Continuing Studies: for Higher Ed Podcasters

Imran Ahmed: Discovery is always a
problem for every mode of entertainment.

How do you get in front of the eyes?

It's marketing, right?

But the one thing that they weren't
discussing and how I was thinking

about this trust and transparency,
and the question I asked was, is

there Rotten Tomatoes for podcasts?

Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing
Studies, a podcast for higher education

podcasters to learn and get inspired.

I'm Neil McPhedran, founder
of Podium Podcast Company.

Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee,
founder of JPod Creations,

podcasting is broadcasting.

We want you to know you're not alone.

In fact, there are many of you
higher ed podcasters out there, and

we can all learn from each other.

Neil McPhedran: Yes, that's right.

And we've been continuing to do
cool things on HigherEdPods.com.

We've got a lot of cool features
that are gonna be coming

out in the next month or so.

We'll let everyone know when that
happens, but we're continuing to move

forward and do some really interesting
stuff with that directory and community.

Jennifer-Lee: And of course,
the first ever PodCon conference

is coming up really quick.

Neil McPhedran: Yep, we're a few weeks
away, so looking forward to it and

hopefully see some of you listening there.

Jennifer-Lee: And I'm really
excited for Chicago Mix popcorn.

Nothing's better than going
to higher education podcast

conference and then having some
Chicago Mix popcorn as a snack.

I like it.

Neil McPhedran: Well, today on
this episode, Jen, we are chatting

with Imran Ahmed, also known as.

Captain Ron and he runs Great
Pods, which is essentially the

Rotten Tomatoes of podcasts.

Jennifer-Lee: Yeah,
and I think it's great.

We need more rating systems out
there for podcasts 'cause there's

really not that many out there.

And I like the fact that
we're gonna talk to him.

Yes, you and I can leave reviews on these
podcasts, but what I love about it is that

he actually has legit reviewers too on it.

Like he has people from like the New
York Times and publications in the

UK that are avid critics, because I
think that's something that, you know,

we used to have Siskel and Ebert for
movies and things like that, but we've

kind of gone away with that, with the
way that media has been, you know,

changing, in the traditional media of
the newspapers and things going, or

things moving to digital publications.

I felt like the, the critic was
going and everyone was kind of

being their own critic, but I like
the fact that there's still, people

that do the hard job and are legit.

So I'm excited that it's all
rolled into this platform.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, that's right.

I think it's a really interesting site.

This is a little bit of a different
of an episode in that we're not

talking to a higher ed podcaster
per se, but I think we do talk

about a lot of things that are super
applicable to all of us as podcasters.

And we get into things like
categories and how to categorize your

podcast and why that's important.

And so, yeah, there's a few really
interesting things here that I think

are super applicable to all podcasters,
but especially higher ed podcasters.

Jennifer-Lee: And how to make
your podcast more searchable.

That's something all higher
ed podcasters can use.

So definitely a very valuable episode.

And I know that sometimes we don't
love critiques, but a good critique

could also help your higher education
podcaster get to the next level.

You know, people critique
papers in the university.

Our work gets critiqued all the time.

No difference.

It's how we learn.

So let's get started.

Neil McPhedran: Let's get into it.

Jennifer-Lee: Welcome back
to Continuing Studies.

Today we have a really interesting guest.

So Neil, I'm not sure if you're a
big Rotten Tomatoes fan, but I am.

I do watch it to look at
different suggestions for movies.

So today we have Imran on and he is the
founder of Great Pods, which has been

touted the Rotten Tomatoes for podcasts.

How are you?

Imran Ahmed: I'm great.

Thanks guys for having me on.

This is so exciting after
seeing you, Jennifer in London.

This is so exciting.

Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I know Neil
was like, how'd you guys meet?

I was like, we were drinking in a pub.

Neil McPhedran: I had such
FOMO that you all were there.

We chatted before we hopped on here,
we're actually on a WhatsApp channel

together as well too, and everyone was
talking about it and sending pictures of

meeting each other, and I had such FOMO.

Jennifer-Lee: Well, like I mentioned
before, Great Pods is supposed to

be the Rotten Tomatoes of Podcasts.

How do you come up with
something like that?

Imran Ahmed: Oh, wow.

I mean, the best part about podcasts is
refining that story, and the hardest part

about podcasts is refining that story
because there's the long version and

the short version, but I haven't found
the medium version, so I'll try my best.

I personally started off in the
podcast space, radio space at

college radio, had my own Bollywood
program here in Southern California.

There I used the TuneIn radio app.

This is 2010, so I was podcasting my
stuff, but also listening to live radio.

TuneIn had podcasts as well and radio.

I was looking for a new job.

Applied there to the, from Southern
California to the Bay Area.

Moved up there, worked in customer support
all the way to operations and sports

marketing, but I was still in the audio
entertainment space, which is podcasts

and live radio, which was awesome.

I loved it, you got to listen to
whatever you wanted to throughout the

day and not get in trouble for it.

And throughout that time, I
was in customer support, and

the marketing and operations.

You get emails not only from
customers, but also reply back to

your email marketing campaigns.

And whenever we would feature something,
you know, you'd go to any app and there's

always a feature, a carousel of some kind.

Those are editors, those are people,
humans featuring that content.

A lot of it was around the
transparency of it all.

Who are your people that are
featuring pushing this content to us?

We don't know who they are.

It's too anonymous.

I'd get a couple of those emails,
I'd read those emails, frontline.

I see 'em.

I'm like, I get it.

I get it.

But there was also a level from a
private company being, you wanted the

privacy of your employees as well.

So protecting that privacy.

'Cause we didn't technically sign up to be
an editor and put our name, or a feature,

could like put our name up out there.

We wanna do the behind the scenes work.

So that always stuck with me.

That was the start of it all.

And then fast forward now
to Himalaya podcast app.

I worked there for a couple of months,
pandemic started, and then moved back home

back down to LA and started Great Pods.

And what stuck around with me
during that timeframe, after TuneIn

and during Himalaya was where is
the trust and transparency behind

podcasts and podcast recommendations?

The industry, if you remember
Clubhouse was a big app during the

early pandemic and it was booming.

I remember distinctly, there was one
conversation happening up on Clubhouse

and I was listening in and I think
there was some Bar Stool people

and some other Paramount people.

It was just a random group of
higher execs, uh, whatever.

And the one thing that stuck
out with me is like they all

talked about a discovery problem.

Discovery is always a problem
for every mode of entertainment.

How do you get in front of the eyes?

It's marketing, right?

But the one thing that they weren't
discussing and how I was thinking

about this trust and transparency,
and the question I asked was, is

there Rotten Tomatoes for podcasts?

Are there podcast critics in this space?

So I just started asking that question
after the eight years I spent at

TuneIn, and I finally asked the
question, are there critics out there?

And then I went down on the
Google search of finding out if

there were any, because I watched
Roger Eberts, Gene Siskel, right?

The Siskel and Eberts of
the world, movie critics.

Whether or not you liked their reviews
or not, you still liked them because

of their trust and their transparency.

They're critics, they know
what they're talking about.

And so that really stuck out with me
when building the Rotten Tomatoes for

podcasts, for Great Pods, is building
that level of trust and transparency.

And you know who these reviewers are.

So that existed, it was about me
pulling that all together into

one side and aggregating that
information for, for you guys to

decide on what to listen to, right?

You come into Great Pods, you
look up the reviews for it.

Do you want to listen to it or not?

Neil McPhedran: So it's a website
directory of reviews and then, but also

key, you've got other tentacles, right?

You've got an email, which must be a,
a very important part of the strategy.

I can subscribe to the email.

So I've got inbound, I've got
reviews coming in once a week

through that email, correct?

Imran Ahmed: Yeah, so I have
just like a normal business.

I got the site up, the newsletter,
email package is going.

We got analytics as well with
Google Analytics, Clarity.

Those are the free ones as well
as Amplitude, which gives a

freemium version, but it's a
little deeper in their analytics.

So we got the analytics also running
in the backend, and I've learned

a lot on the engineering side.

I'm a non-engineer.

It is a lot of learning.

It is a lot of work, and we say
that AI could do a lot of this.

We still need humans.

I know there's engineers, there's
less roles, but it's still needed.

It's not like it's not needed.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah.

What I'd love to dig into is the website.

I did a deep dive, like the categories
are quite deep, so you're not just

taking the Apple regular categories.

Your categories you've created are way
wider and they're more, at least in

my mind, they were more focused on the
kind of things I might be looking for.

So it's not just a business podcast,
there's a bunch of sublayers and

they're more attuned to what kind
of thing I might wanna listen to.

So there's like a marketing, you
know, one for example or whatever.

I think you, you can find a spot
in there, at least what I thought.

The categories are so wide that I can find
a lot of things that would be of interest

to me and you know, so on and so forth.

Imran Ahmed: Yeah.

As I started learning about building
a startup in the last four years is

that, you know, building this out,
you kind of make your own rules.

There's no guideline that you can't,
you start developing the guidelines

as you go along in this process.

So I develop guidelines on
who I consider a critic.

I was like, am I allowed to do that?

It's like, yeah, you're the
person creating this product.

You're the professional, right?

Like, I'm in this space,
so I'm a professional.

So those types of things that I was
tinkering with, that includes the genres.

The, the all podcast form
when you go to the site.

Like, okay.

Because my initial research was
showing that people were just tagging

a lot of different genres in Apple.

And honestly, I worked in
the TuneIn backend, right?

In operations.

I saw how things were, genres were
tagged, and how we tagged genres too.

And it, it, sometimes it was an
algorithmic, so I knew people

were trying to cheat the system.

Uh, when I'd go to Apple or Podcast
Index and check the genre, I'm

like, you're straight up comedy.

Why do you have like business
attached to your genre?

So all of the podcasts
currently aggregated in Great

Pods, I added the genres.

But based off of the description and based
off of the, the podcast index genre tags.

So I will use some of that,
but I question myself still.

And as like with any startup and
journey, it's not locked installed.

I did this manually.

I, I was taught do things that
don't scale as a very common thing.

And when you're doing a startup,
you have to do things manually

before you can automate them.

So you know personally how to deal
with it, you know, the frustration

that the user goes through, right?

So that's kind of what I've been
going through manually adding the

genres, even separately, you'll
notice there's BIPOC in there as well.

I don't see a BIPOC category elsewhere,
and these are made specifically for BIPOC.

So yes, there should be that
sub-genre or genre in general.

How I do that in the future, I don't know.

I'm planning on the
refresh of the website.

Neil McPhedran: Oh wow.

Imran Ahmed: So all the manual work that
I have gone through and for the last

four years, how do I now automate that?

Neil McPhedran: You know, back to
your point about Google data and

Google analytics, you must see stuff
come in there too, of just queries

that are landing on your site to go
like, oh, well there's a, you know,

maybe back to your BIPOC example.

Like there's people looking for that,
and I've got podcasts that fit into

the genre, so I'll create that genre.

So I would imagine that that's
something that evolves and

you see from the data as well.

Imran Ahmed: Yeah, definitely.

If that's something helpful for
your listeners, SEO bloggings,

I'm not inventing anything
new for the podcast genre.

It's kind of just reinventing it or
adapting it from a different industry.

So SEO blogging is still good.

When I started SEO blogging, looking up
the Google search terms, so Google Search

Console for your listeners, go to Google
Search Console, set up for yourselves

so you can look up the search terms.

And I've used those search
terms in my SEO blogging.

I'm like, what should I talk about?

What should I write about?

Not only gave me an idea for the blog,
but also gave me all the key terms for it.

And since then there's at least three
of my blog posts that have remained

in the top five, top ten pages for
that year because it's so consistent,

podcasts are so evergreen, that they
could come in listening six months

later from that episode release and then
search on the blog post or whatever that

topic is that they're searching for.

They'll land up in your blog post and
funnel through the website because

I'll put the actual review page on
the blog post, so I'm internally

linking to my pages as well.

Jennifer-Lee: And I think sometimes
people have a hard time figuring out

what category they're in, specifically
with higher education podcasters.

A lot of people think, oh, our podcast
is educational because we're in an

institute, but maybe your forensic
science podcast actually is a true crime

podcast and that's where you should go.

And I think that's the hard part of
higher education is 'cause we all think

it's education and everyone wants to
just go to that category but doesn't

realize like, oh, wait, actually
I have a podcast on mathematics.

Where does this fit?

Imran Ahmed: I'll tell you that I think
for me in higher education podcasts, one

of them that stood out to me, okay, is
the documentary style higher education?

What's the true crime behind it?

Right?

Or maybe something like, gimme that
story, that drama behind something

that happened like, you know,
twenty years ago or still happening.

I think the one that from APM
stood out to me, Sold a Story.

Which is about just educating kids from
K through high school, like how this

education system in the US and so on.

So it was really well done.

It has a drama.

And so that one I would put
educational on there, education

or learning, but also true crime.

But I manually do that, right?

So I don't disagree with you, Jennifer.

I think that's going
to be the next upgrade.

And how do I make it so that, okay,
Podcast Index it automatically,

it doesn't matter what genre is
labeled, whatever you selected.

Okay, fine, that's imported, but
maybe it's a crowdsourcing tool

where you guys can also go in saying
additional tags or additional genres.

So it's native to my site, native to Great
Pods, where it's like you can put in BIPOC

or true crime or something else based
off of, you know, maybe Podcast Index

doesn't allow you to do multiple genres.

You can do it from a native standpoint.

So I guess that would be my
upgrade in a couple of months

for me to discover and try to do.

But I don't disagree with you.

I think that is a problem.

Neil McPhedran: I actually just
wanna make sure that we focus in,

this is a really important thing.

The self categorizing your show
is, you know, to your point,

Jen, is like often done wrong.

And I think there's this, well,
we're gonna set up our podcast and

we'll get it all up into hosting.

And here, here's our category.

And then you're off to the races.

And, and your example is like a lot of
higher education podcasts put themselves

into the education category or learning.

And that's not necessarily right,
but there is something important

about getting those categories right.

And taking advantage of the secondary
and well, in the case of Spotify,

when you're logging in for the first
time into your Spotify for Creators,

there's a third and you could even
put a fourth category in there.

So those are all signals for the
platforms to know where to categorize

you, which helps with your discovery.

And then for something like Great Pods,
it's really important because that's

for people who are looking for podcasts.

So you want to be showing up in
the right genre and you wanna be

showing up in the right categories.

Imran Ahmed: And I don't
add all of them too.

I'll see it, I'll see a bunch of them.

I'll be like, are you kidding me?

I'm not adding that.

Like I, I tag some other genres.

Like I read the description, I know
what you're trying to do, you're

trying to beat the algorithm.

But we don't even know consistently what
Spotify's algorithm or Apple's algorithm,

like if they're even taking up the genre.

It could be in the case like
Apple, where you go to genres

and that's all it's used for.

It's not used in any algorithm.

It could just be, go to comedy.

Here's a bunch of the comedy
podcasts that are ranked and so on.

We don't know how they're used.

That's why like building, also, you're
like our, doing this manual work

'cause you know what you're building.

And I love the transparency behind it.

So if you have any questions behind
the hood of my car right here,

I'm more than happy to share it.

Neil McPhedran: That's great.

I think what I'd love to dig into is,
as a critic, you see so many podcasts.

What are some things that you see that
are like, what constitutes a good review

and what constitutes a bad review.

What are some things that we can
learn as podcasters from you looking

at so many podcasts over the years.

Imran Ahmed: And I, now we're getting
into my guidelines that I've developed.

The number one thing for me in a great
review, it can be a critical review, but

still a great review, like well-written.

So the definitely
well-written, articulated.

You have to articulate why or why
you shouldn't, me, like why the

user, listener should or shouldn't
listen to this particular podcast.

So it's simple, it could
be the two, three liner.

That's it.

That's all, that's basically what
I'm looking for, that's snippet.

I know what this description is about.

You have the critical ear.

Tell me why or why I shouldn't.

So that's the basic outline that I
require to index the professional reviews.

It's basically the anti Apple user
reviews where it's just like you can

user bomb people, one star review.

And just say, I hate that
person, and that's it.

And it gets published.

And so there's nothing that tells
me anything about this podcast.

It just shows me that this anonymous user
has hate for this podcast on Apple user.

Neil McPhedran: Or the person
that's being interviewed.

We've seen that with one of
the shows that we work with.

They interviewed someone who is
politically maligned right now and

got a couple of one star ratings
on the show from Apple only because

that person didn't like that guest.

And it's like, well, it's
not indicative of the show.

That's kind of a crappy review.

Jennifer-Lee: My issue I have, not
just with podcasts, and this is the

thing like because my family used to
own a construction company, is with

the Google reviews, these local guides
can come on and put one star reviews

and they don't mention anything.

It's like one star and the person
lives halfway around the world.

Google's like, sorry, I can't remove it.

It's legit and I'm like,
I don't think it's legit.

So how do you go through the process?

Do you vet your reviews?

Imran Ahmed: That's, add that to one of
the lists of why Great Pods is created,

is to protect against user bombing.

That's essentially, in my pitch deck,
I have a screenshot of like two, one

star reviews from Apple user reviews.

And it literally is everything I
described of a anonymous username, one

star, I don't like him and like, okay.

And then you have the next
screenshot, which is Miranda Sawyer.

You know who it is, from The Guardian,
alright, publication, writing why you

should actually listen to, the storyteller
is amazing and so on, from The Guardian.

And it's published with a link.

Like who are you gonna trust?

That user with the one star review,
or Miranda Sawyer from The Guardian.

So that's kind of where I, you
protect against at the moment.

Now, does that mean I won't
have user reviews in the future?

I'm not saying no to that.

It's just how do I figure
out the moderation of it all?

Does it become like a Reddit type of
thing where there's community moderators?

Do I have an AI tool, an
algorithmic tool like Twitch does?

Learning from other industries
and how they moderate the content

in an efficient manner, that's
something that I would adapt to.

Again, I don't think
we need to reinvent it.

Moderation and chat forums have
been around for such a long time.

How does Amazon reviews do it?

Or do they even do it?

I've heard, I've been reading up reports
that, thankfully, timely topic, I've

been researching like, okay, well
Amazon reviews, I'm sure there's user

bombing and all that stuff, negative
reviews happening all the time.

How do they protect against it or
do they even protect against it?

And I've heard that
they don't really care.

So in addition to the user review
of the guidelines of the reviews,

one additional fact is that one of
my favorite reviewers, a lot of the

big publications that review, that I
collect the reviews from, are in the UK.

So hence why I should have been in
London anyway for the podcast show.

But some from The Times UK, from The
Guardian, the Observer, et cetera.

One of my favorite ones is James
Marriott from The Times UK.

He comes out with a once in a week
column, but when he writes a one star,

he doesn't give five star reviews.

Give you a little secret on Great Pods is
that the rating system is subjective based

off of me if they don't rate the review.

Because a lot of writers, they'll
just write the review and that's it.

I base it off of my sentiment analysis.

I read the review and base it
off of what they say is at a

five star, four star, three star.

If they have not labeled a rating there.

James Marriott already has a five star
system, so I don't change anything of his.

Like if you already have it, I will
adapt it to the Great Pods rating system.

When he writes one star reviews,
that's what actually gets me to listen

to that podcast because he has that
British sarcasm and that British

snarkiness, that I was like, oh,
you're so nice, but you're really not.

So I love the way he writes.

So he's the type of professional
snarky, one star reviewer that

I like from a big publication.

And so his style of writing, but he
tells me why I shouldn't listen to it,

even though now I wanna listen to it.

Jennifer-Lee: That's the same thing, if
Rotten Tomatoes is like, when I see that

spilled popcorn, I have to watch it.

And then I regret it halfway through
because I was like, they were right.

That popcorn spilled over for a reason.

When it comes to a higher
education podcasting, obviously

Great Pods is a great resource.

There are a few podcasts on there
from the higher education family,

but there's not that many yet.

I feel like we can turn it around.

Why should our audience listening, or
maybe even some of our past guests,

put their podcasts on Great Pods?

Imran Ahmed: When I was starting
off, I, how did I fit into the space?

I had to figure out how
to fit into the space.

And especially independent podcasters.

Big networks have an easier
time to get reviewed.

But how does an independent
podcaster get reviewed but also

get involved in Great Pods?

So one of the rules that I
relaxed was that I would add a

podcast regardless of review.

So now I'm just building out the
directory as a podcast directory.

And the one thing that you cannot
do on the site is if you search

for a podcast and it does not have
a review, it will not show up.

When it has a review,
then it will show up.

One of the things that we were able
to do is that regardless on whether

it's visible on Great Pods or not,
Google SEO will still index it.

So that's a good thing.

So the advantage that I propose to your
listeners is that by adding it to Great

Pods, our Google SEO is pretty good.

So when it comes to podcast reviews,
you put in the podcast name and

podcast review, we will show up on
the first page as opposed the fifth or

sixth or whatever page on Google SEO.

So that's something I would recommend
for users to get on Great Pods because

our Google SEO ranking is pretty good.

The second thing is, especially for
your audience, one of the things I added

in the last couple months is that you
guys can add the pod, I don't have to

manually add podcasts anymore, so your
audience can, and you know, they can

select the genres that they see fit.

Neil McPhedran: I was looking at it
from the higher ed lens, and there is a

lot, I would say most shows coming from
universities, there is a spot for you.

Like there's legal podcast
category if they're from a law

school, like so on and so forth.

There really is a genre for the vast
majority of university podcasters.

Imran Ahmed: Which I will say is
a potential collaboration for us.

When that time comes, when I'm doing
the refresh and refreshing the genres

and how they're categorized, maybe we
work together on how we categorize that.

We can start with the higher education
part and be like, all right, these are

the different styles of genres that we
think that are in the higher ed, and

then we can ladder it for the site.

I think that'd be great.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, so any of
the listeners you go to submit your

show, we'll put the link of how to
submit your show in the show notes.

When you go and you look at the genres,
you don't see something that fits, then

let us know when we will let you know.

Imran Ahmed: Yeah.

Just reach out to them and it takes
me like a five second fix in the

database to add or delete a genre or
fix a genre or something like that.

So, that I can easily do.

Neil McPhedran: Are you seeing,
like, so you've been at it

for a bunch of years now.

You must be seeing that grow.

Like you must be seeing more
and more reviews of podcasts.

As podcasts kind of grows and it's
turning into more of a mainstream,

if you will, you must also see
the growth of reviews as well.

Imran Ahmed: It's a mixed bag still.

I think the, my initial start, it grew
like probably the first two years and

maybe 'cause also I was looking for
'em too, looking for these writers.

Do they exist?

Where are they?

Why are they hiding?

You know, even though they have
their names out there, it was

difficult to find these reviews.

So with that understanding, is that it
kind of, I'm still finding new ones.

It's not growing like I, when
I think of growth, I'm thinking

like exponential growth.

It's not exponential growth.

We're talking about like one person
a month that I'm discovering or

something or another, or maybe
they're just doing a one-off job,

but I've never seen that name before.

I've added probably already four
hundred names into the database as

far as the professional reviewers,
you know, they've written for maybe

Esquire, but it's in a list format.

But they still tell you why they like
the podcast, so that's why I add it.

Not all listicles make it into Great Pods.

But those people that just
do once a year type of list.

And then there's the weekly,
there's the monthly, so there's

inconsistency between it all.

It's not this exponential
growth that we're talking about.

Neil McPhedran: It seems
like some opportunity.

Imran Ahmed: Yeah, there's
definitely, I encourage, I

definitely, oh, a hundred percent.

I don't like to disparage anybody
who thinks about like writing at all.

I'm not a writer.

I don't consider myself a writer,
but I've been writing that newsletter

for five years, once a week straight.

I mean now once a month, but because
I'm actually building new products,

so my time is spent away from writing
the newsletter a whole lot now.

However, I encourage that.

I see differences.

For example, if you have a BIPOC
audience listener that sees that,

hey, I listen to a lot of podcasts.

I listen to a lot of higher ed podcasts,
and you think you can articulate, at

least tell me why or why you shouldn't.

You can start a Substack or a blog for
free, I will index it on Great Pods.

And if you do it consistently, add this
to the guidelines that I was creating.

Number three, if you write consistently
on a blog, a public facing like

linkable source, I will consider you
a critic or a professional reviewer

and start linking your pieces.

So it's one of the things I've lacked,
I've seen in writers is black writers.

I don't see black writers.

If you think there's a need, if you
think you wanna write a review once

a month, just start writing a review
once a month on, on your Substack.

It's easy.

It's free.

I can link to it and
start reviewing podcasts.

And then I can consider you a reviewer,
but start doing it consistently.

You can definitely grow in the US.

A lot of the US publications
are usually independent writers.

A lot of 'em from Substack.

That's why I say that too.

And fewer bigger publications
write reviews in the US.

So that's why I leaned a lot more in
my earlier conversation about the UK.

The UK has a lot of bigger publications.

They see the value in
writing reviews for podcasts.

They know it's mainstream.

Over here, even though it's
mainstream, I'm not sure what

the holdup is just quite yet.

Jennifer-Lee: Well, I think, you know,
the industry, and we learn this every

time we go to conferences, it's so young
still compared to traditional media.

And I think one of the issues too is a lot
of people don't realize like reviews, even

just like Apple reviews, not even talking
about reviews on other sites, are a great

way to get exposure for your podcast.

And I will look at people's podcasts.

I'll be like, you know, you do
well in listens, but you have

like one Apple review, or you
have like one Spotify star review.

And people haven't hopped on that yet.

And I tell people, I say, really
go out and find reviews and find

those opportunities, like being
on Great Pods, and other things.

Because even if it's negative or not,
you're getting more exposure and it's

helping add to that organic growth
because everybody wants to find a

way to expose their podcast, but
they don't do any of these things.

They just put it out on social
media and they're like, well,

I hope someone finds it.

Neil McPhedran: Well, this has been great.

I appreciate all your time today
and I think there's some really

good insights here for our audience
that is thinking about discovery.

I think for a lot of higher education
university podcasters, the default is

like, let's find my people in academia.

And this is something that is definitely
outside of that world, but it's a great

way to, back to the beginning of our
conversation about discovery, and it's a

great way just for your show to pop up in
all different kinds of places as well too.

So I really appreciate your insights and
all that you're doing with the Great Pods.

It's awesome.

Jennifer-Lee: Yeah.

As podcasters, we don't take
advantage enough of these tools.

Doesn't matter for in
higher education or not.

And even for higher education space,
Neil and I have found that we will

go to these massive institutions
and they don't realize that there's

other podcasts on their campuses.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, that too.

Jennifer-Lee: Their departments.

And so Neil has created,
which everyone should join, is

HigherEdPods.com, and it's a network.

So when you go on there and we have
over a thousand podcasts now, you'll

find out there's so many podcasts
in the higher education space.

So they should all be on Great
Pods, link them together.

Imran Ahmed: That reminds me, one
of the things I want to express

is, it's like the relation I have
with my campus that everybody has,

you should have with your campus.

But when I started Great Pods out,
I didn't think I had resources.

And as I Googled it and I
went to USC in LA in downtown.

So when I came back during the
pandemic and I started Googling

places in LA, startups, things like
that, uSC popped up as an incubator.

The business school had an incubator.

I highly encourage anybody that's even
thinking about, just go to whatever

the business school, the engineering
school, to see if they have any

resources, especially for alumni.

If you're alumni, I didn't know that
was available to me as an alumni,

and now I'm in it, and it's provided
a great starting point in community.

Every cohort, every semester there's
new bunch of students, alumni or

faculty starting their own startups.

And so we get to be a part of that
and have those resources available.

Not only that, once I started going to
campus and I go to campus at least once a

week, the campus has five or six podcasts.

As you mentioned, like other campuses,
I didn't even know they existed.

I highly encourage figuring that
stuff out and use those resources

as they are also available to you,
as they have been available to me.

Jennifer-Lee: Great way to end
it, and again, we appreciate

you coming on so much.

Imran Ahmed: Thank you for bringing me on.

Jennifer-Lee: Awesome.

Neil McPhedran: Well that was a
great conversation, wasn't it, Jen?

I really enjoyed chatting
with Captain Ron.

Jennifer-Lee: I really wish he had
like a extreme backstory for that.

I asked him and there is no
backstory, but still a cool nickname.

What I really do love
is this is a smart guy.

He's got this great
site, it's ever evolving.

And it's something like we talked about in
the podcast that not enough of us do this.

There are stuff out there, different
articles, different rate your podcast

sites, podcasts in the top ten,
whatever that genre might be, and

we can all submit to this stuff.

Again, it just takes time on our end
as the podcaster and as the higher ed

podcaster, to find all these things.

But that's something great for
higher ed podcasters to do too.

There are tons of articles out there
that will probably mention your podcast.

You just gotta submit it.

So really at the end of the day, it
makes it more searchable for your

listeners, and really that's what we want.

We wanna gain more listeners too.

So I thought it was a great topic for
higher ed podcasters because we always

talk about building the podcast, but
we don't really talk about growing it.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, I think there's some
really applicable stuff for discovery.

And some of the sort of mechanics
of our podcast, like categories.

So, well, Jen, why
don't we leave it there?

Jennifer-Lee: Thank you for tuning
into the Continuing Studies podcast, a

podcast for higher education podcasters.

We hope you found this episode
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Thank you for being part of our community.

We look forward to continuing to bring
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