Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting. If you want effective and actionable tips to simplify the overwhelm of launching and managing your podcast, then this is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Verity Songon, podcast manager, launch strategist, and host of a top 100 podcast. I'm really excited to have you here. So without further ado, let's dive into the episode. Hello there, and welcome back everybody to another episode of the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting. And I just want to take the time to just say thank you to everybody who has turned up to listen to this episode. If you have listened to episodes previously, welcome back. If you are new to the podcast, then welcome, and I'm glad to have you here. It's really, really exciting that we are going to spend the next 10 minutes of this episode with each other. And for the purpose of this episode, I wanted to talk to you about Charterball and about Podkite. And I wanted to name this episode the One Link to Rule Them All, but then I thought that was a really bad play on Lord of the Rings, obviously the One Ring to Rule Them All. And as I'm not really a Lord of the Rings fan, no one come at me for that, but because I'm not really much of a Lord of the Rings fan, it seemed a bit ironic. But you know what? I think I probably am going to end up calling this episode One Link to Rule Them All. And I'll explain to you why. Now, what I often find when I'm on social media and people are promoting their podcasts, so, so often people will give you the link to Apple Podcasts, to Spotify, to, I would say Stitcher, but actually Stitcher has released news in the last week to say that they are not doing their platform anymore in its current format. But you get my point. People tend to post a link to the podcast directory that But as a consumer, as a podcast consumer, that is actually quite frustrating. For example, I listen to my podcasts on Apple Podcasts. It is just the place that I prefer to listen to my podcasts. However, a lot of podcasts that I listen to and a lot of podcasters who I listen to, when I say, oh yeah, that sounds great, send me the link to your show, they'll send me a Spotify link. Now, there's nothing wrong with Spotify. I'm not dissing Spotify. For me, I don't listen to my podcast on Spotify unless they're not on Spotify. So, I don't listen to my podcast on Spotify. I don't listen to my podcast on Apple Podcasts. It's just, like I said, Apple Podcasts is just my preferred directory. And I think that's just through laziness more than anything else. I started listening to Apple Podcasts on, sorry, I started listening to podcasts on Apple Podcasts and I've just kind of continued and evolved, you know, in that same way. So, when people then send me links to other podcast directories, I'm all of a sudden like, whoa, I don't really know where, what to do. And maybe I don't have the app for that directory. And maybe when I then want to, listen to the next episode, I'm there actually trying to remember which directory I have to go to, which I've already subscribed to that particular podcast. But this is where I love something like, or a platform like Chartable or Podkite. Now, I say Chartable or Podkite, I'm going to explain what they're actually about in a second. But before I do, I really want to emphasize that you don't have to use both. They both do essentially the same thing. I did not realize this right at the beginning, ended up signing up to both. And that's, I don't know, I don't know, that was a, yeah, you really don't need to. So, as I said, they are one and the same thing. Now, essentially, what Chartable and Podkite do is when you sign up, when you create your account, you claim your podcast. So, you're saying to them, this is my podcast. And they verify that it is actually yours. You're not just, you know, taking somebody else's. And then what that platform does is it is able to rank you. No, it's not. It is able to tell you, where you sit in different podcast charts globally. And when I say different podcast charts, I mean, it grabs all of the data. So, it will tell you where you're charting, where you're not charting, when you've charted, which podcast category you've charted in and what have you. And you can really break down some really interesting analytics. And what it does is it saves you going into Apple Connect, going into Spotify, going into Pandora, going into iHeartRadio, you know, wherever you're analytics are. It saves you going into all of those different ones. And it tells you just straight from the off where you are charting. Now, for some people, that's just not going to bother you because either, you know, your goals are not around getting in the Apple or getting in the podcast charts or your goals are not around, you know, chart positions or what have you. And if that's the case, then that's absolutely fine. But for me, particularly with the Confident CEO podcast, I really, really like to be able to see where I've sitting in the charts. The reason is, is because to me, the higher I sit in the charts, then hopefully the more people that I am reaching. And I just find it really interesting from a marketing point of view. So for example, this podcast, the Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting, I know that this podcast is sat in the Apple podcast charts and the how-to category in Japan in the top 25, which I think is really cool. So thank you to all of the lovely listeners in Japan that have listened in, who have charted us so highly. I think that is really, really super awesome. I've never been to Japan. So it's really cool that we've got listeners over there for this podcast. So as I said, what's really cool about Chartable and Podkite is they actually tell you where you are sitting in the charts around the world and in different categories as well. Now, what's important to remember is if you were using Chartable, Chartable have also got their own charts. However, I wouldn't always go around the Chartable chart ranking. And the reason is, is because you have to be signed up to Chartable in order to rank in the Chartable charts. So you could have a podcast, which is number one on Apple podcasts. However, if it's not registered with Chartable, it won't appear in the Chartable charts. So I tend to, on my Chartable, I just ignore the Chartable charts and I just look at the Apple podcast charts. Those are the ones that I'm personally interested in, but you can look at different, you know, different charts around the, around the world using Chartable or Podkite. Personally, I prefer Chartable from the user interface point of view. However, I find the emails, and this is really, really superficial, but I find the emails that Podkite send me weekly are more aesthetically pleasing and they are nicer to screenshot to put onto like Instagram or whatever. But like I said, that's quite superficial. And I really want to stress as well, like I said, Chartable and Podkite, they do one and the same thing. Now, the other thing that I want to really talk about with Chartable and Podkite is this one link to rule them all. And that links back to what I was saying a few minutes ago at the beginning of the episode, all about when somebody says, here's the link to my podcast, they give you any directory link that they, you know, they might give you their Spotify link, they might give you your Apple podcast link, they might give you their Deezer link, their, I can't think of any others at the, at the moment, but they give you their Google podcast link. Now, the great thing about having either a Chartable or a Podkite link is you just give that link out when people request the link for your, for your show. And then when the person clicks on that link, they will automatically be taken to their preferred podcast player or preferred podcast directory, which I just think is so, so cool. I love that. And you can play around with it a little bit. So for example, my Chartable, is set up for the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting. So if you are on an Apple device and that Apple, and that Apple device recognises that you usually use Apple podcasts, for example, as your podcast directory, then if somebody clicks on that link, they are using an iPhone, an Apple device, they will automatically be taken to the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting on Apple podcasts. If however, they're using an Android device, then obviously they're not going to have Apple podcasts. So if they're using an Android device, then obviously they're not going to have Apple podcasts on there. So it will take them instead to their preferred podcast directory platform, for example, could be Spotify, most likely to be Spotify, because that's such a, such a huge one. But what's really cool about this is that it gets rid of this idea of people handing out a link to you for a podcast directory that you potentially don't use. Instead, you just give them this one link, and then the link is smart enough, it's called a smart link. And that link will then take that link to the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting. So if you're using an Apple device, you can take that link to the Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting. And if you're using an Apple device, individual to your podcast on their preferred podcast directory player, which I just think is so, so cool. And the best thing about this is that it's absolutely free. You can pay, there are paid for versions of Chartable and for Podkite as well. But to get the chart rankings and to get the smart links, it's absolutely free. The reason I'm pushing this is because I think it is so, so useful. I'm not an affiliate of Chartable, I'm not an affiliate of podcast, I get absolutely no money whatsoever through promoting them on this episode. I'm just telling you because I think that it is such a fab tool to be able to just give somebody one link as opposed to, oh, here it is on Spotify, here it is on Google Podcast, here it is on Alexa, whatever. Honestly, it is game changing, absolutely game changing. So I'm going to put the links for both Chartable and Podkite in the description box below. And I'll see you in the next episode. in the episode show notes for this particular episode. So do check that out. And I would love to know whether or not you're already using Chartable or Podkite or an alternative. How do you find it? Make sure you connect with me over on Twitter or over on Instagram at Verity Song on Twitter, I'm most active on at the moment, particularly for the podcasting community. So do come and join me over there. But otherwise, I would love to hear from you. Let me know in the what you think of Chartable and Podkite. Are you already using their smart links? Do you find it a great resource for your podcast? And if not, I'd love to know that as well. So I hope you found this episode as ever, and I will see you next time. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Lady Girl's Guide to Podcasting. If you loved this episode, I think you'll love being on my email newsletter list where I send out weekly podcasting tips to help you create, host and grow a podcast that you love. To join go to veritysongon.com slash newsletter or hit the link in the show notes. Until next time, happy podcasting.