00:00:03
Bryan Barletta: It's a Podcast Movement Evolutions recap episode. And that's what we're talking about in this week's episode of Sounds Profitable: Adtech Applied, with me, Bryan Barletta.

00:00:11
Arielle Nissenblatt: And me, Arielle Nissenblatt. Thanks to this month's sponsor, Claritas. As a third-party provider, Claritas’ white-glove service offers the science and proven methodology for accurate, transparent and scalable podcast campaign measurement. Find out more at claritas.com.

00:00:28
Bryan Barletta: Special thanks to our sponsors for making Sounds Profitable possible. Check them out by going to soundsprofitable.com and clicking on their logos in any of the articles.

00:00:38
Arielle Nissenblatt: Bryan, we're back. It's been a while since we have recorded an episode. How have you been?

00:00:43
Bryan Barletta: I'm good. I learned something. You can sit so long that your shoulders hurt, and I'm experiencing that right now. Yeah.

00:00:52
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, very good.

00:00:52
Bryan Barletta: That's been fun, right?

00:00:54
Arielle Nissenblatt: What's your self-care plan?

00:00:55
Bryan Barletta: I've started on the Peloton again, which is nice.

00:00:58
Arielle Nissenblatt: Very good.

00:00:58
Bryan Barletta: Which is my bougie exercise of choice, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything's great though. Podcast Movement was fantastic. I think I was in nonstop meetings from Tuesday to Saturday-

00:01:11
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, my God. Me too.

00:01:11
Bryan Barletta: ... With three on Sunday, which was awesome because me and you got to hang out a bunch too, or pass each other in the hallways and share notes real quick. And then was at Disneyland with the family the week after, which was a blast.

00:01:22
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. You were there for a full week, Disneyland?

00:01:24
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. Yeah, family arrived Sunday night, and then we spent Monday through Thursday there.

00:01:30
Arielle Nissenblatt: Wow.

00:01:30
Bryan Barletta: With my two kids, three and a half and eight months old. And it was really fun.

00:01:36
Arielle Nissenblatt: So I haven't been to Disney in a long time. Did you go on rides? Was it busy? Maybe this isn't important for Sounds Profitable. Who knows? Maybe it is.

00:01:43
Bryan Barletta: Who cares? It's fun.

00:01:43
Arielle Nissenblatt: Maybe they're our next sponsor. You never know.

00:01:44
Bryan Barletta: Lauren talks about her Disney cruise obsession all the time. We can talk about this.

00:01:49
Arielle Nissenblatt: That's true. Lauren Passell, shout out to you.

00:01:51
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. I love Disney so much, and Disneyland's my favorite because it's smaller, it's easier to get around. We went on a bunch of rides, but for me, honestly, I took my youngest eight months, and so there were more rides that he couldn't go on than he could, and I just liked walking around with him. Right? I liked showing him the characters and getting snacks and just really exploring the space with him. And he had a blast. And my oldest loved it. We probably went on the Spider-Man ride about eight times. But yeah, it was very cool. I don't think we held back on much, and I think it felt a lot safer than I thought it would be.

00:02:26
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, wow. Good. Love to hear that. I just got back from L.A. yesterday. After Podcast Movement, I stayed for two weeks, saw friends, family. It was a blast. L.A. rocks. What a great city.

00:02:38
Bryan Barletta: I think it's got a lot of cool aspects to it, but I don't think I could live there. More power to everybody who can. But there are so many cool people there. I think that Podcast Movement being held in L.A. was really interesting. I wonder what a Podcast Movement in New York would be outside of no room to interact and socialize.

00:02:54
Arielle Nissenblatt: Or tiny hotel rooms.

00:02:55
Bryan Barletta: Right? Yeah. That would bum me out a little bit. But I think that by in L.A., there were just so many people there that wouldn't come to the Dallas one or might not come to Vegas next year, and it was really cool. There were just a bunch of people who just stopped by the lobby to say hi, even.

00:03:11
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. I thought it was a great time. And that's what we're here to talk about today. We are going to be doing a recap of Podcast Movement Evolutions, which took place last month, because this is April now. It was March 23rd to 26th. So Bryan, for folks who don't know what is Podcast Movement?

00:03:27
Bryan Barletta: It is, I think, the biggest podcast convention with two events, Podcast Movement: Evolution's in March, and Podcast Movement, the proper one in August. Yeah. It's the biggest podcast convention, and it's the one that I think the industry has really tied itself the most to on the business side, relevant to the Sounds Profitable listener with the Evolutions event.
And hopefully in August, there'll be an industry track as well, because I think there's a lot of desire for that. I think there's a lot of room for a true traditional industry event. But creators of all size can find benefit up there. I mean, half the panels that you spoke on or people that we both know were up there giving advice that helps anyone from NPR to Joe podcaster.

00:04:12
Arielle Nissenblatt: That's good. I like that.

00:04:13
Bryan Barletta: It was a killer experience, right? We used to say Joe Rogan and Joe podcaster, but we don't want to say his name anymore. And it was awesome. There were so many great people there, but the conversations I had ranged from, we just got started and I'm doing a super niche podcast, could I get your advice? To let's talk, we've been a sponsor of yours for two years and we haven't met in person. And so-

00:04:34
Arielle Nissenblatt: The answer is yes to both.

00:04:36
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. I think Podcast Movement covers all levels of podcaster, and I don't think it makes anyone feel left out, and it's really exciting. I haven't been to any other specific podcast conferences, but I've seen their lineup of presentations and I've talked to sponsors that are going, and while I'll be at Radiodays Europe and Podshow London, and I'm very excited for that, I don't think those will have quite the pull yet-

00:05:00
Arielle Nissenblatt: So fun.

00:05:00
Bryan Barletta: ... That Podcast Movement Evolution's had for the industry.

00:05:03
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. I wish I could go to those events in Europe. May is such a busy time for events. I think...

00:05:08
Bryan Barletta: So many things.

00:05:10
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh my gosh. I'm going to be at Blk Podfest, and I'm going to be at Outlier Podcast Festival, and I'm going to be everywhere. I love it. I love that we're back and we're doing the thing, but there's so much going on.
I wanted to talk about how I got started in the podcast space has a lot to do with Podcast Movement.

00:05:28
Bryan Barletta: Really?

00:05:28
Arielle Nissenblatt: I love Podcast Movement. I think it is the best. Yeah. I have such a good time there. It feels summer camp to me. I talk about this all the time. I'm passing people in the hall and I'm like, "Hey, how are you?" "Hey, how are you?" I have such a good time there. In 2017, I had just started EarBuds, and I emailed Dan and Jared, because I found out that there was going to be this event in Anaheim, and I was living in LA at the time. And I was like, "Anaheim Podcast. Huh? Maybe I could go." So I emailed them and I was like, "Any chance you would let me go for free in exchange for running ads in my newsletter?" And they were like, "Absolutely," no hesitation.
And I went there, and I was walking around with my backpack. And I just went to every single table and met as many people as possible. Got all the swag that I possibly could and made friends and used the connections that I made there to propel me in the podcast space. And I owe a lot of my podcast career success to Podcast Movement and Dan and Jared in particular. And I'm always just grateful to be back, whether it's in L.A. or somewhere else in the country. And I love that they let us go to different places in the country. I've seen cities that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. So this episode is dedicated to Podcast Movement.
We have a few things we want to discuss about this particular event, Podcast Movement Evolutions. I really want to highlight Evo Terra's hall of fame acceptance speech. I also want to talk about it being the first in-person podcast conference in a while. I know there was Nashville, but that was less attended than this one it seems. I want to talk about the layout of the event and how that affected the vibes.

00:06:57
Bryan Barletta: Yeah.

00:06:58
Arielle Nissenblatt: I want to talk about the YouTube lack of announcement, and then later the announcement. I want to talk about Bryan's talks on stage, my talks on stage, other talks that were impactful. And anything else you want to add to that agenda?

00:07:11
Bryan Barletta: No. So buckle in for a three hour long conversation on this episode of Sounds Profitable. No, we'll keep it brief on that, but I...

00:07:18
Arielle Nissenblatt: We'll move through it.

00:07:19
Bryan Barletta: There's so much fun stuff. I still am vibrating with energy from it, right? I was exhausted after the event.

00:07:27
Arielle Nissenblatt: I'm still catching up.

00:07:28
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. Oh, I don't know if I'll catch up until the summer.

00:07:30
Arielle Nissenblatt: No.

00:07:30
Bryan Barletta: But let's go right into the vibe. It felt a high school reunion.

00:07:36
Arielle Nissenblatt: Right. Summer camp. High school. Yeah.

00:07:36
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. There were even people that I had not had the best relationship with. And I think part of it's because we mostly talk through text online-

00:07:44
Arielle Nissenblatt: Internet.

00:07:44
Bryan Barletta: ... Who I had amazing conversations with. We just grabbed five minutes. We'd catch up. We clarified.

00:07:50
Arielle Nissenblatt: We just need to see each other in person.

00:07:52
Bryan Barletta: Even video doesn't solve all those problems, because it's still a presentation. It was clear there. I mean Apple was a little bit distant in the fact that they had their own setup at another hotel, but anybody who reached out to them, they made time for, but they weren't roaming the floors of the conference necessarily.
Spotify did something similar on the second floor. But Spotify, I felt were a little bit more reserved. And I think that the big takeaway I had was it felt, on my end, like a culture shock to Chartable, Podsights and Whooshkaa to come to an event like this after being out of in-person events for a while and go from being the independent companies that they were to being Spotify. I think a lot of dynamics changed for them. And all of those people are smart, brilliant, amazing people you should get to know. And honestly, I don't think we need to dislike Spotify. I think Spotify, there's a lot of great aspects of Spotify and we need to respect that.
With the layout, me and you were at Hot Pod as well. And the hard part about Hot Pod was it had one very, very small room outside of the conference room. And that's it. And I think 20 people could maybe be there, but you'd be in each other's conversation. This place was so big that you could talk in the hallways, you could talk in the awesome bar, coffee shop, restaurant downstairs. I mean, like I said, Spotify had their own suite.

00:09:19
Arielle Nissenblatt: People set up camp there.

00:09:21
Bryan Barletta: Yeah, they really did. I mean, I wish I got to go to more panels, but there were definitely times where I found a seat in that coffee shop area and I was just like, "Next, okay, cool. Come on. Let's keep these conversations going."

00:09:33
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. You're holding court, letting the people visit you.

00:09:36
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. It was nice too, because there was room to walk around, outside, and there were a lot of people outside, and we were probably the biggest event there while we were there. There were other conferences. There were weddings even at the hotel at the time.
But I think that there wasn't a ton to go explore that wouldn't have taken a 10-minute walk or a cab ride or something. So I think a lot of people stayed right there. And that was really awesome.
I am worried about that for Vegas next year because we're going to be a tiny little piece of what's going on in Vegas, and how do you-

00:10:09
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, my gosh.

00:10:09
Bryan Barletta: ... (inaudible) staying in that exact hotel and why would you, unless there was a panel, not just be wandering around or doing something else? But I think me and you really need to accomplish one thing when it's in Vegas, is that we need to work with Blue Wire and do live recordings at their studio.

00:10:24
Arielle Nissenblatt: People need it. The people need it. Usually Buzzsprout sets up a mobile recording booth at Podcast Movement so that people can sign up for slots to record their podcast or do a live version of their podcast or whatever it is. But because it was Podcast Movement Evolutions, people don't usually do as intricate setups for their booths, so there was no booth at Podcast Movement Evolutions.

00:10:48
Bryan Barletta: The people need it.

00:10:48
Arielle Nissenblatt: The people needed to record. Bryan and I, we planned to record, but we weren't able to record so Blue Wire, hello, this is my plea to you, let's link up at Podcast Movement Evolutions in Las Vegas, 2023.
The Ambies took place the night before Podcast Movement started, maybe two nights before Podcast Movement started. That was interesting. I attended live. The energy was great there. It was short. The event was an hour and a half. It was really well produced, being live, being there. It moved quickly.
The one thing that I wished I saw more of was a little transparency for who was accepting the awards. I think that that's something that could definitely be improved, is there were people coming up to accept awards, and we didn't know their names, we didn't know how they were associated with the show. We got to credit people and I want to know who it was that was accepting that award. Sometimes it was people who work on the show tangentially, and I just wish I knew what they did for the show. I could deal with another half hour of the Ambies. That's my plea to the Ambies. I want it to be longer. I loved it. It's my favorite TV show. It's my Super Bowl. What were your thoughts on the Ambies? You watched it livestream, right?

00:12:02
Bryan Barletta: I watched some of it. I'm not an award show guy. It's never been my thing, but for podcasting, it has always been more interesting. I think it's exciting for us to celebrate. And I think the Ambies... Yeah, I would love to see them go more all out for it. I think they did a really good job this year. But we also need to celebrate it in podcast form, right? We need to evaluate how do we do mixed media in a way-

00:12:24
Arielle Nissenblatt: Definitely.

00:12:24
Bryan Barletta: ... That it's valuable for the people there, but a podcast afterwards? How do you do cool technology integrations? Like the Podcast Upfronts that we do, right, where we make a separate feed and we put in the episodes in there so that you can really learn from it. That would be awesome.
But you hit on a point there. When we were at Hot Pot, I took a picture of myself with the hosts of What A Day from Crooked Media and sent it to my wife because it's her favorite podcast. I was like, "Look who I met."

00:12:51
Arielle Nissenblatt: Gideon?

00:12:51
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. Gideon and Priyanka. And she's just like, "Who are they?"

00:12:55
Arielle Nissenblatt: Wow.

00:12:56
Bryan Barletta: And I was like, "Oh, that's super valid. You listen to them all the time." She's like-

00:13:01
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. Why would you know?

00:13:01
Bryan Barletta: She said, "Why didn't you just record them saying hi?" And so I spent the whole time at Podcast Movement trying to find Guy Raz to say something to my kid. Yeah. I think we have a hard part there, we're an audio medium. I think we could learn a lot from radio there. I'm sure that the people in radio have been through this headache of being like, "Well, who was that? That wasn't the host that I voted for," or... But yeah. I like it. I think I was down on the Podcast Academy and I don't think it's necessarily for me, but I think that it can get to what we need.

00:13:33
Arielle Nissenblatt: I think it can be for you.

00:13:35
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. Well, let's give it another shot then. I'll join back in this year.

00:13:39
Arielle Nissenblatt: Hell yeah.

00:13:40
Bryan Barletta: I think that it bums me out to hear about all these new awards and everything popping up and saying, "We're going to celebrate podcasting," and presenting it like it's a new, unique idea. The fragmentation's not fun. I understand that somebody wants to win and be the center of it. But I think it's time to partner and empower people instead of just constantly competing.

00:13:58
Arielle Nissenblatt: Consolidate. Yeah.

00:14:00
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. It's not a bad thing.

00:14:01
Arielle Nissenblatt: I agree completely with that. I think so many people have disparate or similar ideas that would be stronger if they just met up and got rid of the ego and said, "Let's do this together and make sure that this is the best opportunity for the most people involved."

00:14:19
Bryan Barletta: 100%.

00:14:20
Arielle Nissenblatt: All right, Bryan, let's get to Evo Terra. Tell me about Evo Terra's hall of fame acceptance speech. You brought him on stage. When you brought him on stage, what was your speech about? What was your introduction about?

00:14:32
Bryan Barletta: Yeah, I think it's really important to highlight that the reason why any of you are listening to this podcast is in part to Evo Terra. I was a backroom product manager, right? Everything that I'm yelling about in Sounds Profitable and, hopefully not yelling, providing actionable insight and ways to improve the space or ways to action on this stuff, that was all on deaf ears. I was saying that internally at companies that didn't find the financial value in backing that, that it was too disruptive, that it wasn't easy for multiple companies to rally around because I was at one specific company, and I didn't really know many people.
I went to Podcast Movement Evolutions, my first time, two years ago, the last time it was live. And I knew some of my clients, but I didn't really know the industry like I do now. And Evo is the person who really pushed me to say, "Yeah, let's do this newsletter. Let's write about this. You have a good opinion to share." And my writing has improved because of him. My ability to be a podcast host has been improved. My mindset on how to build Sounds Profitable has improved.
And Evo has, without title, until very recently, been running all media for Sounds Profitable, and I want to make that really clear. It's official, Evo, as we're starting to expand Sounds Profitable and formally set up a lot of it. Evo is the head of operations, the COO for the media side of Sounds Profitable. So he's the reason all of these podcasts get out there, the newsletters get out there, that we have the social assets we need. And it really means a lot.
And so he asked me to induct him, which was really cool. I got to talk through a little bit about our background and then his background. And he's been in the space forever. And I only got to catch about half of the acceptance speeches, but it was amazing because Evo had seven minutes to talk. I think he talked for 10, which is very Evo. But almost half of it, he didn't talk about himself. A lot of the other people... You're accepting an award. You should be gracious for that. You should be able to talk about your accomplishments. I think there's very few times where people can do that. But Evo used so much of that time to really talk about the space. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

00:16:42
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. I always think Evo is incredibly well spoken. If you listen to his podcast, it's just an incredible lesson in how to train your voice for the audio medium. He even says his name in a fun way. He says, I'm Evo Terra. Do what I mean?

00:16:59
Bryan Barletta: Yeah.

00:16:59
Arielle Nissenblatt: He's just an incredible, incredible orator. He's great. And so that translated really well to the stage. I listened to his episode of Podcast Pontifications where he played the acceptance speech from the Libsyn YouTube channel. I was not able to catch it live. But I really appreciated that he dedicated his time to, first of all, yes, giving us context about his history. He referenced Podcasting for Dummies that he wrote many moons ago. He really gave us context as to why he's here today and what he intends to do with the privilege, with the power that he has as a white person in the space.
And one of the things that he brought up that I really liked was that he said a few years ago, somebody came up to him and said, "Evo, you can get away with whatever you want because you're Evo." And he said that he loved it at the time, he thought it was funny. And now he's like, "No, that's not a good thing. I don't want to get away with things. I should be called out on things when I do things poorly or don't show up in the way that I should." And so now he is calling himself on that. He's calling other people out on things like that. And I thought it was incredibly inspirational, and I'm glad to be on the team with Evo and to know him.

00:18:11
Bryan Barletta: Same with me. And it really embodies a lot of the goals that we have with Sounds Profitable going forward. I mean, I think that Evo has a long history of being the front man of a lot of the things that he's done. And so for him to come into this and be the backbone of it has been amazing. And it's really taught me and given me confidence to step back.
I mean, look at the original logos and everything. Sounds Profitable with Bryan Barletta. I think as we grow, it doesn't need to be Bryan Barletta. I'm excited to continue being a part of all these things. I'm not going to withdraw or anything that. But as we grow, I don't need to be the face of everything. And I think we have a real opportunity to highlight amazing people in the space that are in back rooms, that aren't being talked about in the general space, because they're specifically at one company or they have really strong opinions that might not resonate with everybody, but should resonate with the Sounds Profitable audience. And I've learned so much from him. And I'm really excited that he spent so much time in his acceptance speech talking about that because it really reinforces why we work together and what we're planning to grow.
And we have some amazing announcements coming later this summer that really push that, because I think that as Sounds Profitable grows, there are awesome opportunities for us. Like The Download, right? We built that because we find it valuable. Manuela said, "I want to do this in Spanish." So we got Gabe Soto of Edison Research to co-host it with her and they're doing it in native Spanish. It's released at the same time. We don't have a sponsor for that. We're going to at some point. I'm very excited about that. But things that need to happen. And the right way to do it is, do it because it needs to happen, figure out how to make it sustainable later. And I think that's a big mission of Sounds Profitable as it grows, me and Evo will be less and less of faces of it. And that's exciting.

00:20:05
Arielle Nissenblatt: Completely agree. Let's talk about YouTube at Podcast Movement. There was a session with the new head of podcasts at YouTube, Kai Chuk. The room was packed because, in theory, there was going to be an announcement. We've been hearing for a long time that YouTube can be a great place for podcasters to grow. And we wanted that to be solidified with some sort of announcement from YouTube, from Kai Chuk, at this event, standing room only. Nothing was said. Were you there, Bryan? Were you at this event?

00:20:34
Bryan Barletta: No, but I saw all the pictures. I was in another meeting and I-

00:20:36
Arielle Nissenblatt: It was nuts.

00:20:37
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. There was a lot of people there. And I needed the information of what was happening in YouTube, because later that day, I was presenting an introduction about YouTube. So it made it really easy that there was pretty much nothing. Right?

00:20:48
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah.

00:20:49
Bryan Barletta: What was the announcement from your point of view?

00:20:51
Arielle Nissenblatt: Well, there was not really an announcement there. They said there's going to be something coming. I walked into the room, but was wearing a white shirt and was holding coffee. And there were people very close to me and I was like, "I cannot be here because I'm presenting later, and I cannot have a coffee stain on my shirt." So I left. And then I was asking people, I was like, "Okay, what did I miss? What was said?" And they were like, "Not much." And I was like, "Great, I love that."
But then a few days later, James Cridland reports via Podnews that there are going to be some changes coming from YouTube for podcasters, such as potential ingestion of the RSS feed via YouTube, and youtube.com/podcast is going to be a thing. And I think that's really all we've got for now, but there's a lot of pontificating as to what these things mean for podcasters. And a lot of people are thinking about, do I need to have a YouTube strategy? Is it going to be clips for me or is my entire episode going to go up on YouTube? Do I have to prioritize my video production now? So lots of questions are being thrown out there. And one resource that I will point people to rephonic.com. They have a great blog, very data driven. They put out a blog post on YouTube and what it means for podcasts. So we're going to put that in the show notes and definitely recommend checking that out.

00:22:03
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. The YouTube thing is very interesting, and I think that the most powerful part of it is that YouTube is trying to convince all of us appropriately that podcasters is a subset of content creators. I think we get so focused on that word, and that word's so powerful that people on YouTube will call a YouTube-only chat show between one or more people or two or more people, rather, a podcast, because podcasting has such a cool draw to it.
But this is an opportunity to explore video. I think YouTube, from what I've read that James has released, is really coming at it as a way that podcasters can still centrally own and distribute their content on a hosting platform, and everything will be additive. I think they'll give you plenty of reasons to log directly into YouTube. I hope that they provide enough information with user agents and firing of downloads and other metrics that in your hosting platform, you go from seeing YouTube not listed there to being 25%. I think that that's really powerful.
So I encourage everyone who can explore other mediums, video, social media, everything else, to do that because podcasting is one piece of it, and we tend to think of it too narrowly. But the people who are winning podcasting, for them, it's more than just one piece, right? Rooster Teeth has a great video aspect to it. They have a great streaming aspect to it. Mailing lists are very popular on all of this, right? If the only thing you're doing in podcasting is putting out a audio-only RSS feed, I think that eventually you will find it hard to compete and grow. And I think that this is a very healthy way of YouTube saying, "Hey, come be a creator, and we're going to meet you where you are as much as we can," which says a lot. That's very exciting.

00:23:51
Arielle Nissenblatt: It might be overwhelming to some creators to say, "Oh no, I have to have a YouTube strategy now. I have to have a social strategy now. I have to have a newsletter." So what I would say is find out where your audience is, find out if they are on social media. And if they're on social media, find out which social media platforms they're on. You don't need to be on everything. If they're on YouTube, find out if they prefer clips or if they prefer your face up there for the whole 45 minutes of your episode. When in doubt, ask your audience what they want so that you're not overwhelming yourself and putting too much on your workload.
I'll also say something to your point about the expansion of the word podcast, the expansion of the content creator. We talk about this all the time at SquadCast, that your podcast is just part of your overall show. You, your podcast... I'm going to use my beluga whale example that I always use. You're a podcaster, you talk about beluga whales, but you are also now an authority on beluga whales, right? So you're going to want to be in other places so that wherever a potential consumer of your content is, they can find you, and that can be the lead in to their experience with you as the expert or the authority on beluga whales, right?
So if they come to you from social media, your social media should stand out in a way that pulls them into you and then eventually funnels them to your podcast if that's your main source that you want to point them to. So I'm a big fan of the fact that all of your content should stand on its own as content and not just point to the podcast, but that should be your call to action at the end. Hey, if you want to learn more, we have a podcast available. And that's where we really go in depth on this.

00:25:28
Bryan Barletta: I agree. And I think that it sounds overwhelming and it doesn't have to be for everybody. I think that we need to draw bigger lines in the sand between podcasting is a fun thing that I do and if success happens, fantastic, and podcasting is a business. You invest in a business. Sometimes that means you have to take some time off from whatever you're doing to invest and learn a new skill. Sometimes you have to hire somebody. And there are tools out there that will make audio to video very easy. Adori Labs has one, Headliner has one. All of these great tools out there that can just immediately take it, add some images on there, get you started. But as you record on things like SquadCast, as you record and have video components too, try it out, right? I think that this is the time for people to experiment and figure that out, exactly you said. But you cannot create an account and complain that you don't get any followers. You can't mention it twice on your podcast.

00:26:22
Arielle Nissenblatt: Right. You got to spend time.

00:26:22
Bryan Barletta: You have to cultivate it. Look what you've done with this Sounds Profitable Twitter account. We went from nothing to, it's absolutely going to overtake my personal Twitter account soon. And you are a paid contractor of Sounds Profitable because of that, right? Because we knew we needed to get this going, and that's really important, right? You have to invest in it, and then when you do, you see growth.
Let me ask you a question on this, because you challenged me one time, you said-

00:26:46
Arielle Nissenblatt: Sure.

00:26:46
Bryan Barletta: ... "I think that the content in Sounds Profitable or The Download could be valuable in TikTok." And I said, "My wife will leave me if I start downloading TikTok." And it's true. I'm addicted to my phone as it is. I do not need another reason to look at it. So you explored it, but we don't have a TikTok channel. So is it safe to say that your experiment proved that it wasn't worth us going there?

00:27:07
Arielle Nissenblatt: I would say not quite.

00:27:10
Bryan Barletta: Okay.

00:27:10
Arielle Nissenblatt: I would say I didn't put in as much as we need in order to make that ultimate decision. I did one or two TikToks. Feel free to check them out, I'm at EarBuds Podcasting. I did it from my business slash personal account, EarBuds Podcasting, and I essentially shared the data from Kayla Litman's first good data article, and I said why this is relevant to people.
And there actually was a good reaction to it from the people that already follow me. "Oh, this is so interesting. I didn't know this about statistics when it comes to podcasting and share of ear and things like that." It did not go viral, because it was dense, right? But maybe it's something that goes mini viral within podcasting TikTok. It's something that I need to dedicate more time to. So I would not say the experiment is over. I would say that I've been overwhelmed with other things.

00:27:56
Bryan Barletta: And that's valid. You pick channels that have success for us.

00:27:59
Arielle Nissenblatt: Exactly.

00:28:00
Bryan Barletta: And continue to grow them. And you've experimented it and you haven't closed the books on it. And that's really what we're trying to tell people here, you need to make room to experiment. YouTube is trying to make this as easy as possible, and it'll be exciting to see how it works. It might not be for you and that's okay. You're not going to get left behind. Podcasting is going to change. The definition is too broad. We're going to see it expand and contract over the next year or two. And what that means is you need to figure out what podcasting is to you. Your only form of content, your primary form of content, or one of many forms of content for you? There's no wrong answer.

00:28:34
Arielle Nissenblatt: Let's talk about Bryan on stage. So you were part of two panels.

00:28:39
Bryan Barletta: Yes.

00:28:39
Arielle Nissenblatt: Tell me about them.

00:28:40
Bryan Barletta: Steve Goldstein of Amplifi Media invited me on for a future of podcasting or looking forward panel. And that was very, very fun. It really explored some of the concepts that are happening today and thinking about how they're going to affect the growth in the future, the hot button topics, like subscription or Spotify buying Podsights and Chartable. It was very exciting. I was up there with a lot of people that I very much respect, and we got to really dig into stuff. We only had 45 minutes, and I think we made some really good time on that.
And then the second one was Adori Labs, which is a sponsor of Sounds Profitable. I've had a chance to do a deep dive for their product twice. The newest one is actually going to launch next week. So everybody makes sure to check that out. Ian did an awesome job editing it and very proud of it, and the Adori Labs team loves it. And I got to set up their presentation because they're talking about a tool that takes your RSS feed and immediately puts that podcast into a YouTube-able format, right, easily to add images and chapters and all of these things and export it immediately to your YouTube account.
And it was really exciting to be able to go up there and just talk a little bit about why YouTube is exciting to me and pass the mic and experience a really good presentation on a specific product. And what about you? You were up on stage for your presentation, right? What was the topic and how was the room?

00:30:04
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh yeah. Great question. How was the rum?

00:30:07
Bryan Barletta: Wow.

00:30:07
Arielle Nissenblatt: It was great. I spoke about social media and what not to do, and the room was packed. I was honored and nervous, and I talked about being sweaty on stage and hopefully that endeared me to my crowd a little bit, but it was really great. I love speaking. So please bring me to your conferences to speak about whatever. I am very down, and I try to be as dynamic as possible to really give people takeaways. And I think it was successful.
People came up to me afterwards and said that they learned a lot. And of course, I used my beluga whale example. And if you want the slides from it, I'm very happy to share what not to do on social media to grow your show. And then, of course, I had a slide for what actually to do on social media to grow your show, to end it on a positive. So it was really fun. And I look forward to future speaking opportunities at Podcast Movement and beyond.

00:31:00
Bryan Barletta: I'm so impressed that you're a fan of being up there solo. I basically turned down everything where it's like, "Hey Bryan, can you come talk to the audience yourself for 30 minutes?" I don't want to do that. I mean, this podcast is the... this is a great example of it. I love having conversation and back and forth. I don't like just me yelling out into the space because I to be challenged, and I like to see other people's opinions and talk through ideas.

00:31:28
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, I don't. Don't challenge me. Just kidding. Just kidding.

00:31:31
Bryan Barletta: But it's great. I mean, what's great about a social media panel is that I got to see everybody in the podcast space who's big on social media recap a lot of what you were presenting, right? There were some of the smartest and best people in podcast social media attending that and engaging with each other. If you have a chance to go back and look at, quote-unquote, podcast Twitter during the week of Podcast Movement, there's a lot of really cool information passed back and forth.

00:32:00
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, my gosh.

00:32:00
Bryan Barletta: A lot of additional stuff shared. And there's so many cool people there. I really recommend coming out to one of these events.

00:32:07
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. A lot of people live tweeted my talk, which was cool to find out what I said afterwards. Because I don't know about you sometimes when I get up on stage, I black out and then I'm like, "I hope that what I said made any bit of sense," but apparently it did.

00:32:20
Bryan Barletta: I was in plays and musicals in high school and middle school, and I cannot remember them. I know I didn't mess them up, but I agree with you. I completely black out, that memory is not in my head anymore. So that's awesome. And I think that me and you should probably do a talk or a live recording at the next Podcast Movement. I think it would be fun because I think we can pull more people up.

00:32:41
Arielle Nissenblatt: That's a good point. And I was going to say that. One thing that was different for me about this Podcast Movement from other Podcast Movements is that it was the first time that people came up to me and knew me from Sound Profitable, which was awesome. They knew my name. They heard me on this podcast. They saw me on social media. And they asked me about Podcast Adtech, which is new for me. So I was grateful for that. And thanks, Bryan, for bringing me into Sounds Profitable.

00:33:05
Bryan Barletta: I appreciate that. There are not many places where people get to talk about Sounds Profitable and tell me they're a fan of it. I was actually on the elevator and someone I hadn't met before at Paramount was just like, "I listen to every one of your podcasts," and it started off my Thursday morning. And I was just over the moon because this is a passion project, right? This is something that I think is really valuable to the space, but that doesn't always mean that everybody thinks it's valuable, right? We don't have the biggest impact, but I think we get the right people with this content. So it's awesome to hear that feedback. A very muscular, very sweaty man on Friday morning ran by in the lobby and looked at me and said, "I'm listening to you right now." And if you're listening to this, please, shoot me an email.

00:33:50
Arielle Nissenblatt: Oh, he was on a run.

00:33:51
Bryan Barletta: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:33:52
Arielle Nissenblatt: He was on a run. He wasn't just a sweaty man.

00:33:52
Bryan Barletta: Just casually sweaty, no. But if you're listening to this, message me, because I don't remember who you were and I'd love to talk more. But I think it's great. And just so you know, there were just as many people who said, "Do you know Arielle? You two should really meet." And I was like, "Well, funny thing, we do a podcast together."

00:34:13
Arielle Nissenblatt: That's hilarious.

00:34:13
Bryan Barletta: I think me and you had a really great opportunity to interact with people that we needed to have some face time with. And I saw you do the same thing that I did. I think we played matchmaker and connected as many people as possible, because for us, collaboration in the space is how there is another bigger podcast movement. There is a bigger industry. There are more people working in the space as our peers, or eventually smarter than us running companies. That excites both of us, I think, to have a hand in-

00:34:41
Arielle Nissenblatt: Impossible.

00:34:41
Bryan Barletta: ... Have a hand in connecting everybody so that they can all grow.

00:34:45
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that is our Podcast Movement Evolutions 2022 wrap up. Of course there are stories that we did not get to. Of course there are pieces from this event that we could not possibly have touched on because it would go on forever. But I think overall, great experience for me. Great experience for you?

00:35:04
Bryan Barletta: Yeah, absolutely. And if you had a presentation at Podcast Movement or part of a panel and you want to expand on it as a guest article with Sounds Profitable, I absolutely want to talk to people who are really proud of what they put together and see what we can come up with. So let's collaborate. Respond to us, shoot us a message on Twitter or email or however you'd to get in touch with us, because I think that there was some amazing content there and there was just too much opportunity to catch up with people to see everything. So let's highlight what we can.

00:35:33
Arielle Nissenblatt: Yeah. Get in touch. We want to hear from you. Please reach out if you have any questions or comments. We're on Twitter, @SoundsProfNews, @BryanBarletta or @arithisandthat. And if you want to send us an email, that's podcast@soundsprofitable.com.

00:35:48
Bryan Barletta: This show is recorded with SquadCast, the best place to record studio quality video and audio for content creators. I use SquadCast for all of my podcast recordings and my product deep dive, and it is by far my favorite product in my entire podcast solution. Please check out squadcast@squadcast.fm for a free seven-day trial, and let me know what you think.

00:36:11
Arielle Nissenblatt: Do you want more from Sounds Profitable? We have a few more podcasts that you can check out. First, we've got, Sounds Profitable, the Narrated Articles, and then we also have The Download, our podcast about the business of podcasting. And of course, both of those are available in Espanol. Find links to them in the episode description. Thank you to Evo Terra and Ian Powell for their help on this episode.