As a smart podcaster, you know the power of strategically sharing your episodes.
That means you need awesome, proven marketing assets as ammo to push out your audio.
And that’s where audiograms come in.
An audiogram is a static image that’s converted into a video by placing audio, a waveform, and transcriptions over it. Here’s an example:
So even if you don’t have a video podcast – most are audio-only – you should still create video assets for your episodes through audiograms as it performs better when shared. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it, like with a simple image with text.
Still not convinced? Still just want to share an image of your episode to get more traffic and listeners?
Headliner did a study where they shared a podcast episode on Facebook 2 different ways. This was with a static image versus an audiogram, and the audiogram generated 5X the results and traffic. The static image generated 118 clicks and the audiogram generated 660. That’s a pretty significant difference. So let’s get started!
What’s The Best Tool to Create Audiograms?
Those guys we just mentioned … Headliner. This is a free tool that allows you to upload your mp3 file and image and create an awesome audiogram.
It also auto-generates transcriptions! You’ll still need to adjust them for any incorrect words and to make sure it’s timed properly, but this is a huge time saver.
Here’s how to create an audiogram in Headliner:
- Create a free account here: https://make.headliner.app/
- Upload your episode’s audio and image, and choose your waveform.
- Nail down your transcriptions. Again, Headliner will auto-generate these, but double check that they’re correct and timed well with your audiogram. Don’t skip putting transcriptions on your audiogram (we’ll dive more into this next).
- Once everything looks great, click “Export” and you have your square audiogram!
Here’s the video walking you through everything:
Transcriptions Vs No Transcriptions On Your Audiogram
80% of people are more likely to watch and listen to something if it contains captions.
Without them, people may not realize your audiogram is designed to be played as an audio clip: As much as 85% of video views happen with the sound off.
And since Headliner does the majority of the heavy lifting here, be sure you finish this step.
**Note – The only audiograms we don’t put transcriptions on is the widescreen format for YouTube. We explain why later …
What About The Skin For Your Audiogram?
hen creating the “skin” (aka the image you’ll upload into Headliner to place your waveform and transcriptions on), consider a couple things here:
Images with people in them tend to perform better
Neil Patel reported that images with people in them can lead up to a 95% increase in conversions alone.
This is a great chance to feature your episode’s guest. Ask for a few images from them so you have multiple to choose from.
If you have a podcast that doesn’t interview others as often, use an image of yourself or choose an image of a group of people that express your message.
Pixabay is a great free resource for images that don’t look like they’re stock.
Make your headline interesting
The main text on your audiogram should pique interest, get the person thinking, and make them want to listen to the full episode.
It doesn’t necessarily just have to be the title of your episode. Ask a question, make it a stat, or be controversial.
Optimize the Size of Your Audiogram For Each Social Platform
We’ve already said you’re a smart podcaster, so we’ll skip explaining how important it is to optimize your marketing assets to fit each social platform, like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, and Twitter.
We’ll dive straight into the good stuff!
For one audio clip for an episode, we create 3 different sized audiograms:
- 1 Square Audiogram – for Facebook and Instagram feed
Yes! Use square video on Facebook – Square video takes up 78% more real estate in a person’s mobile newsfeed than does landscape video, and Buffer found that square vs landscape led to 30-35% increase in views and 80-100% increase in engagement. - 1 Vertical Audiogram – for Instagram Story and IGTV
- 1 Widescreen Audiogram – for YouTube
Yes, all of this is done in Headliner. You can choose your aspect ratios here.
When creating your audiogram’s skin, here’s the best sizing to follow:
- Square Skin: 1080px by 1080px
- Vertical Skin: 1080px by 1920px
- Widescreen Skin: 1920px by 1080px
Here’s an example of a vertical audiogram (for Stories/ IGTV):
And here’s a widescreen one (for YouTube):
Notice how there aren’t transcriptions on this one? That’s because the widescreen format gets uploaded to YouTube. And in this case, we suggest you upload your transcriptions SEPARATELY so that every single word in that clip becomes trackable for SEO!
If you aren’t sure how to do that, we have a video that shows you how here.
And there you have it – why, how, and what to create for your podcast’s audiograms!
If you see the value in this (and other marketing assets for your episodes like image quotes, thumbnails, and memes) but don’t want to do the work, our team at Podcast Memes has your back. Let us create them for you.