Welcome to the Softercast, a podcast for small business owners and creatives who want tender podcast advice without any tech pro bullshit.

I'm Amelia Hruby, and I'm the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for women and non binary entrepreneurs.

On this show, I answer your questions about podcasting.

Things like, should I put my show on YouTube?

Can I just record it on Zoom?

How much do editors really cost?

And how many downloads should my podcast be getting?

Yeah.

I'll even answer that question.

Every episode of the Softercast is really practical, a little magical, and less than ten minutes long.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show and share it with your podcast bestie.

Then head to the show notes to check out our free resources.

No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you.

Join us on the softer side of podcasting.

Hello, and welcome to the Softercast, a show where I, Amelia Hruby, founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio, answer your very cool creative artist, small business owner making a podcast questions.

Here at the Softercast, I love to talk about the magic of podcasting and make it as easy as possible for you to bring your show to life, grow your audience, and maybe even make some money along the way.

I have not shared an episode in a few months because I have been busy launching my new book, Your Attention is Sacred except on Social Media.

This book offers a new understanding of the attention economy, a critique of the power of social media algorithms, and new ways to reclaim your attention and begin to heal your fractured mind through pleasure, connection, and regenerative practice.

You might not have heard of it over here on this feed, but if you enjoy my work, I think you'll love the book, and I'd really appreciate your support in buying a copy.

So you can head to your attentionissacred.com or the link in the show notes to check it out.

And while you're doing that, let me tell you about today's episode.

So in this episode of the podcast, I am going to answer a question from Rachel of the Money Healing Club podcast.

She is a return question asker.

I'm thrilled to have her back.

And we will be talking about private podcasts because Rachel noticed that I launched a private podcast inside my membership program, the interweb, and she was curious how it works and if she might do that too.

So let's hear Rachel's question, and then I'll give you all the answers.

Hey, Amelia.

I am really bad at self paced courses.

Like, I'm bad at getting them done.

I always have the best intentions, but it's really hard to actually get through the content.

But as an Interweb member, I just love this new service that you just released to all of us, which was to have all of the Interweb lessons as a private podcast feed, which makes it just so much more accessible for me to listen to, like, while I'm driving or doing dishes or whatever, just like a regular podcast.

I just really loved it.

So how did you do that?

How does one do that?

How does one make sure that the content works audio wise, especially if there was originally a visual component?

That's one thing I'm a little worried about because my lessons tend to be kind of visual, so I'm not sure if that would work for me.

And then how do you make sure that, like, okay, if people leave your membership or or no longer clients, do they no longer get access to that?

But I guess they've already downloaded it.

Just I'd love to know your your thought process as well as sort of the back end.

How did you make it happen?

And, also, what are you seeing?

Like, do you do you see metrics of, like, people downloading them or consuming them?

I'm just wondering as a business owner how this fits into your whole ecosystem.

So thank you so much for the inspiration, and I'm very interested to try it.

Isn't Rachel so great?

I love having her in the interweb and here on the Softercast, and I'm super excited to talk to you about private podcast today.

So the first thing I'll say is I don't think Rachel actually uses the term private podcast, but that is what she's describing.

So in my membership, the interweb, I have a resource portal of all of the calls that we've had in the community as well as some prerecorded classes that are available for members.

And I love our interweb portal, but I noticed that some of the most popular classes weren't getting a lot of replays.

And when I asked members why, they typically said because it was just hard to find time to sit on the computer and watch them.

Like, we're all Zoom fatigued.

We're all sick of being on screens.

So I decided to find a way to share that material in a format where you could listen on the go, and you wouldn't need to be on your computer to access the content.

To do that, I created a private podcast feed that had the audio version of every class in the interweb portal.

So now members can sign up to get a private RSS feed and listen to the classes anytime, anywhere.

That's what Rachel's describing, and that is what I call a private podcast.

So with all that context, let me dive into a few things today.

I'm gonna tell you what a private podcast is, including a few different types, as well as how to set one up, how your people can sign up to hear and enjoy it, and then I'll answer some of the more, like, specific logistics that Rachel mentioned in her queue.

So first things first, what is a private podcast?

I think there are two types of private podcasts.

There are unlisted podcasts that just happen to be private, and then there are podcasts that have private RSS feeds, which means that every listener of your show gets their own unique RSS feed that determines their access to episodes.

So with an unlisted podcast, you just have one RSS feed for your show that you can share easily.

It's essentially a public show that is not listed on Apple or Spotify, so people can't find it unless you tell them about it.

This could be great for you if you only wanna give access to your episodes when people sign up for your mailing list.

So you can set it up on your website using a traditional podcast hosting platform.

I've set them up with Transistor.

You can put it in Buzzsprout.

You can do it through Squarespace.

You just set it up like any other podcast, but you don't submit it to Apple and Spotify when you set it up.

And then you'd put it on your website or send the link via email whenever you want to give access to someone.

So that's an unlisted but private podcast.

Now when most people say private podcast, they're referring to the private RSS feed version where every listener has their own RSS feed.

So these are only for people who sign up for something from you.

They have to give you their email address or buy a paid offering or product of some kind, and that's how they get access to the private RSS feed.

And again, their feed is unique to them.

So you actually can see, like, did they start listening?

What have they listened to?

How much of the content have they consumed?

Because you have this sort of unique link right into their podcast player.

Now how do you set that up?

Maybe you're listening to this, and you're like, Amelia, I don't even know what an RSS feed is.

And that is perfectly okay.

So the RSS feed is just the technology on which your episodes live, and that, like, updates every time you get a new episode.

And when you have a public podcast, Apple and Spotify and all the listening platforms, they are tuned in to your RSS feed.

So when something new goes there, they grab it and push it through to their listening platforms.

But when you have a private podcast, things are still going on the RSS feed, but they're not getting pushed to that public distribution.

So you can think of an RSS feed like a blog.

They often run on RSS feeds as well, but it's like the audio blog for your podcast.

And it's the one that all the places you tell about it are tuned into.

So if you want to set up a private podcast, you're typically going to use a paid service to do that.

The most popular one is Hello Audio.

It has all the bells and whistles and stats and information and integrations that you could want.

If you want something simpler, you can actually use Captivate, I believe, for free to set up a private podcast, or I use Transistor to set up my private podcast.

Now if you want to sell your private podcast, Captivate and Transistor do not have any of that built in.

So if you want a built in place where you can set up private podcast and sell it, I would recommend Hello Audio.

But if you already are selling something else and you want to add a private podcast to that offering, then you could set it up somewhere else because your sales is happening elsewhere.

So I set up my private podcast for the interweb in Transistor.

I'm not gonna talk through the setup process here.

You can go find those platforms.

They'll guide you through it.

But once you have it set up, how do you get it to your people?

Right?

Like, how do you share it with them?

Well, all of these platforms, Hello Audio, Captivate, and Transistor, are going to give you a way for people to opt in.

So with Transistor, I have a page where they can enter their email address and get the private podcast feed for the membership.

You can also set up automations through tools like Zapier so that when someone signs up for an email list or an offering, they automatically get an email inviting them to the private podcast feed.

For me, because this was a private podcast feed that was like a perk of another membership, I didn't need every single person who signed up for the membership to get zapped into it.

I decided to include the sign up form in my onboarding work flow so the people who wanted it could get it, but it wouldn't become confusing for anyone who didn't care about the private podcast feed.

But that was just my personal decision.

Now let me answer a few of the logistical questions that Rachel asked.

So one was about content.

She mentioned that she does video calls that have a lot of visuals, and will that translate on an audio feed?

Well, yes and no.

I think that plenty of people can sort of get the gist of what you're talking about without the visual element, especially people who love to listen to podcasts.

Like, if they're into the private podcast feed, they probably love to listen.

They'll probably try to figure it out.

But that said, there will certainly be elements that they'll miss without the video.

So the way I handle that is I link directly to where they can find the slides in our interweb portal in the show notes for each episode.

So if someone's listening to something and they're like, oh, I really wanna see what they're talking about right here, they can go to the podcast episode show notes and click the link.

It'll take them to the login page and directly to where those visuals exist.

Then there's a question about stats.

So can you see metrics on what people are watching or doing?

And, yes, you can.

With all of these platforms, as far as I'm aware, you can see who has signed up or been invited to your feed, who has actually activated it, meaning they've set it up and downloaded at least one episode typically, and what episodes they've listened to.

So you do get a lot of information about what people have worked through or heard or downloaded.

And with Hello Audio, you can also actually do a lot of powerful automation around integrating that with your other offerings and delivering ads specifically to people who haven't bought something else or who have.

So if you want a lot of powerful metrics in automation, Hello Audio is definitely going to be the place you wanna go, but Captivate and Transistor still provide basic stats.

And then finally, the question about cancellation.

So if you're selling a private podcast that you really just, like, deliver one time and people get to keep forever, you don't need to worry about cancellation.

But if you are attaching this to a membership or a program that's ongoing and people might cancel, then you will need to figure out ways to remove their private podcast access.

So the way I have mine set up, I have to do this manually.

I haven't been able to get a Zap to work to remove them when their membership ends.

So at the end of each month, I just go through my list, see if any memberships have ended, and then cross check my private podcast list and delete them.

That's one of my sort of monthly membership admin activities.

If you're savvy with a Zap, there are workarounds for this, but it is something to consider if you really don't want to deal with any more admin.

Okay.

That was your under fifteen minutes super fast overview of private podcasts.

There are so many ways that you can use these in your business or your creative practice.

I have bought courses that were private podcasts.

I have joined memberships that had private podcast as a perk so I could listen on the go.

I have signed up for private podcasts that are just ongoing podcasts where the host didn't want it to be totally public and wanted people's email address before they listened.

So there are a lot of ways to build this in.

For me, for now, it's a perk for my Interweb members, and I'll tell you, they are loving it.

I have gotten so many messages from people who have been meaning to watch a class forever, and then suddenly just, like, binge that class and six others on a long drive this summer because they had the private podcast.

So if that feels like something that you want, you can head to the show notes for more information and links to all the things I mentioned here.

And if you want help setting one of these up, you can always book an advising session with me, and I'd be happy to help you talk through your strategy and your tech.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Softercast.

If you have questions of your own, you can submit a voice message at the link in the show notes.

And until next time, I will see you on the softer side of podcasting.

Thanks so much for listening to the Softercast.

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Head to the show notes to download our free podcast launch toolkit or our three step podcast audit.

No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you.

Thanks again for tuning in and joining us on the softer side of podcasting.