Spotify For Podcasters: A Guide to the New Q&A and Polls Features

Podcasting just got even more interactive! With the newly revamped Spotify For Podcasters dashboard, it now offers Q&A and Polls features for your episodes. As a result, this enables you to engage your audience more effectively and gather invaluable feedback.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to set up and make the most of these new features. Furthermore, I will divulge some best practices for crafting Q&A prompts.

Following that, I’ll hit you with some info on how to create engaging Poll questions.

Setting Up Q&A on Spotify For Podcasters

In order to set up Q&A’s and Polls for your podcast, first head on over to Spotify For Podcasters and use your Spotify credentials to log in. After that, enter your RSS Feed.

That’s it!

Believe it or not, if you have a podcast you’ll automatically get access to Spotify For Podcasters.

From there, you can easily enable the Q&A feature for specific episodes.

To do this, simply select the episode, navigate to the Audience tab, and turn on the Q&A feature using the toggle switch.

Once you’ve got that sorted, it’s time to customize your questions. Encourage your audience to share their thoughts on an episode, or ask them about a specific subject.

Afterward, you can monitor the responses coming in. This provides a fantastic opportunity to engage with your listeners and gather valuable insights about your content.

Best Practices for Crafting Q&A Prompts

1. Be clear and specific: When formulating questions, make sure they are clear, specific, and easy for your listeners to understand. Avoid being too vague or using jargon that your audience may not be familiar with.
2. Keep it concise: Your listeners are more likely to engage with your Q&A if your questions are short and to the point. Long, complex questions can be overwhelming and may deter participation.
3. Encourage listener engagement: Frame your questions in a way that invites listeners to share their thoughts, experiences, and opinions. The more you can engage your audience, the more valuable the feedback you receive will be.
4. Promote your Q&A on social media: Use your social media channels and other communication platforms to remind listeners of the Q&A feature on Spotify and invite them to participate. This will help drive more engagement and ensure you get a broad range of responses.

Respond To Your Listeners

When you receive questions, take the time to craft legitimate responses. Doing so will help you create a meaningful dialogue with your audience. Additionally, it demonstrates your commitment to them.

To get the most out of this feature, regularly assess the effectiveness of your Q&A sessions and experiment with different types of questions.

If you’re not getting a ton of engagement at first, don’t get discouraged. It takes a long time and a lot of work to build an engaged audience.

Here are five steps to build an engaging podcast.

How To Create Polls

Polls are another fantastic way to gather feedback, opinions, and preferences from your listeners. To create a poll, follow a similar process to the Q&A feature: go to your Spotify for Podcasters dashboard, select the episode, navigate to the Audience tab, and click on Polls.

Turn on the Polls feature using the toggle switch and create your poll by entering a question to be voted on. You can provide up to four multiple-choice options.

You can set the duration of your poll to last anywhere from a few hours to several days, or even longer.

Finally, you can monitor the results of your poll in real time. Make sure to share the results with your listeners on your podcast or social media channels.

Creating Engaging Poll Questions

1. Keep it relevant: Make sure your poll questions are engaging and relevant to the episode content. This will help ensure that your listeners are genuinely interested in participating and providing feedback.
2. Offer clear choices: When providing multiple-choice options, keep them simple, clear, and easy to understand. This will help your listeners make a quick and informed decision.
3. Promote your poll on social media: Similar to promoting your Q&A, use your social media channels to let your audience know about the poll. This will help ensure you get a diverse range of responses.
4. Share the results: After the poll has ended, make sure to share the results with your listeners. This can be done in a follow-up episode, on social media, or through your podcast’s newsletter. 
5. Experiment with different formats: Try different types of poll questions to determine what resonates best with your audience. You can use yes/no questions, multiple-choice questions with various options, or even ranking-style questions. 

Maximize These Polls Features

• Act on feedback: The primary purpose of these features is to gather feedback from your listeners. Make sure you take the time to review and analyze the responses you receive, and use this information to improve your podcast.

1. Foster a sense of community: Engaging with your listeners through Q&A sessions and polls can help create a sense of community around your podcast. Encourage listeners to interact with each other and discuss the topics covered in your episodes. This leads to a more invested audience.
2. Build anticipation for upcoming episodes: Use the Q&A and Polls features to tease upcoming episodes and create excitement among your listeners.
3. Track engagement over time: As you continue to use the Q&A and Polls features, keep an eye on how engagement levels change over time. This can help you identify trends, such as whether certain topics or formats generate more engagement. Then, you can make data-driven decisions about how to improve your podcast.
4. Promote listener-generated content: Use the insights you gather from your Q&A sessions and polls to inform your content strategy. For example, if your audience is particularly interested in a specific topic, consider creating a series of episodes exploring that subject in more depth.

Get It On

By making the most of the new Q&A and Polls features on Spotify for Podcasters, you can not only engage with your audience more effectively but also gather valuable insights to help improve and grow your podcast.

As with any new feature, it’s essential to experiment with different approaches and listen to your audience’s feedback to refine your strategy over time.

The more you engage with your listeners, the stronger your podcast community will become.