Asking for genuine feedback with Arielle Nissenblatt

Oct 30

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Arielle Nissenblatt, who wears many hats – she's the community marketing manager at Descript, the creative mind behind two fantastic podcasts, Feedback with Earbuds and Trailer Park, but I can’t stop there. Arielle also runs a vibrant, engaged Podcast Community on Discord which I have been a member of for quite some time. She also regularly speaks on stage about podcasting, and I’m thrilled I could pin her down to chat with me on this show.

Arielle is not your typical podcaster; she's a podcast recommendation aficionado, and her shows bring a unique twist to the podcasting world. The real treat for Arielle, is highlighting other creators through her podcasts and newsletter, and the value she brings to the industry as a support of the medium, is not to be understated.

Why Genuine Feedback Matters

One of the things Arielle and I spoke about was the significance of real, honest feedback from your listeners. Building trust and authenticity through your podcast is paramount to its success.

Arielle doesn't just sit back and wait for feedback to roll in – she actively encourages it. She's all about over-communicating with her audience, explaining how their input is vital in shaping the quality of her shows. And you know what? It works.

Unconventional Podcast Formats That Work

Arielle's podcasts aren't your run-of-the-mill shows. Feedback with Earbuds, for instance, takes a unique approach. Each week, a different person curates a list of podcast recommendations. It's like a podcast within a podcast, and it's a fantastic way to promote other creators and offer diverse content.

Now, let's talk Trailer Park. It's all about showcasing trailers of shows, even the ones that might never see the light of day. It's a fascinating concept that challenges the traditional norms of podcasting.

The Nitty-Gritty of Podcast Production

Arielle doesn't sugarcoat the podcast production process either. From scripting and recording to juggling interviews and editing, it's a time-consuming journey. I found it particularly insightful when Arielle went on to talk about her struggles with time management and the importance of putting proper processes in place to get the most out of your show. If you’re always stuck in the hamster wheel of the production, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for actually marketing the podcast.

Building a Thriving Podcast Community

Arielle is the queen of community building. She's created a bustling podcast community on Discord, and her presence on platforms like LinkedIn is hard to miss. She's all about engaging with her audience, and her knack for cultivating a supportive environment for podcast enthusiasts is truly impressive. She brings creators together, fostering collaboration and growth.

Arielle's insights are pure gold for any podcaster looking to shake things up and connect with their audience in a meaningful way. To get more of Arielle's wisdom and to check out her podcasts, Feedback with Earbuds and Trailer Park, make sure to visit the links below.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Brianna: today I'm interviewing Arielle Nissenblatt who is the community marketing manager at Descript. Descript is actually the podcast production platform that we use to do all our editing these days.
[00:00:12] we also do video snippets from within there. We do video podcasts within there. We do everything from within Descript. We transitioned over to that back in January. firstly, I was excited to have Ariel on because of that, but mostly because Ariel has two really cool podcasts. So she has one called Feedback with Earbuds, which is a podcast recommendation podcast that goes along with a podcast recommendation newsletter. The newsletter came first Then she has another one called trailer park, which is a podcast that showcases. So I wouldn't say that either of these are particularly normal or standard podcasts, but that's why I love them because they are interesting. They make you think differently.
[00:00:57] They are highlighting other people and we really go into why that's so important and how that can actually grow your own platform. If you're highlighting other people, Ariel is like a master. At community. So she's built a fantastic podcast community on discord, which I've been a member of for quite some time.
[00:01:17] She has a really engaged audience as well on LinkedIn, other platforms. I just think she's awesome. We cover a bunch of topics, the struggles that Ariel has. Around producing her own show which I know you're going to really resonate with.
[00:01:31] And then also, uh, how to encourage feedback. that's my takeaways. Now you go and take it away.
[00:01:38] I want you to take me back. To when you started that show 9th of October, 2019. talk to me about why you started it then.
[00:01:49] Arielle: Yeah, I thought I would never have a podcast because I started listening to podcasts in 2014 and was just a listener and loved listening to podcasts and wanted to find more [00:02:00] podcasts to listen to. It's the reason I started a podcast recommendation newsletter. This podcast, Feedback with Earbuds, goes along with my podcast recommendation newsletter.
[00:02:08] And for years, people were like, Oh, you have a newsletter about podcasts? Do you have a podcast? And I was like, No, just a newsletter about podcasts. I don't need a podcast. There are already enough podcasts. And so many people said this to me, and I was adamant that I would never have a podcast.
[00:02:23] And then... I was working out with my friend Miriam. We had a, we shared a personal trainer. we were like running around a track and I was like, you know what, when I get home I'm going to record a podcast because I think I need one and she was like, you should have one to go along with your newsletter and I was like, okay, so then I just went home and I wrote a script and I recorded it And I really started it with not a lot of thought behind it, which is not what I advise people now when they're starting podcasts, that you really should put some thought into it. But my goal still, then and now is the podcast is not my priority when it comes to the Earbuds Podcast Collective. The newsletter is my priority and I have a podcast that goes along with it. I am always looking to grow the newsletter. The podcast, if it grows, that's great. But ultimately, what I like about having the podcast is I get to test technology.
[00:03:09] I get to say that I have a podcast because I work in podcasting. I get to chat with people. You know, I get to give my advertisers more bang for their buck because they can get an ad read on my podcast. And I get to highlight people who are curating podcast lists for my newsletter. So I have many, many reasons for doing the show.
[00:03:27] Beyond money and beyond downloads and, um, the show has evolved so much since, which I imagine you got a sense of going through the catalogue.
[00:03:35] Brianna: I did. Yeah, I also subscribed to your newsletter quite a while ago as well. When I first started to look at this landscape of newsletters in podcasting, that sub stack started to be something where I realized.
[00:03:49] That there was all these things you could get involved with that weren't just audio, that had newsletters and how they interacted together and how they were great marketing for each other and how you've got different audiences [00:04:00] for both of those things as well, right? You've got people that just want to read, and then you've got people that just want to listen, and then you've got people that want a bit of both. And so, I really like your show because it, it really highlights... Other people,
[00:04:14] Arielle: Yeah, I think that it is slow, but the best way to grow your influence over time is by highlighting other people. And it really does take time. But if you are seen as somebody who is an advocate for other creators, people come to you and they trust you. So I've sort of been... cultivating that since 2017 when I started Earbuds, the newsletter.
[00:04:36] The premise of it is that each week is curated by a different person and anyone can curate a list and curators can select one of their own episodes as part of their theme. So, in and of itself, the point is to promote other people. And, I don't have to do all the work to curate all the lists, right? I just have to curate the people.
[00:04:53] And I just have to sort of say, Okay, this list is good. This list is a little bit too in this direction. We had a list pretty recently that touched on similar subjects. So I'm the ultimate curator, but for the most part, I am letting you, as the curator, choose the direction. And you'll notice if you look in the archives of the newsletter that the themes are absolutely all over the place.
[00:05:14] And they are specific, and they're broad, and they're everything in between. And it is. It's just a lot of fun and I built my career on, um, promoting other people, which is great. And definitely doing some self promotion of my own,
[00:05:26] Brianna: Yeah. Yeah. And so from a, I guess, organizational standpoint, I just have a curious question around that. When they curate a list, do they submit? The audio to you to then put together or your editor, or do they do it all themselves and then put it together? Or how do they actually give everything to you?
[00:05:48] Arielle: So the podcast has changed a lot since I first started making it on October 9th, 2019. When I first started, it was just me reading. And then after a while, I was like, this is boring. Actually, my mom told [00:06:00] me this is boring.
[00:06:00] Let me be honest with myself. She was like, yeah, it's cute, but it's boring. And I was like, thank you so much. Uh,
[00:06:07] Brianna: Mums are
[00:06:07] so good for
[00:06:08] that.
[00:06:09] Arielle: Actually, let me go on a quick tangent. my biggest piece of advice when you have a podcast that is not growing is get somebody who does not love you to break it down, to critique you, but also you could get somebody who does love you and that person could be your mom to tell you where they are bored, anyway.
[00:06:24] when I started it, it was just me. Then I decided to interview the curators of each week's list of podcast recommendations and say, you know, what do you do in podcasting? Or what do you do outside of podcasting? How did you come to this theme? What episodes did you choose? That took me forever, as you can imagine, to source the, the curators, to make sure that I had time on the calendar to meet with them, to edit those in a timely way, to, it, it just took forever, and it was expensive, right? So... I think I did that for like a year and a half, and it was great, I mean, I got interview experience, but after a while I stopped doing that because I just didn't have time.
[00:06:59] And so I went back to, me essentially reading the newsletter with a little bit more commentary. And then I source a voice clip from the curator each week. and then she goes into why she chose these episodes for this theme. And it's just a lot more entertaining than if I did that. So I have a submission form on my website. That, uh, anybody can submit a list to me for our consideration. and then what happens is I get those submissions, I look at them, I decide if they are legit or if I like them or if they fit in with our editorial calendar. So we basically give them a list of questions that they need to answer and some guidelines for how to submit the clip. They send it back to us. I then record my intro and my outro on Descript, and then I bring in the file to Descript. Everything gets transcribed. We go from there.
[00:07:44] Brianna: Okay, yeah, right, because that was something that, whenever you have other people involved outside of you. You know, and they're submitting things. That's always a question of like, is the quality going to be good enough? You know, like how are we going to organize these things? I think that [00:08:00] that's just interesting to know the actual organizational prowess that's involved with doing something that is more of a curation than a standard, like standard sort of show, I suppose.
[00:08:10] You do have another show as well that I also really enjoy, trailer park, which is essentially trailers of shows that are coming out shows that maybe don't ever come out as well. That they just got really cool trailers. if you can give me a little bit of a, a reason as to why you started that one as well, because again, it's not like a traditional sort of show.
[00:08:33] It's. It's still kind of a curation. I mean, it is a curation of different shows, highlighting other people, but in a intriguing way,
[00:08:42] Arielle: Yeah. And also for educational purposes, which I'll get into. Yeah, I was driving with my, my friend Abby in 2022, June, 2022, we were driving from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska, six hour drive. And Abby was my first podcast friend. We met at our first job after college and we always listen to podcasts together.
[00:09:02] But in 2022, we were driving and we were like, let's find a podcast to listen to. We have so many hours. We love the open road. Let's go. We didn't know what to listen to. You know, I had some suggestions, because I always have suggestions, but we wanted to try something new, so we went to Apple Podcasts, and we looked at the new and noteworthy section, and we just started testing out a bunch of the trailers, and we just pressed play on them, and we would listen, and some of the trailers were 30 seconds, some were a minute, some were up to three minutes, great, what I noticed, because I had listened to some of the full podcasts that were being featured on New and Noteworthy, I noticed that some of the trailers didn't quite match up tonally with the rest of the shows.
[00:09:42] for example, there's a show called, um, The Turning, The Sisters Who Left, from Rococo Punch. It's about Mother Teresa, and it's fascinating, but the trailer was not intriguing to Abby, and I had to explain to her, I was like, no, no, I promise, the show is really good. and she was like, yeah, but the trailer just doesn't do it for me, and I was like, that's so [00:10:00] weird, because you would love the show.
[00:10:02] So that made me think, how do you make sure that you are promising something in the trailer that then gets delivered in the actual show? Because that is one really great way to lose a potential listener, is to promise something by way of the description, promise something by way of the cover art, promise something by way of the trailer, promise something by way of the first 30 seconds of the episode, and then not deliver on that promise in the rest of the show, right?
[00:10:27] So how do you make sure everything matches up? And that's what made me deep dive into trailers. And I posted on Twitter saying, Does anybody want to start a trailer podcast? And, um, Tim Villegas, who is my co host, but was at one point just an internet acquaintance, was like, Yeah, I'll do this with you. And I was like, Great, let's go.
[00:10:44] Brianna: he's got a beautiful voice too. Like
[00:10:47] it's, it's, it's nice to listen to. So what would you say is the thing that you dislike about your podcasting experience to date?
[00:11:02] Arielle: That's such a good question and let me just compliment you. I love being asked questions that I don't always get asked. So thank you for having these questions. cause it makes you think and it makes you not just rely on, you know, the talking points that you're used to using. So I'm going to reach into my brain at this point.
[00:11:19] I have never been the most organized person. And. I wish, I always wish I could get better at that, and that is on me. I'm gonna say a hundred percent. I think it's a hundred percent. And I know that there are tools out there that can help me. And I'm talking about, like, Notion.
[00:11:35] I need to learn how to use Notion better. I need to get my processes in place. I need to get my standard operating procedures. And I need to be able to have those all written out, so that, God forbid, if Devin Decomo, who works for me, needs to move on to another job, I could teach somebody else how to do this.
[00:11:49] But I really hope she doesn't leave me. So, basically, I really need to get my stuff in order, because... I think that if I was doing less when it comes to organizing [00:12:00] myself, uh, if I just put some processes in place, I could spend more time marketing the show. And spend more time marketing the newsletter as well.
[00:12:07] So, what I don't like is that I don't have as much time to spend on marketing as I wish I did.
[00:12:14] Like I said, we get submissions from people. So they submit a list of five podcasts, and I'm the only one who gets the email for that.
[00:12:22] So then I have to forward that to Devin. And I do this every single time, that's like one tiny example of something that I could probably save at least, 10 minutes a day, or something like that, on, on small things like this.
[00:12:34] also, text expanders, keyboard shortcuts, are things that I just don't, I have not, I know that I just need to take a day and learn these things. and just get some muscle memory in, and I just have not had the time to get around to it. so it's not so much the production process. I think if you asked me three months ago, I would have said, I hate editing in Audacity, but I don't do that anymore, I edit into script.
[00:12:55] So, and what I really love about Descript, here is what has saved me so much time, is, the playback feature. Because essentially what I do is I voice my script, I drag in the voice clip from the curator, and then I voice the end of my script. and then, I go through it, and cut out my ums and ahs, and I cut out every time that I retook a line.
[00:13:14] But, I used to have to do that at, you know,
[00:13:17] 1x speed on Audacity. And now, I do it at 1. 75, and So if I could find more ways to cut that, let's go.
[00:13:25]
[00:13:25] Brianna: Okay. And so, I want to know from you how you encourage, cause I feel like you're pretty good at this, how you encourage feedback from your listeners or people in the community.
[00:13:39] You've got a discord, do you run that discord channel? The podcast community discord channel.
[00:13:45] Arielle: hmm.
[00:13:46] Brianna: How do you encourage feedback? I think because that's something that people really struggle with.
[00:13:50] Arielle: It's like pulling teeth at times. And I think often that is because you just don't have enough listeners to get feedback. That is definitely a thing. I mean, feedback with earbuds [00:14:00] gets 500 downloads per episode and I maybe hear from three people. So, I don't tend to ask for feedback, but when I do, I receive responses.
[00:14:10] But, the way that I ask is, Very obvious. I say, I want to hear from you because I want to prove that it is possible to hear from your listeners. Right? I have said that explicitly on the show. I don't know if you listened to that episode, but I was like, I'm doing an experiment. I want to know what it takes for you to follow my call to action.
[00:14:32] Right? If you are listening to this, what is it that is going to cause you to deviate from what you would normally do after listening to the show and leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts? What is going to cause you to navigate away from your driving right now, you know, or washing the dishes or walking your dog and cause you to go onto the computer and send me an email?
[00:14:58] Because I take stock of what I do. Or when I'm listening to a podcast, I take stock of what makes me go and do something. And I really try to be aware of that. What makes me shift my user behavior, my listener behavior. And I try to put myself in the shoes of a listener and say, or even tell them I am trying to put myself in your shoes, right?
[00:15:18] Like again, over communicating, erring on the side of crazy transparency and just. Telling them why hearing from you would be really, really helpful for me. If I just say, I'd love to hear from you, that's really not compelling. Why, why do you want to hear from me? What is it going to do? Is it just for a vanity metric to say X number of people reached out after listening to this episode?
[00:15:41] Or do I genuinely need feedback on something? Because if not, I would, you know, say whatever. It doesn't matter because these podcast, on average are listening to seven other podcasts every week and you are one of them and that's great and So I I think give them a reason to reach out give them a [00:16:00] reason to Be in contact with you because otherwise like save your asks I think is essentially what I'm saying because there's just so many communities for them to be Hanging out with online or in real life
[00:16:11] Brianna: That's so good.
[00:16:13] Arielle: Yeah, I
[00:16:13] don't know where that came from. This is why it's good to ask new questions.
[00:16:16] Brianna: it's good because it's something I talk about as well. It's like the over asking to becomes diminished. Like as in, if you, at the end of every episode or at the middle of every episode, you'd be like, I'd love you to write my show and review it.
[00:16:30] And. That no one does that, like no one, really, you know, you, you have to be, they have to be a super fan for them to get that from you and then go and do it.
[00:16:41] What's the compelling reason why someone would go and do that? And there's, like, you've said something really good there about being super transparent with why you want feedback from them. could be as much as like, man, this is a lonely journey. And I would love to hear from
[00:17:01] you exactly.
[00:17:03] I never hear from people. I just love a little bit of contact there. If you've got any ideas or make it really specific what you're asking for so that they feel compelled to actually do something about it.
[00:17:18] Arielle: Another mistake that people make is, say you do come up with really great wording to put in your mid roll or even just like during your intro or outro about why somebody should leave a rating and review. The mistake that people make is leaving that in there forever. That has to be changed up. Because you sort of need to shock people into changing their behavior.
[00:17:40] If you don't shock people, they're going to learn to glaze over that. A lot of people tune out once the outro of your podcast starts because they know exactly where this is going. They know it's ending. So you need to, like, make them stick around. On Trailer Park, the podcast trailer podcast, we try to make every single outro different.
[00:17:58] And we would do a read for our [00:18:00] sponsors. In the outro, but every single time we would do a different read for our sponsors. We would make sure that it never sounded the same and that every single time we signed off, we also had a fun blooper and people started glomming onto those bloopers and being excited about those bloopers.
[00:18:15] One time we didn't have a blooper and somebody said, I wish you had a blooper. So change it up.
[00:18:20] Brianna: Yeah. Yeah, going into encouraging people to listen to the end. Colin and Samir do that really well on YouTube. So they have like a. Uh, deep dive section that they talk about at the end, where they have like a gripe and they talk about it at the beginning so that they're trying to get people all the way to the end.
[00:18:36] and it's much harder on YouTube than it is on podcast platforms to get to the end. You've got three and a half minutes max ish on YouTube versus. It's basically almost the whole length of an episode on podcast platforms, depending on how interesting you are, I suppose. the second last thing I kind of want to touch on there is I did a review. Recently on YouTube, where, because we use Descript as our, production sort of flow now, and Descript has recently acquired Squadcast, which I think is super cool. If you don't know what Squadcast is, it's like Riverside FM.
[00:19:11] It's like SimCaster. it's this remote recording situation. Um, so Descript acquired Squadcast and I did a review. And they're still in beta with the rollout. And I wanted to allow, I guess, you a platform to talk about what's coming on Squadcast with the remote recording. I know they just announced 4k capabilities.
[00:19:37] Arielle: Yeah, so, SquadCast was acquired by Descript in August is when we made the announcement. And what that now means is that if you use Descript, you have access to SquadCast for free. And if you use SquadCast but don't yet use Descript, You will just be paying one price if you want to have Descript. So you're essentially just paying for Descript and you have access to both Squadcast and Descript.
[00:19:58] And the reason you [00:20:00] would use a service like Squadcast or Riverside or Zencastr over something like Zoom is because it records your audio and your guests audio locally, making your audio and video quality just so much better. So, Squadcast and Descript right now are one company. Squadcast is in Descript.
[00:20:17] It's actually called Squadcast by Descript now. But they are still functioning as two separate apps. So in order to schedule a Squadcast session, you still go to squadcast. fm or you can go into your Descript app and set it up from there. You can click a button and it'll take you to Squadcast. Eventually, SquadCast will be completely within Descript, so, everything in one place. All the way from, you know, sending your invitations to your guests, all the way to audiograms, post production, even publishing to some hosting sites.
[00:20:45] Brianna: Yeah, perfect. I mean, I can see that workflow. We're working really well for us here at Bambi media because we have so many clients. that we recommend using Riverside, and then we go into their Riverside accounts, we download the stuff from there, and then we pull it into Descript and we do a big, you know, we do all the fancy things that we do, um, from within there.
[00:21:07] If there was a way that it could be that they're already In our sort of descript backend recording straight into there for us, then that makes things easier for them as well. They're just going to one place and they don't have to have a separate fee. I suppose for that, that I can see it working really well as it has to how it plays out.
[00:21:28] Let's see, like, we don't know yet how they're going to integrate and all that sort of thing, but I'm
[00:21:33] excited for that.
[00:21:34] Arielle: I think I would just say, like, if you come across something that is less than a stellar experience, we want to hear about that. We are very open to having those conversations. one to one we would like to have those conversations to find out what went wrong. Because probably there is somebody on our team who can figure out how to make it go right.
[00:21:51] Or, you know, we just want to gather the feedback and say, here's what needs to go into the next round of updates.
[00:21:55] Brianna: Okay. Last question then. What is your current [00:22:00] favorite podcast to listen to or top three, if that's hard?
[00:22:04] Arielle: I love that stipulation by saying current. That's very important. I will give three because when given the opportunity I would like to recommend more than one. Okay, I listen every morning to the Daily Zeitgeist. It's my favorite... News podcast. It's comedy slash news. It's great. And I highly recommend it.
[00:22:24] It has a very amazing, engaged community. And I'm just such a big fan of how they've built that community and also how over the years I have Just become so familiar with the hosts. And I think it's a great example of people who grow along with their fans and incorporate ideas from their fans. So I love the daily Zeitgeist, highly recommend it.
[00:22:45] If you decide you want to get into it, I recommend giving yourself a few episodes before saying, well, this isn't for me. Cause it can kind of be intense at first. So you kind of need to get in on the inside jokes before you, um, give up. So please don't give up. I also really love listening to who weekly, which is a pop culture podcast. It is so funny. It makes me laugh out loud. they go through the week's news in celebrity slash pop culture, and they break people up into the who's or the them's. The who's are people that you're like, who, who is that?
[00:23:18] And the them's are like, oh, them, right? So they're like, is that a who or a them? And they'll bring up people and they'll, they'll like categorize these people. But then over time, they also start to categorize inanimate objects. So they'll be like. Okay, is, um, a Mac a who or a them? Is a Windows a who, a who or a them?
[00:23:35] It's so ridiculous, but it's so great, and then you'll find yourself in life referring to things as who or thems. And it's also a study in PR and who gets covered, it's so much smarter than just a pop culture show. And the, the hosts are amazing. I'm really passionate about it.
[00:23:50] And then the last one I want to recommend is called, uh, Crime Writers On. It's a podcast that is a weekly round table of four people who have all worked in investigative, either [00:24:00] podcasts or TV or writing, they review a podcast or a movie or a documentary, That is investigative or true crime in nature.
[00:24:08] And they give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down review. And it's a nuanced conversation and it's really great for recommendations.
[00:24:14] Brianna: Oh my gosh, we're definitely going to put all of those in the show notes so that people can go and subscribe to those shows and listen to them. We're also going to put Ariel shows in here as well. So feedback with earbuds, Trailer Park. Please go and listen to Ariel stuff because They feel punchy. That's interesting. It's curated. It's different. It's exposing you to a world of podcasting that you didn't know existed. And I think that's my favorite thing about it is that it just lets you dive into a medium that is still. Growing, it's still new, even though it's 12, 15 years, you know, in, uh, it's still developing.
[00:24:55] And so I really want to thank you for being on this show today and exploring these bits of podcasting with me. I just think that you're a just beautiful, wonderful human that's doing awesome things for podcasting. And I've really enjoyed this chat.
[00:25:10] Arielle: I really enjoyed this chat too. I'm in the U. S. so it's late for me, but I feel like I'm on it right now. So thank you for having me. Thank you for asking such great questions. I really, I'm about to go on a first date. We mentioned this and I, what I like about dating is the same thing that I like from a great interview, which is that if your date partner is good at what they're doing, they ask great questions and they make you think and you did that.
[00:25:33] So thank you. Thank you for my pregame.
[00:25:36] Brianna: Yay! Yeah. Great. Go and ask them lots of questions about podcasting.