The Imperative of Fostering Podcast Communities #03

Deborah
00:01:08

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Studio Fusion. And we are streaming live in a few different places like YouTube and Twitch and Twitter and a couple of places. And I am Deborah and Martin.

Martin
00:01:26

Yes, hello. Are you trigger happy, Deborah?

Deborah
00:01:30

Yeah, I think so. And you are. And I was like, wait a minute, I actually introduced you. I meant to say. And you are?

Martin
00:01:37

Yes, sir, I am.

Deborah
00:01:38

Martin, we're just deciding, are we? Are we not? Are we? Yeah, I'm a little trigger happy. Today we're talking about community.

And are we for or again, I think that podcasts should at least think about having a community. What do you think, Martin?

Martin
00:01:54

Yes, but. And it's not the but. Personally and philosophically speaking, I have an.

I'm thinking of the word community here in Swedish, you talk about commune, like the place you're living at and so on. And it's been thrown around this word community in a way, because when you.

Deborah
00:02:16

Say that commune, that's like we say commune, and that is a whole different meaning.

Martin
00:02:20

Yeah, and that's what I get that philosophically speaking, that vibes. But that's why I often talk about digital town hall.

But I see the building on the Internet that you have an open entry, a door, a reception welcoming some ground roles for the community, how you should behave, and then you have separate rooms where you could check in and look into. That's what I call it. But mainly speaking, it is a community and I think you should have it. And then you start with one listener.

You know, you have a podcast for one listener, your Persona or yourself or who it is.

And of course, if they want to join the community and be in fans, true fans, that they are really fans in a way that they really want to be listen on a regular basis like a loyal fan, and then interact in one way or another and then also support your work. Then of course, I'm all for a community. And there you have this, the concept of thousand true fans or 100 true fans.

And a community is not free to build it if you program it yourself or you use some groups and then of course to find the value there. So I'm all for it, but I see the challenges also.

Deborah
00:03:49

Well, and you're right, it's not free.

You're either paying, but community isn't free because you're either programming yourself, so you're putting a lot of time and effort into it, or you're paying somebody else to do it. So it doesn't just like poof out of thin air. So, yeah, it costs in some way to put it together. But there's a lot of benefits.

Like last week we had the whole thing where we had the video and we were talking about it and the validation of RSS and the whole thing. And that's our most recent podcast. That's a place where you can put your resources.

So as we're talking here, it's like, hey, go visit our community and you'll be able to watch that video that we referenced.

Martin
00:04:26

Yeah, And I like that. Often I say, you know, you could check the show notes and so on. Then, of course, it's a challenge to do the listener really go to the show notes?

Do they know where to go? And in. In Swedish, it's even harder to explain what is the show notes? In Swedish, we say antechniar, like notes, but it's. It's an English word.

And you know the show notes from a movie or the tight that came after the movie and so on. So you have to explain it. And then, of course, it's up to listeners. Do they want to have extra material? Do they want to click on links?

Do they want to join a community? Or do they want to lurk around or whatever? But I think that's good because I have missed that. I could say that for pee sugar and also thistle.

They are both. I would classify them as communities.

Deborah
00:05:20

Right.

Martin
00:05:20

And they are no more in that shape or matter, but maybe they'll, you know, come. Come alive again or something. So I really like a digital town hall or a digital online community.

Deborah
00:05:33

I like your description, Digital town hall. That. That's good. But. But a lot of people, I mean, I like your description. I understand it, but it seems like in the US Here they.

They use the term community.

Martin
00:05:44

So, I mean, yeah, and communion and digital town hall, of course, could be more. Not political, but where it's.

The voters are going there and they listen to things and vote for that or raise their hands or having an exchange of ideas and discussion and debate even, or discourse. I think that's good also. But there are a good. Is a good community out there for indie podcasters.

But I think it's Colin Gray, of Alitu, and the podcast host that started it. And I think it's a special room for all the two users, but it's open for everyone. Podcasters.

What I see there, again, it's the challenge to be a, you know, frequent user and come in and adding your two cents to the conversation. Ask a question if something is and. Or reply to something. And they are building on circle, I think.

So there are lots of tools out there and it's matter of taste what you like. So you have now found it's interesting their business model there, how they see what others are doing and then do it their way.

And it's brand new for me. So it was fascinating to see and I got curious again. I wondered who is behind that?

Deborah
00:07:03

Sam Baker. And I'm familiar with other things that he's developed. I can't, you know, right now, I'm sorry, Braindead, can't quite list them all. Sorry Sam.

But he has developed a lot of things and I've used them and love them. So he's very talented as a developer. But this particular tool, I've been waiting for this because I've used school. You remember school?

Yes, you might give me to me.

Martin
00:07:30

Yeah.

And I thought when I saw that, and I'll be frank because I'm not the programmer on layout, so I could say that when I looked at that design I was thinking where is it coming from?

Deborah
00:07:42

It's very similar.

Martin
00:07:43

Yeah, but there's more. Yeah, but it was a bit more. Another thing, it was this about the price point and how to refer to others. And I'm all for referrals.

If you like it and value it and what you could do it the thing hopefully plenty of uses of like so called free, you know, quotation marks. Groups of Facebook would think about that in the future. Say, is this really free or what are we using the data?

Deborah
00:08:13

Well, Facebook, I've heard of people using Facebook and not to knock Facebook, but even though it's free, by the time they do all the things they have to do to do it for free, they're actually spending more money and more time because there's like so many people that they save money using school and school is $99 per month. But the only reason I reference it is I love school. But hey, If I have two groups and that's $200 per month, that gets 2,400 dol. I can't afford it.

But it's just too much, you know, Frank And I want to give away the community for free.

So I don't want to charge people to belong to my podcast community, but this one for now, for a short period of time, I don't know how long and I know this sounds like a sales pitch and I, I really am sharing this because it really is a limited time and I can't stand hearing myself say this, Martin, because it just sounds so sleazy like a car salesman, but they really are.

They're going to Go to a mod that I think is like the school model where it's $99 per month but for a short period of time you can actually get it for I think a one time deal and then you don't have to pay monthly. So if anybody. Yeah, if anyone.

Martin
00:09:26

That's kind of style appsumo deals, you know.

Deborah
00:09:29

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Now I got it for a really good deal and that deal is passed where like unlimited groups all.

I mean I am just, I feel like you know like heaven sent gift but.

Martin
00:09:41

But still it's a value.

So if somebody would join, if they could now join for free, if they value that you got that good deal, then they could stream satoshis, they could send booster grams comments with payment and of course we could add like buy me a coffee or buy me a tea or buy me a pizza or buy me a diet Coke. That's your favorite beverage, right?

Because it will take time, energy and money in a way depending on how you're counting to keep this community alive and kicking. As a former moderator, I know about.

Deborah
00:10:19

That this one has more features. Like right away you saw that I added my domain and I don't know that maybe school's getting that. But I didn't see that school has that feature.

But this one right away, I mean it took like maybe five minutes and I had my domain on it so it was really easy to do that. Super simple.

Martin
00:10:39

And on this you could in the future have like video material, courses, this kind of thing also. And gamification.

Deborah
00:10:48

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, gamification, Yep. But the cool thing on this one, like in school you have to go edit a page.

That's all you get is this little tiny little spot and that's it. And again, not to not school but this design for this particular.

And we'll show like next week, maybe that's what we'll do next week actually show what's going on. But you can do it with cards. It's like having little business cards. But they're not business cards, they're little design cards.

And I know what it's like because that's how my website is with focus cards. But I don't want to confuse people. So anyway, on the card it's like it'll pick. You pick an event and they'll show right on your homepage.

They'll say hey, this event is happening on this particular date and it'll show it right on the homepage.

Martin
00:11:28

That's cool. That's neat.

Deborah
00:11:30

So you don't have to design this homepage, you can pick parts from what you already have in the community and it's automatically designed for you. So that is really cool. Makes it streamlined.

Martin
00:11:41

Then you have to do this call to action directly now and then at the end. Also, where do they find the community for community?

Deborah
00:11:52

For our podcast, it is StudioFusion Club. I thought that would be an easy one to remember. Club?

Martin
00:12:00

Yeah, like clubhouse.

Deborah
00:12:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Martin
00:12:03

Do you serve drinks also? Virtual drinks?

Deborah
00:12:05

Yeah, There we go. There we go. We'll have like little, little pictures, little emoji. That's a good idea.

So StudioFusion Club and what I thought for a call to action for this week's podcast, because remember, we're having a call to action every week and you guys can track it and we'll figure out a way to gamify that as we mentioned last week. But I was thinking, Martin, how about something community related? So either research communities or start a community.

Do some kind of a community action. And if you can't think of anything else, come join our community and that will work too. So I don't want to force people to join our community.

So I didn't want to say, hey.

Martin
00:12:46

Let'S join true fans. Create the account on true fans and.

Deborah
00:12:51

We will catch all of you same time, same place next week. But before I go, Martin, anything to add?

Martin
00:12:58

I think that's a good, good one. I did the call to action, but again, of course, I think join true fans, follow Studio Fusionware and if you like it, become a fan.

Deborah
00:13:13

Yes.

Martin
00:13:14

And start listening. Because I would say that, that I really talk about gamification. I'm on the shorts there now. I think the super, super fans short listening.

Deborah
00:13:26

Yes.

Martin
00:13:27

And also, you know, sending some donations and if we could get more and more doing it voluntarily, of course, but.

Deborah
00:13:35

Get it and then you can become our super fan. Yeah, exactly. You get a piece of the profit then. Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, you have to become a fan to become a super fan and get a piece of the profit of Studio Fusion. So good point. So anyway, well, thank you for tuning in and again we'll see you same time next week.

Martin
00:13:56

Yeah, thanks.

Deborah
00:13:57

Thank you.