relevant links either you or your listeners provide that tie back to your most recent episode’s topic.

Tip Before Facebook Live, Twitter developed its own video streaming platform — Periscope (www.periscope.tv) — allowing for viewers all over the world the opportunity to comment on what you are sharing. As we discuss in Chapter 17, your video in Periscope can be saved to your phone, and then uploaded either to your feed or your video platform of choice. If you would prefer not to offer video, then extract the audio from your Periscope segment, and drop it as a new podcast episode. Periscope can be used as either a promotional device for your podcast, or to provide content for upcoming episodes.

Pinterest

Known more as a haven for D.I.Y. projects or slow cooker recipes, Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) is a platform waiting for you and your podcasting street team to take full advantage of. When you understand how Pinterest works, podcasters can tap into its full potential. Think of the social network as a visual bulletin board and every time you post a new show, you go to your virtual bulletin board and post an image relevant to your show. That could be your show art, or it could be an image from your show notes. Your fans go to this board, click the image you just posted, and they find themselves on your podcast’s site. That’s how boards on Pinterest work.

Set a podcast board for your show, and then, when putting together show notes, go on and incorporate relevant images for whatever you are talking about. When you create a new post — Pinterest calls this a pin — Pinterest will ask where to pull images from. Use your latest episode’s URL and then pick an image to represent the new content. Others in your Pinterest network can now interact easily with your pin by either leaving a comment or repinning it to their boards, reaching a whole new network.

YouTube? For audio?!

“My podcast is audio-only. What possible use could I have for YouTube?” Yeah, that’s what many podcasters think — they couldn’t be more wrong. The challenge is that YouTube (www.youtube.com) doesn’t allow uploading of MP3 files. Everything has to be a video. It’s not a big leap to use something like iMovie, Premiere Elements, or Screenflow to take your audio track, slap in an image and create a video file you can put on YouTube. You’ve already done the editing for the audio file (if you’re in to that sort of thing). Now it’s just a couple of additional steps to import and export to upload to YouTube (see Figure 12-3). Don’t short yourself: Take a look at Chapter 17 for some useful bits about creating a simple video file.

Photo depicts Ben and Keith of TGGeeks distribute every episode on YouTube.

FIGURE 12-3: Ben and Keith of TGGeeks distribute every episode on YouTube.

What’s the point of putting your audio-only podcast on YouTube? Simple, you want to be where the people are. Billions of people are on YouTube all looking for content. Suppose your podcast is on Japanese history… People are searching for information on Japanese history on YouTube. Sure, it may not be your biggest distribution channel, but like the other sections in this chapter, it’s all about making yourself as visible as possible.

Instagram

Instagram (www.instagram.com) may not come to mind as a promotional platform or communication channel for your podcast, but with some ingenious approaches, the image-exclusive platform gives your podcast an exciting new way to let people know that new episodes are live and how to send feedback through voicemail.

So how do you turn an app all about capturing the moment visually into a community platform for your audio podcast? It may require a few workarounds, but once you find your rhythm, it becomes second nature after a few postings.

Once your latest episode goes live:

  1. Mail your Show Art to your smartphone.

    At the time of this writing, there are no apps that allow you to upload photos from your computer to your Instagram account. Instagram was always meant for smartphones.

  2. Save the Show Art into your smartphone’s Photo app.
  3. Pull up the URL of your show in your smartphone’s browser, find the new episode’s URL, and copy it to your phone’s clipboard.
  4. Launch Instagram and go to your Instagram profile by tapping your profile icon in the lower-right corner of the app’s Options.
  5. Tap the Edit Profile option.
  6. Paste the episode’s URL in to the Website field on your Instagram profile (highlighted in Figure 12-4).

    You can use the main URL for the podcast, but the individual episode’s URL will take your audience directly to the new episode.

  7. Tap Done to accept and activate the changes.
  8. Tap the Create Post option (the + icon) in the Instagram menu.
  9. Create a new Instagram post with your Show Art as the featured image; make sure to include in the post “Follow the URL in my Instagram profile …” so people know where to find the new content.

    Remember URLs are not active in Instagram posts.

    Warning If you are creating an Instagram profile just for your podcast, you do not want an Instagram account that is nothing but images of your Show Art. You will want to either create Instagram Show Art that feature images relevant to your podcast’s content or post other content that may be in tune to your interests, or even the show’s interest. Reporting the same image over and over again could get you reported as SPAM and, in turn, shut down.

Photo depicts dropping an individual episode URL into your Instagram profile gives visitors to your Instagram direct access to new content.

FIGURE 12-4: Dropping an individual episode URL into your Instagram profile gives visitors to your Instagram direct access to new content.

Now that you have your podcast featured on Instagram, how about giving your listeners an easy way to leave you voicemail? They are already on their phones. How can you make that happen?

  1. Launch Instagram and go to your Instagram profile by tapping your profile icon in the lower-right corner of the app’s Options.
  2. Tap the Edit Profile button to access the Account Options menu.
  3. Scroll down to the Switch to Professional Account option. Tap this option and follow the steps to identify as a Creator account.

    At the time of this writing, there were several categories to identify you. While Podcaster is not yet one of the categories, we recommend you choose Digital Creator as a close second. When you complete this and go back to your profile screen, you should see some new settings at the bottom.

  4. Tap the Page option to connect your profile to a new or existing Facebook page then click Done.
  5. Tap the Contact options to set an email address and phone number so your audience can easily reach you, then tap the checkmark when done.
  6. When you’ve completed your profile settings, click the checkmark on the Edit Profile screen to return to the profile screen.

    On finishing this process, notice that your Instagram profile now comes with a Contact button. By tapping this button, visitors to your Instagram profile can directly reach out to you, as shown in Figure 12-5.

Photo depicts a simple tap, listeners of your podcast can now leave you either email or voicemail feedback regarding your latest show.

FIGURE 12-5: With a simple tap, listeners of your podcast can now leave you either email or voicemail feedback regarding your latest show.

Social media offers you these options and a whole lot more. These platforms are a breeze to set up, but you know what else is easy-peasy to set up? Voicemail. If you have a smartphone and if you can navigate through Google, you are only a few clicks away from your own voicemail account.

Discord: The Lava Lamp of Online Communications

Yes, we cover online forums and social media as great ways to cultivate your community, but back in our third edition, there was a new player that we didn’t know about. This new player in communication, as you see in the this section’s heading, is something like a lava lamp: stylish, always changing, and synonymous with bringing people together for a variety of reasons.

Discord (www.discordapp.com) is available as a smartphone app, a tablet app, and a stand-alone desktop client, and hosts millions of daily users and hundreds of millions of messages a day. While Discord is more associated with console gaming, eSports, and streamers (something we touch on in Chapter 17), podcasters are turning to the platform as a solution in building a community. It is part online forum, part social media, and something entirely unique.

By establishing a server on Discord, you offer one location for your listeners or viewers to meet. Once on your server, you and your audience can keep in touch through text channels and voice channels, designated by hashtags as seen in Figure 12-6. Discord offers you a unique ability to not only develop and build a community around your podcast, but also keep the conversation rolling in real-time, offering fans of the show a special online kaffeeklatsch (a German term that translates to “coffee and gossip” or friends getting together at someone’s house for a good old fashioned chin wag) in a special meeting room.

Photo depicts Discord is a versatile, reliable communications platform, and is considered the premier community builder for content creators.

FIGURE 12-6: Discord is a versatile, reliable communications platform, and is considered the premier community builder for content creators.

And with the right apps and consent from those attending, you can record the Discord gatherings and offer them up as podcasts themselves. Think of these shows as live feedback roundtables.

In this exercise, we are going from the perspective that you already have a Discord account, server, and channel set up; and we’re going to make a post about our latest podcast episode. If you need to know how to set up a Discord account, set up a server, and then establish a channel, take a look at Tee’s Discord For Dummies title. He’ll get you up and running.

If you’re already running, you can widen that stride of yours:

  1. Go to your #general channel and select it.
  2. Enter in the following text into the message field:

    A new episode of _The Shared Desk_ is up and **LIVE** right now, so have a listen at http://www.theshareddesk.com/2020/06/02/episode-102/.

    We welcome creative couple Alyson Grauer and Drew Mierzejewski who are podcasting _Skyjacks’ Courier’s Call_ but this isn't their first rodeo. Have a listen and share your thoughts at **703.791.1701**!

    Tip To get a hard return/line break in a Discord message, use Shift + Enter on a desktop keyboard.

  3. Once you have your message typed out, hit the Enter key or the Send icon to post your message.

    This quick message, shown in Figure 12-7, lets members of your server know that your latest episode is now live and ready for their ears. Sure, if listeners are subscribed to your podcast, they will be notified by their podcast app of choice but a little reminder in your Discord doesn’t hurt.

Photo depicts along with continuing discussions about recent episodes, Discord can also serve as a notification system to help you get the word out that a new show is live!

FIGURE 12-7: Along with continuing discussions about recent episodes, Discord can also serve as a notification system to help you get the word out that a new show is live!

What you should also notice in your recent post are the different kinds of text formatting available. Discord offers you the following:

  • _italics_: Placing text between a pair of underscores will italicize text. You can also italicize text by using a single asterisk on either side of your text.
  • **bold**: When you use double asterisks, any text appearing between the two pair will be bolded.
  • ***bold and italics***: For additional emphasis, you can simultaneously bold and italicize text by using a set of three asterisks on either side of the text you wish to format.
  • ~strikethrough~: Strikethrough can always be fun when you want to show a sudden change of thought or illustrate how a change in one draft can differ from another. To do this, you surround the stricken text with a tilde, created by using the Shift key and the key to the left of your “1” key.
  • __underlining__: Similar to italics, you can underline text by using a pair of underscores on either side of a body of text.

Warning Old habits die hard. When people see underlined text, it is perceived that whatever is underlined is a link. Even though links are not underlined in Discord, it is something that happens often. Underlined text might earn you a few postings of “Hey, do you know this link is broken?” from visitors. Also, underlined text can sometimes be hard to read. Use the underline markup sparingly, and at your own risk.

Then there are emojis available just by clicking on the smiley face off to the right. Drop a laughing face, and people know you are kidding. Drop an angry face, and your intent is made clear. Yeah, this may come across as a weird detail to point out, but there is a good reason why you have so many emojis to choose from. It’s a final touch along with basic text formatting to help you fine-tune your tone, so consider using them.

Discord offers you a terrific opportunity to build a community around your podcast. Take a look at it, either through your own server or in participating on other Discord servers, to see whether this platform works for you in connecting with listeners.

Using Voicemail

One of the strengths of podcasting is that the content is so portable. That means your listener is quite likely to be away from a computer while listening to your podcast — making the interaction more difficult. Plenty of people, including your authors, listen to podcasts during their commute to work or on road trips. How do you get comments from those listeners? Simple: Have them call in.

Mobile phones are practically ubiquitous. It’s a fair assumption that your listener has a mobile phone and sometimes they are listening to your podcast on their mobile phone. If you want those listeners to give you feedback, give them a number to call. Many podcasters have set up a number through Google Voice (https://voice.google.com). Google Voice, as seen in Figure 12-8, lets people call and leave a message.

Photo depicts Google Voice is a free, online service that allows you to download voicemails in an MP3 format so you can easily play them back on your podcast.

FIGURE 12-8: Google Voice is a free, online service that allows you to download voicemails in an MP3 format so you can easily play them back on your podcast.

To set up a listener line, follow these steps:

  1. Sign up for a free Gmail account (https://mail.google.com) if you do not already have one.
  2. Go to https://voice.google.com.
  3. Click the gear icon in the upper right.
  4. Click Account on the left menu.
  5. Click the Choose button in the Choose a Google Voice number section.
  6. Review the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and then click Continue.
  7. Enter the city or area code for which you would like to get a free phone number.

    Note: This number does not have to be in your area.

    Tip Pick a phone number that is easy to remember or has a mnemonic, a memory pattern, you can choose, for example 1234, or perhaps a number that correspond to letters. If you are doing a Star Trek podcast, a number with 8735 (TREK) somewhere in it makes it easy for your callers to remember.

  8. Click Next to link your Google voice number with your mobile number.

    Make certain you enable the Do Not Disturb option for your Google Voice number. This will automatically take any calls going to your Google Voice number straight to voicemail.

  9. Google will send you a verification code. Enter this on the screen presented and click Verify.
  10. When the process is completed, click Finish.

You can now tell the world about an easy way to leave you a voicemail. When someone leaves you a message, you’ll get an email notification!

Okay, Google Voice is fine and dandy if you’re calling from the United States, but let’s not forget that podcasting can reach anyone anywhere. How do you get in touch with the listeners from Australia, South Africa, or Tierra del Fuego? You can encourage your international audience to leave you a voice memo through Facebook Messenger or take advantage of WhatsApp. Their audio can come from anywhere in the world for free.

You may find yourself with so much voicemail that you’ll have to do what several podcasters have done and create a separate show for their listener feedback. Listeners, including your authors, often get a kick out of hearing their comments aired to the world.

Seeking Out the Comments of Others

There’s an old saying about the best-laid plans of mice and men (and how they often go awry). That adage can be applied quite aptly to when podcasters pick up a walking stick, throw a haversack over their shoulders, and proclaim, “I’m going on an adventure!” You see, it is a certainty that listeners of your show, both fan and foe, will talk about your show to others in a variety of formats and on platforms of which you have absolutely no control.

There are existing forums, chat rooms, and social media threads that deal with your particular podcasting topic. At some point, those people will find out about your show and start listening. Current research shows these people will post reviews faster than Ken Miles’s now legendary 1966 Le Mans race. In fact, uneducated opinions on the Internet stand as the only things faster than Miles’s legendary Ford GT40.

Welcome to the community of the Internet.

There are a variety of ways to keep your eyes and ears on these groups and to find comments regarding your podcast. Doing so will give you valuable, direct feedback from listeners and let you respond quickly and easily. But before you set off on that journey, consider the warnings passed on to Indiana Jones before setting off on a archeological quest: Be careful what you unearth.

Trying a general search

Is it just us, or don’t most people do a Google search for their own name at least twice a week? Could be just us, but that’s a great way to see whether people are talking about you. Google has a gazillion pages in its search database and constantly crawls a good percentage of the web, finding interesting tidbits and adding more data with each pass.

When you search, try various combinations. If your name is a common one, such as John Smith, you’re probably going to get a lot of hits unrelated to you. Try adding the topic of your show to the search for more relevant results. For example, if your name is John Smith and you’re podcasting about underwater basket weaving, type John Smith underwater basket weaving in the Google search box. If your show name is unique, or at least uncommon, try using the name of your show as a search term.

Tip We realize that there are other search engines besides Google. Yahoo! and Bing produce fine results, as do a few others. If you have neither the time nor the inclination to experiment with a dozen search engines, we suggest these three. They syndicate their results to other lesser-known (but equally valid) search engines. But as we’ve said countless times before, your mileage may vary. The same techniques we outline work well on just about any search engine you prefer.

Searching within a site, blog, or social media platform

As extensive and cool as search engines are, they can’t cover everything on the Net. Not only are there physical limitations as to how wide of an area the spiders and bots can cover, there are also self-imposed limitations set up by website owners that inhibit a good indexing of the site. Take forums, for example. Some are set up in a manner that renders their internal pages invisible to the spiders and bots of even the best engines.

But most forums have an internal search engine that you can use to find the content within the forum — though you may be required to register with the forum to access its search engine. Blogs, forums, and even social media platforms such as Twitter have search features; the results are easy to track down, as shown in Figure 12-9.

Photo depicts the right hashtag associated with your podcast or episode, people can easily search and track Twitter for comments related to your show.

FIGURE 12-9: With the right hashtag associated with your podcast or episode, people can easily search and track Twitter for comments related to your show.

When the Comments Are Less than Good

First, don’t panic.

Second, don’t respond. Not yet.

Third, let your blood pressure come down to a normal level.

Let’s face it. Anytime someone has any critical comments about us, we get an emotional reaction. We call that being human, and it’s perfectly understandable and impossible to suppress. Following that impulse of replying right away only leads you to discover the two reasons why it’s called a knee-jerk reaction: It’s a reflex to clashing viewpoints, and you come across like a real jerk when you don’t think about your response before riding the emotional roller coaster. (The classic wooden ones like the Rebel Yell, Beast, or Grizzly. Yeah. Roller coasters. Cool.)

When you're calm and feeling a bit more detached, reread the comment and plan your course of action. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Reflect on the comment.

    What does the comment say, really? Does the person make a valid point? Is there an area of improvement you should make? If the comment was specific, re-listen to the show in question. Did you say what the person said you did or stumble as bad as the person made it out to be? You may need a different perspective, so feel free to get someone else involved.

  2. When you fully understand the criticism, decide whether or not you want to respond.

    One option is to not respond at all. If you do choose to respond, consider taking the high road as the best approach. You can often disarm an inflammatory remark simply by politely accepting the comments with something like “Thank you for your feedback. I’ll take it in to consideration.”

  3. Additionally, consider sending an email.

    If you send an email, count on that email being posted right alongside the negative comment. There’s no guarantee the person will keep your correspondence private. In fact, count on the opposite. Whatever you say in a private email should be something you would be willing to say in a more public forum. Keep your rebuttal rational, civil, and, above all, professional.

Remember Just like any argument, it’s best to keep things on a professional level with your words and mannerisms. Although it may be hard not to take it personally, try to refrain from escalating. It’s not going to help the situation.

Negative feedback is never an easy thing to stomach, but look at the positive aspect of this: People are listening. They’re listening, and now they’re most assuredly talking, blogging, and podcasting about you. We’re not saying to rush out and say something completely irrational simply to drum up controversy, but we’re saying that people will disagree with you now and then. It should be expected, and you should be ready to face that tough love when it comes your way.

More than anything, grow from the experience. Understand that anything you say in your podcast will be heard by a variety of people, with different backgrounds, experiences, and expectations of the world. We’ve been on both sides of this and can count many times where the negative comments we received turned out to be some of the best feedback. We think we're better podcasters for it.

Feedback, good or bad, is only as constructive as you make it out to be.

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