Some time ago, there was a question posted on the Twitter handle of NaijaPodHub – “Would you continue podcasting if no one is listening?”
(By the way, if you are not following @NaijaPodHub on Twitter, you are missing out.)
My reply was, “No, my podcast is not a diary.”
Abi are we joking here?
How can I spend hours researching a topic, scripting, recording and editing only for five people to listen? The most annoying part is when you discover that the five people who listened were: ‘you’, ‘you’, ‘you’ (off course on different devices), your mum and your fiancé.
Ee choke? Sorry, no vex, it is part of the game.
I hear some people say, numbers of listens do not matter yen yen yen. I know, mumsy still gives you puff puff money. Because if we want to call a shovel a shovel, the number of listens means more opportunity; monetary and otherwise. So, if you see me refreshing Anchor every second, at least you know I am not mad. But if you think I am, then we are all mad nigbayen.
Deep down, every one of us wants great numbers.
We want to look at the statistics and see that our latest episode was listened to by one thousand people from fifty countries around the world. This has a way of totoreeing our belly! But when we open the app and see four listens, something dies within us. Subconsciously, we are becoming or have become a slave to numbers. It controls us! It holds the key to our happiness (and sadness).
Number of listens is great (I would not even lie) but it takes time to build. For example, Mr. Beast (as at the writing of this post) has 85.4 million subscribers on his main channel. But after four years of creating, he did not cross the 50,000 mark.
Number of listens is great but it is not a testament to the quality of your podcast. You need to understand that not all types of content have the potential to go viral. Sometimes, all you need to get is a thousand true fans. So keep creating as long as you have the fire still burning in your belly; keep creating as long as you have something you would love to tell the world.
The day you no longer feel that fire is the day you should quit or go on a very long break (this is whether you have the numbers or not). If you don’t, it would mark the beginning of the end for your podcast.
So, do you want to talk about your experience with your podcast statistics in the comment section or you just want to look away?
