70. 10 Tips to Glow Up Your Podcast

If your podcast has been feeling stale, off, or just not quite you anymore this is your sign that it’s time for a glow-up. No rebrand required.

This week, I’m walking you through 10 quick and impactful ways to refresh your podcast and realign with your vision without needing to blow it all up and start from scratch. Whether your intro feels outdated, your show notes aren’t pulling in the right listeners, or your cover art needs a facelift, you’ll walk away from this episode with a checklist of upgrades that breathe new life into your show.

In this episode, we’re covering: 

• The real reason you don’t need to start a whole new show to grow
• Why short intros with intentional wording matter more than ever
• How to use SEO-rich show notes to attract the right listeners
• The call-to-action mistake I see podcasters make all the time (and how to fix 
• and more

Grab the Free Podcast Glow-Up Checklist
Want to knock out a refresh this weekend? This checklist breaks down all 10 steps so you can glow up your podcast today, without the burnout.

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going
DM me on Instagram or Threads: @SONIVIAStudios
Email me: rue@sonivia.com

Need some photos? Go check out the amazing Light Rae Exposures

Music Credit: Up An Octave Theme by Rue Spence with additional vocals provided by Darnell Spence

Up An Octave is hosted by Rue Spence of Sonivia. Up An Octave is a podcast for women and nonbinary people who are ready to take up space in podcasting to share their voices with the world.

Transcript

  You are listening to Podcasting Up in Octave, a podcast by sovia, the podcasting agency that believes that women and queer people deserve to take up space in the podcasting industry because our thoughts, voices, and stories matter. Here, you'll learn how to make a dope podcast that inspires, educates, converts, and most importantly, makes your voice shine.

I'm your host, Ru Spence, and I'm here to take podcasting up an octave. Let's get into it. 

Hello. Hello and welcome back to Podcasting Up an Octave. I am so excited that it is Q2.  I feel like this year was a little bit slow to wake up. I felt like the first couple months were just. Kind of 2024 part two.  I didn't feel quite ready to let it go yet. Uh, so I'm really excited for what Q2 is gonna hold.

I think my sweet little family is finally over the crud that ransacked us for a good minute, and I'm really excited to see kinda what this spring summer energy is gonna hold for us and how we can bring that energy into podcasting. So. Today I wanna help you shake off some of that Q1 leftover 2024 energy and talk about getting that podcast glow up without having to do a full scale overhaul or rebrand.

So let's get into it. I have been there where you feel like the only way for you to grow is to just burn everything down and start over. But honestly, most of the time this is not actually what your podcast needs. You just need to strengthen some parts and pull things into alignment. So if you've been with me for a while, you have seen some different iterations of this brand, uh, for the podcast for Sovia as a whole.

And spoiler alert, we are entering a new era. Yes, I'm using the word era because I figure that if Taylor Swift can rebrand herself with every album, gosh dang it, when the mood strikes, I get to do the same. And I wanna liberate you to make that choice with your podcast, to keep things feeling in alignment, because at the end of the day.

If you are not creating something that feels aligned and feels good to make a, you're not gonna feel called to show up for it. And B, your audience is gonna feel that too. Uh, actually, the weekend that this comes out, I will be at a branding photo shoot up in the mountains. I'm super, super jazzed. I'm working with light ray exposures who I will link in the show notes because she's honestly just fabulous.

Her work is beautiful and she's. So easy and so thoughtful to work with. Uh, so I'm super jazzed about that. But you're gonna be seeing some new things. Here on the podcast and generally in my brand as well. So stay tuned to see that all roll out. And I think part of the magic is that I get to give you a close up and personal view of what that looks like and take you along for the ride with me to kind of show you what this can look like.

And I do wanna keep this just kinda short and sweet. I do have a checklist for you in the show notes, uh, if that's helpful. If you're a visual learner like I am. I wanna kind of burn through this so that you can see what is gonna be the most impactful way to glow up your podcast without feeling like you're having to reinvent the wheel or say, screw it.

I'm just starting a new show entirely. So step one, this is something that I notice pretty much right away. If it's hitting or not, and that is your intro. Too many listeners are not getting properly acquainted with your show when they first hear it, because they're skipping long intros. They wanna get to the good stuff fast.

So keep your intro short and sweet. I think about 30 seconds with your music and with your intro script is perfect. Also remember what you've said in your intro. If it's been a while since you've listened to it, take a listen. Make sure it's still in alignment. And then remember not to reiterate that when you start your recording, so a lot of times I hear that you're listening to the this show.

Do, do, do, do. I'm your host. Here's what I do. Boom, the music ends. The actual episode starts, and then they first say, hi, I'm this person and I do this. And it's like, girl, we already heard that. I like to say welcome back to my show. That's how I do started is saying, welcome back to podcasting up in Octave.

But as a whole, I don't sit here and tell you exactly who I am, exactly what I do, because I'm assuming that you've already gotten that from the intro. The second tip is use show notes with keywords. And a lot of the time when people are feeling like they just wanna burn their show down. It is because it is not meeting the audience that they're hoping for.

And this could be either just a low listener count, it could also be the wrong listeners for your show. But a huge part of where this disconnect can happen is with SEO. So that's search engine optimization. And if your show notes are lacking keywords, you are  not capitalizing on this a free and ingrained.

Way to connect with new listeners and to connect with the right listeners. A lot of times we feel more encouraged to keep producing our show and to stay in this alignment and to stay in this flow when it feels like it is having a reward and a huge way to make sure that you're getting that sense of validation.

'cause let's be real, that's what a lot of it is, but also that you are connecting with super fans as well as you know, potential buyers, et cetera. Is to make sure that your show notes are finding them with the right keywords. Number three is always ending with a clear call to action. This is something that I get onto my clients about all the time.

It is like step number one when working with me. Because if you're just saying thank you, while positioning yourself in a place of gratitude is amazing,  it makes you forgettable, thank them, comma, then tell them what to do next. Whether it's. Sign up for your emails, whether it's get on the wait list for your new cores, whether it's join your Discord, whatever the thing is, pull them into your orbit with an ask.

And I know that it can feel cringey. I don't really believe in cringe. Cringe yourself as long as you are cringed in authenticity. Uh, I don't think cringe is a bad thing. Podcasting as an art form is free. It's free to consume. It can be darn near free to produce. I think that the exchange of energy for your time and effort, while some of that exchange comes from the time spent listening to you and seeking you out, I also think that there is room for the flow of, Hey, I made you a thing for free.

Can you do a thing for me? And that thing can be as simple as following me on Instagram. That thing can be as simple as signing up for a substack, whatever that thing is. You are entitled to have an ask after giving a thing. Number four, we're gonna get a little on the tech side, and that is to master your mic placement. 

Part of the glow up is having good audio. This glow up doesn't have to cost money. It can just be from tweaks. I recently talked about how I've had a glow up with the pod track P four. Yes, I'm still talking about it. I will be forever talking about it. It has completely made me fall in love with my podcast again, and it's making, creating feel really good. 

The same can be true. You know, I had extenuating circumstances that I talked about a few episodes ago that necessitated the pod track. But for some people it could be, you know, switching out your cables or just positioning your microphone a certain way. Uh, you know, a little bit off to the center if you breathe really heavily or making sure that you're addressing it, you know, at the end, if it's an end address or addressing it from the correct side, whatever that looks like.

Making sure that you have good mike etiquette. Is make or break for glowing up your show. Number five, I'm actually gonna just, uh, take a big drink of water and spin around in my chair a few times while you say it for me because it is batching your episodes. When you batch your content, consistency comes naturally.

You are not racing against the clock, you are not with your backup against the wall. You get to be in this flow state that makes your show better, which is gonna help you glow up when your show feels.  Flowy and aligned as opposed to rigid and, oh shoot. I've gotta get this out. Let me just record something really quick and put something out and hope for the best.

It feels so much better both to you as the creator, as well as to your listeners. I. Then while we're on batching, repurpose your content. One episode can turn into a dozen pieces of content, milk it. And again, if you feel like, well, you know, I've already talked about this, or I don't wanna bore my audience.

Things move so quickly on the internet that there is such a good chance that your audience is not catching every piece of content you produce. Which does suck because I know that you're putting energy into it, but chances are they've missed something. Maybe they forgot that you had a new episode out.

Maybe they didn't see your first carousel, and now they're gonna see a reel on Instagram.  By kind of saturating your presence, you increase the chances that people are gonna see at least one of those things. And the chances are that even if you create a dozen pieces of content, they may still not see it.

And that has nothing to do with you.  And it also doesn't even have everything to do with the algorithm. There are days where I'm just not on social media. I'm trying to make it more days where I'm not on social media, but if your consumers are taking a break from social media and they haven't subscribed to your show, they're missing things.

So having this really robust way of finding people, whether it's the email list or social media, or different social media or your private group, those are all gonna help find people. But honestly, and this is where we like put our hands on our chests and humble ourselves, your content is not the front of mind for most of your audience.

Even if they love you, it is probably not the first thing they think about when they wake up. So by saturating the online space, you're gonna help to remind them.  Number seven is track your top performing episodes. Your audience already tells you what they love through this metric and metrics are not everything, and I would much rather see you compare your metrics against one another than comparing your metrics against a different show.

So where I do think metrics can be really helpful is to see. Okay, episode number 17, killed it. Episode number 23 was crickets.  And look at this really analytically. There can be reasons, you know, maybe that episode 23 came out during like the holidays, but see what you did between those two. See what could have created a climate where that episode 17 took off, and what maybe made the conditions a little less fertile for that episode 23.

Compare and evaluate. See, maybe, is it what you're talking about? Is it what your show notes looked like? What did the episode title look like? How did you promote it? Did you share something on threads that went viral? Like what worked? And then lean into that. Make more of the content that your audience is showing you that they're asking for by how much they're listening to it.

Number eight is something that I'm excited to tell you you're gonna be seeing from me soon. That is refreshing your podcast cover art. This doesn't have to look like a full rebrand. You can just kind of polish things up to make it more attention grabbing. So one of my favorite things here is just to make it bigger and you know, while you're confined to a tiny little square thumbnail.

By making it bigger. I mean, making it punchier, making sure that it's legible. Because if we're looking at it on our phone, it's literally a thumbnail, like it's literally the size of your thumb. Making sure that that is readable, that that is quickly, visually identifiable and striking, is gonna help get you more attention.

And like I said, this doesn't have to be, you know, I'm changing the name, I'm changing everything. There is honestly a client that I have who we did a reset on her and all we did was change from a really fine like filigree scripty font to something that was just a little bit more robust and it completely changed the game for her because while I love a good scripty handwritten font moment, sometimes those don't translate super well on your cover art if it's really small or if you've got a lot of words and they're long.

Scripty fonts work best when they can be blown up and when there's not a busy background behind them. Number nine is to audit your episode. Titles clear is always gonna resonate More than clever, and I love a clever title. Don't get me wrong. I think they're cute. I think they're fun. It's a model that I have followed on previous shows, but titles are the hook and they are often where people find you for the first time.

I have the interesting, I guess, habit. I don't wanna call it good or bad because there's really no morality attached to it, but I have the habit of when I find a new podcast, I don't listen to like the first or the most recent episode. I just pick one that I feel like is gonna resonate with me because I wanna make sure it's something I'm interested in.

To then decide if I'm gonna continue with that show. And you know when your episode titles are too convoluted or are too jargon based, or are too, kinda like in the weeds in a way that doesn't provoke curiosity, it feels alienating. Not using inside jokes, not being like so ridiculous about cleverness and quirkiness.

This is not the time to let the Tumblr aesthetic out. This is a time to lock that down and make it feel like a college curriculum. You know, when you're scanning different college classes, you wanted to know what it's gonna be about. You wanna know like, okay, this is women's lit. Like I understand what that is.

You don't want like  girl boss books. Like, not that that would ever be the title, but like. You wanna know specifically what this episode is gonna be about, that is what's gonna captivate your audience and especially help you to snag in new listeners. And finally, get feedback. Whether this is from your listeners or just like your trusted business besties or other podcasters in your niche.

Get that feedback to help you figure out where are your blind spots, what's really working? Use that feedback to help you glow your show up. Now, sometimes listeners are just quiet. There are some niches that are not outspoken at all. There are some that can't seem to stop talking, but for the most part, a lot of the shows that I work with are in quieter niches because oftentimes they're a lot more personal.

You're not gonna get a lot of audience feedback here. So having a trusted community that you can reach out to and ask for real support is gonna be super helpful. So something that I like to do here is, you know, having your own network, great. Your best friends are probably not who you want here because I.

Your best friends are probably there to gas you up if you are looking for genuine, constructive criticism, finding other people in your niche. And you know, if that's podcasters as a whole, if you're like, you know, how does my audio sound? How does my intro sound? All that jazz, other podcasters are great, but if you're looking for people in your niche, finding a community of people that are in a similar space as you is gonna be really helpful.

But, you know, take that feedback. See what resonates, see what feels good, and like you lean into that, leave the rest. As always, you have the free will to make those choices, but see kind of what's working and, and how you can use that to your advantage and lean into it. Whew. All right. That was 10. I feel like a watch mojo,  uh, list or listicle. 

Glow up are not about perfection. This is just your new evolution. Like I said, I'm entering a new era. Your podcast Glow up is your new era as well. I put all of the information that we covered into a checklist so you can literally glow up your podcast this afternoon. This is not something that needs to take a long time.

You can bang it out over a weekend. The link is in the show notes. Go grab it and start making some podcast magic. I will be back next week, uh, post photo shoot, feeling all glamorous. I am so freaking jazzed to share these with you. Uh, I've got information about my photographer in the show notes if you are in kind of the like central Colorado area.

Um, she has a pretty big radius of travel and also, you know, I'd love for you to come hang out with me as well on the socials. I'm over on Instagram and Threads at Sovia Studios. Snag that freebie while you're in the show notes and you know, let's keep hanging out and making podcasting magic. Thank you so much for being here and helping me take podcasting up in octave.