G-6GMNFV6SPZ Ep 95: Does Individual Episode Artwork Affect Your Podcast Downloads? - The Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting: Podcasting Tips for How to Start and Run a Podcast

Episode 95

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Published on:

9th Jul 2024

Ep 95: Does Individual Episode Artwork Affect Your Podcast Downloads?

Back in episode 38, we talked about Apple Podcasts introducing episodic podcast covers - that is, each podcast episode can have its own bespoke artwork; a little bit like a YouTube thumbnail. Nearly a year later, I'm now reviewing the effectiveness of individual podcast episode artwork to see if its made any difference to my downloads or listenership at all.

๐ŸŒŸ Listen to Ep 34: Is Apple Podcasts Turning Into YouTube? โžก๏ธ https://lazygirlpod.captivate.fm/episode/ep-34-is-apple-podcasts-turning-into-youtube


Highlights:

  • Comparison of episode thumbnails on podcasts to video thumbnails on YouTube for attracting listeners.
  • My experience of creating unique podcast artwork for each episode, including going back to previous episodes.
  • The effectiveness of episode graphics in increasing podcast listenership.
  • My promotional strategy for The Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting podcast across various platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and blog posts.
  • Importance of considering the time and effort required for maintaining consistent episode graphics.


Timestamps:

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:01:03 Apple Podcasts Episode Thumbnails: A YouTube Strategy for Podcasting?
  • 00:02:09 Creating Podcast Artwork
  • 00:03:19 The Impact of Episode Graphics on Podcast Listenership
  • 00:05:03 Effectiveness of Episode Graphics in Podcast Promotion
  • 00:07:12 Importance of Individual Podcast Episode Graphics
  • 00:07:55 Exploring the Impact of Using Episodic Graphics for Podcast Episodes


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Transcript

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[00:00:13] Verity: I'm Verity. This is the lazy girl's guide to podcasting where we talk podcasting tips literally everything about podcasting it's wonderful welcome to the community. Back in episode 34 when I released an episode which was titled is Apple Podcasts Turning Into YouTube? Now this episode was published in August of 2023, so coming up for a year ago now, and it was off the back of Apple Podcasts making an announcement that they were going to be having episodic podcast artwork functionality for your podcast. So what this basically means is every time that you put out a podcast episode, you would be able to have a little thumbnail, 3,000 by 3,000 pixels, same as any other podcast artwork size, but you would be able to have a piece of podcast artwork that was specific to just that episode.

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[00:01:37] Verity: It's the visual images. It's the clickbaity titles. It's the colors that drag us in and make us want to listen to an episode or watch something, we will happily scroll past something that doesn't have a very interesting title or the thumbnail doesn't grab us very much. So I actually quite like this opportunity from Apple Podcasts because maybe if your title for an episode isn't catchy enough maybe you could draw somebody in with the episodic graphic instead. However it did also get me thinking where I was like isn't this just podcasting try trying to be YouTube a little bit?

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[00:02:30] Verity: So for the last 50, 60 episodes, I have been creating different podcast artworks for the majority of the episodes. I haven't done for every single one because sometimes I've had some weeks where I'm like, do you know what? The content's just gonna get out. If there isn't a different episodic thumbnail for that particular episode, then do you know what? It'll just default to lazy girl's guide to podcasting cover art anyway.

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[00:04:07] Verity: It was 4 months old, so I would expect to see that growth, basically. And then I saw a crazy amount of growth from January through to April of 24 when I switched my podcasting host to captivate fm. They've got loads of growth tools in there which really, really helped me get in front of a wider audience and more of my target audience, and that's a conversation for another episode. But my point is is that between August 23 and the time of recording this particular episode, which is now the first June that I'm recording this in 2024, but I don't think that the episode graphics have made any significant impact on my downloads. I think there's been a lot of other factors that have affected my downloads such as drill down the analytics, realized when I was publishing promotional content on Instagram, I was finding that actually that was having no correlation with getting more listeners into the podcast.

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[00:05:31] Verity: And one of the other things that I do is I publish blog posts on my website, on my blog, and I link through to the podcast episodes. That also helps, with my downloads and listenership, but I wouldn't say with all of these different things that I've tried and it's difficult because, you know, from, like, a experiment validity point of view, there is no validity to this whatsoever because I've tried so many different things concurrently with the podcast that I can't say yes this particular thing did or didn't help, but looking at when I tried and experimented with different things I can definitely say that the episode graphics or the individual episode graphics for the podcast have had no significance to the podcast growth or if they did it's maybe being like, you know, the tiniest percent. So I guess the question is is do I think that it is worthwhile, and am I gonna continue creating singular episode graphics for the podcast? And, actually, I think I probably will just because it's part of my podcasting workflow now and I think the couple of episodes that I've done or the few episodes that I've done that haven't had episodic graphics, it's kind of irritated me because it then doesn't fit this whole, like, theme that I've got going with episodic graphics.

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[00:08:51] Verity: I'm Verity. This is the lazy girl's guide to podcasting, and I will see you next episode.

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The Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting: Podcasting Tips for How to Start and Run a Podcast
Podcasting Tips for How to Start and Run a Podcast
This show is for you if you are searching for podcasting tips, how to podcast, and answers to podcasting questions such as:
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Welcome to "The Lazy Girlโ€™s Guide to Podcasting," your go-to podcast for bite-sized, actionable strategies tailored for anyone diving into the world of podcasting.
When I started podcasting in 2020, I found that there wasn't enough information available in a quick and easy way to understand and implement. I figured it out on my own, but it was a slow journey before I started ranking multiple times in the Apple Podcast charts, in multiple countries. This podcast is for you if you want actionable podcasting tips delivered succinctly and without the BS.
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