Most of what you have done to this point is done once and forgotten (unless you decide to hop in later and change something). Publishing episodes, however; is something you are going to do every time you have a new episode. You'll become a pro at publishing in no time flat!
For a detailed publishing tutorial, click here. What we outline below is best practice for getting the post out of podcast directories.
To get started, go under Content -- Add New Episode from your main menu.
You will be asked first to upload that audio or video file you created back in the creation step. Upload your video file and then hit Details.
This is where you get to enter all the details of your episode. There are a lot of options here, but not all of them are needed when dealing with podcast directories. Below are the most important fields to configure for your episodes.
Title*
The episode title will display as the title in Apple Podcasts for that episode, as well as for other podcast directories. It will also appear as the blog post title for your Libsyn blog page, as well as for WordPress or Blogger (if you are using WordPress or Blogger OnPublish). This is a required field.
Description
This will appear as the full or long description for the episode in your RSS feed. Otherwise, it is commonly known as 'show notes'.
Your description can include URLs, images, and other details. Many podcatching applications will display those links, images, and other formatting, some will not, or some will only display some formatting.
Apple Podcasts Title
The Apple Podcasts Title is the title of your episode, without including any extraneous information such as episode numbers, season numbers, or show titles. Apple Podcasts offers additional fields (shown below) for identifying season and episode numbers which they will use to order and label your episodes automatically.
Episode Type
Specify if your episode is a full episode, a trailer, or a bonus episode.
- Full - A full, traditional podcast episode
- Trailer - A shortened trailer or promo for your show (usually between 30-60 seconds in duration)
- Bonus - A bonus episode which is included for your listeners, but does not necessarily fall in the realm of your regular episode releases
Season Number
If your episode runs on seasons, enter your season number here. If you do not run seasons, leave this blank.
Episode Number
Enter the episode number for your episode in this field. This will be displayed in the iOS Podcast App, and is used along with your season number and your show type setting (under Settings -- Show Settings specifying your episode as serial or episodic) to determine how your episodes are ordered and listened to.
Rating
There are two places you can set your rating, at the RSS feed level and at the episode level. Episodes should be set as clean or explicit. The RSS feed should also be set as clean or explicit. A show can be clean, but have one or two episodes that might be explicit, so those individual episodes get marked explicit (or the other way around).
This is important not only for parental controls, but also in that some countries do not permit explicit content. Properly setting your show and your episodes will ensure your show is available where it should be, and not available where it should not be.
Author
Just as you can at the RSS feed level, you can set an Apple Podcasts Author at the episode level. The author tag is a searchable field in Apple Podcasts, and being able to customize this at both levels can allow you to set an overall author, as well as different authors at the episode level where applicable.
These are all the fields that are going to give you what you want inside podcast directories. You may notice several other tabs (other than media and details) along the top, most of them refer to other features outside of podcast directories.
A note about artwork
If you are not creating episode specific artwork, you do not need to upload art with every episode. Your show art will always take priority.
Hit Publish to release your episode out to your Libsyn destinations. Now it is time to distribute that content.
Move on to Step 3: Submitting Your Show to Podcast Directories!