How To Rebrand Your Podcast Without Losing Your Audience

You picked a name for your podcast (need help with picking a name, check out this episode of Your Podcast Consultant) and you've decided that maybe you went a little too "inside baseball" and you want to change the name of your podcast without losing your subscribers.

How To Change Your Podcast Name

Step one would be to let your audience know what is happening (you might even get them involved in voting for a new name). By letting them know ahead of time they don't freak out when they go to listen to your show and can't find it under the old name.

4:00 Rebranding your podcast is not that hard. In its most primitive steps you:

Change your artwork (making sure to use a different file name for your new artwork)
Change your categories (if you want to)
Change the email address (if you want to)
Change your website address (if you want to)
Change the author name (if you want to)

Keep in mind may take up to 24 hours for the changes to appear in the apps

In Libsyn.com the steps are:

Go to Settings > edit show settings and here you can update your show name, website, and artwork (as well as the description for the Libsyn directory).

If you are uploading new artwork, make sure the file name is different than the current artwork ( for example, logo.jpg needs to be logo2.jpg ) and click save

Then go to destinations > edit > Libsyn classic feed and adjust your categories, summaries, owner/author/email information and click Save

With 24 hours any directories using your feed should update.

Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC

Your podcast is a recipe - not a statue. So similar to the time when the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants changed their name to KFC (hoping people would forget their name had the word FRIED in the middle of their name). There might be a new coat of paint on the outside. There might be a new sign out front. Inside you have the same food (an in this case they added a new menu item that still fit in with the other items)

So when the audience went to the same location, they saw a new sign, a new menu item, but really nothing much changed

When a podcast listener fires up their app it goes to the same location (your feed) and sees a few new things, but really nothing much has changed. They don't have to do anything.

Because of My Podcast Kenn Blanchard

Kenn Blanchard of the Black Man with a Gun show has been asked to share 100 episodes for a new Black Podcast Project for the Society of American Archivists Journal. Check out at www.blackmanwithagun.com

Homework: Question of the Month

What ideas do you have for a podcaster celebrating a milestone episode (50, 100, 200, etc)?

Watch to Watch: My Next Guest Needs No Introduction

The new season of David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction has two great examples of SHUTTING UP.

When he is interviewing Ellen Degenerous he gets to the subject of her stepfather who he describes as a bad man and then SHUTS UP. Ellen is uncomfortable and not sure if she should share, and he DIDN'T SAY A PEEP.

In a different episode, he is interviewing Tiffany Hadish who is explaining how good it felt to get her first suitcase so she didn't feel "like a piece of garbage." Here again, Dave SHUTS UP, and lets her share he insights and feelings. He doesn't chime in. He lets his guest share, and at the end, all he said was "Beautiful."

Remember when you're interviewing someone the goal is to make your guest comfortable, and free to share anything in a judge free zone. It's about THEM not you.

Apple Announcements: What It Means For You

Apple announced that they will be transcribing your episodes in the future and using that transcription to boost search. There isn't anything for you to do besides make great content.

They will be adding new categories and taking some away. This is good news, but not everyone will be happy (of course). This will be coming "in the future" but no time frame. Once Apple announces their backend is ready then the podcast media hosts will update their backend to tap into these new categories. The bottom line is this won't be coming out for a little bit. I'm sure all the media hosts will announce when they are ready for those who want to update their category. Keep in mind that 70% of people find podcasts via word of mouth (but this might make it easier).