AME: Is Podcasting Dead?

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[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00] Dr. Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead experience. Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead experience. I'm your host,

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00] Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, a podcaster, and honestly, I'm kind of confused. I'm actually really confused. So I have some thoughts. I just don't know anymore about certain stuff. It's like, okay, so I recorded a podcast last week or a couple weeks ago with Dr. Brady Smith.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00] And Brady has this amazingly huge Instagram following and TikTok following. He's a stand-up comedian. And he, he's killing it on social media. He's doing great. And honestly, I think mostly he just enjoys putting stuff out on a camera, uh, to TikTok and Instagram. And I think, uh, he mostly

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00] uses it to promote his, to promote his, um, his shows, you know, like he, he fills up comedy shows because people know him from Instagram. And so I, we recorded what I thought was a really pretty good episode. I put it out on Friday. So I just put it out a couple of days ago. Um, and I look at the, the, the, I look at the download numbers and they're, they're okay. They're nothing special. I thought, I thought, wow, with Brady, they're going to be something special, but they're nothing

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00] special. And so I've put two different, um, like snip snippets from, uh, from the podcast. Cause we're, you know, I'm starting to record video stuff here in, uh, the podcast snippets that are the, the, the, the Instagram snippets. I just put them up on Instagram are killing it. Like absolutely killing it. Like right now, let me just check on my, uh, just, I just took it. So I put one out,

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00] I think on Friday, uh, I got 26,000 views of that. And then I got, uh, I put one out this morning. This is Sunday morning, 7,400 views in no time. Well, I've got like my downloads from the podcast are like, I got like 300 something. So to be perfectly honest, um, I'm discouraged. I'm really discouraged. It's like, so I just, I, I'm just going to go back and talk a little bit about what

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00] podcasting was for me. And I don't know, I don't know. I think maybe podcasting is dead in the way that I know it. So like, for one thing, I don't think I have it in me. I've always said this. I don't think I have it in me to be an influencer. Um, I just don't like the video stuff we've added kind of late in the game. And I don't, I don't know. I just don't feel like, I don't feel like, uh, I don't feel like I'm made for video in the same way. I don't know. I mean, what's happened.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, yeah, it's awful to say it, but I feel like, okay. So back in 2014, when Jason Lipscomb and I started the dental hacks, I felt like, I mean, what was wild was there weren't very many podcasts out there? Uh, I think Instagram didn't even exist probably in 2014. Facebook was a thing. Okay. No, that's wrong. Instagram was released to the public on October 6th, 2010. Okay. So TikTok came

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00] out in September, 2016. So the podcast started between Instagram being released and TikTok being released. So we started the podcast in 2014. And I, I remember at the time thinking that it was, there was nothing to this. Cause like the, as soon as we put it out there, we had thousands of downloads immediately. And I thought to myself, man, this is, this is like shooting fish in the barrel. And I will say this, we had a lot of, we had a lot of, I mean, what I feel like was

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00] authentic connection with people, but, but if 2014, uh, there were not very many dental podcasts out there. There were a few, I had actually been on a couple of them to tell you the truth. And that was sort of what told me I had been on a podcast called the prison podcast, which was actually more like a scientific skepticism podcast. And I went on Bilal Saib's podcast. He had a, um, I can't remember what he called it, but there were, there were in, there were a few Gary Tackis had one out and, and

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00] David Maloli had one. Like there were some really early ones, but when we went out there, we were, we were the first ones that were kind of, um, we sort of were there to entertain. Like the concept was, Hey, let's, let's do a podcast where we talk like, like dentists do at lunch at a CE event, where they're just kind of talking. And, and I mean, and I think that was really, it was, it was well received. And honestly, I feel like we had some renown at that point. But the other thing

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00] is, is that like reels weren't really a thing like video on social media wasn't really a thing. And so audio podcasts were kind of the hot thing at the time. Uh, and I mean, I have no regrets. I think that was great. I will say this. I think that the numbers that we had at the time were not realistic. I think that there was pretty much no filter on what was bots, what was just automatic downloads

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00] and stuff like that. And, and I think everyone in the podcast space, let's be honest, the podcasting that we were talking about was audio podcasting. And we sort of were aiming at dentists and dental team members who were maybe driving back and forth to work their commute, you know, working in the garden, working out, that sort of thing. I think that was always kind of our thing. And, and we, the original podcast, man, we would, we would go for like an hour and a half. We would, and I remember, well, we had all kinds of different segments and I mean, I would edit,

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00] I did one per week and I would edit it. Oh my gosh, the editing took forever when I started out. Cause I would edit every little thing. And, and, uh, I, and what's funny about that is I don't know that, I don't know that I don't know that the podcast was any better for all the editing I did. I just didn't know what I was doing. And you know, the technology has gotten so much better for being able to do podcasting. I can only, I know I've told you about if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know, I've, I've gone through lots of different technologies and how to record other people. And now that technology is almost automatic. There's

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00] very little effort that goes into getting a good recording of someone on the other end of the podcast when we were doing it remotely. And what's funny about that is that that would have been a dream come true what we can do now in 2014. But I mean, that's just about everything, right? I mean, like in 2014, would you have imagined what all the different things you can do with your phone and all this stuff? So anyhow, uh, so it took off really, really fast. And I feel like,

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00] um, we really were, we were kind of the toast of the town when it came to dental podcasting that way. Um, but social media as always changes, you know, like I, God, before we started doing the podcast, I figured that dental town was going to be the way that dental town was, which is just a bulletin board system. I was going to be the, that was going to just me with dentists talk to each other forever. And, and it's just interesting how clearly social media has really changed. And frankly,

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00] there's a lot of dentists now that weren't dentists back in 2014. I mean, 12 years, 12 years of, of graduates and all the, you know, there's many people who are killing it right now who were dental students or not even dental students before when we started. So we've been, I've been doing this long enough where stuff has really changed. I don't even know exactly why I'm saying that, except I'm just sort of like, I just am, I'm blown away by how much engagement the video stuff

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_00] with Brady got versus the engagement that the actual podcast gets. And I'm, I kind of am like, why am I still doing this? This is, I feel like there's a lot, I put a lot of effort into this and I get just no engagement by comparison. Now, mind you, someone who downloads the podcast and listens to it is significantly more engaged than someone who sees, um, a short reel on Instagram and Tik TOK.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00] And the reality is, is if they stay on for two or three seconds and they don't watch the whole thing, that's considered a view. But I mean, God, 24,000 views in a couple of days, it's just like, wow. And, and clearly he gets tons of engagement too. He gets tons of comments. He gets tons of likes, all this stuff. So I guess I feel like such an old person going, I just don't get it. I just don't, I don't, I don't think I have that in me. Although I might, I may be in some ways, I don't know.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_00] I would love for the listeners to give me some, some thoughts about this. I mean, look, what do you listen to a lot of podcasts? I tell you, I still listen to a lot of podcasts. I listened to, but I, I have a commute. I still have a 40 minute commute, uh, one way. So I'm, I mean, I'm in the car for, you know, better part of an hour and a half. I listened to a lot of podcasts. I listened to a lot of podcasts that are daily or, or close to daily. I, you know, like certain podcasts, they're only, they come out once a week and I really look forward to those because I only

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_00] get one of those. And I, it's, I still am a similar kind of podcast listener personally, as I was back before we ever did the podcast. Like I, I still listen to a lot of podcasts. I do listen to a fair amount of audio books now. Cause I, I, I think for my mental health, I have to kind of get away from the political stuff. Although I can't, I can't honestly say that, that I, I have my moments where I get back into listening to the current events and political stuff. But for the most part,

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00] I've kind of avoided them. They're not, it's not real healthy for me mentally. And that's another thing too. I think social media has basically poisoned, you know, poisoned everything. We can't have a political conversation now. There's, there is no political conversation right now. I get, I, I blame social media and I blame Trump being a particular kind of person because at this point

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00] right now, I'm convinced that everyone, everyone reacts politically. At this point, we react that there's like two, there's like two kinds of people in the world, people that are just against whatever Trump says. And then people who are super into Trump or people who just tolerated Trump, just tolerate Trump because they think the Democrats are more crazy. I think that's the kind, we got two groups. And honestly, I think the people who hate Trump are, I think there's more of the ones who just,

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00] whatever Trump says they're against it. And I feel like he has deranged politics in a way that has broken everyone's brain, including my own. And so I just like, you can't have a civil political discussion. If you have any disagreement with whoever you're talking to it, there's no such thing as that anymore. I think social media has a lot to do with that. I think Trump is a, is a, a

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00] specifically deranging person, but I don't know that we ever go back. Honestly, I don't know that we can ever go back to, to a normal discourse. And I think social media has everything to do with that. And I think in a similar way, podcasts are never going to be like they were because I mean, who's got 40 minutes to do anything anymore? I mean, why not? It's, it's much easier to just listen to. I, it's just wild to me. Um, I don't know. Everyone's got a podcast now and podcasts are no longer.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_00] When I, when we started podcasts were a very specifically audio phenomenon and now it's not really now, now the reality is this podcasts are as much on YouTube or, or, you know, small bites of reels, which frankly I put them out too, because I want the attention. It seems to me though, that anyone listening to, to my podcast at the little clips on the reels, they'll give us a thumbs up or a heart or, or, or a comment, but no one's going to listen to the podcast from the reels. That's the

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_00] wild thing. And okay, something else. Dr. Richard Lowe was on the podcast like last month or a month and a half ago. And he said, here's the thing. The algorithm brings reels to people, but the algorithm does not bring podcasts to people. The podcasts are still using an RSS feed, which you, uh, podcasts are an audio podcasts. Like what I do are an opt-in phenomena. So you have to decide you want

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_00] to listen to it and you have to go on in a little piece of software. It's like, you can't listen to my whole podcast in, in Tik TOK, or you can't listen to my whole, you, you can get the clips. And if you think it's great, you might check it out, but I have just not had many people. I, I'm not seeing, even though, you know, I've got 24,000 views of, of one of the, the reels that I put up with Brady and, you know, 7,000 or whatever on the other. Um, I haven't noticed a bump in actual

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00] download numbers. They look about the same as normal, which is okay. It's not like we don't have anyone, but I just, I feel like right now I've sort of the technology that I thought, and this is a perfect, perfect example of just everything. The technology that I thought was going to be the most amazing thing forever, the audio podcast and the, and the reaching out and, you know, authentic conversations between dentists and dental people, which I still love, by the way, I still really enjoy doing it. It's just not the same thing. It's just, it's just not the same as

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00] it used to be. Part of that is I think, I think back in 2023, when I, the, the great statistics, uh, gutting of all of podcasts when they've, they decided that whatever we used to think were, were downloads were not downloads. They changed it. So all of a sudden in 2023, basically the number of downloads that, that I was getting on the podcast was cut to about a quarter.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00] Um, so the numbers now that we have are about a, about a quarter what they were back then. And they're saying that those were fake. Those were bots. Those weren't, those were repeats. Those were something. And I don't know, I'm at the mercy of Apple podcasts or whoever decides what a, what a download is. That's okay. I mean, it's, it's, it sucks. I hate it, but it is what it is. It's just, I can't, I can complain about it all I want, but it doesn't change anything. So that's frustrating a little bit too. But on the other hand, I still get hundreds of downloads per each

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_00] episode knowing that, so there's hundreds of people out there that are listening and interested. So I don't want to be fatalistic about it, but I do, I wonder if, I wonder if, um, I wonder if the message is still good. You know, like, I wonder if, if there's still, and I'm wondering, you know, do, do our dentists in general are, okay. So I went to the, my study club, the, the vetter society, which was a great time, we had a good time. But the reality is, is that like, there's almost,

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00] there's more life members for the vetter society than there are active members, which is to say, life members are, are old guys that have sort of been in it for X number of years and they can, they can pay a smaller, smaller dues amount because they've been in for so long. So there's literally more life members. We're upside down. We have more life members than we have active members. So I think this is a trend we're seeing everywhere. First off, it's like everything is online in person

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_00] is not really a thing. And in podcasts, in some ways are like an in-person kind of thing. Like, like there's an authenticity and a, um, and frankly, there's a commitment of time that's hard to get. So I think probably my, my main, my main listeners are commuters, uh, maybe people who are just loyal, who were there from the beginning and really are still interested in hearing the message. And you already know crazy dental has practically unbeatable prices on everyday dental supplies, but how do we make that deal even sweeter? Free shipping.

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[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00] and I don't know what the answer is on that. So it's just, it's, it's interesting. I, I feel I'm, you know, I'm trying to is, is, is audio podcasting via an RSS feed, is it a complete dinosaur? Is there, is there no, you know, and, and if that's the case, I wonder if I, I fold it up and, and, and pack it in and, and, you know, try and do something different. I don't, and it isn't that I don't enjoy it the same way, but it's, it's hard

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_00] to, and then maybe this is because of the, all those numbers games. It's hard to get all excited about it when, when, you know, we used to have thousands of downloads per episode. And now, I mean, literally the greatest number I've had in the last year would be 600 and something like that. I mean, that's a big episode. We used to get 600 in the first day, according to the stats that we used to have. So it's like, you're kind of like, wow, what are we? So the question is, what's the goal? And the goal would be, I mean, honestly, I still think the goal is just authentic conversations

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_00] with regular dentists. Um, you'll notice that I haven't turned myself into a, uh, a DSO guru, or I haven't turned myself into a, uh, an all on four guru or an education guru. That's one thing that Jason used to drive Jason nuts about the dental hacks. Everyone around us was selling something. We had something to sell, you know, we had, we had, you know, they had a course or they had a, they had a shtick, whatever. I mean, like, like they were selling something that people could buy.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00] And so the podcast was just a, a good way to market our other product. And I, we never had another product. Obviously I do, I still do sponsorships. Uh, and actually the sponsorships, I think are things that are useful to people that listen to the podcast. I'm always, I'm always about that. Um, but it's, it's just a little different. We never really had, we never really had a product we were selling. I think a lot of people like that. A lot of people maybe prefer that because we're actual clinical dentists that are, that are, you know, run into the same dumb problems that

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00] everyone else does. I still think that's real. I still think that's good, but on some level, I think that social media in the way that it's wrecked almost everything has kind of wrecked that too. Because right now it's like, if you are, if you're a very online person, you look at dentistry a lot differently than someone who's not very on. And that's, that's something I'm, I'm still kind

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00] of trying to deal with, to be honest. It's a, it's okay. And it is what it is. And it, but it does make me feel like an old guy. I mean, I am an old guy, but it makes me feel like an even older guy. I mean, I've been doing, I've been in dentistry for almost 30 years and I just feel like I'm, I'm less and less connected to, to what, what's really going on. It's, it's just wild. So I think I'll stick to it for right now, but I would love to hear from people who are actually listening to

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_00] this podcast. Like what, what do you get out of it? Are you, I mean, do you, do you want, do you listen to it very often? Or do you find dental social media more, um, more appealing than, than audio podcasts? Or are you just someone who's like, yeah, I got a commute and I got to, you know, I, I spend time listening to stuff because I have a commute and this works well for me. I'm just curious. I don't really know what's happening out there and I don't, I want to stay

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00] useful. And I really do enjoy, I enjoy the conversations, but sometimes it's, it's tough because it's not as, it's maybe not as rewarding as it was because they used to, I used to feel like there's a lot more engagement and there's a lot more people out there. So I guess I don't want to come off as whining. I'm just not sure. Like the whole Brady thing, the whole, the whole, just putting a couple clips up on Instagram with connected to Brady, who has this huge Instagram following, got all this engagement, but didn't increase my, my listens in the podcast one bit.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00] That was something literally right before I started to record this, I was pretty sure it's going to go, okay, I was going to, I'm going to see a bump. I'm going to see a bump for sure with all the engagement we saw on, on Instagram. And I didn't see a bump in the podcast downloads at all, which is okay. But I'm, I just was a little surprised by it. So I think, I think maybe Dr. Richard Lowe is right to say that podcasting is tough because there's no, there's no algorithm driving it. In the same way that video content. So maybe I need to just, maybe I need to just lean into the

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_00] video stuff a little bit more. Clearly, I will say this, gotta love riverside.fm makes it very easy. I used to use a product called squad cast to record remotely. And before that I used, I used a big, huge network of computers, each running an individual account of Skype. And then I would mix it into my, it was fricking crazy, but squad cast came along. I started using that because it was, it was relatively easy to do. Uh, and then Riverside came along and made it even easier.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00] And, and Riverside can generate these, uh, like clips quite easily on its own. I do a little editing of it, but I don't have to do much. And that's, that's kind of great. It's not, I, I, I enjoy a lot of the tools that have come along. I just don't know that I'm a video guy. I just don't like, I've always been an audio guy and I don't know. I don't know that, that I want to change in that. The other thing is, is there's always been this thing where I thought I had potential to do kind

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00] of a, how can I say this? I could do a narrative podcast. I listened to a lot of podcasts, the, the original narrative podcast that blew everyone's mind, which was back in 2014 or 2015 was called Serial. And it was just basically, it was, it was kind of, um, it was like a radio show thing, but it was very, it's very engineered. It was very, it was real. It seemed real, but it was very engineered. I have a couple of those ideas. I've talked about this before. I've never really

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_00] followed through with them because it takes a lot, takes a lot of, uh, instead of it being a conversation, an authentic conversation, you gotta, you kind of have to plan it and edit a lot more. And, and, and I think I could do that. I think it'd be kind of fun, but I, I don't, I've been told by many people who know better than me that that's not going to go very far. So I don't know, maybe someday I'll try that and put it on the feed and see what happens. I think I would love to try and do something like that pointed towards patients, which is interesting.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00] I don't, there's not a lot of patient facing dental content. It's a mostly content created for dentists, you know, by someone like me. I don't know, just curious. Um, and man, I, it's just, it's been a trip. I really enjoy, I really enjoyed recording with Brady. It was fun and he's a funny guy and he's easy to, he's easy to record with. And I just, it's just, my mind's a little blown by how much, how much, um, influence or at least how much, uh,

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_00] connection he has to an audience. You know, there's just, it's just, just doing that little effort with him where he connected it to his account. And you're just like, wow. So when I see an influencer on Instagram or I don't do TikTok, I, but I'm like on Instagram, when I see they've got, you know, 30, 40,000 followers, I've, and I don't have that many. I have, I have a couple thousand, I think. Um, I, that's real, that's a real person. And I know that people can make real money by

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00] having a follower. And every time you put a post up there, you know, that's getting to at least a certain percentage of those people. It's, I don't know how often is it is compared to a podcast, but you'll notice that there's not a lot of people that were doing podcasts before that are really pushing podcasts out there as hard anymore. It's a lot more video content. Anyhow, so that makes one confused guy. I'm just wondering, are podcasts dead? Or is it just, is it just that they've changed and I, I have to catch up? I don't even know. And I would love to

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00] hear the opinion of the listener. If you've made it this far, you're definitely a listener who's, who's stuck with me. I really appreciate you guys listening to the show. Again, if you haven't joined the Very Dental Facebook group, you're certainly, you certainly should do that. Um, all you got to do is go to Facebook and it'll ask you for a password. I'm just going to give one. Give me Timmerman. Give me the password Timmerman and I'll let you in. It's, it's a small Facebook group. It's like 800 people. It's not a, and everyone in there is someone that I've let in because they knew the password from listening to the podcast. So that's, that's an interesting

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00] thing. I'm curious about that. Shoot. There's a lot of people in there that, that I've known, I knew from Dentaltown that are not even podcast listeners. And as soon as I mentioned anything about the podcast, they go, I've never listened to a podcast in my life. So there's some curmudgeonly people in there too. You know who you are. It's okay. It's a good group. We have, we have some decent conversations there, but I am curious about the podcast listeners. Are podcasts dead? Is that real? Or is that just me being blown away by how much, uh, connection that Brady

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00] has with his audience? In any case, I, I, I appreciated, I appreciate you guys listening. I'd love to hear what you have to say and, um, I will catch you next episode.