Last week, I launched a podcast series in conjunction with All Access featuring conversations with a wide range of leaders in the radio broadcasting industry. These interviews were conducted at the 2015 Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood last Spring. Among the people I interviewed was Fred Jacobs, the President and Founder of the media research and consulting company Jacobs Media. (At the time, I was not yet the Digital Dot Connector for the company.) We covered a wide range of topics, from the launch of the classic rock radio format to the rise of podcasting to the evolution of the car dashboard.
You can hear the interview here:
You can also subscribe to the entire podcast through these channels:
You can also listen to the podcast through the All Access mobile app (built by our sister company, jācapps):
And if you missed last week’s interview with Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan, you can hear it here.
The Key Podcasting Links
I want to use this series as an opportunity to offer some behind-the-scenes tips for stations that are also looking to launch their own podcasts. One of the keys to launching a successful podcast is to make it easy for your audience to find. Podcasting has experience slow but steady growth over the last decade. One reason that podcasting hasn’t exploded (despite a smattering of headlines suggesting otherwise) is because listening to a podcast is a little harder than it should be. It’s not hard, just a little harder than it it should be.
To listen to a podcast, people have to go through several steps:
- If their phone does not already have an app for podcasts installed, they need to download one (called a “podcatcher”). Stitcher, Pocket Casts, and Downcast are three popular podcatchers.
- They need to subscribe to the podcast in this app. They can either search through the podcatcher’s directory for the title of the podcast or manually enter the RSS feed for the podcast.
- They can now open up the podcast and select an episode to play.
As you can see, it’s not hard, but listeners need to be motivated to complete all of the steps.
Why iTunes is the 800-Pound Gorilla
When it comes to podcatchers, Apple’s Podcasts app is far and away the most important. In fact, according to Rob Walch, VP of Podcaster Relations at the podcast hosting company Libsyn, podcasts receive over five times as many downloads on Apple devices than they do on Android devices. Why? Because every iOS device ships with the Podcasts app pre-installed. Android devices do not come with a podcatcher installed. In other words, on iOS devices, people can skip Step 1 above. Listening to a podcast on an iOS device requires two steps instead of three, so more people do it.
So if you’re launching a podcast, it’s imperative that you submit your podcast’s RSS feed to the iTunes directory. This way, people will be able to find it when they search in Apple’s Podcasts app.
This short video will show you how to submit your podcast to iTunes…
There are numerous other podcast directories that you can submit your podcast to. Stitcher is another popular choice. AudioBoom, who I first encountered at the Podcast Movement Conference earlier this summer, reached out to me and asked me to submit the podcast to their directory. I’m impressed with any company that is that proactive, so I have included their link here as well. Finally, I included a link to the podcast’s RSS feed so if people want to listen to it in another podcatcher, they can manually subscribe.
We also added the podcast to the All Access mobile app. This is a great way to encourage people to download the app. The All Access app is built by our sister company,jācapps. And while I have good reason to be biased, it could not have been easier. All they needed was the podcast’s RSS feed to incorporate it into the app. It was done in a matter of minutes.
So remember, once you’ve created your first podcast episode and uploaded it to your hosting service, you need to submit it to podcast directories so that people can find it. Until Google embraces podcasting on its mobile devices, iTunes is far and way the most important directory. Make sure it is first on your list.
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