New Media Prescription: Don’t “Complain to the Choir” when producing New Media

March 2, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

We need to talk…

One of the great strengths of New Media — be it blogging, videos, photos, social media — is the ability to connect directly to your audience. You don’t have any middlemen distorting your message or otherwise getting in the way. Unfortunately, this also means you don’t have someone watching over your shoulder to gently nudge you and say, “Perhaps you might want to re-think that.”

One common trap I see for New Media producers is, what I all, “Complaining to the Choir.” Like the age old adage against “preaching to the choir”, it is to be avoided for a number of reasons. First of all, though, what does it mean when you are “Complaining to the Choir?” It means to complain to those people who are actually the opposite of those you want to address.

When things aren’t going well for a new media producers — videos are getting liked, viewed or shared — blog posts are being ignored — revenue isn’t coming in — producers can spend entire posts, videos or podcasts complaining about the issue. They’ll cajole, they’ll berate, they will express their sadness and their fear that they might have to go back to their old way of work. As a fellow producer, I can empathize with them. Being a producer means facing criticism, nasty feedback, Internet trolls and other burdens on a daily basis. That said, I also understand that bringing this negativity into a show or blog can have exactly the opposite effect they wish to have. Focusing on the negative can actually reduce views, downloads and readers ben further , if you do it too often.

As a producer, your best approach is to ignore the negativity and simply move on to your next production. Focusing on the negative will only depress you further.

Here is why “Complaining to the Choir” is such a bad idea:

You annoy your biggest supporters

It is a simple fact that those a producer would most like to reach with their message probably aren’t watching, listening or reading anyway. Instead you are complaining to your biggest supporters — and perhaps driving them away, too. Your supporters come to your blog, your video, your podcasts because they love the content you produce. If you produce a show full of complaints and low on content, you are actively disrespecting their support. It is like a preacher complaining to the choir that no one comes to church anymore, even those these people do come to church AND also participate in other ways.

You produce yet another show with low viewership, low likes and low shares

When you produce a complaining show, you are expanding the effect you are complaining about and driving your ratings even lower. It is fair to say that a show filled with complaints, directed at the wrong people, is sure to garner less views and popularity than one of your traditional, content rich show. I had that very experience today. I watched the complaining show, but I could not bring myself to click the Like button, as I couldn’t honestly recommend it my followers as a show they should watch. They wouldn’t find it enjoyable and I would feel that I had offered a bad recommendation.

Complaints don’t drive success, great content does

While I can understand producers feeling worried and upset over various issues, it is always important to remember that content, not complaints drives your success. Viewers don’t really care if you are struggling. They come for the great content and many will support you by clicking Like or subscribing. If you want to truly have an effect on your issues, produce more great content. It is the only thing that matters. It is the only thing that will attract the support you need and desire.

Share your personal life, but perhaps not your producer life

Producing new media can be a lonely world, but beware of sharing your feelings about your show with your audience. They probably don’t care. Sure, you can share your thoughts about other personal issues, life changes, struggles, etc, but when you bring your producer complains to the conversation a subtle line is crossed. People lose sight of you as a person and start to think of you as just another faceless media drone. Viewers love to know more about your personal life, but they don’t really care about the nitty-gritty of being a producer. Most viewers don’t want to know “how the sausage is made” as long as it results in great content.

The next time you are feeling worried or depressed about your New Media productions and their success, seek out a close personal friend or a New Media user group to air your complaints and worries. Don’t take them to your audience. Your complains do nothing to benefit the audience and can only harm your standing with them.

Now, get back to work and produce something GREAT!

Subscribed 018: Thinking Allowed from BBC Radio 4

December 28, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

Subscribed is my series highlighting the Podcasts, YouTube Channels and Blogs that I follow on a daily basis. Check out this entry, and past entries, for some great New Media Content — Douglas

Subscribed 018: Subscribed 018: Thinking Allowed from BBC Radio 4

I figured I might as well double-down on last week’s post about another BBC Radio 4 show, In Our Time, and post my other, favorite show from the BBC. Thinking Allowed with host, Laurie Taylor is all about culture and society. His guest regularly include authors and experts on sociology and culture as he explores 2 topics during each episode. Recent shows include discussions on Intoxication and Drugs, History, Heritage and Tradition in British Politics, Children in Hospitals, Family Funerals and Red Tape in India.

I love the far ranging topics of the shows and also the unique British take on problems and issues that effect all nations and cultures. It gives a fresh perspective on topics that have become the realm of dogma in American society. I tend to listen to both these shows as I drive around on client calls or as an educational moment when I am in the kitchen cooking dinner. As an audio podcast, it perfectly fills those 2 podcasting niches for me.

Like In Our Time, I highly recommend Thinking Allowed as a large part of any self-directed educational program. We should all be learning something new every day and this show is a great way to do it!

Check out more info on the In Our Time web site at BBC Radio 4

What are some of your favorite Subscriptions? Share them here in the comments!

Previously highlighted on Subscribed:

New Media Prescription: Every podcaster needs a YouTube Channel

November 5, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

I have been spending a lot of time working on my YouTube channel lately, mainly due to my observation of how various gaming channels have created some amazing programming there. With gaming the #2 category on YouTube, many of the channels I am subscribed to are supporting their creators as a full time job. It isn’t easy, of course. Extremely popular channels have to constantly be populated with new, entertaining content, and their creators will be the first to tell you how challenging it can be. I have been watching these producers very carefully and noting the methods they use improve my own YouTube channel.

Still, as a long time podcaster, more and more I am seeing the need for every podcaster — whether predominantly audio or video — to create and maintain their own YouTube channel.

For me, podcasting and YouTube are complimentary and can work quite well together. Combine this with live streaming options that tie into YouTube (TwitchTV and Google Hangouts are 2 examples) and you could have a potent source of new audience members and even income to help you grow your show.

Every podcaster needs a YouTube Channel

Ease of monetization

Monetizing podcasts can be difficult. There is no podcast equivalent of Google Adsense, so producers are forced to become their own advertising salesforce. Finding advertisers and/or show sponsors can be extremely time consuming and frustrating. It is also a never-ending burden as you are constantly having to find new advertisers and sponsors for your show. Also, since podcasts are downloaded directly to the computer of your audience, there is no easy way to include dynamic advertising or create web links to products and sponsor web sites.
YouTube, on the other hand, can provide a solution to nearly all these issues.

Using the Google Adsense model, Google sales reps find the advertisers, assist in creating the advertising and manage the system that dynamically inserts that advertising into your YouTube videos based not only on the content of your shows, but also on the interests of the viewer.
As has been seen with Adsense revenue on web sites, Adsense earnings are nearly directly proportional to the number of readers/viewers that your content. In most cases, creating content that attracts viewers drives higher earnings and further growth while allowing you to focus on the content of the shows, not ad sales.
Further, the built-in rating engine and other metrics used by Google to suggest videos to users, can create its own feedback loop of support and audience generation. Together this creates a monetization model that can hold large potential benefits. with little work on the part of the podcaster.

Introduce your show to an entirely different audience

People often forget that YouTube is, at its heart, a social network much like all the others. While some of your current listeners and/or viewers night also follow you on YouTube, you will be introducing yourself to a large, new audience that has never heard of you — or your show — before. This is true of ay social network. Yes, there will always be some overlap, but there will also be a significant amount of new potential audience members in the mix. Go where you audience (or potential audience) congregates. In today’s world, YouTube is one of the most important places to be seen.

Current video podcasts easily re-purposed on a YouTube channel

If you are already producing some video content, a YouTube Channel is a great way to gain more exposure and audience with very little extra work.

Work as a companion to audio podcasts

Printed text can be an intimate connection between the writer and the reader — witness how many people cry at the end of a Harry Potter book. That said, as most podcasters have found, audio can be even more intimate. I often describe audio podcasting as “whispering in the ears” of my audience. This creates a deeper connection with your audience has they hear your voice, its inflections and tone. Still, video is more intimate still. The ability to see your face, your expressions, your movements bring an entirely different level of intimacy to the equation. If you are doing only an audio podcast, I would highly recommend creating some small video companion pieces which you can share via your regular podcast feed and also as part of your YouTube channel. In some cases, you might be about to repurpose your existing audio shows by “enhancing” them with graphics, photos and other supporting material. You can even use technology like QR codes and audio cues (See “Using Chirp to…) to add interactive features to your audio shows.
In a reverse example, I am seeing video podcasters and YouTube producers also creating audio only, long form, content as a companion to their shorter video presentations. In one case, Eric Rochow from Gardenfork.tv was producing short videos on food, farming, beekeeping and more for his video podcast. Like many producers, though, he saw the need for content his viewers could consume while doing other tasks like working in the garden or driving a vehicle. (one great advantage of audio podcasts). He also wanted to explore topics more thoroughly and more easily invite guests in for discussions. To fill that need, Eric created Gardenfork Radio, a fairly traditional talk radio show with segments on all his typical topics, a co-host with which to discuss these topics, interview guests and more. I see Eric’s combination of the video and audio as an excellent example of how podcasters can make use of both audio and video to reach a larger audience will also providing more in-depth information in a longer form show.

Consuming YouTube (and other) video via mobile now infinitely easier than before

In the past, when bandwidth was expensive and mobile bandwidth was slow to non-existent, it was difficult to consume video. Podcasting, due to its download model, allowed users to easily download content while and home and sync it to their mobile device for watching and listening wherever they might be. Due to the increasing speed of mobile bandwidth and the stability of various streaming alternatives for both audio and video, podcasting has lost a bit of its advantage. Yes, there are still times when podcasting can shine — such as when you are away from reliable cell phone coverage or on a limited bandwidth data plan, but the podcasting download model holds less advantage than ever before. In this case, I think that streaming technology has “won” over podcasting in some ways. Yes, I still use both methods for accessing my favorite content, but as apps like Stitcher and Apple’s own Podcasting app have show — listeners want to be able to stream your content as well as subscribe in the usual podcast fashion.

What are your thoughts about YouTube channels and how podcaster might make use of them?

Use the comments here to let me know and continue the conversation.

You can check out my own YouTube channel here

Elsewhere: Radio Killed The Podcasting Star

August 6, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

I definitely agree with some of what this article has to say. Non-mainstream podcasts have the potential to change things dramatically, but without a unified method of discovering and monetizing podcasts most languish in obscurity. Apple’s podcast directory is woefully inadequate and dominated by mainstream radio and it contains no way to monetize podcasts through subscriptions or advertising. Secondly, there is no unified ad market where podcasters can turn for monetization. YouTube, with its connections to Google Adsense and easily monetization options is a far better environment for making money with your podcast — if you happen to produce video and not audio-only programs.

For greatest chance at success, it has to be as easy to watch or listen to podcasts (and discover them) as it is to turn on the television or radio. Until the time that there is some parity between entertainment doing from a variety of sources, podcasts will always be second class citizens of the media world.

Radio Killed The Podcasting Star

Podcasters are to radio what bloggers are to newspapers: independent voices taking attention away from mainstream media. At least that was the theory, when professional podcasts and blogs were getting started in the 2000s. But unlike blogs, podcasts by indie voices have not gone on to seriously challenge the mainstream media incumbents. Where is the Ariana Huffington of podcasting? Can you name a political podcaster who’s had the same impact as Josh Marshall and his Talking Points Memo blog? Sadly, there are no podcasting stars – and it’s all radio’s fault.

Read the entire article

Real World Example: Moving to a new podcasting web host and why

July 10, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

As you may have read a few weeks ago, when Apple released its new Podcasts app for iOS devices, I discovered that my long running podcast, Career Opportunities, had disappeared from the iTunes Podcast Directory. When I looked at the listings for my other podcasts, I noticed that they seemed to be having issues updating their information and logo graphics. When I tried to re-submit Career Opportunities to the iTunes Podcast Directory, I also found that my GoDaddy Shared Hosting did not provide the byte-range request feature that iTunes now required to register a podcast. This set in process a whole series of actions which have now all been completed. This post is an attempt to catalog what I needed to do to repair the situation and put my web site and podcasts on good footing for the future.

Career Opportunities in iTunes Podcast Directory

New Web Hosting

First, I needed to find a new web host that could support podcasting, hosting my own media files and also 5 WordPress blogs. Based on the recommendation of (fellow Friends in Tech member) Steve over at the GeekCred podcast, I decided to move to Dreamhost. I contacted Dreamhost with a few questions and they confirmed they did indeed support byte-range requests on their server and could also deal with the more the 20GB of data that make up my web site.

One Dreamhost feature that made my web site move easier than ever before is that they support shell access for their web hosting accounts. This means I am able to login to a command line on my web host and use that command line for various functions. In my case, this meant I could use the WGET command to mirror my entire web site directly from my GoDaddy server to the new server. The reason for doing this, of course, is speed. To upload just one podcast, A Gardener’s Notebook, from my home computer to the new web host was estimated to take almost 7 hours at the full speed of my cable Internet connection. Because the web servers are on higher speed connections, though, I was able to move the files directly between the web hosts at 3MB/sec and accomplish the entire move in about 1.5 hours. This dramatic difference made me realize how critical shell access is to anyone is who moving their web site to a new host. I understand from others that Dreamhost is one of the few web hosting companies that provides shell access, but I would find this to be a critical need for any podcaster who hosts their own media files. We simply have too much data to be troubled by uploading our entire library from a standard Internet connection.

WordPress Database Move

Since I have 5 WordPress blogs on my site, after all the static files had been moved to the new web host, it was time to consider moving all the databases that hold the content for these blogs. This is not something I am experienced with, so I called on another Friends in Tech member, Kreg from the Technorama podcast, to help me move those files. Kreg wasn’t available immediately, so I began to poke around in the process and see if I might be able to do it myself. As it turned out I was able to export all the data from the old system and import it into the new. A few quick changes to each wp-config.php file on the blogs and I found that everything was working on the new site. It was a great learning exercise and also means I won’t be so leery of moving databases in the future. Once again, Dreamhost’s Control Panel and help files made it a straightforward and easy process.

Re-submitting to the iTunes Podcast Directory

First, as a word of warning, if your podcast is dropped from the iTunes Podcast Directory, you will be able to re-submit it, but all your ratings and reviews will be lost. Your podcast will also receive a new, different, ID number and link in the iTunes Podcast Directory. This could be quite damaging for a particularly popular podcast, so do everything you can to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

Mainly, make sure that iTunes can easily and regular access your RSS feed. In my case, it appears that GoDaddy is doing such aggressive traffic management that external services like iTunes, Feedburner and others are refused connection to your web host on a regular basis. I found this to be especially true when trying to re-submit my podcast. I would get 10-12 error messages of Connection Reset before iTunes was able to access my RSS feed. Conversely, when re-submitting from Dreamhost I received no Connection Reset errors. iTunes immediately recognized my feed.

One big issue when re-submitting your podcast is that you cannot submit the RSS URL that you are currently using for your podcast. If you do, iTunes will tell you that it is a duplicate podcast. Instead, I took my existing RSS feed, saved it to a static file (in my case, I named it index-fix.xml) and then stripped out all by a few podcast entries. Then I used this URL to re-submit the show to iTunes. Since my feed already contained all the appropriate iTunes XML entries (since I use Blubrry Powerpress to generate the feed) iTunes recognized all the settings and re-addded the podcast. Career Opportunities then reappeared in the iTunes Podcast Directory in about 1 day.

Of course, you want iTunes to use your old RSS feed as the main feed for its listings, so you need to re-point iTunes back to your original feed. Once the podcast had reappeared in the iTunes Podcast Directory I was ready to take the next step. iTunes provides an XML tag that allows you re-point iTunes to a new, different RSS feed. This tag is

<itunes:new-feed-url>http://welchwrite.com/career/feed/</itunes:new-feed-url>

Of course, you should use your own RSS URL in place of mine above. You place this tag immediately after the <CHANNEL> tag in the RSS file. I edited the index-fix.XML file and added this tag using a text editor. Within an hour or so, iTunes had seen this change and re-pointed the iTunes Podcast Directory listing back to its original feed.

Don’t forget email accounts and subdomains

On my web site I had quite a few email aliases and 2 subdomains on my old web host. Remember that these will need to be set up fresh on your new web host. I prefer to set all of this up before pointing my domain name at the new site. Every web host will provide you a temporary domain name for your new site so that you can test out nearly all functions before “throwing the switch” to send everyone over to the new web host. In my case, everything seemed to be working well at this point, so it was time to reset the DNS servers to point to the new web host.

Switching your domain

In my case, my domains will remain hosted at GoDaddy for the time being, although I will probably move them in the future. I prefer to take one step at a time so I don’t create multiple problems for myself. The process of moving is complicated enough without adding additional, simultaneous issues on top of it. Dreamhost provided me with the IP addresses for their Domain Name Servers so I only had to visit GoDaddy and enter those numbers for each domain to point it away from GoDaddy’s web servers and off to Dreamhost’s.

It can be a bit difficult to tell when the switch over has occurred as, ideally, the sites should function in exactly the same way. In my case, I added a small notice to my home page telling visitors that I was moving web sites. I only added this note to the front page of the new web host. Every so often I would reload my main page in my web browser. When I saw that the page included the web move notice, I knew I was looking at the new web host and not the old one. Within about an hour I noticed that visits to http://welchwrite.com were already pointing over to the new web host.

Complete

I has now been about 3 days since I made the move and I am quite happy with how it worked out. The new web host at Dreamhost seems a bit faster and, more importantly, it doesn’t seem to throw up the Connection Reset errors I was seeing with GoDaddy. I have also noticed that the listings for my other podcasts now have been updated and include the appropriate logos and a current list of episodes available. I am fairly confident now that I shouldn’t have any on-going issues with my podcast listings down the road.

If you have any questions or comments about my experience, please add your comments below. I would love to hear them!

Apple podcasting changes cause problems with GoDaddy-hosted podcasts

June 28, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

Update (July 10, 2012): I have written up an entire post about my experiences moving web hosts due to the problem below.

You can read it at Real World Example: Moving to a new podcasting web host and why – Douglas

This week, when Apple released their new Podcasts app for iOS, I sadly noted that one of my podcasts had gone missing from the iTunes Podcast Directory. I am still gathering information as to why the podcast disappeared, but in trying to re-submit it I came across an even larger problem.

Despite hosting my sites on a GoDaddy Shared Server for years, changes at Apple and limitations at GoDaddy have combined to make it impossible to host a podcast using GoDaddy Shared servers.

Over time, and on-going, I have had issues with my web server sending “Connection Reset” error to the various services I use, including Feedburner and various RSS feed services. This also presented itself when attempting to re-submit my podcast. It often took 10-15 attempts for iTunes to access the RSS feed.

Itunes connect

Once iTunes could see the feed, though, another, much larger problem arose. I recieved the following error:

Itunes byte

“There is a problem with your feed. Your episodes are hosted on a server which doesn’t support byte-range requests. Enable byte-range requests and try your submission again.”

It seems this might be a new requirement in the iTunes Podcast Directory, as I don’t remember running into this problem in the past. According to GoDaddy this IS a new requirement from Apple and, even worse, they cannot/will not provide the byte-range request services on their Shared Server hosting plans.

“The error that you are receiving is being caused because our shared hosting servers do not support the format that your podcast is being added as. This means that you will not be able to use this method to broadcast your podcasts.”

So it appears that GoDaddy shared servers are no longer capable of hosting podcasts. While you may not experience any immediate issues with your show, it could be in danger of being dropped from the iTunes Podcast Directory and should that happen, you will not be able to re-submit your show, due to Apple’s requirements for byte-range requests.

I am now in the process of finding a new web host and moving all 20GB+ of my site to the new server, as well as moving 6 WordPress blogs that are hosted there. If you are hosting on a GoDaddy Shared Server, you may want to consider doing the same before you are caught by this issue.

“Marketing is Dead!” Long Live “Introductions”

April 5, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

After many years of talking about marketing, learning about marketing and consuming marketing. I feel confident in saying that “Marketing”, with a big M, is dead. The term carries so much baggage — so much angst and, in some ways, so much hatred, that it is worse than useless as a definition. Marketing’s meaning is perverted and distorted so much that people now have a visceral, physical, hateful reaction to the mere mention of the word. Marketing is dead…or should be… and we need to find not only new methods of “marketing”, but also new theories, new tactics and basically a whole lot a NEW ideas.

Since the term marketing is so loaded, I think we need to usurp or create a new moniker for our active efforts to sell our books, music, movies, shows, arts and crafts. After some quick thought, the term Introduction seems a useful replacement. Instead of screaming our marketing at someone, via television, newspaper, magazine and radio, we should instead seek to introduce people to our work. We should then support them — in any way possible — in introducing our work to others. These introductions aren’t tied to money, prestige or other perks, but rather introductions are given on the basis of value. Each person is told, “if you like this, introduce it to your friends, family and peers.”

Author Seth Godin often talks about the need for a Purple Cow — something so unique, so fun so great — that people simply cannot NOT talk about. (Link to the book) When that happens, old school marketing goes out the window and new school Introductions begins. Still, you only have to watch TV, listen to the radio or read a newspaper to see that old school marketing still seems to be the only thing that people understand.

We must share our work!

As content creators, we MUST market — er, Introduce, — ourselves to the world. Books and scripts don’t sell themselves in a drawer. Music doesn’t sell itself in your computer recording studio. Photos can’t be hidden in the dark. In order to sell our products, they must be seen by the world — seen and appreciated. To start this process, we must introduce them to the world through people that appreciate them and activities that share them to like-minded people. This isn’t the scattershot screaming of today’s “Marketing.” It is a careful cultivation of people who can grow with you and your product over the years.

In seems only smart to change our tactics. If you talk to people about marketing most seem cynical, distraught and angry. Some even wish they didn’t do the marketing work they currently do. How sad! Is this where marketing has led us? You can understand their cynicism, though. The methods that were so carefully honed over the last 2-3 centuries are failing us. Changes in the our world, economy and technology have systematically stripped away the usefulness of old marketing, but as of yet, very little new thought has arisen to take its place. It is almost like we are shipwreck survivors who would rather go down with the debris from the ship than try to swim to the nearby shore. We are too afraid to try something new, even though the old is sinking beneath us. Instead we wallow in our cynicism and anger.

Introductions

Enter Introductions. Introductions are not about shouting at strangers, it is about conversing with friends. It is not about seeking the mass market, but rather the close knit niche markets that the Internet has made possible. It isn’t about sell, sell, sell as much as it is about share, share, share, talk, talk, talk and then, hopefully, sell, sell, sell. You aren’t trying to convince people to buy, you are rather introducing them to a product and then helping them come to their own thoughts of the benefits and desire to buy your product. Yes, it is still selling, but in a much different way.
The old method of marketing is like some carnival barker shouting about all the great wonders you will see inside the tent. Introductions are more like a casual discussion over a latte at your local coffee bar. Marketing is about short term, one chance, buy it now or get out of my face. Introductions are more “Check it out. See what you think. Tell your friends if you think it is fun, cool, useful.”

Are Introductions the answer to are current marketing woes? Who knows? That is one of the problems today. No one knows what is coming next and so they cling to the past. It frightens them to the point of inaction. That can’t see what the future holds and are scared to death of going there. Unfortunately, the future doesn’t care what we feel or how afraid we are. The future arrives regardless. It is time to start thinking new thoughts about marketing. My concept of Introductions is simply one possible way. Maybe you have something better, just waiting to be discovered.

The marketing ship is sinking! Isn’t it about time you let go of the ship and started swimming to shore. I know I am paddling as fast as I can to get there.

What are your thoughts about the future of marketing? Does it even have a future under a different name? Share your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear what you think!

Let your audience find you, wherever they might be in the world

April 3, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

It always thrills me when I look at my Google Analytics pages and see something like this.

Readers from around the world (Los Angeles, Limerick, Paris and Nei-Heu, China) on my web site.

While I sit her writing this, people from all over the world are looking at the content on my web site. This might be a blog post, a photo, listening to a podcast — whatever. How cool is that?

One fact I try to bring home to others is that they too could be doing the same. There is nothing stopping them — perhaps their own fear — from addressing a worldwide audience with whatever message they might want to deliver. Imagine stepping up to a microphone that broadcasts around the world simultaneously. All you have to do is step up to it with something to say. Scary? It can be, but the benefits to you, your business, your cause and the world should far outweigh any fear.

Your job is to put your message out there and let your audience find you. With today’s powerful search engines, no matter how esoteric your message, or how small you might think you are, an audience — YOUR AUDIENCE — will find you. All you have to do is make your message available in some way.

What’s holding you back? What frightens you most? What information do you think you need? Ask your questions in the comments and I will be glad to offer any help I can.

This is my personal invitation for you to try it. By the power vest in me I give you full license to explore New Media, in all its forms, and what it can do for you. Like the Wizard of Oz, I am merely showing you what already have in your heart and head. Your courage is already there in your hands. It is time to wield your New Media tools to make a better life, a better business and maybe even a better world. Go!

New Media Producers need to pay their workers SOMETHING!

March 19, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

It is a sad fact of the entertainment business that many of the entry level workers are unpaid interns who are working in order to build their “reel”. Working to build your portfolio is fine, up to a point. In reality, we all need to eat. We all need clothe ourselves. We all need to support our families. Low pay is one thing. NO PAY is another thing entirely!

I understand that in the past, New Media projects have been cash poor. These shows and channels were typically bootstrapped on nothing more than the time and pocket change of those involved. Pay was little, if any, simply because there wasn’t any money to give. That’s not true anymore.

Today, money is beginning to flow into New Media projects, through advertising and programs like YouTube’s Content Initiative, Amazon and Netflix production programs, DVD sales, merchandising, online rentals and more. As this money comes in, producers need to make sure that some of it makes it down to every level of their production organization. Asking someone to work for free when the producers are working for free is one thing.

Asking others to work for free when there is revenue coming in — revenue they helped to generate — is entirely another.

Producers, if someone is good enough at their job that you want them working on your project — PAY THEM! To do otherwise is offensive and disrespectful. Respect those who are helping you develop your project — with your actions, your words and your dollars.

I’m not saying you need to put all your revenue into payroll, but some payment commensurate with the work and with your current revenue is the right thing to do. As your revenue increases, so should your worker’s pay. You benefit from this arrangement, too. Paying your workers helps to insure that they work for you and don’t have to (or want to) go work for someone else.

So, to put the finest point on it possible….

New Media producers should pay all levels of their staff — SOMETHING — ANYTHING!

It is productive. It is important. It is right!

For me, in my business dealings — everyone has to win…or everyone will eventually lose. You would be wise to remember that.

Give it some time!

January 14, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

Can I make a request to my fellow, tech-oriented members of my social media circles?

Can you live with a change, a new device, a new piece of software, a new online service for more than .952 nanoseconds before pronouncing it one of the following options?

Apple Killer
iPad Killer
Facebook Killer
Totally destroys the service
Totally destroys privacy
Totally destroys the world
Worst Change Ever! (In Comic Book Man’s Voice)

I know there is an overwhelming desire to be “FIRST!” in everything, but frankly it is just plain annoying. Even worse, it does nothing to further the conversation. All it is is egocentric social media masturbation.

I can hear the wheels turning in your head…

“If I’m right, then I can ride on that for years. I was the one the predicted the failure of Google+, Personal Search, Facebook Timeline, etc.!

If I’m wrong, no one will remember. WIN! and WIN!”

To make a real-world analogy, you would go buy a new dog, but the first time it failed to do a trick, clean up after itself or fetch you a beer, you would return it to the store demanding a refund.

The first time the mail carrier put your mail all in one direction instead of the other, it would be cause for 1000 words on the proper way to deliver mail.

SHEESH!

Want to know what’s worse? After a while we all start to tune you out. In most cases we can already predict what you are going to say AND after a while, we don’t really care. Ouch!

You can try to talk louder, faster, bitchier, snarkier, stupider, but you already lost the game. We have moved on to someone who considers more and writes less.

Come on! We are all better than this. Can we live with new things for a while? Can we investigate what makes them good, bad or indifferent? Can we stop wanting to be “FIRST!” and see what something really does before we go out spewing unknowledgeable claptrap just to stroke our own egos and hear ourselves talk!

How about we all agree to a a 1 week moratorium on new features, services and software? 1 day? Anything?

I figure not because the desire to be “FIRST!” burns too brightly in the hearts of those who would rather be FIRST than right.

Opportunity is the chief ROI of social media

June 8, 2011 by Douglas E. Welch

“…opportunities are the chief currency of social media. These opportunities can be social, life-enhancing or monetary, but it is the opportunity itself that is the dollar bill of today’s society.”

As the social media world matures the discussion surrounding it has become all about ROI (return on investment). How many followers do I have? How many subscribers? How many viewers? And finally, how much money am I making. There is a lot being lost among all the talk of Klout scores, Twitter Influence and Facebook Likes. For me — and I would guess for most people who aren’t making a living working in social media itself — opportunities are the chief currency of social media. These opportunities can be social, life-enhancing or monetary, but it is the opportunity itself that is the dollar bill of today’s society.

Quality, not quantity

The problem with social media, and traditional media for that matter, is that we are constantly looking for that one metric, that one measure that “proves” just how important we are. We are frustrated by not knowing something and not knowing just how popular or productive we are irks us to no end. We jump from service to service looking for the magic bullet that will explain our place in the social media universe. What a sad and sorry lot in life. It is this search that leads to Twitter spam, endless begging to “Like Me on Facebook” and social media pyramid schemes that are nothing by mutual, mental, masturbation.

There are countless articles available that seek to prove that the number of followers does not equal influence — that it is the quality of those you interact with, rather than the quantity, that is most important. In some ways I believe this myself. While there is a certain number of people (I guess at around 150) that can turn into a self-generating conversational group, it is the quality of what these people are saying that is important.

For myself, this is exactly how I choose who to pay attention to online. No matter how nice they might be as a person, or how well-known, if what they are sharing online doesn’t have value for me, I do not follow. If I can find their information in a hundred different places i.e. celebrity websites, I do not follow. They may be writing amazing things about knitting or programming or horse care, but if it doesn’t have value to me, I do not need to clutter up my online living room with it. I look for the under-seen, the under-heard, the people who have really neat things to say regardless of how well-known they are.

Opportunities

After immersing myself in the social media world for years now, including writing and consulting about it, I have come to believe that “the opportunity” is the only social media currency that matters. If you want to measure the ROI of your social media interactions, watch closely for the quantity, and quality, of opportunities it brings your way. These opportunities can range from the very personal to the very public, from high personal value to high business value and everywhere in between.

If your social media goal is to meet and work with interesting people, “the opportunity” might be finding these people online and then meeting them in person. You might even find yourself collaborating with them on a project. If this is your goal, then it has much higher ROI than someone Liking your Facebook page or following you on Twitter. In this case, social media was the tool you used, but the opportunity for collaboration was, by far, the biggest benefit. For me, one, great collaborative partner outweighs a score of social media follows. It is a much better metric for measuring your success and influence than any other score you can find.

If, on the other hand, your social media goal is to sell as much product as possible, your “opportunities” might take a different form. Sure, you can count sales and dollars (which are really just a different kind of opportunity) or you can judge your success on the other opportunities these sales bring to you. Perhaps more sales means you can expand your store, expand your influence, expand your lifestyle. This is the true goal and measure you need.

Too often we get caught up in keeping score of those things that don’t really matter. This is where I think that social media goes most astray. We focus so hard on the numbers — the followers, the likes, the sales — that we start doing things we might not do otherwise. We spam our friends. We scam our customers. We shout so loud and so long that, after a time, no one wants to hear anything we have to say. In some extreme cases, we can even cross the line into illegal activities like fraud and embezzling. If the social media numbers are all that is important, then some will do almost anything to achieve them.

Time for a change

It is time to reevaluate our relationship to social media and being to realize that it isn’t something apart from our lives, but instead an integral part of our lives. We need to stop chasing the illusive rainbow of social media metrics and instead focus on how it effects our lives. We need to look at the opportunities is brings to us each day and evaluate our actions accordingly. These opportunities may be small and personal or grand and corporate, but they are the true currency of social media. In this way, the act of meeting an amazing and interesting person can carry as much weight as landing a huge contract — a short, deep, amazing conversation takes on as much value as investment in your startup. Social media can mean many things to many people, but opportunities, in all their forms, can be seen as a true benefit — a true ROI — by nearly everyone.

Do you have questions or comments on this topic? Please leave a comment using the link above.

Promote your favorite podcasts and help other listen/watch

March 7, 2011 by Douglas E. Welch

You may have noticed my recent posting series, “Recently Listened Podcasts“. Each week I collect the list of shows I have listened to (or watched, for video shows) and place that in my blog with links back to iTunes.

As someone interested in New Media, may I ask you to do the same on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc?

There is a lot of great content out there in the New Media world, but it can still be difficult for the average person to find and download shows that might be of interest to them. Help them out by highlighting your favorite shows and, when you can, help them subscribe and listen to podcasts. I often take a few minutes to introduce my computer consulting clients to podcasts whenever I am with them. This is especially true of clients who are purchasing their first iPod, iPhone of iPad. I try to recommend shows that already meet their interests and even give them a quick walk-through of how to find, subscribe, listen and watch to podcasts.

As podcasters and new media professionals, we can all do more to get the word out about great podcast content and help others find shows that can entertain, educate and enlighten.

How do you make a living in New Media?

January 31, 2011 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Listen to the podcast

How do you make a living in New Media? I received this great question a few weeks ago and wanted to answer it publicly in hopes that others may benefit.

Here is the question…

“Hi, Mr. Welch. I’m a mom. My son is going to college majoring in (guess what) new media. As a parent I’m wondering how my son is going to make a living in new media, and not feeling like I knew enough about it, I found your Welchwrite.com site. I watched your speech to the Independent Filmmakers, and I have a clearer understanding of what new media is and the best way to use it, so thanks for that. However my fundamental question remains: how does one make a living in this field? Please help. Thank you.”

..and here is my answer…

There are several ways of building a career based on New Media. Two typical career paths include:

Taking the entertainment route and becoming a producer of your own New Media content, such as producing your own audio or video show

Using your New Media skills to help others produce their content.

Entertainment Path

Here in Los Angeles, many people are taking the traditional entertainment industry approach and attempting to create their own New Media properties in hopes that they can gather an audience, support themselves and perhaps even rival the success of mainstream entertainment.I find this a harder road to follow, as there is a lot of competition, but there can be great rewards for those who hit upon the right property.

This approach to a New Media career tends to be the preferred method for those working, or hoping to work, in the entertainment industry, such as actors, comedians and musicians, as they already have a talent to showcase and New Media provides them an easy distribution method for their work. They can use New Media to show “what they do and how well they do it” to a large number of people and gather an audience around them. This can then lead to mainstream exposure or, in some cases, provide significant income to support themselves from their New Media shows, along with the income from ancillary products like live shows and merchandise.

It is important to remember that there are levels of success in the entertainment industry, despite its focus on the “star system.” While a New Media personality may not garner the money and attention of a Hollywood star, they may find that they can gather a dedicated audience who see them as a star in their own, smaller world, and also provide enough monetary support to provide them a life which many would see as successful. You shouldn’t get caught in the trap of thinking that you must become the next Madonna or Kevin Smith or Jon Stewart. There are many levels of success and New Media could make you very successful indeed.

Consulting Path

Another approach to a New Media career is to become an employee or consult with those people who want to establish their own New Media presence. Your skills at creating and managing New Media are in demand from a wide variety of companies and clients. This is the direction my own New Media career has taken. While I produce my own shows around my personal interests, my long experience in podcasting and New Media allows me to help others create their own New Media properties as well as speak and instruct on New Media topics.

The major benefit to this type of New Media career is that, much like computer consulting, you can work in a wide variety of companies and industries. You might work creating video promotions for a major retailer or develop in-house video materials for a local manufacturer. You could help a local chef build their profile through an Internet cooking show or teach a non-profit how to better communicate with their supporters. Since New Media crosses all boundaries you can look for ways to combine your New Media knowledge with other expertise you might have.

For example, if you are a paralegal or have other law-related experience, you bring more to the table than just your New Media skills. You are well positioned to work with a law firm or law-related public advocacy group as you have skills and expertise on both sides of the equation. Perhaps your are a musician. You bring specific knowledge to your consulting that other musicians can use. This combination of skills give you many more options when choosing between jobs and can open up significant opportunities.

Whether you choose the entertainment or New Media consulting path through your career, I think you are positioning yourself well for the future. Mainstream entertainment is fragmenting under its own weight and high production costs, so I see New Media as a rising market while mainstream production is a diminishing one. There are simply fewer and fewer opportunities in mainstream production with each passing year, so careers there become more and more difficult. New Media provides the ability to combine your New Media expertise with your other talents and create your own unique career based on your own wants, needs and desires. This flexibility is one of the best features of developing a career using your New Media skills.

So, get out there and start building your New Media career today! I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the opportunities that are available to you.

Quora Answers: If I wanted to get my podcast sponsored, how do I do that?

January 3, 2011 by Douglas E. Welch

The first step is documenting your audience and the amount of traffic your podcast attracts. With this information, you will be able to develop a press kit which you can use to approach potential sponsors. They will want to know that you are speaking to their potential buyers on a regular basis.

Gathering demographic info for your listeners can be difficult, as podcast listeners seem to be notoriously shy of surveys. You can hold a contest as a way to increase survey response, though.

As for podcast statistics, you will probably need your raw log files in order to capture the total number of downloads for each episode. Then you can aggregate them to create your total monthly downloads. These downloads will include both new shows and older shows as people do not often listen in order, or find older episodes and listen directly from the web site. This number will show you the number of “impressions” you might be able to fulfill for a given sponsor.

Make sure when you develop any sponsorship campaign that the sponsor has a way to track exactly how many buyers came from your podcast. There should be a unique product code or coupon which they can track on their end so they don’t have to rely on you for that reporting. If they are tracking it themselves they will be much more trusting of that info.

Here is an example of a podcasting press kit – http://www.businesscast.ca/media…

Ignore ALL New Media advice — maybe even this

October 12, 2010 by Douglas E. Welch

After 6 years of podcasting and a deep immersion into the New Media world I find myself wondering if we all need to stop listening to New Media pundits and just GET ON WITH IT!

As with any new trend, meme, idea, service, product, whatever — there will always be those who think themselves experts in exactly how it should be done. You must post 1.4 Twitter messages each day, each being only 120 characters (to allow for Retweets and blog 2, 500-word blog posts each day, each with a call to action and comments specifically written to your target niche., etc, etc, etc.

Talk about sucking the life out of something!

My own advice, which you are — of course — free to ignore, is to “DO” New Media in whatever way seems fit, in whatever method seems fun or useful, on whatever time frame fits your schedule, directed at whatever audience you care to address. JUST DO IT!

Following too much advice can be more damaging than following too little. Each new pundit, each new expert hones and grinds New Media in their image. They take all that was new and exciting about New Media and turn it into yet another widget that can be commoditized and sold. They reduce the power of these new tools down to a lowest common denominator that seeks to serve everyone, but only seeks to serve them with mediocrity.

What good is it if you simply get better and better and doing what everyone else is doing? If you use New Media tools like everyone else in the crowd you become just one more anonymous figure within that crowd. New Media gives us the ability to stand out from the crowd, find our audience and make a difference in the world. Why squander it being the same as everyone else?

Every new idea goes through this phase? Goth was cool and edgy, now it can be bought in the mall. Punk music was loud and downright dangerous, now its commoditized just like Top 40 pop. Blogging used to be cool and cutting edge, now many do it with the same energy and excitement as a burned out accountant might bring.

Start with yourself when you develop your New Media projects. Sure, you can find some interesting ideas among the pundits, but when the advice starts to make everything look the same you would do better to think about how you can make your work different. Different is where new things happen. Different is where big success lies. Different is what keeps you from being swallowed by the big ocean of mediocrity.

What do YOU want out of New Media? How are YOU going to achieve it? What are YOU going to do? After all, if you are just going to do the same as everyone else — why do it at all?

New Media’s Fundamental Place in e-Learning from LearningSolutions.com

October 2, 2010 by Douglas E. Welch

This article recently appeared on LearningSolutions.com in advance of my presentation in their Online Forums. — Douglas

New Media’s Fundamental Place in e-Learning
By Douglas E. Welch September 30, 2010

“One of the most striking aspects of New Media is how much you can do inexpensively, even for free. As you move forward you might invest in larger, more robust systems, but investigating New Media often requires little more than access to the Internet. … There are very few financial excuses for not investigating how New Media can help your department or company.”

Like the technologies that preceded it – print, radio, television – New Media is set to change our lives and our learning in fundamental ways. Never before have we had such a great variety of educational tools at our disposal so inexpensively and so widely available. We can reach out to our customers, clients, and students almost anywhere in the world with the touch of button.

New Media consists of four pillars:

Online video sharing sites, such as YouTube,

Podcasting , which allows the automatic delivery of audio and video to listeners and viewers,

Live video streaming, such as uStream.tv and Justin.tv, and

Social media, that is, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such services.

All of these together form New Media – new ways of delivering information and interacting with our audience, whoever or wherever they might be.

As with any new technology, inertia and fear threaten to limit our use of these tools. We spend months and years evaluating, analyzing and investigating, but end up doing very little. As with other educational tools, you must engage with New Media to find its usefulness to you and your students.

Read the entire article

Special note: Hear me speak on “Making the Case for Using New Media for e-Learning”! Sign up for The eLearning Guild’s October Online Forum, Integrating Media into Your e-Learning, October 7 and 8.

Question: WordPress — Is it hype?

September 3, 2010 by Douglas E. Welch

I get a lot of questions every day and here is a one from today…

Q: Seth Godin uses TypePad. Is WordPress hyped VS a Reg. Website and using Typepad as your blog platform? I like WP but seems like it has to be watched like a hawk for it not to freeze up or slow down. What will this cost me in WP maintenence fees.

A: Hmmm, is WordPress hyped? I don’t think so. It does what I need it to do. There is certainly some personal choice and preference involved. I don’t use TypePad myself, but many people seem to, so it must have something going for it.

I find WordPress easy to maintain and manage and the number of plugins available for it make it quite extensible, even for someone like me who really isn’t a programmer, although technology-savvy. I do like having my own install of WordPress on my own web host, as opposed to having my blog hosted elsewhere — at least for my own personal blogs. I do use WordPress.com extensively for other, shared project blogs, though. I even have one blog still hosted at Blogger.com, where I started.

Speed is more a function of your web host and the number of plugins/features you have installed on your WordPress site. As with anything, installing too much cruft can slow it down. I find that the amount of traffic you have is more a concern than the actual software though. WordPress has caching plugins available to help in high-load environments., though, so that can help if you have a really popular web site.

I don’t find I have to “watch it like a hawk” to keep it running. In fact, I don’t think I have ever had a problem with WordPress other than those I have caused myself through badly configured plugins or themes. You should be able to maintain WordPress by yourself, as typically it only involves clicking a few buttons and waiting for the upgrade. In fact, I always recommend that bloggers know how to control and maintain their own blogs, rather than relying on someone else — especially if that person is charging by the hour for basic maintenance.

The new automated upgrade utilities built into WordPress make it almost a plug and play environment. Most web hosts have a one/two-click install for WordPress, making it even easier.

Overall, I like WordPress, both self-hosted and hosted at WordPress.com. It serves me well and I regularly recommend it to others.

Do you have a question? Why not drop me a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049

Online Video classes need energy, passion and added value

August 31, 2010 by Douglas E. Welch

I give a lot of training sessions — one-on-one, small group and larger sessions. I think this makes me a bit sensitive to issues when I am on the other side of the table. I cringe when I am faced with a class that is less than it could, or should be. Due to the freely available live streaming audio and video tools, it is easier than ever to create classes, but sometimes the fundamentals of teaching get lost in the process.

While attending an online course today via streaming video, I was struck with a problem that I hadn’t really thought about before. In classes where there is a large amount of prep work — installing several software packages, checking connections, trying a sample project — the first session can be quite daunting. Students are eager to dive into the topic and start working with the tools or information. If, instead, they are presented with an hour or more of setup, you are likely to lose them before you ever get started. I know for myself, today’s class seemed interminable. In fact, they may have lost me for the rest of the class. I will probably give it one more try, but if it isn’t significantly better, I will probably abandon the class in favor of more self-directed learning through others sources.

Of course, this got me thinking about how you can avoid problems like this, where the setup takes up an entire class session before the students can experience something “cool.” One way I would have approached it would to have had an online forum/discussion group setup a week or more before the live class, where students could work through the installation and troubleshooting of all the necessary software and materials. There could have been group leaders online to answer questions and help everyone prepare, so this information wouldn’t need to be covered during the first live class. The instructor could make the assumption that everyone was ready to go and could dive into the most interesting part of the information. This would provide a much more exciting and energetic start to any class.

The next separate, yet related issue, is that of instructor demeanor. Whether this was caused by being forced to address the setup issues in the first class, over-familiarity with their subject or general personality, the instructor of this online class showed no excitement about his topic. One can guess he is an expert in his field, but without any sense of passion about the topic it made the class a very hard slog. For me, when teaching in any environment, a certain amount of passion is expected, desired and, for me, required. If I can’t get excited about the topic, how do I ever hope to excite the students interest? How do I hope to help them (or push them) through the rough parts of the class, if I can’t make the topic interesting and applicable to them. How can I hope to enjoy teaching the topic if I am bored with it. A little excitement, a little fun, a little look into the cool stuff to come would have been very welcome.

Of course, classes are about information transfer — teaching students something — but without a certain amount of fun and passion involved they can become less useful than simply reading the material out of a book or web site. If you are going to “teach” a course, you need to add value to the information, not simply read it out. Your video needs to add value to the information in order to justify someone taking time out of their day to show up in a particular place at a particular time.

How do you add value with your audio or video projects? What passion to you bring to the screen? You would be well advised to think about these issues before you start. Share your thoughts using the Comments link.

Question: Should I stay on Facebook?

August 25, 2010 by Douglas E. Welch

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been asked this question more than a few times, both face-to-face and via email/Twitter. The on-going privacy policy battles with Facebook have turned off a lot of people on the large (and growing larger) service, but for the foreseeable future, if you leave Facebook, you might just be reducing your social media effectiveness.

First, let me say that I haven’t had a large problem with Facebook privacy settings for two important reasons.

I joined Facebook after it had opened up for everyone, not just limited groups of high school and college students so I never developed an assumption of privacy there.
As with any social media, I consider anything and everything I post there to be public by default, so changes in Facebook’s privacy policy didn’t really effect me or the way I used the service.

For most people, you want (and perhaps, need) to be on Facebook for one very important reason…it is where the people are. In shear numbers, Facebook far outweighs any other social network and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Removing yourself from that mass of people will limit the effectiveness of any social media campaign, both person and professional, that you might care to create. You need to connect with the quorum of people that exist on Facebook to spread your message as far as possible. Deleting your Facebook account might make your feel better, but your online relationships and business will suffer.

Will Facebook always be the big event in town? No. History has shown that companies ebb and flow over the years and sometime, somewhere, someone will create a new and better service and will do to Facebook, what it did to Myspace (and others). Until then, we all need to “dance with those that brought us.”

That said, if you want to continue to have private conversations via Facebook, you need to look elsewhere. Facebook has shown every indication that they will be “public by default.” Even if you manage your Facebook Privacy Settings perfectly, you will be exposing your “private” updates to any number of people. Look towards closed email lists or other services which promise closed communications and leave Facebook for your public-facing activities. Remember, though, that even then information can leak out of these so-called “private” realms very easily. A forwarded email, a Twitter message, a casual mention by a fellow group member over the phone show you just how fragile privacy can be. In some cases, the only way to truly private about something is to be the only person who knows about it.

You need to engage on Facebook, publicly, if you want spread your message and thoughts to the widest audience possible. Move your private conversations elsewhere. Facebook isn’t going back so you need to do what is best for you.

Careers in New Media

Helping to Build New Careers in New Media

Category Archives: Opinion