Good News! Apple Podcasts created a hit for us
We're #92! New and Noteworthy has worked its magic
We’re #92! Well, we were #92, but we didn’t put an episode out on Tuesday so now We’re #139! (And #17 in News and #2 in Entertainment News)
Why is that exciting? That’s in the ALL PODCASTS category?
Do you know how hard it is to make the Top 100 without being owned by MegaCorp?
I’d love to take credit for being a genius, but all I did was submit the show to the Apple Podcasts promotion form.
Well, that and I did some solid shows for 15 months before getting noticed.
For most of the weekend we actually had the top left box. That led to some off-to-the-races numbers over the weekend (and we didn’t drop new episodes on the weekend, we publish Monday-Wednesday-Friday.)
The top left box REALLY seems to move things. The other boxes move things but not at the same rate. The screengrab above is desktop, on a phone you’d only see the first four. So even being in N&N you still might be a scroll away.
For 5 Good News Stories, this bump was about 8x what we had been getting.
The show was actually my wife’s idea. My addition was to put a gimmick on top.
The format settled in quickly - five stories, all of them good news. I realized quickly that the trap is to overdo animal news. There are a lot of dogs who fid their way home from seven states away, and there a lot of stories about ducks who become friends with cows (insert any combination of animals there).
I started making sure stories 1 and 5 are quirky or fun. In the middle, some combination of cool science, charity something, 100 year olds doing something cool, some record being broken, or acts of kindness.
I work clean. Way back when in my comedy life, Jeff Foxworthy explained the benefits of working clean. He stretched out his arms and said you pick up the older folks, and the younger folks. Occasionally I will dance with the devil and get “Match Game ‘75 Naughty” or I’ll handle something risqué in the way Johnny Carson might have by dropping extra ummms and using euphemisms. A naughty story example was when the Nude Man jumped into the Pro Bass Shop Aquarium.
John, did you just compare yourself to Johnny Carson? Are you serious???? Be self-aware bro!
The show had been sailing along in 2023 unnoticed, with episodes twice a week.
In December I decided to learn from music radio and started doing 5 Good Christmas Stories. In all formats play the hits. Christmas music works, why wouldn’t Christmas stories? The show went to 4 days a week with the wonderful Aster Ireland hosting the extra two shows.
That worked and doubled the download numbers for each individual episode.
Into 2024 I decided to do the show 3x a week as opposed to the normal twice, and the numbers held-slash-slowly grew.
Then I opened up Apple Podcasts last week and saw the N&N.
Here’s what it did to the numbers.
Will the numbers hold? I hope so. Maybe not. I don’t think they will go down to the left side of the chart. If they settle in and half the tall trees you see on the right I’ll be ecstatic.
If you’re out there thinking of your own work, “this is such a good show, it just needs to be discovered” I’m rooting for you. I had a good show, it just needed to be discovered.
Apple is still a kingmaker, and for a few hours we got to sit at the Big Kids Table. Not bad for a two man company (Caloroga Shark Media) who can’t run promos on 5000 FM stations, and didn’t spend $5000 to advertise to video gamers.
Thanks Apple Podcasts Promotion Person whoever you are. Say hi to me on LinkedIn!