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Apple Podcasts transcripts - explained and made easy! (Visual episode - find video in description)
Episode 12 • 27th January 2024 • The Podmaster: podcasting growth advice and insights for people and brands • The Podmaster (Neal Veglio)
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Apple Podcasts have literally changed everything today with their latest addition to the app - automatic transcription.

But should you use it?

Hi! I'm Neal Veglio, The Podmaster.

In this episode, I'll be explaining my take, and my reasons why you might want to consider everything this will mean for your podcast!

As this is a visual episode, you might prefer to watch it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ew_inQEmyYU&si=zFuxh9B7Ts3o-Kfd

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Transcripts

Neal:

Welcome to this emergency

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podcast of the Podmaster, where

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we're talking about a massive

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development in Apple Podcasts app.

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Stick with me.

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I'm going to tell you everything that

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you need to know

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Are you creating transcripts for your

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podcast episodes?

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I know, I know you've heard all

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about this for ages and ages.

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Now, of course, the way that

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doing transcripts have been sold to

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you in the past have been the

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benefits for your podcast SEO.

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Well, I'm here to tell you, there

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are shady parts of the podcasting

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space, including these transcription

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companies, who actually are lying

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to you about the benefits of SEO.

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There is no such benefit

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from creating a transcript for your

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podcast.

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In terms of the SEO, it just

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doesn't exist.

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Never, ever has a podcast.

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transcript ever ranked on Google,

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and it won't do yet.

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Feel free to correct me if you've seen

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evidence of that in the wild, but I

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can tell you right now, it's simply

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not the case.

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The only way that a transcript benefits

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your podcast.

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SEO is if you repurpose that

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by copying the transcript,

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changing it into something else,

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like an article.

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Or a blog post or any other kind

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of content, then it might help

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your podcast SEO.

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In fact, it will help your

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podcast, SEO, but no transcripts.

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Their biggest benefit is

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accessibility.

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It's so that people that are hard of

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hearing can still enjoy your content,

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even if they can't fully listen to it.

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So, the great thing about this,

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Spotify, obviously, a few months ago,

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they introduced transcripts on

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their platform.

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So a lot of episodes now are getting

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automatically transcribed.

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In fact, you can't add your

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own transcript in Spotify, it does

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it all for you.

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Now, let's not get into an argument

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of why that's not such a great

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thing, and why what Apple Podcasts are

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doing is a great thing, later.

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For now, what you need to

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know is this.

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Apple Podcasts has your back.

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Now, I would definitely encourage

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you to create your own transcripts, but

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if you forget, or maybe you don't have

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the ability to get transcripts at the

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moment, budgetary reasons, time,

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whatever it is, then Apple Podcasts

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will automatically generate a

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transcript of your newest

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episode for you.

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Now, here's an important point

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about why you should make the effort

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to create your own transcripts.

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Not to mention, of course, the blog

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posts, the site, the website that you

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have for your podcast,

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and how great it is to offer that

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as an option on your website.

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But on top of that, specifically for

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Apple Podcasts, I mentioned a

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few episodes ago.

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On, the episode where I talked

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about podcast SEO, a lot of people

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didn't believe me.

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They thought I was talking pie in the

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sky at the time.

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But I told you, Apple podcasts

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have been running AI transcription

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behind the scenes for over a year.

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And bigger shows have been

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benefiting from it.

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In fact, Apple podcasts have

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been using their own transcription

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service as a better way to gauge What

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your content is about, so it knows

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whether to surface it in search

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results or not.

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So why wouldn't you want to do

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a better job of giving them a more

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accurate transcript for your episodes?

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That way, if you want to rank for

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certain keywords, you can make

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sure that they're spelled correctly,

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or that they're sharp at all.

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You know, these tools are not 100

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percent effective, certainly when

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they're using AI.

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So my suggestion to you is to take

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that extra time, even though Apple

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Podcasts offer to create the

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transcript for you, do it yourself as

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part of your normal workflow, hopefully

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you've been doing that up until now

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for accessibility reasons anyway,

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but then add the transcript manually

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to your RSS feed.

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Now, there are a few hosting companies

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that offer the transcripts tag

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in the namespace, Captivate, who I'm

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a subscriber to and I use for all of!

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my client podcasts.

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You've also got RSS.

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com.

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They allow you to add transcripts in

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the transcript tag and Buzzsprout.

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As far as I'm concerned, they

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also do it.

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One company which, sadly, bad timing,

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has actually said that they are

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not supporting transcripts at

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the moment because fewer than 1

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percent of apps actually support

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them, Libsyn, who have very publicly

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said they're not doing it yet.

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I have a feeling they'll change

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their minds on this very quickly,

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but for now If you're hosting with

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Libsyn, you cannot take advantage of

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this feature yet.

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All right, enough talking about why

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you'd want to do it.

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Let's show you how you actually do it.

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I'm going to share with you.

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My Apple Podcast Connect screen.

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Well, there you go.

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As you can see, it's all pretty

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much the same.

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Show information, availability,

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subscription, rating, and reviews.

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Nothing new there whatsoever.

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But, if you go to availability,

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you will see now that they have

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added a section, Transcripts.

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That's what's new.

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And you got two options,

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only display auto generated

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transcripts, or display

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auto generated transcripts if I

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don't provide any.

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You want it selected on that, if you

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are adding your own transcripts.

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Now, how does this work?

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Well, if you go into episodes, and you

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click on the latest one, you'll see,

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down here, audio and transcripts,

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and at the moment it doesn't show it.

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And I'll get to that in a moment, but if

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you click on that, it gives you the

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option to either auto generate or use

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the provided one.

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You want to use the provided one, click

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edit, make sure that

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you're using a custom setting

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for this episode, display transcripts

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I provide.

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The other option is only display

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auto generated transcripts and

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don't display transcripts.

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I have no idea why you'd want to

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choose don't display transcripts, that

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would be insane.

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Display transcripts I provide is

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what you want to have selected.

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Okay.

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Now how this will look in the

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wild is let's go to the podcast

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hosting platform.

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And have a look at where this

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comes from.

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Okay, so, I'm going to now

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share with you my hosting provider

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Captivate's screen.

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And as

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you can see, the latest episode.

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So if you're with Captivate,

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this is obviously relevant to you.

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If you're not, if you're with RSS.

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com, consult with the user guides

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on how to add transcripts in

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that platform.

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And the same with Buzzsprout.

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As I mentioned, Libsyn doesn't

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currently offer this, so No

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dice there.

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We

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want to scroll down to where it says

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transcription and discover ability.

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And as you can see, you could

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edit that and

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you can add your own transcript in

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whichever format.

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You can either do it in notepad form,

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copy and paste into the window, or you

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can add it as an S.

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R.

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T.

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Attachment file.

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Okay, now, so that is how That.

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works.

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Here's the caveat.

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Okay?

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This is not yet available to us.

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You will see a lot of people

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talking about this and sharing

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screens and videos mostly journalists

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in the space.

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The reason for that is they have paid

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for a developer account And they

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have access, early access, to a lot

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of the tools and features that people

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like Apple Podcasts roll out in their

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latest updates.

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I'm told we've got to wait until

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probably either the end of February

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or the very beginning of March

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to see this in our podcasting apps.

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To see this in Apple Podcasts

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when we're playing our shows in app.

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So you've got to be a little

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bit patient.

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But what I'd say to you is this.

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Make sure that you include

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transcripts in your podcast publishing

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workflow now.

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The reason being, once it finally

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does roll out, they're going to

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take your back catalogue episodes

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and they're going to

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pull from any transcripts that

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you've already uploaded as you've

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deemed them.

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to.

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As in, Not also generated exactly

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as you wanted them displayed.

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So it's well worth making sure you

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take the extra time and add those

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transcripts manually into Apple Podcast

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Connect through the episode.

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Hope that helps.

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Let me know how you get on.

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If you get

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any problems with

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this part of the publishing workflow,

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reach out to me.

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You can see me on LinkedIn, DM

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me there, or go to podmastery.

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co and click contact.

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Until next episode

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