Thomas Whitley and I are really enjoying doing this podcast… we missed last week’s episode and it felt (to me) like a big part of my week wasn’t complete. As I said on another podcast that had me on as a guest today, we don’t really think of Thinking Religion as a podcast as much as it is a conversation we’d be having anyway. Thomas and I are just letting you be voyeuristic and listen to a little snippet of that much longer weekly chat (our chats routinely go 2-3 hours, so this 45 mins or hour of a produced show is one conscious part of that).
It’s probably why we don’t have guests on as well.
One of the things Thomas and I try to do with Thinking Religion, as well as Elisabeth and Merianna on Thinking Out Loud (and all of our Thinking.FM podcasts) is sound different by sounding like ourselves.
“My Wife Quit Her Job podcaster Steve Chou is, like Nick Loper, another savvy online marketer who realizes the algorithm might be his most important audience member. Subscribers are another key piece of landing in the iTunes New & Noteworthy section, and without it, a podcast might fall off the radar.”
I never want to do a podcast where we have to beg for ratings or use the same 5 generic ads that every other podcast uses.
However, I’ll be the first to tell you that’s not a very lucrative way to do podcasting. It’s definitely a losing proposition when you consider time, hosting costs, bandwidth etc. But, I think we’ll stick to our donation model for now (despite its poor performance in terms of actual revenue). As the hosts of No Agenda frequently remind us, “Value for Value” is a much more authentic and enjoyable stream of revenue for a medium such as podcasting.
The author of Big Magic speaks with the writer, comedian, and prolific podcaster John Hodgman about the boredom of mastery and the thrill of self-reinvention. This is an installment of Magic Lessons by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Beautiful and short podcast on mastery, boredom, risk, and self-reinvention.
Those of us who have taken the leap know the exhilarating highs and the devastating lows involved in reinvention but also continuing to push yourself to be open to new paths to explore and thrive.
Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss the Prayer of Jabez, Sex and the Bible, pansexuality, the Popeâs new chair, and why Islam isnât limited to the originating text.
Thomas and I have a new Thinking Religion podcast episode featuring Prof. Carrie Shroeder where we discuss all sorts of things… Stargate to Digital Humanities to why you should blog on your own site (academic or church or individual). Fun listen (I think).
Thinking Religion: Smuggling Religion | Thinking.FM: Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of the Watchmen, Rambo Jesus, Westboro Church, Southern Baptists and Obama, Palmyra, Indiana Jones, and the next reformation.
This Weekâs Topics
Who watches the Watchmen?
Rambo meets Heart of Darkness meets Jesus
Hatinâ on Ivory Coast
Well, the Bible saysâŠ
Obama supposedly offends the Southern Baptist Convention
Palmyra, India, Israel, and the role of the antiquities black market in politics
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of whether Jesus was a terrorist, the beatification process, Muslim responses to climate change, how to fix Genesis, and why changing your Facebook profile picture makes you feel better.
Source: Thinking Religion Podcast: Religious Slacktivism
Our weekly podcast episode on Religion and culture is live. I think it turned out pretty well!
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of the physicality of resurrections, how to read the Bible in a short period of time while in D.C., pledging allegiance to the Christian Flag, and what Muhammad has to do with the First Amendment.
Thomas and I do a podcast every Wednesday that I particularly enjoy. It goes back to our days in seminary together (2008 or so) and although we kept trying to make it a regular thing, it’s only become a standard weekly part of my life in earnest over the past few months.
I wouldn’t think of putting off the recording of an episode now. It’s my weekly chance to nerd out about religion, politics, history, and have a civilized conversation that is “deeper” and more reflective than my usual fare. We certainly don’t always agree (this episode is a good example of that), but we do always end up learning a bit from each other… well, I learn from Thomas mostly.
The other thing that I’m beginning to really appreciate are the show notes. We spend a good deal of time pulling those links together and then curating them down into something that can be reasonably thought of as a standard podcast length show. Every week, we come up with dozens of links, so the selection process before the show has also become a highlight of my week.
It’s become a good show. It’s only getting better. Hope you enjoy.
With the mass hysteria around the Serial podcast at the end of 2014 and the continued excellence of other NPR shows such as This American Life or RadioLab, it’s no surprise that the press and media were eager to claim a “return of the podcast” early in 2015.
Podcasts are nothing new and have been delivering content to folks like me for over a decade since they were first implemented by Dave Winer and Adam Curry. Podcasts have, for better and for worse, always been seen as something of a geeky pursuit. They were never difficult to actually make or listen to, but it just felt as if the technology for mass adoption wasn’t there. We lovers and makers of podcasts sat by while the music industry was transformed first by Napster then iTunes and now streaming, and then the visual media industry was transformed by YouTube and Netflix. We watched promising companies like Ev Williams’ Odeo pivot from podcast transformer to Twitter parent company. We knew we had something good and our time would come.
However, it felt like 2015 was going to be the year of the podcast in terms of mass adoption. It makes sense… technology has finally caught up to the medium. Almost everyone has a mobile device of some sort, more often than they have computers in 2014 and beyond. Most of those mobile device owners are comfortable enough to find media and apps via Netflix or Spotify. There’s been a growing acceptance of the notion of “on demand” media consumption whether it’s House of Cards or the latest comic book on Comixology. Data rates have gotten faster and cheaper (somewhat) and people are more comfortable with downloading or streaming media rather than having it delivered passively by TV and radio. Serial was the siren song of podcasting’s new era. A time when podcasts stopped being just about tech and finally ventured into other mediums. We have Adam Corolla, after all. Surely, if you make “good stuff” and put it out there in your niche, people would find and start listening in 2014. Right?
Short answer: No.
It’s not anymore difficult to make a podcast than it is to make a blog post or even a Facebook post for those willing to trade their digital souls for even more comfort and supposed eyeballs. However, it is still difficult to find an audience for your podcast that makes you “feel” like it’s worth doing.
I have this conversation often with clients who are interested in podcasting as a form of marketing their church, product, startup idea, service etc. “Let’s do this,” I say, “but be aware that this is not going to make it onto any iTunes top charts and you’ll be lucky to have a dozen consistent listeners after a few months if you make it that long.”
That’s because it’s hard to show up week after week (if you’re doing a weekly show, which is what I’d recommend since that’s the accepted format at this point) for months at a time and record yourself talk either solo or with a group, do the post recording work of either editing but definitely uploading, posting it somewhere, and attempting getting the word out only to see that you have 11 listeners to a show four months in. Clients, like all of us, want fast results whether they say it or not. It’s human nature. It’s why we like using Facebook instead of a personal blog to post details of our lives or businesses… people “Like” us there and we get tangible feedback for our time or work or thoughts. “I am important because people listen to me!” is Facebook’s psychology 101.
Podcasting is different. There is little in the way of the gratification machine at work to tell you that you’re doing a good job, even months or perhaps years, into your show. Excellent podcasters like Dan Benjamin will tell you to show up and keep showing up. He’s right. But what about if you’re just starting out. “Is it really worth all that time, then?” my clients ask.
I should have a good answer to that question prepared given how much I hear it and that I’ve ran a podcast network called Thinking.FM since 2011. I came up with the idea in 2009 after I started podcasting in 2008. I did a 22 minute daily show for almost six months. When that show ended, it had a few thousand listeners. “I’m important because people listen to me!” I thought after doing the very hard work of not just talking about something I thought interesting for 22 minutes every day, but also the pre and post work that was required to do a daily show in 2008 (not to mention I was working from home with my newborn daughter who ended up being a frequent guest on the show inadvertently).
Podcasting is still figuring itself out and the mass majority of consumers are still figuring out the medium as well. Sure, there’s an Apple Podcasts app that comes pre-installed on all iPhones now but how many people ever tap on “Tips” or “Newstand” either?
My answer is yes, you should podcast. It is fun. It is hard. It is cost and time intensive. Eventually, it does pay off in ways not measured by Likes or retweets.
For example, my friend Thomas Whitley and I do a podcast called Thinking Religion. It’s an amazing show (I can say that because I’ve been listening to podcasts for a while and we talk about amazingly interesting things from two different perspectives). Our latest show (29th episode) was by far our best:
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with a discussion of presidential politics and religion, metaphysics in the public sphere, ISIS and the antiquities black market, and whether we can recover lost texts.
You can listen by clicking on this player. Go ahead.
After doing the show weekly for almost thirty weeks now, we’re lucky if we have a few hundred listeners. Most times, it’s much less than that.
“But Sam,” you say, “it’s a podcast by two history / religion dorks talking about God knows what for 90 minutes. Why would anybody listen to that?”
Good point if you’re looking to get huge CPM advertising deals from Ford or use your podcast to market your church or your service or your products to millions!
But that’s more than likely not realistic. Moreover, it’s not the best use of your time, money, and resources to go for that goal. Instead, think long term. Think about possible connections and implications of your recorded word and the effects they may have on someone interested in you, your group, your product, your church etc. Think about how you can make someone’s life better, give them hope, solve their problem, or make them dream.
It pays off. Trust me.
Millions of listens and huge advertising payoffs are not the intent of Thinking Religion or Thinking.FM in general. It’s also not the point of any of the podcasts I help my clients do and promote. Instead, quality means more than quantity. That’s the reason I personally despise Facebook as both a personal medium and as a marketing medium for churches and non-profits and startups… it reinforces the notion of immediacy when it comes to Likes and feedback response. It’s a Skinner box (that’s a podcast I did with my wife, Merianna) with no sense of permanence or longevity. In my practice of marketing, permanence and longevity mean everything.
