Pros and Cons of Live Podcasting – PCI 359

[Mike Dell]:\nGotta do some promotion too to get people to show up. You can't just, you know, flip it on and expect a whole bunch of people to show up. Yep. Depends on who you are. I mean, you know, if Rogan goes live somewhere, \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nI guarantee he's gonna have a huge audience. His chat box would would fill up. Right. \n\n[MacKenzie Bennett]:\nYou're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting, all with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nI'm Todd Cochran, CEO and founder of Blueberry Podcasting. Mike Dell, VP of customer relations here at Blueberry. In this episode of podcast insider, we're going to talk about the pros and cons of doing your podcast live. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nOh, This is a topic right here. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nIt's actually a bit of a hot one right now. Yeah. Because a lot, you know, a lot of people are recording their show also while live streaming, you know, either video or audio or both in your case. And there's definite advantages to doing it, and there's some disadvantages. And go through some of those, and, you know, I'm sure we have slightly different opinions on this, So that's cool. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nYeah. You know, the the live piece for me really originated because at the time and, again, I was going live long, long, long time before most podcasters even considered it, was the simple fact that I was recording my show in Hawaii and was doing a solo show. And, really, it got kind of, I guess, for a better word, got lonely. And I was just looking for just a little itty bit of feedback from the audience. So for me, the reason to go live wasn't necessarily the, you know, the value of doing live or putting something on YouTube or something like that. It was just more about the engagement. So for me, I think one of the main reasons that is a pro for me even to this day is the increased audience engagement where handful, and it's usually a handful of listeners or or viewers can come in and and make a few comments, and it allows me to interact with them just a little bit. And, for that, it's more of a dynamic process. But at the same time, doing live does require you to be much more prepared because, typically, there's not a lot of editing choices when you're doing live. Although people do edit, I don't. But \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nthat live, you need to be ready to rock and roll. And we do this more or less live to the hard drive. So it's not live live, but yeah. And we do have some editing. But for the most part, what we do here is more or less live. We used to do it live live on Facebook and other platforms, and we may go back to that at some point. Who knows? But one of the other things I find is it's more authentic when somebody's live and you're watching or listening live. People, you know, it's all the mistakes are there. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nThat's right. Nothing nothing can be cut. Well, you get to see the show before the cuts happen. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nYeah. You get to see the sausage being made. So and, you know, and there's something cool about that. So yeah. But we don't do a lot of editing on our personal shows. I know you cut the ends and level it and call it good. I do. And I maybe slightly edit more, but not much. So \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nBut you definitely get instant feedback. Yes. It's a pro. Again, if you have a lot of people doing live don't have anybody even watching. They're not getting that feedback. Anyway. So I would say if you're if you're trying to do live and you, you know, live to, you know, live like like, YouTube live or something to that effect, you are and you're not getting feedback, then \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nwhy even stream it? You know, why even do that? So but the instant feedback is nice to get a little little commentary back and forth. Well, you gotta you gotta do some promotion too to get people to show up. You can't just, you know, flip it on and expect a whole bunch of people to show up. Yep. Depends on who you are. I mean, you know, if Rogan goes live somewhere, I guarantee he's gonna have a huge audience. His chat box would would fill up. Right. So it's all a relative thing. You know, if you're relatively unknown in podcasting or, you know, in your subject area, it might take a little bit of promotion to get it going. But once you do get it going, even one or two people in the chat room while you're recording, giving you some feedback is is great motivator. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nAnother thing too is sometimes people ask questions. And while I don't actually ask for questions, sometimes people do ask questions. And that's where you have to have one eye on the chat box to kinda keep an eye so that you can keep that in there timely. I've, you know, kind of lost track of the chat box and come back and responded to bit of a challenge. Yeah. Don't let it distract you either. You know, sometimes people \n\n[Mike Dell]:\ndo live totally enamored with the chat room. Right. And not actually doing their show anymore. And they're forgetting about that audience that's listening \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nas their primary audience because, again, don't don't you know, you gotta focus on the ninety nine percent, not the one percent that may be in the live chat room. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nAnd live shows can also build community because, you know, there are people like, I look at one of our friends who he does the Saturday evening wine stream, you know, know, where he drinks a bottle of wine and talks about all kinds of diverse stuff. And he has quite a batch of regulars now, and, you know, he gets to interact with them and all that. And there's a little bit of a community built up around that show because it's live. Now he puts it out as a podcast later and a YouTube later, and and that's great. But, you know, that's that's what live is all about is to get that community going. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nI could never do a wine show. All wine tastes the same to me. Yeah. I'm not one of one of those people that can smell it and tell you the five different, you know, things that are in it and how long it's aged and Hey. You might learn, though. To me, either the taste good or it doesn't. You know, one or one or the other. Fermented grape juice. So and I know that drives some people crazy, but some people just don't, you know, I just don't have a taste. I I do have a taste, but it's good or bad. There's nothing in between. But live can also drive discovery. You know, being on a live platform can help new people discover your show who may not have found your show via a typical traditional podcast app. So might be a way for show discovery as well. Yeah. It could be. You know, I've actually \n\n[Mike Dell]:\ndiscovered podcasts that do YouTube live and a YouTube channel. And I didn't know they did a audio podcast and that's how I found them. You know, I followed them on YouTube and then all of a sudden, hey, this guy's live. I go like that. And they mentioned the podcast and yeah, so if you're gonna do live, make sure you mention that this is also available as a podcast over at podcast insider dot com or whatever. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nAnd, of course, you could create unique content, something that can only be seen live. And so once, you know, it's an event or something to that effect that really is best consumed live. So maybe that's a reason for it. Or, again, maybe you're you're you're looking for a larger audience and you're putting your their content on multiple platforms. So I think it goes along with that strategy. I don't care where they listen or watch as long as they listen or watch. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nWe'll drive them back to the podcast within the content. So Yeah. One of the, one of the, you know, interesting unique content things is, okay, you do a podcast, you know, say about some medical thing. Okay. And then you say, hey, this Saturday at two o'clock in the afternoon, I'm gonna do a a live show that's just gonna be, you know, questions and answers about this topic. And you promote that on your audio podcast, and then you do the live stream later and make that, you know, kind of an exclusive. So people that actually listen to your audio now have another way \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nto interact with you. That's right. Let's talk about a few cons of creating doing a live show. And I'll be honest with you. When I travel and not doing live, my production time is much shorter, probably by about fifty percent. You know, probably that much saved. So the time commitment, number one, when you're gonna go live, Number two, the extra editing you have to do to produce that video file that's gonna be available, hopefully, as a traditional podcast as well, not just out on some video site. I think that time commitment is is is extended. Plus, you have to make sure your studio is turned on. You have to make sure that you're dressed. You have to you know, probably for the ladies, you know, maybe a little makeup. So there's definitely some more well, we we definitely can use it, Mike. That's for sure. So I think that time commitment is much higher doing live where you don't wanna show up in a T shirt, that type of thing. It's just, you know, you gotta have some some thought process and plus and money too and putting the set together. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nI I'm very happy that we're not going live right now. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nWell, that's that's good. Is it a t shirt day, Mike? It's a t shirt day for sure. Shorts, t shirt, and fuzzy bunny slippers. Oh, lovely. That's t TMI right there in the fuzzy bunny slippers. I'm kidding. Also technical issues. There's been many a time when I got ready to hit the button and something is, like, not ready to go. And it's like so I'm kind of under my breath cursing for five minutes and get everything on, and then you're kinda like it really upsets the flow, you know? And then you feel rushed, and you're making apologies that you're late to coming online. And so the tech issues can be an issue. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nIt it's getting easier. That's the best thing about it. That's why more people are doing it. You can't really edit mistakes. We talked about that before, but as you're podcasting live or doing a live stream of a podcast recording, I guess, would probably be the better way to put it, you know, you screw up something. It's there. You know, it's in the live. Now you can edit it out for later distribution. But, you know, again, that's maybe a pro because a lot of people like to see a screw up. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nSo, you know But at the same time, I think some podcasters that edit a lot, that move pieces of their interviews around and shuffle things up. That really is is not possible. You have less control over the flow, and this is where the show prep this is where I truly believe the value again, there's a pro and a con. Pro is if you're gonna do live, you're gonna become a much better and much more organized content creator. It's just a fact. Out of necessity. Yeah. Because you want that flow to kinda go the way you want it to go. And but you have less control over that flow. You no matter what because your guest can take you down a path maybe you didn't wanna go. And if that was an audio only podcast, you don't care. You cut that out later. You get rid of it and then restack it. In live, it's not that easy. And plus, if you're live, you're live. People get to see that original content, and you get to see, like you said, Mike, the sausage being made. So I think that, you have, less control of the show when when you're definitely live. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nYep. And then, you know, last thing on the cons list here is privacy concerns. A lot of podcasters use a pseudonym instead of their real name, and nobody really knows what they look like, that kind of thing. But live streaming can potentially expose something that you really don't want to be \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nout there in the public. Or your guest says something that later do you want they want to retract, and it's too late. It's gone. It's it's in the ether. Keep that in mind. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nYou know, I have your background such that it's not gonna give away something that you don't want out there. We had a guest \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\non the when we were doing CES live, and the acronym for what was once called the Consumer Electronics Show. It's now just CES. And the the guest said something about company proprietary, and we were alive, that within minutes of him going off the set, he say, hey. Can you cut that? I'm like, it's gone. It's out there. You know? Everyone that was live watching the show just heard it. I I sure. I can cut that in the edit. But, you know, that topic, it's gone. You you sorry. You said something you weren't supposed to. You're you should have been a little more prepared. In my opinion, though, when what he had said wasn't a big deal, and it really didn't get picked up on by anyone. But I guess it was something that his PR handler just lost his mind on. So, it's just one of those things where mistakes can be made. Right. And be be aware if you're \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nstreaming on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter or x or whatever it's called now, that stuff is out there still. Even if you delete it, it's probably still out there somewhere. So I don't know. We have any more pros or cons, Mike. Is that kind of the end of our I think that's the end of it. You know, best option just depends on your goals. You know, what do you want to do? Do you do you want to have a scheduled time, and do you want to have to clean up to get on camera? Or, you know, or if you're just doing audio, you know, I don't know. It's it's completely up to you. You don't have to do it and you know? Or you can do it all all you want to. That's that's the beauty of it. There's no rules in that. There's no rules in podcasting. Just best practices. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nYep. And that's that's the best part is there's again, I think what you you said there, Mike, is there's no rules in podcasting. Do what you wanna do, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The rebel in me comes out. There you go. \n\n[Mike Dell]:\nThat about does it for this week. I think next week we got a a pretty good one, so be sure to tune in. \n\n[Todd Cochrane]:\nAlright. Thank you so much. And, yes, we got some closing remarks. Don't forget about us out here. You want that consult, give a holler. We love doing them for you. \n\n[MacKenzie Bennett]:\nThanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcast insider dot com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry dot com. That's Blueberry without the ease because we can't afford them. \n\n