Is More Always Better? The Pros and Cons of Airing Multiple Podcast Episodes Per Week [Ep. 106]
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Here’s what to expect from this episode:
Have you ever thought about airing more than one podcast episode per week?
Questions about podcast episode frequency often pop up both at the very beginning of people's podcast journeys & also after a few months into it. It's something that I've wanted to address for a while on the podcast but haven't yet - so here we are!
Now that I've had several clients who have done 2 episodes per week (and have even done it myself!), today's episode is all about sharing some of my insights on podcast episode frequency and the pros and cons to weigh so you can make the best decision for yourself. I'm also sharing what to consider before upping your episode frequency, my best advice if you want to move forward, and bringing an experimental mindset to it all.
And if you want to focus on creating better quality content that is more aligned with your business goals vs. just creating MORE content, then check out my audio course, Podcast Like You Mean It.
TOPICS COVERED:
The importance of being consistent with your release schedule
Reasons why people consider doing double episodes...
...And the cons that come with that higher frequency
Things to consider before upping your weekly episodes
My best advice if you want to move forward with more episodes
Resources mentioned:
favorite podcasting resources:
Connect with Sara:
Related episodes:
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0:01
Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager, and I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators.
0:28
Over the years, as I've worked with more and more podcasters, there's always a few commonly asked questions that pop up both at the very beginning of somebody's podcast journey, and also a few months after they've gotten into it. One of those questions is about episode frequency. How often should I release episodes, but more specifically, should I air more than one episode per week? It's something that I've wanted to address for a while on this podcast, but I haven't yet. So here we are. Now that I've had several clients who have tried out doing two episodes per week, and I've even done it myself, I wanted to share some of my insights and some pros and cons for you to be able to weigh so that you can make the best decision for yourself if this is something that you've been thinking about trying. Now, let's back up just a teeny tiny bit. And think about the question, how important is consistency? In general, when it comes to a release schedule for your podcast? My answer for that is that it's very important. If you are consistently releasing podcast episodes, whatever consistent means to you, then you are becoming a part of somebody's routine. podcasts have a way of doing that. So people who consistently Listen, every time that you release a new episode, they typically have a routine attached to that if you release episodes on Tuesday mornings, then your listeners are used to maybe getting in the car on Tuesday morning or going for their walk on Tuesday morning, or doing their chores around the house on Tuesday morning while they listened to your podcast. So really showing up and remaining consistent is extremely important. In my opinion, in an ideal world, you are releasing one episode per week, at least. However, if all you can manage right now is maybe every other week, that's totally fine. When we get into like once a month. I mean, you can do that. But is that best for connecting with your audience and really having this podcast to act as a tool for your business? Probably not. Now, let's get to the heart of why people consider doing double episodes. And when I say double episodes, what I mean by that is two episodes per week. Why do people even consider doing this in the first place? There's a few reasons that I see. Number one is that people want kind of a big boost of engagement of downloads for their podcasts. And when I say this, I'm talking about people who might decide to do double episodes or triple episodes, however many episodes you're going to do per week, for like a short period of time, you might have heard me talk about this specifically, when I discuss looking at your download trends. I talk a lot about how for educational podcasters people who are speaking to teachers, and instructional coaches and SLPs. And people who are in the schools, summer is often a really hot season for your podcast, typically see those spikes going up in like June, July and August for your podcast downloads. So you might consider doing a stretch of double episodes during that time to really leverage that summer season while you have the greatest attention from your listeners. And you have to look at your downloads over time over the past year over the past two years, three years. And really see if you've noticed any kind of spike in downloads, maybe that summer for you. Maybe it's a different time of year. I have had clients do this in the past. And also I have clients who are doing it right now, at this time of recording doing those two episodes per week for like six to eight weeks or so during the summertime and it works out really, really well. So that's one reason that people tend to do double episodes. Another reason is that maybe you want to hit a milestone or a goal faster. So maybe you want to get to 10,000 downloads 50,000 100,000 1 million. And so you think okay, if I put out two episodes per week instead of one episode per week, I'm going to hit that goal faster. And yes, in most cases you would be correct in that thinking. You've probably seen a lot of these bigger name podcasters out there releasing double episodes. You know, Amy Porterfield. Entrepreneur on Fire, they do daily episodes, imperfect action by Steph Taylor, I think she actually does three episodes per week now. And for a lot of these people who are putting out multiple episodes per week, you'll hear that they hit that million downloads, 2 million downloads, 5 million downloads, and these other big milestones. And in the cases of the people that I just listed, obviously, they're big names, they have big audiences. But even for some, I don't like to use the word smaller, but you know what I mean, less known podcasters, who meet these big milestones, it's often people who do have multiple episodes out per week, because yes, if you have an established audience, and you've got the like, typical messaging down for your podcast, you've done that foundational work. If you are putting out more episodes, you're doing it more consistently than just once a week or once a month, then yeah, you're gonna hit your download goals faster than if you were only putting out one episode a week, or one episode per month, or one episode every other week. Another reason that people consider doing double episodes is that they just want to put out more long form content, more long form content equals potentially more possibilities for discoverability. It's more content that can get picked up. By SEO, it's more content that leads people to your website to your TPT resources, it's more opportunities to promote your resources or your services, it's more opportunities to build trust faster, and maybe to increase your listener engagement. So just getting more content out more consistently. If you have that audience in place already, then yeah, there's going to be a lot of pros to putting out that content more frequently. So I'd consider all of those things that I just mentioned, pros of releasing episodes more frequently than you currently are boosting downloads, reaching those goals faster, more long form content, more opportunities for discoverability, and potentially increasing your listener engagement. Now, let's talk about some cons that come with putting out multiple episodes a week. number one biggest one is it could lead to possible burnout for you, it's more content that you have to create, it's something else that you have to be doing. It's double what you're already doing for your podcast, okay. And that can absolutely lead to complete overwhelm, it's more time that you're putting into it, it might be more money that you're putting into it. And really a big factor here is whether or not you are doing your podcast on your own if you're a DIY podcaster. And you're doing everything on your own, from recording, to editing, to scheduling to promotional graphics, to guest management to show notes, if you're doing all of these things already, and then you're going to double that, yeah, that's a lot of extra work. If you have a podcast manager, like my team and I who are helping you, then it's not going to be as much work, it's still going to be more work, because you're gonna have to actually record more of that content, but then you get to hand it off to somebody else. So huge, huge difference there. It can also lead to possible burnout for your audience. And this is where it gets really tricky, because you really don't know how your audience is going to respond to multiple episodes per week until you try it. And some audiences are going to respond really well. And other audiences are going to say, Whoa, this is too much content. I can't keep up with all of these episodes. And that could actually lead to download, decreasing if people start to become overwhelmed. And their library feels super saturated now, and it's just like too much for them. And it can go either way. It can be the opposite, where people are like, Oh my gosh, yes, this person is releasing a second episode every single week. This is awesome. So how your audience responds to it is going to be a huge factor in this whole thing as well. And that's why sometimes you'll see, when people do two episodes a week, sometimes they'll do like their regular length episode, and then maybe they'll do a second episode that week that's short, like 10 minutes or something like that, or even sometimes shorter than that as like a quick tip or something along those lines. I've had people do that. So that that does help to eliminate that overwhelm for you and for your audience. And then kind of getting further into that. If you are feeling burnt out from doing multiple episodes per week, then that could also lead to a decrease in the quality of your episodes. Because if you're feeling like oh my gosh, I can't keep up, I'm now on this content creation hamster wheel, that can lead to your episodes just not being as well thought out, you're not taking the usual time that you typically do to sit down and outline or script your episodes. And so not as much thought and intentionality is behind it. And that that could lead to decreased quality, which of course, can then also go back to that idea of this whole situation leading to a decrease in downloads, because if your episode quality goes down, then you're going to lose some listeners. So those are definitely some cons. And then the pros like I talked about before. So knowing all of this information, here are some things that I want you to consider. If you are kind of weighing out these pros and cons thinking about doing these double episodes. biggest question I want you to ask yourself is, am I keeping up with episodes as is? Again, a lot of this will depend on whether or not you're doing this by yourself. Or if you have help. If you literally cannot keep up with your episodes as you are right now. Whether that's one episode per week or one episode per month, and you are struggling to keep up you are doing everything the day before it goes live. And you're stressed out every time that you do that, then it's too hard. No, probably not the best time to add more to your play. And to add a second episode or a third episode for the week. I also want you to ask yourself, Is this what will be best for my audience? And think about the timing? If you're going to do those double episodes? Is it going to be long term? Like is this how you're going to format your show forever? Or is it just going to be like a six to eight week kind of thing that you do, I would say like, I wouldn't go into this saying, Oh, I'm going to do this for like three weeks and see what happens and see if it works or not. That's really not enough time for you to gather the data. And for your audience to get used to you having two episodes a week, I would say like minimum six to eight weeks before you can really have that data to look at and see how your audience is responding to it, how your downloads are looking things like that. And then also consider the time of year like if you are going to do maybe a six to eight week or 10 week series where you have two episodes per week. What time of year would be best for that? Would it be summertime? Would it be back to school time, winter spring? Consider that as well. The third thing to consider is Are there signs out there that are telling you that your people want more content? And some things that you can look at for that are? Are you getting people writing your reviews for your podcast? Are people reaching out to you through email and through Instagram or wherever else you might hang out? And this doesn't have to be like an every day or even every week thing? But are you getting those messages and those reviews sprinkled in with like signs of life from people letting you know that they are listening and loving your content. And that's not the only thing to consider here. Because it can be really hard to get people to talk to you. You can also look at things like your retention rate. And when I talk about retention rate, I am thinking a lot about like consumption rate. Are people sticking around and listening to all or most of your episodes. Are they coming back week after week? I have an episode on retention rate that I will link in the show notes as well. Are your downloads like your overall monthly downloads? Are they steady or consistently increasing? Or are they really up and down month to month? So what are the signs out there that are saying hey, this might be a good idea to put out more content. Now, I just want to note that if you decide you want to up the frequency of your episodes, for a brief period of time, let's say like that six to eight week range. Just know that if you do that, you will likely see some sort of increase in your downloads, hopefully. But just know that if you stop so you maybe you you release two episodes a week for eight weeks, and then you stop. Then the month to follow and the weeks to follow. You most likely will see a drop in your monthly downloads. Because if you go from eight episodes a month back to four episodes a month, that's going to drop your overall monthly downloads because more Episodes does not equal more listeners, it equals more listens, because there's more listens per episode. But just putting out more content is not bringing in more listeners. So hopefully that makes sense. And I just want people to know that because I've worked with people who have done the double episodes for a short period of time, and they stop. And the next month, they're like, Oh, what happened to my downloads? Well, you're not releasing as much content anymore. So just consider that. Now, I don't want to burst your bubble, if you have been excited about trying double episodes, because I do want to be very clear that I have seen this work with people very, very well. I have had multiple clients do this. I'm thinking about one in particular, who does this every summer, we started maybe three years ago, it doubled her downloads. And it did actually bring in new listeners, because she she did a lot with it. She did some gamification, when she did her series of devil episodes, she had a Facebook group. So people were sharing a lot of the content and built a really great buzz. And she retained those listeners, and it really paid off. I'm recording this episode during the summer 2023. And currently, I have three clients who are doing double episodes this summer. And they're doing really well because they know their audience, and we know their data so far. And we know that summer is the best time for them to try this out. So again, I don't want to be a Negative Nelly here and make it sound like you should never try this. Because I have seen it work really, really well. I just want you to first make sure that you have a really deep understanding of what's going on with your podcast and where you want it to go. And who your audience is. I've just seen it happen. So many times people think that creating more is what they need and what their audience needs. And so they jump into that first, creating more more content. Instead of doing things like looking at your long term data. auditing your show, as is right now, serving your audience formally, having a strategic plan for your content, mapping out your CTA A's. If you haven't done any of those things than just creating more, more and more, it's not going to be the best use of your time. And if you are listening to this, and you're realizing that maybe you do need to zone in on those things that I just listed, like looking at your data, understanding your data, auditing your show, hearing from your people, so that you really know what they need and what they want, then I would really, really encourage you to go and join my audio course podcasts like you mean it, because I walk you through each and every one of those things and more. So that you can really have that clarity on how your show is doing what your audience needs, and how you can better leverage your podcasts to support your business. It has been so much fun watching podcasters, go through this course, audit their show, get answers from their listeners, and then make a plan for their content based on actual data. So if you haven't done these things, and you are considering upping the frequency of your podcast episodes, I would encourage you to hit the pause button. And you we all know that saying slow down to speed up, let's really get a better deeper understanding of how your show is currently doing so that you can really be a little bit more strategic about how you're creating content in the future. Doors are open for that audio course podcasts like you mean it right now. And you can join at podcasting for educators.com/podcast. like you mean it, the link for that will also be in the description for this episode so that you can see everything that's included. It is an audio course, meaning that you listen to a podcast style, there's 10 core lessons, and every lesson has an action step attached to it. So you can really go step by step by step. And then we also have a private Facebook group community that has been fantastic in supporting each other and really sharing their results from this process as they go. So again, the link will be in the description for this lesson. And if you know 100% That you are going to move forward with doing those two episodes or more per week. Here is just my quick best advice. Have a plan for yourself. I can tell you firsthand when I did double episodes, I think it was last. It was about a year ago that I did. I want to say with six weeks of double episodes, I did not plan out far enough in advance. And it really backfired for me and it made the process a lot more difficult for me if I'm being completely honest. I liked doing yet I liked putting out more of that content. But I did not sit down and plan everything out far enough in advance before jumping into it, which is why I'm trying to give you these disclaimers today. I really recommend sitting down knowing exactly what you're going to cover in your double episodes for at least six to eight weeks ahead of time. And I recommend batching. If you are going to do two episodes per week, and go into it with an experimental mindset. It's all an experiment. We never know how our audience is going to respond to things. All right, I hope this was helpful for you and helped you weigh out some of those pros and cons of increasing the frequency of your podcast episodes. And again, if you want to focus on creating better quality content that is more aligned to those business goals of yours, instead of just creating more content, then you can join us inside at podcast like you mean it. I'll see you here next week.
21:00
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.
More about Podcasting for Educators:
Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!
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