“Why Most Podcasts Stay Invisible (And How to Fix It)” with John Taylor

Introduction to Podcasting Perspectives

Speaker 0:00

AI Intro 0:57

Most podcasters think their biggest problem is consistency. It's not. Their real problem is discoverability because every day creators upload incredible content that nobody ever finds. And in a world where YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and AI-driven search engines are deciding what gets surfaced, understanding how discoverability actually works matters more than ever. Today, I'm joined by John Taylor, podcast strategist, agency owner, and producer behind an Apple Top 25 podcast. In this conversation, we break down why most podcasts stay invisible, why niche creators outperform broad creators, how AI is changing podcast search forever, and what podcasters need to understand if they want to build authority, audience, and long-term growth. This is one of the most important conversations I've had so far about the future of podcasting. So if you're building a show,

The Importance of Storytelling in Podcasting

Speaker 2 1:53

building a brand, or trying to figure out why your content isn't connecting, this episode is for you.

Gabe 2:28

Because the one question I even everybody that comes on, I ask them what's the point? Why should you sit down, press record? Why should you start a podcast for anybody who might be listening and going, I have this great idea, I have this concept, but why should you do a podcast as opposed to say writing a blog or any other media?

John Taylor 2:45

Yeah, absolutely. That's a and that's such a great question, too, because uh there there are multiple answers. It's like you said, the first one would be, you know, I have this great idea. There's this, there's this story I want to tell, right? It all really, really comes back to storytelling. All right. So, you know, the whole thing behind narrative podcasts, you know, in the 1920s they called them radio shows, right? It was just, you know, their audio format for storytelling is been around forever. And whether that's electronic and you, you know, you're you're doing a radio show, which is now a podcast, or you just sat around the campfire and told stories. If you've got a story to tell and you want to tell it, then yeah, you should start a podcast. That's a great idea. The other answer is for B2B and B2C podcasters. If you've got, if you've got a product to sell or a service to sell that requires a certain amount of authority and trust, then podcasting is great to build that authority, to establish that trust, to explain, to get a have a platform where you can take the time to explain what it is you do, the service you created, the product you're selling, and really be able to get the point across to people. And in that respect, it's important to remember that podcasting is is for the narrative people, for the ones who are doing true crime prop podcasts, you know, podcasts are an art form. And for

Listener Discoverability Optimization: A Framework for Success

John Taylor 4:07

B2B and B2C podcasters, podcasting is part of your marketing stack. I don't know of a single person who finds entertainment value in discussing supply chain economics and um you know these niche things that podcasters do. That's not fun, but it's your business, and so you want to know, you know. So you started for one of those reasons, and it's an effective platform for both. Right.

Gabe 4:34

I love that. You didn't you tickled me with that one because that I've heard that in some different form, but what the way you described it, it it really did make me laugh. So you you built what I mean, I love this term LDO, listener discoverability optimization, right? You built this as a framework. What was the gap in the market that you felt made that necessary? What you know, what were podcasters being told that simply wasn't working when it came to finding an audience?

John Taylor 5:01

What wasn't working, what podcasters weren't being told, is that there is a foundational importance in your platforming and in your marketing. If you're gonna build a house, you start with a great foundation, right? You start with this concrete foundation, and that foundation is often the same. It's just a big concrete slab in one shape or another. But the house you build on top of it, all right. Did you just lose me? Oh, you're good. Oh, okay. Just playing around. I see. Okay, great. The house that you build on top of it can take um, you know, can look a million different ways and can have, you know, different kinds of rooms and and different wallpaper and different flooring and all this great stuff. But without that foundation, it does not stand up. And that's kind of what I discovered. I'd been in, you know, been in marketing for, I don't know, since the late Cretaceous period. Uh and that's a while. The the the thing I kept seeing over and over was this this kind of foundational lacking in in podcasting. Part of it being because what we talked talked about before, that there's podcasting for B2B, especially is part of a marketing stack, right? And even just that word, a stack, the stack has to live on top of something. You have to have that stack very well balanced or it falls over. It doesn't work, it's not built on something. So that's sort of the approach we took. It's like, all right, foundationally, what needs to happen in order for your podcast to be discovered, in order for you to have an ecosystem or ecosystem that creates

Finding Your Unique Voice and Niche

John Taylor 6:34

discoverability, that is something that's going to last you uh during your podcasting career. That's important, and give you the best chance of being discovered by your ideal listener, whoever that might be. And to me, that's what was that was what was missing. There was a lot of, and still are, of course, a lot of like, hey, follow this tip and hey, the algorithm is doing this now, and you should try this instead over on this platform. Whereas we're like, oh no, you need to take this holistic approach. You need to look at the entire, your entire digital footprint and look at every platform of your digital footprint to make sure it's all, you know, working together as one discoverability ecosystem.

Gabe 7:19

Right. Because, you know, in terms of what people think and they have this idea about the uh the podcast market being saturated, you know, one of the stats that blew my mind away is that by 2030, it's gonna be a $50 billion industry. Yeah. It's not dying anytime soon. So this is why it's important to hear like what you're talking about in discoverability, because there's just going to be more people walking and venturing down this journey, uh, whether it's from a passion point or whether it's from, you know, they're part it's it's gonna be part of their stack as a business lead, as a magnet to kind of help find them clients and work and build authority in this. This is what it's all about. So you you know, most again, podcasters describe their points of view on or excuse me, they describe their content, but they don't really put a focus or point of view on what they're talking about. So from an agency pan, how do you help clients find that one belief that you know that'll drive every episode that you know that'll give them the focus that they need to build a sustainable product that they can use over and over again?

John Taylor 8:22

Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna say this over and over. That's such a great question. Uh, because really is uh that is a thing that takes time. I mean, discovering discovering, let me put it this way. You ask any podcaster, what's your log line? Give me the what's your elevator pitch? Give me your one to two sentence pitch about what your podcast is about, you know, and that has to include name, the pain point you address, or or the story you tell, what makes you different, what makes you unique, what is your brand. Do that in two sentences. That is not easy and that does not come quick. And I think really the answer to this question is that that is something you have to develop over time. And so the more you're podcasting, the more you are focused on, you know, what your unique message is, what your core concepts are, what your key differentiators are, what your brand message, you know, should be. You just keep podcasting, keep podcasting it. You eventually hone it. You hone it down, and then and then you've got it. And one of the things that we do, not to go into the weeds, but I always go in the weeds, is when podcasters

The Journey to Podcasting Success: Lessons from Experience

John Taylor 9:33

need help with this, then you know, one of the things that that we do, and and technology is making it pretty easy to do it on your own, is you download all of your podcasts and you you you get a transcript or you compile every transcript of every podcast you've ever created. You compile, you you web scrape everything you've done online. You take all your blog posts, you take your website, you take anything that you have, your LinkedIn profile, your social media, you web scrape all of it. You feed it into Chat GPT and you say, what makes me different? What are my brand messages? What are my core concepts? What are my key differentiators? What am I saying that's unique? And boom, there it is. And you you get this, you get this idea of like, okay, this is what I'm doing. This is, and and the more that that feedback that kind of resonates with you, then the more you know that you're on track, that this is this is really what I'm trying to say. And this is what makes me different. And it's again, it's that that differentiation, that's something I come back to all the time. Because it's like you said, there is a there's room. There is room for 10 million podcasts, right? When you go, when you go to the counter to buy Girl Scout cookies when they're hanging out outside the grocery store, you don't go up to them and say, I want Girl Scout cookies. You go up to them and say, I want thin mints. Right? I want my Samoas. Give me my lemon meringues, right? Or whatever. My Savannah Smiles, right? And the Sorry to interrupt.

Gabe 11:05

I'm sorry that you say that, but right over to the left of my shoulder is a table full of Girl Scout cookies because I hate it was just meant to meet that for that for that line to happen.

John Taylor 11:17

I went through the Girl Scout cookie phase, let me tell you. But I still grab my thin mints and I throw them in the freezer because you know, there's just nothing better. But that's what you gotta be. You've got to be a thin mint, right? You've gotta be you've got to be a carmel delight. And it takes time. It takes time before you understand, you know, what you are. You know, podcasting affords that.

Gabe 11:39

Yeah. And that, man, I love the way that you you really express that because I think in terms of people trying to figure out how to actually take something so broad and niche it down into something that can be a really center focused point is hey, taking all this information that you've created, all these things that you've done, and breaking it down to saying this is what

Building a Quality Podcast: Resources and Strategies

Gabe 12:01

you do best, right? Some of the best steakhouses in the world, they might have like 20 items on the list. It's a one card menu that they give you, but they do those things so well, people come back over and over and over again. Yes. And it's the same idea I say when it comes to what you're talking about and creating your niche, your area, your genre. What is that for you? If you find that what that is, that's the magic that I think a lot of podcasters think because they don't want to fill, I don't know, boxed in. That's the word I've heard. Is that a that's a hard one? Is like I don't want to be boxed in to be just be known at that as this, but my counter to that is why not? Why not be the expert in that? Yeah. Why not do the one thing? Yeah, let it be the one thing that drives. Because when it comes to what people will look for, they'll know where to come to look. I mean, to me, that's to me that's a that's a that again, that's a lot of meat that meat that gets left on the bone by a lot of podcasters. They don't realize that that you could do one thing and do it really well, and so many people will come back.

John Taylor 13:06

Again, I'm gonna tell you a one thing story, um, which is because because what you said is so, so important. I'm gonna kind of put a coda on it as well. Back in the 90s, I well, I'm a musician by passion, and um still in a band, but I was in a band back in the 90s, and we got signed. We got signed to Atlantic Records, big old record deal. And we had we were about at minute seven of our allotted 15 minutes of fame, and the record company came to us and they said point blank, what are you? Are you a party band? Because these three songs on your album, those are party band songs. Or are you a serious artist band? Because these three songs, those are serious artist songs. And do you have one lead singer? Do you have two lead singers? Because you and your brother are both being lead singers here. We do one thing. We market widgets. Tell me what widget you are so that I can market you. And we were all young and full of whatever. Exactly. We're like, no, we're artists, and so we'll do serious songs and we'll do party songs, and we'll have anybody sing who we want to. And we got dropped. We got dropped from the label. And we got dropped from the label because we didn't do our one thing. And the

Defining Success in Podcasting: Beyond Downloads

John Taylor 14:19

takeaway lesson was you can do multiple one things after you do your first one thing and become successful at it. And you know, there's nothing wrong with being the best in your box and getting a six-figure sponsorship for being the best in your box or selling your product or service to a million people because you are so good at this one thing. And then when you're done with that, you go on and do one other thing after that. Right. That's the way, that's the way world economy works. People can't do two things that do one thing, do one thing.

Gabe 14:54

And that's why I got into doing this. People are like, how long are you going to talk about podcasting? Goal? Five, 10 years from now. Because what I love about it is the niche is podcasting. The broadness is that I can pull people from all genres of the world. Because podcasting has so many different branches. Whether it is B2B, B2C, true crime, they all have the experiences though. Whether they're agency owners, whether they're uh crowdfunders, whether they all have a way. And this being able to talk about it gives me the perspective to talk about it from every angle. So I don't see myself getting tired of doing this. I I love right, I love having the ability to talk about it because I want to help people, again, craft the voice. And this is the best way for to do it. So, actually, one of the things though, that like you said, you had a label, so it kind of goes into what what where we're going next is that you produced an Apple top 25 show in Trace Route. So, what does it take to get to take it to get to go from production and a strategy standpoint to reach that level? And what do you see? Most shows probably get it wrong before they even get that close.

John Taylor 15:59

Well, with Tracerou, we were very fortunate in that, you know, and I'm just gonna be honest here, we were very fortunate that we had really good infrastructure to start with. We had good funding, we had money to spend, we were able to put together a great team. So we had really good producers, we had top-notch people in the tech industry at our disposal as uh subject matter experts. We were just really, we were really able to produce a very quality product, you know, right out of the chute. And so we were incredibly fortunate to have that. We had incredible support as well with with a team of marketers that were able to do some really cool things in social media, create really, you know, interesting graphics. The the podcast won the Good Design Award for podcast marketing in 2024. It was, you know, it was just a it was a great campaign. And

Niche Markets: The Key to Building Authority

John Taylor 16:52

we did not do extensive paid marketing. And we can say that one more time. We did not do extensive paid marketing. So there wasn't a big pay per click program, wasn't uh, you know, it it we like I said, the the the the most fortunate part is that we were able to put together a really a highly produced and very authoritative show. And it caught on. It was niche, you know, it was definitely for B and C level IT executives and for walks in the data center space, okay, but it also had this kind of esoteric, more uh artsy connection to it, uh more cultural connection, right? I mean, we went everywhere from you know ancient tribes, you know, in Africa who, you know, where the historical record shows that they were looking at the possibility of warp space-time four to five thousand years ago, you know, all the way up to now, like, you know, and how a, you know, and how a data center functions. So it did have this, you know, broad appeal. It had a niche appeal with a broader appeal, a broader secondary audience that was, you know, available um as well. You know, so so on on the one hand, we I'm trying to be humble in as much as saying that the humble brag. Yeah, is that that that it it caught on really well, but we were fortunate to have a lot of really great resources at our disposal to make a podcast that good that it would, you know, that that it had the capability of of really catching fire at the at the time. And you know, it it's it's it's interesting because if you if you have that opportunity and you have those resources, you do have a leg up. There's there's there's just no doubt about it. And I I would love to be able to say no, you and your microphone. But what I'm getting to with that is that you and your microphone have an opportunity at a in a different space. And and what what I'm gonna do is for reference for that is I

The Reality of Podcasting Success

John Taylor 18:59

I work with a podcast uh that I mocked earlier in our conversation. Um, that is all about wholesale distribution. Okay. It is it is all about that, and that's it. It is wholesale distribution. And it is an hour and a half weekly of wholesale distribution. And this podcast doesn't get more than 150 downloads per episode and hasn't for the three years that we've been working on it. But the two hosts on this show are rock stars in wholesale distribution. When they go to their wholesale distribution convention, everybody knows them. And everybody says, you're the guys with the podcast. And if they land one, if they convert one person in their audience to a customer, it's a quarter to half million dollar event. So, you know, the the so that's success, right? That's success. And so it doesn't matter if you've gotten to the top of the charts or if you have a whole bunch of money behind your show, or if you get a ton of downloads, you know, success comes to podcasters in many different forms. And you know, so I think that's sort of the moral of uh of that story, right?

Gabe 20:16

And that and that's and it you you you worded it perfectly because uh you were you're you kind of mirrored a story of a gentleman I know by the name of Roger Wakefield who he built his you know his his fame, his celebrity through YouTube talking about plumbing. Plumbing in he's a rock star in the plumbing world. They know like you know who Roger Wakefield is.

Navigating AI and Search Discoverability

Gabe 20:37

He's a local guy in the area that I live in, but he still speaks at YouTube conferences. There you go. He goes all these things out, like you said. Well, how much can you watch as far as talking about plumbing if you're not in the industry, if that's not your field, you know? But in that field, though, it matters. It stays is like working in that niche, that's what matters because and the it's the lead magnet that people see you with. And if it lands you the deal, it's worth it every single time. And that and that's what people don't see on the back end. Is it they only see the the idea of of the I hate to use his name, but the Joe Rogan guy, the the guy that thinks, you know, I have the $55 million contract from Spotify. That's he's he's the he's the exception, he's not the rule. Right. And for most podcasters to have that idea that that's what you know expectation is one day is I'm gonna be doing that. Um, I'm like, no, it's to find the little area of if it's beekeeping and you're the beekeeper and expert and you're the one that everybody guess what? You you you have the authority now because of you and your mic, right? And building in what you're doing and what you've done in helping people craft a successful show. It it is understanding what it is that you're trying to create that matters the most. And yes, you had the opportunity to have the monies and the dollars, and who knows that might come for you. But it's usually the idea and the and the focus on what it is that you're actually going to be crafting. Crafting that truly matters, whether or not it wins awards or not. Not everybody can be so broad, like you said, everybody can't be broad and niche. That's a hard subject area to kind of broach for a lot of people. Because again, they fill again the idea of I'm in this box and I'm not that kind of person, always be the box. So when it comes to spot, uh Spotify, Apple, Podcast, YouTube, that's in the big one, uh, AI-driven searches, these AI-driven search, these platform indexes, and they recommend content in different ways. What's the single most important thing a podcaster could understand about how their show gets serviced that almost nobody's talking about right now? How do they find a way to be the one that gets discovered in a sea of however many shows are out in this world?

John Taylor 22:43

Right. It AI has without a doubt changed the game and will continue to do so in an incredibly fast pace, without a doubt. And there's a couple of things about AI search that podcasters should keep in mind. One is the way that AI has changed the way people do search. It used to be all very keyword-based, and we were all taught, you know, in using Google, okay, come up with some keywords that are going to help you find the website that you're looking for, right? And now that is completely changed. Now you go on Chat GPT and you say, you know, I am a 45-year-old wholesale distribution representative. And I am looking for a way. And maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think what I'm really looking for is a way to, you know, avoid supply chain holdups due to price increases in fuel. And I'm not sure how this is going to affect my business, but I'm looking for some insight on that. And that's the search. That's the full, that's the search now. And so your handy chat GPT comes up and says, predicts, predicts that this is going to be the answer that you want to hear. And I'm emphasizing the word predict because this sort of speaks to the second part of this. So the first part is that these are long questions that people are asking and they're being more specific. And being more specific is the good news, right? Because we're talking about being a niche here. And so the more specific that these questions come in, the more opportunity you have, as long as you're positioning yourself as that specific thing that the person is looking for. So the second thing to keep in mind is that AI is a predictive model. AI, Chat GPT is saying to you with every word it creates, is this what you want? Is this what you want? Is this what you're looking for? Is this the right word? I predict that this is the right word. Prediction goes hand in hand then with reinforcement. So when that AI bot goes out into the world to look for this answer, it's looking to see the cluster of words that you use, that the person using the search used, and is looking for reinforcement that that's the right thing, because it's trying to predict that that's what you want to hear. So on our side, on the podcaster side, that means that your marketing copy,

Guest Strategy for Audience Growth

John Taylor 25:09

whatever you do for your podcast descriptions, for your YouTube video descriptions, for your blog posts, for your LinkedIn article, for your social media content, for your website, all of that, the more you can create summarized information about your podcasts, and the more you can use your unique brand language and reinforce that across all of your platforms, the more likely that bot is gonna come in and see you and then go to the next, go to the next one and see you again and again and again saying relatively the same thing over and over. And it's gonna say, aha, here's the here's the reinforcement that I'm looking for. I predict that this is the right thing. I'm going to take it back to my guy. So it's it's those two things that podcasters need to keep in mind. That searches now are very long form, are very niche-based, and that to take advantage of that, you're creating summarized information that contains, again, your brand messages, your core concepts, your key differentiators, so that you get that matchup with the AI search.

Gabe 26:21

You hit on quite a bit. If you look, you need to go. This is I'm gonna clip this part because that that right there is a lot of magic that I think that a lot of podcasters have not realized yet, because there's still there's still a uh there's still an argument because however people feel morally, ethically about what AI is, but it's already here. It's already doing it, it's already affecting the podcasting world, whether or not you realize it. So I really love that answer. I actually took notes myself. All right, I'm gonna also go into the next one because Okay. You you so from an agency owner's perspective, how should a podcast approach guest strategy? Because that's the next pillar that I usually go into. And not just who do you want on your show, but how does the guest selection connect back to discoverability and and your audience growth? Like how do you approach that with your clients?

John Taylor 27:12

Yeah, you know, a lot in that area has not changed from the beginning. You really do, I mean, first and foremost, you want to find guests that really align with what you're talking about, right? Who will have a new perspective on it or line up with it from a brand perspective. And I'll just keep coming back to this. What is your brand? What differentiates you, right? And you still want guests that that supplement that, that, that, that complement that, I should say. So that part hasn't changed. And neither has the the need to have your guest promote. I mean old school, but it's true. Your your guest needs to promote as well. And and I guess the most effective way of doing that is the more, it goes back to the point number one, the more the guest is in line with what you are doing, the more you by featuring that guest, the more you're giving them content that works for them as well. It's it's in their best interest, right? You know, I'm gonna take this whole podcast, I'm gonna make clips out of it, and I'm gonna put it out on all of my socials, right? This is a golden content opportunity for me. All right. I don't mean to sound okay or anything, but you know, it is. So, you know, I'll reference the podcast name, I'll link back to you, I'll do all of those things, and that's what you got to get your guests to do. And and that part really hasn't changed. But the more you can make it advantageous to your guest as well, the more likely they're gonna do it. And that's the part that blows my mind is unwillingness to do it. And maybe not unwillingness, like, no, I'll never do that for you. I'll never repost your podcast, but more like, is that something I have to do? You know? Um it's like, yes, this is win-win. What are you talking about? This is, you know, this is an hour with you. Why would you not post it? But but they don't. With our clients, what we do is we come up with this um this one-page email that we tell them to send out with, you know, with every episode. And it's a, hey, thank you for being on the podcast. Okay, here's what you can do. Here's a blog post that I created for you. You don't have to do anything except post it. You don't have to, you know, it's it's right there. And it's so cool because it has a link to me, and I will post a blog from you that has a link to you. And now we're swapping links, and that's a good thing. Here's an embedded player. You just have to copy and paste this code. Here is a link to a folder with all of our social media clips with copy

Organic Growth Strategies for Podcasts

John Taylor 29:53

already created. All right. So it's all in this spreadsheet, it's just cut and paste. Here's all of our social media handles. Here it all is, and it's really easy for you. We've made this as easy for you as possible. Please, please, please do something with it, right? Right. And um well, I love that you do that.

Gabe 30:16

I do something similar. I tell everybody when I send you all the digital assets, that's everything that goes along with it. And with the advent of what AI can do, you can literally, again, when we're done here, this program will give me the summarized notes, it'll give me the transcript, it'll give me everything, and then just go put it into a workflow and say, Let's create posts, let's create social media things, let's build them from Instagram, let's build them for and everything, and it put them all into this nice little folder and say, This is for you, this is your gift for coming on. Can you share it? Can you spread it out in the world? And I will promote you again. That that is the win-win. I think that a lot of podcasters probably don't maybe pay attention. This is why this is pod this is this podcast is being presented for the new ones who come in. So they'll they'll start learning what that etiquette is to say it's cool to have that win-win situation when you have a guest on that they promote you as much as you are helping promote who they are. I mean, that to me, that was all that's something that's been a learned lesson. Because, like you said, there are there are people like, should I be doing this? Do I really need to do this? Like, you know, that's where the part of asking, maybe maybe this is not the right fit then.

John Taylor 31:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Before we move forward, right?

Gabe 31:28

And that's the part of the vetting process that a lot of people don't quite understand that it's important to to have all these things planned out. As boring as it might sound, as tedious as it might sound, there's a reason for it. There is a payoff in the end that you gotta understand. So I want to talk about the next thing, which is uh promotion, right? So you you know, you the that's why I stopped you when you said that I'm gonna use that one about you say we didn't use pay marketing ads because there's there's a lot of them that that's what they preach. I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying this is from multiple perspectives. And the point of growing a show without bots, paid ads, or or gimmicky growth hacks, you know, what is how do you organically grow a podcast that actually looks like something is being done right and it and it realistically will stick and help find your discoverability, your audience, um, you know, and understanding that this again, it it is a long-term deal, but in building that, how how do you approach that for anybody who might be interested in saying, okay, you know, they've this agency's built a uh an award-winning show, but what was what was the secret sauce for me to get there? How do I do this?

John Taylor 32:42

Yeah, for us, for what I found, it really comes down to a consistent and optimized ecosystem. Um, and let me talk, let me touch on what each of those mean. What each of those means to me. What is super important is that every every touch point of your podcast's digital footprint, every platform that you're on, first and foremost, is optimized to its highest and best use. Okay. So let's take your B2B podcaster again for example. That podcaster is going to have a podcast directory where they post. They're gonna have a website, they should have a website, and that's a website that has both the podcast and the and their product that they sell. They're gonna have a YouTube page, probably. They're going to have a LinkedIn page. I'm huge on LinkedIn. I'm not personally huge on LinkedIn. I mean, I just I'm bullish on LinkedIn. If you're B2B, that's where you're gonna find your listeners, that's where you're gonna find your guests, and that's where you're gonna find your clients, right? It's an all-in-one package there. So you're gonna have all these platforms. So, question one is are you optimizing all those platforms to their highest and best use? I'll just use one for example, and that'll be YouTube. Okay. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and it is owned by the first largest search engine in the world. YouTube is a search engine. That's how the algorithm acts. That's what it wants to be. That's why when you Google anything, you get four different YouTube videos about it above the fold. So are you treating, as a podcaster, are you treating YouTube as a search engine? So are you optimizing that platform the way you should? Are you migrating your RSS feed into YouTube? If you're not, then you're missing out on everyone who's listening to it on audio and you're not getting on YouTube music either. Do you have playlists? Are your playlists divided by topic? Do they each have a 5,000-character description that has keyword chum and hashtags and calls to action? Do you sort your videos by topic into those playlists so that you are telling the YouTube algorithm what your content is about and who should be watching it? Okay. So that's sort of like layer number one. Every one of these platforms has a certain way that it needs to be set up so that you're using it to its best effect. Okay. Then layer number two is the marketing copy that you create. Is and that goes back again to sort of what we're talking about with AI search and reinforcement and you know, brand messaging and differentiating and core concepts and all of that sort of thing. Are you, and that's a twofold approach on its own. Are you creating this marketing content that is reinforcing your unique

The Future of Podcasting and AI Innovations

John Taylor 35:31

message across all of these platforms? And then number two, are you writing that copy to be optimized for the platform it's on? Remember, YouTube is a search engine. Your YouTube video description needs to be different from your podcast description because YouTube is reading it differently than your podcast directory is. So it's this combination of these, of these two things. And what when they're working together, you are creating a much more discoverable ecosystem than if you if you're focusing there.

Gabe 36:05

Man, I'm gonna tell you what. What you just gave is pretty much a masterclass for anyone who wants to learn how to start a uh a YouTube channel and end up charging you a thousand dollars to exactly right. Um because that again, that goes back to the leaving so much on the table and not realizing the potential of how you get discovered in the the two biggest search engines in the world, and how to convey a unique message to each one of them so that they work together and saying, okay, this is the podcaster, this is the person that you need to find. Listen to them. And that that's a hard, that's a hard thing that a lot of again, again, podcasters when they jump into this world, don't quite realize that it's not just putting it out onto a distribution and saying, bye-bye, CNR, see you later. Just waiting for it to wait. I'm waiting for my tens and thousands of listeners and downloads to come to me. It's not here. What's happening? What's going on? Yeah. They don't realize that's that's the underground work of how to actually find the channels to distribute that will get you what it is that you're seeking. You know, that's the I love that you share that again. I'm still blown away. So what's going on? This is the fun part where I get to ask all the the people that I have on. So, what's now on the uh horizon for John Taylor and your agency and what you plan to do as far as like again in this growing and emerging market of podcasting, it's not it's not going away anytime soon.

John Taylor 37:34

That's right. That's right. Well, let me well and give the answer. Uh here's the the good news is you're absolutely right. Podcasting is not going away. And the good news for people who fear the end of the world from AI is that if you are a creator, a maker, or a doer, you're not gonna lose your job. You, Gabe, as a podcaster, will never lose your job. This will not be something that can be, you know, replicated. I, however, am going to totally lose my job. I'm going to lose my job to AI like so soon. We are, I am quickening my uh demise by creating tools that are uh for podcasters. Uh we're basically productizing a lot of our offerings into new AI tools that will allow podcasters to both produce, ideate, and market their podcasts or on a podcaster's budget, basically. So though the our our flagship app that hopefully we're gonna be releasing here in the next couple of weeks, we're doing our first big end-to-end test next week, is a platform called pod again.ai. And if you don't mind the uh the pitch here. Go on again. Okay, so this is cool, actually. Um, so what pod again.ai is it's a it's a podcast ideation and creation tool. What it does is it's an AI that feeds into your RSS feed and it downloads all of your transcripts and all of your audio episodes. Okay, well, it downloads all your audio episodes, turns them into a written transcript, and analyzes the audio. All those written transcripts are converted into its own large language model. And then you, as a podcaster, can go into your proprietary content there, your 200 episodes, if you will, if you will. And you can query it and say, okay, create a 15-minute podcast of my five best cookie baking tips for the holidays. And it will write the script based solely on your knowledge. And then if you go, oh wait, I never talked about icing, write another couple of paragraphs about icing. It'll go into ideation mode and go into outside knowledge to pull that in. You can then um edit this script in the browser, and then you can either use that script for your next podcast, or if you don't have time, you push the magic button, it clones your voice and it creates a podcast for you. And I'm telling you, the voice cloning technology we've created for this thing is insane. It can be your voice, or it could be a voice of a co-host, whatever you have recorded and have permission to use. So it's a way to repurpose your proprietary content in a way that you haven't had an opportunity to do before. I love this.

Gabe 40:20

Um, you're gonna have to send me the details.

John Taylor 40:23

Excellent, excellent. Well, Gabe, I really appreciate you having me on the show. It's been great. You know, I'm such a geek and I love talking about this stuff.

Gabe 40:29

So well, thanks again, John. I do appreciate it. You bet.

John Taylor 40:35

No problem. All right.

Gabe 40:36

All right.

John Taylor 40:37

Have a nice one. You too. Bye-bye.

AI Outro 40:38

Bye-bye. If today's conversation changed the way you think about podcasting, discoverability, or creator growth, make sure to subscribe and follow the show wherever you're listening. And if you want to connect with John Taylor or learn more about the work his team is doing, helping creators, brands, and businesses grow through podcasting. You can find him at act3Agency.com. That's ACT, the number three, agency.com. And if you're building a podcast, YouTube channel, or creator business of your own, this show is for you. Because this isn't just about making content, it's about building something people actually care about. Thanks for listening to Podcast About Podcasting with Gabe Lyal, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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