How to Submit your Podcast to the iTunes Store

by Nicole Munoz

Before you submit your podcast to the iTunes Directory, you need to know what their review staff is looking for. Part of successful podcast submission consists of striving to meet these criteria as closely as possible. Your aim is to be featured in “New & Noteworthy” for your category or even in “New & Noteworthy” on the iTunes general home page.

To do this, however, your podcast needs to not only prove it is “breaking new ground” with “new or unusual content”, it has to first:

Stand out
Capture the reviewer’s interest

So before we get into the mechanics of uploading, let’s quickly make sure we meet these criteria. (Create a checklist, if this is the first time you are uploading, and use it every time you upload later podcasts.)

What this will do, in addition to getting you noticed by review staff and boosting your chances of landing a “New & Noteworthy” spot, is make your podcast much more searchable and easily found by your ideal listener.

Step 1. Make Sure You’re Ready

Remember that you can’t host your podcast on iTunes. You have to:

Register a domain for your podcast blog, where you will host your podcasts (e.g. “TheWilyTracker.com”)
Choose web hosting that is up to hosting podcasts, with adequate bandwidth (at least 1gb.) and byte-range support.

While hosting your domain on your own site is generally considered best, you might also consider a webhost that specializes in podcasts, like Libsyn. It is a syndicated podcasting network, rather than a true webhost – but you can purchase and use your own domain name. And their array of tools, apps and services simplifies the whole podcasting process.

Install and set up your blog. This is where you’ll host your show notes and talk about your podcasts.
Create an RSS feed. You can’t do it from iTunes, but there are many feed generators and reliable services you can use to create your RSS feed, such as the generator provided by Feedity, which has gathered consistently positive reviews.

Feedity offers a bookmarklet and a widget to display your feeds on your website, RSS button and its pricing plans start at $6.00 per month for twenty feeds.

Test your feed – you can do this at Feedvalidator.org, but we’ll test it again when we actually upload to iTunes.

Step 2. Optimize and Check Your Content

Make sure you have maximized each element, targeting each to your audience as closely as possible.

1. Your Podcast Title

Make it short, catchy and something you would want to download. Include keywords.

2. Your Name and job title

If you are branding yourself, this is essential. You want your name to be searchable and you can add other tags describing what you do (e.g. Social Media Coach, blogger, entrepreneur).

3. Your Description

This is where you tell your listeners:

What your podcast is all about
What it can do for them if they download and listen right now

You have up to 4,000 characters to do it in – but try to keep it as short as possible. Remember, people will be “scanning” – glancing over your description for, literally, key words and phrases that might catch their attention.

Too much prose detracts from your message, so cut out all unnecessary adverbs, adjectives and sentences. Focus only on what your listeners will want to hear. Don’t clutter your description – but do your best to make it lively, personal, active and catchy.

Remember also that your casual searcher will only see the first five lines of your description. Even though they have the option of pressing the “More” anchor text, that’s an extra step you’re making them take. Do you r best to say what you need your ideal listener to read in those first few lines.

If you have a special guest, include your guest’s name and keywords.

Finally…

Ask for a review
Ask people to download your podcast and subscribe to your feed
Remind them they can head over to your blog (include your blog URL) and leave feedback after your podcast

(Note that you need a separate description for every episode.)

4. Your Podcast Subtitle

Sometimes you may be asked to input this when you upload to iTunes. It should be the same as the short description you put in your ID3 “Comment” field.

Think of it more as a descriptive tagline, and you’ll be able to write one or two lines that more than adequately fulfills this purpose.

5. Your Cover Photo

You will need two versions of this in separate files:

1,400 X 1,400 pixels
300 X 300 pixels

(The 300 X 300 pixel version is for your XML file.)

Before finalizing your podcast cover design, test-resize it to 150 X 150 pixels, then decide: What detail do you lose? What looks murky or indistinct? Can you still make out what each graphic element actually is? (Take out any detail that gets “lost” in small sizes. And do remember it will display in the iTunes store at 73 X 73 pixels.)

In your cover, be sure to include:

Your Podcast name
Your Logo or repetitive branding graphic
Your Name

6. Optimized Metatags

When you save your project and export as an .MP3 in your podcasting software, you’ll be given the opportunity to edit your ID3 tags and save them as a separate XML file.

There may be a few differences between programs, but you can pretty much guess where to put things. ID3 fields are always presented as if you are recording music, so under “Album” put your podcast title, for example. “Artist Name” would be your name. “Track Number” would be your episode number, and so forth.

You can customize your input any way you choose: For example, under “Artist Name”, you might put “Billy Bob Bushwhacker, TheWilyTracker.com. Blogger. Photographer.”

But don’t try to fit in everything but the kitchen sink: Remember that the sole purpose of these tags is for…

Searchability

If you create a Featured podcast, you must update it regularly with new episodes (preferably within the last month).

7. Your Show Notes

Be sure to upload your Show Notes to your blog! (Include a graphic to posts, to boost their readability and appeal.)

Step 3. Time to Upload!

Got all that done? Good. Now for the actual uploading process…

1. Open your downloaded latest version of iTunes. Go to the iTunes store, if iTunes opens up in any other location.

2. Test your feed in the iTunes Directory (store):

When you first open iTunes, select “Subscribe to Podcast” from the File menu
Enter your own RSS feed URL in the textarea box
Click “OK”

3. Submit your podcast.

From the iTunes Store, click the “Podcast” tab in the top, horizontal menu

Go to the Podcast Quick Links vertical, right-hand menu. Select “Submit a Podcast” from the links contained in this section

Follow the instruction wizard
You’ll know you have succeeded when you see the Summary page. If there are any missing tags, iTunes will prompt you for them.

There is no charge for submitting a podcast.

And that’s it.

…Well, maybe… not quite. Apple’s iTunes podcast submission process is notorious for suffering unpredictable glitches, and not all of them are due to your computer and its operating systems and firewalls. Apple itself sometimes pops up error messages like this one:

Step 4. Troubleshooting

If this happens, don’t tear your hair out. Instead, refer to the relevant section in the Making a Podcast manual, which goes into detail about specific podcast creation and upload processes.

Remember also that you will find a host of fixes and workarounds from real people like you who have already gone through the process of trying to solve problems at the Apple Support forum (currently the only way to get help from Apple – unless you are having a problem with an actual product purchase).

If you’ve taken care to prepare your podcast properly, your chances of a smooth upload increase significantly – and you should be promoting your new podcast series in no time.

The Complete YouTube Guide for Business Owners

by Nicole Munoz

Everybody loves YouTube. And do you know why? Because everyone will find useful information on Youtube, no matter what their interests are. And did you know that you are hurting your business because you don’t have a Youtube channel? This guide will give enough information on how to create a Youtube account, a channel, upload a video and use Youtube’s video editor.

Setting Up Your Account

Before you can upload any YouTube videos, you’ll first need to setup your own account. Having your personal account will allow you to save favorite videos, compile playlists, like or dislike videos and of course upload your own videos.

Here’s how to setup your account.

Step 1: Click “Create Account” & Fill Out the Signup Form

Create a Google account: https://accounts.google.com/ . If you already have a Gmail account, you’ll be prompted to link that with your YouTube account.

Fill out the YouTube signup form if you don’t have a Gmail account.

It’s that simple! You’ve now created your YouTube account. Before you start posting videos, it might be a good idea to add an avatar and fill out your profile.

Step 2: Click Account Preferences

Right after your account is created, click “account preferences.”

Step 3: Click Profile Setup

In your account settings, you can setup all kinds of things like privacy settings or notifications that don’t actually influence how users see your video.

The one area that really matters for video publishing is your profile.

Click “Profile Setup” to access the setup screen. This is where you can enter a description for yourself, your website URL, your real name if you so choose, etc. You can also upload a profile photo or avatar here.

To upload a picture, just hit “Change Picture.” Once you’re finished with all your changes, click “Save Changes.”
You’ve now setup a new YouTube account or linked an existing Google account to your YouTube account. You’ve also setup your profile so others can learn a bit about you in your profile.

Setting Up Your YouTube Channel and Customizing It

Your YouTube channel is a bit like a TV channel. You have all your uploaded videos in one place, and people can “surf” your channel and look through all the videos you’ve uploaded in the order of your choice. You can also throw in other people’s videos in the mix.

You can customize quite a bit about how your channel looks and operates. Here’s how to setup your channel and customize it.

Step 1: Accessing Your Channel

To access your channel, click the little dropdown arrow next to your name in the upper right corner of your screen.

A menu will appear. Click on “My Channel.” The controls for your channel will be laid out along the top. A preview of what your channel looks like will be directly below it.

Step 2: Edit About information

Add a link to your website on the “Links” section and your business description on “Channel description”.

Step 3: Personalize the Account

Add a channel cover customized for your business. You can have a custom made YouTube cover to include your logo or any graphic element that is related to your business.

Step 4: Channel Settings

Your channel settings are where you can set your channel’s tags, your channel’s title, whether or not it’s searchable, the type of channel you run (YouTuber, musician, etc) and a few more settings.

Click on “Settings” to access this menu.

This section allows to verify the account, enable monetization settings

Verified accounts (there are two verification methods Voice call or SMS) are allowed to upload videos longer than 15 minutes or do live streaming events.

How to Upload and Customize a Video

You’ve put a lot of time into shooting great video and editing it into a masterpiece. Now how do you actually get it online, on YouTube? How do you make sure your video’s settings, such as whether or not people can comment on your video, are set correctly?

Here’s how to upload your video and customize its settings.

Step 1: Click Upload

Once signed into your YouTube account, click “Upload.”

Step 2: Select the File

Select files to upload or just drag and drop them. A file selection box will pop up. Choose your video file. Once you’ve selected your file, you’ll see the upload progress box displayed.

Step 3: Enter Your Title and Description

YouTube allows you to edit your title, descriptions, tags, categories and privacy settings all while your video is being uploaded. Customize these settings right below the upload box.

Your title is crucial because it’s what a large part of what people use to decide if they’ll watch your video. Your description is the text that shows right below your video.

Tags and categories will help people discover your video.

The privacy settings and licenses will help you decide exactly where your video does and doesn’t end up online.

Once the upload is finished, you’ll see the processing screen. Wait for your video to get processed, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.

Step 4: Accessing the Edit Screen

To edit your video’s settings, click on “Videos” and choose the video you want to edit.

Step 5: Edit Basic Video Information

If you want to change your video’s basic information, you can change it here.

Step 6: Choose Thumbnail

Your thumbnail is a critical part of the YouTube video experience, because the thumbnail is what people first see when they’re deciding if they’re going to click on your video.

Unfortunately, YouTube by default only gives you 3 frames to choose from. If you don’t see a thumbnail you like from one of the three choices, you’ll need to shift your video slightly in a video editor and re-upload it to get new choices. (This example includes a video shot in the same angle so all of the images look similar).

Step 7: Choose Commenting Options

Choose whether you want to moderate comments, allow them automatically or not allow any comments at all. Also choose whether or not you want users to be able to vote on comments.

Step 8: Save Changes

There are a few other options you should check out, such as whether or not you want people to be able to embed your video on their own websites. By and large however, after setting up the settings above your video will be ready to go.

Click on “Save Changes” once you’re ready to publish your video.
Congratulations! You’ve now uploaded a video, added a title and description, tagged and categorized your video, setup your thumbnail picture and set your commenting options.

How to Use YouTube’s Video Editor

If you don’t want to learn or pay for an expensive video editing program, you can do quite a bit of editing with YouTube’s built in editor. While it doesn’t have fancy effects or advanced video editing features, you can easily paste together different clips of video, add in sound tracks and create an elegant video file all without having to learn any video editing skills.

Here’s how to use YouTube’s video editor.

Step 1: Accessing the Video Editor

Click “Videos” in the drop down box in the upper right corner. Then click “Enhancements” along the top navigation bar.

Step 2: Adding Effects<>

You can improve the image quality by choosing one of the effects.

Step 3: Adding Music

To add music, first click the music symbol along the top. Hover your mouse over any track and click the “Play” button to preview the track. When you find a track you want to add to your video, just click the “+” symbol next to the track.

You can also sort the music by genre or artist. You can even search by specific artist name or by typing in a name of a song to see if YouTube has it available.
Once you’ve added a track to your video, it’ll be displayed under the video timeline.

Step 4: Add Annotations

Use Annotations to promote your business, add a phone number or links to relevant information presented in the video.

Step 5: Add Captions

You can use this feature to upload the video’s transcript or a subtitle if you want to reach to international customers.

Congratulations! You’ve just learned how to add your own clips to the YouTube editor, add creative common audio for your video, add annotations or captions. It is time to use this guide and start promoting your business!