Speaker 1: Are you ready to start your podcast but feel completely overwhelmed with what hosting platform you should use? Today, I'm going to compare and share everything I know about two of the most popular hosting platforms, Buzzsprout and Anchor, so you can start your podcast knowing which one's going to set you up for success. Hey, I'm Sophie, podcast studio owner, producer, and mentor to chart-topping podcasters. Because I'm so committed to your podcast booming, I have created a beginner's guide to set your podcast up for success, which you can download in the description below. All right, Anchor versus Buzzsprout, let's break it down. There are three things you have to consider when tossing out which is the best hosting platform to support your podcast, and that is, does it distribute my shows to the platforms I want it to go to? Does it track the data that I want to be able to see and track? And does it support the growth of my show? So let's compare Anchor and Buzzsprout in these three areas. What is distribution? Basically, your hosting platform houses your podcast in the one place and automatically pushes your podcast out to all the different streaming platforms, like Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts, and so many more. The main thing to consider, is it going to be accessible to my ideal listener? Most people listen to their podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and then the third tiered one would be Google Podcasts. Both Buzzsprout and Anchor push it out to all of those platforms, so that's a yes from me. To be honest, in this particular category, I don't have a favorite. I think both are super good. But if you have the awareness that your listener actually listens to podcasts on a particular platform, for example, one of my clients has done some market research with her existing audience and knows that a lot of her audience actually listens to podcasts on Amazon. When we were considering what platform to host her podcast in, we had to be sure that it was going to distribute to Amazon. I'll put on the screen here what additional platforms both Buzzsprout and Anchor actually push your podcast out to, so you can have a look. If you have no idea what platform your listener prefers to listen to, I would just go with the industry standard. You can be pretty sure that most people are listening to Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, and if you don't know otherwise, then don't worry about it. In terms of analytics, which hosting platform is going to support your goals best? Broadly speaking, every single platform available does need to improve their analytics function on the hosting platforms, because not every single one tracks every single thing you'd need. But I will let you know a manual way that you can track your subscribers, which is the one function that neither Anchor or Buzzsprout actually tracks, which is frustrating because you do want to keep track of your subscribers. You have to manually check this. The way you check this is to log into the backend of your Spotify for Podcasts channel and the Podcast Connect channel, which is the Apple equivalent to that. You can log in and you can track how many people are actually subscribing to your show that way. But the other sort of thing you do to just keep a rough eye on this throughout your journey is to just keep your eye on those downloads. You can be pretty sure that your subscribers are actually increasing if across the board your downloads are increasing with every episode, because when people subscribe or follow your podcast, it means that they're automatically downloading that episode to listen to. So when you see, say, an increase of, say, 50 across the board every time you upload an episode, you can be pretty sure that your subscribers are increasing, and then you might want to go and check behind the scenes and see, okay, where am I sitting with subscribers at the moment? When we're comparing Anchor and Buzzsprout in this department, though, Buzzsprout actually only tracks the last 90 days of the downloads and listens in the free version of the hosting platform plan. So Anchor actually tracks all time without having to start paying for the app. So I would say that Anchor is a far better choice in terms of the data analytics and making everything so much easier for you to track. All right, now growth. This is my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite topic when it comes to podcasts, because I'm so passionate about actually scaling your podcast. Because so many people start podcasts, but so few actually stick it out, scale them, and build them to a successful platform. So I find this to be a very, very important section when considering what hosting platform is going to suit you best. When comparing Anchor and Buzzsprout in this section, most articles you read and things that you'll come across will probably sway you more towards Buzzsprout because of the monetization tools that are included in the platform. But what those monetization tools are is basically to support you if you get a large sponsor, where you can actually record an ad and insert it into your episode after you have edited your podcast, which I'll explain a little bit more about in a second. But they also say that they're going to support your growth as a new podcaster because they give you access to affiliate links within their platform. However, I have a different view. When you're first starting out as a podcaster, it's really easy to get super caught up in wanting to monetize your podcast early. However, I'm a big believer in actually building your audience organically first. Then you have the upper hand when you are approaching sponsors or collaborations, which I'm going to do a whole video on how to actually monetize your podcast in an upcoming video. So just make sure that you are subscribed so you get to see that. With the topic of just the hosting platform, monetization tools aren't always the best thing that's actually going to support your growth. I'm a big believer in video podcasts. I believe that this area, well, it's already booming, but it's going to be the difference between the podcasts that make it and the podcasts that just stay sort of mid-range. Because there's this demand for video podcasts, I would actually be going to Anchor. Because Anchor is owned by Spotify. It's actually the only hosting platform that allows you to upload video to Spotify, which may change down the track with hosting platforms that make this become more available. But for now, it's actually the only way you can have a video podcast live on Spotify. And for this reason, I would actually say stick with Anchor. It's free. It supports your growth in order to gain that audience, which ultimately you can monetize down the track regardless of the tools that are involved. So when I was mentioning the monetization tools earlier, Buzzsprout offers, what I'm talking about is basically it allows you to record. For example, I'll use myself as an example. My sponsor is HubSpot for my podcast. They give me ad scripts each month to read and go live on my podcast. My contract with them only says that I have to have that ad live for the duration of the campaign, which runs for a month. So using monetization tools like the one that's in Buzzsprout, it allows me to actually upload the ad as a dynamic ad, which means it only actually goes live for the duration of the campaign. Alternatively, if you have a sponsorship with a brand, they might say, read this ad. And then if you don't have these dynamic monetization tools, you would just have to insert that ad manually when you're editing your podcast. Most of my clients who have a sponsor actually get asked to edit this into their podcast. When we're editing their podcast, we just insert the ad in for them and they don't worry about this dynamic component because it's actually going to be to your advantage to be able to use it. When you're in the know to use it as a negotiation tactic when you're negotiating with sponsors, because you can say, hey, I like what you're offering,

Speaker 2: but because my ad is going to be present for this duration of time, I would like it for this price or I would like it with these terms.

Speaker 1: You have a little bit more negotiation room if you know you can use that to your advantage. So by saying this ad is going to be evergreen on my podcast, therefore I want to be paid more or I want to be able to do it this way. You have a bit more leg room. So it's not the be all and end all if you aren't able to actually insert these dynamic ads when you do get that sponsor. In summary, I think that Anchor and Buzzsprout both have different tools that are going to support your growth. So it's up to you which one you want to choose. Personally, I'd go with Anchor so you can have that sort of video tactic. I also find the data and analytics of this hosting platform way more easier to use. So if you're not familiar with all the things you need to keep an eye out for, it's really user friendly. So I would be going more towards that because then when you want to actually approach a sponsor, you have the data that you can access and read and understand way easier so you can actually negotiate the sponsor in your own way. As opposed to, yeah, the fancy stuff that Buzzsprout offers, but are you really going to use that? Or can you just get the team who are editing your podcast like OnTrack Studio? Just kidding. But you've got editors, they can easily edit the ads in and usually you're going to keep your sponsors a lot more happy when they sit in there for a long time. Thanks so much for watching this video. If you want to be a part of the podcast domination crew that I'm building through this channel, please subscribe. Also come join me on my Facebook group. I've just started it and I'm going in there live every month with trainings on how you can scale your podcast. So come join me over there. Follow me on Instagram at sophie.on.track.studio and I'll see you in the next video.