Tink recently won Quill’s Best Podcast PR Company award. We celebrated by sharing The Ten Tink Commandments on podcast marketing and PR. One of the commandments, from fellow Tinkerer Faybeon Mickens, was:

Thou shalt add links to your metadata AND maybe a few hidden gems for those that want to learn more about your topic. Use the metadata to your advantage!

This made quite an impact; we heard from a few people that they’d love to hear more on metadata.

So, obviously, Fay being the awesome human she is, wrote about why metadata matters, how you can use it to your advantage, and some podcasts that do it well.

🎶 It began with liner notes

When I was younger, I had a CD subscription with Columbia House. With this subscription I could get 10-12 CDs for a penny!!! Back then, this was gold…basically, the holy grail of music! I could skip unnecessary trips to Sam Goody or Papa Jazz Records, and avoid having to scour over the crumbs of CDs that were already 2-3 weeks detoured from their release dates- but had finally magically avoided being shipped to Charlotte or Atlanta and made its way to Columbia, SC. Plus, I could have the latest releases right at my doorstep.

One of my favorite things to do on Saturday mornings was to blast my CD player and read the liner notes for each CD.

I’d play a song and pause it at various points in the record to see the story behind each track. My eager fingers would rush from the pause button to the pages of the liner notes in hopes to magnify the tiny text line by line. “What inspired the artist to create this song?” “Who produced the record?” “What sample was that at the beginning?” All of these questions were future conversation starters and nerd fodder for band rehearsal or basketball practice after school the next week.

As an adult, I look back at my jovial curiosity as a gateway to how I enjoy art today (or how I enjoy “content”- depending on how you look at it). Liner notes were pretty much the metadata of the 90s! Today, the same way Columbia House wanted to bypass retail stores and malls to come straight to your doorstep- technology has propelled us ions ahead with an entire “mall” in the palm of our hands. It’s only right that our “liner” notes are delivered the same way.

💟 And it carried over to podcasts

Today, I find myself doing the exact same thing when I listen to my podcasts. And just like when I would follow line by line on those CD liner notes, I’ve discovered that I do the same thing with podcast metadata.

I love when podcast hosts take the time to add additional information in their metadata such as support facts, playlists and links to external supplemental information. I also enjoy when podcasts host time-stamp their shows in the metadata. If I’m driving or doing my walk while I’m listening, I can’t be as attentive to the show notes, however, I still might want to share a certain part of a show with a friend. When I’m finished with my activity, I can quickly access that share point with time stamps.

Of course as a listener, it’s easy for me to say how much I enjoy the versatility of metadata- but for the podcast host/creator, I do understand the amount of time it takes to add those details. There are so many other steps to take BEFORE writing the metadata, so by the time it comes to writing out the episode summary and other related information- it can be a bit of a lift.

With that in mind, there is no “one size fit all for metadata”. It’s truly up to each host to decide what works best for them.

You can use metadata to your advantage in a few different ways. Here are a few examples to consider…

As a general episode summary (see below: Mind Set Win)

For supplemental information like timestamps and credits. (see below: Is My Child a Monster)

For links and references galore (see below: Queer News)

To follow the host, check out another show, and join the community (see below: Black People Love Paramore)

Bonus: to simply have fun (see below: The Ten News)

📈 Here are a few metadata optimization tips to help you get set up and ready:

Consider changing your cover art. An eye catching cover during release week can be a fun way to alert that a new episode has arrived. See more on how this, and other elements of the metadata can improve your podcast here.
Be sure to use keywords that will help your show to populate in your proper category and update your metadata via RSS feed. (Don’t leave any blanks- fill out these categories at the minimum). It’s not just me, Apple Podcasts agrees.
Write your metadata for humans, not robots/the algorithm. Learn how to do this, and keep optimizing it here.

More to Metadata than Meets the Eye