Selecting the best class on your podcast has the potential to assist your podcast get found and featured. However what do you have to do with so many classes to select from, and typically seemingly not sufficient?
Sidenote: “style” and “class” are sometimes used interchangeably in podcasting, however I will follow the “class” time period for this episode.
Classes in Apple Podcasts
Apple was the primary firm to popularize RSS options to standardize podcasting again in 2005. For greater than a decade, Apple supplied 68 classes. Apple affords 110 classes you need to use on your podcast (19 of that are mother or father classes). And since practically all podcast feeds use the “iTunes” RSS namespace to make podcasting potential, most different podcast apps additionally use Apple’s classes, not less than the highest ranges.
Whereas Podcasting 2.0 can be searching for to construct an expanded class listing that apps can use, Apple has laid a pleasant basis that can most likely be constructed on for a lot of different improvements and enhancements.
Podcasts could be in a couple of class
Publishing instruments have a wide range of limits, however Apple’s official assertion is “You may select as much as two classes or subcategories that finest mirror the content material of your present” [source]. So even when your publishing instrument enables you to decide 5 classes, assume solely the primary 2 or perhaps 3 will truly matter.
In case you decide a subclass, you’re additionally mechanically included within the mother or father class. Here is how that appears within the RSS feed:
<itunes:class textual content="Faith & Spirituality"> <itunes:class textual content="Christianity" /></itunes:class>So don’t be concerned about attempting to place your self in each the subcategory and its mother or father. Concentrate on a subcategory should you can.
The first class issues most
Irrespective of what number of classes you set in your feed, the primary one is what issues most.
Your secondary and different further classes will aid you present up in these class collections, editorial options, searches, and searching. However Apple says that along with what your secondary class/classes do on your podcast, it is your first class that’s used for prime charts, displaying in your podcast, and even for suggestions on different podcasts within the catalog and “Hear Now.”
4 steps to select the appropriate classes on your podcast
With this in thoughts and so many podcast classes to select from, listed below are some steps that will help you decide the proper one!
1. Ignore the charts and saturation
Take a look at the variety of podcasts in every class from Podcast Trade Insights and you may see that “Schooling” and “Society & Tradition” have probably the most whole podcasts by giant margins. However filter out the inactive podcasts and you may now see 4 classes combating for having the best numbers of 90-day lively podcasts: Schooling, Faith & Spirituality, Enterprise, and Society & Tradition.
And as for what class the 90-day lively podcasts mark as their major, “Society & Tradition” nonetheless leads by greater than double the runners-up, after which it is a shut battle for second place between Comedy, Schooling, Enterprise, and Sports activities.
These stats are based mostly on the top-level, mother or father classes. If we drilled right down to the subcategory degree, these stats would begin drastically splitting aside and you’d discover classes which have hardly any podcasts.
However this should not actually matter! Simply because a Film Information podcast may prime a subcategory’s charts does not imply it ought to be within the Tennis class! Take a look at these statistics solely as informational, not as steering.
2. See the place your “opponents” are
There are most likely different podcasts speaking about comparable issues, or perhaps even your precise area of interest! See how they categorized their podcasts.
When you would possibly suppose it finest to keep away from the identical classes as your “opponents,” I believe it will truly be finest to decide on the similar classes.
This makes it extra possible for podcast apps to advocate your podcast as related to the opposite one, it provides you extra alternative to be featured inside that class in case there’s ever a particular assortment, and I believe it even will increase your probabilities to be found as a result of your podcast may seem in the identical related contexts as your “opponents.”
Consider it this manner: grocery shops do not put ice lotions with pet meals! Certain, it would stand out to see an ice cream subsequent to pet meals, however when somebody needs ice cream, they will go to the ice cream cabinets of the frozen meals part. So in case your model of ice cream was being offered subsequent to pet meals as an alternative of with all the opposite ice lotions, most likely not one of the ice-cream-motivated consumers would see or purchase your ice cream!
Or to cite the philosophy I bear in mind from younger Haley Mills in Disney’s 1961 movie The Mother or father Entice, “Let’s stick collectively, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
3. Choose what finest describes your content material
Whereas your podcast can most likely match underneath a number of classes, or perhaps you’re feeling prefer it does not match underneath any of them, take a look at the listing and take into account what can truly describe your content material the very best.
Take The Audacity to Podcast for instance. I cowl podcast advertising, how-tos, and expertise. This present appeals to geeks, entrepreneurs, businessmen, businesswomen, and hobbyists. So what truly describes my content material the very best? my archive of episodes and plans for the longer term, I can see that I discuss expertise probably the most and what that expertise lets you do. Generally, that is advertising; typically, I clarify precisely the way to use one thing; and typically I step fully away from expertise and concentrate on motivating you—whether or not you are knowledgeable or a hobbyist. Thus, I believe the “Know-how” class is the very best match for The Audacity to Podcast. And that will get confirmed by seeing that many of the different podcasts about podcasting are additionally in “Know-how.”
Sure, some of my “opponents” are primarily within the “Advertising and marketing” class, however The Audacity to Podcast talks about expertise and what you are able to do with that expertise extra than about advertising.
And whereas I believe all my content material is instructional, not each episode is formatted like a “lesson” or “tutorial.”
So I nonetheless embody “Advertising and marketing” and “Schooling ➜ How To” as further classes. And within the 2023 Individuals’s Selection Podcast Awards, I submitted The Audacity to Podcast within the Know-how class and the Schooling class. And within the 2023 Spark Media Podcast Awards, I submitted my present within the “Enterprise” class.
(Sidenote: please vote for The Audacity to Podcast in these awards when voting opens quickly!)
To see should you selected the appropriate class that finest describes your podcast, strive describing it to another person as “I host a Audio podcast” the place you’ll be able to decide just one class. For instance, “I host a expertise podcast,” “I host a TV aftershow podcast,” or “I host a private journal podcast.” The one that matches finest might be the one it is best to use.
Sure, I do know this is not all the time so clear. Chances are you’ll simply want another person to take a look at the listing of related classes and inform you which one they suppose finest describes your podcast. For instance, there was an unsuccessful marketing campaign a few years in the past to get a “Local weather Science” class in Apple Podcasts. However I believe “Earth Sciences” matches these podcasts simply as nicely.
And if Apple ever needed to make a featured assortment of podcasts about local weather science, they might most likely look within the “Earth Sciences” class first.
4. Choose the place your viewers would look forward to finding your podcast
Much like seeing how another person would primarily describe your content material, take into account the place individuals would possibly look forward to finding your podcast when searching totally different charts, classes, and options.
Bringing again my ice cream instance, if somebody is looking for natural ice cream, they will most likely go to the frozen organics part first. And if there isn’t any such part, they will go to the ice cream part. They will not go to the pet meals part in search of ice cream!
Equally, the place would your ultimate viewers go and look forward to finding your podcast there? I believe that is within the “Know-how” part for The Audacity to Podcast, and your present could possibly be fully totally different.
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Disclosure
This put up might comprise hyperlinks to services or products with which I’ve an affiliate relationship. I could obtain compensation out of your actions by such hyperlinks. Nevertheless, I do not let that corrupt my perspective and I do not advocate solely associates.
