Adding Spotify Chapters (clickable timestamps) to your podcast show notes is easy and you should do it on every episode. Watch Emily’s tutorial video here.

Read more about the SEO and UX benefits of clickable Spotify timestamps for podcasts here.

Here’s what the clickable kind look like (what you want):

Example Spotify podcast chapters (clickable timestamps) which are great for SEO and UX (user experience). This is “The Game w/Alex Hormozi”, a podcast that figured out the Spotify Chapters trick earlier than most.

Watch video- how to create Spotify podcast chapters:

It’s Like Google Featured Snippets

On Google, Featured Snippets get 35.1% of all clicks. (The boxes featured at the top of search results which answer a specific question.)

Clickable timestamps are like the Featured Snippets of your podcast. They tell listeners and search engines how specific parts of your episode essentially answer a specific question.

Steps: How to add Spotify podcast chapters (linked timestamps):

Using AI or a manual method, generate 8-10 timestamps for every 60 minutes of content.
In your RSS feed host such as Acast, Libsyn, Podbean etc., click to edit the “episode description” (show notes).
Put the timestamps on separate lines beginning with the minutes and seconds, either one or two digits for minutes and two digits for seconds, with a colon in the middle such as 4:34. BUT:
Instead of just writing the time plainly like 4:34, you need to put the time in parentheses to make it clickable in Spotify (a Chapter). Like this: (4:34).
1. Example of a clickable timestamp / chapter when written in the RSS feed episode description (back-end): (4:34) Investors who lost their password made more money

That’s it. Watch Emily’s tutorial for more details: How To Add Spotify Podcast Chapters / CLICKABLE Timestamps

Define what we’re talking about:

First, “rich media preview” or metadata just means that the social post’s featured image / thumbnail is grabbing information from your target link (such as a YouTube title and thumbnail, or blog post title and featured image). See the screenshots below with green check marks.

It happens automatically if your linked post or media asset has the metadata (title, thumbnail, description) and you share natively. YouTube always does. Blog posts usually do (up to you in settings).
It happens sometimes when using a scheduling tool like Buffer or Sendible.
It happens sometimes if the person posting chooses to attach a photo instead of letting the URL scrape metadata (native info like image and title). (Don’t attach a plain image when you could let the linked asset’s data scrape in and be rich.)

Benefits of rich media / metadata previews for outbound links on social posts:

Give your audience a more reassuring and visually pleasing UX
Display more information (where they’re clicking to - no surprises)
Use Fitt’s Law: You’ll have a much larger target area (featured visual and clickable description vs one small text URL)

Fitt's Law is a rule that says it's easier to touch or click on bigger things that are closer to you, and harder to touch or click on smaller things that are farther away.

Results: more clicks to your target media. Example below (X post, good):

❌ Vision boards
❌ Startup MVPs
❌ 5-year plans

✅ Prototypes

Mini-pod: Why Startup MVPs and Vision Boards Don't Work

Spotify: https://t.co/T7LKM6Xh5t

YouTube: https://t.co/WrxQNn9tii
— Emily Binder (@emilybinder) October 18, 2023

When it comes to sharing a blog post or YouTube video or article on social, you want the featured / thumbnail image to be rich media, not an attached plain image which forces the user to find the shortlink in the text of the post. That plain image style lowers the engagement rate and likelihood they will click out to your content. Here’s a clip from the podcast explaining more:

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A post shared by Beetle Moment Marketing (@beetlemoment)

Note: this doesn't apply to zero click content, e.g. photo posts where you intend to simply upload pics and not drive traffic to a link - which is fine and intentional.

Example posts: Do This vs. Don't Do This:

A) Do this- Optimal examples:

A rich media experience, clickable featured image with metadata (title, description, target website shown)

Good LinkedIn post style for promoting a YouTube video podcast. First give the audio link (Spotify, Apple, or Podlink / Plink universal podcast menu link. THEN give the YouTube link as the final link because LinkedIn will scrape / feature metadata from the last URL.)

-Twitter example 1 (YouTube clickable preview)

Good X post with YouTube rich media preview - btw this is our client Jonathan Satovsky’s podcast, Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness - incredible guests like Greg Harden, Bob Roth, Joel Greenblatt- check it out!

-LinkedIn example 1 (YouTube clickable preview)

-LinkedIn example 2 (Two links for podcast audio and video) - Advanced tip: for a post with two links: LinkedIn favors the last URL as the clickable media so if you have a podcast, first put the audio link THEN the YouTube link so people see the more engaging clickable video thumbnail with details. Another good example (do this):

Good post style - LinkedIn: this is a caveat. Zero-click content is meant to let the user get the full scoop without clicking away. Great for photos or videos natively uploaded. Popular lately also: swipe through carousel photo style posts (like mini webinar slides).

B) Don't do this: Not optimal examples:

A jpg or png is attached and that preview image that isn't clickable to open the media. User has to find the link to click inside the post text. Less engaging when seen in a feed.

-LinkedIn example 1 (way too many tags which hurts the post algo if tagged people or companies don't engage, and difficult to visually find the actual target URL)

-LinkedIn example 2 (nice post but image is static and not rich media/clickable to the target URL)

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