Podcasts

Le Week du Blog Sweeps continues, hooray. In honor of the “lists are good!” statement I keep seeing in other sweepers’ blogs, I offer two lists: Things That Will Make Me Like Your Podcast and Things That Will Make Frown at my MP3 Player And Skip Your Podcast. Behold!
Note: These statements are made to the general “you”, not aimed at a specific podcast. Though the second list is made up of things that have actually caused me to ditch a podcast in the past. :)

Things That Will Make Me Like Your Podcast

1. Straightforward presentation – Informative and straightforward podcasts are my favorite.
2. Listener feedback – shows that you listen to your fans. Hell, shows that you have fans!
3. Interesting subject matter – I can get political talk anywhere. I go to podcasts for unusual or hard-to-find info.
4. Catchy but brief opening music – I dig opening music, but keep it brief please!
5. Quality sound recording – I will suffer through bad sound if the podcast as a whole rawks, but this has been the last straw on more than one podcast I’ve ditched. If you want advice on getting good equipment cheap, talk to Junglemonkey. :)

Things That Will Make Frown at my MP3 Player And Skip Your Podcast

1. Unrelated, ubiquitous music – I dl’d your podcast to listen to your info/entertainment, not some random music. Unless your podcast is about music, skip it. Or at least put it at the end so I can skip it easily.
2. Too much personal talk – Again, unless your podcast is about your personal life, can it. I don’t want to hear about your four-year-old’s latest exploits for five minutes unless they have something to do with the topic of your podcast.
3. Low volume – I listen to podcasts in my car, which is not brand new anymore. There is road noise. If I have to crank my player AND the speakers all the way up to hear you, you come through garbled. Record clearly and keep that volume at a reasonable level!
4. Excessive giggling / uhmmmming – There’s this awesome editor out there called Audacity. It’s free. It’s easy to use. Snip out all that placeholding noise, please!
5. Too many or repetitive ads – I know you gotta make a buck, but I shouldn’t have to listen to the same ad twice in one podcast. Period. It’s not like radio where you need to make sure people who tune in late hear it, okay? And more than two ads in a row? BZZZZT! NOT good.