Downloads, statistics and damn lies!

I’m about to say something controversial…

The number of downloads on your latest episode is irrelevant.

As podcasters and content creators, it’s really easily to

get hung up on an individual number, especially if we start comparing to a bigger

podcaster with a bigger platform. But we need to look at the big picture.

Whether it’s episode one

or episode 74, the actual numbers alone for that episode are not important. They

only mean something when you compare them to your other numbers.

If I released a new podcast today, I could probably take a

rough guess at how many downloads it would get based on the size of my

audience, but it would be a guess, there’s no way of making an accurate

prediction. And it wouldn’t matter. The important thing you would get is a

starting point.

So, let’s say episode one gets 10 downloads. What matters

now is growth. So, for episode 2 we should be aiming to get 10+.

The individual number doesn’t matter, but we can track the

increase/decreases in lots of areas, here’s a few:

It’s the increase and decrease that we need to pay attention

to, more than an individual number. As always, I’ll go into more detail on this

in the accompanying podcast – link in the comments – as well as sharing some of

my own stats and how I measure them.

There are however some ‘magic’ numbers – 100, 500, 1000,

5000, 10000 etc. These are magic because, firstly, they make you feel good!

Secondly it’s a great thing to talk about on social media and use them to

promote the show.

But I’ll talk more about how to promote and grow your show

in a future post. For now, enjoy #terrytuesday and throw any questions,

feedback or thoughts in the comments.

Have a great day!

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