Five Annual Overhaul Essentials To Elevate Your Podcast Brand

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host Tracy Hazard. Today we're going to take stock of things here as we begin a new year and talk about five annual overhaul essentials to elevate your podcast brand. And honestly, we could have made a list of probably 25, I think, but we're going to try and keep it to 5ish here.

Yeah, well, I mean, by general there might be a bunch of steps in there, but like our team has a 25 step list of things that they check that are a lot of them are behind the scenes stuff, but we're always checking every year. So, like we're going to check and we're going to say, do all these things that we still did in YouTube qualify? Are they still the same? Do all these things that we still do on the podcast app, are they the same? And we're constantly doing that throughout the year. We don't just do that once a year, but once a year. If you're at least taking a look at it, at that timing, that's at least a good model for you to catch up and not have lost too much momentum. If things have changed in the ecosystem in which you're publishing. And that's what we're looking at here. We're looking at the podcast ecosystem, how you might be publishing, how you might be promoting and sharing your show, and what are the five essential things that make sure that everything keeps running and you keep getting seen and found and heard?

It's very important. I think all too often people forget, hey, it's a new year and things change. I mean, really, the first one on the list, Tracy, is pretty simple and it's an easy one. All of you can change right now if you're listening to this live or whenever you're listening to it, as long as you're not driving, please don't do it if you're driving. But you can update this one right away. It's a copyright date on your podcast. There is a copyright line and you should keep it up to date. This is your claim to the world that your content is your own. And the copyright date should always be up to date. It can be a range of dates. If your show started in 2019, it can be 2019 to 2023, but whatever.

It is, update it 2024, because that's when we're recording this. So that's where you want to update it, right? You don't just want the years that were covered, you want the year you're in included in that.

Yeah. Sorry, guys. Typical January curse is you keep saying the previous year's number instead of the new one. Goodness gracious.

Well, the fun part is, for those of you who are live with us, we're recording this on January 24th, 2024. So it's the 24th of the 24th. Yeah. So I love that this is a critical thing. You're also not protecting your copyrighted content. You're not protecting your intellectual property. If you don't state it, that is critically important. So make sure that you update this. It's easy to update. You go into your hosting subscription to wherever you're hosting your show, and all you have to do is go in there and make an adjustment. If we're producing your show poditize, we take care of it. We globally do it across all of our shows every single year. So you don't have to worry about that. But not everybody does that. So make sure you're checking for yourself. And then also, as long as you're doing that, check your website too, because a lot of you are publishing and should be publishing on your website, and your website has a copyright date on the bottom line as well.

Tom and I have always been a big fan of doing the date range because it gives people a sense of how long you've been doing it. But as long as you're currently publishing and you're covering the date that you're in, it's fine. So just make sure you do that. That's one simple, simple, easy one. And a housekeeping item you should do every year. An essential thing. The next one is really, it's about keeping up with what's going on in the ecosystem that you're publishing in. And sometimes things change. And so this is the one we see the most. Somebody who started their show five years ago has an image size for their cover art that is no longer in compliance. And because they never go to the apps and listen to their own show or look at their own show, they don't notice that there's actually no cover art showing because the apps will Just disregard it. And so they've caused a breakage in the visibility and stickability of their show. Who's going to click on something they think is broken? And so that is an issue. So keeping up on that, it's not always easy to know am I out of compliance? Without just going into the app and taking a quick look.

You know, it's interesting. I do see this happen. I see it about every week. Tracy Usually when a new show is migrating to Poditize from another platform. How did it happen just recently with a customer and their cover art? See what happens when you import a show into our system? It knows if your cover art's not up to date and it won't display it. But this can happen even if you haven't changed hosts, and especially when you've updated your cover art to a new design because you wanted to update and rebrand a little bit, but you use the old size. Like 1400 by 1400 pixels is pretty common I see on old cover art and the new and modern and current spec is 3000 by 3000 pixels. So if you don't have a 3000 by 3000 pixel cover art, you need to revise your cover art and update that. And you're not going to be able to do that while you're listening to this show, maybe unless you're a Photoshop whiz and it's easy for you. But get that done or do it as soon as you can and update it. Because here's what happens, people, when they update that appearance, that new design of COVID art. Some of the apps will display it even though it's not up to the current standard. But Apple won't. And so people think, what's wrong with my Apple listing? It's not showing my new cover art. Well, Apple knows the new one isn't in compliance. And while they're still showing the old one because maybe when you started it was up to the standard, then they're not going to update it to the new one unless it meets the current standard. So that's probably why. If you're wondering if your Apple listing hasn't updated to a cover art change, that might be one reason why and.

That'S number three on my list is go look at it on the apps because that tells you a lot about what's changed. Like have they allowed more description length? Do they allow other details? Has things changed if you don't check the app and especially the most important ones, the ones that get the most listens, which will be Apple Spotify and it was Google podcast, but now you have to check YouTube's music, YouTube Music, YouTube, podcasts. So those are the three you want to check to make sure because they get the most listens, they. And then you might have a different set and you can always go into your stats and at your hosting level and take a look at where, what directories we call them, but what apps and directories are yours being played on and check any of the sub ones if you want, not necessary because typically if they look good on Apple and Spotify, they look good everywhere. And you're probably in compliance. So just be thinking about that. That that's number three is to go check it out there. And while you're there, check out your competition. Type your show name in. Don't just go straight to your shows that you've got saved in your file. Type your show name and see what shows up. Type your host name in, see what shows up. Type in your keyword, what your ma, what your show's majorly about. This is a how to podcast, right? And we type that in and we see who else starts popping up. If you see people and they do it, who are trolling on your name, who have basically copied your name and added a word to the end just so that they could be up next to you, you don't panic. We've got a whole episode on that in our, in our directory and listing of and the tips out here. Don't panic about it. But if your cover art looks exactly the same, then it's time for a change and update it. And that's what happened to us. So we had feed your brand out there. Way in the beginning we had this black cover art which had kind of all these little icons on it. And then Libsyn came out with the feed. There's what's called the feed, which trolled on our name and theirs was black and green just like ours. And so we said, well, that's it. So now we have a white version, if you've noticed it, with a big outline on it and blue. And that happens because we want to still visually stand out. So it might be time for a rebrand, an update. And you know, Tom was just talking about that size change. If you got to make the size change anyway, maybe it's a good time for an update. So go check out your competition, see what's happening there. Check how you look on the apps and check for a bunch of other things that might be updating and changing things like sizes, description links, extra tags, new Things that are going in YouTube just put out a new thing where in your podcast playlist, you can now sort in order. So if you go out of order, like if you're regular videos, you do it by the most popular because you want your big numbers up at the top. That's probably not the best way to navigate your podcast playlist and it should be in listening order from the most recent at the top. So you might want to need to adjust that now that that's a new feature that you can do it. Each one of the apps sometimes adds new features over the years and you gotta keep up and check that out.

That was a great tip. I like the learning about, hey, something new on YouTube. Gosh, so much is changing there. You've got. I mean, this is just ask the question, check it out, right?

Yeah, well, and that's where we get to like things like new rules, right? There are new rules. There are YouTube playlists that you should be doing with. We just did a tip last week. Our livestream last week was on videos versus audiograms, video clips, video shorts. They're doing much better. So now's the time to consider what you're doing with your podcast and how you're promoting it and what you're doing. And is this still working in today's marketing methods? Is still working in today's attention span that is getting smaller and smaller and shorter and shorter. Right. What's still working? Calls to action. Do my calls to action need to be updated in my description, in my defaults there. But now might be a time to make a more compelling, make them more visually exciting because you can add HTML links in some of the apps, not in all of them, but in some of them. So you might want to check out those new rules and make sure you're not only in compliance, but you're updating and utilizing them. One of the biggest ones here, one of the new things that we know is working is episode art. Changing out your square. Your episode art does so much better than leaving just your cover art. It's a lot of work. You got to change one every single week. You got to make one new related to the episode. But think about all those listeners who are listening in the car and their app is displaying the new episode with an album cover, if you want to think of it like that, right? And it's just the COVID of your show. And so when it switches episodes, they don't know that an episode changed. They're like, oh, did I listen to this one already? Or like, what's going on because they're driving, they're a little more distracted. But if that cover art changes slightly, they're like, oh, I didn't listen to that one yet. It's a visual trigger for them. So there's a whole bunch of reasons to do that. We have promotion techniques that we've been using out on apps, and having special episode where you might have a picture of a celebrity guest you have would be compelling reason for somebody to click and listen to that episode. And then the search engines that are within the apps will give you episodes and shows, not just shows. So that also compels people to want to click and check things out. So these are some new things that you might want to try in this next year.

Now, footnote on the episode, square artwork. Just so all of you know, and those of you that may know already just want to emphasize this point. It is important. Apple, which is just absurd that they don't do this. Apple does not use that episode artwork, that featured image from the episode, even when they display a list of episodes in a search. They know they should. I've talked to them. They know they're behind the times on this. Apple, if you're listening, get your acting gear. Fix this, because it's in everybody's interest, Apple's as well as the podcasters and the listeners. But they've been dragging their feet on that one. So you'll notice that in pretty much every other app, every other podcast, listening app, Spotify, Iheart, whatever ones that you use. But Apple just for some reason hasn't done that yet. So don't worry, nothing's broken there. You know, when you look at all your episodes in search, it's just the way it is. And then, Tracy, I have one more thing to add to sort of the new rules before we go.

We had a fifth one because you've got a bonus one, right? That was the fifth one. The fifth one is now that you've been podcasting a while and hopefully you didn't just start right? Like, you know, you're upgrading your listing, you're upgrading your podcast, you're checking these five essential things. So hopefully you're about a year into it. Now's the time to think about, did you get the URL for your podcast? Did you copyright your name, your cover art? If you're going to keep it, should you trademark the name? That might be possible. These are things to think about if you're looking at where you're going with this. Are you going to build a bigger business around this. Is this going to grow into something else? Now's the time to think about IP protection, intellectual property protection, and thinking about copywriting, trademarking and things like that at this moment in time, and making sure you Secure all your URLs, all your handles, all the social handles, all the things that you might need to make sure that you can double down on your podcast and promotion in the next year. So those are some things. And that goes hand in hand with the idea of having email and a newsletter, which is Tom's bonus item here.

Sure. Although I do want to mention on trademarks, because you just said that. Tracy, if you are thinking out there in the world listening to this podcast, that trademarking your podcast name is an incredibly expensive thing to do. It's actually not. There are some very inexpensive resources for doing that. Some of them are do it yourself. Something like Trademark Engine is a app you can do it with on your phone if you really want to, or if you're not wanting to go that rogue and do it on your own. There are attorneys out there specifically with very inexpensive flat fees for doing it for a podcast. And we've interviewed some on this show and you can definitely check out podcasters, you know.org feed your brand show and search on trademarking and you'll find that.

So yeah, new rule. This is important for any of you podcasters that are sending out any kind of mass emails. And I know maybe a lot of you are podcasters for a passion project and don't send out mass emails, but I know a lot of you out there listening have a business and you are sending out mass emails. There are some new rules here taking effect, I believe February 1st. Originally we had been told January 1st, but the latest data I have is I believe it's February 1st. Google in particular is driving this and they have changed it so that your mass emails have to be configured in certain ways. And there are some requirements, like you have to have a one click unsubscribe link right at the top of the email, not buried in the footer or hidden somewhere or hard to see. I mean, there are some very specific things. Some of them I'm going to tell you are a little complex, especially with if you're sending from your own domain name emails, mass emails out from your own domain name. There are some things in the DNS settings of your domain name that have to be configured properly. I'm not going to go into all those details here, but we will have a link in the blog post for this episode that has an information page from Google where you can get that information. But in particular, the unsubscribe is very important. Here's the thing, folks, if you don't do it, your emails are not going to be delivered by Gmail. And so all the people you're sending things to that have a Gmail address or an email managed by Google Gmail, even if it's your own name and you're using their system, your emails are not going to get through to those people. And I've just been doing some tests because I do mass emails every week for lead generation, for webinars, for new prospects. And I know I'm already in compliance because I knew this was coming. And already my email's just one I sent Yesterday, getting over 70% open rate, which is great, actually almost all delivered like 99 point something percent delivered, but 70% open rate and now over 12% click rate. So I'm not having a problem with email delivery and even opens. But I gotta get more people to click on what I'm putting. So I'm working on other aspects of my emails and this is a good time of year. Gonna take stock on it. Use this as an opportunity to make sure you're in compliance. But what are you gonna do differently to make what you're doing more effective? And I do think that crosses over to a lot of things podcasting and this would apply to a lot of podcasters. So thank you for indulging me while I that I think it's important stuff.

Well, we'll cut that section out and we'll make a special tip. And so for those of you who don't remember or haven't heard from us before, Podcasters United is where we donated this podcast. We essentially use this podcast and my podcast, the Binge Factor. And we've donated it to the organization, the nonprofit Podcasters United. And there's an entire tip library over there that we maintain, but it has a whole bunch of other experts in there as well. Fran Asaro's tip on that I just gave you about YouTube will be posted up shortly over there because she just gave it to me this morning. And Fran Asaro is our YouTube expert. We have experts on LinkedIn who have been giving us tips as well that we're filling in over there, we're doing episodes on so that you have, I'm gonna say, a broader spread of information that is really gonna help you promote your podcast, make a better podcast and really use podcasting as a business to business strategy. So that's why we're over there. So go check out podcasters united.org you can find the blog post for this episode. You can find all the links we talked about today, especially if you were driving. As Tom was saying, don't write anything down. Don't put anything down. Don't worry, we got you covered. It's all written down over there.

All right. Well, thanks for listening everybody. We'll be back next time with another great episode here on feed. You'd brand.

Heard something valuable today but didn't get a chance to write it down. No worries, we've got you covered. We partnered up with podcasters united.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, free masterclasses, the largest podcast tip library assembled and free promotion opportunities. While you're there. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube and on social unitedwepod so you can get feed your brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting Sting.