10 Cool Things You Can Do With Transistor

Whether you are learning how to start a podcast or managing multiple existing podcasts, Transistor includes practical tools that make podcast distribution and promotion much easier.

If you've had a podcast for a while now and you're confident in the basics of publishing episodes and distributing them to podcast directories, it's time to expand your podcast production workflow. Consider some of the additional features that your podcast hosting platform has to improve your podcast branding, marketing and accessibility.

One approach we recommend at Transistor is to make your podcast incrementally better with each episode by experimenting with a lesser known feature. You don't have to start out with everything from day one, it's more important to record and publish good content first.

However once you have your publishing schedule locked in, it's time to start innovating with features that can really impact the growth trajectory of your show, without being overwhelming. Here are ten cool things you can do with Transistor that you may not have seen before.

1. Use our Podcast Score Tool

Many podcasters aren’t taking advantage of innovative new Podcasting 2.0 features, like chapters and episode artwork. Use Transistor's Podcast Score Tool to find out your baseline score. Use the provided Suggestions to incrementally improve your podcast and re-test it to see if you get a higher score!

2. Add People to your episodes

Using the People page in Transistor you can add a list of hosts and guests with their associated biography information and then tag them on the episodes they are involved with. This information is added into your podcast feed using the <podcast:person> tag. It will appear in any podcast apps that support the Podcasting 2.0 Person feature.

This feature gives proper credit to the people appearing in your episodes and it helps listeners learn more about who they are listening to. When you combine the People feature with our in-built Podcast Website, you get a fantastic People Page, that lets you sort and filter episodes to see all of the episodes for a specific person.

Give your guests the link to their dedicated People page on your podcast website and have them share their repeat appearances with their followers.

3. Change your Podcast Website template

We have 6 different podcast website templates you can choose from, with a range of minimalistic, retro and tech themes. Transistor lets you choose different colour schemes for each template and you can also add custom CSS to add more personality to your site.

You can add additional pages to your podcast website, along with video embeds and links to your social platforms too. Our podcast website customisation features help your site to feel unique and consistent with your brand.

If you're looking for inspiration on styling your podcast website take a look at our Podcast Website Design Gallery.

4. Start a podcast Network

All Transistor accounts allow you to start multiple shows. You can add unlimited team members to each podcast so that each show can be produced by their own dedicated team. If you have multiple podcasts all under one brand you can also group them into a network. This is helpful if you want to grow a collection of related shows under one production network.

You can also use our Network Podcast Website Builder to group your network of shows into a dedicated website. Our Network websites stay up to date automatically with all episodes that you publish, across all shows in your Network.

5. Add transcripts to your episodes

With Transistor you can upload your own transcript file or use our AI Transcription tool to produce one for you, in a range of different useful formats. They can be used for blog posts, reading in sync with listening and also closed captioning.

Transcripts make your podcast more accessible and it is an opportunity to re-purpose your existing content into a different format. Having transcripts for every episode helps you to easily refer back to previously mentioned topics in past episodes by making the contents of your episodes searchable.

Transcripts are supported by a wide rage of podcast apps and they will be pulled through into any apps that support them. See our article on Which Podcast Apps Support Transcripts.

6. Recommend other podcasts

Transistor allows you to recommend other podcasts. You can cross-promote your own shows or highlight other podcasts you like. This helps listeners discover more content and keeps them engaged. You can add this feature in the Settings page of your podcast under the Promotion tab.

This information is added to your RSS feed using the <podcast:podroll> tag and is supported by Podcasting 2.0 apps. You'll also see your recommended shows on your podcast website too. Here's an example of a Recommended Podcasts Page.

7. Create a secret podcast feed

Transistor supports both Unlisted and Private Podcasts. Unlisted feeds are a single private feed that you manually share out with your listeners. Private Podcasts provide a unique private feed to each subscriber you invite by email.

Private podcasts are ideal for members-only content, employees, or paying subscribers. You control who gets access and can see analytics for each subscriber. They are also great for online courses, internal company updates, or exclusive content.

8. Become a Transistor affiliate

Transistor has an affiliate program that allows you to earn commission by recommending the platform to others. If you talk about podcasting on your show, or in your blog or newsletter sharing your referral link is a great way to earn commission.

Being a Transistor affiliate can reduce your podcasting costs by generating an income for your referrals. When someone signs up through your link, you'll earn a recurring 25% of their payment.

9. Add a donation link to your podcast

You can add a donation link to your podcast website and episode pages. Just go to Settings > Social Media > Donation on the show you'd like to add it to.

This donation link gives listeners a simple way to support your show financially. It works well for independent creators who want to offer free content while still covering costs. You may want to use tipping platforms like Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-Fi and link to them in the Donation field on Transistor.

10. Hidden analytics features

Transistor provides a detailed suite of podcast analytics so you can track downloads over time. However one thing that you may not know is that each individual episode has its own dedicated analytics page too. Just to go the Episode Breakdown table and select an episode.

On the individual episode page you can compare the performance of one episode to another to see what works best. This helps you make better decisions about your content and understand the topics and guests that do well.

Another recent Analytics feature is our Episode Comparison chart which shows episode performance, aligned based on release day not date. Compare the launch of each episode visually and use the comparison insights to understand when to better promote episodes.

Bonus: Share your achievement badges on social media

Transistor provides a range of podcast achievement badges when your podcast reaches certain performance milestones. You can share these badges on social media to celebrate your progress.

It is a simple way to show growth and thank your audience for listening. We also provide achievement badges for number of countries reached, podcast birthdays and number of episodes published.