Support Mailbag: Directories

Jordan: 0:00

In this episode of Podcasting Q&A, we are trying out a new thing that we're calling support mailbag, and it's going to be the most asked questions for the support team of Buzzsprout, or maybe some interesting questions that you guys have gotten. So today's episode, our topic is directories. So joining me in today's episode is Priscilla agilon. From the support team. Welcome, guys. Hey, Jordan. Hi. And do you want to let us know a little bit of what you do in the support team for Buzzsprout? Sure,

Priscilla: 0:37

I am the head of the support team. So I work with our small and dedicated support team, as I like to say, and we offer support and guidance to our podcasters. Basically, we come alongside, it's not like your typical support team, like you would think with Comcast or something. But we come alongside our podcasters. And we help them grow their podcast, and we help, you know, figure out bugs or issues that they're running into and give them recommendations and stuff. And then Gilon is on the team with me. But Gilon does more than just support.

Gilon: 1:07

Yeah, I do a little bit more than support, but definitely partnering small stuff. But I partner with Priscilla and the support team. And like she said definitely coming alongside and supporting our awesome podcasters answering any questions they have helping them figure things out. And that can be a really fun collaboration as well.

Jordan: 1:27

It really is great. And that's the thing that is so stellar about you guys is that you're like the guiding hands for the podcasters that are struggling. And it's just like this, that's the only thing I can think of is just like this wholesome. Like you're like a warm hug support team.

Priscilla: 1:44

That's so nice. And wake up every morning thinking how can I be a warm hug today? Not really, that's not true.

Jordan: 1:55

You know what, I think that we need to have those posters in the office like be a warm hug today.

Gilon: 2:00

Be a warm hug today,

Priscilla: 2:02

I feel like that could be problematic.

Gilon: 2:05

You're right. Thank you for seeing the holes in that.

Jordan: 2:09

That's why I'm not in charge of HR.

Priscilla: 2:15

Gilon and I pulled together the top six questions that we get in support that surround directories. So everything from getting listed to like how your episodes regularly update, you have those questions, Jordan, so you can ask us and then we will kind of dig into them.

Jordan: 2:34

Our first question is does Buzzsprout submit my podcast to directories? For me, and I feel like this is a really, really common question.

Priscilla: 2:43

It is common, especially because some hosts do submit for you. So when you sign up with the host, in some cases, they will submit you to the like push your podcast out to all the directories kind of with a one click situation, the Pro to that is that it gets done quickly for you. But we find that that's not really the best way to handle it. So we actually don't submit for you. Instead, we have a really simple process inside of Buzzsprout. So that you can submit yourself, and then that gives you the ownership of your listings. And it gives you the ability to keep your listings when you go to a new host without having to email the directory and request a transfer of ownership or anything like that. So the quick answer is no, we don't submit for you. But we make it really, really easy for you to do that. And so if you're a Buzzsprout podcaster, and you're in your account, all you have to do is go to the directories page, and you can start the process there. And so we've made it as simple as we can all the way up into actually doing it for you.

Jordan: 3:41

Well, and there's a reason why Buzzsprout does not submit the podcast for you. Yeah, there are some other hosts that do. Yeah, and the way that they do that is by using their own email to submit the podcast. So it's more difficult for you to access your analytics in those platforms, it's difficult if you need to do anything or take ownership of your podcast. That's a really big issue when those hosts are submitting for you because they're using their own email. And so you don't necessarily have all of the control of your podcasts that you normally would if you use your own email.

Priscilla: 4:19

It's an important thing to think about that because it can feel kind of like there's some people who write in that are a little bit frustrated that they have to do it manually. But thinking about it in the long run, you want to be able to access your podcasts on your end to see like your Directory accounts yourself so that you can check out those stats because there's some stats that you might get within Apple podcasts connect to that you're not going to get necessarily within Buzzsprout or some different breakdowns or kind of that kind of data. And so, in the long run, having that control over your listings from the beginning, even though it's slightly more manual process is going to be better for the podcaster which is part of the reason why we have it today. Find that way.

Jordan: 5:04

Alright, so next we have what is required to get listed.

Gilon: 5:07

So if you are a Buzzsprout podcaster, there's a nice little page where we require some information, just a few things like the title of your podcast and whatnot to the podcasts info page is going to be where you want to start to give all the necessary information that you need to list with a directory. So like I mentioned, cover art, podcast title, artists name, and we actually have two tabs on that page. The Advanced tab is kind of the second one that you'd have to click on. And there's some really important information there as well deciding whether your podcast is going to be serial episodic, we need a website URL, all of those things are very important to be included in the RSS feed. And so making sure all the information is filled out is step number one. Step number two would be to have a live episode. And so sometimes when people are wanting to get listed on directories are wanting their podcast episodes to be available immediately. But that's kind of difficult with the approval process. So we suggest starting with the trailer episode, so that you can submit to directories so that you do have one live episode, even if it's not your first official one. And so trailer episodes are really, really helpful, they can be 30 to 60 seconds, they do need to have some critical information, such as the title of your podcast, generally what your podcast is about, and then who the podcast is for. We also encourage people to include a call to action in their trailer. So hey, listen on this launch date, subscribe to my show are all kinds of calls to action that we see in trailer episodes. So making sure you have that information, that one live episode, whether it's episode one or trailer is really important to get listed. Yeah, and

Priscilla: 6:39

one thing just to clarify, sometimes, we refer to an episode as live or published. And those two things mean the same thing. So you might be in your Buzzsprout account and see that it says you need one published episode. So I just want to clarify that one episode has to be published in in your RSS feed before you can start the submission process. And so you could use episode one, or like Dylan said, you could use a trailer episode. And typically trailer episode gives you a little bit more leeway. And a little bit more takes the pressure off a little bit when you're going through the submission process. Because you're not submitting with Episode One and putting yourself out there right away.

Jordan: 7:15

Yeah, and it kind of kills like two birds with one stone because it helps with promoting your upcoming podcast when you have a trailer published to Apple podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher or anything like that. It's so much easier to see that your podcast has been accepted the trailers live, and then you can go and kind of like spread the word and make a post, like check out my trailer for this upcoming thing, it's a lot easier to promote something and generate excitement about it when it's out there and ready to go. As opposed to just saying, Yeah, I'm gonna drop my podcast on this date. And then hopefully you're accepted on that date.

Priscilla: 7:54

Right? It gives people something to actually go to Yeah.

Jordan: 7:59

So our next question is, how long does it take to get listed across all directories? So this ties in perfectly with the previous question.

Gilon: 8:08

So the wait time varies, right? There's in approval process. Some directories are really quick, we've seen Spotify be really quick about it. We've seen Google sometimes be very, very quick about approving podcasts as well. But we know Apple is a little bit notorious for having a wait time, up to two weeks, in fact, and so this is really why we suggest starting out with a trailer episode because you do have a little bit of time sometimes between publishing an episode and being accepted. And most people want to launch their podcast where it can be available on directories everywhere. But that wait time can make it a little bit difficult if you start with episode one. And so you get to with a trailer, generate some excitement, give people a heads up while you're waiting for your podcast to be approved in the submission process for whatever directories you want to list with.

Jordan: 8:55

Yeah, and there's some directories one that comes to mind is Pandora, who is more than notorious? Because I know people who have been accepted on Pandora in four days. And I know people who have not been accepted on Pandora after a year.

Priscilla: 9:13

Yeah, they seem to be very selective about what podcasts they accept. And they also seem to be not very much in a rush. So there are some times where it'll be months, and then someone will get accepted and it's awesome, but it's hard to predict with Pandora. So we always say if you're waiting on Pandora for over a couple months, then shoot them an email and try to get some information on why it's taking so long. But until you hit that couple months, don't expect to hear from Pandora. So go ahead and launch without Pandora is what we would say

Jordan: 9:46

Pandora started listing podcasts, I want to say six months to a year after I started my podcast. And so I went to get listed on them and I was accepted on everything else. Right. And I think it took some six months, I did the little checkbox to like email me when I'm listed. And they never did that I just like happened to stumble upon it one day in Pandora app. And I was like, Oh, they never emailed me, that'll happen. I just happen to see it like six months later.

Priscilla: 10:16

So like Gilon said, it varies by different directory you're submitting to. Some of the reason for that is because some directories use a manual process where it's actually a person reviewing the podcast. So Apple does a manual process. So that's why it can take a little bit longer. Sometimes you'll get accepted with Apple within just a couple days. But sometimes it can take that two weeks. So just be aware of it when you're going into the submission process, that it's not going to happen immediately. And it might happen immediately for Spotify, which is more automated, but not other directories. And so if your expectations are set correctly going into the process, then you won't be as disappointed when you aren't listed within a couple days everywhere. So just keep that in mind,

Gilon: 10:57

it is a little bit more of that piece of the process that you can't control for, which I think is a really good expectation to set that there's a wide range. And so I think sometimes people email and they're like, oh, my gosh, it's been two weeks and you're like, okay, hold on, let's see what's going on, you know, but it is a part of that process that you don't have that much control over as a podcaster. So as much room as you can give yourself and your planning process and your launch process, the more the better.

Priscilla: 11:23

Yeah. Which goes back to why we recommend the trailer because that really gives you the ability to do it without the pressure of time.

Jordan: 11:33

All right. Well, I feel like that segues perfectly to our next question, which is, why am I not listed in a specific directory yet? And what can I do about it?

Priscilla: 11:42

So you know, a lot of times we were just talking like, people will submit and then they're not listed, and they don't know what's going on. Sometimes this can be that wait time that we just talked about. So set those expectations, give it a little time to get listed. But if it's been some time, and you're not sure what's going on, we have a couple things you can do to kind of check up. So one Jordan, you mentioned, you just searched on Pandora, like go search the directory, see if it's there. If it's been a couple of weeks, and you haven't heard anything from Apple, or you haven't heard anything from Spotify, go search your podcast, most of the time, they will email you when you're accepted. But sometimes they don't. Or sometimes an email bounces or sometimes it goes to spam or you delete it without knowing. So search the directory first. And if you're still not seeing that you're listed there, you can check in your Buzzsprout account on the directories page. Once you've submitted to a directory, if you're listed, we will see it and we will link it within your directories page. So you can also check there and if you're not listed there either, then you can feel pretty confident that you haven't been listed, you kind of have to go into a new troubleshooting phase. And so what we would say is go to your podcast info page and look through that required information that Jalon mentioned, make sure that you still have an artist make sure that your URL is still populated in your RSS feed, make sure that you didn't accidentally delete your description fully or your artwork, as long as all of that stuff is still there, then you can be sure that that's not holding up the process. Beyond that there's lots of other little things that could be delaying a submission. And so at that point, we'd probably say go ahead and shoot us an email at support. And let us kind of dig into it a little bit more on our end, we'll look into your RSS feed and make sure everything is showing correctly, we'll make sure that there's no issues with the size of your artwork, typically, your artwork should be sized correctly if it's uploaded into Buzzsprout. But sometimes that's not the case. So we can dig into that on our end and help guide you that way. And then if none of that is working, then you may have to go into the directory itself, like your apple podcasts Connect account, and see if there are any errors showing in there. So if you tried all your troubleshooting, then shoot us an email in support. And we'll take it from there and help troubleshoot with you. Well, then you guys are really good at also working with the platforms too. So that's something that's a little bit better than if somebody emails our support and like waits for a few days and doesn't hear back, you guys are probably going to be the ideal people to reach out to Yeah, we always tell people email us first. Because we can see a lot from our end, we can't see everything but start with us. And we will make sure that everything in Buzzsprout is correct. If we can't figure something out, we may point you to a directory. But even if we do that, we always say feel free to copy us on the email to them. And then we can work with them directly. But because you're submitting your podcast yourself, it needs to come from your email. And so you can copy us in and we can help but if we reach out to them for you, they won't be able to give us as much help as if you're reaching out yourself with your email.

Jordan: 14:46

So once a podcaster is listed, how do new episodes show up?

Gilon: 14:52

Once your podcast is listed, you don't actually have to submit your second episode like the manual process that you did to submit your product Test. At first, everything is pretty automatic. Now, it is automatic, it is not immediate. And so that's one of those things that we get emails about. Sometimes people are like, Oh my gosh, I just published this episode. Why is it not on Apple. So the directories check your RSS feed at different times, and some check more frequently than others. And so it can take a little bit of time, Apple may see the new episode pretty immediately an update, where Spotify may not be checking as often and may not see the new episode until a couple of hours later. If you're seeing that your directories are not synced up updating, that's okay. It's not a big deal. But if you are noticing that they're not updating within a few hours, several hours, then that's definitely an opportunity to reach out to support so we can kind of help and see what's going on there.

Jordan: 15:42

Well, we usually like to say, what 24 hours for Apple, is that right?

Priscilla: 15:47

It used to be 24 hours. But recently, they've really been updating more frequently they they check RSS feeds more frequently, they look for updates. So that's kind of the way that the RSS feed works is when you upload an episode of Buzzsprout, we put it in your RSS feed. And then because Apple Spotify, Google, all of those directories are checking your RSS feed for new info, they will see the new episode when they check. But like John was saying they all check at different times. And so you might not see your episode show up on Spotify, the same time it shows up on Apple, you also might not see that your episode shows up the same time on Apple every single week, it might be slightly off. So I usually tell people at 12am on the day, they want it to be accessible. And that way, by the time people are starting their commutes in the morning, the episode is going to be there and there will have been plenty of time for it to show up because that'll be like eight hours later. The only other thing I'll mention is sometimes people get a little bit frustrated when their episode is not showing in sync across all directories. So it's showing on Apple, it's not showing on Spotify, I want it to show at the same time on both. And so I would just say keep in mind, your listeners have one directory that they are going to to look for your episode, you're not going to have a listener that goes to Spotify, and then switch to Apple to see if it's on Apple, you probably have trends within your listeners, some listen to just Spotify and some listen to just apple. So having it synced across directories is not so important, at least not to the minute, obviously, within a couple hours. It's good to have them there. But I wouldn't worry too much about it being perfectly synced across directories. And

Jordan: 17:25

that's a common mistake that I see a lot of podcasters do is you know, they'll be promoting their podcast on social media. And they'll say Tuesdays at six Central this episode, and that's a dangerous game. That's not ideal, because it's like you said it could show up for somebody on Spotify. But it maybe it hasn't updated until like 8pm on Apple or, you know, if you're not uploading your podcast and having it scheduled to release at midnight, your time, then you know, it could potentially lead into the next day before anyone sees it.

Priscilla: 18:02

It's good to be realistic on your expectations. Yeah, it used to be, you know, when I feel like when I started doing support, it was much more common that it would take almost 24 hours to show up on some listings. And now it really is much faster. I mean, most directories will show it within a couple hours. So if you're publishing early, early morning, on the day you want it live, you'll be fine.

Jordan: 18:25

I think it was last year, they changed Apple podcasts Connect, which is like the dashboard that you go into as a podcaster to be able to like finagle things. And they used to have the ability to manually update your RSS feed. So if it wasn't updating, you could manually do it. But I believe that they took that away last summer and so you can't manually do it anymore. Is that correct? So I see

Priscilla: 18:51

a lot. So they used to have, like you said the option to manually refresh your listing. So you're not changing your RSS feed, but you're refreshing the listing to check the RSS feed that button they did originally take away when they made all the updates to podcast Connect. But it's back now. So you can use it again. Oh, good. So it's there. But one thing to keep in mind is that Apple is pretty protective of that button. So if you make it a habit to go in and manually refresh every single time you post a new episode, Apple will take that button off of your account. At least that's what we've seen. So don't make it a habit to go in and do a manual refresh. only do that if you're you've been waiting a long time and you can't figure out why it's not updating then go ahead and do a manual refresh.

Gilon: 19:38

Yep, use it sparingly.

Jordan: 19:42

Okay, so we went over what to do if an episode isn't showing up, like right away how to go through like the proper channels, but what do you do if a new episode just never shows up?

Priscilla: 19:53

Well, sometimes, you know, you publish an episode and Buzzsprout and then it's been you know, two hours it's been four hours. Then six hours, eight hours, and it's not showing, and you do kind of go, Okay, now, I understand there's a delay here, but it should be available now. And now my listeners are noticing it's not there, and they're expecting it. And so at that point, there are some things you can check. The first thing, which is more common than you would think is log into your account and make sure it's published. Sometimes people will schedule accidentally for the wrong time, or they just won't hit the publish button at all. So go in and make sure that your episode on the episodes page within your Buzzsprout account is actually published. If it's published, then you can do some other checks to see what could be going on. Some of those things we mentioned for being issues with the submission delay, those can apply here. So make sure again, that all of your information is still in the podcast info page, make sure you still have a URL in your RSS feed, you know, make sure you've given it time to show up. Sometimes you can look in a directory, you might see it in Spotify, but you won't see it an apple after you know, 10 hours, well, then you go okay, well, that seems like there might be an issue with Apple and not Spotify, and not my RSS feed, everything in my RSS feed looks good. But Apple's the only listing that's not showing it. So in that case, you know, you could go log into podcasts connect and do the manual refresh option. But again, when in doubt, when you're ever running into these kind of issues, and you're troubleshooting, you can always email support. And we will walk through the troubleshooting steps with you and make sure that everything on our end is correct and the acting normal, and help you kind of narrow down what is causing the delay. I want

Jordan: 21:33

to sort of segue this into a very common question that I have seen in the Buzzsprout Facebook community group. And that is I have an episode that's not showing up or my earlier episodes aren't showing up. And I've I'm 50 episodes, and I'm 100 episodes in and suddenly my episodes are disappearing, like my older episodes, where are they going? And I see that all the time. Yeah. So what is usually the cause for this kind of weird phenomenon?

Priscilla: 22:02

It's funny, I actually like getting that question because I feel like people get people write in and they're like, I cannot figure out what's going on my first 17 episodes aren't showing up. And I just, I just released my 100 and 18th episode, you know what's going on. And I love answering it because it's such an easy fix. So in your RSS feed, you have the ability to put a feed limit. And so you can go in and set that your feed will only show 100 episodes. And so if that happens, then when you hit 100 episodes, the directories are going to stop showing the earlier episodes when you're above 100. So all you have to do is go and remove the feed limit inside of your Buzzsprout account. It lives on the podcast info page. So you just go remove the feed limit. And then when the directory hits your RSS feed to check changes, they'll see all 100 and whatever episodes there and they'll all show up. So yeah, it's like a nice payoff answer I love when those come in, because I'm like, Oh, I know exactly what's going on. And I'm gonna help you fix it in two seconds.

Jordan: 23:01

And it's a common thing that happened. It's pretty common.

Priscilla: 23:04

I think when people start their podcast, they are going through the podcast info page, and they see that limit there. And because you're just at episode one at that point, I don't know why. But I think sometimes people go, Okay, I'm gonna put a limit on this not knowing exactly what it means. But it doesn't show up as a consequence until you hit whatever limit you put. So then by the time they get to 100 episodes, it's been almost two years since you put the limit in place. So you may not even remember that you did that.

Jordan: 23:35

All right. Well, I think that that wraps up this episode of podcasts and q&a support mailbag. Dylon and Priscilla, thank you so much again for joining me on this episode.

Priscilla: 23:45

Well, thanks for having thanks for having this.

Jordan: 23:49

I hope this episode of Podcasting Q&A has been helpful to you. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future episode, go to pod inbox.com/buzzsprout or click the link in the show notes to leave us an audio message. And as always, Keep podcasting