Ep 95: Does Individual Episode Artwork Affect Your Podcast Downloads?

00:00:00 Apple Podcasts episodic artwork update

[00:00:00] Verity: Hello there. Bit of a shorter episode for everybody today, but an important topic that we are going to be covering as ever, I hope. Hope. Those of you who are longtime listeners of the show, welcome back. Those of you who are new here, welcome.

[00:00:13] Verity: I'm Verity. This is the lazy girl's guide to podcasting where we talk podcasting tips literally everything about podcasting it's wonderful welcome to the community. Back in episode 34 when I released an episode which was titled is Apple Podcasts Turning Into YouTube? Now this episode was published in August of 2023, so coming up for a year ago now, and it was off the back of Apple Podcasts making an announcement that they were going to be having episodic podcast artwork functionality for your podcast. So what this basically means is every time that you put out a podcast episode, you would be able to have a little thumbnail, 3,000 by 3,000 pixels, same as any other podcast artwork size, but you would be able to have a piece of podcast artwork that was specific to just that episode.

00:01:03 Apple Podcasts Episode Thumbnails: A YouTube Strategy for Podcasting?

[00:01:03] Verity: So similar idea to YouTube thumbnails really in terms of you've got your YouTube channel artwork, but every single video that is created for YouTube will have a separate thumbnail specific for that video. Well, this is basically what Apple Podcasts looks at doing. You've still got your podcast artwork, but then for every episode that is published, you can have a specific thumbnail for that podcast episode. Now this is something I was a little bit skeptical of. I thought it was a really cool idea, I have to say, because we know that a lot of people, particularly when they're on their phones, they're very visual.

[00:01:37] Verity: It's the visual images. It's the clickbaity titles. It's the colors that drag us in and make us want to listen to an episode or watch something, we will happily scroll past something that doesn't have a very interesting title or the thumbnail doesn't grab us very much. So I actually quite like this opportunity from Apple Podcasts because maybe if your title for an episode isn't catchy enough maybe you could draw somebody in with the episodic graphic instead. However it did also get me thinking where I was like isn't this just podcasting try trying to be YouTube a little bit?

00:02:09 Creating Podcast Artworks

[00:02:09] Verity: I don't know. I just found it in some ways I don't know. I had divided opinions on it I think basically is what I'm saying. Regardless of I have created since episode 34, and we're now on at the time of recording, I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't know exactly which number episode this is gonna be by the time it comes out but the point is this was well over 60 episodes ago.

[00:02:30] Verity: So for the last 50, 60 episodes, I have been creating different podcast artworks for the majority of the episodes. I haven't done for every single one because sometimes I've had some weeks where I'm like, do you know what? The content's just gonna get out. If there isn't a different episodic thumbnail for that particular episode, then do you know what? It'll just default to lazy girl's guide to podcasting cover art anyway.

[00:02:53] Verity: So it's not the worst thing in the world. And like I said, sometimes when you're a parent, when you're working as well, some things have just got to slide. So whilst I have had the episode artwork up for nearly all of the episodes for the last 60 odd episodes, it hasn't been the main main priority. And what I actually did was I even went back over some of the older episodes and I created thumbnails for some previous episodes. I haven't done all of them, but some of them I've done.

00:03:19 The Impact of Episode Graphics on Podcast Listenership

[00:03:19] Verity: So, actually, in the back catalog, the very vast majority of the episodes of lazy girl's guide to podcasting, if you go through Apple podcast, if you go through Spotify, if you go through any podcast directory where they have episodic thumbnails then you will see all of those different episodic images. The reason I wanted to create this follow-up episode is because the debate that I kind of had with myself at the time when Apple Podcasts announced this new feature is would it actually be beneficial to podcasters for increasing listenership? Now I would love your guys feedback on this because for me I don't think it's made any difference to my listenership. Def definitely between August December of last year, I did see a growth in podcast listenership as I would expect by last August. The podcast was only May, June, July, August.

[00:04:07] Verity: It was 4 months old, so I would expect to see that growth, basically. And then I saw a crazy amount of growth from January through to April of 24 when I switched my podcasting host to captivate fm. They've got loads of growth tools in there which really, really helped me get in front of a wider audience and more of my target audience, and that's a conversation for another episode. But my point is is that between August 23 and the time of recording this particular episode, which is now the first June that I'm recording this in 2024, but I don't think that the episode graphics have made any significant impact on my downloads. I think there's been a lot of other factors that have affected my downloads such as drill down the analytics, realized when I was publishing promotional content on Instagram, I was finding that actually that was having no correlation with getting more listeners into the podcast.

00:05:03 Effectiveness of Episode Graphics in Podcast Promotion

[00:05:03] Verity: The analytics told me that the vast majority of my listeners were coming from Twitter, so I doubled down on that. I got really, really into Twitter, and it is still the biggest way that people find and listen to the podcast is through Twitter or x. I do put stuff out sporadically on TikTok. I don't tend to actually promote the podcast itself on TikTok, but I do put out podcasting material on TikTok. But, again, that doesn't have so much of a pull into the podcast.

[00:05:31] Verity: And one of the other things that I do is I publish blog posts on my website, on my blog, and I link through to the podcast episodes. That also helps, with my downloads and listenership, but I wouldn't say with all of these different things that I've tried and it's difficult because, you know, from, like, a experiment validity point of view, there is no validity to this whatsoever because I've tried so many different things concurrently with the podcast that I can't say yes this particular thing did or didn't help, but looking at when I tried and experimented with different things I can definitely say that the episode graphics or the individual episode graphics for the podcast have had no significance to the podcast growth or if they did it's maybe being like, you know, the tiniest percent. So I guess the question is is do I think that it is worthwhile, and am I gonna continue creating singular episode graphics for the podcast? And, actually, I think I probably will just because it's part of my podcasting workflow now and I think the couple of episodes that I've done or the few episodes that I've done that haven't had episodic graphics, it's kind of irritated me because it then doesn't fit this whole, like, theme that I've got going with episodic graphics.

00:06:43 Finding Time for Podcasting Amidst Busy Schedule

[00:06:43] Verity: But do you know what? I'm also at the point where I'm like, it doesn't make a massive difference. So if I am in a week where I'm thinking actually I just don't have time, And creating these graphics, it doesn't take much time. I've got templates, and it literally takes me 5, 10 minutes. But those of you who work as well as podcast and you're a parent as well as podcasting and you've got generally a life as well as podcasting, you know that 5:10 minutes are so so precious.

00:07:12 Importance of Individual Podcast Episode Graphics

[00:07:12] Verity: So if I don't have those 5:10 minutes, I'm not going to lose sleep about the fact that my podcast episode has gone out without a graphic. I can either create an individual graphic later in time and upload it because that will just push through the RSS feed and it will update on the directories or I just live with it for that for that week or whatever. So if you are toying with the idea yourself of should I do individual podcast episode graphics, if you've got the time for it and you have a pull for that, absolutely brilliant. Go for it. But if you do not have the time, if you do not think that it's gonna benefit your podcast, then as I said, it's remembering that podcasting is not the same as YouTube.

00:07:55 Exploring the Impact of Using Episodic Graphics for Podcast Episodes

[00:07:55] Verity: And for me personally, I have not seen a significant difference, or you could just argue I'm making really bad graphics. It could be that at the end of the day, but I have not seen a significant difference with using episodic graphics for the podcast episodes. If you found different though and you found that since doing this, you have seen a dramatic increase in podcast downloads and listenership, I would be really interested to know. But equally, if you also think that it's a little bit of a waste of time, I would love to know that as well. Make sure that you drop a comment down in the comment section if you're on YouTube or if you are listening to the audio of this on podcast then send me a message over at verity song gone on Twitter because that is where I hang out the most.

00:08:37 The Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting Episode Discussion

[00:08:37] Verity: If you have got a fellow podcaster in your life, I would love it if you could share this episode with them, get them to join in with the debate. You never know. They might learn something new as well. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. It's been great to have you here.

[00:08:51] Verity: I'm Verity. This is the lazy girl's guide to podcasting, and I will see you next episode.