The explicit tag for your podcast is a really big deal

Free speech is a big deal in the U.S. - which is where I'm broadcasting from, and I'm not one to say that you or anybody else can't say whatever you want to say in whatever way you want to say it.

BUT it's only common sense to realize that people or companies who provide the platforms upon which you say what you want to say in the way you want to say it have THEIR right to limit what you say over THEIR platform.

Did you get that? It's THEIR platform. They get to make the rules - and they do. They have created criteria you must agree to if you're going to use their platforms to make your content available to people.

For some reason it's easy to forget that web services like Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and even Facebook for that matter, are THOSE kinds of platforms. But they are.

Today's episode is focused exclusively on the "explicit" tag in Apple Podcasts.

You may think this doesn't apply to you... after all, you keep your show clean all the way around. That's great. You may be right that you'll never have to deal with this issue at all.

But what if some day you have a guest on your show who's native language in the 4-letter-word? What are you going to do then?

Some folks would beep out every instance. That's cool if that's what you want to do.

But what if it's not as bad as all that? What if they only use one or two colorful words and they actually lend to the emphasis or context of what they're saying?

That might be a good time for you to know how to use the "explicit" tags the right way, on an episode-level. That way you can label that ONE episode "explicit" and the rest can keep their "no rating" or "clean rating" tag intact.

Did you know you could do that? Label JUST ONE episode with "explicit" and leave the rest of your show non-labeled or clean?

You can. Keep listening and I'm going to tell you how to do it using two of the most popular avenues - Libsyn and Blubrry.

Before we get into the details, let me say this:

I'll be referring to some very specific functions inside the Libsyn interface and the Blubrry PowerPress plugin - and being an audio podcast I'm going to do my very best to describe exactly how you can find them. But in case you need to see the visual or re-check what I say, you can find all those sorts of things in the show notes for this episode. They'll be at www.PodcastFastTrack.com/13 OR www.PodcastFastTrack.com/explicittag.

OK - let's get going

Why the "explicit" tag is important

I covered this a bit in the last episode but let me quickly sum up...

The "explicit" tag's main use is two-fold:

1. It's a "heads-up" to potential listeners that they may get an earful of colorful language or topics in your show
2. But more importantly: It's used by the iTunes search filters to make the "parental controls" of the directory work.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about that but I will quickly tell you that if a parent sets their parental controls in iTunes to block explicit content and little Johnny downloads your show that is NOT tagged as "explicit" but it DOES indeed have explicit content - you've just made an enemy.

And they may complain to iTunes.

And your show may get the boot.

Find out more about iTunes Parental controls

OK, let's move on...

What qualifies as "explicit" and what doesn't qualify as "explicit"?

Some people are a bit confused about this, so let's do what we can to clear it up.

Is one F-bomb considered explicit? What about the S-word, or the A-word, or a reference to the sex act?

It does get a bit fuzzy when you boil it down like that. And Apple doesn't give us any kind of specifics to tell us what THEY mean by explicit.

So......