To Apple Podcasts: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? #Best Education Page #Online Earning

Apple.

What are you doing?

What's up, team Flynn?

Pat Flynn here, and this is especially

for you podcasters out there.

Apple recently sent an email at the end

of February, 2019 to let us know

that we have to follow some rules

when it comes to the metadata of our show.

That is, the title, the description,

the episode numbers, and those sorts of things,

and if we do certain things, we can get

our podcasts kicked out or removed from Apple Podcasts.

Now, they were very clear about a few things.

For example, making sure to avoid placeholder text

from your hosting provider, such as podcast

by author name, podcast weblog, and description goes here.

You obviously don't want those things

in wherever those things should go

because that obviously means you haven't done the work

to actually make your show attractive to people with ears.

Next, including a verbatim repetition

of the title or author name in the description.

So if you have your title, whatever the title might be,

The Smart Passive Income Podcast,

you do not want that same thing

to be mentioned in the description.

And actually, that's a good thing

because you're wasting space if you are.

You've already mentioned that in the title.

You don't need to mention it again.

That's fine.

Next, incorporating irrelevant content

or spam, for example, show titles

like The Very Hungry Tourists,

Travel, Explore, Learn, Eat, Sing,

Dance, Play, SEO, all that stuff.

You do not want to, in the title

of your show and/or the podcast host name,

to include those things, and that was a

very popular practice back in the day,

before Apple finally woke up from

their however long hibernation due

to a lot of things that are happening

in the world of podcasting right now,

which quite honestly are really exciting.

And what's exciting is that Apple is

finally thinking about us podcasters,

which they haven't done for so long.

And then finally, and this was the last bullet point

in the email that confused and scared

most people, and that is, adding episode numbers in titles.

For example, show titles

like The Very Hungry Tourists Episode 01,

or episode titles like zero-one Broken Heirloom.

Now, this is where most people were scared

because episode numbers in titles are very important.

They are important for the following reasons.

Number one, it's more easy to remember the episodes,

and to share those particular episodes,

and to have people find them.

I guess that's three things.

But for instance, I can't say, well,

"Make sure you listen to episode 244

"of The Smart Passive Income Podcast

"with Nathan Barry," or, "263 with Clay Collins,"

or, "122 with Shane and Jocelyn Sams,"

or, "Episode 51 with Tim Ferriss."

Because those numbers are there,

number one, I remember them, but number two,

I can share them and easily have people find them.

Now, I understand why Apple is doing this.

They're doing this because they're trying

to clean things up a little bit

and standardize just how episodes look on their platform.

They love good design, and with the freedom

that we have to put whatever we want

in the titles, episode titles can be long

and just formatted differently,

and they wanna keep things the same.

And most of all, it can be used elsewhere.

For example, in the Apple Podcast app

in certain iOS versions, you can

actually see the episode number

not here, or not here, but here,

in this little gray area up at the top,

which you can only get to once you click through.

And this is why it's obnoxious right now

and why people are upset, because

it just makes it very difficult for people to find.

Apple wants us to include this metadata

in the iTunes tag for the episode number

which then removes it from the title,

but then it's different for Stitcher,

and Spotify, and Google Podcast.

So what do we do here?

Well, the funny thing is, Apple reached

back out to everybody a couple days later,

retracting exactly what they said

about the episode numbers, and specifically,

and flat-out said, "Your show won't be removed

"for having episode numbers in your titles."

Which is a good thing, and that's the way I prefer it.

I prefer to have a little bit of freedom,

in terms of how I want my title

to be displayed, and again, I like having

it at the front-end of the show because it's easier to find.

Now, if you still wanted to remove

it, but still wanted people to find

your episodes, you can include the episode number

at the beginning of your description,

if you wanted to, which gets truncated,

so make sure it's at the front.

But that being said, Apple, what are you doing?

It would've just taken a quick conversation

with a few podcasters to understand

that this is something that we didn't want,

and you had all of the scrambling

to change things, and many people have changed things,

and luckily, some hosting providers allow

to easily change this across multiple episodes

at the same time.

However, I wanna give a big shout-out

to Jason Skinner in the Power-Up podcasting group

who pointed this out and started

just this discussion in the group

that I have for my paid course,

Power-Up Podcasting, but more than that,

it just brings up the idea that, okay, Apple.

You're finally waking up.

This is good.

Thank you for paying attention to us podcasters now.

But if you really wanna know what would be helpful,

ask us.

I don't know if you did ask, or you kind

of just assumed, but we are here,

and we are happy to help you.

So reach out to us.

Let us know what you're thinking.

You wanna know what other platform has had problems

with their creators, and it's caused a lot

of problems recently?

YouTube.

And unfortunately, us podcasters,

we can't just start posting stuff

about Apple Podcast on podcasts

and have people share it and easily find it,

because guess what?

You guys don't make it easy for people

to find and share podcasts yet.

So be like YouTube and start listening to your creators.

And no, they're not perfect yet,

but they've started the right process

of actually giving us the content

we need, and actually interacting

with us, and asking us what we need,

and it would be awesome if you could do the same thing.

You guys are potentially losing

out on a huge, massive wave of content here.

and yes, I know you've got other things

to deal with, like your phones,

and your watches, and your cars, and all that stuff.

But hey, there are a lot of people

who need you to step up, and it would be

really awesome before Spotify takes the spotlight from you.

And they kinda are doing that right now.

As many of you know, Spotify was the spotlight,

a couple weeks ago, when they had purchased two big things

related to podcasting.

Number one, Gimlet Media, and then

they also purchased Anchor.

And what I'm excited about on the Spotify end

of things is, they make finding,

they make creating playlists, they make sharing episodes,

a lot easier, and we can already do things

that we can do on Spotify that

we cannot do with Apple Podcast yet.

For example, sharing our episodes on Instagram Stories

directly through sharing Spotify podcast episodes,

which is really cool.

So Apple, I beg of you, please step up,

because you have just all the things

that you need right there, and if

it just requires you reaching out

to a few of us, or all of us, or running surveys,

like something, please, I hope that

you will listen, and I don't know

if you'll ever watch this, but it would be great

if we podcasters, we had somebody

on your end who had our backs.

It would be amazing.

So Apple,

I was hoping that, maybe by the end

of this video, this thing would be rotten already,

because you know how oxidation,

and all that stuff, and it would've been a

really cool thing to say, "I know podcasting is

"just a small bite of the overall company

"of Apple, but it just takes one rotten piece

"to start making the whole apple look bad."

But you know what?

This apple actually tastes really good, so (crunches).

I'm gonna keep eating it.

It was good, in theory, but I'd have

to wait two hours and I have other videos and things to do.

So anyway.

Hey, do you have a podcast?

If you do, or you have permission,

tell us the name of it in the comments section.

And what are your thoughts on Apple

and what they're doing?

Now, you might be wondering, well,

do I include the podcast episode numbers?

You can follow Apple's suggestions

and use the iTunes metadata specifically

for episode numbers and leave the episode number

out of your title, if you wish.

However, I'm gonna keep 'em in there

because it makes it just easier

for people to see and find those episodes.

And hopefully there'll be a better solution later.

So anyway, lemme know your thoughts

on Apple and what they're doing.

If you have any wishes from Apple,

put 'em below, podcasters.

Love to hear from you on what you think can be done

to improve the podcasting space here.

And again, shout-out your show below.

Thanks, guys. Take care.

Team Flynn for the win.

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