Apple Podcasts Streamlines Submissions!

We're going over some significant updates from Apple Podcasts that simplify the podcast submission process! 

• Submit to Apple Podcasts in One Click
• Claim Your Show on Apple Podcasts Connect

Don't forget to tell us what motivates you to keep podcasting for our next Sound-Off segment! 

Transcript

Alban: 0:00

Jordan, good to see you.

Jordan: 0:01

Good to see you too, Alban.

Alban: 0:03

Your mic sounds a lot better than it did yesterday, yeah.

Jordan: 0:08

So I went to get on our Buzzsprout live event yesterday and it was just my audio was just sounding like I was in a tin can in the ocean or like in some sort of like magical void.

Alban: 0:18

Like a robot voice.

Jordan: 0:19

It was wild and I couldn't figure out what was going on. And then I looked at my Rodecaster and my daughter, Emmy, had turned on the robot voice effects on my Rodecaster.

Alban: 0:36

I was just like what is happening? This sounds crazy. I had a similar thing happen. I came to my computer and I put my headphones in and it's like massively loud and I'm like what's going on? And my daughter's friends were like, oh, they saw the DJ board and they started playing with it. And I'm like no, we're touching the DJ board.

Jordan: 0:53

Yeah, kids don't care, they'll just touch anything that has lights and stuff.

Alban: 0:56

Well, yeah, the Rodecaster Pro. Very expensive for a children's toy, but it's very colorful.

Jordan: 1:01

It's just begging to be play with, just begging for it, so I don't blame her. I understand, all right. So, Alban, we've got a couple things to talk about today.

Alban: 1:10

We do. Yesterday, we launched two new things for Apple podcasts and Buzzsprout. These have been behind the scenes for quite a while working on these and they're just really good quality of life improvements. I feel like the Buzzsprout way, this this is actually. It's the Apple way too. How do you make things more streamlined and how do you make things easier? And this is two launches from Apple and that we adopted immediately and really excited to share them.

Jordan: 1:41

Awesome, all right. So what do we have first?

Alban: 1:43

Well they go. They're similar, but let's start with Apple Podcast Connect. So, for anyone who doesn't know, apple Podcast Connect is how you get all of these Apple platform specific stats.

Jordan: 1:58

Yeah.

Alban: 1:59

And they have like the best playthrough data for podcast episodes. You can see exactly when people are dropping off. You can get all sorts of demographic data. You can manage your Apple podcast subscription. It's kind of like your way of connecting with Apple. So that's been out for years and it's been constantly improved. But what Apple did was they worked with us and they worked with kind of open podcasting to build a great way for people to claim their show for Apple Podcasts Connect. So in the past you would have had to either been the person who submitted the show or you need the person who submitted the show to give you access, or you had to reach out to Apple support and go through you know, just a human process of being like. Here is me. I'm verifying who I am. Please give me access to this account.

Jordan: 2:52

Yeah, which you can do, but it's just like an extra step.

Alban: 2:55

Right and even if it's good support, it's not the best experience to have to, you know, send emails back and forth and they have to go through a pretty extensive process to make sure you are who you say you are.

Alban: 3:06

You're not someone just trying to take over this American life and upload your own stuff. So what you do now is, if you go into Buzzsprout and you could go to the directories tab, you can claim your Apple podcast show and Apple podcast connect, or your podcast and Apple podcast connect, and it's this really smart tag that's now in RSS. Where you go to Apple, they give you a code. You put the code into Buzzsprout and then we put it in your RSS feed and it proves to Apple. Okay, you are the person who controls this podcast and since you're the one that controls the podcast, you're the one that should actually be logging in to see the stats, to manage the subscription, all of that. So if you don't have an Apple account, or if you've never set this up or you didn't have access to Apple Podcast Connect, it's very easy now to go get that code from Apple, put it into Buzzsprout and claim your show.

Jordan: 4:09

Oh my gosh, I actually needed this a couple of weeks ago, or maybe like a month ago, when I had Josh submitting his show to Apple and he didn't have the device that was linked to his Apple account anymore. He got rid of it like five years ago and so he was kind of like struggling. So this is really cool. I love that he wouldn't have needed to have that device for it.

Alban: 4:32

Yeah, my Apple account is. You know, I've had forever and I use it constantly. But for lots of people, especially anybody on Android, you know you don't remember your password, or maybe you submitted it, and how you can't get back in, you don't really know what to do. Well, this is an easy way to claim the show. Get access to all these very cool and interesting stats.

Jordan: 4:53

That's so awesome. All right, so what else do we have from Apple?

Alban: 4:56

The other is it's so much easier to get into Apple podcasts. So Apple podcast is the largest podcast directory in the world. It is really good. It's where millions of people go every day to find their next favorite show and so you want to be listed there. Back in 2014, when I started podcasting, there was a blog that was like the 25 steps to get your podcast into iTunes and they went through and like some of the steps could have been avoided, like random ID3 tagging of your episodes but I remember just seeing it being like 25 steps Like this is so much more difficult than it needs to be.

Jordan: 5:37

Yeah.

Alban: 5:38

Some of those steps were made up, but over the years Apple's, you know, streamlined it and now it's. You go into Buzzsprout and when you're at the right place and at the right time, you know you've already have a podcast set up. You've got an episode, you've picked a category. We'll say, hey, you're ready to submit to Apple Podcasts? And you go and you click one button and it says submit to Apple Podcasts and boom, it's in. We get your Apple Podcasts link back so we add it to your website, we add it to your players, we add it to your listen page and it's everywhere and it's clean and you move on with your life.

Jordan: 6:16

Oh, this is so amazing. I mean, for new podcasters it's always so daunting to have to do even, like you know, one or two extra steps for starting the podcast. Like it's just kind of scary to have to like go to an external site and stuff like that. And so for them to make it possible for new podcasters to come in, do one click to list their show is just amazing and that's going to be so much easier for people. I love it.

Alban: 6:43

Yeah, it's really nice because they can submit it and they can then go on and they can submit to all the other directories and they can get in the podcast index and now their show's listed everywhere. In the future, when they're like, oh, I really want those platform-specific stats, I want that demographic data, I want to see all this stuff that my podcast host can't give me, well then you go and you claim your Apple Podcast Connect account and you can jump in there and boom, there's all this data in there because your podcast has been listed for a while. I'm sure you know I mean this doesn't sound, I think, to the more techie audience who might listen to our podcast. Like many people were probably getting hung up on submitting, but, like plenty of people, they would go through and they start emailing support and they just go. Oh, I got this wrong, or I should I click this button? I'm a little bit confused and we'd be able to help them out, but this is just going to make it so much easier.

Alban: 7:41

I want to go back through every podcaster who's never submitted their show to Apple Podcasts across all of us. We're out and be like hey, it's one click now, let's get your show listed.

Jordan: 7:53

I was literally just talking to a podcaster I think it was like last week and they were like oh yeah, I haven't submitted my show to Apple podcast yet. Like I need to set aside time for that and I'm so excited to be like, hey, you can do it with one click now.

Alban: 8:06

So let's, yeah, let's set aside the 12 seconds You're going to need to do that.

Jordan: 8:11

Well, awesome. Thank you so much, apple podcast, such good work.

Alban: 8:16

So what was our sound off question for the last episode?

Jordan: 8:25

Our sound off question. We do need some more responses to that, so we want to know what keeps you motivated to keep podcasting, and this can be anything. It could be download numbers, but maybe it's something a little more creative, maybe it's just a simple story, like just one interaction that you had that just made you go, wow, what I'm doing is really worthwhile. So make sure that you tap the link in the show notes to send in your response and we'll feature it on our next episode.

Alban: 8:47

Yeah, we do need more answers, because I think there's been so few that I forgot what the question was. That was a legitimate ask, not a setup. Yeah, was a legitimate ask, so make sure you tell us uh we want to hear your interesting story about like somebody reaching out to you and what mattered to you and what inspires you, and if it's your spouse who bought you the microphone or if it's the listener who reached out that you changed their life, anything in between. Tell us those stories. We want to hear them.

Jordan: 9:14

All right, as always. Everyone thanks for listening and keep podcasting.