A podcast is just one piece of the whole for the brand you represent, how might you aim to think bigger, and create a broader environment of engagement around your podcast? In this webinar we will hear from independent creators who have embraced this thinking, innovated, and expanded the influence of their podcast brand through myriad avenues of engagement; live events, social media, email campaigns, product offerings, merchandise, institutional partnerships, and more!

Joining us in conversation are Sarah Azoubel and Bia Guimarães of 37 Graus, Dan Saks of Noodle Loaf, and Katy Osuna of Copper & Heat.

Transcript

Alexandra Blair [00:00:08] All right. Hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. I am so excited to be presenting this panel to you today. I want to kind of start off here by discussing the title of this panel. So obviously all of you guys found the... and you're here to join us for this awesome group discussion. But what is the title of this panel really mean, "how to make your podcast more than the sum of its parts"? So I wanted to kind of give you guys some background on how we think about this and what we're going to be talking about here today. So when we talk about how to make your podcast "more than the sum of its parts" what we're really talking about here is the concept of podcast optionality. So a lot of times we hear this kind of film industry word talking about "option" and that really, in the film industry, talks about media property or screenplay, the purchase rights have been secured, but that is definitely not how we're using this phrase here today. So today, when we're talking about podcast optionality, we're talking about literally how some of our favorite shows create options within what their brand is offering and within what they as creative individuals are offering. So when we use this term here today, we're talking about how successful shows and individuals in the audio industry diversify their streams of attention and engagement and, of course, revenue. And I think a really, really great example of this is this quote I'm going to share with you from Aaron Manhnke, who is the creator, producer and host of the podcast Lore. And the quote is, "I always tell podcasters to use as many streams as possible. Many streams make a river, so don't just sell ads on your show. Don't just sell t-shirts, don't just do the crowdfunding. Do all of that. Find the right mix. And together it will add up to something that's stronger." So I think that's a great example of what we're talking about here. How to make your podcasts more than the sum of its parts more than just a podcast, more than just crowdfunding or t shirts or live events. How to kind of create a vibrant mix of offerings under the one brand umbrella of your podcast or that are coming from you as the individual and creator/creative. Today, we're going to be hearing from four individuals across three different brand properties that work in the audio industry, and they're going to share their own experiences with developing themselves and their brands. But I thought it might be kind of helpful to start with a couple of examples of podcasters we might know of and have heard of, and look at some of the ways that they are doing this as well. A great example from the PRX family is Song Exploder so Hrishikesh Hirway. He is the host and creator of Song Exploder. He makes several other podcasts, though you may not know he makes one about the TV show The West Wing, where he works with Aaron Sorkin to talk about the West Wing. He has a cooking show with my personal chef crush. Samin Nosrat the author of Salt Fat Acid Heat and then Song Exploder also films live events. I actually was lucky enough to go to one that they did with Odessa a few years ago, and it has recently become a TV show that some of you may have seen on Netflix. The New York Times has a really awesome profile of Hrishikesh Hirway, and it is literally titled "The Inexhaustible Hustle of Hrishikesh Hirway." So I think that is a great example to start with. One other example I want to leave you with before our guests join us is a popular Dungeons and Dragons podcast that I have been listening to personally for about five years. It is called "Critical Role," and essentially a group of very talented voice actors came together and said, "Hey, what if we were to create a stream of this Dungeons and Dragons game that we play every week at our house?" And basically, they started streaming that on Twitch, and then a bunch of fans would rip the stream, take the audio file and create basically a bootleg podcast out of it. And then over time, the group realized like, "Oh, people are listening to this in podcast form, people want to see this on YouTube" and they've really expanded. It's been really cool to see over the past five or six years how they have grown and expanded to meet demand in different ways. This group does live events, they do merchandise, they actually work with wizards to create Dungeons Dragons content. And in many ways, I think they're a great example because they kind of defy all logic that we have about podcasts. So the data suggests that people want 20 minute podcasts once a week. This show is a four to six hour show that comes out once a week, and it never stops. It's not seasonal, and they have all kinds of like different small things where they they will talk with other individuals about what they were feeling as humans, creating as actors, you know, creating the show. And recently they actually decided to do a Kickstarter. They asked for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make a twenty two minute short film. And what happened was they instead raised eleven point four million dollars, breaking all kinds of Kickstarter records. So they said, "OK, what if we make ten episodes of this?" But Amazon, by that point, was very hungry and had noticed and said, "How about you make two seasons and we'll give you 12 episodes for each season?" And that is a really awesome example of how optionality can create very, very serious fan appetite for things that you might not even be aware your fans really want from you. So obviously, these are huge scale, multimillion dollar examples that many of us may have heard of or be aware of. But this concept is one that I really encourage even the earliest stage podcasters to start thinking about. It can really help to think about how you can leverage your strengths and diversify your streams of engagement and your own output. And so with all that being said, I'm really pleased to be joined here today by a handful of multi-hyphenate audio professionals who to, I guess be blunt, have a lot going on. They have a lot going on for them, so I'm really pleased to announce our guests who are going to talk with us about this, how this looked for them when they were just starting out, how it looks for them now, how they've been scaling and how it works in the real world. So joining us, I would love to welcome Sarah Azoubel and Bia Gimarães of 37 Gruas. They are GpCp alum and we are so happy to have you guys join us. Please feel free to unmute and say hello to everyone, e.

Bia Gimarães [00:06:24] Hi Everyone.

Bia Gimarães [00:06:24] Thanks for having us.

Sarah Azoubel [00:06:26] Yeah

Alexandra Blair [00:06:26] Thank you for being here. We also have Dan Saks of the Noodle Loaf Universe joining us here today. He is a Ready to Learn collaborator with us. We are pleased to have you here. Hi, Dan.

Dan Saks [00:06:37] Hello. Good to be here.

Alexandra Blair [00:06:39] Great. And Katy Osuna of Copper and Heat, another GpCp alum, is joining us. Hello, Katie, it's great to see you.

Katy Osuna [00:06:49] Hello, thanks for having me.

Alexandra Blair [00:06:50] Yeah, thank you so much for joining you guys. So I want to just as a quick point of order, let people know feel free to contribute in the chat and share resources and talk to each other. We love to see that we're going to be sharing resources in the chat for you as well. But if you have a question that you'd like our panelists to answer, we will be taking questions. So please use the Q&A function of the Zoom. I will be looking at that and I'll be asking those questions throughout, and we'll try to get as many of those in as we can so if you have questions, now is the time. So thank you guys for joining us again. I would love to hear from all of you. Maybe we can kind of just go around and you can share with us the story of, you know, your podcast, but also your own individual journey in, like, the audio industry, and we would love to get a sense of kind of all the different pies you have fingers in, as we can say. Maybe 37 Graus team, would you guys like to go first?

Bia Gimarães [00:07:47] Yes, sure, hi again, everyone. I'm Bia Gimarães, I'm a journalist with a master's degree in science communication.

Sarah Azoubel [00:07:55] Hi and I'm Sarah Azoubel, I am a biology Ph.D. that turned science journalist.

Bia Gimarães [00:08:01] We host and produced 37 Graus, a Brazilian podcast in Portuguese. 37 Graus means 37 degrees, in celsius because we live in Brazil. And it's the average temperature of the human body. Our show is a narrative science podcast, and most of the time it means this means we follow our curiosity and then we go investigate, and we try to find stories that could not be told in that same way anywhere else. We just concluded our fifth season last week, I guess last week. Yeah, I think so. So last year our season about time... We had a story about how Sobral, a small town in northeastern Brazil, was crucial for Einstein to prove his theory of relativity. This year, our season about reality had a story about a mass panic that happened in Recife, capital of Pernambuco state in 1975 and then again in 2011, when people thought a dam had broken and a tsunami would destroy the city. We talked about how tornadoes happened in Brazil, and even though they happen all the time where we live right now, they happen where we live right now. We keep saying "it's a North American thing. It doesn't happen here." So we try to investigate these things that we have questions about. We released our show in 2018, and even though we are an independent podcast, independent podcast with a small team, I think we've managed to do and achieve a lot of cool stuff in the last few years and even create a brand around our podcast, and we are happy to see our show on recommendation lists and the major podcast events. Sarah, do you want to talk about how we pay our bills?

Sarah Azoubel [00:09:46] Yeah [laughter]

Sarah Azoubel [00:09:48] So since our second season in 2019, we have been funded in part by the Serapillheira Institute, which is a Brazilian organization that supports science and science outreach here. And also, we were lucky in 2019 as well to receive a grant from the Google podcast creator program, and we're, I don't know if Bia said this, but we're largely, besides the Google Podcasts training that we had, we are largely self-taught. We kind of did our own research and we learned to do all the types of audio by kind of studying and trying things out, basically. We recently won a Latin American Health Science... Health Journalism award for our third season that was called "Epidemia." And "epidemia" is "epidemic" in Spanish, I guess. But it was published with a major Brazilian newspaper, which is called Folha de São Paulo. And it was a special series about the Zika epidemic in Brazil that started here, or kind of went from Brazil from being its major epicenter a few years ago. And then it spread around the world. And we had kind of... We had to release the series while the COVID pandemic was just starting. So we would also we'd also talks about how the two epidemics relate. We're now working on a new season, which is also a special series that's going to be released with an independent outlet here in Brazil. It's like an independent feminist outlet. And we're very excited about it. But the subject of the series is a secret. And these kinds of co-productions and partnerships, they help us pay our bills, but then they also help us grow our audience. We recently started experimenting with crowdfunding, and so we have a listener's subscription program now that offers a bi weekly newsletter and also monthly meet ups with our team, and we do other stuff, too. So besides producing 37 Graus, our show we work as podcast consultants. We work as mentors for various programs. We run podcast training courses. We run science communication courses. And in September 2020, we founded Cochicho, which is a Portuguese language website and newsletter that is inspired by the likes of Transom, PRX and NPR training, which is kind of a platform to help develop the audio storytelling and professional podcast environment here in Brazil. So we like to think of this website as a place where hosts, editors, producers, sound designers can learn new techniques that they can share ideas, they can read about the trends basically talk about everything involving our growing podcast industry.

Alexandra Blair [00:12:43] Awesome, thank you so much for giving us such a comprehensive overview of all the hustles. Love it. Katie, would you like to give us a little rundown of all the things you have going on?

Katy Osuna [00:12:56] Sure. So yeah, like like Alexander said, my name is Katy. I run the podcast Copper and Heat, and it is a is a podcast about the restaurant industry and specifically a lot of the unspoken rules and traditions that cooks and restaurant employees have been kind of upholding for generations. So that's what it's about. We started in 2018, and I was definitely not in the audio space before that, I actually studied anthropology with a focus in food. And so I ended up working in restaurants for a long time, and my partner works in like the digital marketing space. And with kind of our skill sets, we decided that we wanted to start a podcast because I liked journalism and anthropology. And besides his marketing degree and marketing experience he, he was a music composition major and also did sound engineering. And so we're like, "let's do podcasts!" So we started talking about some of the things that I noticed working in restaurants as a woman in a very male dominated industry and specifically in like fine dining here in the U.S., which is a whole other world. So that's kind of where the idea came about and we started our our first season in 2018, and then we're incredibly fortunate to win a James Beard award, which is, I don't know, like the Oscars of food or something like that here in the U.S. and that kind of pushed us to make this more of a full time thing. So that's when I stepped out of working in restaurants for the most part. Still do some freelance things here and there, but that's what we decided to focus on working on the podcast more full time. So I quit my jobs and decided to pursue it. And so that's when we did the Google podcast creator program. And yeah, we just wrapped up season three at the beginning of this year and, the same thing is what Sarah and Bia said. What pays our bills? We've kind of created this... now since we are focused specifically in restaurants and food, we use that expertise to kind of sell various marketing and like copywriting to, to food and wine brands. And so we've done a couple like white label podcast productions, and we worked with Maker's Mark, the whiskey, and did a podcast for them. Just we're about to release one with MasterCard, which is like an ASMR recipe podcast, which is interesting. And we also do things that are not even even at all in audio. So we run like a social media platform for this, we run all the social media platforms for this food brand that does french fries basically, french fries and other frozen foods for the food service industry. And so things like that, we're trying to just kind of like diversify, within the food industry. And that basically funds the work that we do with Copper and Heat so that we can do the things that we, the things that we love and we do do a little bit of the crowdfunding. We do have a Patreon and we have like merch and we do some of those kinds of things. But that's not where where we can actually fund what we're doing. So, yeah.

Alexandra Blair [00:16:26] Amazing. Thank you so much. Love the French fry tie-in there, getting me primed for lunch here.

Katy Osuna [00:16:33] I am an Idaho girl.

Alexandra Blair [00:16:37] Yeah [laughter] Dan, would you like to tell us what you've got going on?

Dan Saks [00:16:40] Sure. I am Dan Saks and I make a podcast for kids called Noodle Loaf that gets released every other week. And each episode is between 10 and 15 minutes and consists of a few short, interactive game segments rooted in music education. And they're all, them being interactive is a key component of what the podcast is. So I'm using my background in music education, which I'll get into in a second, but basically inform me what each of the segments is going to be. So it could be one that focuses on singing or pitch matching, one that's rhythm, some kind of improvisational element. And you know, at the end of your 12 minute car ride to school, you've had some kind of music education lesson, but it's for the kids. And I think also for the adults who are often a captive audience in a kid's podcast, when listening to a kid's podcast, it comes across, hopefully as just something fun and funny and silly and entertaining, and the learning just kind of happens, you know, in the background, don't tell them. The show's been, I've been making it for, I think, maybe three and a half years. I'm just a couple episodes away from my 100th episode, and it started basically because I'm a musician. I've been a musician my entire adult life. I was teaching in schools, but my wife has a job who, that takes us abroad occasionally. So we've had a few international stints. And so I kept breaking up bands, restarting bands, finding new teaching gigs, and I was like, I need something portable, so I'm a musician, I also have a degree in audio engineering and I'm a music educator, so I was like, "OK, this is something I can take and sort of build so there's a through line, so I don't have to keep quitting everything that have that I'm doing" and then over time, it started to catch on. It was started out just me kind of sending episodes to my friends who have kids around the same age. And I was like, "Do you like this? Is this fun? Are your kids laughing, are they singing?" And then I made it live and it started having a fan base and I was like, "Cool. I think I've kind of hit on something here," and I had actually my first and only other podcast was in, I think, 2003, back in the days when you had to like, kind of put the mp3 file on your Zune or whatever, which was like a Brooklyn local bands music podcast. And I would go to meet ups in the city with, like the six other people who were doing something similar. So it's very exciting to be here, you know, now, 15 years later, when it's like this, this, you know, Google and PRX and all this. And I like to think of the podcast as sort of the center of this Noodle Loaf universe that I'm trying to create, sort of the center with a bunch of spokes and it's the podcast, but it's also a reputation for being a trusted source for families, for kids, for music education the same way, and not to say it's as big as Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger, but the way, like Sesame Street is like a trusted literacy tool, and Daniel Tiger is like a social, emotional learning. My intention for Noodle Loaf is that it's something that families can really trust because the educational element is there and the entertainment element is there, and all that. So the spokes that I've kind of been trying to grow out of it... One is a series of books, which is maybe the most successful spoke that that an option that I've I've had. So have a series of board books for kids that have come out in the last, say, 18 months. And they I mean, I have, you know, my little podcast logo and link on the back there, but those have done really well. Dolly Parton's book library bought 400000 copies of this one and sent it to families across the country, and they were all chosen as Amazon Best Books of the month or year. So that's that's and these two of them started out as songs that appeared on the podcast, so that was sort of like the the gateway, and now I'm working on another series and that has, you know, at the beginning I was like, I, it was something that I wanted to do, but that that went better than I thought that it might otherwise. I've released albums of music from the show that you know, can be downloaded or streamed wherever. I've performed live, though not as much as I was hoping if you had asked me 18 months ago for obvious reasons. One of the first things that I did during lockdown was call a film friend and say, Hey, can you help me make some videos to like, kind of just, I don't know, keep kids dancing through this awfulness? And so we made some videos and then a production company is approached us to basically grow that into a full TV show that we're shopping around. And hopefully that will be something I can talk about the next time we all get together. But it will hopefully have a sort of video part of the Noodle Loaf universe. And then in terms of what pays the bills, I mean, I think of the books as part of, you know, why I sit down and record Noodle Loaf every couple of weeks and it's just me working on it. So it's like most of my work is just going in to making the show. So anything else that I do really needs to be worth the time and effort that it takes. Because it yeah, because I want to continue just, you know, my putting my focus into into writing goofy songs. So I have a Patreon, which is fairly active, and that's probably the biggest chunk. I do sell ads, though I'm choosy and have really only started doing that more so recently. I think because it's kids and because I don't like "the trusted music educator" is such an important part of what I'm building. I'm very choosy with the ads and I sell some merch. That's the smallest slice of the pie. Patreon, I guess, is probably the biggest and and some advertising, but that's Noodle Loaf, in a nutshell.

Alexandra Blair [00:23:18] That is so cool and love Dolly Parton. Love to hear it.

Dan Saks [00:23:24] To have anything to do with her at all is... I'm done

Alexandra Blair [00:23:26] Yeah, but that is amazing and I think...so, I'm seeing some questions and like oftentimes get this question... where I work with early stage podcasters and they believe that at some point their show will just be good enough or maybe popular enough that they're going to just sell enough ads to pay their rent. And so I just wanted to very quickly run an exercise that will, I think, clarify some of this. So let's get a thumbs up from anyone who's ads on their podcast fund, pays their bills and then like maybe one of these if like you get some money, but it's like, but, you know, like enough to care about it and then maybe give me one of these if that is not something that you focus on as a revenue source. Mm hmm. Yeah. OK. At best, we've got we've got some. But I think that a lot of the early stage podcasters we work with, yeah, look at all of the thumbs down and zeros in the chat [laughter] a lot of the early stage podcasters really think that this is the one tried-and-true way because it is the way that a lot of these stand out podcasts have made money. But there is a reason that those kind of standouts are outliers. They are definitely in the minority for most people. And so, Dan, I appreciated what you just said about your focus is to make your show. And so anything you spend your time and energy and probably financial resources on as well, have to really be worth it for you. So I'm curious if we can talk just a little bit about how you went about identifying what things kind of are worth the time, how you guys think about that. Is it a monetary return you're looking for? Is it engagement? How do you decide where to spend your precious time and resources when you're creating new little offerings and things to do?

Dan Saks [00:25:18] I'll jump in. I mean, for me, it's it's, you know, and this is probably true for most of us, like the podcast itself, has got to be the most important thing because that has to be good for anything else to kind of grow out of it. And I think of that also as a way, you know, it's such a unique and beautiful thing to be a podcaster to like, have this intimate relationship with your audience and show up in their headphones, in their cars, in their living rooms every couple of weeks. And for me, it's like when I do have something else, when I have a book or a video or a new album, I can talk about it on the show. I can advertise my own things and you know, and the book goes out to all these families. They come back to the podcast and have like kind of an intimate relationship with them. And it can...Yeah, it can... That's the thing that I think will cause everything else to grow, so that's definitely most important. With like Patreon perks, I'm so careful as to like whether or not to offer perks that are going to like if this is popular, is this the only thing that I'm going to be doing now? I just do whatever, you know, writing songs with kids names or something like that. So like, those are the ones where I'm really careful. But what I have found with Patron is, I think most of my listeners prefer to use it as kind of a tip jar almost, you know, just like a thank you, I value your show, here's some money because you bring value to my to to my, you know, our routine. My kids are getting some music education and we just want to support it, though. And we could talk more about that later.

Dan Saks [00:26:49] But that's yeah, that's my thing.

Dan Saks [00:27:00] Should I talk more about it now?

Alexandra Blair [00:27:04] Katy, would you want to share maybe? Or...

Katy Osuna [00:27:07] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I agree with what Dan said in that the podcast is the most important thing and how we've kind of gone about it is, I mean, obviously we now have a couple of people that work with us in like contracting positions. So like actually paying them a decent amount of money is like one of the top things for me. And so we take really long breaks in between seasons so that we can focus on some of the things that make money so that we can pay people that help us make Copper and Heat really great. So that's one of the most important things for me is is, yeah, you know, still making Copper and Heat great, but also making the money to make that happen. And to that ads thing, we do like go after some sponsors. We kind of focus on it more as like a sponsorship thing, like a full season sponsorship than like ads in episodes. But I don't know how much we're actually going to do that moving forward, because it's kind of also what Dan said, like, I am not a big fan of doing it. I don't really want to talk about some of the things that we've talked about on our on our podcast. So yeah, that's another component of it. My quick answer.

Sarah Azoubel [00:28:28] Should we talk about? Yeah. Well, briefly, we've sold a grand total of one ad in 37 Graus ever. And we were really choosy. Well, we we have a different problem is that here, also here in Brazil, the ad selling for our podcasts is kind of really starting out now. And a lot of the people who want to put ads in podcasts for us, it's kind of complicated because we're a science journalism podcast, so we can't just look like, we don't have the ads in our own voices. There's a lot of things like we won't take ads for it. They want kind of that influencer kind of thing where it's like, Oh, the two hosts tell you all about how they love and use blah blah blah, and that really doesn't mesh well with speaking like a science journalism podcast. So. So, yeah, we kind of divested from ads and started focusing very recently, actually on our crowdfunding campaign. And hopefully that can give us a bigger part of the pie to pay our bills. But one thing that actually is quite useful for us as a source of income is training and consulting. So we do that on the side. And we found that doing that was like an effective way because it's like constricted in time, but it pays well so we can balance the podcast, which is our main and most important activity with these kinds of other things, and not get overwhelmed by doing like a ton of co-productions or a ton of like white label productions, which would suck all, all of our time and not leave much for the podcast. So we've started focusing more on consulting and training. And that's been working out for us.

Alexandra Blair [00:30:25] Yeah, for those of you who do co-productions and white label productions, I'm actually curious and I'm seeing some questions in here just about how that process goes. Are you actively sort of sending out a rate sheet to brands or are the brands, for the most part, kind of approaching you? And I saw another question that was kind of about how, if any ways you would kind of prove your credibility, you know, are they looking for material from you or is it that they hear your show and they're kind of approaching you to do that?

Katy Osuna [00:30:56] I can pop in here related to brands, so all we have done a co-production as well. But I mean, having an award definitely helps. So I do want to be aware of like privilege there, but. We have mostly partnered with an agency, so like I met someone at a food event that happened to work at this agency, that did work with brands, and have since, they were the ones that kind of brought in both the Maker's Mark project and the MasterCard project that we worked on so that we don't have to go out and do all the selling and like cold call brands, I think we're going to do a little bit more of that, but our current kind of strategy or plan is to is to partner with people who have that connection, so we don't have to do the account management and sometimes, like the agency that we're working with, does kind of the whole marketing package. So they'll sell them like videos or also the social media production and we just have to do the audio. And usually that also means that they pitch the concepts. So we don't have a lot of say in what the concept actually is. But then also it's, makes it a little easier on us because they're just like, "OK, this is what you're doing, this is the brief and we have X amount of time to do it." This is what I have to go out. So it does kind of cut down on some of that overall planning for us. So, yeah, partnering with an agency has been, I think instead of trying to cold call brands, partnering with somebody that that knows the work and definitely like having Copper and Heat, the podcast and the award, like that's how they knew who we were, the agency. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers the question.

Alexandra Blair [00:32:51] Totally. I know, Bia and Sarah, you have done some co-productions as well. Has it been a similar process for you or has it been more of you reaching out?

Bia Gimarães [00:33:02] The last time we did it, it was last year, actually for our series Epidemia. And it was like one or two days, maybe three days before we launched the season that we got a call from this Brazilian major newspaper called Folha de São Paulo asking us, "Do you want to?.." Sarah help me with my English if necessary. They wanted to, like, be partners and distribute and launch together the series because it was like the first week of the COVID restrictions in Brazil. And they were like super excited to have a series about virus and epidemics. It was like good for them. So, of course, there was money involved, not enough to pay for the whole production of the series. But yeah, it was kind of like a distribution and promotion partnership. Yeah, deal...

Sarah Azoubel [00:34:10] Yeah, but this next one that we're doing, it's not what the brand is with another media outlet, so we actually got funding for a special series together, so we're kind of, we were approached by them. They had this idea of doing a podcast series, but they needed someone with more audio experience because they didn't have that. So they came to us because they like our show. And then we kind of, we sent, we looked for funding together, essentially. So...

Alexandra Blair [00:34:43] OK, great. That's super interesting. I'm seeing a lot of questions on here as well about kind of your different philosophies on using social media. So I wonder if you guys could talk a little bit about how you view social media, even if it's disparagingly and kind of what you've had success with? You know, and how you leverage that.

Dan Saks [00:35:09] Can you hear me better now? It's funny, I recently deleted all of the social media apps from my phone, which will tell you a little bit about where my answer will go with this. I... You know, I think you can... I haven't been able to notice and, you know, I don't know, I have like moderately successful social media accounts related to the show, and I haven't really been able to trace any correlation between like how often I post or like how good thoughtful my posts are to anything else. I think if other people are sharing it, you know, "Hey, Twitter, like, check out this great kids podcast." I think that's how maybe social media will help my show. But in terms of, you know, we're talking about a moment ago where I put my time and energy, I decided that that was not an important part of it for me. Basically, when I released a new episode, I reinstall Instagram on my phone, I make a little thing that says I've got a new episode and I put it out there. So if anybody is sort of waiting for that signal that there's a new episode, they've got it. But otherwise, that just did not seem like a good, like something that I want, something I wanted to focus on. I think some people get joy out of that. I didn't. I got what's the opposite of joy. So... or, I don't know, only in like sort of small amounts did I get joy from it. And my wife, you know, was, she was previously on Twitter. She, she's good at it. She knows how to use it, and she likes it. I like to play guitar, and that's, anything else beyond that is a stretch. So that's sort of where I sit on social media. I know other kids podcasters and, you know, this sort of, I mean, sort of a group of supportive kids podcasters who support each other and will amplify, "Hey, I've got this new thing. I'm trying to get everybody to know about." Everybody, will, you know, like it and share and retweet it. And I think that's great. And that sort of thing I think has been helpful to kind of call on, like fellow podcasters to help amplify certain things, you know, things that you are working on. You know, if you have a special episode or this or that, but just kind of like the day-to-day like, hey, I need to then need to put something out there every day I have. I do not feel that inside me.

Katy Osuna [00:37:38] Yeah, I have mixed feelings about social. Similar to Dan, it does not bring me a lot of joy, but I do also run a social media account for like bigger brands like I was saying. So I obviously have to do a lot of research into how it works and the algorithms and blah blah blah. And so I understand it, and I think that makes me like doing it less as a podcaster. So I, during the seasons, will put a lot of effort into creating graphics and, you know, releasing things and all that and had, we even like ran some of the ads, like doing some of the boosting the posts and all that, and we didn't see a ton of return on that. The things that kind of do the best, the posts that kind of do the best are... When we share accomplishments is what we've noticed, so I like sharing information from our episodes like, meh, but sharing accomplishments did great. So like, that's kind of what we've used it for is just like, "Hey, this is what we're up to," and then partnering since we have a very specific audience, cooks and restaurant workers. There are so many influencers and like, I don't know, there's like the bitchy waiter line cook thoughts, and like lady line cooks. And like all these ones that have just like grown exponentially in the last few years that are like, they're doing the thing. So we just kind of like work with them on different things. So we did like some Instagram lives last year during the pandemic and partnering with them and doing some things like that, that has been much more successful than trying to like post every week and like, do things on our own because they have like 10000 20000 people already on their accounts trying to grow my own social brand is not necessarily where I'm putting the effort because our social following is much smaller than like our listeners. So, yeah, but I do, still, I do want to put more effort into it. I should put that caveat in there, it's like over the next year, I do want to put more effort and like planning into it just to have a presence but, not priority.

Bia Gimarães [00:40:04] I think we feel the same, right Sarah? Like sometimes we spend a lot of time creating like beautiful posts, like science, the same stories that people love like on our show. The science, stories we tell, they love on the show, but sometimes we try to create something special for social media. And it's just OK. But when we say, "Oh, we won this award" and they just all look at us like reporting on, I don't know on the street, just our faces, and it's like much better. So sometimes it's like, OK, this is important. I think we have to do it.

Sarah Azoubel [00:40:41] We do it.

Bia Gimarães [00:40:41] Yeah, it doesn't bring us joy, and I don't think it brings like many listeners. But yeah, we keep trying, I think.

Sarah Azoubel [00:40:50] Yeah, I think we're in the same boat like our listener base is bigger, much bigger than our social media base. And like, Bia and I don't have a lot of interest in being influencers. So, which is another way of growing our podcast, I guess, but it's not in our plans. So we keep trying to make the audio good and then just have like the minimum, like decent amount of things that are possible to move our social media. But it's really crazy because also the algorithms change and all of the sudden like things that we're doing well like are not doing well anymore. And then you have to change it and it's like, you can't keep up, or at least we can't keep up. So a lot of the time we're just doing what makes sense to us and what fits in our time.

Alexandra Blair [00:41:37] That's such a great point about the algorithms changing. I am still scared from the pivot to video and then Facebook being like, "Oh, by the way, we were lying about that the entire time," and then our entire business models had to change like, yeah, I'm still scarred. So I feel you on that. So it sounds like, you know, definitely some commonalities here and with some other podcasters that I've talked to, like social media, is good to show that your show is alive and that you are still making the show, perhaps even in an off season. But I think a lot of people really want to see that kind of behind the scenes content or accomplishments like you're talking about and not so much, you know, we try to teach podcasters to go away from those static images with a quote or maybe an audio clip from the show just to post that there's no real value added that is giving to anyone who is following you. I am interested and I'm seeing some questions in the Q&A about kind of those early stages, so I want you guys to roll back to when it was all just beginning and there were so many options. And I'm curious how you decided which options to pursue. I've heard you guys say in some ways that you followed kind of your own skill set, right? Like Katy, you're saying you have a marketing degree and you have foodservice experience. There we go. Like that, that sounds like a podcast right there, but I'm curious how you decide what things are and aren't kind of worth your time when you're in that really early stage. Do you follow the joy? Do you follow the engagement? Do you follow money? Just curious about your personal experience in those early days.

Dan Saks [00:43:15] Back in the early days, it was definitely for the joy. I mean, I think my my initial push to make it was that I sort of I liked podcasts. Then I had little kids and a lot of the podcasts that I listen to normally in the car just would not appeal to them. Cause their, I don't know This American Life or something, and that show just wasn't their vibe. So I was like, well, let me, maybe I should... I tried some kids podcasts and there's lots of good ones out there, but none were kind of hitting the mark that I wanted to have. So I decided to make the one that I wanted there to be, and that was fun. And so it was really just the fun and a way to also sort of scratch the creative itch that I was having living abroad and like, have a thing, have a thing to work on. So that it was it was definitely, I mean, it was definitely not money early on. It was really. It was really for the fun. And then once the show was out there, it was the stats, it was refreshing, and she'd be like, "Oh my gosh, forty five people listen to this episode." "Oh my gosh, 75 people. Who are these people?!" And that was kind of exciting. And then I would ask for listener submissions, and I kind of came up with this way that kids could send in their voices singing the theme song, and I stitch it into the theme song so it grows and grows each week like a choir. So now I'm hearing kids sending in their, themselves, singing the theme song or jokes or whatever it is, stuff from the show, and that was really kind of fueling it. "Wow. There's actual kids out there in the world enjoying this thing that I'm doing" and so it was that it was it was the joy of it. And that, and that connection, I mean, people writing in and saying, "I found your show, it's bringing us so much happiness in our, you know, our long commute to school every morning. Thank you." It's like those emails definitely got me through that initial stretch where it can otherwise feel like you're, you know, you're uploading and it's like, you know, it's not a live concert, you're not seeing the interaction, but it does happen, you know, every couple of weeks. So there can be that like, "that joke you made on the last episode cracked my whole family up for a week like that." It was that kind of stuff that was like, this is something that I want to continue working on.

Alexandra Blair [00:45:34] That sounds like you followed the "magic."

Dan Saks [00:45:36] Follow the magic! I always do. It doesn't always bring me to a magical place, but I can't stop it.

Sarah Azoubel [00:45:43] Yeah, I think for us, it was a little bit different. I was kind of in between places in my life because I had been a lab scientist for over a decade and I wanted something, I wanted to change my career and I got my PhD in California and I was there for the Serial boom. And I listen to so many podcasts over the, five or six years I lived in California and I had never listened to anything like that before, like here in Brazil, like, I didn't really listen to podcasts here before I went and got my Ph.D.. And then when I came back, I didn't know what to do, and I got interested in this science journalism course and I started, you know, like seeing what kind of story am I interested in telling and what can I do and how can I turn this into some sort of career? And I had so many hours of podcast listening under my belt, and I loved the narrative podcasts, and here in Brazil, there were very few narrative podcasts at that point. There was, maybe you could count them in one hand, maybe, and nothing science related. And since I was a scienctist and I was in the science journalism course and there's a billion print journalists alread, I was like, well, maybe all my listening can do me good and it's something I love, I love this kind of story, and I don't hear it in Portuguese anywhere. So that's when I met Bia and got Bia hooked on podcasts, too. And then it was like, "Hey, they want to start our own show?" And then we started. But we also want, we always wanted to make it sort of professional, even because I needed to. I mean, we had other jobs and we did freelance stuff and we had fellowships for other things, but I needed a new way of working. I guess. So that's, the podcast was always intended to be kind of our our job, even because it is very work intensive to make the kind of stories that we tell. So we couldn't really do it part-time for very long. So luckily, we got funding from the...after the first few months and then we were able to launch from there.

Katy Osuna [00:48:04] Yeah. So like I kind of mentioned, I, we started the podcast while I was still working in restaurants and specifically in like a fine dining restaurant where I was working like 14 hours a day. That's where I like the idea first came to be, and for me, it was just like, I need an outlet to get something out there because like, I'm thinking about all these things and like noticing all these like weird social interactions and kitchens, I need to get it out somewhere. I was blogging. My partner was the one that kind of like brought his marketing to the forefront and was like, "You know what? I've noticed that there is not a podcast that's talking about the things that you're talking about and also not doing...there's not a lot of food podcasts that are like narrative driven, narrative driven with like a soundscape and like this kind of stuff that we do." And so for me, it was about just like, "I want to make a thing that I want to make." And for my partner, I was like, "there's a niche here that I think we can kind of capitalize on." And so it was kind of like both of those things. And as we've kind of gone along, for me, kind of the driving force is like, "OK, what's the purpose of the podcast?" And for me, the purpose has always been like, we want to make the restaurant industry better. So like, how are we going to do that? At first, the audience was like, we were going to target restaurant workers and the people that work in restaurants. We realized that people, people who work in restaurants don't necessarily want to listen to a bunch of episodes about how terrible the restaurant industry is. So we are kind of shifting a little bit. I still want those people involved in creating the show, obviously, because like hearing from restaurant workers is really important. But we have to also think about like, "OK, if the purpose is that. How are we going to do that most effectively?" And so everything's kind of followed along with that because, you know, we have to make money to pay people to make a great show. So that's still kind of like my guiding, whatever, guiding star, North Star. But there's lots of components to that. So that was the only thing I wanted to throw in there as well.

Alexandra Blair [00:50:27] Amazing. Thank you. I have, so we have about five minutes left and I have two more questions, so maybe we can just do kind of a quick go through about this one, but we're seeing a lot of questions about like, how do people actually find your shows then? So social media doesn't seem to be doing it. How are people finding your shows? Do you know about that? Is there some insight you can give to how that works for your own show?

Katy Osuna [00:50:51] Word of mouth and other people's social media, not my own, but other people's social media.

Dan Saks [00:50:57] Yeah, I think that's true for me, too, I mean, word of mouth... I've even posted, you know, a couple of times like, Facebook and Google have enough money, no offense, but please, you know, word of mouth is the way this thing grows to share this, if you can. And then also, the show has ended up on like some curated lists. So like if you search best podcasts for kids like the New York Times and the Common Sense Media, like "Our 25 best podcasts for Kids," it's included in those lists, and I think that those, that's probably helped a lot.

Bia Gimarães [00:51:27] Yeah, I would say recommendation lists, we place ads sometimes on bigger shows and exchange trailers and teasers with other podcasts. Yeah, that's really helpful.

Alexandra Blair [00:51:40] It was a trick question, because all anyone ever says to me is "word of mouth," and I knew you guys are going to say that [laughter] I had my comment for the channel cued up that says "word of mouth," because that is definitely the number one way and I think curated lists and pod swaps and trailer swaps. For those of you who may not know, that is basically trading a trailer with another show and you run their trailer on your feed and they run yours on theirs or an episode swap or an ad swap that run the same way or a YouTube thumbnail title swap, there's all kinds of ways. Those are definitely very effective, too.

Dan Saks [00:52:15] That's a good point. I've done those trailer swaps, and those definitely helped.

Alexandra Blair [00:52:19] Yeah, I think that kind of also counts as word of mouth, though even the curated lists like technically that is word of mouth because it's kind of someone you trust saying, "here's the show you might like." OK, great. So I think we have time for one last question, and I am just curious, I saw this come up. I think this is a great question, but someone wants to know if you had kind of any advice for yourself back in those early days. AKA also sneaky advice for the early-stage podcasters listening. What would that be? What would you tell yourself to do differently or maybe to do the same?

Katy Osuna [00:52:56] I'd say, Oh, sorry, go ahead, Dan... take the time to make a good thing. I think, we had a lot of space in the first season, we had lots of space between episodes. We have lots of space between seasons. We still have lots of space between seasons. But I think taking the time to make a good thing, quality wise, it was like really important. So that'll be my quick advice. I think.

Dan Saks [00:53:24] Yeah, definitely second that. Make a good thing. Make sure you enjoy making that thing because I think, you know so many podcasts drop off after like eight or ten episodes. And part of that is maybe it's just not catching on, but also like it should be fun and enjoyable, and also, you know, I found, I tried to kind of like set some goals. I mean, they were very broad, but it was like, you know, I would love to see this expand. And here are some ways it could expand. So to kind of envision, like, what success might look like if I, if this thing picks up. So, yeah, books, video, whatever it is, what would make sense and then kind of like just keep that, you know, keep that dangling there. So you know what you're working towards.

Sarah Azoubel [00:54:17] Hard question. I would say listen to a lot of podcasts. Listen, listen, listen, like really develop like a repertoire like, know what's around you, what's in your language, what's, if you speak in other languages, have other references, have references that are not podcasts and try to pay attention to what you like, what you don't like, how you would do it, which pieces of things you can use in your own thing. So you can start making something your own. Because we see a lot of people, at least here in Brazil, where podcasts, newer, trying to make podcasts without actually listening to podcasts very much and not having a bag of references so you don't see anybody say, like, "I want to write a novel, but I don't read books" or "I want to be a film director, but yeah, I just started watching movies." So listen to podcasts and not just listen passively, listen actively, looking at each different element and seeing how it was made to try to like reverse engineer things and things like that. I think that really helps.

Bia Gimarães [00:55:27] And think that would be my advice, too. And if you're in Brazil, follow Cochicho on social media and visit our website cochicho.org.

Alexandra Blair [00:55:36] Go ahead. Let's do plugs. Let's open up the plug bag at the end here. Where can people find you? And then we'll wrap up. Anyone else?

Katy Osuna [00:55:47] copperandheat.com and Copper and Heat on social. [laughter]

Alexandra Blair [00:55:52] Love

Alexandra Blair [00:55:52] a consistent username.

Alexandra Blair [00:55:54] Yeah. Also, feel free to, like if anybody else has any questions. I like talking to people about this, so feel free to email me at Katy, K-A-T-Y, it's up there, at Copper and Heat.

Dan Saks [00:56:05] And I've got noodlloaf.com, I think all my social handles are "Noodle Loaf Show" and also I see this, there's other questions, I'm happy if somebody wants to try to reach out through the website or through the I guess Instagram is the one that I tend to install more often than others, but I'm happy to connect.

Alexandra Blair [00:56:23] Awesome. Thank you, guys so much, I really appreciate it, this has been super helpful for so many early-stage podcasters and we get so many questions along these lines, so I am really proud to have this resource to point people to thank you so much, Katy, Bia, Sarah and Dan for joining us. Thank you guys so much. Thanks for everyone for tuning in from Lagos and Trinidad and Tobago and all over the place, Honduras. Thank you guys so much. The last of our webinar series for the Google podcast computer program this winter, but stay tuned. Obviously, all of you guys are on the email list because you heard about this. Stay tuned for what we have next. Thank you guys so much.

Katy Osuna [00:57:06] Thank you.

Alexandra Blair [00:57:07] Thanks.

Dan Saks [00:57:08] Thanks.