10 Reasons To Have Your Podcast on a Professional Podcast Network

There are a lot of advantages to having your podcast on a professional podcast network. Some podcast networks do a great job of helping your podcast succeed and some do not. The World Podcast Network has many ways of making your podcast successful to get you more downloads. Below are some of the ways the World Podcast Network helps your podcast succeed:

What are some advantages of having your podcast on a podcast network? 

  1. Since podcast networks have their own traffic, they leverage their visitors to find your podcast. 
  2. They offer monetization opportunities that might not be available to podcasts.
  3. They have a social media component including allowing visitors to comment on your podcast. 
  4. They offer a self-managed portal to give podcasters the ability to manage their shows. 
  5. They keep analytics on everything that happens with your podcast, including tracking, downloads,number of listens, and  links to your external hosting platform. 
  6. They allow podcasters to add their own social media profiles to drive traffic to popular social networks. 
  7. They offer each and every podcast a profile to display their latest episodes. 
  8. They include a guest exchange and help pair potential guests with relevant podcasts. 
  9. They offer a podcast directory to their visitors that list every single show. 
  10. They have professional personalized customer service for every podcaster to help them with any issues that arise across the podcast network.
Let’s discuss each of these in detail to help you succeed with your podcast.  Since podcast networks have their own traffic, they leverage their visitors to find your podcast. This is the basic function of any podcast network. Podcast networks get their own traffic and do their own marketing including social media marketing to keep up with branding. 

They offer monetization opportunities that might not be available to podcasts.

Monetization for podcasts is probably the most desired feature any podcaster can hope for. Making money with your podcast is one of the reasons why people go into podcasting besides sharing their opinions.  Monetization opportunities are also the building blocks of podcast networks. They can come in multiple forms and are listed below. 

What are the most popular ways podcasters can monetize their shows?

Playing ads, audio advertisements, and video clips on video podcasts, is the most popular type of podcast monetization. Since the work of the advertisement is already done and produced by a third party, podcasters can easily drop the MP3s of the advertisements right into their DAW  ( digital audio workstation). The audio for the ads can be inserted either pre-roll (the beginning of the episode), mid-roll ( the middle of the episode), or post-roll (the end of the episode). Either way, podcasters make money per ad.  Host read ads are simple scripts that are recited by the podcaster on the episode. There is no audio file and no music in the host read ad. Advertisers can write the script and send the script to the podcast network or the ad can be read verbatim on the episode by the podcaster. Host read ads are usually monitored and verified by the podcast network, and the podcaster gets paid once the ad is verified.  Podsafe music i a great opportunity for podcasters to monetize their shows by playing music. Podsafe music means that the song is free of legal copyrights and the podcaster cannot be sued for playing the music. Podsafe music is a normal MP3 that gets submitted to the podcaster. The podcaster can play the MP3 either pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll. Usually the episodes end with the music so it’s popular to play podsafe music post-roll. Music comes in multiple genres including rock, jazz, country, metal, hip hop, and  classical. The podcaster is welcome to select a song from any genre. We suggest playing music that your audience prefers instead of the preference of the podcaster or the host.

They have a social media component including allowing visitors to interact with your podcast. 

Since social networks have been popular for the last 20 years, initiating the Web 2.0 face of the internet, they have ruled every part of online marketing. A good podcast Network also acts as a social network to all the podcasters on their platform from adding comments to allowing people to like the podcast and the individual episodes. A podcast network that acts like a social network is dedicated to their podcaster community.

They offer a self-managed portal to give podcasters the ability to manage their shows. 

A professional podcast network buffers a way for its podcast members to manage every aspect of their podcast. The portal allows podcasters to view all the information around their podcast. This includes viewing podcast analytics,viewing statistics on each episode, managing and their hosting platforms in case they change, managing their artwork and changing it, seeing guest requests, accessing podcast monetization opportunities, watching videos, general education resources, highlighting their favorite episodes, answering their social media profiles, and much more.  The portal is constantly changing on the podcast network. The technology allows podcasters to log in and manage their accounts. It’s also the general place for notifications from the podcast network itself. The portal takes care of the problem of the email from the network going into their spam folders.

They keep analytics on everything that happens with your podcast, including tracking, downloads, listens, and links to your external hosting platform. 

Analytics are very important from viewing favorite episodes to knowing what locations the listeners are coming from including various cities and countries. The analytics also help with downloads and show podcasters where they can find their most successful podcasts. Analytics appear as graphical data including but not limited to line graphs, pie charts, and bar graphs. Hovering over each of those graphical charts with your mouse allows a podcaster to drill down into the exact data that helps their podcast on the network.

They allow podcasters to add their own social media profiles to drive traffic for popular social networks. 

Since social media is always changing with new developments by popular networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or X, and LinkedIn), podcasters need a way to drive traffic from the podcast network to those social networks. A professional podcast network displays social media profiles and links them directly to the profile of the podcaster, allowing them to get interactivity. This allows podcasters to reach out to their subscribers by announcing new episodes, podcasts, guests, and more.

They offer every podcast a profile to display their latest episodes. 

A place on the podcast network where podcasters can show their latest episodes is offered by most networks. This is usually delivered via RSS feed. Episodes usually appear from the most recent down to the first one.  The profile not only shows episodes. It also shows the actual platforms where those podcasts can be accessed, for example Spotify or Apple.  The profile is the public home of the podcast on the podcast network. Links to those profiles can come up in the search within the network as well as the home page when podcasters publish brand new episodes.

They include a guest exchange and help pair potential guests with relevant podcasts. 

There are websites that are all dedicated strictly to podcast guests where podcasters can find those guests and invite them onto their show. Podcastguest.com is one example. PodMatch is another example. However, there are several networks that have a built-in guest exchange of their own. This allows the podcast network to internally pair up guests with the shows. Nowadays, AI matching is available on some podcast networks. 

They offer a podcast directory to their visitors that list every single show. 

Some websites are strictly podcast directories. That type of website is a list of podcasts which display the name and the podcast logo. The hyperlink can either go to an internal profile showing all the episodes or link to the external URL like the hosting platform or the streaming platform.  The upgraded shows always show on top of the podcast directory which are usually spots reserved only for the members who pay. Free level podcasts usually appear below the paid podcasts.

They have professional personalized customer service for every podcaster to help them with any issues that arise across the podcast network.

It goes without saying that a professional network should have a good customer service team to help navigate issues reported by the podcasters.  The World Podcast Network formed the podcast relations team to handle this need. In addition to that team, there’s also a guest relations team to handle issues from guests.  Some issues handled by these teams can include login problems into the portal and instances where a new podcast episode might not show up on the show’s profiles. If the podcast network offers monetization opportunities, the podcast  relations team also helps the shows monetize properly and verify all the ads that are placed by the members. 

Conclusion

These 10 points are all offered by the World Podcast Network to our members. The World Podcast Network was formed in 2006 and was the very first podcast network in the world. We started as the Long Island Podcast Network.  In 2017, we became the World Podcast Network. In 2023 we became the World Podcast Network and have podcasts from over 50 countries and in over 25 languages.  Most podcast networks do not have all 10 of these features, but we are always looking to improve the experience for the podcasters. The podcast relations team helps both members and guests with any problems they have as well as any questions that they need answered. 

About the Author Bruce Chamoff

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