What makes high quality podcast show notes
How much time and effort do you put into your podcast episode show notes?
As a podcaster, producer and judge on the Webby Awards and Australian Podcasting Awards, I am exposed to a lot of podcasts.
And one of the biggest variables is the quality of the show notes.
I can understand why podcasters don’t generally put a heap of time into their show notes, because podcasting is an audio platform (video too these days). People don’t come to your podcast to read your show notes.
They come to listen to or watch your episode.
But what you’re missing out on here is the increased reach that you could be taking advantage of from the episode you took the time to record.
Show notes do not have to be just a summary of your podcast episode within a couple of sentences or a paragraph. They can be a valuable tool for engaging your audience and expanding your reach.
Creating Content Beyond the Podcast
At Bamby Media, we go the extra mile by turning show notes into full-fledged articles. Much like the article that you’re reading right now, these articles are often rich in detail, strategically keyworded, and carefully crafted to resonate with our audience. By repurposing show notes into articles, we leverage different platforms like LinkedIn, Medium and newsletters to reach a wider audience.
It’s important to remember that podcasting is still a baby in the media industry, and you could be reaching new people by meeting them where they are. Many people prefer to read long-form content and if you spend the time creating an article that provides true value, you’ve got a new follower of your work.
Optimising for Search Engines
By incorporating keywords and SEO strategies into your show notes and articles, you can enhance the discoverability of your podcast episodes. We recommend using tools like VidIQ to help you find out the key terms that audiences search for.
Each piece of content serves not only to inform but also to attract new listeners and viewers through improved search engine optimisation. We also recommend if you’re going to be sharing your podcast on YouTube, spend time creating the chapter markers as they are easily searchable too.
What Does AI Bring To The Table
For those who may struggle with writing or time constraints, AI tools like CastMagic and ChatGPT can be invaluable resources. While AI-generated content can provide a foundation, it is essential to infuse your own voice and personality into the final output for authenticity and engagement.
In fact, I started writing this article with the help of AI but have reworked, targeted and made it a piece of content that is my own.
If I have to read the word “delve” one more time…urgh.
There are currently a lot of repetitive words that AI tools spit out which aren’t great. The lack of appropriate tone makes it a good tool to help you get started but isn’t where it should end.
I encourage you to spend that extra time crafting quality show notes that you can use as articles and spread on different platforms. I don’t really see a downside to it, other than I know it takes you longer to do properly.
We do it every day, multiple times a day for a number of different clients and each one requires proper thought,, planning and attention.
In the end though, you’ve turned one piece of content (your podcast episode) into now a medium that can connect with an audience that you weren’t exposed to previously.
It’s worth your time, I promise.
Transcript:
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[00:00:00] What makes good quality podcast show notes? There are so many ways that you can attack a show notes type situation for your podcast. And I'm going to break down what we do here at Bamby Media, what we do for our clients, so that you understand what the value of putting a little bit more effort into them is.
[00:00:24] Can give you, we have come across a lot of podcasts that don't put a lot of thought actually into the show notes that they are providing. I've come across them through the judging that I've done. I have now been a judge on the Webby Awards, the Australian Podcasting Awards, and the Signal Awards. This is one area where I see.
[00:00:43] See just across the board that there was a lack of thought and attention placed on the show notes. And I really think that you're missing out on a opportunity here to do something once that then will give you much more to play with. I also come across this when we're doing a free podcast audit. So we have a free podcast audit.
[00:01:03] service where you can submit your show and you will have our audio editors and myself listen to your show and then give you valuable feedback. It's within 48 hours. It's a really good service. And uh, I would recommend that everyone does that because there is just no reason why you wouldn't really, if you want some valuable feedback, go for it.
[00:01:22] And so I see that there as well. The show notes. just lack any sort of real depth. They're a lot of the time a couple of paragraphs. If that, mostly maybe a couple of sentences and maybe some links. But what's the point of that? And I get that people go to podcast players to listen to a podcast. They don't go there to read a bunch of show notes.
[00:01:44] I 100 percent get that. But what I want you to try and think about is if I create something that's more valuable. Can I put it in other places? The answer is yes.
[00:01:54] We write full on articles for each podcast episode. And this [00:02:00] is what we do with our clients that are on bigger packages with us as well. We write big detail, key worded. show notes, multiple paragraphs, headings, things that we feel like it just, it's a solid piece of content. It's a solid piece of writing that works with your podcast, but can also stand alone as its own thing.
[00:02:22] Because then what we do with that, One piece is that we then pull out the first maybe three paragraphs. So we always write in a way where the top three paragraphs can be by themselves as well. We pull them out and then we use them on the podcast platforms. So we put it into the back end of Captivate, which is the podcast host that we use for our show.
[00:02:41] I'll put a link to Captivate. They're really good. We also use that same description for YouTube because we know that this is targeted. We've put effort into searching for keywords, looking at what people search for, and then making sure our show notes hit that. So then we have good keywords in our top couple of paragraphs for podcast platforms and YouTube, and then with our full length article, our big juicy, meaty thing that we've spent decent time on, we put that on LinkedIn as a full length article.
[00:03:11] And that requires a little bit more finessing. You need some graphics, some gifs, some quote areas, things that make it really feel like it is its own piece. And if you want some examples of that, go to our LinkedIn, which I'll put in the show notes here, so that you can access it easily. And you'll be able to see the articles.
[00:03:29] We have a lot. of articles in there and they're all really hefty With links to all the things in the bottom of them as well and also to our youtube videos So you're getting that post to linkedin from the article, which is your show notes Then you can also post that article in your newsletter if you want to use it just in full as a newsletter article.
[00:03:52] That's fine Substack beehive whoever your host is for your newsletter You can use that whole thing there or you [00:04:00] can pull segments out of it and do it that way. You can also pull segments out of that long article for like a really good description on your Instagram posts or on your, again, your LinkedIn posts or a Twitter thread.
[00:04:13] You can use a few little sentences from within that because it's all content and it's all coming from that one big juicy article that you bothered to write in the first place. To me, that's just a massive. Time saver. You get that piece of content and you're able to spread it to a bunch of different places.
[00:04:33] And you can also use that article on Medium if you like Medium or if you feel like your community might also be on Medium. It's a great place to share articles. It's a great place to showcase your writing. If you love to write or if you have us here at Bambi Media doing your content writing for you.
[00:04:50] Those articles will be really good on that platform as well. And it exposes you to a completely different audience. Now some people go, yeah, okay. That feels like a little bit of effort though. Can't I just put my transcript in there? Yeah, you can do that. You can just have a transcript instead of writing a big old article, but it's not going to be as keyworded.
[00:05:09] It's not going to be as strategic as actually doing a proper article for your show notes. And then the other place we obviously put the full length article is on our website. So we have a blog article for every single podcast episode. This all helps with search engine optimization. And so again, we've done the one thing we've recorded a podcast, which we did on video.
[00:05:33] We've pulled the audio out of that as well. And then we've written content, big, long, Bits of content, a full article that then we've pulled bits out of for podcast platforms, for YouTube. You could put some on Pinterest, Instagram comments, Twitter threads or X threads, Instagram threads. You can pull all this stuff out of there and use it.
[00:05:57] effectively reach a wider [00:06:00] audience than you would be reaching without doing that. There is no downside to doing this. Yes, it's going to take you a little bit longer to do, but it's going to be a better use of your time overall. If you suck at writing, if you're like, this is just not for me, a zone that I'm comfortable in, then you can use platforms like ChatGPT or CastMagic.
[00:06:23] I'll put a link to CastMagic here. You can upload your transcript or your mp3 or your video and it will give you an article and also a bunch of other things. We start with AI but then we Take it a lot further. So the AI uses the same sort of words all the time. There's no personality. Even if it's saying it's going to deliver your tone, it doesn't.
[00:06:44] It's just not good enough yet, but it's a great place to start. That kind of thing is a really valuable tool. If you use Descript to edit your podcast already, then you can go to the AI section of Descript and just ask AI, write, Blog post and that will be a full length article as well. I have found that it's just not that great yet But it's certainly something that we tweak and play with and it helps get over that Creative hump where you feel like you just don't know where to start and so those kind of tools are really good for that purpose But definitely make a bunch of changes and have them keyworded properly so that it is your work not the robots work I hope that's been helpful for you today.
[00:07:28] If you have any comments and you're over on YouTube, just leave a comment. I'd love to reply to that. I try and get to all of them and I want to know what your struggles are with that. If you're interested in this kind of podcaster related content, hit the like button, the subscribe button. I hope this has been valuable.
[00:07:45] And if you're on podcast platforms, just thank you. Thank you for having me in your ears. I know how valuable it is to feel like you're learning something and being educated. And I hope that I'm able to deliver that for you as well. Thanks so much. And I hope you [00:08:00] have a great day.
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