Bolt your doors, lock your windows and get ready to settle in for some of the scariest, eeriest and most terrifying podcasts around. There’s no better way to get into the Halloween spirit (pardon the pun) than to listen to a horror story, so we’ve picked a range of shows, from audio dramas to real-life accounts of paranormal activity, to send some shivers down your spine.
Creating engaging content for your podcast should always be your main driving force but never forget the importance of social media, it’s such a fundamental tactic for growing your audience that we wanted to give you the tools to create a strategy for specifically promoting your podcast on Instagram!
Users are changing, attention spans are decreasing, and more people are getting their content via mobile – that’s why having another touchpoint to your listeners can only help you and your show.
Let’s look at how to use Instagram promotion and how to use it to the best of its (and your) ability.
It’s the first thing that any potential podcast fan will see/read about you and your show and you’ve got just 150 characters to get them interested.
So, how do you promote on Instagram with your bio, in a smart way? Apart from being THE place to summarize what you’re about – it’s also where you should provide users with a link to your show (driving traffic to your podcast) and your program’s unique hashtag (helping your searchability). Our top advice is: use bitly to shorten your episode links and get some basic analytics or use many.link to provide users with just one link which will lead them to every platform your podcast is on, your newsletter and website.
And, remember to update your link every time you upload a new episode, that way your followers will know to keep checking back for new content.
Music libraries are increasingly becoming more like dispersed pockets of musical treasure: some albums tucked away in folders on your device, some songs just stored on iCloud, some tracks shared with you through Dropbox. So when you’re uploading music to your podcast, you want to easily be able to tap into your library, however spread out it may be!
That’s what our podcasting community has shared with us and we want podcasting reflect the way that you work best. Recording and editing your content with Spreaker Studio on your iPhone or iPad gives you the mobility to podcast on the go, and now with the new iOS update you can directly insert media files that you have on your device, both locally and in the cloud, without needing to shuffle them around into a single folder first.
(Updated July 2019) We’ve got a mission to provide the most complete, all-in-one podcasting solution out there with our CMS. It’s a professional dashboard that covers editing, feeds, social media distribution, and monetization opportunities (amongst other things) so that you have greater control over your content. Now we’ve ticked one more thing off our list of features: having in-depth statistics on Spreaker’s CMS.
They’re easy to access, and thanks to a beautiful redesign, even easier to read. Plus we’ve added a few extra goodies while we were at it – you’ll have the key to unlocking your audience in no time.
The importance of understanding your statistics cannot be overstated. They offer you a complete reading of your listeners, like who they are and where they’re from. With that insight, you get a clear idea of your podcast’s progress and how to further develop your content; stats function as feedback, encouraging you to keep doing what you’re doing, or pushing you to experiment and improve your process.
Detailed statistics are also crucial data to report to ad agencies and sponsors if you’re looking to monetize your content (if that’s the route you want to take, of course – Spreaker offers an easier, more automatic revenue sharing program, too). Ad providers want to be able to match up products and the audiences they’ll be advertised to as best as possible, and the stats you provide should be leveraged accordingly (for example, they’ll want to be sure that the men’s shaving kits they’re pushing aren’t getting featured on children’s programming). It’s similar in approach to any other type of content monetization – even bloggers have to provide reports of their readership to their sponsors, because why place an ad on your page that isn’t likely to get read or paid attention to? With the help of detailed statistics, you’ll be able to show them the power of your podcast’s reach and the who, what, where, and why of your listeners with one go.
In any digital content industry, standards must be defined in order to protect advertisers – and ultimately the entire industry – against bad data practices. Advertisers can continue to pay and benefit publishers only if the industry, as a whole, agrees on a set of metrics with which data or stats can be measured.
In the podcasting space, paid advertising is still in its infancy, and there are complications to consider. Take for instance the fact that content is often consumed through apps the publisher doesn’t have control over. For example, podcast listening apps (sometimes called “podcatchers”) allow users to subscribe to podcasts, which are then downloaded and consumed offline. However, in these cases, the only thing the publisher sees in his or her stats is a downloaded episode (either manually or automatically), but not whether or not it was listened to.
You have to be passionate to podcast. To get a great show up and running you need to invest time, and sometimes even money, into the tech, show production, branding, and marketing. While connecting with audiences can be a reward in itself, wouldn’t it be great to get some monetary returns as well?
Unfortunately, agencies and sponsors are not the easiest to come by. Great podcasts are too often overlooked for big productions backed by even bigger networks. It’s hard to get recognition when you’re competing with well-funded production machines.
But we at Spreaker believe your podcast is worth the chance – why can’t monetizing be easy, and accessible to everyone? And so, we’re excited to introduce our new Revenue Sharing Program! It’s an easy opt-in program where podcasters can earn money for every listen, or impression, they get.
Don’t just tell listeners your story, show it to them, too!
Simply put, podcasting is storytelling via an audio medium. Not so simply put, podcasting is storytelling delivered via a number of various elements that also includes artwork, branding, and listening tools.
Now, with Spreaker’s newest embedded player, the marriage of all those elements comes together in one place, that’s efficient for you, as a producer, and convenient for your listeners. You can tell your story, and show it, too, with a full display of your episode or podcast artwork front and center, as well as a complete listing of your past podcast episodes. You’ll also be able to customize its size and color, and get to please your listeners’ eyes as well as their ears.
Every time I step into a car with an AM/FM radio, I am reminded about the concept of simplicity and ease of use as key reasons why radio grew to have such a large listening audience.
When I contrast the current in-car radio experience with present podcast usability, the AM/FM radio experience is still winning the simplicity test and audiences today.
We have seen usability and simplicity gains of on demand audio and podcasting technology over the past 10 years. These usability improvements have started to erode the listener base of in-car radio and is causing a gradual increase in on demand audio podcasts usage.
If you’re wondering why you should transcribe your podcast, start by considering that the easiest way to find something on the internet (any kind of media – audio, video, images) is through text. By providing a text version, or a transcript, of your podcast’s episodes you can improve its accessibility, shareability, and be able to repurpose that valuable content later on. It also improves your listeners’ experience, giving them an alternative way to consume your content when tuning in isn’t possible.
“Text is the secret. Converting podcast recordings into a transcript makes it possible for podcast producers to give listeners a better experience.” (Observer.com)
Moreover, as mentioned before, since web searches are text based, a transcript will open up new opportunities; you’ll be able to easily redact your content into blog posts, articles, presentations, and even books. Even your listeners will be able to quickly quote and share what they find valuable from your episode. Let’s take a deeper look at how transcriptions can benefit your podcast:
What’s the first and most recurring struggle for independent podcasters? Finding great, royalty-free music, sound effects, and jingles at a good price.
Background music and sound effects are key to polishing up any show and provide each episode dimension and structure, adding emphasis to important moments in your story or interview. And, of course, you’re not looking for just any license-free music, but an endless resource of it that you’ll actually want to use.
