365 - Podcast Branding Dilemmas: Titles and Logos Under the Microscope

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Friday, September 5th, 2025, and today we're tackling 2 branding debates, whether the word podcast belongs in your title and if the that microphone in your logo is doing more harm than it is good. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting Morning chat. Thank you so much for being here on this Friday morning. I am your host Mark Ronik and here with me on stage we have my Co hosts Nick Naulback, producer Ashley Feller, Sid Meadows and Dr. Faye. I think we are expecting Matt Bliss to join us in a few moments as well as the rest of the cast and crew. We'll see who shows up this morning and thank you to those of you listening live bright and early this morning. Not the trend that we've seen most of this week where we had one person. We have a handful of people that have joined us right away. And as usual, we fill up throughout the hour. So Dave, Roy Field, Nas, Austin, thank you for being here so early in the morning. So today it's episode 365 S.

2:10 Now you can listen to an episode of the podcasting morning chat once a day for an entire year. Very proud of that. For some reason I like saying that you have an episode a day for an entire year of the podcasting morning chat. Pretty cool. Also, before we dig in, want to remind you that the Empowered podcasting conference sale, the Labor Day week long sale that we've had for 55 zero percent off, it ends tonight. And you might have seen on some of the promotion on social media, we've been saying 5:00 PM Eastern or it's actually 5:00 PM wherever you are. I believe it's actually 11:45. So you have just about till the day switches to September 6th. So all you got to do is go to empoweredpodcasting.com, look for the buy ticket button, and that'll take you to our Eventbrite page where you can get your tickets and enter the code EPC LD50.

3:14 That will get you 50% off. So now what we're going to do is we're going to get into some branding dilemmas and then of course we will wrap up the week with our wins from this past week. But first I want to play on this 365 theme for a moment since it's now, you know, technically, like I said, you could spend an entire year with us. So looking back, what's one thing that you've learned or taken away? It doesn't have to necessarily be like a a specific podcasting tip because let's face it, a lot of you who are on stage with me, you've been podcasting for quite a while. So it could just be something, a big take away, anything that has let left a lasting impression on you over let's say this past year.

4:08 DRI saw you wanted to chime in first. Go for it. Good morning. Good morning. I have always loved the round table format. You don't have to keep going to all these different podcasts on the same subject to get everyone's opinion. It's all right there in in one show and just being on a round table format has been amazing for me. I've learned so much. When I think I'm I know something and I, I'm taking a stance on it, someone comes along and says something and I'm like, oh, oh, OK, OK. Just the amount of education that I've gotten on this show is amazing.

4:54 And so I thank you for that. Well, thank you, Dr. and I thank you for that as well. You helped make these round table discussions go round a great deal. You helped. So thank you, appreciate you and I agree with you. I that's probably what I love most about this show is you can come and listen to it and not just get one person's opinion and it's not just drilled into your head, right? It's here's my opinion. This is what I believe. And if you happen to agree with me on things, if you happen to like the my takes on things, maybe you're going to take that as your advice, right? But if you don't like what I have to say, you might prefer what Sid has to say. But the point is, is that you're getting various opinions and you're getting in a, in a way that's a little out of the ordinary these days, right?

5:43 We're not fighting each other on these opinions. We're respecting each other's opinions. We're listening. And like Dr. said, sometimes it some of you can change each other's minds. And I love that about this. It's proof that we as human beings can actually have differences of opinions and still be able to communicate. All right, I saw Sid and I see Ashley wants to chime in. Go ahead, Sid. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I have two things. The first thing that I would say is that, you know, in a world, especially today, where things are crazy, people are divided, people are fighting, families disagree on all kinds of things, political, religious, you name it. And I think we are doing an excellent job at setting an example of how adults can have conversations, whether they agree or disagree with each other and their positions and still walk away as friends.

6:38 And I think that leadership that we're sharing and that I've learned and hopefully everybody's learning of how to have constructive conversations, regardless of your position is a really, really powerful thing for us to be doing and leading by example. Because I think we all know that there's all kinds of craziness going on out there, right? The second thing that I would say is that when you are hosting a podcast in morning chat show, if you do not respond to Dr. within 15 seconds, full panic mode happens. OK, I'm just saying full odd panic mode. I will never live that down. Admittedly, I get that way too, I just maybe don't express it as much as Dr. does, but maybe to DRI do. Sometimes I'll panic about, you know, if we're expecting. Somebody I think maybe, maybe this is where I got it. From sure, sure, sure.

7:27 Put it on me. That's fine. I'll take it. Thank you, Sid. Thank you for your answers. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you on how special it is, how special this community is in the way that we communicate and have conversations and connect with one another. Ashley, coming to you. Good morning. Yeah. What say you? What's what's 1 take away, one lesson over. Well, we'll just say over the duration of your time with the podcasting morning chat that you've learned in honor of episode 365. So take away is I just love the collaborative nature of the whole show. A lot of us work together to make the shows happen, and I'm just so proud of how current we are because I share these episodes with people in my.

8:15 Everyday to day life. And when I think about the ones that I share, they're almost always the news episodes because I'm so proud of how current we are with what's happening happening in the social media landscape, the podcast landscape, all those things. Yeah, I'm with you. And I think those news episodes bring us a variety that we need, right, Because it's presenting new topics, new conversations that we otherwise wouldn't necessarily have if we didn't do that segment. And I think we would feel start feeling like things are getting stale. But it always brings us new directions, new conversations.

8:56 And yeah, as much as we joke that Amanda hates Newsday, I think Newsday is a very valuable thing for this podcast. It works really well. And I mean, one of our best episodes came from a news. Not best. I should shouldn't say that one of our most popular episodes, and it happened to be one of my favourites too, was the Blue's Clues episode, the one where Steve from Blue's Clues announced that he's going to have a podcast and that sparked not only an awesome conversation, but it got a lot of attention. It's by far, by far it is the most downloaded episode. And by the way, the trailer for the new show Alive with Steve Burns just dropped.

9:41 I believe it was yesterday, if not the day before, but it just dropped. And it's getting just as much of attention as when he had teased that he was going to start a podcast. And I'm reading those comments and it's more of the same. And it's just, it's it's a very common theme. People are just saying how needed Steve is. And this type of podcast is he's basically taking and catering to his old target audience from back in the day, the Blue's Clues crew. And he's now doing a more adult version of what he does. And no, he doesn't have the little dog animated dog running around, but he does have his old big red chair sitting behind him in the studio. And by the way, I'm not sharing the trailer because it doesn't translate as well via straight audio, but I wanted to say go check it out, go look for it Alive with Steve Burns. Because, you know, we were talking yesterday about interviews and how stale they are these days because so many podcasters, that's the format that they're using and they just turn on a camera.

10:51 If they're using video, they have their guests turn on a camera and it's just a straight conversation. And that can work really well. I'm not knocking it, but it does get a little stale after a while. And I love what he's doing. So he's sitting at a desk that's got a window right next to him. And in that window is where the guest is projected. So he's doing a lot of remote interviews. And they have. Yeah, via green screen special effects, they have put the guest inside that window. It's just fresh and different. And I just thought it was very creative. So go check that out if you are a fan or just curious about all this buzz for Steve Burns's alive.

11:36 OK, anyone else want to share a memory, a take away, something that they've learned over their time with the podcasting morning chat being that it is episode 365, no one else. OK, fine. Be that way. Don't celebrate with no, I'm kidding. Thank you for those of you who did celebrate and please share this with a friend, share this with the podcaster that you know. So today I want to dig into the age-old. It feels like an age-old question. Is it OK for me to use the word podcast in my podcast title? Now, I obviously use the word podcast in our title because we are a show about podcasting.

12:21 So let's just say shows about podcasting don't count. I'm talking about any other type of show that you do or that someone does via podcast. Is it OK to use it? And there's a large percentage of people in the industry out there that says, no, you absolutely should not use the word podcast. And I actually was digging into why and all I could really come up with as far as why do those people think that way? A lot of people say it's because it's just redundant that we that we know it's it's a podcast branding. People argued that you that you're better off using that space to make your title more memorable, niche or maybe keyword friendly.

13:11 Don't waste it on the word podcast. And then, you know, there are shows out there that that aren't using the word podcast that theoretically could like, for example, the Tim Ferriss show is not using podcast. They're using show, which I want to talk about too because why can you use show, but you can't use podcast? Or they there are other podcasts too, like Smartless doesn't use show or the word podcast in it. Branding experts will say it sounds cleaner and more like established media brands. So let's talk about this. And by the way, welcome to Amanda Sharp, who's joined us on stage as well. So let's talk about this first. Why do you think this advice started in the 1st place? That those were some of my thoughts. Does anyone have any other thoughts as to where this comes from?

14:00 Don't use the word podcast. Go ahead, Amanda. Good morning. Good morning. I feel like a lot of this comes from a time that there was truth to that. I think they're in the beginning of keywords and all of that type of stuff. I don't know, 10 years, 15 years ago, that stuff really mattered. I would argue. I don't know that it does in 2025. I think we have no clue what the systems look like behind the scenes because keywords I don't think are working anymore the way that they used to. So I think if you would have asked five years ago, the answer would have been, yeah, maybe it's not a smart idea to have podcast in your title as opposed to another keyword.

14:45 But today I think just it doesn't matter. I think it's just going to do what it's going to do and the people will find you or you have to go find your people. You just have to work harder now, I think today than you did five years ago. Yeah, And I'm with you. I don't know for sure. I can't say for sure whether or not SEO isn't working the way it used to, but I personally happen to agree with that and I thought Nick might want to chime in when that was spoken. So we're going to go to Nick and then we're going to check in with Dan. Go ahead, Nick. I, I actually don't have a comment necessarily directly SEO to how Amanda was talking, but I tend to agree with Amanda to an extent.

15:30 First of all, I I do think the term podcast is a bit redundant. Like if someone's tuned into the podcast, they know it's a podcast. They don't need to tell, they don't need you to tell them that it's a podcast. But in the same token, I feel like a lot of podcast names are not even podcastings. A lot of just names in general, URLs, keywords, etcetera are taken up. So then you're forced to use titles that might already exist. And how will you differentiate yourself from a brand like, let's say just as an example, Smartlist is a commonly used title, brand name, etcetera. What's going to differentiate Smartlist, the business that sells widgets, from Smartlist, the podcast that is the show that we all know?

16:35 If you go search for Smartlist by itself, you might end up with several different results popping up. Whereas if you search Smartlist podcasts, you're going to get the podcast. That might be kind of a an abstract example, but I kind of see podcasts being a little bit more relevant when titles are now harder to come by and you can't just come up with a unique, clever title and still get your point across. Yeah, I'm going to be sharing titles with other people. Is that kind of what I'm getting? At Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Thank you. Nick. I'm shocked you didn't have a lot to say about the SEO thing. Dan, good morning to you.

17:17 What did you want to say about this? Good. Morning. So if I heard you correctly, your question was what are we think or where do we think this originated? Sure. I'm going to. I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think it has anything to do with SEO. I think that it originated from the branding space with someone and with a loud enough voice. That said, putting the word podcast in your podcast title is redundant. That's what I think. That's very possible, and I've thought about that as well. I also think though, that maybe those voices, those loud voices were also saying that because I remember in the early days of podcasting when you put podcast in the title, it did come across as redundant because the way it would be displayed because of the platform, the platform would also use the word podcast and it then it would look redundant on your screen.

18:16 But even that, like to me, yeah, it looks a little redundant, but I don't believe it's going to make or break your podcast either. By the way, we have a poll running right now with our live audience and participants and so far, yes, the Word Podcast should be avoided is winning 56%. I don't think it's necessary on a podcast cover art at all. If you're putting it on the cover art, you're just using up real estate that doesn't need to be used by that. You could do a a subtitle to your show or something else that's going to attract attention. I think that's a waste.

19:00 True, and I know this might be an exception, not the the norm, but there are cases where if you did that, it might look really awkward, Nick, because like for example, I used Tim the Tim Ferriss show. What if Tim Ferriss named it the Tim Ferriss podcast? He probably needs to put podcast in that cover art. Can't avoid it. So maybe that's an argument to avoid it. But not every show is called the Something Something podcast. So yeah, that's why I'm saying it might be an exception. But Sid, you want to say something? Go ahead. I think if you have an ecosystem in your business that everything is the same name and I'll use a real estate company that I follow a lot, which is called Bigger Pockets. Bigger Pockets is a book publisher. They have a website, they have a community, they have podcasts, they have a YouTube channel, they have a like this community feature.

19:52 We can go in and research and find real estate agents or lenders or whatever. So it's everything is Bigger Pockets. So in their case, they have something that their podcast is called the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcast. And I think it's appropriate when your ecosystem is using the same name. If you just started a podcast and said, hey, this is a trend report podcast, in my case, I don't think it's necessary. But if everything in my business was the trend report, then I think it's appropriate to distinguish which one of the places you've landed within my ecosystem. Yeah, that makes sense, right? Because we can use the same name a lot of times. That's a very much a strategic move. We can use the same name so that all of the branding is straightforward, not confusing.

20:41 So the opposite of that is yours truly, right? I was just talking about this with Matt Bliss yesterday after the show. The fact that I've got Ironic Media as my overall overarching company to all the rest of the brands and the names that I have, right, It's Ironic Media. Then I have the podcasting morning chat. I have Empowered podcasting, our conference, which is also the name of our Facebook group, which is also the name of our Empowered, I'm sorry, which is also the name of our clubhouse house, right. And then I also had next Gen. podcaster until we decided to shut that down. So it's like, Mark, you're using so many different names. So, yeah, having, if you're using one name, maybe you want to include podcasts to distinguish what that thing is that you're talking about in that moment.

21:29 I like that. Thank you, Sid. And we've got more people on stage. Jonathan Howard has joined us and Billy has joined us from the audience. Billy, I'm going to go to you. Good morning. What did you want to add to this conversation about using podcast in your podcast's name? I just think you'd like give me a point. It's like a moot point or however the fancy people say. It's like, I mean, if I'm telling you about my podcast. Or whatever, tell you, I have a podcast and it's named Billy. Yeah. I mean, you're probably going to go to a podcast player and search for that podcast name. I was When people tell me that, I go, oh, well, no shit, it's a podcast. Why don't you tell me that? I doesn't make you say It's like, I don't put like Billy Thorpe's YouTube channel and that's where Billy Thorpe's Instagram or whatever. So like, why would I put podcasts? Never makes sense to me.

22:20 But anyway, I'm not really that passionate about. I just, yeah, but bro, it's still rough. Yeah, this goes back to one of the arguments I've said before. It's like, you have The Tonight Show and they're using show. We know it's a show. So why is that OK? Well, The Tonight Show is probably like 100 years old. We know what podcasting is now. So maybe it's just like if you, if you're you Mark and you started podcasting and podcasting started, we're going to give you a pass. But if you start a podcast tomorrow, no, we're going to beat you with a pole. But what's funny to me also is, OK, let's take another example. Joe Rogan, right, the Joe Rogan experience, he does not use podcast.

23:03 However, I am confident. I can't say for sure, but I'm confident that when most people refer to it, they'll say Joe the Joe Rogan podcast or they'll say, oh, I heard this on Joe Rogan's podcast. It's almost, it's rarely referred to in my circles as the Joe Rogan experience. So sure, he's maybe following the branding moves, but let's also pay attention. What are our what's our audience saying? How are they referring to our podcasts? And by name Dr. Go ahead. I'm in the camp of Don't use the Word podcast. But on the other hand, there's just sometimes when it just needs something at the end, I belong to a group of podcast managers. It's a paid community that I belong to. I went through the course and everything and she has a podcast and it's called the Podcast Manager Show. So it's hard not to put something at the end, the podcast manager blank, you know, there's just something. It needs something, you know what I'm saying? But I do try to avoid the word podcast and I do whenever I see the word podcast, I get a little cringy and I try it in my head. I try and reformulate it.

24:25 Well, what else could it be? And the word show always comes up in my head in place of it, but it just feels like it needs something I it's not. I can't even put it towards. Dr. I'm not accusing you of what I'm going to ask. No, no, I'm not accusing you. I just want to preface by saying that because it could come off that way, the do you think that you were influenced into that? Like do you think because you of of all of us probably consume the most information about podcasting And so I'm sure you've come across other podcasters, other podcast experts that have have said that. And do you think that could have? Influenced absolutely all the podcast gurus that I follow, they all most all of them say that it's something that I have learned ingrained in my, you know, education of podcasting and but shows like this, the round table. This is getting back to our ice breaker question. It's make me more evolved.

25:34 Is that a phrase? It's made me more evolved. I've evolved through it and now I can stand back and say, is it really a thing for me? Does it really bother me? And so now I can be a little bit more objective about it in my now that I'm here in my journey. And I got to say it's still something that I would avoid the word. I would avoid the word in the title, but there there are times when it there needs to be something in its place. It just sounds much better. If there was another word in its place. It's it's hard to talk about because it's it's confusing, but that's what I'm going to say all. Right.

26:18 Thank you. I appreciate you digging into that and acknowledging that the yeah, there could, it could have been somewhat of an influence on the decision and you're still standing by it, which is totally fine. We have a such a full stage here and I know I've saw everybody who raised their hand. We've got more people coming up on stage. So bear with me. I'm going to navigate this and I like to go guests first. So in other words, audience members that come up on stage, I like to give you your space first since you took the time to join us and come up here. So with that, I'm going to go to Lindsaya. Welcome to the stage, Lindsay. It's been a minute and I know you've been popping in a little bit more lately. Thank you and thanks for coming up on stage. What do you have to say about this whole topic of using the word podcast in your podcasts title? I'm grateful to be back in here.

27:07 We're into high school now, so morning routine is 15 this time. Used to be a little bit more unavailable for me actually. You guys touched on it and I wanted to bring it back to the forefront because when I was naming my podcast, I didn't want to and I loved that Dr. said, you know, sometimes you just feel like it's hanging there. And you also nodded to the point. So I wanted to share the reason why podcast went into the title of our name and it had to do with, like you said, being able to diversify because it's one name. So to have the Wellness Warrior podcast, Wellness Warrior community, Wellness Warrior app, like to be able to have all those things, you almost must put what the tool is after. So they find that specific thing. And the thing that I will share is that one of the other reasons, and I've talked to a lot of fellow podcasters is all about the domain space.

28:01 Like I couldn't get wellnesswarrior.com as you can imagine. And so it's this necessary add on so that you can own the domain related to your title. And so I think there's a lot of times where podcast gets put on the end or I love show because it allows us to own that domain and continue branding. So that's what I wanted to add in. I'm excited to keep learning. Thanks for coming to me. Yeah. Thank you, Lindsay. I think that's an excellent point. Not only the diversification, but things like landing that URL that you want and and just adding the word podcast makes, makes it way more flexible, gives you more opportunity potentially to use that URL.

28:43 Yeah, thank you, Lindsay. I think that's a great point, Jeff, welcome back to the stage. What did you want to add about all this? And then we'll dig into using microphones in your cover art. Oh, that's a good one too. Long time listener, first time caller. Thank you, Jeff Let. Me say anyone can do anything they want, but I'm anti pudding. The word podcast in the title. I know we've talked about it before. Kind of like to me it's an antiquated thing, like how you used to see an icon next to an e-mail or a phone icon next to a phone on a business card. And finally you're like, we know that's an e-mail. You know, you don't put the name, you don't put the word book in a book.

29:26 To me, it's, it's redundant and it doesn't tell anybody anything about the show other than they probably meant it was an audio experience, which could be different now as well, you know, and the design show is a good point, but I think that started in the 40s, so it doesn't really count. I think your point about the Joe Rogan experience is that that is the reason why you don't need to put podcasts in because people know what it is. So it's like, hey, did you watch that show, that new show How I Met Your Mother? You know it's not You watch How I Met Your Mother, the TV show. You know people. People can refer to the medium when they know what the medium is, you know?

30:09 But what about the people who don't know what it is yet? You know what? I mean, people don't, well, you know the earlier example about Smartlist, it is not called the Smartlist podcast. If you would go on Apple, it is just Smartlist, you know, so it's it's about branding community and people searching for it and finding it, you know, so I got you. Yeah, it's everyone knew. Everyone knew Taylor Swift was on a podcast. But I don't think New Heights is called the New Heights podcast. Correct, it is not. Go ahead Nick. That's. Going to say, if if you're talking to someone, you're like, oh, you have to check out smart lists. They're like, they have no idea what it is. They're going to be like, what's that like? Oh, it's this podcast, and it's really funny. Yeah.

30:51 Like they're going to get the information they need without you saying this part this podcast. Right. And if I told you, hey, go read this book, you know, I'd say, hey, have you read, you know, like, you know, you wouldn't go, how do I get a book, you know, or what's a book or you know, I mean, it's like, I don't know it for the domain thing that was brought up to me, a pro tip is by every version of the domains you can, even if you don't use them and redirect them to your podcast. So even if you could get the original 1, I'd still say get the one that says podcast so other people don't grab it. OK, that's fair. And by the way, just because everybody is keeps, everyone keeps calling me out that The Tonight Show is ancient, so it doesn't count.

31:33 I mean, there are other examples such as the Kelly Clarkson Show on NBC during the day, the Drew Barrymore Show, and yeah, we're going a little older with this next one, but the Howard Stern show, I mean this. So all these shows do do use the word show. Not all of them, but a lot of them use the word show. And that's OK. But to your point about books, yeah, you don't see book titles like let's use Mel Robbins. Let them. It's not called let them book or let them the book, right? It's just called let them. Right. And all your examples are variety shows. So, you know, the only one I can think of, the Garry Shandling show is the only one that maybe also use the word show. That was just a normal TV show, but that was done ironically.

32:16 Yeah. So it it seems at some point a variety show is called The Show. I don't know. Yeah, that's but this. Discussion Mark isn't about using the word show. Yes, but in my point is is that shows use show in their title so why can't podcast? Well, but a podcast is a podcast ATV you know, a show is just kind of a term I you know, OK, I don't know it just. It's semantics in some, in some regard too, Yes. Let me go to Matt and give Matt the final word on this topic so that we can keep going because we've got a lot of show to do and only about 25 minutes or so to do it. Go ahead, Matt. In the interest of time, Good morning, everybody. In the interest of time, I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible, but I feel like we need a patent interrupt here because this is invariably where the discussion goes. And it's it's a great way to approach this because whenever you have a query and want to come up with something that guides what we do for something, we want to come up with a maxim and tracking this discussion.

33:21 We've gone from talking about whether podcasts should be podcast or show, whether books should have book where the show should have show where the show that has podcasts should have podcasts. And at this point I'm I think we're this far away and I'm pinching my fingers very close together while doing this with this clip far away from saying I am Matthew Bliss human. Nice to meet you. Like we, we are reducing it way too far and kind of armchair semantically arrive at a rule that we can say for the entire planet that if you have a product, you should or should not include the object or the category of that product.

34:01 The main thing we need to keep in mind is first, something great that Dr. said is that she's starting to move outside of the subjective journey in the podcasting space and looking at it from the outside in. And at that point in your journey, you start to realize, hang on, actually know a lot. And I spend a lot of my time in podcasting. So maybe the presumptions I have about what people understand a podcast to be is different to what the rest of the world thinks. In which case, maybe having podcasts in the title makes sense. Really good examples we talked about so far. A show that may not necessarily be a show that people understand, but is branded in other places could benefit from having the word podcast. We can drill down even further on that for the podcast audience.

34:50 You don't include podcasts in the title, but for everywhere else in the branding, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever, you Chuck podcast in there so that way you don't have to waste time saying welcome to Smartlist available on Apple, Spotify, blah, blah, blah, wherever you get your podcasts. Instead, call it the Smartlist podcast in an image. And then maybe the collective understanding of that is that it is a podcast. And then you have the rest of the branding that sits elsewhere. All that is drilled down to actions that the thing that I, we always get trapped in with this debate. And I say this, you know, mentioned to Mark just before the session, remarking that there was an interview that we did where we talked about something like this back in January. I think maybe even I think we recorded in December. And this, what I'm saying now is completely different what I to what I said then, because time, times have changed. Our thinking evolves.

35:40 We are armchair deciding this based on both our feeling and how we understand podcasting to be. We're in a different place from where everybody else thinks about podcasting. And if there's one thing that I think about a lot as I grow older, it's that over time you slowly discover that people understand less and less what you take for granted them understanding. And This is why friendships break up sometimes, or misunderstandings from 20 years ago get unpacked because you realize that something was different there. Different topic entirely. But my point is that whether podcasts should be in there or not, just like yesterday's episode, there's got to be a reasoning behind it.

36:24 And I heard a lot of great reasons in the discussion so far. We're going to hear a lot of great ones for microphones being in cover art. But it can't just be down to a single rule maxim that says grab the let it. Don't even know the Mel Robbins stuff. Let. Them let them podcast and buy the let them book and meet the let them human, otherwise known as Mel Robbins like that kind of categorization. We can't drill down as a general maximum for every media product across the entire planet, but it's OK to set up rules for ourselves that we do for our podcasts or whatever it is and set expectations on the outside and then get feedback on that branding and see how it impacts everything else that we do. The one thing that I will say that is a definite objective truth is that if you include podcast in your name as an indication for anyone to use for search, if it's not looking for a podcast somewhere on the Internet in Google, it is going to make your life harder.

37:25 And that's a reflection I've had on deciding the name for my new podcast, Rethinking Podcasting, knowing that I have to include keywords in there because most searches will bring up podcasts about rethinking thinking podcasting, every other podcast thing you can imagine. Because search engines presume you're searching for a podcast as opposed to a podcast title. Which is why Mark had that disclaimer at the beginning that we're not talking about podcasting podcasts, but the search, the SEO aspect of it is an important bit because it impacts the user's experience to a degree. Promised it would be short. That was not short, but that is all I wanted to say. Yeah. And great insight there, Matt, and I'm glad I came to you to wrap up that conversation 'cause I think that that's a good place to stop. And I'm, I am seeing lots of good things here in the chat, lots of good examples of where people are using the literal word in their titles or people I should say, you know, companies and programs, etcetera.

38:24 Yeah, I saw The Muppet Show from Ashley or The Muppet Movie, but there is The Muppet Show as well. I saw a few other good ones and now I'm not finding them anymore. But yeah, but Alex, I think also, I'll just say it for you, Alex. Alex put it best in the chat here. Call it whatever you want. If the content is good, it won't matter for the most part. I full fully agree with that. I mean, sure, it will still maybe make it a little harder for people to find your podcast if you're naming it whatever you want. But I know what you mean by that, Alex, and I'm totally with you. OK, Listen, I think we can make the conversation about using a podcast graphic a a picture of, I'm sorry, a microphone graphic using a picture of a microphone. I think we'll have some similar arguments, so I think we can make this a little bit of a shorter conversation, but why do you think microphones became such a cliche in podcast logos? That's the argument that I hear a lot is of course, and that it's redundant, similar to why we don't use podcast in our names, but I know a lot of people feel like it's cliche. Alex, did you want to chime in?

39:39 I just think that it all comes down to your aesthetic of what the podcast is going to do. And if you want to have that old school Johnny Carson or radio feel. I mean, your your picture has headphones on it. If that's the thing that you're going for, then go for it. Again, I think I like it, but that doesn't mean, you know, for for one podcast, it fits like if it's an interview type thing where it's just you and you're the focal point. But if you're on a certain subject. Then that's something different. Like if the, you know, we talked about the Joe Rogan experience, it would make sense for him to have him podcast like looking like he's podcasting.

40:23 But then again, if you wanted to have a stolen crossbones, it's fine too. I know that would be devastating for Dr. but you know, the rest of us, you know, we'll be fine. It just depends on what you're, I mean, Lindsay wouldn't have that necessarily if she's talking about Wellness warriors, you know what I mean? Like that's something you could do something with it. So you have to have you have to know what the name of the podcast is and if it fits, that's great. If it's a variety show or you have like a a bunch of different topics, that is where you may want to have you as the focal point with the headset and whatever else. Again, it all comes back to the, the, the substance. You can quote whatever the hell you want. You can have whatever image you want. If it's good, smallest can do whatever it wants 'cause they've got, you know, or new heights.

41:09 Nobody gives a crap. They still call it the Philly Brother. Yeah, the Kelsey Brothers podcast, like. That's how a lot. Of us refer to it, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, like you said, Taylor Swift could name it whatever the hell she wants and have whatever picture she wants. You should have a picture of a duck and it wouldn't make a difference or whatever. A bazillion download. So I mean. Be the most fancy duck in the world. But my point being is for newer podcasters, yeah, if that's whatever you do, just own it and just that's your thing. And like Lindsay has said, you know, I mean, I I was kidding about it. It's like Spaceballs the podcast. But I got to tell you everything. You can use that, whatever that one word is and put something on the end of it, and it's great. So that's the way you have to look at it, whether it's a name or an image, I think.

41:53 Thank you, Alex. What's interesting is when you mentioned Joe Rogan, I was Googling to see if he uses a mic. I can't remember if he uses a mic in his design. Here's The funny thing. As I typed Joe Rogan, the first word that pops up after Joe Rogan in the in the Google populated suggestion is podcast, not experience. Experience pops up 3 or 4 suggestions later. Just found that interesting. I mean, he basically got everybody to use a sure mic. I'm not here to go down that road, but I'm just saying he made it sexy to have a certain type of mic because he's so popular. So you know what's the trend?

42:34 It's whoever's leading the trend. So Joe Rogan's logo doesn't have a microphone in it. It's his his big face. And there's a piece of his microphone arm in the picture, I guess. So, you know, that's kind of an indication it's a radio show, podcast, something like that. All right, I saw there were several people that wanted to chime in. Dr. Were you one of them? I subscribe to about 84 different podcasts on podcasting and it's my little way of quickly going through all the podcast art to see which ones that are new that I should subscribe to.

43:15 You know, I don't, it's like that's what I'm zeroing in on. However, for my clients, I try and stay away from it because they're not doing a show about podcasting, no. Yeah, OK. And again, I'm, I just like to play devil's advocate here, using other mediums to argue the point. So for example, I mentioned Kelly Clarkson earlier, you know, she has her daytime show and she also has a new show that that's a prime time show called Songs and Stories where she sits down with celebrities.

43:56 I think mostly musicians make sense with songs and interviews them and also duets, popular songs that those artists are known for in her title, Songs and Stories. The word O in songs is either a record or ACDI, can't tell. But either way, it's indicating that it's a show that has to do with songs. The word is right there, and they're using a record to indicate song. And by the way, I watched one of those episodes, I was curious to see what it was all about. And whenever they went to commercial break, you know, they'd pop up that logo on the screen. And they even included a microphone. They don't have a problem with being very literal about their their logos.

44:44 Why should we? By the way, in the room here, the poll is running for is it cliche to feature a microphone in your podcast artwork? And 63% say, no, it's not. And the last survey that I mentioned earlier, it ended up being 54% saying it's totally fine to use podcast in your title. Lindsay, did you want to say something? Yeah, really quick. So one of the things I learned, I worked for an Italian company for 15 years. And so we were in this way attempting to translate sometimes, you know, real technical information. And the thing that sticks to me when you just made that or, you know, gave that example is that everything is meant to be displayed so that a third grader could understand universally. Like that's a global rule, one that I learned. And so the literalness is necessary for people who may not be as quick at the top of their head or as whatever, just as exposed to whatever it is we think it's common sense. So I just wanted to add that.

45:47 Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Lindsay. I think that's a good point. It's a rule of thumb in marketing to be literal and that's a rule of thumb in social media. That's similar one that you just mentioned about, you know, it has to be, it has to cater to 1/3 grader. I've heard similar things with your content on social media, especially your written content. Now, that might not apply in some platforms like say, LinkedIn, but platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etcetera. Yeah, that's what that's often advice I hear. Dumb it down. I don't hear it quite like that. But yeah. OK. Man, I, there are so many people and I really want to get to wins from the week. I'm going to give this last word to Chris Baglio and then let's dive into some celebration and celebrate our wins from the week.

46:36 Go ahead, Chris. Lindsay, I pretty much said what I was going to say, except she articulated it so much better and much more data backed and driven. But I agree. I mean, having been in marketing and video for my entire life, I think what happens is we're all in it, right? We're creating, we're living with this all the time. I don't want to use this as a derogatory term at all, but like, normies, like our audience, like people who listen like this is not what they do day in and day out. They just want to listen to things that they like and enjoy. Like, that's it in any way that we can make it easier for them to consume. Find us, discover us is the best thing possible. A lot of those things are just easy visual cues. So yeah, like song swap showdown, our logo is now, it's literally a record that's a song swap showdown on it.

47:22 Like, I'm not trying to make it precious or overcomplicated anymore. Think about the audience you have and like, make it easy, make it accessible. My coach used to say this all the time to me. Stop making things so precious. We're so precious about this stuff. But like we are but the rest of the world does not in our audience is not make it easy visually easy to find, easily to digest. Lindsay has said it much better than I am. So I'm just really coming on back of like her actual intelligent answer to that and like. Getting all the feels here. Yours was pretty intelligent too. Thank you, Chris, I appreciate that. OK, so listen, I know others wanted to chime in and if you still do, please feel free to share it in the chat. I want to keep things tight here because at 8:00 AM, I'm, as Jonathan likes to say, jumping across the street, and I'm going to the Chatter app and joining Jonathan over there for a podcast discussion.

48:18 And Jonathan, do you want to share a little bit about where people can find it, what they should search for to find it, if they want to come join us over on Chatter. Are you available, Jonathan? Yeah. You can head over to Chatter and look for the morning chatter. They're hosting myself and Mark for the hour from 8:00 to 9:00 to talk about. The challenges of putting together a podcasting conference. So when we talked to Mark about that today, so I might have a few things to say about that, yes. Just a few. Thank you, Jonathan. Appreciate that. And now we're going to celebrate some wins from the week. Now again, as I like to share, I don't care how you're judging your wins.

48:58 I don't care if you think they're too small, if you think, oh, I can't share my win because of that last person who shared their amazing win, it doesn't matter. Your journey is your journey. And if it's important enough to you, then we want to celebrate it with you. So whatever that looks like to you, bring it. OK, so I'm going to first start with Dan as a guest on the stage, even though he's no guest to this community. Dan, welcome back again and please share any wins from your past week. Thank you, it's been a long week recovery from sinus infections and all the junk this past week and school is going very well. Back in full time for the fall semester, so I'll just take all of that and be happy.

49:50 Yeah, that sounds like something worth celebrating. Congratulations. And Dan, remind us again what you are studying. Cool. So technically I'm in line for the bachelor's in Human Resource Management, but right now I have about 400 credits and no degrees so I'm finishing an AS. OK, gotcha. Gotcha. Very cool of you going and getting that education. Obviously, I'm guessing that's something that you really wanted and it's cool to see you going through that. Thank you for sharing. OK, we're going to keep it moving here. And Chris, I see you jumping back into the audience. I wanted you to come share a win with us.

50:32 That's fine. And all of you in the audience, please come up if you want to share any wins. I'll continue the trend and then we'll go down the line. My wins from the week, EPC, the Empowered Podcasting Conference, we're definitely seeing those tickets sales coming in as expected as people tell us, even though we learned this the hard way last year too. People are very last minute and now that here we are kind of last minute and doing a sale on top of that, those ticket sales are starting to come in. It's make not starting. We've had them before, but we had a big lull there for a little while that was making me a little uncomfortable and now I'm seeing those ticket sales surging again and I'm very excited and grateful for it.

51:13 Also, we had two well known brands reach out to us this week inquiring for last minute sponsorship. We'll see where that goes, but still pretty cool to to get those kinds of inquiries. And EPC, again, we landed, we did land an actual sponsor this week. So that was a great win because again, I've shared some of those struggles with you. It's been really hard getting those sponsors over the this past year, year and a half. So that was a refreshing thing and looking forward to sharing more about that in the weeks ahead. OK, Ashley, you got any wins for us? Absolutely, and congratulations on that.

51:54 Thank you. So once for the week, I created some pressure for myself. I put out a social media of reel yesterday from an interview I did with the singer-songwriter and I'm going to have an episode out next week of Sunshine State Showcase. So that's my win for this week and a win in the making. Awesome. Congratulations, Ashley. Very cool. Very cool to see you working hard and putting those podcasts out there when you can. I always enjoy what you're doing. Good for you and let's keep it moving and go to Sid. Sid, good morning again. Please share some wins with us. So the win that I want to share is my TikTok journey or my book top journey. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about my video blowing up.

52:36 So my viral video quote UN quote now has over 16,000 views. It's still getting views and saves and comments like 3 weeks later. But my over, I've been relatively consistent with posting a book review each time I finish a book. I'm trying to be sure I do one, at least one a week. I need to do more. But you know, I'm just sharing what seems to be working over there, which is my comments about books that I'm reading because I'm a huge reader. But every analytic that I'm looking at is for the last 60 days is way up. Like, you know, my views on my posts are up 12,000%. My profile views are up almost 250%. My likes are up 1500%, my comments are up 6200%.

53:18 So the people wanted book reviews and so I'm giving them book reviews and I love it because it's one of my passions. So that's my one for the week. Very cool. I was just looking at that yesterday, I think Sid or definitely this week, but I was just looking at that yesterday and seeing that content of yours blowing up and how how fascinating too, right, because I my guess is you know this what I I won't call it a whim, but it certainly wasn't I don't think in your playbook as the kind of content you were going to be putting out and expecting to see it. So get out there so successfully. So it's very. Cool. You're spot on. Yeah, you're spot on. It was not the type of content that I thought would actually work, but what I did when it popped off, I'm like, OK, the kickbox is telling me it wants more book reviews.

54:05 So I'm doing more book reviews. And I love reading, so it's super easy for me to be able to do. Yeah, some of the most obvious things that we enjoy so much and we are passionate about that we aren't sharing with the world, right. It's once we actually go and start sharing it, we realize, wow, people are actually into this kind of thing. It's it's just funny to me that sometimes we don't connect those dots. And then once we do, it's like, oh, it's like that epiphany, that lightbulb moment. All right, Dr. I'm coming to you next. Please share your wins with us. OK, I have paid someone on Fiverr to get my profile on sub stack up to par and also the page where my newsletter will go. So I'm moving in that direction.

54:54 And also yesterday was my five year wedding anniversary. Yay. I mean we shacked up for 18 years before that but that's OK. And then for my anniversary gift, he gave me a self cleaning litter box for my cats and I. I'm just overwhelmed. I can't get them out-of-the-box that the litter box came in. But I mean they still have yet to use it. But we'll see how that goes. Stay tuned. Dr. We have one of those and it's a life changer. I mean, it's, yeah, it's like. Freaking amazing. Get them to use it though, I mean. Here's a tip.

55:35 Hang on, Alex, here's a tip. But put some of their old litter into it from the old litter box. Oh my God. Wow. OK, good. Google's your friend there. And yeah, Google's your friend. That's what my wife had to do. And I will tell you, if I gave my wife a self cleaning cat litter box for anniversary, I would be standing in the line to sign divorce papers. I'm just saying. Oh. My God, I loved it. It was what I really. Really. Oh, there you go. There you go. Your husband knows you well. That's right. And it started kicks in in track with, you know, the whole new I got a new toilet a couple weeks ago and the boys got a new toilet yesterday so. Did you get him a frying pan? I'm going to get I'm going to give my husband a frying pan, but.

56:22 Yeah, you can get him a frying pan and say listen, you know. Hilarious. Thank you, Dr. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing and let's keep it moving. Matt, do you want to share some wins with us? Yeah, just one I released an episode this week, an interview with Mason Amadeus. Him and his partner are currently doing a morning show as a bit of accountability for themselves called the Bug and Moss Telephone Show. There's a lot of inside jokes wrong with that, but they didn't reflect on hearing the interview. And there's a lot of very kind compliments in the most recent episode that I LinkedIn the chat by the only way to get it that wasn't listed in German. Another reason why Google search is kind of breaking. But yeah, that felt really nice, you know, having a recording of someone saying how nice the interview sounded. That's awesome.

57:11 Congratulations, Matt. Very cool. I think I saw you post on LinkedIn about that. Maybe it was yesterday. But yeah, congratulations Matt and Alex. Any wins for us? Yeah, survived middle school for the first week. I'm starting a new podcast called Podcasting the Podcast, and if I can figure out how to take my chances on Spirit 'cause they have the best flights I might be. I'm going to probably joining you in North Carolina. Awesome, awesome. Congratulations and and. Then I have to find a place to stay, which is all another issue. There's yeah, and there's, I think there's still a few hotel rooms left. Yeah, I'm going to try to fly Spirit, but they also asked if I wanted a seat belt for the wing, so I don't know what we're doing, Chris. Spirit has the best meltdown videos I've ever seen. Every kind of, you know, Karen and all all those videos, it's always about Spirit.

58:09 When, just so I know, when is everybody? Is everybody going Friday or Thursday? Thursday because there's there's this stuff on Friday from at right after lunch. There's stuff all afternoon. I might reach out to you, Chris. I was supposed to go to a networking event with you, but not with you. But I was going to sneak in there and I just couldn't get my act together, so I got to talk to you anyways all. Right there you go. So thank you all for lively conversation. Appreciate it. I won't take up much more of your time because I got to go over across the street to chatter. So please join me if you've got some time. And we are back next week Tuesday, 7:00 AM Eastern Time, live on Clubhouse, live on YouTube, and then of course available for podcast just a couple hours later.

58:53 So until Tuesday, make it a great weekend. Everybody take care.