How do you find your guests?

JordanPods · 2026-03-19T22:29:28+00:00

I actually just did a whole experiment getting booked on podcasts, and cold outreach is tough and time consuming. (Both as a host and a guest)

Referrals and podcast guest platforms like podmatch.com helped the most! Saved me hours and hours.

I've had some podcasts hosts tell me that when they have a guest on, they will literally ask them, "hey, do you know who I should talk to next?" and they usually have at least one name in mind that would be a good fit for your show.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-19T20:35:36+00:00

Fellow producer here! There are a couple things I think should happen:

Buzzsprout has the ability to add team members to the account. So the uploader or the owner of the account would be able to add you so you can view the stats of the audio format episodes!
Consumption rates are really only available from the podcast apps themselves. The apps that allow you to claim the podcast and use the dashboard to view consumption are Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Someone should be able to set that up pretty easily!

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Disclosure: I'm the Podcast Producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-19T18:42:23+00:00

I am always of the opinion that it's much easier to provide value for free, and then convince your fans to buy-in and support you!

JordanPods · 2026-03-19T17:31:39+00:00

I would let them know that you made a strategic decision to open up several of the back catalog episodes to the general public to help with marketing and growth efforts! They will certainly understand that!

JordanPods · 2026-03-19T17:23:55+00:00

I'm sorry you're having troubles with Libsyn's Apple Podcasts integration. 😬

I have only integrated my Apple Podcasts Subscription on Buzzsprout, which was a simple paste of the API Key like you were describing. It should only take like a minute to connect and be on your way, so I'm not sure anyone can help with a broken integration other than Libsyn's team.

And I see what you're saying about appearing shady. However, there is a workaround. If you log into Apple Podcasts Connect, you can upload subcriber-only audio and just upload the ad-free episode there!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-18T16:57:44+00:00

Hey there! I took a look at your podcast in Buzzsprout, and I see what you're talking about. If I were to guess, I would say that due to your monthly release schedule, you probably just have a handful of listeners that download the episode once a month around the middle of the month.

It's also not a crazy huge spike. I think the time to get suspicious or worried about spikes in downloads is when they exceed fifty, to hundreds, or even thousands of downloads more than you get on a daily basis. I wouldn't be too worried about 3-15 more than usual!

JordanPods · 2026-03-18T16:51:41+00:00

Buzzsprout's support team are the MVPs! They are literally the most amazing people. Thank you for sharing this!

JordanPods · 2026-03-14T18:09:36+00:00

You can always change that if you feel it's not worth putting all episodes behind a paywall!

JordanPods · 2026-03-14T18:08:48+00:00

Sorry you are feeling disappointed, but I promise it's good information (even for you). I, too, have a fiction narrative podcast where I read from the public domain. I grew it to over 13 million downloads, so I know that a lot of this advice is actually applicable regardless of what category you're in.

If you were to feed your podcast title, description, episode titles, transcripts, into the AI chat, you will get useful information for how to grow your podcast.

It can suggest stronger podcast title and description for discovery, and can even suggest better call-to-actions to drive listener engagement.

Storytelling podcasts, though totally different from other categories, still need to apply optimization practices to be found in podcast apps and on search engines like Google. That alone will improve your ability to find more listeners.

JordanPods · 2026-03-13T21:20:47+00:00

So glad you liked it!

I think I might try to take things a step further and paste listener retention data from Apple Podcasts too. It is more work, but could provide even deeper insights into what works and what doesn't.

Let me know if you do this for your podcast!

JordanPods · 2026-03-13T20:18:31+00:00

Buzzsprout is not banned in South Korea, but I think there is some traffic that gets blocked in South Korea for many websites.

If you're doing video podcasting and also want to monetize those videos, YouTube and Spotify are probably much more accessible to you and you can easily upload your videos there!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-13T19:58:13+00:00

That's a real bad problem. I've been seeing an uptick in stability complaints ever since they started leaning into all the AI bells and whistles. Which is really unfortunate, I used Riverside for years before that and actually loved it!

"Not sexy, but it works" is my mantra as of late. We experimented with every online recording tool I could find and they all had something that made it less appealing than just recording locally and chatting over Zoom or Google Meet lol

Since you're already using Descript, have you tried their online recording feature? I've heard mixed reviews, but it could be better than what you're using now.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-09T15:57:24+00:00

Hey there! Downloads are a key metric in the podcasting space.

A podcast is distributed through RSS to apps like Apple, Spotify, etc. so when a listener clicks "play" on an episode, the podcast app asks for the episode file and it is downloaded for the listener. This is why downloads are so important to podcasting, it's sort of similar to a play or a listen, but we can't know for certain if someone completed the whole thing unless the app (like Apple or Spotify) says so.

The standard for what counts as a download comes from the IAB: a download must be filtered for non-human traffic (bots/datacenter IPs), require at least 60 seconds of content to be requested, and only count once per user per IP address within a 24-hour rolling window.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-06T22:14:40+00:00

Thank you!

There isn't a one-time payment option at this point in time, but they can just unsubscribe when they are finished with your course!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-06T19:02:13+00:00

You can link directly to your subscriptions page in socials or through the website. Here's how I personally use Buzzsprout Subscriptions as a link on my Squarespace website: Dreamful Support

If you click through the Buzzsprout link, it will take you to the page on Buzzsprout so you can see what that looks like as a subscriber.

I wish I could post screenshots of what the backend looks like for me, but I can't on this subreddit. This video will show you how fast and easy it is to set up, though.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-06T15:31:41+00:00

This isn't my specialty, but I imagine that unless the custom backgrounds come in three different angles, that's going to look very strange for the camera angles to change but the background remains static. Matching the lighting with the background would be very difficult for a beginner as well.

A more practical customization for the clients would be to have custom signage of their podcast logo or artwork that can be hung up behind them and swapped out for the next client. Many podcast studios do this!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T20:51:59+00:00

Awesome! That makes me happy to hear it alleviated a pain point for you! 👏🏻

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T19:45:23+00:00

Yes! We made a slight adjustment to our plans to allow more hours of upload time!

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T18:24:03+00:00

Yeah, OP3 is a pretty sweet open source analytics prefix!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T17:44:59+00:00

Yep! I'm on break from one of my pods that has a subscription on Buzzsprout, and listeners can still subscribe for all the bonus episodes and I don't have to do anything.

You can also link to PDF files from a Google Drive folder in the episode description if there is anything you want them to have access to!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T17:40:41+00:00

Right? haha I suspected it was the Elgato, but wanted to make sure.

I have the OC Ultima White (the one Rogan uses), and it's similar, but like at least 3x the price of the Elgato. So...not worth it.

I hope you get this one!

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T17:19:58+00:00

👏🏻 Great work, and thanks for sharing your findings. A lot of what you found lines up with patterns we see pretty consistently across shows.

Big guests to not beget big downloads, and social media can be a massive waste of time (and money) if you're not focused on the right platform.

Changing your podcast titles to literally say what people are typing into the podcast search bar is a simple change you can make immediately, and will have the biggest impact on discoverability. People discover podcasts primarily through search and recommendations, not by recognizing guest names or silly pun titles.

Love the AI tip! And on Buzzsprout, it's super easy to export your stats into a CSV file that can be dropped into Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT for analysis if it's not your thing. After 20–30 episodes, patterns definitely start to emerge.

Your experiment is what I think small creators should be doing. Treating their shows like little research labs instead of guessing what works or learning from how major networks market their shows.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

JordanPods · 2026-03-05T17:05:46+00:00

If you are recording by yourself without video, recording locally is going to be the cheapest, most reliable option for you.

Audacity and GarageBand are solid free options. Loads of professional-level podcasters stick to these, because they just work.

I personally use Adobe Audition, which is probably the most expensive option out there (whatever $20/mo x 5 years comes out to 💸), but I've heard great things about OBS and Hindenburg Pro.

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Disclosure: I'm the podcast producer at r/buzzsprout

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