Today’s minisode is all about whether or not you should have show notes (or transcripts) for your podcast. Show notes improve the user experience and make your podcast more searchable. We’re explaining why we have show notes for our own podcasts and how we structure them.
Emily Thompson 0:00
Hello, and welcome to being boss. This minisode is all about whether or not we think you should have show notes for your podcast.
Emily Thompson 0:14
So Kathleen, at what we do these or we get the giggles We got this. Okay, show notes. We have them. What do you think?
Kathleen Shannon 0:29
100%? Yes, yes, yes, I truly believe in show notes. I think that they are a great way of getting your podcast out to a wider audience. I have no words for this. You have arms, basically just making all the hand movements and nobody can see us. But basically, the question is whether or not you should have shownotes for your podcast. And I think that if you're going to go through the trouble of having a podcast, show notes really helps the user experience. So what it does is it helps your audience know what they can expect from your episode, by like a quick glance, show notes also helps make your podcast searchable and referenceable. So we've had over 70 podcasts now. And if we didn't have show notes, we would have forgotten what we've talked about by now, which maybe isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I love it whenever someone asks a question, maybe in our Facebook group, or in our being boss clubhouse, about a specific topic. And I can literally reference a show note. And I can even look at the timestamp and tell them where in the episode to find what we think on a certain question.
Emily Thompson 1:40
Agreed. I love the little feature, I think I probably use the show notes more for that than anyone else. And I agree with that. I think the advantages of shownotes greatly outweigh any disadvantages that come from like the time you could spend creating them or whatever. I think that being able to have that extra bit of usability for your listeners, but also paired that with like the search engine optimization goal that comes from having the shownotes and all the linking that happens and all the topics and keywords. It's just it's super advantageous. However, I want to say that the idea of writing show notes is keeping you from green and podcast. There are some really great shows out there, I'm sure I'm not going to give you any specific references that do a really great job presenting podcasts without actually having shownotes. So don't let it stand in the way of keeping you from launching a podcast by not having show notes. But if you're going to do it, do it and create some show notes.
Kathleen Shannon 2:40
Well, and I want to mention that whenever we started being boss, our intention was to have a multimedia Empire. Those were our exact words multi media conglomerate. Oh, yeah. And so maybe that's not everyone's goals. But for us, it is really helpful to have show notes for our full length episodes and our Friday minisodes. And essentially, that gives us not only two podcasts a week, but two blog posts a week,
Emily Thompson 3:07
yes, then blog posts that you don't have to write is a good blog post. And for us, we certainly outsource that bit of the process. And I think we did from the very beginning, did we ever do our own show notes?
Kathleen Shannon 3:21
I did our show notes in the very beginning.
Emily Thompson 3:23
Oh, that's right. Kathleen did do our show notes in the very beginning. But then that was that was maybe one of the first things that we ended up handing off to someone else, which gave us lots of time to do extra things. But I do think that you obviously know what your purpose is, if you just want to share some content with a very finite group of people and you don't care if they want to be able to reference back easily or not, then just send out your podcast. But if you're wanting some other advantages to come from you producing this podcast, then do yourself a favor and create some show notes. The more detailed in some ways, the better, but don't get too crazy with it. We've also had on the flip side of this, we've had people request transcripts of our podcasts. And that is somewhere that we kind of draw the line where we create this podcast for listeners ears and being able to present this content that much more easily. So there is a line that we have drawn. And not everyone draws it. But you can draw it for yourself. But I think it should be on the side where you do do some show notes for your podcast.
Kathleen Shannon 4:29
And some of the things that we include our show notes, it's really super simple. So we start off by sharing the title of the podcast, and who we're interviewing and why we're interviewing them or what topics we're talking about. Then we share some announcements. So we might also plug our sponsors in the show notes, which is kind of a value add for them. Then we will outline the different topics that we talked about in the episode like kind of bulleting those out and then something that I really enjoy doing in our show notes is pulling out tweetable goals and so Taking some of the things that we said that we can then share and that our listeners can share on Twitter, and we even create graphics out of these and share them on Instagram. So we get a lot of leverage across multiple platforms with our show notes. And that's definitely an advantage to it. The transcripts The only time I mean, okay, so there's kind of an another way of going about this. And I know that our boss boyfriends, Paul Jarvis and Jason zouk, do this. But on their solo podcast is basically they're reading their blog posts that they've written. And I know that Danielle Laporte does this also. And I think that that's actually kind of a great idea. And again, it's not necessarily show notes, but it's kind of having a transcript out there. Anyway, I just think it's like two ways of coming at a piece of content for people who want to consume the content in a different way. But us knowing that our purpose is we want people to listen to the podcast with their ears. It's not really about reading it. But um, I can see the advantages to having a transcript. But like you said, I think that as to knowing our purposes, that we want people to listen to the podcast, is why we draw the line there. At the same time I we do think about that user experience. And we are trying to be as considerate as possible of people's times, because we are asking for a full hour a week. So we want them to know what they're getting into. Agreed. There have also been times sorry, I just want to iterate like as a podcast fan and listener, like I love listening to podcasts. I love consuming them. Sometimes I'll look at a title of a podcast. And I'm like, I don't know. But then I'll expand the description. And in the description, and in the show notes, I see topics that are actually really interesting. So I'll go ahead and listen to it. So show notes have totally won me over as a listener before.
Emily Thompson 6:50
Agreed. So finally answer.
Kathleen Shannon 6:53
Yes. Final answer is yes. But our boss boyfriends, Paul and Jason, even for their podcast, invisible office hours, they do not do show notes. They have a differing opinion, which we will be sharing in our chorus podcasts like a boss. Alright, you guys. So guess what, me, Emily, Paul and Jason have decided to join forces on June 22, to offer a masterclass on podcasting for your business. So we've decided to join forces to bring you the best, most actionable and no bullshit podcasting masterclass for business owners. The four of us together have had four successful podcasts, we've generated over $350,000 in revenue, and we've had over 1.5 million episode downloads. So we maybe know a thing or two about podcasting, and we want to teach you how to do it too. We have invested the time and money to figure out what works and what doesn't. And we want to bring you the best three hours you'll ever spend learning about podcasting. And since it's the four of us, we hope it's a little bit fun to our goal is to make sure that you come out of this masterclass with a plan to go from podcast idea to publish show that will help your business. We're going to be talking about branding and positioning your podcast, we're going to be talking about creating content, tech, audio systems, automation, launching and marketing your podcast, growing and building fans and then finally monetizing and maybe even having sponsors. This masterclass is not about teaching you a few well worn tips for podcasting. It's about helping guide you through launching a podcast that helps and drives your business forward. We've built some really amazing communities and we've made some good money from our podcasts. But most importantly, we've figured out how to create podcasts that are unique to our own personalities, styles and brands. Alright, if you're interested in joining us for this online masterclass on June 22, just go to podcastlikeaboss.com, learn more and sign up there. Again, it's podcastlikeaboss.com. We hope to see you there.
Emily Thompson 9:07
Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at being boss dot club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss
