EP 27 - Behind The Scenes of Penn State's Democracy-Themed Podcasts
w/ Jenna Spinelle
Host of “Democracy Now” and “When The People Decide”
SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Jenna Spinelle.
Jenna is a writer podcast writer and speaker in higher education. She hosts and produces the "Democracy Works" podcast and the Narrative series "When People Decide."
Both of those are productions of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State.
She also teaches courses on freelancing and the creator economy at Penn State University's Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. Her writing has appeared in outlets including Belt magazine, Inside Higher Ed and Current.
And so in this conversation, we talk a lot about podcasting. We talk about both of her podcasts that she produces, and she takes us behind the scenes of those and we discuss tips for starting your own podcast and making that an efficient process as well as a bunch of other things.
LINKS:
Democracy Works podcast
When the People Decide podcast
Connect with Jenna on Linkedin
Connect with Jenna on Twitter
Mentioned in this episode:
-Pricing for Video Storytelling Subscription: pricing.unveild.tv
-Download the 3-part storytelling framework for student/alumni testimonials - "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
Transcript (done with AI so only about 80% accurate):
John:
All right, well, Jenna, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
Jenna Spinelle:
Thanks for having me, looking forward to our conversation.
John:
So tell me a little bit about who we are and what you do.
Jenna Spinelle:
Sure, so I am the communication specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State. The McCourtney Institute is a research center that focuses on different aspects of democracy. We bring, like institutes at a lot of other places, I think we bring together faculty and graduate students from a bunch of different disciplines. We look at political science and rhetoric and communication and the media and all the different aspects that go into democracy in the US and around the world. And my specific area of focus is our communications and outreach operations. So I'm trying to figure out how we can get the work that we do and our thought leadership out there to the public. And so we do that by bringing speakers to campus. And we have two podcasts that we produce that I am lucky enough to be able to spend a lot of my time working on and building the audience for.
John:
Very cool. And one of the things that I noticed listening to your podcast is that the audio quality is very good. And that's not always the case for like, I find that like people that host podcasts, I'm always surprised if it sounds like they're in like an echo chamber or in their bathroom or something like that.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, we did make an investment in getting some good equipment, both for myself and for my co-hosts. And we work with our local NPR station here in central Pennsylvania to do the production work. So that helps too. They, you know, the good gear will do a lot, you know that, but having a good editor helps too. So that combination of things is really critical. And I would Recommend to anybody out there who has started a podcast or is thinking about it Definitely make the investment once you decide it's something that you're going to stick with make the investment in getting good microphones and Ideally some soundproofing or take advantage of a studio resource on your campus And if you have the money, you know paying someone to engineer or edit for you will make the show sound even better
John:
Awesome. So I'm a big MPR fan though, I will say. My kids hate it though. They're always like, dad.
Jenna Spinelle:
It can be, it does have a stereotype of being pretty dry, pretty boring, but I know they're trying to change that. They're doing a lot more kids programming and trying to take some of the shows that they make for adults and kind of scale them down for kids.
John:
Yeah, sometimes I'm just like, no, it's DJ Dad this morning. I'm
Jenna Spinelle:
Hehehe
John:
driving to school. I'm like, I'm tired of listening to kids songs and K-pop
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
and stuff that they listen to. So, telling me what's unique about communications at a school like McCourtney, what's, how does that, what unique challenges do you come across that maybe aren't at other programs like that?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah. So the job I had before this one, I worked in the enrollment marketing team in the admissions office at Penn State. So in many ways, this job could not be more different than that one. The audiences are very different. I don't do anything with prospective students at all these days. Our main audiences at the McCourtney Institute are just kind of the general public and community members. a lot of outreach with groups like the League of Women Voters and our local libraries and those kinds of things to make connections to the community. We also work a lot with people, our podcast listeners come from all over the world, right? So people who are interested in or concerned about democracy from other states, other countries have found what we're doing. We have a lot of listeners who are faculty or graduate students at other universities. I was at a conference earlier this year and I had someone come up to me who recognized me based on the sound of my voice because he listened to our show. So that's kind of an interesting experience, kind of surreal in some ways.
John:
That's really cool. Ha ha ha.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, nice little ego bump there, I guess. And we work with, there's a whole other industry of democracy organizations, groups that are working on like... getting money out of politics, or things like ranked choice voting, all kinds of nerdery going on out there. So those are our audience members too. We try to provide academic support for the policy work and the advocacy work that they're doing. The other uniqueness slash challenge is I think just trying to figure out how to talk about politics in today's political climate and get... get people interested in what we're doing at a time when there is so much talk about politics. We're divided in many ways and many people just want to... Politics is the last thing they want to think about. So trying to figure out how to connect what we do to everyday people's lives is something that I spend time thinking about.
John:
Cool. What's like the, how does having a podcast and communications to the general public, like not for prospective students, but just to the general public, how does that help the schools like bottom line and like kind of where do you guys fit in into like kind of growing the school?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, so we are part of the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State and the Institute is entirely endowment funded. So we receive gifts from Penn State alumni, largely from political science or communication, arts and sciences, who want to, you know, use what they've earned, their success to pass it on and help us do our work to. create a healthier democracy. So I think there is a lot of interest right now and there has been for the past couple of years in democracy as a cause to support. For a long time, I think it was just something that people kind of took for granted or didn't really spend much time thinking about. And I would put myself in that category too. I did not think much about democracy at all when I was working in enrollment marketing, right? Just wasn't part of my day-to-day thought process. But Now, because of some of the ways that politics has changed, I think more people are interested in doing what they can to support groups that are doing civics education type of work and the other things that we do. So in some ways, I think if you ask our development office, it's maybe made their job a little bit easier because it's not as much of a sell now. And it's almost, I think, the opposite of that, where there are a lot of institutes like ours at other schools that have cropped up. Just off the top of my head, I know UVA has a large democracy institute, Johns Hopkins, USC, University of Delaware, there's lots of them. And so we're all in some ways competing for attention and funding. Every school has its own alumni, but the landscape from that end of things is definitely getting more competitive.
John:
Cool, that's great. So tell me, so the podcast, tell me about kind of the nuts and bolts of that. And so you have two podcasts, correct?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, so we in 2018, we started a show called Democracy Works. That is our flagship show. We have more than 200 episodes out. We've been doing it every semester since 2018. So that's something like, I know, lots of semesters, whatever, 200 episodes. We've been doing it a while. We've got to talk to a lot of interesting people. I do an interview on the show that's bookended with. some commentary and analysis by my faculty co-hosts. And so that comes out every week. We're on a bit of a summer break right now as we record this in June. So that one's called Democracy Works. That's the one we produce in partnership with the NPR station. It also goes out on the radio here in central Pennsylvania. And then the other show was one kind of a spin-off that I had the idea for during COVID. I started off as my... pandemic project to work on. It's more of a narrative style series, so very heavily scripted, more like a documentary. If you think about serial and those types of shows or this American life, that kind of storytelling. And that was a really fun project for me to work on. It's called, When the People Decide. And it tells the stories of individuals who have stepped up to make democracy stronger. So the first season was all about ballot measure campaigns, which is something that people in about 20 different states use to bring issues they care about directly to their fellow voters. You might have heard about them with regard to marijuana legalization or raising the minimum wage or some of those types of issues. So there's a lot of really passionate individuals and groups that go through this process go around the legislature in their state when they don't wanna act. And so that's really kind of inspiring in some ways. And so we're making a second season of that, which is about strengthening democracy at the local level. And that one, I work with a company called LWC Studios that helps with scripting and production and sound design. So that's been a really enriching experience for me. And I think for listeners too, to learn about. if they're frustrated about politics, to learn about real concrete ways that they can make change and get involved.
John:
That's cool. So tell me a little bit about the workflow, because I know for a lot of people that want to start podcasts, I've talked to several people that, I want to start a podcast for our school, yada yada, but I'm not sure about getting into it. What is your day-to-day input like with the podcasts?
Jenna Spinelle:
So with Democracy Works, that one is definitely on much more of a regimented schedule. I'm usually trying to book interviews about two or three weeks out. And so once I do the interview, I get the recording and the transcript and share that with my co-hosts and put together kind of a document for them to work in to write their notes. And then once a week, we all get together to record. their parts of the show, their intro and outro segments. So we do it at the same time every week, at the beginning of every semester, we just pick a time that works for everyone's schedules and sort of go from there. And so that's a pretty well-oiled machine. I know that I'm gonna have to do, you know, 12 to 15 interviews per semester, so I'm also spending time reading these people's books and articles and getting up to speed. I... I feel like I've gotten a PhD in political science during the course of doing this over the past five years or so, although I'm sure the actual PhDs might disagree with me on whether I have done the work to get one or not. And then when the people decide that's a much more, you know, it's six or eight episode season, the interviews are much more in depth. I was able to travel to do some for the second season. And that is really leaning more into the stories and the character driven elements, as opposed to the scholarly research or the arguments or that kind of thing. So it's nice to be able to get out of the ivory tower and talk to people as human beings and not just experts or political talking head type of figures.
John:
Yeah, I love that style that like narrative style of podcasting. It takes a lot. It takes more work, I think, in a lot of ways, because it's more calculated. And then, yeah, and having a partner to do the post production and sound design,
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
especially I feel like it's like it's such a lot of more tedious stuff going into that. But you're so you're not doing any of that. You're You said LWC Studios?
Jenna Spinelle:
That's right. Yeah, they have a great team of editors and sound designers that, yeah, I would love to actually just like learn more about that part of the process and like look over someone's shoulder as they do it. I mean, I know a little bit. I know like enough multi-track editing to be dangerous, I think. I've, you know, I could put a Democracy Works episode together if I have to, and I have had to do that in the past. But I could not do a When the People Decide episode, at least not quickly anyway. And LWC also helps with scripting to your point about the style and the complexity. It's hard to both do the reporting and do the writing. Like I find, at least for me, I get too far in it. So it's nice, just like if you're writing a long piece or something, it's nice to have that second set of eyes to help see things in a different way.
John:
Where do you find people to tell their stories for when the people decide?
Jenna Spinelle:
So some of it comes from other organizations in the space. There are a lot of think tanks that'll write like a policy paper or a case study about something, about a topic, and they'll use an anecdote or an example of people who've done it. And so it's taking out all the dry, boring, think tank language of it, right? And getting down to the human element of the story. Some suggestions come from listeners if they hear something like, oh, this cool thing happened in my town. Some of them I'll see on local media or social media. Just always keeping an ear to the ground for what's happening around these particular issues that I cover.
John:
And what about for Democracy Works? Like, who's responsible for finding, are you directly reaching out for guests and researching new guests and things like that?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, that show we also get pitches from authors who have books coming out or different experts in the space. So that one's a mix of people that I seek out, people who pitch us, different speakers who come to campus. That's kind of part of a package. If we bring a speaker to campus, we'll take them to the studio and do an interview while they're here. Faculty colleagues here at Penn State, we... I tell people, and this is important for people who are starting podcasts at their schools, our show is about democracy. It's not about Penn State. It's not just the Penn State faculty hour for people to come on and talk about their research or how great the university is. All those things are true, but if that's all we did, people wouldn't listen because they're interested in the topic. And so I try to keep that. in mind and still try to get, you know, our Penn State colleagues on as we can. But they have to be able to contribute to the topics we cover. I'm not going to have somebody, I don't know, from the chemistry department on, even if he just got a big grant or a big award, like he doesn't talk about what we talk about. So you know, there has to be a fit there too.
John:
Yeah, and having it not be about Penn State, is there, like how have you seen the podcasts, either podcasts kind of move the needle forward for Penn State, just in general?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, I mean, so I think that for the McCourtney Institute, like democracy works is the thing that we're most well known for around campus. So it's really, you know, Penn State is a big place. There's lots of stuff happening. So it's really helped us carve out a little niche for ourselves and it's still a fairly new unit. It's only maybe about eight or nine years old. So in higher ed terms, you know, that's not much at all. And so it's really given us something to kind of stake our flag in the ground about. And I mean, we have won a few awards for it from CASE and from other organizations. So that stuff is helpful to the university. I think that I know I've heard from our new president that she's listened to the show and she shared it with colleagues. Like she, I think, appreciates. that we try to take a nonpartisan stand on things. And that's good for her to be able to share with our board of trustees or with the state legislature in Harrisburg that we are not like the stereotype of what they might think about higher ed and its political leanings and all of that. We are trying to stay as nonpartisan as we can and to consider a variety of viewpoints because our democracy is diverse. people with a lot of different beliefs and ideologies and backgrounds, and we all have to work together in some way, so that involves listening to each other and understanding what different people think. And so we try to help our listeners do that as well.
John:
I love that. I really, I appreciate the bipartisan approach. As before we started recording, I was telling you I'm not super into politics because and then so much of so much of the information you get in politics is filtered through an algorithm or something like that. And it's alarming to me how much I like if I even just if I'm on TikTok and I just even just linger for a few seconds on something on one side or the other of the aisle, how the influx of like more outrageous stuff that I get shown in my feed, it
Jenna Spinelle:
Mmm.
John:
comes and it's just it's bizarre to me. It's like, I almost have to like think about what the algorithm is thinking and like how I want my algorithm to be
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
curated. So I'm like, okay, this is like really one sided flip back. meant to another extra second on it.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, yeah, well, that that's great that you're able to kind of think about it at that level and recognize when that's happening. We've done episodes on our show about news avoidance and why people tune out from politics and why politics makes us depressed and what we can do about it. So I think just even talking about some of these things out loud and acknowledging that, yeah, it's OK to say that politics makes you depressed. It happens to everybody. And there's, I think, this kind of like school marmy kind of tone almost of like, you need to know your civics and you need to know this, that and the other. And that can be intimidating for people if they don't have that background or they don't they're not inclined to really seek out that kind of content or information. So I hope that we can meet people where they are, and especially with when the people decide. Like, that's why I wanted to lean so much into the storytelling and the human aspect of it that. Yeah, if you're not well-versed on all the kind of wonkery of it, that's okay. You can hook into the story and then all of that information and education can come later.
John:
What's like a noteworthy story that stands out to you from when the people decide?
Jenna Spinelle:
Um, so in the first season, I talked with a group of LGBTQ folks in Cincinnati who were involved in a ballot measure campaign to enact protection from discrimination. And they were not successful the first time and it was pretty devastating for the gay community in the city. Some people ended up leaving Cincinnati as a result of this in the 90s. But then they kind of regrouped in the early 2000s and got the ballot measure back going again and it passed the second time. So in the process they learned a lot about how to talk to people about these issues and the first campaign, the one that lost, was very much about demonizing their opponents and that didn't work. And so the second time around, they learned that they have to get to know their neighbors and help people see that they're really not that different and why these issues are important. So I think just that lesson of getting out and talking to people is important and it's a very powerful example of how it can work.
John:
And how are you recording those episodes? Are you like live in person with those people? Are you going to Cincinnati or are you doing like Zoom calls or?
Jenna Spinelle:
So the first season we still made during COVID when a lot of things were shut down. So it was a combination of remote interviews and a lot of archival footage, like news clips from when all this was happening. There's a great, not just in Cincinnati, but across the country, there's like a really interesting network of LGBTQ media, radio shows, newspapers. Um, you know, public access TV, right. And a lot of that is archived at universities. So that was really cool too, not just for that story, but for others that I did, uh, to be able to dive into the archival audio and get that in, in a way that as you know, it's hard to do on just a straight interview show.
John:
Yeah, cool. So for the people listening that may want to start a podcast or may have an idea for a podcast, walk us through kind of like what are some things... So first of all, did you go into either of these podcasts with like... kind of already being pretty well-versed in like interviewing people or uh you know doing being the face of something or the voice of something
Jenna Spinelle:
Not exactly. So my degree is in journalism. I've been a writer and reporter for a long time. I teach journalism, but I had never done anything in the broadcast realm. So I was never a TV host, never worked in public radio. So that part of it was new for me and definitely something I grew into. If you go back and listen to the first six months of Democracy Works, the interviews were kind of rough. Some of them I've definitely improved along the way. And then it was also a big evolution for my co-host too. Faculty can give a talk at a conference or something, but to be on the mic and talking in this way that you and I are now is not something that comes easily to everybody. So that was a lot of work for them too. And I would say to anybody else out there who wants to start a podcast with faculty, make sure they practice. Do a couple of episodes that might never get published just so they get more comfortable on the mic. figuring out what the right level is to talk to so they're not losing people. I know my co-hosts say that they approach it like they would like an undergraduate first year seminar. So students who are coming in are interested but maybe don't know a lot. And that seems to work for them. So yeah, I have kind of become the face and the voice of it over the years, but that was not something I entered this job thinking I would do. My co-hosts had wanted to start a podcast but didn't know how and I didn't really know how either But I figured it out and went to the public radio station at the time They were also looking to get more into podcasts. So it was a good partnership opportunity for us
John:
Cool. Yeah, I find like I identify with that sort of evolution because when I first if you listen to the first maybe five or six episodes of this podcast, it's just me talking and I was writing everything and then you know there's music and it wasn't to the level of like that narrative approach where it's like sound design and all this stuff. Although I would have loved to do that.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
slick like that. But then I got to a point where I was like, this is, I'm like running out of things to write about. Like I said, every episode had to had felt like every episode had to be some like big new idea.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
And then I got it and then and then I hit the point where I was like, the reason I did not want to start a podcast was to interview guests, because
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
like, I'm pretty introverted. But then I was kind of like, well, you know what this would be a good opportunity to stretch myself. and also let other people kind of be the content engines for you. You're not the one having to have, you know, all the ideas, but definitely the evolution of interviewing skills is, has happened for me. I've had to learn, it's helped me to learn to like cut out a lot of ums and uhs and stuff. I'm like, I'm making so much work for myself just editing all those out.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, yeah, you know, thankfully there's tools like Descript. I don't know if you use that at all, but that helps take out a lot of the ums and the uhs and things automatically. But you're doing great. I never would have known that you're, you know, you haven't been doing interviews for very long. I think it's hard to listen to, isn't it? To, you know, listen to what someone's saying and you know, you have your list of questions, but you want to also be open to... changing things up in the moment. And it's hard to, at least I find it's hard to listen to what someone's saying and formulate a question in my mind. That's something I've had to work a lot on.
John:
Yeah, oh, for sure. That's probably my biggest pitfall is I spend so much mental energy trying to listen that I'm not actually listening.
Jenna Spinelle:
Hmm
John:
You know, it's like really hard for me to just... My favorite episodes are the ones where I was just able to like sink into the conversation and it's like we're just sitting on a couch talking.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
Not every episode has been like that. It's been more high level like, okay. you gave me an answer, here's your next question, that kind of
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
thing. And I've kind of like as an interviewer just said, you know what, I'm not real great at like... Uh, just, you know, getting in there and picking up on some nuance and starting a whole new topic and really like letting it free flow. So I'm okay with just having a list of questions. And if I have my list of questions, I can always fall back on that. Um, but, but yeah, I find that like, that's probably a barrier for a lot of people is the social aspect of, of starting a podcast. What, what for you, like in your earlier episodes, like what are the things that you are like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, I mean, I definitely felt like as someone who interviews faculty and scholars and researchers, like I definitely had a lot of imposter syndrome. Like, these people are smart. I don't know anything. They're going to think I'm so stupid and I have to try to be smarter than them or I have to show them in this interview that I'm smarter than them. And that just doesn't work because about these topics in particular, I am decidedly not smarter than them. They know way more than I do. And the listeners don't know either. They haven't read the books or the papers or whatever it is that they're talking about. And so I have to kind of shift my mindset to be a stand in for the listener. If I was just coming at this completely cold, what would I want to know about? And so... I think that the guests appreciate that as well. It gives them more flexibility to be able to take the conversation where they want to go. I do also try and I've evolved to try to get people off of their specific talking points. This is especially true if somebody's on a book junket. I don't know if you've interviewed
John:
Yes.
Jenna Spinelle:
authors on book junkets or I could see even like a CMO or president or provost. They get in this mode too. There comes people write out all their points that they're gonna say, and it's hard to get them off of that. But I think that's where the listening comes in and just asking, well, why do you think that? Or, you know, where does this come from? What made you feel that way? Kind of throws people a little bit. They're like, oh, I wasn't prepared to like actually talk about myself here. So, trying to, you know, and some people are better about handling that on the fly than others, but. that's sometimes where the really interesting stuff comes from or you get someone saying, oh, no one's ever asked me that before. And so those kinds of things really in a time when there's so many podcasts to listen to and people go on a lot of different podcasts, trying to find what you could do to get that one unique little nugget I think is important too.
John:
Yeah, and I think that's good like me. So when I interview people on the video side of things, like I'm like in person like interviewing them for to be on camera um, it's like I think that's where most of my energy goes as an interviewer is like what are like these sort of like In between questions that I can that I can ask that are going to get them off of those talking points because so many people Uh countless people have come And sat down in that chair with a piece of paper they've spent like the whole night before like practicing and practicing in the mirror and And all this stuff
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
and they're so thrown when I ask them anything that wasn't on the original question list And sometimes those are the best because then they're like, okay, I guess I just have to talk now. But it's yeah, it's like, how did this, how did you feel about this? I mean, so much, so much about creating content is, is how do we create the right emotion? How do we help create emotions for people? So if all you're doing is talking about logical stuff, you know, tell me how this works or blah, blah. Tell me your talking points. you know, then it's just not as, I feel like people can't connect with it as much, but it's so hard to get people to like, kind of just like crack that wall open, I think, for people.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, to like break out of the LinkedIn avatar version of themselves. Right. Yeah. My first democracy works interview I did, the guest came in with six pages of typed out responses to the questions. Like, oh boy. And then it was hard for me to even get a word in edgewise because he just kept talking the whole time. I mean, he's great. Like he's done a lot of other work with us and has been a good. Colleague, but I think even he acknowledged after the fact that yeah That was maybe a little bit too much because he was nervous too And so it was like both of our first times in this setting I guess that's maybe another word of advice like your first couple guests Pick people that you're comfortable with one and two like they've maybe done this a little bit before they've been interviewed they are good talkers as they say they can kind of help you along and Even if you ask a not great question, they can pick it up and take the conversation and help carry it a little bit more while you get your legs under you.
John:
For sure, I do good with extroverts. I feel like that's my sweet spot. If you can talk. I can vibe off that. You know, so
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
yeah, I do try to find people that I feel like are kind of dynamic, because it's going to make for just a livelier discussion and I tend to be a little bit irreverent, you know, just on this podcast.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
I was looking for people that will just kind of like go there with me. But what, what for you, because you mentioned Descript and I used Descript before. I thought at first I thought it was amazing. I really, I hit a wall with it as a video editor. It was just like, I couldn't, it was not working like Adobe Premiere. Like it was just a whole new thing. And there were certain things I was having trouble like if I accidentally delete. So for people listening, Descript is a great tool, especially if you're just starting out and everything, because what you can do is load in your episode, it will create a transcript for you. And then you can literally just edit. from the transcript, like literally is just like editing a word document, you delete a word it deletes that word that you said. And so for me, for me though, like being really as a video editor tuned into like transitions and like smoothness and, you know, volume levels and things like that, I just felt like I can I can do this faster in Premiere. And so that's where I that's where I hang out. But I did really think it had a lot of potential, just that whole, that text-based
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
approach. What are some tools that you use that you have found have made your life easier as a podcast host?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, so Descript is one for sure. I should say that we don't really do much with videos, with video podcasting. I know that's like all the rage in podcasting right now, but it's just for a variety of reasons not a good fit for us. So that's not a direction that we've gone. I do use an app called Repurpose.io to publish audio to YouTube with a static image. I'm sure there are other apps out there to do that, but that's one. that I use. Let's see, what else? Geez, I'm drawing a blank. I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of a sketch. I'm going to go ahead and do
John:
repurpose.io
Jenna Spinelle:
a little bit of a sketch.
John:
tell me more about that because Repurposing was going to be one of my next questions for you
Jenna Spinelle:
Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot you could do with it. I think it basically takes content that you make one place and puts it somewhere else. So we use a podcast to YouTube integration. There are lots of others. I think you can also use it to make audiograms and things like that. So to be able to share clips on. social media, we're able to do that through our podcast hosting platform. So I will sometimes make things in there if I have time. The other part of this that I'm admittedly not very good at is like, it's hard to both produce the thing and promote the thing. Right. So sometimes if our episodes come out on Monday, I'll get to Thursday and like, oh, man, I haven't even like shared this episode on social yet because I'm already working on the next one and the next one after that. I'm sure you know how that goes. And so I tend to focus a lot of my promotional energy on promo swaps and linking up with other podcasts and trying to find listeners that way, or promoting the show through the university's newswire and social media, sharing links with our guests if they're able to share on social or their organization. That also helps a lot too. As far as other tools I use, I know you can use Descript for transcripts. I also use Otter to generate transcripts to publish along with our show notes. That's been helpful. We use Simplecast as our hosting platform. I like it a lot. It's easy if you have multiple shows, you can put them all under the same account. I like the analytics it offers. There's probably more I should be doing, but like I said, it's hard to like make the thing and promote the thing. So I try to do what I can and focus on the things that um, I know work and if I have time for the other stuff great. Um, but if not, I'm okay with it going by the wayside.
John:
Yeah, for sure. Every week my priority is to get the full episode out on Wednesday morning. I'm like, if I've done that, and if I don't get to the social media snippets, I'm okay with that. But every week it seems like I get up on my name like, oh crap, it's like Wednesday's coming up, I gotta
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
hurry up and edit this next one. But it has... For me, what's really helped is just batch recording. Because one of the pitfalls of podcast recording is running out of things to record, or you don't have a guest lined up, and so your consistency is stalled.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
But just having a scheduling link where people can schedule their own time slot, and then just be repeatedly asking people for, if they wanna come on the show, yada yada. And then, yeah, getting to a place where you have, like right now I think I have, after this episode probably will have about four or five, like ahead, you know, which I'm like, oh, I feel great.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
Like, this makes me feel so good because then I can just focus on editing. But then it's like, for me, it's finding efficiencies in that whole process. And it can get very overwhelming, especially when you get to the, I feel like recording the podcast, and cutting it down, like arriving at a piece that I'm proud of is the easy part. And then comes like distributing it, which is like now becomes very tedious, like breaking it up into snippets. Like I'll take a transcript and I don't wanna pay rev.com all the money it takes
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
to get a really accurate transcript. So I just run it through AI.
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, same here. That's why I use Otter. Yeah, it's good enough, I think.
John:
Yeah, and then I have to go back, like my step one is go back and edit all the really egregious errors or whatever.
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
And, and then and then but then yeah, getting it on the website, getting show notes going to find those links that the person mentioned getting those on getting those on there, like what's tell me about like the back end for you? Like what does distribution look like?
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah, so our episodes of Democracy Works come out on Monday morning and we usually record on the Wednesday before that and the editors get it on Thursday. So usually Fridays are my day to write the show notes and get the transcript. I have to send it to the public radio editor, like their news director. She listens to it because it also goes up on their website. So it has to like meet NPR standards and all of that. Um, so actually the, I also use the transcripts, uh, as a way to catch anything, any big editing mistakes. So, um, if you don't have time to listen to your episode all the way through before it publishes, you can at least scan down through the transcript and see, just make sure it all flows together, make sure there's just nothing weird in there. And I've caught a lot of things. that way, even just by reading through. So that's one efficiency or one kind of hack that I've used. And then I keep my show notes pretty simple. Who's gonna, if they're just looking to see if they wanna listen or not, they're not gonna be reading the next great American novel, right? So just a paragraph or two, usually one paragraph about what the episode's about, what the topic is, and then a little bio of the guest, any relevant links. And then, yeah, the episodes come out on Monday mornings. And if it's a Penn State person, I have a story in our university newswire ready to go. The promos start airing on the radio. So also on Fridays, I'm recording a 30 second promo for the radio. And then with one that people decide, it's very different. Like I am, the second season starts in July. And so I'm like pitching. guest essays I could write in newsletters and setting up promo swaps with other podcasts because it's a very limited time window that I have to really promote it and get it out there and looking for other organizations that might be interested in sharing it or other political podcasts that might want to have me on as a guest to talk about it. So just kind of doing a lot of that legwork up front so it's all kind of locked and loaded and ready to go when the season starts in the middle of July.
John:
How do you delineate with seasons? Because I've always been curious about that. Why do a season-based thing versus just a regular cadence?
Jenna Spinelle:
I think, I mean, it's just kind of the standard format on the one hand for narrative shows. I guess This American Life would maybe be the exception to that, or at least the one I can think of right now because that comes out every week. But you know, most series like that are season based. I think one because it's like to your point about batching, if you're doing all this intense work of sound design and narration and it's just easier to kind of chunk all that and do it in a couple of months as opposed to all the time. If I had to track an episode and read 15 pages of narration every week, I don't know that I could do that. So it's easier to just take a day. Just like when people record audiobooks, right? You see them just spending eight hours in the studio today. I don't have to do that much, thankfully. But it is probably an hour and a half. of tracking that will then get edited down for a 25 minute episode. So that's a lot of reading, a lot of talking. And then also there's just, there's only so much to say. Like I have a point that I want to make or an overarching theme. And then, you know, six or eight stories to illustrate that theme. It would just, it would get very repetitive, I think. Like for season one. Here's this ballot measure, here's this ballot measure. I mean, I could do that. There's certainly been hundreds, if not thousands of them over time, but the stories all get, you know, they're kind of the same on some level. So it would get repetitive after a while. Whereas with Democracy Works, we talk about all kinds of stuff, and so that's just a never-ending well of ideas. Democracy is broad, it encompasses a lot of things. So. I think that's why we've been able to keep it going for so long, because it's hard to run out of things to talk about.
John:
Cool, yeah. I like the idea of doing a season. I'm kind of just treading water in this place of like, I'm not gonna tell people I release a episode every Wednesday so
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
that I haven't out if I go on vacation, but I'm like, chances are if you look on a Wednesday morning, there'll
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah.
John:
probably be something new there.
Jenna Spinelle:
Well, and I mean, I do think that there's space in like, I would love to hear a narrative style podcast, like behind the scenes of an admissions office or something like there's so many narratives out there about higher education, like the free speech on campus debate, right, is one from my world. And yeah, just taking a different approach to telling some of these stories in higher ed or higher ed marketing. I think that there is absolutely an opportunity out there for someone to do it, whether that's you or the other kind of podcast folks out there. But I think whoever does that would, would definitely stand out. I know I do the newsletter for hi ed web. I featured your show in there before, but I'm always looking for new and different things to, to put in there. So if any. If any listeners have a higher ed podcast, like reach out, I'll be happy to feature you in our newsletter.
John:
Cool, thanks for featuring me by the way. I didn't know you did that. So, all right, cool. This has been great. The very insightful conversation. So for people listening that might want to start a podcast, might be mulling it over, what final thoughts would you give them?
Jenna Spinelle:
Definitely have a clear idea of what you want to do. The podcast landscape is so much more competitive these days than it was when we started back in 2018. You really have to know who you're making the podcast for, what you wanna say, why that topic will resonate with the audience you have in mind. The answer today in 2023 cannot be that my podcast is for everybody. where my podcast is for the general public. Like that is way too broad. Unless you're a celebrity or something, you're not going to have success with that audience. So what's the niche you wanna fall into? What's your plan for putting out content on a consistent schedule? Do you have the team in place, the resources, financial and otherwise that you need? I think it just requires a lot more planning and preparation than... we certainly had to do back when we started. And if we were starting from scratch today, it would be way harder. Like I make no bones about that, that we got in early and I think that's the reason we've been able to kind of build the audience that we have and keep it. But it's still possible to make great podcasts and build audience today, but you just have to be much more thoughtful and deliberate about. what you're making and who you're making it for.
John:
Yeah, and I think that it is slow going, building an audience. I know, like, for me, this podcast is a year, year and a half old. And we have a good base of listeners, but it's not like nothing's really exploded but the benefit that I've gotten out of it is having it be just a content engine for everything that I almost everything I post on LinkedIn is snippets from the podcast or you know, I've gotten into like reformatting those snippets into like a tick tock or YouTube short and actually seen a lot of views from LinkedIn to YouTube shorts is astronomical. It's so it there's just said calendar appointment. Oh, that's my that's my calendar appointment to go pick up my kids. Anyways, but yeah, that's lost my train of thought. Yeah.
Jenna Spinelle:
So you were saying about TikTok and YouTube shorts. One thing I've started doing is not repurposing a snippet from the show, but I'll just make like a 30 second or one minute like front facing video on my phone. Like, hey, this is what we're talking about this week. And then, you know, put that out with all the relevant hashtags and kind of make it, you know, TikTok friendly. And yeah, I agree. I've seen good traction there as well. And that helps me get. more comfortable. I don't love being on TikTok, but I know that I have to do it on some level. So I think that it's been a good way to dip my toe in the water.
John:
Yeah, and I find that with a podcast too, it's like, you know, less can be more because when you have, even if you have a small core of listeners, you've got people that are so engaged that they will spend an hour,
Jenna Spinelle:
Mm-hmm.
John:
you know, listening to whatever you or one of your guests has to say. And I think that that's That's such an opportunity to deeply engage people in what you're doing. So you might not go viral right off the bat and have tens of thousands of podcast subscribers, but even if you had five or six loyal followers, I mean, to start off with them, that's five or six people that are waiting for you to say something new, which is
Jenna Spinelle:
Yeah,
John:
a cool
Jenna Spinelle:
yeah,
John:
thing.
Jenna Spinelle:
and it's a great calling card too, a reason to reach out to people you wouldn't have any business contacting otherwise. And I mean, for me, it's led to speaking gigs and invitations to be on panels. If you haven't gotten those yet, I'm sure they're on the way. And it's just, yeah, just a great way to build your brand and get yourself out there.
John:
Cool. Well, thank you so much, Jenna. This has been great for people listening. Go check out Democracy Works and When the People Decide, both very good podcasts. As I mentioned earlier in my episode, good audio quality too, something I pay attention to. So thank you, Jenna, for using a professional microphone.
Jenna Spinelle:
Hmm.
John:
And yeah, this has been great. Where can people find you at?
Jenna Spinelle:
So I am at Jenna Spinelli on Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. And my website is jennaspinelli.com.
John:
All right, awesome. Thanks.
