7 tips for spring cleaning your podcast!
Vol. 15 - Bleaching your pod, Marc Meriläinen, and SO much news.
Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday!
162 days until I go to Halifax and my inevitable seafood coma.
In this issue:
7 spring cleaning tips for your podcast.
Marc Meriläinen says most people aren’t as closed off as we think.
Canadian Indie: Monopolies Killed My Hometown
True North Podcast Feature: Pow Wow Life
A podcast documentary on Toronto’s historic Hippie Highrise.
A ton of updates from the Canadian podcasting ecosystem, including the first ever podcast sit-com, Popcorn for Dinner, and Ambie Award winners!
ICYMI: There are 32 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 28 First Nations communities across Canada. Learn more here.
It’s my parents favourite time of year: it’s time for spring cleaning!
The smell of lemon pledge, tea tree, and empty gabage bags has been permantently plastered in my brain. As a kid, every year my parents would do a deep clean of our entire house. They’d sit me in my room telling me to organize every item in every drawer, shelf and closet into a “keep”, “throw out”, or “donate” pile.
Unfortunately for me, this diligence hasn’t stuck - at least not yet. To me, spring just means that it’s time to unpack all of my various demin jackets and start thinking about which plants I’m going to struggle to keep alive this year.
For podcasters across the board, it’s a great time to “spring clean” your podcast.
It’s time to look back at all the parts of your podcast that you were clinging to last year, thinking they might eventually do you some good, when all they were really doing was taking up valuable space, energy or dollars, which could be used for something better.
I reached out to a handful of Canadian podcasting people to share some of their hottest tips. Thank you everyone for your wonderful insight!
Here are 7 tips to spring clean your podcast:
1. Review your podcast description.
At some point every few months I’ll read the podcast description of a podcast that I’ve been a long-time listener of and notice that it is either not as enticing, or funny, or clever as the podcast itself — or that it just doesn’t describe the podcast at all! Could that be your show? It’s time to revisit your podcast’s description and see if it’s still accurate. Maybe it could use a little more flair, or you could amp up the keyword optimization. But make sure it’s something that people read and want to click play on!
2. Make sure your links are accurate and easy to find!
“Every social media profile you have is like a mini landing page for your show and you want to make sure it’s easy for people to check out your show when they come across your profile. On your website, this means making sure the links that direct people to listen to your show don’t only go to Apple Podcasts. I like using Pod.link for this! In your show notes, make sure there’s a clear link to take people to your show’s website for things like the transcript and contact info. By making sure all of these are up to date and functioning, you’re not missing out on any new listeners or opportunities.”
- Devin Andrade, Podcast Marketing at Tink Media
3. Get rid of the social media accounts that you abandoned.
Over the last year there’s been plenty of incredible insights into the many ways to market and build a community around a podcast. So many in fact that you likely started a campaign somewhere and then dropped it when something cooler and more promising came along. There’s no need to have a social media account everywhere just because you can. Focus on the places where you’re really active and available to your audience. Just scrap the stuff you aren’t using already — hey, maybe this is your calling to finally leave Twitter (not me, at least not yet).
4. Optimize your editing!
“If you're relatively new to editing your podcast, the 'DAW' bells and whistles can all seem overwhelming. So much functionality: who has time to learn it all? But shortcuts are well worth the investment because they expedite the process, one saved second (or three) at at time. For example, learn the shortcuts to navigating quickly through the timeline. For instance, in the software I use, Hindenburg Journalist Pro, holding the shift and a left/right arrow key lets you jump back/forward from one audio bit to the next on the timeline instead of you having to mouse-and-click, mouse-and-click. Sounds miniscule, I know, but over hundreds of edits, it adds up.”
- Rick Harp, Host/Producer, MEDIA INDIGENA and APTN News Brief podcasts.
5. Set up Google Analytics on your podcast website.
“Google Analytics collects data from your website to create reports that provide valuable intel. You’re able to see what topics and keywords listeners are searching to find your show, and demographic data about your audience. For even more insights, use tracking links on your website and then use Google Analytics to see how much of your website traffic is converting to listeners.”
- Erin Hynes, Host and Creator, Alpaca My Bags and Digital Marketing Pro
6. Show your old work some love!
“Go through all your past episodes and see which ones are evergreen/still stand. Create an audiogram for each of them -- even if they're over a year old. Create a folder to save them all and reshare throughout the rest of the year on days/weeks you're not putting out a new episode. I was recently tagged in a snippet from a podcast I was a guest on one year ago and it was nice to see that content still living on! Don't forget about your episodes just because they're not "new." When I worked In PR we used to say: 'you haven't released something unless you've released it three times.'“
- Amanda Cupido, Program Director AM 640, Founder Lead Podcasting
7. Try out a desktop whiteboard… ?
“Something that has changed my life, and I have to credit Ren [Bangert] for this, this specific white board on Amazon that sits an angle on my desk. My to do list is on there and as I do tasks, I get to wipe them off which feels very satisfying. It sounds so simple, but it's actually changed my life in terms of organization and being able to keep on top of the various podcasts I work on.”
- Jay Cockburn, Freelance Producer, Globe and Mail, Darts and Letters.
EDIT: In the original version of this issue, I had Jay down as the executive editor at The Globe which was a joke that I took seriously. By the time he corrected me we'd had all logged off slack and were taking baths and watching The Other Two by then.
Thoughts from the ecosystem:
Marc Meriläinen says most people aren’t as closed off as we think.
Marc Merilainen is a multi-award nominated indigenous musician of over 30 years, who also hosts his podcast, The Church of Marc, from his home music studio in Toronto, Ontario.
I actually stumbled on his show as I was researching a guest for a podcast that I was working on, and noticed them on Marc’s show. After watching for a while on Youtube, I noticed that The Church of Marc exists on YouTube only! The podcast is filmed in Marc’s home studio, with a three camera setup and has such a warm and inviting vibe, not to mentioned how deeply ingrained Marc and his guests are in Toronto’s arts and culture scene.
When I asked Marc about his podcasting, he said:
I don't even really consider myself a podcaster. It's something that I enjoy doing for fun and I'm always hopeful that it turns into something more and the audience grows and we can let these other people's amazing stories come out.
I was super curious about Marc’s journey into podcasting and just the relaxed vibe and fun conversations he hosts with his guests. So talked to himhaving fun with his show, why his podcast is only on YouTube, and got his insights on Indigenous podcasting.
Here’s my conversation with Marc:
This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity.
KL: Looking at your show, you have a lot of indigenous creators on there, a lot of musicians, but also a whole bunch of different people. What do you aim to do with the show?
MM: We don't know yet. It was kind of an afterthought to get this all going. That's why it's currently only on YouTube.
We also run a record label here, so my wife's actually in her office right now doing all the work and crunching the numbers. She was gonna look into how to get it onto the other platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. But we've just been so busy with the day-to-day of running the record label and my music project that we just haven't had a lot of time to investigate those other options.
KL: Well, I know you are indigeous and you talk to a lot of indigenous creators and artists as well. Is that a conscious choice for you?
MM: It is coincidental. Someone had sent me an email as a joke saying, ‘don't you have any white guys on your show?’ Everyone's welcome on this show.
Those people work, they live in the neighborhood and they're convenient, and we do like having conversations with them!
We do want to reach out to people who are not in our immediate circles and talk to some scientists and doctors as well because I have a lot of questions about how things work in physics and space, and what are these UAPs that we see, or that we’re shooting down?
With our show, when we tackle heavy subjects, we try to be sensitive and somewhat lighthearted about it because we wanna show the triumphs and successes that [indigenous] people are having and how we are overcoming this intergenerational trauma. Now that we are healing, we are creating these amazing works of art and films that are coming out, and of course music. I try to focus on the triumphs and the successes.
KL: From what I can tell, your podcast only exists on YouTube. Tell me about your choice of going to YouTube and not posting the podcast anywhere else.
MM: That's more just out of laziness and just convenience to be honest with you. The podcast was a side project I had started a number of years ago, originally started as an audio only podcast on SoundCloud, and then during COVID, there was a lot of downtime. My wife suggested, “why don't you get the podcast going again but try to incorporate video?”
During the peak of Covid, we obviously didn't have people in [the studio], but, once the numbers started going down, it was a good way to reintroduce ourselves to society, so to speak, and find out what everyone was doing during the lockdown time and were they working on projects and stuff or were they just sitting around watching Netflix.
The show was [also] for myself to practice talking in front of a camera and being interviewed! Primarily I'm a performer. I play in a band called NADJIWAN that's been around for close to 30 years now. In that 30 years, I've never really felt comfortable doing interviews, whether it's radio or TV or podcasts. So it was a good way for me to practice getting comfortable with that.
KL: In producing and hosting your podcast, is there anything that’s surprised you?
MM: What's surprising is actually that if the environment is friendly and welcoming, people will talk about anything and people are not so closed off as we think they are. As long as it's a safe environment and that it's a genuine conversation – you're trying to exchange ideas – people will offer all kinds of information.
I learned last year, some guy burned his house down by accident. That information never came out until the podcast.
KL: How would you go about creating that safe space? Any tips?
MM: There's some pre-show that happens here. We tape in our home production studio, which is in our residence that we live. So when the guests come on the show, there's always refreshments, coffee, or if they want, wine, pastries.
It's a three camera shoot, so we try to get them to forget about cameras that are in their face and just try to have a conversation like you would with someone over coffee.
KL: Pastries will always win me over. Do you have any goals for the podcast?
MM: We wanna put a more focused effort into it and think about the shows that we want to produce, as well as some specials. Our next podcast special is going to be Music Awards because we're in award season in general, currently with the Grammys, the Oscars [and] the Junos. We wanted to give our “critics picks” if you will, to a lot of artists that impressed us over the past year.
We [also] wanna do more outreach, especially to the indigenous community. I think there's a lot of great artists and minds out there that should have more public awareness.
Check out this Canadian Indie: Monopolies Killed My Hometown
Our towns were once unique and vibrant, driven by locally owned businesses, supported by active community groups and full of local events. But after throwing fair competition out the window in the name of efficiency and consumer welfare, many of our towns have become undifferentiated, generic places, without the same spirit and soul they used to have. And in 2020, as we all know, the problem got even worse.
Andrew Cameron explores the decline of small towns, and small businesses by looking at his own hometown of Amherst, Nova Scotia. You don’t need to listen in any order! I started on Ep. 17, Roll-Up Those Newspapers!
True North Podcast Feature: Pow Wow Life
Pow Wow Life introduces you to Native Americans across the United States and Canada, from singers and dancers to tribal and business leaders.
This podcast gives you an incredible behind the scene look at Pow Wows. Right now they’re in the midst of a countdown to the 2023 Gathering of Nations Pow Wow which is happening at the end of April, including some fun giveaways!
Also… A podcast documentary on Toronto’s historic Hippie Highrise.
One of my favourite Canadian podcasts, Darts & Letters, put out a really cool episode recently called The Hippie Highrise.
From 1968 to 1975, the eighteen story high-rise in Toronto, Rochdale College, was jammed full with leftist organizers, hippies, draft dodgers, students, artists, and others just looking for a good time. It was a radical experiment. But, was this an experiment worth doing?
I sent this episode to my dad who was attending Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto at the time - back when it was a polytechnical institute - and he wondered if Rochdale was a place I would have ended up at… sooooo…
What’s going on in Canada’s podcast ecosystem:
Congratulations are in order! The third annual Ambies Awards had two Canadian winners, including one for Podcast of the Year! Check them out:
Chameleon: Wild Boys [Campside Media and Sam Mullins], Podcast of the Year
Tai Asks Why [CBC Podcasts], Best Podcast for KidsCongratulations again! Indie, actual-play podcast, No Quest for the Wicked, just won THREE Audio Verse Awards!
- talked about podcasting and mental health in a recent issue of . He opens up about perfectionism and imposter syndrome, and the importance of recognizing and talking about mental health in podcasting. It’s well worth a read.
Catch the recording of the HARBINGER SHOWCASE LIVE at the recent 2023 Progress Summit, where 14 network hosts sat down for a 90 minute panel exploring how podcasts can be a force for change in a time of division.
had a great interview with Falen Johnson on her newsletter . If you haven't heard of Bingeworthy, Samantha does in depth podcast reviews through a producers point of view, and incredible interviews including a recent one with Bone Valley's Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker. About her experience making Buffy, Falen Johnson said, "There are so many young podcasters now out there who are telling [Indigneous] stories, [but] here's not enough of us! There's never enough of us! But we're telling our stories in a way that we want to.”
Vancouver-based studio, Kelly&Kelly, and comedian Maddy Kelly (Let’s Make a Sci-fi, Let’s Make a Rom Com), are working on a show billed as the first-ever sitcom podcast, Popcorn for Dinner. Producer, max collins, told me this about it: “The thing I'm most excited about as a sound designer is of course the laugh track. The post-production team spent months painstakingly crafting a multi-camera-stage-style atmosphere and immersive studio-audience feel. We wanted to make you feel like you're at a live recording of the show, even if the raucous crowd is actually all radio magic. And it really does the trick of throwing you into that cable TV nostalgia!”
Early bird tickets for Radiodays North America, which will be hosted in Toronto in June, are available until March 31st! If you’ve got $700 to spare, get your tickets here!
University of Toronto Community Radio Inc. (UTCRI) is getting a new podcast studio for students! (HT: Broadcast Dialogue)
A bunch of incredible Canadian indies joined the folks at The Sonar Network and Canadian Podcast Awards as they spent the weekend doing panels, live shows and meet-and-greets at Toronto ComicCon, including shows like F*ck Buddies, The Liquid Courage Podcast, 30 going on 13, Semi-Qualified Queens, Opinionated Lushes and WAY more!
An update from the last issue — a VERY big shout out to everyone who signed this petition…
For your pod:
Nominate a show/host for an Apple Podcasts 'Spotlight'!
This new editorial franchise celebrates creators for their singular voice and perspective. Spotlight creators receive a custom illustration that will be used to feature their show on Apple Podcasts.
Some info about using YouTube’s podcasting integrations. Watch later.
JAR Audio has announced a pilot competition for emerging women podcasters. The proposed series genre can be anything — from sci-fi to documentary to interview-driven podcasts. Apply by May 1st! Learn more here.
The Build a Podcast Marketing Strategy that Aligns with Your Goals workshop is tomorrow, March 22 at 1PM EST! Don’t miss this awesome free resource hosted by the HIGHLY insightful
and . Register here.TINK Media’s Podcast Swap Database (free) is one of the best community tools to enter the podcasting world that makes finding podcast to collaborate with 1000x easier! If your podcast isn’t on it, go add it now!
She Podcasts’ Sonic Bloom Awards are open for nominations! There are plenty of fun and unique categories to check out for podcasts created by cis and trans women, and non-binary individuals. Nominations are open until March 31th! Learn more here.
The 18th Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards are open for nominations! This is one of the more affordable awards out there ($50 USD registration), but winners are based on two voting rounds, so make sure you have a solid campaign for this one! Nominations start July 1st. Register here.
Just Joe (being tucked in)…
If you have thoughts or questions about this newsletter, please share them with me! Leave a comment or reply to the newsletter email. If you’re feeling generous you can also pledge monetary support through Substack or buy me a coffee!
Thanks for supporting Pod the North, I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks!
Kattie | @Podkatt
(Find me on Twitter, Post, Spotify, and Goodpods)
Thanks for the shout-out Kattie! Mucho appreciated. Love this newsletter, always so jam-packed full of helpful and interesting stuff.