How to set up a Notion podcast dashboard

Greetings, blogger buds! Today’s installment of the Notion for Blogging series will be the last. What a journey it’s been! Today, we’ll explore how to create your own Notion podcast dashboard.

But first, I’d like to reflect on what we’ve accomplished so far. I’ve shown you how to set up a full-fledged content planner in Notion that allows you to manage every part of your brand in one place. We’ve covered:

• creating a robust content planner that lets you store all your blog, social media, email, and YouTube content in a single database
• planning your content offers, deliverables, and products
• charting out your tasks
• organizing your finances
• setting up a YouTube hub
• Let’s go!

Why choose Notion for podcast planning?

If you’ve read any of the other posts in the Notion for Blogging series, you’ll know I advocate using Notion for planning, organizing, and creating all of your content. I know it works (for my needs, at least) because I plan, organize, and create all of my content in Notion — I even wrote this post in Notion!

Before I discovered Notion, my content marketing plan was housed in about a dozen different apps. Between task managers, social media schedulers, note-taking apps, and cloud storage, I was losing track of stuff left and right.

So the main benefit of using a Notion podcast dashboard is that it enables you to link your podcast content to everything else: blog and social media posts, email campaigns, YouTube videos.

Which handily leads me to the first reason why you should consider Notion for all your podcast planning needs.

Link your podcast episodes to other content

I’m a big fan of Notion’s databases. They let you organize all your content on a granular level with virtually no limitations. The Relation function is especially helpful for linking content offers (like courses, ebooks, and other deliverables) to individual content pieces, like a podcast episode or a Facebook post.

Let’s say you’re creating a course for new bloggers. You know you want to promote the course on every channel. So you might set up a content offers database which links to your content planner (what I like to call the Content Creation Hub). This lets you see every piece of content associated with that campaign:

Here’s a sneak peek of my content offers database, where I link every individual content piece to my campaign plan.

Write your scripts in one place

If you’re like some of those unicorn podcasters out there, you might not need a script at all. But if you’re like most, you probably need at least a rough outline of the episode, if not a full script.

Notion’s functionality as a content calendar lets you see the air date and status of the episode, as well as draft the content all in the same place. I recommend setting up a podcast template complete with podcast-related tasks right there on the page. That way, every time you create a new podcast episode in Notion, all your publication checks automatically populate. (I’ll show you how to do this shortly!)

Embed your Spotify playlists right on the page

The ability to embed audio, video, and web content right into your Notion pages is a huge plus. You can easily embed Spotify podcasts and playlists in Notion. Just click into the Notion page and type “/” to open Notion commands. Type “Embed”, then paste the link to your podcast or playlist. And boom! It’s embedded.

Here’s a quick video showing you how:

I use the Notion app for Windows with Notion Enhancer, so my pages might look a little different than yours.

How to set up a Notion podcast dashboard

When it comes to setting up your Notion podcast hub, you have two options. The one you choose depends on how you’re using Notion for content planning.

If you’re planning blog, social media, email, and YouTube content in addition to your podcast, your first option is setting up a Content Creation Hub database. This central database is the command center for all your content planning. You’ll embed this database into your Notion podcast hub and filter it to show only podcast content.

If you’re only using Notion for podcast planning, setting up a content creation hub may not be necessary.

Let’s walk through both options.

Step 1: Create a new database

Want to set up a full-fledged Content Creation Hub for all your brand’s content? Check out this walkthrough on creating an all-in-one content planner in Notion.

Just using Notion for your podcast content? Here’s the first step in setting up your Notion podcast hub.

1. Create a new top-level page.
2. Click into the page and type “/” on your keyboard to open up Notion commands.
3. Type “table” and select “Table – Inline”

You’ll probably want to add a calendar view to this database, but I recommend starting out with a table first. This lets you easily add properties and figure out what you need.

Step 2: Start adding properties

Now that you’ve got your database, it’s time to add properties. I recommend starting out with a few basic fields:

• Episode (Title property that automatically populates whenever you create a new database)
• Episode Number (Number or Text)
• Guest (Text)
• Guest Contact (Email, URL, or Text)

Ideas for your Notion podcast hub

So you’ve got a basic podcast content planner. Now comes the fun part: Getting creative and designing your page!

You might like to add a place to set and review goals, or even another database for guest outreach tracking. We’ll walk through these ideas and a few more for your Notion podcast dashboard.

Create an outreach tracker

As a podcaster, you’re always on the hunt for new guests who can provide value to your audience. And you’re probably always looking to feature on other people’s podcasts, too. Notion is a great place to track both types of outreach efforts.

To do this, you might create a new inline database on your podcast hub page (scroll back up to Step 2 for a walkthrough). I recommend adding these properties to your outreach tracker:

• Podcast (Text or Select field)
• Contact Name (Title or Text)
• Email (Email)
• Website (URL)
• Niche (Text)
• Status (Select)

When it’s finished, it might look a little something like this:

A sneak peek of the premium Podcast Hub Notion Template Bundle!

Set smart goals and review as needed

As you continue to learn and improve, your goals for your podcast will continue to evolve as well. It makes sense that if you’re using Notion for podcast planning, you’ll want to track and review your goals in the same place too.

How you set up your goal planner is completely up to you. You might choose to jot down goals right in your Notion podcast hub or set up a separate full-fledged database to track goals for every platform.

Here are a few examples of goals you might like to set and track per month or quarter:

• Total streams
• Unique streams/followers
• New subscribers
• Total stream time

I recommend having one column for your goals and another for your actual engagement for easy comparison. You might also like to add some review questions to anticipate and overcome challenges and review your progress.

Here’s what that might look like:

A sneak peek of the Goals & Progress Tracker, part of the Notion for Blogging Premium Template Pack!

Keep resources for growing your podcast

Whether it’s using new editing software or designing your own website, podcasters never stop learning. Which means you’ve probably got podcast resources stored between apps like Pinterest and Pocket. (Not to mention an ever-growing TBR list.)

Notion lets you store all those resources in one place and set reminders to engage with them later. You can even embed a filtered view of your content repository right onto your podcast page that shows only resources related to your podcast.

A leveled-up version of the Content Repository complete with 35+ resources comes free with purchase of the Podcast Hub Template Bundle or the Notion for Blogging Premium Template Pack:

Track expenses related to your podcast

Chances are you’ve invested more than just time into your podcast. You’ve spent a pretty penny on recording equipment and editing software. If you’re not already tracking those investments (and their returns), now’s a good time to start.

You can set up a finance tracker for your podcast in no time. I recommend adding these basic fields:

• Expense (Title)
• Platform (Select)
• Amount (Number)
• Date (Date)

Hover near the bottom of the database to calculate expense totals.

Creating your Notion podcast dashboard: wrapping up

Notion is the ultimate app for:

• planning and creating content
• setting goals and holding yourself accountable
• tracking finances
• fleshing out your brand kit and buyer personas
• storing resources for growing your online presence

…and so much more.

Because it combines the functionality of so many different apps and programs, Notion is especially useful for podcast planning. Hopefully you’ve got some awesome ideas for setting up your own Notion podcast hub.

But if, like many content creators, you’re struggling to find enough hours in the day, don’t fret. I’ve already created a robust Notion podcast hub for you!

This Notion template bundle is a spinoff of the Notion for Blogging Premium Template Pack, which offers 75+ pages and templates to simplify every part of managing a blog and brand:

Want to set up your own command center for your brand with Notion? I get it. As nerdy as it sounds, playing around in Notion is one of my favorite things to do! So more power to ya. Check out my other Notion blog template walkthroughs to build your blog’s second brain in Notion!

If you do rely on my resources to set up your own Notion content planner, please consider buying a fellow blogger a coffee. I’ve poured a lot of time, money, and love into these resources to make them accessible for everyone.

But if you’re just here to read, that’s cool, too. I appreciate your support in whatever form it may take! Thank you for taking the time out of your hectic schedule to be here. 😄

Welp, that wraps up my last Notion for blogging tutorial. But it doesn’t have to be goodbye! I’m always keen to hear about your experience with Notion. Feel free to share your questions and setups in the comments!

Hover to pin for later!