Podcasting is the new way to interact with your audience in a less competitive or crowded space than most other platforms. As of June 2021, there are an estimated 600 million blogs and over 1.75 million podcasts already. The number of people listening to podcasts has grown in the last four years by over 120% and is at present the best way to advertise your brand, business, or even a personal hobby. Here are a few of the things that will help you create your first podcast and take advantage of its medium to use it exceptionally.
What are podcasts?
Most social media connections provide a fractured connection, while podcasts allow one to connect with the audience regularly. They are easier to create than blog posts and people can listen to them while doing their chores, working out, or even driving. This space is at present largely unexplored by most industries but is fast filling up with the competition. But uploading podcasts to Spotify need not be an uphill battle if you follow these guidelines.
What is Spotify?
Spotify is a streaming service focused on providing its audience with CD-quality, lossless audio format. It boasts of over 158 million premium subscribers with around 356 million active users every month1. It offers both a way to convert free listeners to premium subscribers and the advertisement model to generate revenue. The company has seen a strong increase in the podcast listening hours on the platform while its user base has stayed consistent over the years.
Requirements for a podcast on Spotify
Each episode should be less than 200MB in size, which is around 200 minutes of runtime at 128Kbps or 83 minutes at 320Kbps. Spotify also accepts only good-quality MP3 audio with bitrates between 96 to 320Kbps. The artwork should be with a 1:1 aspect ratio and it allows PNG and JPEG formats for images. All special characters used in the content should be HTML encoded and all podcasts should have an image, a title, and be at least one episode long to qualify. The title name should also not surpass 20 characters to fit all screen sizes.
Submitting the podcast to Spotify
Submitting your podcast is a simple affair with Spotify where you create an account and choose “Get Started” to fill a small form. You will need to agree to the terms and conditions and enter your RSS feed link in the marked box. If everything is done correctly, the podcast title, description, and artwork shall display on the right side, else a prompt will show up below the RSS feedbox. Clicking ‘Next’ will ask you to verify that you own the podcast through an email and an 8-digit code.
Next, you need to enter a few more details like primary language, the country where it is made, primary category, hosting provider’s name, and more. There are three sub-categories that one may go through if required to set your various options. This is useful if your podcast spans many topics and thus fits in more than one category. Then the form allows you to review all the details and finally click ‘Submit’. The podcast will appear in a few hours to five days but Spotify does not notify when the podcast is up and running.
Spotify podcast creator
Spotify offers an app called Anchor that is available for both iOS and Android phones. This app allows one to easily create their podcasts. The Anchor app allows one to directly record their podcast, add any background music, do minor editing work, and publish the recordings easily for your audience. The app also allows one to publish their episode inside the app through the free podcast hosting setting. This can help one to increase their audience size and reach a wider population.
Does Spotify charge for publishing or hosting podcasts?
The simple and straight answer to this question is ‘No’. Spotify is completely free and allows anyone to upload their podcasts. The Anchor app also provides the complete package to easily record, suitably edit, and quickly publish your podcasts. The app also allows one to monetize their podcasts. One can also access its tracking analytics to gain much knowledge about the podcasts and make suitable decisions. These podcasts are published to all the major platforms, completely free of charge, thus helping one to reach a huge number of viewers.
Conclusion
The huge audience base that Spotify offers should not be ignored by any business to promote its products or services. It has shown strong growth from 108 million premium subscribers in 2019 to over 138 million in the second quarter of 2020. The creation and uploading process is easy to use for even a non-technical person, while its transcribe option allows one to read the audio, ensuring that no audience is left behind.