How to optimize your Spotify show page to grow your show

‍Dissecting your Spotify show page

Your Spotify show page will be one of the most popular destinations for new and returning listeners to visit to find your latest episodes. Knowing the ins and outs of the page, will help maximize your opportunities to grow your show on Spotify.

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We’ll be walking through each of these in more detail but the most important things to call out are: 

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• Best place to start and Host recommendations: Your chance to personalize your show page and drive new listeners to your best content
• Follow button: Followers will see your new episodes on their Home tab and in the What’s New feed  
• Podcast Ratings: Listeners can rate your show and your overall average rating is displayed on your show page for everyone to see
• Bell icon: Tapping the bell icon enables new episode notifications so listeners will be notified when new episodes drop
• Show settings: Tapping the gear icon will take users to the settings for your show, where they can enable auto-downloads of new episodes. 

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Personalize your presence on Spotify with our show page customization features

Before we dive into the features that will look and feel the same for every podcast show on Spotify, let’s touch on the ways you can uniquely customize your show page to fit your show’s brand. Using Spotify for Podcasters, you’ll be able to designate an episode as the “Best place to start” which is featured more prominently on your show page to help convert more new listeners into fans. This is especially helpful for creators that have a large back catalog of episodes and makes it easier for new listeners to jump directly into your best content. 

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We’re also letting you curate your favorite content recommendations across Spotify with a feature called “Host Recommendations”. You’ll be able to choose up to two different pieces of Spotify content (another podcast show, a music album, a playlist, or audiobook) that will be pinned to the top of the More like this tab on your show page. While there are plenty of creative ways to use this space, here are some ideas of how you might use “Host recommendations”:

• Cross-promote with another show to reach a new audience 
• Promote another show within your podcast network
• Show off your personality by building a custom playlist of your favorite songs and/or podcast episodes 
• Amplify another podcast, album or audiobook where you or a guest are featured 

To set your “Best place to start” and “Host recommendations” just log-in to Spotify for Podcasters and find the Settings tab. Locate the “Only on Spotify” heading to find where these options are. Then, simply choose an episode from your library as the “Best place to start” and search for any content across Spotify (or paste in the Spotify specific URL) to set your “Host recommendations”.

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‍Get listeners to rate and follow your show 

Gaining new followers are the key to growing on any platform and Spotify is no different.  Getting listeners to follow your show is the best way to ensure they stay in the loop when your new episodes drop. Followers will see new episodes in the Home feed and the What’s new page. 

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Podcast ratings make it easy for you to get a quick pulse check and see how much your show is clicking with listeners, and use the numerical snapshot to potentially make changes. But, your podcast rating is also another way to potentially attract new listeners. The higher the rating, the more likely they are to give your show a chance. In other words, it’s helpful for everyone: you, your existing listeners, and your prospective listeners.

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Give your listeners encouragement to follow and leave a rating—not just via your social media channels but directly in your show’s audio: intro, outro, or anywhere in between! Here are just a few ideas that can be tailored to incorporate your show’s voice and tone:

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• “Thank you so much for listening to [show name]. Make sure to rate and follow us everywhere you listen to podcasts, including Spotify.”
• “Thank you for listening to our show. If you like what you’re hearing, make sure to rate and follow our show on Spotify.”
• “Do you like this show? Let us know by giving us a follow and leaving us a rating on our Spotify show page.”

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Ask listeners to turn on episode notifications and auto-download so they never miss out

If a listener enjoys a podcast, chances are they’ll want to be the first to know when a new episode from that podcast is released. New episode notifications now make it one-tap-easy for listeners: they just have to click the bell icon! Long-term, this can help creators build loyalty, improve engagement, and increase the number of listens for new episodes–while for listeners, episode notifications are seen as a staple of the audio-consumption experience. 

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For your biggest fans, auto-download goes one step further by automatically downloading your new episodes for easy offline listening. Offline listening means your listeners can tune into your show even if they don’t have service or wifi (like when you’re on a plane!). Turning it on is simple: just tap the gear icon and enable the auto download setting. Auto-downloaded episodes will then appear in Your Episodes.

Your Episodes: an easy way for listeners to bookmark your show

Podcast episodes should be as listener-friendly as songs from an album: Easy to save for later, in case there’s no “in the moment” time–a frequent occurrence! Listeners can tap ‘+’ on any episode so they can bookmark it for future listening, in Spotify. After bookmarking the episode, listeners will see a ‘Your Episodes’ playlist pinned to the top of their Podcast Episodes tab–making it feasible for the listener to actually try out a new episode and explore more. Next time you have a new episode, ask listeners to tap the ‘plus’ to add it to their episodes if they can’t listen right away.

Help listeners find the most relevant content for them with Podcast Chapters

Now that you know how to keep listeners in the loop when new episodes release, let’s talk about how to better engage them once they press play. Podcast Chapters are one way to help listeners understand and jump to parts of your episode that are most relevant to them. 

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To get your chapters setup, just follow our step by step guide. Once set up, chapters will be displayed in the now playing view and in the episode page for easy discovery. 

‍Navigating the Home experience

Finally, it’s important you understand how listeners might discover your show on Spotify in the first place. The Podcast & Shows feed on Home is where Spotify users can go to quickly find new episodes of shows they have saved and discover their next favorite podcast. 

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This visual and immersive feed makes it easier for podcast listeners to sample new content and quickly evaluate whether or not they want to listen now - or save it for later. Each podcast preview contains:

• A 30-60 second audio or video preview of the episode featured. Typically, this preview is automatically generated by our machine learning algorithms which try to preview parts of your episode that are most engaging to listeners. 
• However, sometimes you just know which part of your episode is most engaging. So you can also use Spotify for Podcasters to customize and manually select your own preview. Simply choose up to a 1 minute timestamp within your episode to create your own preview that will display on the Podcast & Shows subfeed. 
• Captions will be generated from transcripts where possible
• Video podcasts will generate video previews while audio podcasts will generate audio previews where your cover art will feature as the visual component
• Users will be able to press play to immediately start listening to the full episode, or click the plus icon to save content which will be in their Your Episodes playlist for future playback. 

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Now that you understand the new Home feed, let’s dive into how you can optimize your Spotify show page.

Spotify has the tools you need to help grow your show

Spotify offers podcasting tools that make it easier for you to reach listeners, and for listeners to find you. Take advantage of them to amplify your podcast–and don’t forget these additional Spotify podcasting features that can help your show thrive.

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• Add Q&A and Polls to your episodes to interact with your fans and build community on Spotify
• Launch your video podcast on Spotify to give your audience a new way to engage with your show
• Understand how your content is performing with insights and analytics, powered by Spotify
• Learn how search works on Spotify so that you can craft more compelling episode descriptions

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There are so many different opportunities to use the tools at your fingertips on Spotify to grow your podcast audience—try different levers and monitor which lever advances your show the most.