How to Upload Your Podcast to Spotify in 5 Steps
Growing your podcast audience and building a community means listing your podcast to major and popular podcast directories. Though it can seem redundant, this is an important part of boosting your presence and making your content accessible to current and potential listeners. And if you wish to boost your work significantly, you need to upload your podcast to Spotify.
Why upload your podcast to Spotify?
Spotify is slowly becoming one of the leading platforms for podcasts, apart from also being a huge platform for streaming music. In 2019, Edison Research reported 43% of monthly podcast listeners in the U.S. consumed episodes on Spotify. That number is no small feat.
Source: edisonresearch.com
As of April 2020, Spotify’s podcast catalog has more than one million shows.
Try to consider its accessibility to the general public plus the ease of use, it is no surprise that Spotify is a great platform for podcasters. Listing your podcast on this platform will lead you to new audiences, reach your current audience in an all-new platform, and encourage listeners to engage with you and your work.
Five things you need to get started
Before you go any further and upload your podcast on Spotify, you need to be fully equipped and prepared first. You need to make sure you have these five things ready to go:
- Podcast artwork - Make sure you have an eye-catching cover art for your podcast. This is the first thing your audience will see and will represent your podcast in every episode you will publish. Your podcast artwork should be a high-resolution square cover art, preferably in PNG or JPEG formats.
- Podcast details or media kit - You also have to prepare your podcast descriptions or media kit. What is your podcast about? What is your main theme, vision, or mission? Who are the hosts? Introduce and describe your podcast as best as you can. Avoid special characters in your podcast title and description. It would also be great if you include your website and social accounts to invite your audience to connect and engage.
- RSS feed - Your RSS feed is the key. Without it, you won’t be able to proceed with uploading your podcast to Spotify. It should have your podcast title, description, and cover art.
- Podcast episode and format - At least one live episode is also required from your RSS feed. Your audio must be in the ISO/IEC 11172-3 MPEG-1 Part 3 (MP3) format. Additionally, episode length can’t exceed 200 MB, which is about 83 minutes at 320 Kbps or over 200 minutes at 128 Kbps.
- Podcast transcriptions - Unfortunately, Spotify doesn’t allow you to post corresponding podcast transcriptions for every episode. This is a shame as transcriptions can help your content be more accessible. To compensate for this, you can still include transcriptions of your episodes on your website by utilizing a podcast transcription service.
Uploading your podcast
Once you have everything, you’re ready to upload your podcast. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to upload your podcast to Spotify.
1. Sign up for an account as a podcaster.
The first thing you need to accomplish is to sign up for an account as a podcaster on Spotify. Visit Spotify For Podcasters and create your account. Agree to the terms and conditions if prompted and continue to the next step.
2. Enter your RSS feed link
Next, you need to enter your RSS feed link. A message will pop up if the link has an error, so make sure your link is fine and working. You can easily find your RSS feed link from your podcast hosting service.
Image source: castos.com
You can also get your RSS feed from your own website if you use a podcasting plugin such as Squarespace or the PowerPress for WordPress. You want to make sure you submit a feed containing only podcast episodes and not a combination of blog posts and podcast episodes.
3. Verify your podcast
After you submit your RSS feed link, you need to verify that you own the podcast. Using the email address associated with the RSS feed, Spotify will send a unique eight-digit code. Enter the code on Spotify once you have retrieved it from your inbox.
Image source: castos.com
You have an hour to verify your podcast with the code. However, if you miss the window or didn’t receive any verification code, you can always send yourself a new one.
4. Enter your podcast details
Once ownership has been verified, you can now go ahead and enter the details of your podcast. Since, the podcast title, description, and cover art are pulled from your RSS feed link, you will only need to enter additional information about your podcast. This includes the podcast’s country, primary language, hosting provider, primary category, as well as sub-categories that apply to your podcast.
Image source: castos.com
Make sure you choose the appropriate categories for your podcast so you will be able to show in relevant places in the Podcast section in Spotify.
5. Review and submit your podcast
The last step is to review all the information and submit it. Check all the details once more and hit the “Submit” button once you deem everything is good to go.
Image source: castos.com
Submitting means Spotify has received your podcast. It will take a few hours for their team to review your podcast and set it live, but once done, it will show up on the platform afterward.
Once your podcast is live, new episodes will automatically show up there every time you post on your podcast hosting service or on your website. Spotify Podcast listeners will now be able to find your podcast and enjoy your content without any hitch.
