Have you ever wondered what it's like to peek behind the curtain of app development and get your hands on features no one else has seen? Join me as I guide you through the beta testing and recount my adventures with the brand-new Buzzsprout mobile app.
I'm sharing my firsthand experience of these new capabilities, and you'll hear the pure joy in my voice, knowing that this community's needs are shaping the future of podcasting tools!
Do you feel like a content creation magician yet? You will after this episode, in which I rave about the seamless harmony between Canva and Buzzsprout and the tightrope walk of anticipation for the next big integrations set to revolutionize our workflows.
Imagine hitting 'publish on the go' for your latest episode and having a digital pat on the back for every podcast milestone you reach. That's what the Buzzsprout mobile app is all about, and I'm here to tell you all about the bells and whistles that come with it – the achievements feature that celebrates your podcasting journey is always super fun to see. So, buckle up for a ride through the cutting-edge podcasting tech, and get inspired together!
Have you ever wondered what it's like to peek behind the curtain of app development and get your hands on features no one else has seen? Join me as I guide you through the beta testing and recount my adventures with the brand-new Buzzsprout mobile app.
I'm sharing my firsthand experience of these new capabilities, and you'll hear the pure joy in my voice, knowing that this community's needs are shaping the future of podcasting tools!
Do you feel like a content creation magician yet? You will after this episode, in which I rave about the seamless harmony between Canva and Buzzsprout and the tightrope walk of anticipation for the next big integrations set to revolutionize our workflows.
Imagine hitting 'publish on the go' for your latest episode and having a digital pat on the back for every podcast milestone you reach. That's what the Buzzsprout mobile app is all about, and I'm here to tell you all about the bells and whistles that come with it – the achievements feature that celebrates your podcasting journey is always super fun to see. So, buckle up for a ride through the cutting-edge podcasting tech, and get inspired together!
Something really cool about being in the digital creator, the online space, is that it is constantly changing. Now, some people love that, some people hate that. I particularly love it because it means that we're evolving right, like we're not just staying the same and reinventing ourselves. We are literally inventing new things all the time, and with that comes new tools, new processes and fun things for me to try. Like, if you do not know this about me, I am such a nerd when it comes to apps, when it comes to tech. That does not mean let me clarify, before we go too far down that rabbit hole, that I'm super techie or that I love to be the one that you go to for all of your technical needs, but I love a beta test. Okay, I love to be able to try products, try apps, try different types of software before it's released to the public, because that feels very exclusive and makes me feel VIP and important. I know, I know I'm just gonna throw it out there. I'm just gonna let my ego be very honest about this, but it is so much fun. And the thing that we're gonna highlight today is Buzzsprout's brand new mobile app, and I wanna talk about it from the different perspectives of what it's like to be a beta tester. So, for those of you that are like Chris, why don't I use Buzzsprout? This is not going to help me. Yes, it will, because we're going to talk about the beta testing process and the things that I learned, but, of course, I'm also going to highlight why I love the brand new Buzzsprout mobile app. So let's get right to it.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Profit Podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, crystal Profit, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time-saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? That will help be your time-saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? So welcome back and thanks for joining me here today. Whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on the podcast, I am so happy that you're here.
Speaker 1:
I am Crystal Prophet. I'm a podcast coach and content creator If this is your first time tuning in, because I know we have some new listeners from time to time and and you know, here we are Just want to reintroduce myself before I dive into this topic. That's really going to expose my nerdiness when it comes to all this tech stuff. So, like I said earlier, beta testing is something I've done. I mean for years, for years and years and years I have been because I'm a Buzzsprout creator. I do feel like I mean for years, for years and years and years I have been because I'm a Buzzsprout creator. I do feel like like let's throw out that disclaimer I get access to things before the general public does, because that's kind of part of our job. It's like, okay, all the Buzzsprout crew, like they get together and of course, they're testing their products, they're researching for their products and they're doing all these things behind the scenes. But I don't work at Buzzsprout, like I don't have a crystal at buzzsproutcom email, like that's not me, I don't work for them in that capacity, and so they want people that are outside of their little bubble, doing the testing, doing the research, to actually test drive their products.
Speaker 1:
And I remember this is so funny I just flashed back to there was a moment where we were on a Zoom call. This is pre-2020. And I remember they would host these meetups. It might've even been pre me being a Buzzsprout creator and I remember they had this Zoom call. They were like what kind of features do you want to see? And Kevin. So shout out to Kevin Finn. He's, you know, one of the co-founders at Buzzsprout and he had said you know, what are some of the things that we want to see with this app? And I remember saying it would be so incredible if we could have the pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ability to add our own content. Now I'm not saying, okay, I'm going to throw this out there very clearly because there's incredible engineers that are doing things at Buzzsprout. I'm not going to take credit for the invention of dynamic content on Buzzsprout. Okay, I realize that that was not me alone that thought of that idea, but in my mind I'm also like it's because I brought it to Kevin that one day on that one Zoom call.
Speaker 1:
But in reality I know really, they've been working on it, they'd been working on that for a while and it was like, ooh, surprise, yes, something may be in the works, but I was able to beta test that months and months in advance before it was ever actually available to the public, like the general audience of all of Buzzsprout users. And that is the same thing that happened for the app, and this process actually took longer. This was a long time. I don't know. I don't want to say it was six months, because it may not have been that long, but I was sitting with the ability to use this mobile app to download my soundbites very organically, to check my stats very easily on the fly and just to be able to do things more I guess the word is like fluidly than I could, as opposed to like going out to my Chrome browser on my phone and look at Buzzsprout. That way, like that is a literal mobile website version of Buzzsprout and this app I was just able to do so many more things.
Speaker 1:
So that's just kind of my experience of beta testing, and it really sucks when you do discover something incredible and you have to sit on it like they, like we were told you can't tell anybody about this. Like you know, just share with us. You know if you find any bugs. If you find any. You know hiccups, if there's a feature missing that you want to see. Like that is the true definition of a beta test. But here I am. I have an audience full of people that I know so many of you already use Buzzsprout and so many of you wanna try Buzzsprout out and so many of you can benefit from this information that I have about Buzzsprout. But I could not share a peep. I couldn't tell you anything. So I'm so happy it's out into the world and we can talk about it now because I just I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:
So what are some of the benefits for current Buzzsprout users? I already mentioned a few of them, but actually I'm just going to go to my Buzzsprout app on my phone. It was actually open earlier because I was looking for an old episode and, if you know, we'll we'll have some screenshots up here. But it's just so pretty. It's so pretty and I'm just I'm so grateful that we have some really great, like awesome designers in the Buzzsprout fam that make everything look so great. So I mean, look at this user interface If you're watching on on on the YouTubes like it. Just it looks so sleek. I know I'm not doing a great job. We could have probably could have put up like a better. You know, I'll have to put up a side by side of what it actually looks like, because I am just so blown away by how easy it is to navigate and what it looks like.
Speaker 1:
And also, if you're using co-host, you can scroll through the different things. This was something that I had requested. I was like, hey guys, can we put the co-host content directly into the app, because I can't access it very easily on my phone. Even in the previous browser version, I couldn't get to my co-host content on my phone, and now I can literally just click the share button and I can click copy. And now if I wanna go to Instagram, I could go out and just paste that or you know wherever else you want to share it on social, and then you can see your chapters, your transcript. You can see just all the beautiful things. I could go check my stats. I could look at all my other episodes. It's just, it's beautiful, it's so beautiful. I know, I know I shouldn't be this impressed, and this is actually one of those things that I wanted to bring up.
Speaker 1:
For those of you that don't use Buzzsprout currently, you use another hosting platform. It's one of the reasons why I love this company so much. I know if you go back through all of my episodes, I actually have an upcoming interview that I'm doing with Albin, who's the head of marketing over at Buzzsprout. He's been on the podcast before like friend of the pod over at Buzzsprout. He's been on the podcast before like friend of the pod and I just love the company so much because they're constantly reinventing how they serve their people. They're not reinventing themselves necessarily on oh, this is the company we want to be. Today they're saying how do we want to reinvent what we do to serve independent podcasters? Because that is who they are serving and it's just one of the reasons why I'm gonna push you to check out Buzzsprout. If you're not a current user, you can go to crystalprofitcom forward slash Buzzsprout to check them out. I'm a proud partner, affiliate, buzzsprout creator, all of the above, and I just I love them so much.
Speaker 1:
But one of the advantages is you do get to use this brand new mobile app and you get to check it out and you can see all the cool things that they've done. There's actually an article that I'm going to link to that talks about the iOS platform, because I know people are going to ask everyone with the Android is like standing up at the same time saying wait, is this like iOS? Only as of me recording this, it is for now, but Android is coming very soon. They're working on it. It says it like on their website, like Android coming soon. So I do know that they're working on it, but it's one of the reasons that you should check it out is because it is ready, it is beautiful and it makes navigating the app so much easier.
Speaker 1:
So if you need to make a quick change to, let's say, your podcast description, or there was an episode like faux pas that you needed to switch, the numbers were wrong, like how many? Like I want you, if you're watching on the video, I want you to tell me in the comments how many times have you accidentally put the wrong episode number? A bajillion times, like I remember when I was doing the potty report this was my daily podcast that I did for three years I would get one number out of sync and because I batched them, so there were five episodes per week, one Monday through Friday. If I got one of them wrong, I could subsequently, subsequently no, that's not the right word, you know what I'm trying to say Subsequently, subsequently, is that the right word? I don't know. We're just going with it. I could totally mess up like two weeks worth of numbers and I would not know until I went back and I'm looking at the stats, I'm like, oh, that's no, no, no, this is not right. So I'd mess up the numbers and I'd take me forever to go back. So now I can go and quickly check, like, okay, all of my episodes are in numerical order, in the right order, and I did not mess them up.
Speaker 1:
I know maybe you don't have to check these things, but this is, you know, me just sharing my behind the scenes of my podcasting days and all of the beautiful things that I have done, my lessons learned. But let's talk about tips and tricks for best practices. So I already kind of shared about having sound bites and different things that I do with the app. But I actually want to go and I'm going to show you here. Let me make sure I'm recording this so we can share it on the screen here. After you have created an, a podcast episode, and you want to share your sound bite, you can just scroll down and it will have it like you see that it'll have it right there to where you can click that share button and download it. How incredible is that you could not do this before on just a regular Chrome browser.
Speaker 1:
So two things about this One. It saves me time because now I don't have to bounce around between my computer, which is where I create a lot of these, like first thing in the morning, and then by the time it's ready for me to share. I've already like gone on to three other things and I'm not sitting down in front of my computer. Honestly, I do these about anywhere between six and 6.30 AM on Tuesday mornings, when these episodes go live After 6.30, like mama's got things to do, I'm either working out, I'm getting kids ready to go to school, I'm getting ready to get out the door, and I don't typically sit down at my desk again until 8.30, nine o'clock when the kids are already like at school, and that creates a problem because I want to post it around 7.30, eight o'clock in the morning, but I don't want to have to come back and be chained to my desk.
Speaker 1:
So I love that I have it like right here in my pocket to be able to say, okay, I want to go ahead and um, oops, hang on, let me turn off this recording. It's going to be like a minute and a half of me recording me like not doing anything. But um, yeah, for those of you listening on the podcast. I'm screen recording everything so we can share it on the screen. But yeah, that was like this is just something that we'll have to edit. It's totally fine. It's fine, it's fine. But this is the behind the scenes of all the content creation that y'all want to know about. But I love that you can do the visual soundbite. So that was one the second piece of that. So I was saying, like this makes my life easier and it saves me time. But it's just so accessible to be able to find everything in one place and you're not having to go in and out of multiple tabs in Buzzsprout or click around and you're trying to find it, or this is what I had to do before that I'm just again so grateful, so grateful that this process is easier.
Speaker 1:
So my previous workflow, whenever I wanted to grab soundbites, was all of this from my desktop. I would have to create the Canva image on my desktop, or I could have done it on my phone, wherever, but I had to create it in Canva, Then I had to download that image. Then I had to go to Buzzsprout, create the sound byte, upload the image. So I had to do some uploading. So download from Canva, upload to Buzzsprout. Then I had to download to my computer once the sound byte was done. Then I had to upload to Google Drive so that I could share it. Then I had to download to Instagram or download to my phone so I could share it to Instagram, like. This takes out the step of one of those downloads that I don't have to do anymore. I guess it's a download and an upload because I don't have to download it from Buzzsprout and upload it to Google Drive just to download it again. Now I still have to create it in Canva, which actually there's a workaround in Buzzsprout if you want to create it, like directly in Canva. But I like to keep them because I'm that weirdo that likes to go back and reuse them over and over. So if you wanted to skip those steps altogether, you could, in theory, go out to Buzzsprout and use their Canva integration and create your soundbite that way and you know, have it native right there in Buzzsprout, use that and then just download it once from the app and you're done. None of this downloading, uploading, downloading, uploading, downloading, uploading until it's there.
Speaker 1:
This is the type of stuff that will drive me crazy, and the fact that nothing is like wireless, like I want everything to be wireless. When I say nothing is wireless, that's like an overstatement, right, because there are things that are wireless, but I want everything in this world to be wireless. Why do? It's 2024. Why do we still have wires for everything that I can trip on that I have to worry about getting like caught up or twisted or tangled. I just want everything to be wireless. Is that so much to ask? Apparently it is, but anyway, I digress.
Speaker 1:
We're going to keep moving on to the next part because I want to talk about what's next for Buzzsprout. This is something that's really like has me thinking. Where can they go from here? Because for me personally, as a podcaster, they've already exceeded my expectations beyond belief. Because, again, I told you, I was wishing and hoping for that dynamic content insertion, to be able to add stuff before my episodes, in the middle of my episodes, in the post-roll of my episodes. So check, that's done. Then we asked for AI. If you did not know this, you gotta go check out. Co-host AI the feature, because it is incredible.
Speaker 1:
But I wanna take it even further back to Magic Mastering. Like y'all, I've been using Buzzsprout since before Magic Mastering was available and I remember having to take all of my audio files. I would have to export them and then upload them to Auphonic, which is essentially the same tool as Magic Mastering, and have those do all the compression, equalization, all the beautiful things, and then I would have to download that file and then upload it. So again, do you see the pattern here? I do not like to do the uploading and the downloading and the uploading and the downloading. So I'm always always excited about an integration. Like I cannot wait until one day. You know, it's like Buzzsprout and WordPress is fully integrated, where all I have to do is click a button and it will publish everything, like the blog posts, like all of it just in one place. I really just want Buzzsprout to be the one place where I can do everything. I wish I could post my YouTube videos there, like all of it one day. I feel like you know I'm just I'm throwing it out there, you know, cause I know every once in a while they'll watch these videos and listen to the podcast. So I'm throwing it out there, guys, like I would love to have my whole life just controlled in the Buzzsprout app. I know it's too much to ask, but I'm just throwing it out there, cause I know you'll make it look so beautiful, but what's next, I don't even know. Okay, I will be very honest, very transparent. I'm no longer in beta testing with Buzzsprout.
Speaker 1:
It was the app for the longest time and thank goodness, I can talk about it now because it's so special. It's so special you can look at your achievements. So for those of you that don't have the app or you're not looking at it, you have the home button which has all of my top episodes by day. You can actually look at your weekly report. I can see how many downloads I've gotten in a week. I can see you know which ones were the top episodes. I can look at my achievements. This is so wild, y y'all. My next achievement with Buzzsprout is 500 episodes. That feels crazy bonkers and I know like today's episode was in the 450s, technically by the numerical order that it goes, but including bonus episodes. It says I only have around 29 to go before we get to 500. That is wild. Like that feels like it calls for a super big celebration. But I can see that and I can track it all right here in the app and then I have another big achievement in my downloads. I'm about to hit 250K. Who knows, I probably already hit it by the time you're watching this or listening to this.
Speaker 1:
But I love also that they've integrated Buzzsprout resources directly into the app so you can see all the things that you can go check out. They have blog posts, they have videos, they have all kinds of things that will be very helpful, and then they have more of their like creator I was going to say products their creator podcast that you can go check out so you can go see all the different things that they have. Again, they do such an incredible job at giving you tools to help you be more successful and build your content business and one of the other things I didn't even talk about. We talked about magic mastering, you know, dynamic content, but they actually give you a platform to make money. To make money. I haven't heard of other podcast hosts that do this. Maybe they do, but it's probably also because I haven't looked for another podcast host.
Speaker 1:
So, yes, this, if you have not noticed, this whole episode is completely biased towards Buzzsprout, but I love Buzzsprout ads. It's somewhere where my podcast makes a few bucks here and there and I love seeing it. I love having ads and being able to make money with my show but also promote my show on other people's podcasts, and I do a big push of that from time to time and I just I love the opportunity to be able to do that and have affiliate content right there baked in. I can promote, you know, the episode footer. I could put links there. I use this with my recent sponsorship with Riverside, which was incredible, and I mean, do I need to keep going? I feel like y'all are already sick of me talking about how incredible Buzzsprout is, but go check out the app.
Speaker 1:
The reason why I wanted to call this podcast tools I love is because I love this tool so much and, yes, I talk about it so often, but it is one of those apps that I use every single week in my business. I am in there multiple times a week and now, because of the app, I have it right at my fingertips and I can look at it on the go. If somebody has a question, somebody on my team reaches out and says, hey, I think this episode is ready. I can go check it and do some QA, qc and approvals right there in the app, instead of having to go sit down on my computer, because who wants to go back and sit at their computer when you've worked all day and everything is finished and you've just shut everything down and then someone pings you and says, hey, can you take a look at this? I no longer have to go back and, you know, turn everything back on. I can look at it directly from my phone.
Speaker 1:
So thank you, buzzsprout, for making this easier on us and, like I said earlier, if you are looking to switch your podcast host provider, go to crystalprofitcom forward, slash Buzzsprout to check them out and you make it a little special gift for joining a paid plan after you've tried your free trial. But go check them out. But that's all I have for you today. So make sure you stay tuned for other episodes that we're gonna do about how you can work with and partner with brands like Buzzsprout, convertkit, kajabi, streamyard. I just have so many insights that I wanna share with you on how you can partner with brands and what that looks like. So stay tuned for upcoming episodes and for my interview with Alvin from Buzzsprout, because it's always gonna have fun, alvin and I. We always have so much fun whenever we get together. So stay tuned for that. But that's all I have for you today. So, as always, remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.