To publish an episode to your show, hover over Content in your main menu and click on Add New Episode.
Uploading Media
The top of the episode creation form will ask you to upload a media file. Hit Add Media File.
You can choose multiple different ways to upload the file into your Libsyn show.
Populate Form with ID3 Data
If you are generating an ID3 tag for your media file prior to uploading the file to your Libsyn show, checking this box will allow Libsyn to pre-populate your episode title, description, and thumbnail based on the data in your ID3 tag. The information can still be modified once populated.
Upload From Hard Drive
Selecting the Upload from Hard Drive button will allow you to browse your local computer and select the media file from your local computer.
Select From FTP/Unreleased
If you have uploaded your media file to your dropbox folder using FTP, you can select this option to choose that file for publishing.
Copy From URL
If your media file already exists on a third party server, you can select this option and enter the URL to that media file. The Libsyn system will then make a copy of that media file to host at Libsyn.
Note: The file, in this case, will not be served from the third party server. The file is copied and served from the Libsyn server.
Dropbox.com
If you utilize the Dropbox service to store files, you can browse your Dropbox account and have the file uploaded from Dropbox to Libsyn.
Note: The file, in this case, will not be served from Dropbox. The file is copied and served from the Libsyn server.
Configuring Episode Details
While your media file uploads, you can begin to enter your episode details which include your title, description, imagery, and other important details.
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.
Episode Subtitle
The subtitle is rarely displayed in podcast directories. Previously, the subtitle was displayed in the iTunes desktop app when looking at a show in the store.
This is not a required field. If this is not filled out, our system will automatically enter a truncated portion of your episode description for you.
Episode Description
The episode description will appear as the blog post in your Libsyn blog page as well as WordPress or Blogger (if you are using WordPress or Blogger OnPublish). It will also appear as the full or long description for the episode in your RSS feed. Anytime the subtitle is not used by a certain podcast directory OR if you choose not to enter a subtitle, the first portion of your description will be truncated and used as the subtitle.
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.
You will notice a bar along the bottom of your episode description editor that will show if your feed will validate or not.
Your episode description can populate your blog posts. However, its primary purpose is to provide show notes in your RSS Feed (which is what podcast directories such as Apple Podcasts pulls from). The same code that is typically used on a website is not the same that works on a podcast RSS feed. This can cause your RSS feed to become invalid. An invalid RSS feed won't work properly in Apple Podcasts and other directories.
Our system, therefore, will try to determine if there is anything in the episode description that might break your feed, the system will see that and give you a warning as shown above.
Category:
Setting a category for an episode will allow organization of content on the Libsyn Podcast Page, or embedding a media player specific to that category (this does not affect your RSS feed). Details on managing categories are outlined here.
Tags/Keywords:
Keywords are words (not multi-word phrases) that are used to help provide search benefits to your show. Note, Apple Podcasts (and therefore most other directories) no longer utilize the keywords fields. However, keywords are utilized in YouTube so if you are pushing your show to YouTube, you are encouraged to enter words to aid in your ranking inside the YouTube search engine.
Note: Up to 20 keywords can be added.
Permalink Points to:
A permalink is a URL to a blog post that is suppose to never change – it is a permanent link. Generally, your permalink will point to your Libsyn blog post. However, if you are not using our blog page, you may wish to change your permalink to point elsewhere so you have a few options:
- The Shows Blog Page - Will link to the episode on your Libsyn generated Podcast Page
- The episode media file - Will link directly to the media file for the episode
- A Custom URL – if you are using an outside blogging platform, you can generate your blog post and get your permalink, then enter your permalink here.
Enable Comments:
Checking this box will enable comments (or disable comments) on your Libsyn generated Podcast Page for this specific episode.
Apple Podcasts Optimization
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.
Apple Podcasts Summary
The Apple Podcasts Summary is a short, one or two sentence elevator pitch regarding what this episode is all about. No text formatting or HTML is permitted in this field.
Important Note: Apple Podcasts is depreciating the Summary field. We recommend not using the summary, it will be removed when Apple Podcasts officially pulls it from their specifications.
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.
Apple Podcasts 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.
Episode Artwork
There are up to three separate images you can work with in regards to an episode. Your episode thumbnail, your widescreen image, and your ID3 image.
Episode thumbnail
Appears in Apple Podcasts, supporting podcast directories, the Libsyn HTML5 media player, and other possible places your show is distributed to.
Size Requirement:
--1400x1400 (minimum)
--3000x3000px (maximum, anything in between is fine as long as it's square)
--Under 500kb in file size
--JPG, JPEG, or a PNG file
Widescreen image
If you choose to automatically publish your episodes to YouTube or Facebook, you can upload a widescreen image to be used in the video Libsyn generates for you.
Size Recommendation:
--1920x1080px
ID3 tag image
An image should be attached to the ID3 tag of any MP3 file. Some podcast apps pull the image from the RSS feed, some pull it from the ID3 tag. The tag will also affect any MP3 file downloaded outside of an RSS feed, allowing your image to follow the file anywhere it goes.
Size Recommendation:
--1400x1400 (minimum, recommended)
--3000x3000px (maximum)
--Under 500kb in file size
--JPG, JPEG, or a PNG file
Scheduling an Episode
After episode details have been added, the episode can be scheduled for when it is released or expired. Click on Scheduling Release/Expiration to open up the scheduling options.
There are two tabs, Basic Release/Expiration and Advanced. For Basic, you can schedule the episode to release or expire from all destinations at the same time.
Release Date:
Release date allows you to set the episode to release now, immediately on publish, or by setting a new release date.
Set Release Date:
The date and time at which the episode will release can be set here. In the above example, this episode would become available at all destinations (your RSS feed, media player, Podcast Page, social destinations, and so on) on April 8th, 2017 at 12:00pm.
Expiration Date:
An episode can be set to be pulled from public availability at the date and time set.
Download Availability:
By default, even if an episode is scheduled to release at a future date, the media file URL will still operate properly. This is the "Media files are always available" setting. This allows you to utilize the file URL in third party locations as you publish not only inside Libsyn, but also outside of Libsyn depending on your workflow.
If, however, you prefer the media file to not be available until the episode is first released to any of your other destinations, then you can select the option for "Media files are available based on release schedule".
The above view is Advanced scheduling. This allows you to set a specific release and/or expiration date for each individual destination.
Using these settings allows you to specify exactly which destination the episode is released to, and when. For example, you could release your episode to your RSS feed immediately, but use a more optimized time to post to Facebook, or a more optimized time to post to Twitter, depending on your audience behavior.
Update ID3 Tags
If you do not generate your own ID3 tags, Libsyn can create them for you based on your show and episode details.
Checking this box will allow Libsyn to generate an ID3 tag for your media file and attach it to that file.
Publishing Your Episode
At this point, you are ready to publish your episode.
Publish:
Hit Publish to save your settings. If you have not scheduled your episode, this will push your episode out to your destinations immediately. If you have scheduled your episode, hitting Publish will initiate that schedule.
Save As Draft:
Saving as a draft allows the settings to be saved without actually publishing the episode yet. This will allow you to come back, make more changes, and publish when you are ready.
Getting Additional Help
Have questions? Contact our support staff at support@libsyn.com.