I have been spending a huge amount of time listening to podcasts lately, and while some of them are great, some leave me wondering what planet the people involved are really on.
(I love some podcasts, and even despite what I say here, I love some because they do all these things, they are my guilty pleasure).
But, I listened to one yesterday that after 30 minutes I had no idea what they were going on about. To be honest I am not sure they really knew themselves.
There are some where people are really trying to tell us interesting facts, tell us the things that we really need to know and sure, we know that in the end they want to sell us something, but they don’t go on and on and on about it.
So, and mentioning no names – except when one slips out – here are my top 10 sins in podcast marketing
- Ninja’s – don’t refer to yourself as a content Ninja, or describe people as having Ninja skills. Now I love Ninjas, in films, on TV, they are pretty cool, but, really, if you call yourself a marketing Ninja, or some other made up title what are you trying to prove? Anyone who calls themselves any type of Ninja should be stabbed with their own store bought fake samuri sword.
- Your mates – don’t invite on the show your best mate, the sole purpose of them being there is to demonstrate how hard and cool you are. I have listened to a podcast recently where the interviewee was the guys personal trainer, a good 10 minutes of the show was spent telling us how well they could fight, how hard they trained and how tough they were.
- Your mates – two – The Circuit – there are a series of American podcasts, where if you listen to enough of them you realise that they are just interviewing each other over and over again. The same voices and names crop up time and time again. The same names get dropped, the same subjects discussed.
- Your mates – Three – Name Dropping – don’t spend your time proving your own importance by telling us how much you love ‘Seth’ or ‘Gargan’ or just repeat how much turnover – the 6 figuredness of your company, or that you spent time working with Steve Jobs. If the number of people who say they worked with Steve Jobs actually did, the man would never have got any work done.
- Your puppies – well I am sure that everyone loves their dog, but frankly I am pretty sure that listening to it bark and howl in the background is not really conducive to a learning experience.
- Poor noise quality – if the skype connections on your guests cut out, or get distorted, then edit that bit out. One podcast actually had a good one minute of the presenter saying – “are you there?” It is not a live show, so there is no reason to leave that sort of thing in.
- Theme music– we don’t need a theme song at the beginning or end of your show. I understand why people do it, and a short burst of music provides a start and end point, but do we need a whole song? And while cutting out the theme music, probably best to cut out canned applause and cheers as well.
- Advertising – now I do understand that people making podcasts do it so they can make money, which is fair enough – I would just rather that they did not spend 10 minutes discussing how much they hate advertising on apps, or media sites only to move over to their own “sponsors”
- Annoying words – I may be a tight, boring Brit, but something annoys me about hearing the English Language being ruined (except of course when I do it of course). It is not, for example a Nitch, no its a Niche, and it is not pronounced Nitttttch, never. We don’t ‘transition’ from piece to piece, and to paraphrase The Incredibles, if everything is Awesome, then really, nothing is.
- Authors – I have a great respect for authors, for people who spend time writing a book and then can get someone to believe in it enough to put money into its publication. I have sold over 100,000 copies of my books online, but, since it is all self published on Amazon does that make me an author? No, not really, and interviewing an author who is basically trying to promote their e’book which took them 4 months to write is more than a little bogus.
I am sure that you will have a different opinion, but if anyone has found a great podcast, let me know. Or equally play a quick game of podcast bingo. Time how long it takes before someone says all of the following:
- Awesome
- I love you guys, you know that
- Seth
- Podcamp
- Google Glass
- Transition
- Amazing
- Ninja skills
- Marketing Yoda
- Really psyched
If you get to 10 before 20 minutes are up, then you could win a major prize, or just loose the will to live.
I challenge you to listen to this guy for more than 20 minutes without wanting to take the next plane to America and go on a killing spree. And if anyone can translate what they are going on about into useful content, I will buy them lunch.