Where to distribute your podcast

It can be a bit overwhelming trying to work out where you should be distributing your podcast to.

Apple podcasts is the most important for a large number of reasons. Despite Spotify making gains in the podcast space over the last 5 years, Apple are still the dominant player when it comes to audience figures accounting for well over half of all total podcast listens.

It’s worth noting too that many podcast apps use the Apple Podcasts directory to fill out their own listings.

Podcast Addict for example even has a “Use iTunes Search Engine” checkbox in their search functionality – an app which has over 10m downloads on Android alone.

What happens if you don’t meet the guidelines?

It’s not always clear exactly what’s wrong with your podcast submission to Apple podcasts, particularly when there are so many moving parts.

If you don’t meet these guidelines, your podcast won’t be accepted into Apple’s podcast directory.

By submitting your show to Apple, you are ensuring that you reach the largest audience possible.

Here’s where to get started – http://podcastsconnect.apple.com/

But why stop there? There’s plenty of other places you can submit your show to.

Spotify is next up in this list, but is a harder platform to get onto. Most large platforms have direct partnerships with Spotify and can help get your show enlisted onto their platform.

After that, it’s a vast number of apps competing for the last slice of the listening pie. Here’s a brief shortlist of platforms that should be on your radar.

  • Castbox
  • Deezer
  • Google Podcasts
  • Pocket Casts
  • Podbean
  • Podcast addict
  • Stitcher

Tips on artwork resolution + image guidelines

I think the single most common reason for rejections from Apple Podcasts that I personally had to deal with was podcast artwork not meeting Apple’s required image guidelines.

Here’s a shortlist of the requirements you should stick to.

  • The file resolution should be from 1400x1400px -> 3000x3000px at a 1:1 ratio. Rectangles will not be accepted.
  • The DPI should be 72
  • The filesize for the artwork shouldn’t be more than 256KB
  • Avoid transparency – you don’t know what background your logo will end up on
  • I’ve found the preferable file format to use is JPEG because of its smaller file size. PNG is accepted, but you may struggle to get that into the required file limits, particularly at a 3000x3000px resolution.

Here’s some further reading from Apple on the matter – https://help.apple.com/itc/podcasts_connect/#/itcad20d3488