AP 0602: Why Didn’t You Use BlogTalk Radio?

AskPat 602 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what up everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 602 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business-related questions, five days a week.

We have a great question today from Ileana, but before we get to her question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks, a sweet, awesome, beautiful company that's making it super-easy for me and three million other small business owners manage our business finances; keeping track of the income, the expenses and also with invoicing. Just making it really easy to manage and get all that done.

So if you are a coach, if you do any consulting, if you have any clients of any kind, FreshBooks is definitely the … what I feel, the number one way to actually get paid, and bill your clients, and get paid faster, and make it easy for them too. I mean that's really what it's all about. So FreshBooks, you got to check it out. You can check it out for 30 days for free by going to Freshbooks.com/askpat and make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section.

All right, here's today's question from Ileana.

Ileana: Hi Pat, this is Ileana and I love your show. I'm addicted. I'd like to ask you, why did you start the podcast with iTunes instead of Blog Talk Radio. I'm just curious. I'm trying to find out what the difference is. Thank you and thank you for being such an inspiring podcaster.

Pat Flynn: Hey Ileana, thanks so much for the question today. I'm curious. Are you going to start a podcast soon? If so, congratulations. Awesome. A podcast has done wonders for myself and my business and just … You know, I've learned so much about myself as a podcaster too, but I am here to help, and for those of you are just starting out, I would highly recommend checking out my free podcasting tutorial. No emails or opt-ins required. It's all there for you right when you land on that page at podcastingtutorial.com, that will redirect you to my website where you can get that tutorial for free. Again, that's podcastingtutorial.com.

Now Ileana, your question, why did I go and publish on iTunes and not use Blog Talk Radio? Well, Blog Talk Radio is a service that's been around for quite a while and that's one where you can host your podcast, get it out there and get it promoted for you and all this other great stuff, but the number one reason why I didn't go with them is because I want full control over my audio, and what Blog Talk Radio will do is they'll more likely, and more often than not, and I think in all cases, they'll add their own little ad spot at the beginning of your show and at the end, and the quality just isn't as good.

Now, yes, it does help you manage with interviews and getting people to connect with you and actually creating those episodes on their service, but you know, going through iTunes and managing your own podcast feed and your own shows, it just makes it really, really simple to get the most value out of your show as a listener, which is the most important thing.

But also, as a producer, you just have a lot more flexibility in where your podcast goes, what happens to it, what you can do with it, and again controlling those ads really and your complete audio file is really the main thing. You don't want anybody to come in from a third party having control of those things, and plus, what happens? They could at any moment in time add some sort of ad in there that you don't want, and you don't want that to happen.

So that's the main reason why I didn't use Blog Talk Radio. Of course, iTunes is the number one directory where people go to find podcasts, and you want to definitely be there, and again, have full control and full flexibility over your show and how it gets consumed and how you produce it and all that stuff.

So, quick easy answer, and again, if you want the full walk-through, the step-by-step on how to get your show up on iTunes and other directories like Stitcher and whatnot, just head on over to podcastingtutorial.com.

I even go over equipment that you can use, recording tips and all those sorts of things. How to grow your show. How to tag your episodes. All that stuff. I've been podcasting for, gosh what is it? Six, almost six years now, and we are up to episode 602 here on AskPat and episode two hundred and something on SPI.

It's been awesome, and I definitely don't plan on stopping anytime soon, and I definitely see a lot more opportunity for people to come on and start their own podcast too. New ones are being created every day. New ones are being featured in New and Noteworthy on iTunes. That's another benefit of using iTunes, is again because that's where people go to find podcasts. You're going to potentially have the most exposure there too. Take advantage and make use of their ranking system, and also the free exposure from New and Noteworthy when you're a brand new podcaster too.

So, go ahead and check that out, and yes, you can post on Blog Talk Radio and also post on iTunes, but again that control over your audio is really what's most important. You don't want anybody else touching that except you, and that's really the benefit of going on your own. It's what you got to do. So, podcastingtutorial.com is where you should go.

Thank you, Ileana, for your question today. I'm going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your featured here on the show, and thank you to everybody else who is asking questions because without your questions we wouldn't have AskPat, so I appreciate you. You guys are really what make the show possible. So keep asking your questions. Head on over to AskPat.com, you can ask them right there on that page.

I also want to thank today's sponsor, FreshBooks. If you want to check out FreshBooks for 30 days for free, head on over to Freshbooks.com/askpat and make sure to enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. It's really cool. They also have an award-winning mobile app, actually, that you can use to check the health of your business financially on the go, also, and again, it just makes everything related to finances much, much easier. So again, Freshbooks.com/askpat, enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you and, as always, I'm going to end with a quote, and this quote today is from Nelson Mandela. He says, “A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”

Hopefully, I'm that shepherd for you guys and doing what I can to help lead you in the right direction too. So thank you so much. I appreciate you and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.