How do you listen to your podcasts? The vast majority of podcast listeners listen on mobile phones.
Grab your mobile and take a look at the front page of your favourite podcast on your favourite podcast player. What you should see is a list of available episodes, including the title of each episode and a few words to describe it underneath.
This is the start of your episode notes
I say the start, because when you’re looking for podcasts on a mobile phone, most of the time, all you get to see is the first ten words of whatever it is you’ve written. Sometimes Apple Podcasts gives you a bit more space, but not always, so it’s a good idea to get into the habit of writing something short, snappy and attention grabbing! You can think of this as the “ten word rule”.
When you sit down to write a description of your lovingly crafted podcast episode ask yourself these questions:
Have you chosen your words carefully?
What have you written to persuade your listener that they DEFINITELY want to stream or download that particular episode?
Don’t waste space by writing things like “in this podcast episode” or “this podcast is” – get straight to the point, and the point is the story that your listener will hear.
Be specific – have you written something that really gets to the heart of your story? You’re trying to sell it.
Quotes from the episode can be a great way to entice people in. Choose something that sums up the story, and leaves people wanting more.
Get Creative! Really listen to the interviews or other aspects of your podcast episode that inspire you, move you, or that are important to the narrative of the interviewee’s discussion, and use this in your write up. Questions can be useful here. Eg how do you cope with rejection at an early age?
What’s really going on? Did your host learn something in this episode? Write about it. Is one topic discussed in depth? Or does the episode cover many different topics?
Make sure to include hyperlinks for your website and your social media and for your guests too.