LibSyn vs. PodOMatic vs ??
I’ve settled on LibSyn to host the podcast for a bunch of reasons. This website is perfectly capable of doing everything that needs to be done using the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin or any of about a dozen others that create most of what you need out of the box.
LibSyn has a great feature that allows me to connect a bunch of social media and this website to a podcast release. Once set up, I can post the podcast and the connections I made internally get the announcement. It has a way to create a post here automatically.
iTunes, which is the 800 pound gorilla of podcasting, is also a major consideration. LibSyn helps you get all that right.
At $15.00/month for the tier that is the least one you need (I’m finding out) I’m not thrilled but it’s reasonable enough to get us started.
But what a f*cking nightmare iTunes is. Holy shite, Batman. It literally takes me two hours to set up an Apple store. And for whatever reason, I can’t use PayPal with my “normal” account without also giving PayPal and Apple a different credit card. I mean WTF, Apple? I don’t love Apple products to begin with and this just confirms what I think – they continue to be draconian and overly-involved with themselves. They make nice things but also make you pay a fortune for the privilege of giving them your money.
Okay, no more ranting about Apple. I know they are a quality company and that a lot of people are perfectly happy using their equipment and services. I am not and that has a lot of history to it. Toby, for example, is a huge fan of the company. I have a lot of respect for his opinions and we do go at each other about my disdain for the company and their products. But I’m off course here so back to the podcast.
Kinda hate this whole part of the podcast thing but it’s done. Moving on.
I had to post the show first to our LibSyn account before it could be sent to iTunes. That meant that all the media connects got the show first without it being available on iTunes. Not great but minor. I’m not sure if that will happen going forward once our podcast is approved.
It’s taking iTunes 3-4 hours to approve the listing and it’s finally up! Yay! Once of the smarter things I did was use our names in the podcast title so if you search by our names we all come up. That was a suggestion on one YouTube video I saw.
I did and continue to do research. There’s so much I still don’t know. I recommend the same – there’s always a great tip you can used based on someone else’s experiences.
I’m going to explore other options beyond LibSyn including keeping everything in-house here.
Basically, self-hosting at our level (with less than 20k listeners) is okay. The advertisers don’t even start looking at you until you get between 10-20k subscribers. We obviously have a ways to go. The question is, does LibSyn, Podomatic, Podbean, Blubrry or any of the others give you any advantage? I know web stuff cold so I can do anything necessary tech-wise. It’s the marketing that’s important. Like in film, making a film is easy – anyone with a smartphone can do it. Distributing that film, getting in front of someone besides friends and family is massively more difficult. And them making money off of anything – even harder.
More obviously to be explored.
I will have a lot to learn about this whole thing so as I do and we continue with the show, I’ll continue this blog.