My [Podcast] is featured on the front page of iTunes!

After more than a year of trying to crack the code of getting featured in iTunes, my podcast, Love Your Work is featured on the front page of iTunes, and the iOS Podcasts app.

I'm alongside RuPaul and Mark Zuckerberg, no less!

Apple has taken a hard turn for featuring mainstream guests lately. I was frustrated by this, and in my mind iTunes was fired from my podcast marketing plans. I wasn't going to have Beyoncé on my podcast, so I figured I didn't have a chance.

I honestly don't know exactly how this happened, and I hope to write about it more soon, but here's what I can say so far.

• Libsyn (if they are your host) will recommend your podcast to Apple for feature if you have a guest who is highly notable (as in your mother has heard of them), and who isn't on any other podcasts. My guest isn't highly notable, but I suspect Apple liked the social-good theme.
• I believe they highly prefer in-person interviews. If you do an in-person interview with something feature-able get a picture. As you can see, my picture is absolute shit – I offered to take a better one, but I never heard back.

I originally got on Apple's radar when I asked Libsyn to pitch a prior guest. They were a famous latin dance couple who were on 0 podcasts. Apple apparently passed on that one, but they followed up a couple weeks later to ask about my upcoming schedule.

Shockingly, they weren't interested in the Seth Godin episode I have coming out next week. Instead they wanted this episode where I interviewed my friend who is a chocolatier here in Colombia.

Here is the effect it's had on my stats so far. I believe the front-page feature will last for a week. So far I think it's brought a couple hundred downloads a day.

My ranking has improved from jumping around between #50 and #200 on Careers to currently being #6.

Like I say, I hope to report more about how I think I got featured, and what effect it had, once the smoke clears.

Thank you to everyone who has been listening to the show!