How to build a profitable podcast.
This article will guide you in promoting your podcast using social media.
NOTE - if you want AI to write your podcast social posts for you, you can sign up to a Freemium plan to Abney (Podcast AI) here 🤓
Let us welcome our guest writer Jessica Fender!
People listen to podcasts for various reasons. Some want to learn new skills or stay in touch with their respective industries. Others do it while working out or taking a walk outside. Recent reports indicate that 60% of people listen to podcasts at home, no doubt encouraged by recent social distancing norms. Regardless of which type of podcast you are creating, there is an audience out there who will follow you along on your creative journey.
According to published data, 20% of people listened to podcasts weekly in 2020, with 32% finding new podcasts via word of mouth and online research. It’s very easy to find new listeners and other podcast creators if you promote your podcast on social media. Given Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter enjoy a multi-billion user base, marketing your podcast on these and other social platforms is a must in 2021. Let’s discuss the how and why to help you launch a successful social media marketing strategy for your podcast.
Why Promote your Podcast on Social Media in the First Place?
Before we dive into different marketing strategies for podcast promotion on social media, let’s talk about the “why”. Why are social media platforms the perfect place to find and engage new listeners? Based on research, 90% of brands build awareness on social media, with 61% doing it to increase conversion and 50% to gain customer insight. What does this mean in practice?
Many companies, startups, and other podcasts use social media to find new followers and to find out what they like and dislike. You can create a social media presence and engage your followers to chat, gather feedback or user-generated content, or simply extend your reach online. With so many people using social media on a daily basis, many will like your podcast’s pitch enough to start listening. Choosing to promote your podcast on social media will yield plenty of benefits for you going forward, including:
Treat your Podcast as a Business and Promote its Brand
When marketing your podcast on social media, it’s important to treat it as a serious brand with gravitas. Create business pages on social media under your podcast’s name, and use its logo and visuals to brand the pages adequately.
Use the About section on each platform to insert your web address, email, phone number, and any other business correspondence. This content should be concise and informative, so use UnemployedProfessors to write a short “about us” text and format it properly. The information will be used by other brands and your followers to reach out to you, so make sure all of it is up-to-date.
It will also help your podcast’s SEO and ensure that the social media pages show up in search engines when people look for them. The way you treat your content on social media will speak volumes about what kind of a professional or a team you are. Treat social media pages as an extension of your podcast, and people will be likely to follow you.
Create Posts for Each Individual Episode as it Airs
A simple but efficient way to promote your podcast on social media is to create posts dedicated to each new episode. Once you publish a new episode, you should create a promotional post on each social media platform you have a page on.
These posts can contain a small snippet of the podcast’s content, a call to action to give it a listen, and an outside link to follow. Don’t publish entire podcast episodes on social media – instead, direct your listeners to your website or a podcast hosting platform.
Using bCast will let you manage previous podcast episodes and customize upcoming ones with CTAs and opt-in forms, for example. Transcribing your podcasts is also easier with a reliable podcast hosting platform, so use your social media pages solely for marketing purposes. Sharing info about new podcast episodes as they air will keep your followers engaged and entice new listeners to tune in.
Use your Podcast’s Name as a Hashtag and Pair it With Popular Ones
One of the benefits of promoting your podcast on social media is the fact that you have access to hashtags as a marketing tool. Hashtags offer a quick and easy way to expand your podcast’s reach to people who may not be aware of its existence.
Let’s say that your podcast’s name is “Marketing Airwaves”. Let’s also say this podcast is dedicated to marketing. When you decide to publish new posts on social media, whether as status updates or new episode announcements, your hashtags can look like this:
#marketingairwaves #podcast #marketing #advertisement
Using trending hashtags from your specific podcast niche will let you reach otherwise unreachable leads. People who search for these hashtags will come across your podcast and consider tuning in more often than not. There is no limit to the number of hashtags you can use to promote your podcast, so find the right ones and use them often.
Integrate Social Media Content into the Podcast
Just as you can use social media to market your podcast, you can use your podcast to direct listeners to your social media pages. You can integrate Q&A, polls, quizzes, and other content into social media channels and then use that content in your podcast. You can refer to interesting questions, answer pressing industry issues, or even invite social media followers to your podcast.
It’s a great idea to create a dedicated Facebook group for your followers to share their creations and discussions based on your podcast. These groups can be moderated by you to keep them “official” so that new people know where to join your fanbase in an official capacity.
User-generated content marketing can also find its way into your podcast, and you can share other people’s creations, be it in audio or hyperlink format. Listeners who are unaware of your social media presence will be inclined to follow your pages and add to the number of leads you have. Similarly, people who come across your social media platforms will join your listener pool.
Make Use of Social Media Stories and Live-Streaming Features
Interacting with listeners live is one of the more memorable ways to market your podcast online. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have dedicated live-streaming features and “stories” which you can use for marketing.
Let’s start with live-streaming. You can host live Q&A sessions or live recordings of your podcast episodes with fan questions and quizzes, for example. Streaming live will highlight your podcast in your followers’ feeds to ensure higher exposure.
The same applies to stories. These represent highlighted content, such as photos with captions or short videos. Stories are a great way to create hype for upcoming episodes, create polls, and publish different calls to action. Both of these features are prominent on Facebook and Instagram, and people love engaging them.
Announce Collaborations and Guests via Social Media
As your podcast grows in popularity on social media, you will organically draw in brands, influencers, and industry professionals. People from your industry will reach out with collaboration offers, and you should seriously consider them.
Collaborating with well-known personas and brands will drastically improve your podcast’s appeal to cold leads. Similarly, you can reach out to others yourself with offers to work together on creating a new podcast episode.
Once someone agrees to work with you and be a guest on your podcast, you can hype up their appearance via social media. This will attract their followers to check out your podcast and allow you to convert them into long-term listeners. Advertise all collaborations that come your way to promote your podcast effectively on social media.
Ask for Feedback and Suggestions from your Followers
No matter how good your podcast may be now, it can always become better in the future. Your listeners are your best resource when it comes to constructive feedback and comments on how to move forward. You can create polls, questionnaires, or simple status updates asking for comments on what they like or dislike about your podcast.
If you have a mailing list, you can also reach out to converted leads that way and offer small thank-you gifts for feedback. Discount codes, free eBooks, or other goodies are a great incentive for people to fill out surveys.
Once you gather said feedback, it’s also important that you apply it. There’s nothing better for listeners to become your long-term fans than knowing that you took their feedback seriously. This can create a lasting brand reputation for your podcast and signal to cold leads that you are a podcast worth tuning into.
Getting Started with Social Media Podcast Marketing (Conclusion)
Social media channels are simply one of the best ways to market your podcast bar none. However, it will take some time for your pages to gain traction and gather followers. It’s essential that you are patient with your social media pages and that you are consistent in posting updates and content on them.
Every new podcast episode you publish is an opportunity to post new content on social media and boost your presence on the podcast market. Treat your social pages just as you do the podcast itself, and the right audience will flock to them organically.
