Why show notes are an important foundation to every podcast episode with Justin Brown

Episode Summary

Podcasts have become a key medium to engage audiences and build trust with your brand. And the best thing about them? They’re convenient, and your audience can listen to them on the go.

But podcasts are more than an audio medium, so if you want to stand out, you have to make the most of your podcast show notes.

In this episode of the Recorded Content podcast, our host Justin Brown talks about the importance of creating enticing and consistent show notes. He also shares ten things you should include in your show notes to grab your audience’s attention.

Guest Profile

Name: Justin Brown

What he does: He’s the co-founder of Motion

Company: Motion

Noteworthy: Justin is the co-host of the Recorded Content podcast

Key Insights

  • Podcast show notes are a great way to entice and engage your listeners. Show notes add tremendous value to your podcast. They’re a great way to repurpose content and get the most out of each episode. Justin explains, “When you create show notes for each episode, it serves as the foundation for a lot of repurposed content. If you take the time to document a quality summary of an episode, you provide the information needed for assets like your podcast episode trailer, video clips, audiograms, social images and posts, featured articles, or blog posts.”
  • There’s more to podcast show notes than a summary. Despite what some people think, podcast show notes are not the same as a podcast summary. Justin explains, “Podcast show notes are more than a quick summary. A brief summary of each episode is just scratching the surface. Your episode show notes can provide a lot more value for your company’s podcast.”
  • What to include in your podcast show notes. Justin shares the ten most important sections to include in the show notes of each episode to generate interest and make people want to tune in. He says, “Here are the ten things that we encourage our customers to include on their podcast show notes page: the episode title, an episode summary, guest information, key themes, episode highlights, the full-length episode, promotional videos, links to subscribe, resources, and additional podcast episodes.”

Episode Highlights

1. Be straightforward with your show notes titles

The best podcast episode titles generate curiosity and make people want to listen, so don’t get too cute with them. You won’t believe what happens next or leaving some sort of cliffhanger. Be straightforward and use keywords that are going to help people find your show in search engines, podcast listening apps, or sites like Listen Notes or Podchaser.

2. Your episode summary should spark interest in your audience

The podcast episode summary gives readers a taste of what they’ll get with the full episode and it gives your audience a clear reason to hit the play button. When writing a podcast episode summary, it helps to come up with a framework you can reuse each time.

3. Make sure you introduce your guests

If you have guests on your company’s podcast, it’s important to include their information in the show notes. This includes their name, title, company, and a brief bio. You can also include links to their website or social media profiles. If you’re talking to multiple guests, make sure to list them all in the show notes. This will help listeners know who they’ll hear from on the show.

4. Highlight major themes of the episode

After you’ve given an overview of the episode, it’s time to get into the meat of the show. In this section, you’ll want to highlight the major themes covered during the conversation. Try to limit this section to three major themes or paragraphs.

5. Document specific parts of the conversation with episode highlights

In this section, you’ll want to list out specific moments from the episode. The bullet points can include memorable quotes, resources mentioned, or other main talking points. For the most part, episode highlights are listed in chronological order. This allows your listeners to see how the conversation unfolds and gives them a chance to skip ahead to a memorable quote.

6. Provide access to the full-length episode in multiple formats

When you create a dedicated page for each episode on your website, provide access to the full content. This can be in the form of an embedded YouTube video or an embedded MP3, often provided by your podcast hosting platform. This allows your website visitors to consume the entire episode using their preferred format.

7. Give a dynamic preview with a promo video

If you have a podcast promo video, you should also include that in the show notes. This is a great way to give listeners a preview of what they can expect from the podcast. When we create custom show notes pages, we tend to embed a promo video within the page’s main content area.

8. Make it easy to subscribe

One of the primary goals of your company’s show is to build loyal listeners. So it’s important to provide easy access to your show and list the major places someone can listen to the episode.

9. Include the resources mentioned in the episode

When you have a conversation, the host and guests typically cover various resources throughout the episode. In some cases, the guest provides valuable websites for the audience. And in other cases, the guest even provides a specific call-to-action for the listeners. To make additional resources easily accessible to your audience, provide a list of books, websites, articles, or anything else that would be helpful.

10. Provide access to additional episodes

If you have additional episodes, make sure to include them in the show notes. This will help listeners find more episodes that they might be interested in.

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