Podcasting is a powerful, on trend, medium that helps everyone from individuals or large brands get their message out there. With more companies and people using podcasts to drive brand awareness, find a target audience, and offer personable insight, getting your new show to standout in the crowd can be issue. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the ways to promote your new podcast and inspire you to find unique ideas to market it on social media.
At Chat with Leaders Media, we strive to help conscious leaders and companies share their stories in the hopes that our conversations today will create a foundation for a better tomorrow. And with such powerful pieces of content, you have so many options to authentically and creatively share and promote each episode.
In the post below you’ll learn how to market your podcast and episode launches. It can feel daunting at first, so start with one or two options to get you started.
How to Leverage Your Guests’ Audience to Promote Your Podcast
Depending on your podcast format, you might welcome a new or recurring guest for long-form interviews or you might spotlight experts for brief quotes. Not only does this keep your show peppered with fresh content and help amplify others’ perspectives, but having more voices on your podcast widens everyone’s potential audience reach.
Host and guests can show mutual support by sharing each others’ work, website, social media handles, and products, so make it easy for your guests to promote the episode. Create an episode cover graphic, micro-video, quote, or even 1-2 sentence copy for them to post to their networks or email lists.
If they’re part of a larger team or organization, you can also offer to send a few graphics and 1-2 sentences for them to ask their team to share too.
“One of the real upsides of podcasting is the amount of content you can extract from a single episode and repurpose into micro-content over the course of time in a content waterfall marketing strategy,” said producer and Chat with Leaders founder, Jeff Bond. “So many people will record a podcast one time, publish it one time promote it one time— only to promote it to that singular audience once. However when you break down the full-length content into chunks, you can then have multiple eyes on it over time.
You can deliver it as a media package to your guests over time. You can give tips on how to promote it multiple times over. And you can really start to shine a bright spotlight on your guests while providing valuable insights and micro content to your audience.”
Encourage guests to share with a goodwill show of support on your end by promoting your guest’s latest work, tagging them and their businesses on social media, and linking back to their website or social media handle on the show notes.
Be sure to send along the package of promotional graphics after you record or when you send a thank you note, so guests can tease out the upcoming episode to their networks.
Tip: You can always re-share your episode with a previous guest. From trends, current events, or even just a throwback day, opportunities will arise where you can re-share pertinent episodes and tag your guest again to your network.
How to Market Your Podcast on Social Media
Look at your own audience and podcast purpose to understand what social media platform would be best to promote your content and where to create a show page.
For instance, top business podcasts might promote each episode on the professional networking platform Linkedin, whereas a B2C podcast might focus on Instagram so they can utilize the shop function to showcase products and engage their future buyers.
At Chat with Leaders Media, our favorite platform is Linkedin, where we like to engage with the professional audience as well as B Corporations and Conscious Capitalists with similar core values.. But we also use Facebook and Instagram too!
Start by choosing the right platforms to find your target audience and keep your content calendar simple. Each podcast episode has so much content to utilize, so you get the most mileage out of the latest episode by creating a variety of great content.
You can promote its initial launch, then share an audio or video clip highlighting your guest in the episode, then share a powerful quote graphic, and more. Get creative! There’s so much content to use from one podcast episode over multiple posts
Tip: You can schedule your social media content ahead of time by utilizing platforms like Buffer or Later. Bucket your podcast promotion time once a week and plan ahead so you can push out multiple pieces of content in one sitting.
Engage with Your Listeners and Guests Beyond the Episode
There are many reasons to utilize a podcast to support your brand and among them is developing a community your audience and guests would love to be a part of.
Spend some time eachweek proactively engaging with your community online. Revisiting your guests’ social media profiles and amplifying their posts within your network by commenting or re-sharing builds your relationship and keeps you top of mind in their network.
In your audience’s case, this could mean responding to their questions, feedback, or reactions to episodes on social media or even in the next episode announcement section.
Create a social media engagement checklist of hashtags or trending topics to check out each week. Include a short list “friends of the show”, who could be super fans, previous guests and their companies, and thought leaders you admire. Visit their pages and engage with their social media posts weekly, by liking or leaving a thoughtful comment too.
The goal is to give value in some way, don’t just agree or post an emoji. Meaningful interactions can go a long way, start discussions, and bring awareness to your brand.
Tip: Host a giveaway with your audience by asking for a review and raffle off a prize to a random reviewer. This will help build your numbers on podcast aggregators and get the audience involved too.
Share New Episodes with Online Communities
In the same way you might network on Linkedin, Slack, or Facebook Groups to find collaborators or guests, be sure to use these same niche communities to promote your latest episode.
Read the group rules before you write anything to make sure your post isn’t SPAM or sales-y, which most groups frown upon. Be cognizant of adding value to the conversation, either posting a relevant episode in response to someone’s thread or by offering some takeaways you found helpful from your latest episode or guest.
Not only will this help you find the right people and potential new listeners, but engaging in new content can inspire you too.
Tip: Find relevant groups and routinely check in. Ask questions pertinent to upcoming episodes or get their thoughts on a few upcoming topics. You might be surprised by other perspectives or even find new guests!
Repurpose Your Podcast Episode on YouTube, Blog pieces, and More
Single episodes give us so much content to use from collateral to share on social to sound bites and more. You can also re-purpose or highlight key takeaways from your podcast with other forms of media, from Youtube clips, blogs, newsletters, and more.
Not only does this help in terms of SEO and organic discovery, but it gives your content more legs and your potential audience more opportunity to find you.
For example for videos, search engines prioritize videos on search results pages, so also posting your podcast on YouTube increases your chances at disovery. if you don’t usually record you and your guest in studio or when you’re chatting over Zoom, you can create a video by using stock images, graphics, or just creating a video cover to share an audio clip or the whole episode. Take advantage of the summary you write-up on YouTube to hit those keywords. Keep it pertinent to the episode but hone in on the keywords that will help organic discovery of your episode.
Think through the best way to reach your intended audience. You don’t have to do each outlet but work on where you want to spend your time and where you know you’ll find your listener.
“The real value and real opportunity comes in turning that content into bitesize sound bites, and graphics, quotes, and blog posts that people can consume in shorter periods of time in their preferred manner and places,” said Jeff. “And making sure you share that content across marketing communication channels, all the socials, email newsletters, Linkedin posts, you name it. That’s really where the value podcasting and creating content comes. “
Tip: Keyword research can be tricky so try tools like UberSuggest or even just a cursory Google search to start. You’ll most likely use a mix of a few hashtags and long tail key words every episode, but do your best to tailor each description to the episode topic.
Look for Partnership Opportunities to Promote Your Podcast Further
Popular blog posts or newsletters with similar themes and target followings could be potential sponsors or guests for upcoming episodes. In exchange for working together on paid ads or content, see if you can get a mention on social media or write up to their readers.
One of the real upsides of podcasting is the amount of content you can extract from a single episode and repurpose into micro-content over the course of time in a content waterfall marketing strategy.
– Jeff Bond, Chat with Leaders Founder
If you or your guest already have a core following through your blog or newsletter email lists, there might be space to create a special category or section to feature the latest episode.
Or get meta and be a guest yourself on someone else’s podcast to get the word out there and share your perspective too.
Tip: Look for partners with similar audiences who might be a good match and would mutually help you and their following. You can also get creative. Some podcasts give shoutouts in episodes for paying patrons or offering exclusive content or coaching for paid listeners.
Get More Promotion Ideas from Your Favorite Podcasts
Whatever your topic or style, a great way to get ideas or even to riff on some unique ways to market your own brand is to check out some favorite thought leaders or podcasts in or outside of your industry!
If you’re positioning yourself as an expert, maybe dive into the best business podcasts, and look at how these brands or hosts create a community with their listeners.
Tip: If you’re researching podcasts, reach out to writer or team behind these aggregate lists for favorites or ones to check out. They could be a good partner to work with or see if you could be added to the list too!
Still wondering, “How to promote my podcast?” or “how to start a podcast?”
Let Chat with Leaders Media know! We’re happy to help and get you started.
