This is an archived page from 2019. Find out more
**(By Troy Price) **The first month of 2019 is almost in the books. If you have been podcasting for a while, it may be time to reevaluate some of the wisdom you used to set up your online platform. Specifically, should you run a blog and podcast to get your message out? If you Google “Should podcasters have a blog,” many of the results that tell you you should are from 2015. If you read about my friend, Patch Drury, and commit to show notes like Dave Jackson, you may choose not to blog in 2019.
In 2012, after the world didn’t end, my friend Patch started a webcomic titled, Monster Truck. Each week he would post a page to his blog updating how an angst-filled werewolf served food to his anthropological friends out of his – you guessed it – food truck. It was great and I was not the only one who thought so. His blog was well trafficked and he was proud.
Patch now has another focus. He publishes on Medium.com and could not be happier. I just talked with him on the phone and asked him why he moved to Medium. His current love for Medium stems from the fact that the site curates similar writings together so interested readers can easily discover his writing. Even a couple magazine editors have reached out toPatch asking if he could write for them. That never happened on his blog.
Patch has done one other thing that has increased his readership. He has created a newsletter that blends his art and writing in a way like no other newsletter I know. His creativity shines in his newsletter. Further, he drives people reading his articles on Medium to subscribe to his newsletter and asks for his newsletter subscribers to visit Medium. His readership is much larger than it was in 2012. He is proud.
You might want to do what Patch does.
As a podcaster, you have one more tool in your arsenal. Show notes.
Dave Jackson, contributor to Podcast Business Journal and owner of the schoolofpodcasting.com, often shares that the Wordpress SEO plugin recommends that show notes should be 300 words. He says that Google ranks show notes of that length higher and your podcast will get more attention if your show notes are longer.
That attention from Google is one key reason to have a blog connected to your podcast in the first place. So, rather than blogging you can:
- Beef up your show notes. 2) Write for curated sites like Medium.com. 3) Create a newsletter to let your freak flag fly.
If you do this you may reach more people than your traditional blog has been able to. Remember, it is 2019, there may be several things you are doing now that you may want to reconsider. Blogging or not blogging is not the most important thing, the most important thing is to get your message out in front of the people who need to hear it.
ENDNOTES:
Here is a link to Patch’s Medium articles: https://medium.com/@patchdrury and here is a link to where you can sign up for his newsletter: https://www.patchdrury.net/
Here is Dave Jackson’s show notes and podcast about show notes: http://schoolofpodcasting.com/tackling-show-notes-how-long-should-my-notes-be/
_Troy Price is the co-founder of Front Porch Studios in Berea, Kentucky. Troy’s current podcasting projects are The Berea Podcast and Podcasting Tips From the Front Porch. He’s been involved with podcasting for over a decade. Contact Troy at troy@frontporchstudios.com. _