Welcome to Podcast Suck, a podcast about starting a podcast, where we dive headfirst into the wild, wacky, and sometimes frustrating world of podcasting. If you've ever sat down with a microphone, hit record, and thought, what on earth am I doing? Or if you're just curious about the magic behind your favorite shows, then you're in the right place. Get ready for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of what not to do advice as we embark on this podcasting journey together. Let's dive in. What's happening, ladies and gentlemen, happy Monday, happy first official week of January. I know last week was really the first official week, but then we started the week with New Year's Day and some people were still on vacation. Hopefully. Everybody's back to work, ready for a big year. despite what the news has to say, turn the news off. That's great advice for Monday. Turn the news off today. I want to talk about changing your podcast hosting account. Now, maybe you've signed up for a free account with anchor, which is now Spotify for podcasters, and you want to move to a more robust platform. If you will, there's a few additional bells and whistles that Some podcasts hosting platforms provide that others do not. For example, nicer websites, uh, additional, uh, distribution platforms to be able to leverage monetization tools at the podcast launch lab agency. We utilize buzzsprout. As of recent, we moved over. We used to be with simple cast, simple cast it away with their affiliate program, which is nuts. Why a company would do away with their affiliate program is beyond me. but they did and I knew the folks over at buzzsprout. I knew it was a great platform and I had been eyeing them for a few years. I would just, first of all, all podcast hosting platforms function the same and they exist for one reason, for you to upload your episodes there and for distribution to be set up for Apple and Spotify from your podcast hosting account. And they also give you a website that's already built that you can just point a domain to. So those are the, that's like podcast hosting one Oh one. A lot of people ask, how do I get my podcast in Apple and Spotify? You do need a podcast hosting account in order to do that. So if you're just now starting a podcast and you're recording episodes, one of those steps in the launch process. is setting up a podcast hosting account where you choose the show name and upload your cover art and the description and upload your podcast episodes to. And then you set up distribution through means of an RSS feed. So your podcast hosting account provides you with an RSS feed that you then submit to Apple and Spotify and Amazon music and the rest of the listening platforms out there. so that every time you upload a new episode, it gets uploaded to your podcast hosting account and then automatically gets distributed everywhere. So no one uploads their podcast to Apple and Spotify directly. It's all done through your podcast hosting account. So I just want to clarify that because I get a lot of questions about podcast hosting. How does it all work? What platform should I use? I think what people mean is what podcast hosting solution should I use? So it's either Libsyn, which is the most complicated, by the way, I know they've been around the longest, blah, blah, blah, but I do find them extremely like their user interface makes my eyes cross and I want nothing to do with the platform for that reason. I want some simple. I want to be able to log in and it walks me through step by step, whether I'm brand new, which if you go to Buzzsprout, I'm going to drop a link here. If you want to check out Buzzsprout, you get 20 bucks free with my link. Not a big deal, but at least allows you to try it out. And speaking of trying out podcast hosting platforms. I'm going to get into moving to, from, if you're already with a podcast hosting account, moving to a new one in just a minute here, but I want to kind of podcast hosting one-on-one real quick. If you're just now signing up. So for example, you watch this video, you're like perfect, perfect timing. I need to set up a podcast hosting account because I just recorded some episodes. I got them edited and I need to upload them somewhere. This answers my question. I need to upload them to a podcast hosting account. When you sign up for a podcast hosting account, Make sure that you actually sign up for the account, a free trial. Listen very carefully. A free trial on a podcast hosting account does absolutely nothing because all of the options that you need, like uploading episodes and setting up distribution, are unavailable until you choose a plan. So you can usually sign up for the basic plan, just anything but a free plan, unless it does give you, it's usually based on capacity and hours. So if you're recording one hour, one hour length of episodes, four hours, then buzzsprouts like 18 bucks or 16 bucks for four hours. So if you're doing four episodes a month or an hour long, it shouldn't be that long. But if you're doing four episodes a month for an hour long, that that that option for hosting would be a fit for you. So you don't need any big, robust, expensive plan. You can go with a basic plan, but just don't stick with the free trial because none of the options work in there. Another example is that when you're moving from, let's say you're with Spotify for podcasters, which used to be anchor and you want to move to buzzsprout, sign up for buzzsprout, add your credit card details, choose the plan. Cause the free, the free option is not going to do anything. And most importantly, the purpose of moving to a new podcast hosting account with ease is to easily import all of your episodes from your old hosting account. to your new hosting account. That's all done through an RSS feed. So if you're with Spotify for podcasters right now, and you want to move to buzzsprout, you're going to take your Spotify for podcasters, RSS feed, you go to buzzsprout, and it's going to say, want to move to buzzsprout? And you're going to say yes. And it's going to say, do you want to create a new podcast or do you want to import an existing one? You're going to import an existing one, but you can't import all of your episodes If you only have a trial period with the new podcast hosting account, why they offer a free trial beyond me. Cause you can't do anything. I know this from experience. Cause I moved the beyond the story podcast over to buzzsprout. And because I didn't choose or add a card on file and actually sign up for the account, it didn't finish importing all of my episodes. So while I thought everything was done and set up correctly, it wasn't because it only imported like 10 episodes out of hundreds. So I wanted to make sure, and I went through, I was like, how did I, I went to go audit it real quick and figure out what I did wrong. And I quickly realized that, uh, I did not sign up for buzzsprout, put a card on file and choose a plan. So if you're doing that, you're moving podcast hosting cats, make sure you do that. There is no free trial. There is no free lunch. There's no free anything. If you're looking for free, stay with Spotify for podcasters. It is a free platform by the way, and I don't think that they limit you on anything. So why wouldn't you just use them? That's entirely up to you. I don't think that they're bells and whistles and tools for a podcast hosting solution are up to snuff for a platform like Spotify, but it is a free platform and that's probably why. Okay. So if you're signing up for a new, you're moving from Libsyn to buzzsprout, you're going to go to buzzsprout.com. You're going to click, move my podcast to buzzsprout. It's going to say, do you want to create a new podcast? Do you want to import an existing one? You're going to choose import existing one, but first things first sign up for a plan. And then once that's done, you can type in your old RSS feed into your new podcast hosting account, it'll automatically pull all of your episodes, all of your information, your cover art, your title, your description, all of that. And you want to make sure all of that gets done with the new podcast host in most Podcast hosting accounts will walk you through step by step. They want your business. They want you to move your show there. So they're going to make it as easy as possible to do that. Now, is that all you have to do? No. Once you've imported your show and signed up for a new podcast hosting account, you're going to want to set up what's called a 301 redirect. So you're going to take your new RSS feed. So if you're moving from Libsyn to Buzzsprout, you're going to take the Buzzsprout RSS feed, and you're going to go back to Libsyn. And there's an option somewhere in the settings or your existing podcast hosting account. There's a setting in there for your redirect URLs, what it's called. It's called a 301 redirect, but it'll probably say, something to the tune of the redirect URL. You're going to paste the new podcast hosting RSS feed URL in that redirect on your old podcast hosting account. This is very important to do because you're, you've been assigned a new RSS feed while your show is still the same, your episodes, the content, everything remains the same. The RSS feeds different because the podcast host is different, but they talk to each other. So anytime somebody hits the old Libsyn RSS feed for new episodes, it's automatically be directed to the new one, which is great. So you want to make sure you do that. So first things first, sign up for the new podcast hosting account, put a card on file, choose a plan. Import it with your old RSS feed so you can import your entire show and all the episodes. Confirm that the import has been done correctly, meaning all of the episodes are there. Your name, your show name, your description, your cover art, all of that stuff is included in the new podcast hosting account setup. Go to your old hosting account, add the new RSS feed under the 301 redirect. And then as you upload new episodes to your new hosting account, you'll see, do those episodes go into iTunes and Spotify, et cetera. If they do great, everything's set up correctly. Now, if you flub any of these steps along the way, just hit up support for the new podcast host that you choose. I recommend buzzsprout. Again, they all function the same full disclosure. Spotify for podcasters is completely free. I don't think they have as many bells and whistles. and great options for podcasters, but it is free. It is, it is owned by Spotify. So that's how you are able to import or move your podcast rather from one podcast hosting account to another. But I wanted to emphasize over and over and over and over and over again. So you really understand that it's not just a point click. We're done. There's, there's some eyes that have to be dotted and some teas that needed to be, need to be crossed so that you can make sure that the import and the signing up of the new podcast hosting account actually works. I hope that makes sense to everybody in the event that it doesn't, please just comment on this post. Shoot me a DM on Instagram. Hey, I watched your episode. Live the other day, I'm listening to the episode on the podcast, whatever it is, and send me the question and I'll help to the best of my ability, uh, get that clarified for you. Sometimes it is a technical issue. Most times it's user error, but you can correct that by. hitting up the support for the new podcast hosting account. In fact, you can hit up your existing podcast hosting company too and be like, Hey, I'm trying to move to another host. Something got hung up and they'll usually help. Obviously the new podcast hosting account is going to help out a little bit more than your other one cause they don't want you to leave and the new podcast hosting account wants your business. So, I hope that makes sense. You don't lose your downloads. You don't lose any of your episodes if all done correctly. And again, when you move your podcast to the new hosting account, it won't be completed until everything is done correctly. And you want to make sure that that 301 redirect. is set up with your old podcast hosting account. I say keep your old hosting account for another 30 days just in case. Let everything get transferred over. Make sure everything is smooth and smooth sailing with the new podcast hosting account because the last thing you want to do is move to a new podcast hosting account and then go back and cancel your old hosting account and all of your episodes and everything are gone and the imports done incorrectly. So They always recommend that if you're moving to a new podcast hosting account, in addition to setting up the 301 redirect with your old podcast hosting account, you want to keep that old podcast hosting account for at least 30 days just to make sure everything is set up correctly. So questions, thoughts, ideas, concerns about this episode or podcast hosting or anything in general about podcasting, please comment below wherever you're watching this. If you're listening to the podcast, shoot me a DM over on Instagram. It's at podcast sucks. That's podcast, plural podcast suck. And let me know, Hey, listen, listen to your, Hey, listen, Hey, listen, I listened. I listened to your episode. I got questions about podcast hosting. I'm moving to a new podcast hosting account. I'm setting up a new podcast hosting account, or I just have general questions about podcasting. I am here to help. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great Monday. See you next time. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. It's a way to get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and share the show with someone you know should start a podcast or may already have one. And remember, podcasts suck if you don't have one. Until next time, friends.