New! Share Your Podcast Directly To Instagram Stories

We're chatting about a new feature in the Buzzsprout for iOS app: sharing episodes directly to Instagram Stories! 

Alban also gives us an update on his 50k trail race earlier this month!

Chapters

• 0:00 Share to Instagram Stories
• 8:33 Alban's 50K Update

Transcript

Kevin: 0:00

So did you all have nice holidays? Sure, did. We talked about a Christmas present or holiday gift that we were giving to all of our podcasters in the last episode, and we also talked about the desktop widgets which we gave to all of our customers. And this was the first year in like 20 years that Hanukkah also kicked off on the same night as Christmas.

Jordan: 0:20

Oh.

Kevin: 0:21

And we need to give one more gift.

Jordan: 0:22

Yeah.

Kevin: 0:23

And so we have one released for our iOS native app. This week we've released a new share to Instagram stories feature.

Jordan: 0:33

Yeah.

Kevin: 0:34

Very cool. All right, tell us more about this. Okay, I'm telling you like you guys don't know, but you definitely know.

Jordan: 0:40

I very play with it.

Kevin: 0:41

Yeah, so if you go into the iOS app and you click into an episode and then in the top right there's the little share icon, If you click that now, there is another option besides share, and it's share to IG stories.

Jordan: 0:54

I think Instagram stories yeah.

Kevin: 0:56

Instagram stories, yep, and if you click that, then it will throw you over to Instagram. Now remember, you have to have Instagram installed for this to work. If you don't have Instagram installed, the option won't show up. But as long as you have Instagram installed, you'll see shared Instagram stories. You tap that. It throws you over to Instagram story editor with your episode artwork, if you have it if not just your podcast artwork and the name of the episode, and then you can do all the cool Instagram stuff, Like. You can do different filters, you can put stickers on there, you can change the backgrounds, you can do all that stuff and then post it to your story. This is like Christmas at my house. I give all these great gifts to people and then they're like yeah, thank you.

Kevin: 1:34

That was like a.

Alban: 1:34

Jeb Bush, please clap moment. Yeah, so what we get is you get a picture of the episode artwork or the podcast artwork. It falls back. You got a nice gradient. You can even go back and grab the link, so you can put the link in there as well. It isn't playing audio though, right? No?

Kevin: 1:54

no, no, on the Instagram stories. They won't let us push audio into the IG stories, but you can use the IG stories editor to add audio. If you want like from Instagram and I don't know you can put music behind it. You can grab any of the Instagram sounds that are available. Yeah.

Alban: 2:09

Nice thing is it also gives you the title of that episode. And I've noticed this in my listening habits. Even some of the shows I subscribe to. There's like there's tier one shows you listen to, right when they come out. But then I've got like my tier two podcasts that I listen if it sounds like a good episode, and every once in a while one of those shows will share something online and I'll see it and I'm like, oh, that title didn't sound all that exciting, but then when they shared the clip or they shared a little post about it, then it got me more interested and so I go listen to that episode.

Alban: 2:42

And that's how I see this working into a lot of people's workflows is you share it to stories which feel kind of like a natural place to share a podcast episode, and you say hey, here's this episode. The example Kevin shared with us was a happy to help episode about crisis management tips for customer support teams and you share it and say here's some of the insights, here's what I like. You can add the link and if people are interested, they click through and they can listen to it right away.

Kevin: 3:10

Yeah, so the way that Instagram works. I'm going to explain this as best I understand it and then Jordan can help me fill in the blanks. I think you're a little bit more savvy in the Instagram world than I am Probably. But, to the best of my understanding, stories is kind of where it's at with Instagram.

Jordan: 3:25

Yeah, right now.

Kevin: 3:26

Like stories and reels. The regular just post a picture. That's not really the thing anymore on Instagram. So stories is where you want to post this and stories is like they only last for 24 hours or something and then they disappear. Isn't that right?

Jordan: 3:38

Yeah.

Kevin: 3:38

You can repost other people's stories, and that's kind of a thing too, and so it's a timely thing. So when you drop a new episode, then you can go in the to throw you over to Instagram. Like we said, you can make it however you want, put all the filters and whatever on it. You're going to want to drop a sticker on there. The link sticker is the one that you should drop. When you drop that sticker on there, it's going to ask you for the URL. Then you're going to switch back to the Buzzsprout app real quick, and the Buzzsprout app is got this really cool, delightful thing where it recognizes hey, I just threw you over to Instagram, and now you just came back and it pops up a little window that says do you want to copy the URL to this episode?

Jordan: 4:16

Yeah.

Kevin: 4:17

And so that was from Dylan hat tip to Dylan. He came up with this idea, he invented it.

Kevin: 4:21

So genius because then you can just hit yes, copy the URL, and then you flip back to Instagram, paste it in and you have your sticker with your link to the full episode. That's awesome. It's really fast and easy and friendly and it's great. This is the stuff you share to stories, and so I don't think it feels like super self promotional or anything. It's just like, hey, new episode just dropped. Like this is what kids put on Instagram all the time. Stuff like this. This just happened today. It's relevant right now. Show up in my stories feed.

Jordan: 4:48

Yeah, and what I like about this is it kind of switches up what most podcasters normally post, which is, you know the soundbite and it has like a little waveform.

Jordan: 4:57

And I'm sure that you know my listeners get tired of me just posting the stories that have like the soundbite with the waveform over and over again. And this is something a little different and I feel like you're able to customize it a lot more than you would a visual soundbite in your stories, you know, because you can change like the background artwork and you can add all these links and stickers and stuff like that, which you typically don't want to do with a soundbite. So this is really cool because you can sort of double up on your story promotional method strategy, if you will, and you can post you know the visual soundbite with the thing and then you can have the next story, have this link with your cover art or your episode image that's nice and big and it's really pretty looking, and have that as the link and it just sort of like doubles up on prompting people to go listen to the episode.

Alban: 5:49

I'm so lost. What are we doubling?

Kevin: 5:51

up that you're Well, because she's saying you can use soundbites and you can post those to your stories. And you can do these now too, and you can do these too, and you have some variety.

Jordan: 5:57

So basically, you have two different versions of a story, like it's two different things. You know, if people get used to seeing the same thing over and over again, you get like this, like I. You know, if you just keep posting the same stuff. So this is just a little bit different and I think it's really neat.

Kevin: 6:12

Yeah, so it's hard to self-promote because you don't want to keep posting the same thing over and over again. So now there's more variety, so you can post twice for each episode. Now you can post soundbite, multiple soundbites, and now you can post this this looks different.

Alban: 6:23

So I like it, yeah, than posting to your Instagram grid, and that's probably much. All I ever do is post to the grid, so I post like once every two months and that's it. But stories are meant to, yeah, multiple times a day. Just post whatever, it's not a big deal. People click through. They might stick around and check it out and they might not. It's much more casual and because it's more casual, you can feel more comfortable posting like hey, new episode just dropped, let me know what you think and people can respond to you right there. You know, one of the nice about stories is people can write something back and it goes write your DMs and so you can kick off those conversations with listeners and just feels way more casual and so you don't need to feel like I got the perfect clip. I had this perfect executed. Strategy is just share to Instagram, come back, grab that URL and now you've shared that as well, and 30 seconds later, after dropping an episode, you've got something out there telling people about it.

Jordan: 7:20

Yeah, and I think that stories get a lot more engagement than actual reels and posts on Instagram, which is such a weird thing, because it is so. I want to say like ephemeral I don't think that's the word, is that?

Alban: 7:32

right, yeah, yeah.

Jordan: 7:33

So it's. It's just like this thing where it like disappears. But I mean, if I post a reel of a soundbite of, um, an episode that's coming out, I will get you know so many views and like, maybe like five likes and a comment from somebody, but if I post a story, I will get 200 views and a bunch of messages and likes and things like that. And what's great about it disappearing is, if you're posting these soundbites, if you're posting your episodes every single day to Instagram, your grid is going to get completely filled up and it's just going to get cluttered with all that, whereas stories you can post several times a day and just do different things and it's, it's uh yeah, it just doesn't clutter it up as much.

Kevin: 8:16

All right. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing some new podcast promotion stuff hitting Instagram stories from Buzzsprout customers. So check it out. You might need to update your apps If they're not set to auto update. Just head over to the Buzzsprout app in the app store. You'll see the update link. Update it. Try it out. Let us know what you think. Kevin, should I give a 50 K update?

Alban: 8:35

Oh yes.

Jordan: 8:37

We forgot last time. We got to do it now.

Kevin: 8:39

Yeah, we remembered right when we stopped recording. So yes, Alvin did the 50 K in the in the mountains of North Georgia. Let us know how did it go. Did you finish? I finished.

Alban: 8:51

I did walk. I also predicted the walking about perfectly. I said the thing I don't like about this is that I will be at the big descent going down a few hours in and have Kevin in my brain going. You can't walk any bit of this.

Jordan: 9:07

One foot touching the ground at a time that's right.

Alban: 9:10

And so you know, we're at somewhere like seven miles, in nine miles, in somewhere like that, and we're climbing back out of the canyon and we're going up thousands of well, what feels like thousands of steps it was probably like 500, but it feels like thousands of steps. We're going up all these steps and everybody, even the people who are running the 50 miles, the people who have done tons of these, they walk it and I'm going fast and I'm like keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, and I'm passing tons of people on the stairs and I'm like I'm from Florida, we don't even have elevation Like I'm. Maybe I'm made for this, like that was the moment where the cockiness kind of kicked in.

Alban: 9:49

I've been living in the wrong place my whole life. I was like maybe this is what my body was made for, this sport you know, no other sport has worked, but this could be it. Long distance trail running, Maybe this is it. And I'm passing people and I'm way ahead of my brother and the group we're with and I'm taking photos down the canyon so I can get photos of them down below coming up. I'm like, oh, these are all cool. And I'm thinking, oh, this is because of Kevin no-transcript. And so I'm running.

Kevin: 10:16

You're welcome, did you? Did you mention my name when you're on the podium? I definitely mentioned you.

Alban: 10:23

I'm sure. But you know, we go 20 miles and like I'm stiff but it's like going so well, I'm loving it, loving it. The cockiness has not gotten out of my mouth but it is definitely into my head. And then the cramps start of my mouth, but it is definitely into my head and then the cramps start and I have never I've had cramps. But it'll be like Ooh, this one calf, it's getting kind of tight, but it was like instant that it starts like in one calf, next calf quad, other quad, shins, hips, within like 30 minutes of each other. Now I just think I must have been either way, way overworking, definitely true.

Alban: 11:05

Yeah, or really low in electrolytes Also likely, very true. So maybe all of the above, but just the worst cramps of my life. Probably ran a few more miles after that, but somewhere around 23 miles it was game over for running, like there'd be little spurts where I'd get a couple hundred yards but no more running like you know any real distance and by the end I'm walking maybe two miles an hour maybe. Oh my gosh, and it was rough.

Kevin: 11:35

Wow, that sounds brutal.

Alban: 11:37

Like struggling to cross the finish line. But then my nieces were there, my sister-in-law they all met us there. They live in Atlanta, so they drove up but we had a blast Probably the stupidest, most painful thing that I've done. That I will absolutely do again.

Kevin: 11:52

Well, that's great. I mean to get to the end of that and say you'll do it again. That's a win, yeah.

Alban: 11:57

I had a blast. I really liked it. I had a lot of fun. Everybody was super friendly, including the last person who passed me when I'm struggling. He's like, oh man, you got it and he's flying and I was like how's this guy so fast?

Jordan: 12:10

Because he walked up the stairs. You got to walk the stairs.

Alban: 12:13

No, no, no. Now you know he was the number one finisher for the 50 miler. Oh wow, passed me right before the finish line, so somewhere like eight and a half hours. Uh, was the number one 50 miler and I don't know near the back of the pack. 50 K, albin Brooke.

Kevin: 12:32

Well, congratulations, uh, and thanks for being a good sport when I razzed you beforehand, but I'm glad you did it. You stepped up to the challenge and finished it, and that's I really do mean that like to get through something that painful and say that it was enjoyable, and you'll do it again. That's pretty amazing.

Jordan: 12:47

It is.

Kevin: 12:48

I've completed a lot of things in my life that I've said that it's been super painful and I will never do it again. Check it off the bucket list.

Alban: 12:54

It's done.

Jordan: 12:55

It's done.

Alban: 12:56

All the ice baths prepared me for it.

Jordan: 12:58

Oh, this hurts.

Alban: 13:02

Okay, let's do it again tomorrow.