Publishing, Promotion, & Evaluation

Spotify for Podcasters

Once we have a final product, we begin the publishing process with Spotify.

1. Go to Spotify for Podcasters and create a new episode.
2. Upload the component parts (e.g., part one, two, and three).
3. Add a placeholder title and other metadata.
4. Save as a draft or set a publishing date well into the future.

Note: Spotify for Podcasters is in the process of changing. The editing tools are going away.

Website Publication

For each episode we create a post on our website, which is created using our campus WiscWeb WordPress service. We begin drafting this post using a Google Doc to allow for commenting and contributions by several staff members.

Each episode’s post includes several key elements:

• A title and description, including a link to the guest’s website or department biography
• An embedded Spotify player
• A link to text transcript
• An acknowledgement of the land we occupy
• Several “conversation starters” designed to help individuals reflect on the episode content or to help groups have productive conversations about episodes
• Links to related resources mentioned by our guest or used in creating the episode
• Acknowledgments and production credits

We also feature each new episode on our website homepage with a banner, descriptive text, and call to action.

Promotion

We create our own promotional materials and channels and rely on and partner with other campus units to share our work with their audiences.

• Audiograms: Audiograms highlight short clips by pairing together text and sound in a short video format. These are best shared on social media. We create these using Descript.
• Newsletters: We are grateful to be regularly featured in Learning Forward, a newsletter for L&S Teaching Assistants, and in the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring’s newsletter.
• Social Media: We aim to share new episodes through social media accounts of individuals, including our guests and staff, as well as the College of Letters & Science. At present, the main platforms include LinkedIn and Instagram, which together enable both professional and less-formal sharing.

Evaluation

We prioritize evaluation from several angles to better understand our guests’ and listeners’ experiences with our podcast. This helps us target areas to improve over time.

• Guest follow-up: We follow up by email with each guest on our podcast and ask 5 standard questions to help us understand their experience of communication, scheduling, recording, and follow-up. We also ask who our guests will share their published episode with first, which helps us understand how they perceive the value of the product we’ve created together as well as understand new potential audiences. When asking for feedback, we take care to have a team member less involved in the production of that specific episode ask for feedback and share feedback received anonymously.
• In-app polls and questions: One affordance of Spotify is the ability to ask for feedback in-app. This means that listeners using the Spotify app on their mobile device can respond to simple polls or questions.
• Voicemail: Spotify also allows users to record short voice memos in response to episodes, which can then be incorporated into the episode in the future.
• Email: Within episodes and show notes pages, we invite listeners to comment on episodes or share feedback by email.
• Spotify analytics: Spotify tracks basic analytics across several distribution channels, as well as more advanced analytics for Spotify only. This helps us understand how our audience is engaging with each episode, and with our podcast as a whole. In addition to basic metrics like numbers of subscribers and listeners, we can see where we lose listeners during each episode (e.g., during an advertisement), what devices listeners are using, and more.
• Tracking anecdotal feedback: Each member of our team has heard anecdotal positive feedback when attending campus events or connecting with peers on committees and working groups. While this feedback doesn’t always feel measurable at the moment, it is important to note and share it with the team as valuing the esteem of our campus colleagues is an essential part of our culture.
• Website analytics: We use Google Analytics to track traffic to our website, including our podcast webpages. While listening behavior is tracked through Spotify, these web analytics allow us to see how users are taking action through promotional emails, and finding our podcast by Google searching or through browsing our site.
• Team debriefs: Our team regularly discusses podcast developments through our weekly team meetings, weekly podcast group meetings, and monthly design- and content-focused meetings.

Opportunities for Improvement

Throughout our process so far, we have identified several opportunities to improve our work.

• Guest photos: How might we better feature visuals that communicate the expertise of our guests? Could including images from our studios strengthen our audiences’ connection with our podcast?
• Social Media: How can we better promote our podcast using social media? Which platforms make sense for our audiences? How can we better involve our guests through social media?
• Collecting audience input: How might we draw more input from our audience?
• Aftershow: How can we add more voices to our aftershow segment?
• Additional formats: How might spin-off products help us better reach our audience and goals?

We invite your questions and feedback by email to idc@ls.wisc.edu. Thank you!