How to Create an Audio Player for the Interview Archive or Greatest Hits

This article will teach you how to create your audio player for either your interview archive (if you're a guest) or for your podcast's greatest hits audio player (if you're a podcast host).

If you know where your episodes are located, this process takes about 20 minutes to complete.

What field in the guest profile or podcast listing does this apply to?

This document pertains to the "Elfsight Audio Player ID" field (image below).

Why is this necessary?

While we strive to make everything on our website easy, collecting audio from podcast creators without uploading that audio to our website has proven difficult because of the variety of podcast hosting platforms available and slight variations in how each service handles the streaming of its audio.

So far, we have refused to allow users to upload audio to our website because user-provided audio uploaded to our site would no longer count as a play or download for podcast creators which does not align with our mission. After researching all of our options, we have determined that the best solution for our guests and podcast hosts to create audio playlists they control is to allow users to upload their own Elfsight audio player. 

Who or What is Elfsight?

Elfsight is a reputable company that creates widgets that can be embedded into websites and they offer a free tier that will satisfy the needs of most of our users. 

In fact, we use the Elfsight podcast player to use the RSS feed podcast creators provide to display their podcast episodes in our podcast listings.

Step 1: Create an Elfsight Account

Creating an account on Elfsight is easy. First vist Elfsight and sign up for a free account here: https://apps.elfsight.com/sign-up//?ref=0cfb3e28-4812-48a0-85cb-860567b4269e (this is an affiliate link).

Once you are on the page linked above, enter your information to create an account.

You'll then be redirected to your dashboard.

Step 2: Click on the "Audio" Tab

Step 3: Click on the Audio Player Application

When you click on the audio player application, a screen will populate that allows you to select the theme for the audio player. You can select any theme you want but we believe its best to select the "audiobook" theme. 

Step 4: Pick the Audiobook Theme (recommended)

Step 5: Begin Populating Your Audio Player:

To populate your audio player with tracks, click on each track to edit or delete the prep-populated file. When you click on the track, you'll be tasked with uploading or linking to the audio, providing the artist name (podcast name), and track title (episode title), and uploading the podcast's cover art. You will need to do this for each episode you want to be included in the audio player.

For guests: If you have trouble finding the URL of your episode or if you have trouble downloading a copy of your own interview, we recommend contacting the podcaster who interviewed you for help locating the file.

For podcast creators: If you have trouble finding the URL that points to where the file is hosted by your podcast host, we recommend contacting them through their support form and asking for help.

Step 6: Name Your Widget and Click Save

After you have entered all your tracks, name your widget and click save.

If you're a new user with Elfsight, you will be prompted to select a plan. Select the plan that works for you. Most users will find the free tier to be sufficient unless you want to put the widget on more websites or your profile's monthly views exceed the tier limits.

Step 7: Copy Code

After selecting a plan that works for you, a popup will appear with a piece of code. Copy it the code and paste it into a text editor like Notepad (Microsoft) or TextEdit (Mac).

All you have to do is click on the box that contains the code and it is automatically copied. Launch your text editor of choice and paste the code.

The number we need is highlighted below:

Copy the number highlighted in blue above. Including the prefix elfsight-app- and DO NOT INCLUDE THE QUOTATION MARKS. You will now return to our directory and paste this number into the Elfsight App ID field. Save your listing.

Save or update your listing after pasting the ID number into this field. Your audio player will now populate within our directory. If you want to change the contents of the audio player, you just need to return to your Elfsight account and make the changes there. Our website will pull the data from the changes you make within your Elfsight account automatically and no further action is needed on your end.