How to Future-Proof Your Podcast: Essential Tools and Tactics w/Dustin Polyinnovator

Summary:
In this episode, I'm happy to geek out over content creation and podcasting tools with Dustin PolyInnovator, a multidisciplinary content creator and entrepreneur.

We discussed Dustin's journey in content creation, his unique polycast approach, and strategies for omnichannel content distribution.

Dustin shares insights on building a sustainable content strategy, leveraging automation tools, and maintaining consistency in podcasting to avoid podfade.

Key Takeaways:

• Diversifying Content Strategy (00:12:30)
  Dustin highlights the importance of not putting all your eggs in one basket and spreading content across multiple platforms to ensure long-term sustainability.
• Starting with One Content Type (00:18:45)
  He advises new creators to focus on one content type (written, audio, or video) and reach 100 repetitions before expanding to other formats.
• Podcast Website Options (00:28:15)
  Dustin discusses alternatives to WordPress, including Ghost, Substack, and Podcastpage.io, for hosting a podcast and building an online presence.
• The Four Pillars Philosophy (00:40:10)
  He introduces his Four Pillars approach—mind, body, spirit, and emotions—to personal development and how it relates to content creation.
• Tools for Content Repurposing (01:05:22)
  Dustin shares automation and AI tools like Opus Clip and New Link that help streamline content repurposing and omnichannel distribution.

 
Connect with Dustin PolyInnovator:
Website: polyinnovator.space
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/polyinnovator
Instagrem: @polyinnovator
Twitter/X: @polyinnovator
Email: (Check his website for contact options)

Tools Mentioned:

• Podcast Hosting & Websites:
  • Ghost
  • Substack
  • Podcastpage.io
  • WordPress
  • Transistor.fm
  • Simple Podcast Press (plugin)
• Content Creation & Repurposing:
  • Riverside
  • Wave Room
  • Descript (Descript Rooms)
  • Opus Clip
  • Spotter Studio
  • Minvo
  • Videotap
• Automation & Scheduling:
  • Zapier
  • Make (formerly Integromat)
  • RecurPost
  • New Link

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00)
It's an exciting time to be a content creator. Today's episode brings you lots of tools and strategies to use in podcasting and content creation in general. Thank you for listening. My guest today is Dustin Poli Innovator. Welcome, Dustin. It's good to have you back again on Tools of the Podcast, right? Yes. It'll be fun to talk about all these different tools. Yes.

And before we get into what you do, which is quite interesting, could you tell us who is Dustin? Yeah. So I've been in the world of content creation for a long time and that is part of who I am, I think. I've always loved creating content and I've always been kind of a businessman at heart. Even when I was eight or nine, I wanted to be a businessman. I told my family I want office supplies for my birthday. And eventually I would say I want to be a CEO. And then when I was a teenager,

I'd say, I want to be a CEO of an international company driven to innovate technology and ideology. And those were the words coming out of like a 17 year old's mouth. So a lot of the content I've made has been trying to set the groundwork for that dream, if you will. And I started making blog posts for this organization I wanted to create and then eventually podcasts for it. I realized I wasn't good enough to make it yet and that's okay. It was just self-reflection. And so I pivoted towards my personal brand, Poly Innovator.

started making content for that, particularly around this do-it-yourself degree I created. And that way I can create an education towards what I needed to become. OK, thank you. I must admit, when I first interviewed you, there was a lot I didn't understand about your method. I discovered recently that I'm sort of neurodivergent, you know, have this, you know. And I'm

beginning to understand more about what it is you do and why you do it the way you do it. So I appreciate you just explaining that part for me. So I had an interview with a guest, Jerry Potter, and he talked about mod casting. Now I brought that up because you have a podcast, but you do not call it a podcast. You call it a polycast. Why?

So I will say there's a whole other story behind why I changed my opinion on this. started calling my shows podcasts because of certain reasons, but I initially anchored to the word polycast because I hate Apple and Apple products really. And I didn't like how the word podcast originated from the iPod. And prior to the iPod, they were called something else like audio cash and streamcast and stuff like that. A lot of people in the podcasting world didn't like the word podcast because it didn't feel right.

And I called it the polycast for another reason, because I had this multidisciplinary approach to myself and the content and to the people who I'm interviewing. Yeah. So poly meaning much or many, you know, had many different series, many different types of guests and many different topics. Right. Okay. All right. I get that. My own mod cast. Yeah, your own mod cast. Sure. Yeah. I like it. And you've kind of expanded that poly to poly innovator.

into social media and marketing. Explain how you do that and how that benefits us as content creators. The number one lesson that many big creators always talk about, and I've tried to preach it to the clouds or to the world, mean, is don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? 2019 or so, there was this issue with YouTube and there was like this ad-pocalypse where basically a lot of creators lost 80 % of their income overnight.

And we're actually going through that right now with Twitch, Twitch, live streaming platform. And there was issues with TikTok. You know, this is the third time TikTok might get banned in the U S and more than likely it probably will, at least to the iteration that it is now, it might get replaced by another one like Lemon8. I think it's the tool that the people are going to be using. But the thing is all these platforms, they're not permanent or even if they are permanent, what they can do is change a lot. And so when you put all your eggs in one basket and do just one thing,

you're going to be limiting yourself to survivability. so having that polymatic approach to content is going to save you in the long run. Yeah. to new platforms quickly too. Huh? And it helps you adapt to new platforms quickly too. Yes, that's true. So, so I understand that concept of being a lot of places, but don't you also run the risk of the shiny object syndrome thing?

And there's also people might say you're spreading yourself too thin or something like that. The shiny object syndrome only really impacts you if it's basically keeping you from doing your already basic stuff. What I try to talk about is more, I can't speak, a more sustainable approach. So you do have to get good at one thing first before you get good at the next thing. Like, yes, there is a sequential aspect behind it. If you're just starting out with content, like you've not made any content really before besides a couple of Facebook posts.

then yes, you do need to probably focus on just one thing. Focus either on written, audio or video, and then focus on whether or you're doing a blog, a podcast or a YouTube channel or TikTok, if you're doing short form video, and get to 100 reps with that. That's usually what most of the creators, including also myself as well, think that is a good number. 100 reps, that's when you know what you did right, what you did wrong, what you can improve on. And then you can do the next 100 reps for audio instead of video, and the next 100 reps on written. Or...

If you want to stick to just video, you have long form and short form and live streaming. And so there's three different types right then and there. each type, your a hundred reps start over. Okay. So it's not a matter of, you know, don't use the different channels. just to get good off at one maybe first and then keep layering that, that effort. Yeah. The compound. And once you learn one, like I learned TikTok first. I was on Musically back when before it was TikTok.

And actually I was on Vine back in the day. I was mainly a user, but I did make some videos back then. And then when TikTok came out, I started making videos, but then lo and behold, YouTube shorts and Instagram reels, Facebook reels, they all came out. Now LinkedIn has video clips. Now Spotify has video clips. And so now I can adapt what I know from TikTok to all these other platforms. Same thing goes for Twitter. If you're good at Twitter, then you're going to probably be good at threads or blue sky or Macedon or whatever.

Right, got you. Okay, thank you. So I was looking at an article on your site. It's funny because I was thinking about doing a presentation to aspiring podcasts about how to get a website for their podcasts. Right? And I bumped into one you have on polyinnovator.space, creating the modern, creative, perfect website with Ghost. Because

I run into trouble with getting my podcast onto WordPress. There's some ways around it, but it depends on who your host is. Yes. So can you kind of give us a tip on how to, you know, so you're new podcaster and you want to get your podcast out there, but you've also got this layer where you want to talk to your audience, maybe in a blog or something like that.

and you want a home for your podcast, maybe separate from your host because, you know, like you said, it's not good to depend on one place too much, right? And most hosts have kind of limited podcast pages. I think I have a pretty decent one, like Transistor.fm has a pretty decent podcast page, but it limits you and you can't really do a whole lot with like newsletters and stuff like that. You really want to build that email list first and foremost. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

So, yeah, so that's where I was going with that is that, you know, how do we, because there are many places that you could pull your podcast episodes into, but everything is just all over the place. How do you, as an aspiring podcast, narrow that down to? I say,

For most people nowadays don't use WordPress in general just because it's so convoluted and pretty broken a lot of times. I was on WordPress.com and .org and I spent way too much time trying to fix the broken pieces of the site, add more plugins, stuff like that. It was a lot of work and it kept me from writing blog posts. It actually kept me from making content. And so that's one reason why I moved to Ghost. On WordPress, there is a few plugins. One's called Simple Podcast Press by Hany Mora. That would help.

that you could also use Zapier to same thing for Ghost. You could use Zapier or make or any of these automation tools to basically create a blog post whenever there's a new podcast comes out. would kind of be hesitant to use either one because if you wanted to make a website purely for your podcast, you could use like something called podcastpage.io. There's pod page and there's podcast page. There's two different tools that are very similar in name. Podcastpage.io.

is a lot better because you actually have a lot more options and you can even embed your YouTube channel into it too and have blogs. It's kind of the closest I've seen to having an all-in-one. Like you have video, audio, and written in one site. that does cost money. All these tools technically cost money, but yeah, that's kind of where I met with that. WordPress, there's a few plugins. Ghost is great, but again, like WordPress, will take some time to set up. It's probably the best when it comes to any newsletter tool out there.

And then there's also podcastpage.io or Substack. Substack's also a really good option for newcomers. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. I wanted to touch on that for new podcasters especially. Tell us about the self-development through the four pillars of philosophy. What's that all about? So it's not the four pillars of philosophy, but just the four pillars philosophy because I just... No, you're good. You're good. I just wanted to clarify.

Four Pillars is what I took as a modern approach to lot of ancient philosophies. You have the mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Right now, as we record this, I have a lot of videos going out on my channel about this topic too, because it's something I created with that original organization way back before, like 10 years ago with my previous endeavor, because I was like, want to find a way to improve my life consistently in all four areas. Then I needed a way to explain this other people and encourage them to pursue cell development as well.

You can never make anybody do anything. What if you convince them like, hey, this is the right way, then that will help improve themselves. If you improve the individual, then you can improve the community and therefore the world beyond that. And that was the mindset behind it. Every person anchors to one pillar. I started out working at a gym and that was my first job. I anchored more towards the body pillar. That's what I started taking care of myself. So I kind of view a lot of the four pillars through that lens. Some people are more intellectual, so they...

spent all their time in a library. So they kind of came from the mind pillar. And there's other people who, you know, had some emotional development early on and they kind of anchor towards the emotions pillar, same with spirituality. And spirituality is technically different from religion, stuff like that. But depending on which way you want to go about this, I could explain more. All right. I appreciate that. And I kind of would like to delve, you know, a little deeper into it because podcasters, entrepreneurs,

We're all human beings, right? And in order to function in the roles we adapt in life, we have to take care of those pillars, those foundational issues. tell us again, mean, reiterate to us how we can improve our lives and therefore our career choices using

these pillars? Well, the four pillars are just one aspect behind it. But I think that it's a really great place to start. If you want to improve your life, then you have to build up these pillars. When one pillar gets built up, it helps strengthen the other pillars. When one pillar goes down, it'll weaken the other pillars, so drag them down too. And so that's, for example, when you start working out at the gym consistently, your body is going to get better, but then you also get a little bit more clear headed in your mind. You start, you don't have as much brain fog, you get a little bit more stronger connections with the mind-body connection there too.

And it also helps your emotions. Your physical state directly has an impact on your emotions and vice versa. When you are upset or depressed and sad, your internal body temperature goes down. When you're happy, excited, elated, your body temperature goes up. You can kind of trick your body by doing exercise and it'll help put you at a better state of mind, not to mention with endorphins and stuff like that. so each pillar can interact with each other and you want to try to build them all up. But just like with content, like we mentioned earlier, you kind of have to start with one.

Get good at doing that one. Keep your systems going with that. Eventually work on the next one, then the next one, then the next one, and they compound. Content or four pillars, they both compound.

That's how you get started. Yeah. All right. Thank you. All right. So what is Dustin grateful for today? Grateful for him. I am grateful for this opportunity. I had another meeting with a friend this morning too. And so I get a chance to talk to people and other creators in particular. It's a really fun experience for me. That's why I created Polytools actually is because I wanted to talk to more creators and also talk about tools. yeah, that's all I'm for. All right. Okay.

So what new tools have you discovered lately that can help us? For a game. one, I've been messing around with recording tools because I've had a lot of issues with Riverside, which is what we're using now. And so I tried out podcasts on Wave Room and stuff like that. The script is coming out with a new one called the script rooms. It's in beta right now. It's a replacement for Squadcast. It's built into the script platform natively. I'm curious to try that out. There's other tools out there.

One is by MrBeast called ViewStats. And basically you can analyze your YouTube channel and find out more information about that. There is Spotter Studio, which is an AI platform that helps you come up with ideas, thumbnails, and scripts for your YouTube videos. For podcasters, I'm trying to think, there's one that's coming out. I'm not sure exactly what the ETA would be, but it's called Flightcast. And it's backed by a pretty big podcaster. And essentially it's a video podcast hosting platform.

So unlike Libsyn or even my own transistor.fm where they're audio based distribution tools, this is a video distribution tool. So you take your podcast interview like we're doing right now, toss it into there, it'll send it to YouTube, it'll send it to Spotify as a video and Apple as a video. And so that way you could have all your video platforms taken care of and then all the other platforms that aren't using those directories that you might have like iHeartRadio and stuff like that, that are audio only.

It'll also send to those as well. And so it kind of changes the dynamic a bit. There's some other tools, but that's the ones that come to mind. All right. Thanks. I remember the last time we talked, you had left us with quite a few. I'm trying to hold back a little. No, no, don't hold back. This is called Tools of the Podcast Trade for a reason. And I'm sure even if you're not using it for podcasts, then we could find something that helps us.

Are you using AI and how are you using it? I try not to overuse AI, but I definitely think that it helps assist. So for example, with blog posts, I can't stand to do meta descriptions, a little summary at the top. And so I'll just take my blog post and have AI make it into a little summary, two sentence summary so I can have something there. Or I'll use it to help generate podcast titles. And one lesson I want to share with the audience is like, don't overuse AI. If it comes up with a title and you like it, still tweak it a little bit more.

Even if it's 80 % of the way there, don't just post it with that title. I got in trouble for using a bad title at one point because it made it, it basically accidentally offended a guest that I had on because I said one word in a certain way. And I realized I should have been a little bit more careful with it. I should have tweaked it more. I just didn't realize it. I uploaded it at midnight. That's my fault. I was a little tired, but I overused AI and I got in trouble for it. And so I fixed it. But that's one point I use it for titles. It's great for titles.

Other than that, I use an AI called Opus Clip to generate clips of my interviews. I've used Riverside's Magic Clips since they came out. They've never been that great. Same with StreamYard or even the Scripts Clips. And I think the Script is probably one the better ones out there. And all these platforms came out of the woodwork last year, probably around the time we talked, where there was Minvo and Videotap and all these other like random video tools. Opus is the fastest growing content repurposing tool.

Like over 6 million users, think at this point. And I've used it for all my interviews. Out of the 170 interviews, I generated 2000 usable clips. Yeah.

Wow, that's pretty neat. thank you. Yeah, I have that. What I do with when you ask ChatGTP to help me with the headlines is I put them in a headline analyzer. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, because it gives you the score and then you're forced to improve it even if you didn't want to. It forces you to improve it.

And just to mention to the audience, there's a lot of blogging headline analyzers out there, like CoSchedules and think Neil Patel's and stuff like that. And so for the podcasters who may not be used to the blogging world, you can use those blogging headline analyzers for your podcast analyzing, and that will help you quite a bit, I think, as well. Yes. Yeah. Uber suggests, and I think OptiMonster has one as well. Yeah. Pretty cool. Thank you. So.

what else can you give us in the world of podcasting? Because I really want to focus on that some and talk about, because one of the things I know you probably realize is that not a lot of podcasts have longevity. I see people show up and then they disappear.

Yeah, I know. It's just amazing. What can you tell us to just why are you still here? Well, they always say follow your passion. And that's one reason why I'm still here, even though there's been plenty of times where I've gotten close to burnout or I have burned out with the content world. When it comes to podcasting, there is a thing called pod fade, as you sure you know. And what I noticed is that it usually happens around 60 episodes or six months. And because I remember

I started podcasting back in 2017. And even then it was more 2018, 2019 where I got more under my belt. And then 2020 happened and we're all stuck at home. And that's when I started doing interviews and I saw tons and tons of podcasts flow up around that time and come out of nowhere. But then as soon as 2021 hits, half of them were already dead. then by the end of 2021, another half was dead. So only about like a fourth of the original 2020 podcasts that came out were still around.

And Matchmaker was a pretty big graveyard from what I can tell. So the point is you have to get past that hurdle. Once you get past that, that's already a major milestone. Again, it back to those hundred reps. Just even if you failed at doing the original podcast idea, you don't necessarily have to start over. And so you can take your same podcast feed, change the name if you really feel like it, but or maybe just change the whole style from the first 80 episodes. You're like, okay, I'm talking about this topic.

Now I want to move on, move on to the next one, keep it in the same feed. It's not a big deal. Yes, some people will say start a new podcast, but take what your history is there. When I started doing interviews, I only had two podcasts on my polycast feed. Despite the fact I had two other podcasts under my belt and nearly 40 episodes already at that point. And so what I decided to do is that they were all basically the same topics, if you will, just different titles and names.

So I decided to put it all into one feed, just copy the episodes over, copy the dates over and had a full season worth of content. And then from season two onwards, when I started doing interviews and new stuff, it was all me still, but it was just different names for the different shows. And at that point it just made sense. But yeah, that's kind of where my advice sits. Okay. And that makes sense. So almost like reinventing yourself, but keeping you at the same time. Yeah.

Okay. All right. So I am any parting shots because I'm going to let you go. I will say that there's plenty of tools out there. If you know where to look, there's plenty of repurposing tools, especially when it comes to making blog posts out of it as well. Like podcast, the blog is a pretty common repurposing use case. And I've seen a lot of people use Substack, for example, you can host your podcast on Substack. It doesn't distribute it for you like other hosts does, but at least you can still host it there. So if you wanted to have a private

newsletter to help generate income for your podcast. That's one way to go about it too. Yeah, I actually have my podcast on Substack, except that I didn't know you could put your RSS feed in there. So I was on there posting all my episodes. Then when I tried to put the RSS feed in there, I think it's some kind of glitch. It told me that most of my episodes were already on there, but it wouldn't just auto feed.

Do you follow? Yeah, maybe that might be one case where you have to start over and just whatever like posts you've made outside of the episodes, like any kind of random post, you can just copy over. So just like start a new sub stack with that new RSS feed and just let it auto import and then depreciate the old one. Yeah. That way it's automatic for you down the line. Yeah, makes sense. Okay. yeah. There was something I wanted to ask you. Omnichannel marketing.

Yeah. How does that differ or is similar to the poly? I do a blank. I'm sorry. I had this question and I think I want to ask him about that, but you do it. That's a good question. Honestly, I think that's probably most prudent under all of them just because of what we were talking about. There's a lot of poly words in my content ecosystem. Poly innovators, my personal brand, the Omnichannel. I

I wanted to really follow the AmiChannel presence. I was always really inspired by Gary V, especially when I first started out. And he always talked about doing a hundred pieces of content a day. And people hear that, like you're shaking your head right now. Like people hear that and they're like, that is audacious. That's crazy. I'm not going to do that. Everyone fought him on it. Instead I asked the question, well, how do I do that? I accepted it as facts. Like I, I started watching his content. I started watching what he did. I started watching what other big creators did.

And when you watch closely, they are basically doing that or close to it or striving towards that. you aim for a hundred, but you land at 50, you're still doing 10 times as much as everyone else. Right. And so I tried to come up with a strategy. And so I took the Omni channel idea, came up with a term called Omni content, but it turns out that was trademarked by some kind of e-commerce company. And so I couldn't use it anymore, but the Omni content idea was that every episode I would make a blog post, a video, a podcast, all three pillar types.

And then I would chop them all up into micro content pieces. So every time I made a new video, it would get tweeted. It would get a Facebook post, a LinkedIn post, a Pinterest post. Every time I made a blog post, the same. And every time I made a podcast, the same. That's already four posts for each one. That's like what? 12, 15 posts right then and there. And then you have audio clips, audiograms, right? You don't necessarily need audiograms now that we have, you know, Opus clips and like random regular video clips. Let's say you make a dozen video clips from that.

episode. Well, that's another fit 12. So that's 27 right there. And then you have maybe three image quotes from your blog posts that you put on Pinterest and Instagram or whatever the platforms you want. That's another three, three, 33 posts right there. Again, you can just start chopping it up and more and more ways. You can take that same blog posts and turn it into an infographic or a slideshow, stuff like that. You can take your piece that you've already made and repurpose it in a lot of different ways and syndicate it across multiple platforms.

And so I don't want to get too much in the weeds here until I can explain it all. But that was the idea behind that content ecosystem. Eventually, I wanted to make a newsletter around content creation and repurposing. Thus came this Polytools brand that I created. And eventually I created a tools directory website, built on Ghost, mind you. Both my websites are built on Ghost. But this tools directory was all the tools I've come across from podcasting and YouTube and blogging and Notion Tools, stuff like that.

And on there is where I put that newsletter. I also made this new YouTube channel so could talk about how to be a modern content creator and I get to interview creators, like so conversations like this. And then I repurpose all that content and try to get to that omnichannel presence. Am I always successful with it? No, but am I doing more than most people? Definitely. There was times where with these interviews that I did, I was posting 10 shorts a day across YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. And now I'm going to actually do it again for LinkedIn.

and stuff like that. Okay. So how do you do that? Do you use a tool or do you use a VA? I use tools because VA costs money and tools cost money, but generally there's ways around the tools and there's sometimes free tools too. A VA would be useful in certain circumstances, but for the most part, you can get away with just automation. You want to be careful not to over automate like we mentioned earlier, but

If you use like social media management tools, there's a lot of them out there. Most of them can't do bulk upload. And like I said, I had over 2000 usable clips from all my interviews. And so I'm like, how do I post those? Opus Clip has a scheduler built into it now, but it still wasn't robust as what I needed, especially considering how many platforms I was posting to. And so I used a couple other tools like New Link and RecurPost. RecurPost built a bulk upload function for me and that way could just upload dozens at a time and just have it filter into different.

different collections and stuff like that. New Link is honestly the best automation tool I've come across. Zapier broke on me so many times, make is a little complicated even for me, and they're also a little bit kind of...

I guess you could say techie. New Link is like a social media management tool like Buffer or Hootsuite or later, but it has more automations than any of them. And so anytime I make a new blog post or video or anything like that, like I mentioned earlier, automatically sent down to across all these different platforms. And then I could also use it to post all my clips and stuff like that. There's plenty more I could say, but I didn't want to like burn anybody out. No, think, no, it's fine. I mean, I want to hear and I'm sure.

Because what I want to do with this is clip it to the appropriate tools and distribute it so listeners can consume it in bite size. So it's Every time I go on a show, generally, like nine times out of ten, they don't repurpose the content. So what I end up getting in the habit of is when I go on shows like this, I just take the interview with permission from the host and put it into this clip myself, and then I get the clips.

of me saying stuff and then I can always share it back with you too. That's how we can get the clips. I can toss it in there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, but I try to do it as much as I can. I kind of get a little impatient with tools. I use Q-U-U-U. It's Q with a three U's. Oh Q, yeah. Yeah. And I found that it was useful except that you do have to pay attention. You can't just...

throw your stuff out there and expect them to do a good job. example, I had an issue where because of my Instagram is pretty old, right? I got Instagram around the time it came out and my people who follow me follow me from real life. They don't follow me for my content. And so when I was posting, you know, 10 reels a day, that's a lot. That's actually quite excessive, I would say. And even I would still do it now, but

My point is I was posting them to the main feed and the real speed. There's two separate feeds and by posting them to the main feed, I started losing followers because people weren't interested in that and it was kind of clogging up their feed. And so I made this one switch where using the tools I'm scheduling with, I took off a little box and say only post to the real speed, not the main feed. And then from there, now I'm getting positive traction. So there's stuff like that. And that's like when you're using.

tools like Q or New Link, it's paying attention to those details. Yeah. Right, right. Makes sense. OK. All right. I appreciate you, Dustin. Yeah. Thanks for having me.