Why I Stopped Caring About Downloads (And What I Track Instead)
Some conversations don't end when the recording stops.
A couple weeks ago, I sat down with Dorien Morin-van Dam on her Strategy Talks podcast to talk about community building — specifically, how Rachel Chappelle and I have grown the So THIS Happened listener community in under a year. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, Dorien asked me a question that I hadn't really thought too much about until that moment.
What's the difference between an audience and a community?
I answered in the moment, but I want to expand upon that a bit here.
An audience is passive. They're the silent scrollers of the podcast world — there, absorbing, maybe even enjoying what you're doing, but essentially invisible to you. You don't know their names. You don't know what made them hit play. You don't know if they'd notice if you stopped.
A community? A community texts you at 9 am because you accidentally left a bathroom break in the published episode that was obviously supposed to be edited out.
(Yes. That happened.)
When Rachel and I launched So THIS Happened last summer, we didn't set out with a grand strategy. We set out with a bottle of wine, a podcast name inspired by another bottle of wine, and a shared understanding that we wanted to build something that felt alive. Something people wanted to be part of, not just something they consumed in their earbuds on a Tuesday commute.
We started calling our people the Sip Squad.
It sounds simple — and honestly, the idea came from watching how Kylie Kelce talks to her audience, how Beyoncé built the Beehive, how Taylor Swift made every Swiftie feel like they personally mattered to her. Naming your community is an act of intention. It says: you're not just a listener. You belong here.
So we started talking to them that way. "Hey, Sip Squad — we're going to be at this coffee shop on Saturday, come say hi." "Hey, Sip Squad — this week's episode has a moment you are not going to see coming." And slowly, then all at once, they started showing up. In our comments. In our DMs. At the places we were talking about — in the wild.
When Dorien pushed me on this during our conversation — really pushed, the way good interviewers do — she pointed out something I hadn't consciously articulated before: that the FOMO is built in when you're genuinely having fun. People don't just want to listen to So THIS Happened. They want to be in the room. And she's right. The community didn't grow because we had a strategy for it. The Sip Squad grew because Rachel and I were clearly, unmistakably, having the time of our lives — and people wanted in on that.
The moment I knew we'd crossed the line from audience to community? I was at The Brickyard with my husband, a local band playing, completely off the clock, and a friend I hadn't seen in months walked up and told me he loved the podcast. At the time, we were maybe three months in. My jaw hit the floor.
That same person is now a close friend and supporter of the show. (We even launched a new merch line inspired by his love of champagne and caviar bumps, with 10% of our profits going to Ballet Wichita!)
That's the thing about community that nobody really warns you about: it compounds. One real connection leads to a collaboration. A collaboration leads to a merch line. A merch line leads to a partnership with Ballet Wichita. And suddenly you're standing on the Main Stage at Wichita Riverfest — the same stage where the Jacksons played two days earlier — thinking, how did we get here?
You got here by treating people like they mattered before you had any reason to believe they were paying attention.
Dorien also asked me what mistake podcasters make most often when trying to build engagement. My answer: They get too focused on the numbers that feel important and not focused enough on the humans behind them. Downloads. Subscribers. Follower counts. Those metrics will gaslight you into thinking nothing is working when something very much is.
What you actually want to track is the interactions. The shares. The person who adds your post to their story because they're genuinely excited. The listener who notices your episode is late on a Thursday morning and checks in. Those aren't vanity metrics. Those are proof of life.
This week, Rachel and I recorded the second-to-last episode of Season 1 of So THIS Happened. The whole thing was a love note to the Sip Squad — because honestly, what else would it be? They didn't just listen to us this year. They showed up. They told their friends. They wore the merch and tagged the coffee shops and came out to Riverfest on a Sunday afternoon just to be in the same space as us.
If you want to hear my full conversation with Dorien — including the part where Dorien and I tried to name her community live on air — go find Strategy Talks wherever you listen to podcasts. She's the kind of host who asks the questions that stick with you. Clearly.
You can have thousands of people who listen.
Or you can have a room full of people who show up.
Build the room.
Who are the people in your community who've showed up for you in a way you didn't expect? I'd love to hear about them.
