I had to run some errands the other day, and in an effort to save a little time before heading back home to work, I decided to grab breakfast from a drive-thru. I ended up pulling into a Chick-fil-A. And as I pulled out of the drive-thru, something dawned on me.
Chick-fil-A is not the best fast food, in my opinion, and it's not the cheapest. But one thing that always stands out is that it is consistently a pleasant experience to visit one of their restaurants. I'm sure there are isolated examples of someone having a problem at a Chick-fil-A somewhere, but I can honestly say I have never had a negative experience there. I don't go particularly often, but I've visited quite a few different locations across the Phoenix Metro area over the two decades I've lived here, and not once have I had a bad experience. The staff members are always friendly, courteous, and cheerful, consistently going above and beyond to make the interaction smooth and pleasant. That is not something you can say about fast food in America very often these days.
So what does my sausage muffin sandwich have to do with content creation?
Well, this experience brought home something I have long been a proponent of in the world of online content creation: Make the experience of accessing your content as easy and as friction-free for your audience as you possibly can.
Here are a few areas where digital creators frequently neglect the user experience, and how we can fix them.
1. Enable Feedback (and Actually Respond to It)
First and foremost, make yourself accessible to your audience and do your best to respond when they reach out. If you run a blog or a podcast website, enable comments so people can quickly respond to your posts and episodes. Yes, this means a little extra work moderating comments and keeping spam at bay, but I think it's worth it. Admittedly, interaction in website comments has declined significantly over the last several years. This is something I've discussed at length with my colleague Christopher Green, and we've both lamented the fact that this kind of direct engagement isn't used as robustly as it was in the earlier days of blogging and podcasting. It may be less fashionable now, but I believe the option should still be there for those who wish to use it.
Beyond comments, you should also have a feedback email address, a contact form, or ideally both. Having multiple options matters because not every listener or reader wants to engage the same way. And whatever options you do make available, be sure to actually respond to, or engage with that feedback, as much as you possibly can. Acknowledging someone’s feedback makes them feel valued and a part of the community around your content.
2. Stop Linking to Only One or Two Platforms
This is something I see constantly, and it genuinely baffles me. A podcaster shares their latest episode on social media and links only to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Yes, those platforms have the largest user bases, but they are not the only ones. When you link exclusively to one or two platforms, you are cutting out a significant portion of your potential audience. Sure, those listeners could go search for your show in their preferred app, but search functionality across podcast apps is inconsistent at best, and you risk them getting frustrated, giving up, or accidentally finding a show with a similar title.
That's why I'm a strong proponent of linking to all the major platforms directly from your podcast website. Like the sharing on socials example, this is also something I see all the time: a podcast website that only has a Spotify or Apple link. At the very least, I’d add Amazon and Pocket Casts. And don't neglect to include a plain RSS feed URL as well. There are power users out there who don't use any of the mainstream apps, and having that RSS link available is a big deal to them.
And so when you share your episode on social media, you link to that episode on your website, and not to a specific platform. And because you have linked to all the major apps on your site, if they don't want to listen on your website itself, a listener can then click over to the platform of their choice.
3. Maximize Your Distribution (A Note for Audio Drama Creators)
I want to speak directly to the audio drama community for a moment, since it's an industry I work in and care deeply about. Unless you're locked into an exclusivity agreement with a particular platform, your show should be available everywhere people might look for it. If you distribute via podcast, see #2 above. But if it is a show for sale, put it on Audible, sure, but also have it on your own website. (You do have a website, right?) Get it on streaming platforms like Dramafy, sell it on Amazon MP3 and Apple. Just be accessible. The more doors you open, the more listeners can find their way in to your content.
I'm sure if we sat down and brainstormed about this, we could come up with plenty of other examples of ways to reduce friction and make your content easier to access. But these are the ones that are top of mind for me; the ones I see creatives neglect most often.
The bottom line is this: there's a lot we could stand to learn from the Chick-fil-A philosophy of making every visit as frictionless and pleasant as possible. If you apply that same thinking to your digital storefronts, I think you'll be surprised by the difference it makes.
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