The Week in Geek Culture since 2008

I'm Barry Robb, though I go by Vlarg on the Geek Shock podcast. I'm a Dungeon Master for Hire, a former actor at Star Trek: The Experience, a scotch and BBQ nerd, a former member of the 501st Legion, and a well rounded geek.

Geek Shock is the most amazing podcast on the planet and we have the geek cred to prove it. Every week since like 2009 we regale you with the latest geek news (both good and bad), what geeky things our crew has been doing, and playing stupid games. If it’s movies, television, board games, video games, D&D, comics, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or anything geeky in pop culture, we’ve all over it.

There are a LOT of podcasts out there about boring, serious topics, and if that's for you, great. But we're all entertainment and most of us have a performing background of some kind, so we bring the funny. Our listeners are like us: people who are into geeky things, pop culture nerds.
 

We originally had a half hour video show (the Ugly Couch Show) that started in 2007 where we reviewed what to watch, read, and play. We put far more effort into that than we got back, including interviewing many TV and Movie personalities at Comic-Con for a few years. We decided to move to a podcast format because we could produce longer content much easier and more frequently. The podcast allowed us to cover the week in geek news, where the video show didn't allow for that. Eventually we stopped the video show and focused solely on the podcast. The host lineup rotated over time, but the core crew has always been there.
 

We release episodes weekly. As of this writing we're on episode 611, so do the math! We record one evening, edit, and release it the next day. We don't do a live stream, because then we couldn't take breaks and edit the show for length or mistakes or dead air or spilled drinks (it happens). We'd rather release a show with good production quality than a live show (though we have done a few of those at live venues).

It's been a labor of love up until recently. We didn't have any sponsors and just funded it ourselves, though we already had most of the equipment and only had to spend a few hundred here and there for microphones and podcast hosting. It was a way to hang out with our friends and keep our performing muscles exercised. We all had day jobs, so we only did the show once a week for a couple hours. Now that we have a new website and new sponsors and a Ko-Fi for donations and a merch store and all that goes along with it, we're getting serious about it and hope to multiply our listenership.
 

Yes, we only recently started to take sponsorships. We only allow sponsors we like and are very picky, because our audience wouldn't have it any other way. We got our first sponsorships from local companies (we record in Las Vegas). We don't have a huge audience, but we have a loyal one, and we prefer that any day.

Doing Geek Shock has helped keep us together as friends, even when some of us are scattered around the country from time to time. There was always the show to work on. More importantly, every episode we ask the question "What geeky things did you do this week?", which, if you did nothing, doesn't make for good podcasting. So, we always need to be doing something interesting, which prevents us from sitting around and being boring,

We recently opened up a Ko-Fi to take donations, and it was very successful right from the start. We were blown away by the generosity of our listeners, and it's forcing us to create new and interesting content to remain worthy of their patronage.
 

Torgo uses a professional mixing and recording deck, and an additional mixer for extra mics. We use XLR mics for recording, and have some Zennheiser wireless mics for location work if need be. We use Podbean for audio hosting, and Vlarg hosts the website. When one or more of us is remote, we use Skype. Torgo preps the news for each episode the day of, and we all try to do something geeky every week to bring something to the table.
 

According to Podbean, 25% of downloads are from Apple, Podcats, 11% from Podcast Addict, 6% from Podbean, 6% from iTunes, and the rest are from various other sources, including direct downloads from our website. Until recently, we haven't marketed at all! We kept a facebook and twitter, but didn't put any marketing dollars into the show. We just recently tried out Google PPC but found the results lackluster. We may try some Facebook PPC soon.
 

I think the most important thing we improved on over the years is the show itself, getting a good rhythm for the show, pacing it well, not talking "inside baseball", keeping it high energy and entertaining, and making sure someone who is new to the show can get into it in one episode, feeling like you're sitting at a table with us and chatting about geek stuff.

Aside from that, we've polished our look and feel tremendously, and wish we had that from the get go. We're going to start working with other podcasts to cross-promote, as that seems to be the best way to spread the word.
 

You can find everything you need to know about us at https://geekshockpodcast.com
We're on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/geekshockpodcast
We're on Twitter at https://twitter.com/geekshockpod
You can donate to the show at https://ko-fi.com/geekshock