Earlier this year I published 3 conversations I’d had about creativity, as videos (on YouTube) and as audios (on Substack). (You can access all the videos and audios from here.) When I published them I had plans to do more, once I’d got past a busy period of doing talks at networking meetings.

I’m now past that busy period, with just one talk left to go. But I’m hesitating in taking my next steps with this. And I thought it was worth sharing more about that, partly because writing will help me think it through and partly because someone might find it interesting and useful too.

So how did these conversations come about?

The idea first came to me a couple of years ago, but as conversations that weren’t going to be shared, and that didn’t have a particular topic or focus. So nothing much happened.

Then I spent last year experimenting with making videos (which you can read about in this blog post). By the end of last summer it had become clear to me that the way I most enjoyed making videos was to have a conversation with someone else. I can do solo videos but they don’t feel quite as natural for me to make.

So I decided to do another experiment – record a chat with someone on the broad topic of creativity, but with the sub topics that had emerged – creative expression and creative thinking. I had in my head that I’d do 3 of them, because that’s a good number to get a feel for how something works, and is manageable in terms of content.

I asked people I was already speaking to about other stuff whether they’d be up for recording those conversations with me. All 3 of the people I asked said yes, which was brilliant.

So I recorded them and talked about them a bit online, even before they were published, and then set about doing all the things that needed to happen once I’d recorded them. I must admit I hadn’t realised quite how much would be involved!

What did I do once I’d recorded them?

The editing (even though it was a fairly rough edit, as they were designed to be chats that just flowed, the editing still took a while to figure out). Deciding where to publish them, creating graphics for social media, creating short videos to promote each one, scheduling the social media posts, figuring out where else to share them, adding them to a page on my website, and all sorts of other details I’ve since forgotten (although I did write a list, in case I ever get asked to help someone else with this sort of project).

I released them weekly, shared on social media, and I monitored the stats. And that was it. I then dived headfirst into a new marketing project – giving talks and being an expert at networking sessions and in groups.

I went back to the stats this week (3 months since I last shared any of the links anywhere), and these were the results: 48-71 views of the Substack posts, with 20-45 downloads. 15-56 views of the YouTube videos. In each case the highest viewed/listened one was the first one I released, which I was able to share in a lot more places as it was a launch.

It’s interesting to note that the YouTube views haven’t increased at all, whereas the listens on Substack have. I’m finding that Substack seems to have that effect with written posts as well.

So what was the outcome of creating and sharing these chats?

Overall these videos didn’t reach the far corners of the world or have any major impact on my work enquiries. But what they did was enable me to have some interesting chats with people I already knew, and to see what it was like to set up a project like this with video, audio and then the marketing. Creating and publishing these videos also yielded some other opportunities – an invitation to do an Instagram live, to appear on a podcast, and to speak at an event.

I had some nice feedback from people I spoke to who’d watched or listened to them, and I’d got a few interesting things out of doing them. So I’m definitely glad that I tried this out. And I did notice some things I’d do differently from a planning and marketing perspective in future.

But what’s next?

Well I have spent quite a bit of time going round in circles on this to be honest. They were time consuming to do as whole project and the quality of the video wasn’t brilliant. Plus quite a few of the people I spoke to said that although they’d accessed the videos on YouTube, they hadn’t watched them, they’d just listened while they didn’t other things, like you would a podcast. So I decided that if I was going to do more, I’d do them as a podcast instead.

Of course that then brought up a whole load of other questions and doubts. Podcasts vary so much in their format and their production that it feels as if my little series of amateur audio recordings isn’t good enough to be a “proper podcast”.

And then there are all the additional things like whether to pay for hosting, how to add music and a call to action, whether to pay someone else to edit it – both the existing recordings and any future ones – whether I need a producer, or editor, or could just manage the basics myself. Whether the graphics I had are sufficient or whether to redo them, that I’ll have to create a website page for each episode with show notes and a transcript. Whether to release these 3 as a pilot series and then record another 6 for a series, or whether to record 3 more to make this into a series. Or do a rolling fortnightly release of new episodes.

Let alone whether anyone would really be interested if I did more episodes!

I’ve spoken to quite a few people who are experts on different aspects of podcast creation and marketing, and discussed ideas and ways of doing things.

But even though I now have an intro and outro (voiceover and music) ready to add, a template for some new graphics, a handful of people who’ve asked to do a future episode, and a long list of people I’d like to chat to, I haven’t sent those messages about recording new episodes. (Which is the thing that would make me get on and do the edits, graphics and make the hosting decision.)

Why not?

I think it comes back to not feeling like anyone would be interested. Which comes from the general feeling I have about promoting myself and my business at the moment, and from comments, feedback and questions others have had about my ideas for the series.

So what do I do?

On the one hand, how will I know if anyone is interested if I don’t create more episodes? But on the other hand, it’s time consuming for me to create (I don’t have the budget to get help with it), and what will this project really do for me and my business? Would I be better spending my time finding other people’s podcasts to appear on, or tightening up and focusing on some other aspect of my marketing?

It’s a lovely idea to have a podcast and to have more of these conversations – but is it really the right strategy for me? Am I just trying to do what everyone else is doing and be visible? I do know a lot of people who create podcasts for themselves or for others, and maybe I just want to be part of that world. Which is also not the right reason to launch a podcast myself.

Either way, there’s something in me that isn’t ready to dismiss the idea completely. Maybe there’s another format that might work, a solo version. Maybe I need to team up with someone else to try something. Maybe I need to find a little bit of money to experiment with a different format that requires less time input from me.

Or maybe I miss working on marketing and communications projects and this is another aspect to that I haven’t previously explored. Perhaps I just need to help someone else figure out how to go about creating and marketing a podcast, and bring in some of the experts I know to work on it – as planning and managing projects is my area of expertise!

I’ve decided that for now there won’t be a podcast launch of Creative Conversations, but that I will keep thinking about this – and perhaps the next evolution of this idea will emerge.

If you have any thoughts on what I could do, please do let me know! (You can contact me here.)