Essential Software Tools To Keep Your Podcasts Organized

July 4, 2021 6 min read

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Entrepreneurs need to stay organized. Your podcast also needs to be organized. Thankfully, many software options can make life easier for business owners who have a podcast. These tools have you covered whether you want to use a show notes app or online storage service.

One great way for entrepreneurs to organize their upcoming podcast episodes is to create an outline or framework. The best outline tools for podcasts make it easy to manage ideas and consolidate them into an overarching framework for the show. Dynalist is an outlining tool that organizes your thoughts and tasks in simple lists, with powerful features that are easy to use. Their free plan contains unlimited items and documents. Your podcast needs, especially if you are doing live podcasts, are an excellent online storage solution. Online storage is essential for sharing audio files with a podcast editor, sharing notes with a co-host, episode artwork, and more. Google Drive, Dropbox and One Drive all offer good solutions. 

Curation is essential

“Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.” ― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Podcast curation is essential for your show to stay organized and not be overwhelmed with an abundance of podcast ideas. Take the best ideas and digitally hoard them. Pocket captures content from any publication, page, or app with one click. It then appears across all devices to read at home, work, or anywhere else. Pinterest probably does not need an introduction. It is a popular social network where people look for inspiration and ideas or blog posts on topics related to their interests. Here are some tips from Pinterest to promote your podcast. 

Related: If You’re Podcasting, You Need to Know Audio Production

Managing projects and show notes

Entrepreneurs can keep their podcasts organized with the help of a project management app. Popular options include Asana and Trello, but here are a few other options that may be better tailored to suit your needs when it comes to podcast organization. SmartTask is a practical choice because it provides an online calendar feature and aggregates all the podcasters’ tasks in one view.  ClickUp is another project management software designed for teams. Podcasters use this to assign tasks and dependencies and the simplicity of handling all their projects, both big and small. Airtable is a spreadsheet-like database that helps you organize and visualize data. Airtable is helpful for podcasters because it provides data input, access to store files, and categorizes different podcast episode tracks or themes. It is also great for surveys.   

One of the most important aspects to consider when podcasting is managing your show notes. Beyond using Google Docs, Simplenote, and Evernote, which are popular options in this space, there are some other apps that you may not be familiar with yet. Notion is a great option for writing show notes because it allows you to save and organize your notes in a single location. You can also insert graphs, images, audio files, or other documents from any device and easily collaborate with people on the same document simultaneously. Conversion.ai is excellent for creating outlines and generating show notes content. All you have to do is type in the text that goes into your show notes, and Curation.ai will help automatically generate meaningful information, like links, images, a table of contents for each episode, and an overview or summary for each episode.Scrivener is primarily a writer’s tool, but it can also benefit show notes. The project files are organized into chapters or scenes, and it allows you to keep your research, outlines, drafts, and references all in one place. It is ideal for authors or writers that also happen to have a podcast.  

Related: How to Promote Your New Podcast: 10 Effective Strategies to Try

Get great listener information through polls and surveys

Businessmen and women can use polls for fun and games or to gather information about their listeners. You can use them in live broadcasts to ask questions that have been pre-selected by you (or even the audience) or as a way of gauging attitudes towards various topics. Typeform is an online form builder with features such as data visualization and conditional branching logic, so it’s easier than ever to collect customer feedback on specific subjects—whether they’re technical problems, usability issues, or best practices. Google Forms is a free product that can get feedback, collect information on different subjects or organize your tasks for each project. Survey Monkey is one of the most popular free online survey tools, ideal for survey lengths of up to 500 responses. Rephonic has released a free podcast reach tool that estimates how many listeners listen to a particular topic. Brands and Sponsors use it to retrieve data and contacts needed to pitch podcasts at scale and turn listeners into customers. Consider using Streak to track the opening of your emails. Entrepreneurs can use this tool to verify if prospective guests have opened their email requests to have them on the show (Note: this only works for Gmail).

Create episode artwork to catch attention

Recording podcasts requires focus and organization. Standout thumbnails for your show in listing platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify can catch the attention of new listeners. Unsplash offers high-quality, royalty-free images for your show.  BeFunky is an online photo editing tool that can organize your photos into compelling images suitable for your show. Canva is popular among podcasters and offers free templates to create posters, promote artwork, and represent various formats.  

Entrepreneurs have many options for organizing their podcast-related tasks, including software and online platforms. It can be time-consuming to manage your tasks if you are working on several projects concurrently. Hopefully, this information will help you stay organized and keep track of all the different pieces needed to complete the podcast puzzle. 

Related: The 7-Step Process to Launching Your Podcast for Free