How do I get more ratings and reviews?

A lot of work goes into hosting a podcast. You want to know that people are listening and you also want to know why. What are they getting out of it? What do they enjoy? What don’t they enjoy? The only way to find out this information is for your listeners to review your show.

In this episode, I share some quick tips on how to get more reviews and why you want them in the first place. I talk about prompting listeners to do the reviewing, giving them an incentive to do so and I share some different ways you can go about doing that. I also bust a myth about reviews impacting the algorithm and talk about repurposing your reviews for social media content.

While we’re on the topic, go ahead and review my show! I’d love to hear what you think.

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod Oh, hi, welcome back to Pump Up Your Pod with me, Brianna from Bamby Media. How do you get more ratings and reviews for your podcast? And why does it matter? The best thing about ratings and reviews is that it gives you feedback from the people that are listening to your show as to why they are listening to your show. That's the main thing, the main reason that you want ratings and reviews because you want people to tell you how good you are? Hopefully.

00:44
So how do you get more of them? Well, one of the easiest and best ways to do it is just to make sure that you remind people to do it all the time. So at the end of every episode, at the beginning of your show, in a mid roll something in there, you actually prompt them go, Hey, have you reviewed my show yet? If you haven't, I would love if you could review my show, it helps me know that I'm doing a good job, I appreciate the feedback. And it would be so good to hear from you may go, I just did one. If you want to go and review my show right now go for it. That would be lovely while we're on the topic. So it's really good to just prompt people to actually do the reviewing. And if you feel like it's not working to put it in the intro or the outro, or the mid roll, perhaps they've heard it too many times. And it just you know, it's sunk in and they forget about it.

Then the other thing you can do and what some of our clients do is they actually shout people out in the podcast, like they'll go, I just want to share a recent review I received from blah, blah, blah. And here's what they said. And then they say the review. And then they talk about that business, the person that actually made the review. So it gives them some reason to actually write a review, because they then get a little shout out on the podcast, it's a really good idea, a really good way to actually get that feedback. Because for you to prompt people to rate and write a review. Sometimes people are like, Well, why should I do that, even though you're providing massive value by giving them a podcast and all this awesome information. It's like people forget that you're providing this great service, and that you shouldn't have to give them anything else. But sometimes they just need a little bit more. And that's okay, that is okay. So that's the other thing I would suggest to do actually shout it out on your episode. And then you're more likely to get people to actually review it as well.

The other thing that you can do is run a giveaway every now and again. And this is quite a fun thing to do. So if you feel like you haven't received any reviews in a while, and you're really trying to pump it up a bit, because reviews always look really good. You know, if a podcast has a lot of reviews, and they're written, then it's just that it's like Yelp, you know, we all make fun of Yelp, I don't think it's even a thing in Australia. But it's like, if you see a lot of good reviews, then you know, it's going to be a good podcast, and you're more likely to listen to it. So if you want to run a giveaway, then that's a really good thing to do as well. So you can go shout out to community and say, Hey, I'd love for people to write a written review, and I'm going to pick my favourite and then that person gets a free consult with me or they get a hamper delivered to their door or whatever it is, you know, some reason why they would write a review, and actually do that and go ahead with it and give them the thing. So that's another reason why or how to get people to actually review your show.

You don't want people to just give it five stars, because that doesn't really tell anyone anything about the show just says yeah, okay, you got a bunch of five star reviews. But you know what else? Tell me something else. Give me a reason why I would listen to that show. So make sure you always prompt people to actually review it with words that will be fantastic. It used to be thought that getting a lot of ratings and reviews actually boosted you in the Apple podcast charts. But that is not the case, boom. It's just a really good metric to know that you are on the right track, you're getting feedback from your people that are listening to it. And it also has that customer focus on it for people to go okay, if that person you know has a lot of reviews then this show is worth listening to.

It's worth noting as well that there's only really one platform that you can write a written review for and that is Apple podcasts. So that kind of sucks that not more platforms give the option to actually review a show. And it means that you're not getting a really true indication as to what people think of your show because not everyone listens on Apple podcasts and not every One is going to go and review on Apple podcasts if they don't have that platform as the one that they normally use to actually listen to a show. So don't be too caught up about it. But it is really nice to get that feedback from people. And to know that your show is going well by getting reviews.

You can also use them then as testimonials on your social media. So you can be like, hey, check out this recent review of my podcast from some random person, isn't it awesome. And that's a testimonial, which is really cool. So it gives you social media content. And you can also put those reviews on your website as well. So it's just that value all over the place by getting people to review your show. So that's my quick tips for today on how to get more ratings and reviews for your podcast. If you would like more information head to Bamby media.com We have a whole bunch of services and all sorts of things on there for you. If you are looking to join a community of like minded podcasters having a great time and collaborating with each other head over to the pod lovers.com Completely free community. It is a hell of a lot of fun in there. And if you would like to get in contact with me or my team, just head to our website, go to the contact form and fill it out. Have a great day. As always you are awesome.