Ready to take your podcast to the next level?
In this quick 4 minute 'So' video, we'll cover you with everything you need to know about getting your podcast onto Spotify, as well as Apple and Google Podcasts too.
Understanding the process of submitting your podcast is essential for reaching wider audiences, and by the end of this video, you'll be well equipped to expand into multiple platforms and grow your listener base.
If you have any questions you would like answered as part of our 'So' series, please get in touch and let us know.
Our podcast, 'The Digital Marketing Podcast' is in video format on our YouTube channel. Make sure to subscribe for a brand new video podcast every week!
Transcription:
So, how can I get my podcast onto Spotify?
So the basic thing we need to do is create something called an RSS feed. An RSS feed lists things like the title, the description, where the file actually lives, the podcast itself. They then take that and then they feed that into their store, and obviously in this case, it’s free to access those things.
But the RSS feed, they're really simple syndication. It's a way that used to be used, and still is to some extent, for publishing blogs and things like that.
So there's an easy way of doing this, right?
Yeah, normally you're not going to manually create these, so you can use a tool that basically allows you to upload your audio files. Give them a title, give them a description, and then it creates the RSS feed. And the particular one we use is called Libsyn. That allows me to upload those files, publish that RSS, and I can then choose the different places I want to publish to. So I might say I do want Spotify, I don't want Google or whatever it might be.
So, what about Apple or Google Podcasts?
So, it's basically the same thing. So you go onto Libsyn, publishing settings and I go through and say, right, I want Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and various other places as well, and it will just push it out to those those places automatically.
There's a lot of places where you can set up a free account and they give you access to similar things.
Caution, read the small print. Very often you're signing away your rights to that content in some significant way. It varies from platform to platform, but that's one of the reasons why we've always loved using Libsyn because we do pay a fee and that's what covers covers the cost. They’re minimal as well, it's not very expensive at all and for years they've been championing independent content creators.
So, you know, their whole financial model is built around not like pulling in other people's content and like raising advertising revenue off off of the back of it, which is what a lot of these free models do. So yeah, be be be mindful of that when you think you're getting a good deal. Like if it's free, why is it? Why is it free? And actually, you don't need to spend a lot at all.
So, is there anything else that these tools do?
Yeah, so fundamentally they allow you to upload and manage and host your audio files. So they publish for you, but then really importantly, they give you stats and they'll tell you how many downloads you've got.
They'll tell you which episodes are the most popular, what countries you've got listeners in and all those kind of things as well. But importantly, if you want to sell advertising, it gives you something you can audit your numbers against. So if you, I could just say to you, I get 10,000 listeners every day. Prove it. Whereas if I've got a tool like Libsyn, it's got stats that are IAB, Internet Advertising Bureau, standardised. So I've got some standardised data that I can show to people, this is actually how many downloads I get.
Big shout out as well for their The Feed podcast. Just brilliant. I mean, it helped us so much in the early days, and they're constantly producing new content on the latest standards and the latest features, the latest networks, and it's a fun show.
So definitely I would recommend subscribing to that. If you're into podcasting, you'll learn a ton of stuff and you don't have to be a Libsyn subscriber either. It's a free podcast, but definitely take a listen.