Information in this blog post was obtained from Buffer , BuzzSprout , and Castos.
With around 3 million active podcasts in existence, it can be hard to capture the attention of consumers, especially when first starting out. Here are some helpful tips to grow your podcast's listener base.
Release Multiple Episodes
Many researchers and hosts of successful podcasts recommend that new podcasts publish 3 to 5 episodes on release day. They recommend this so that your early followers and supporters have more content to enjoy at the beginning before you have amassed a back catalog of previous content. If early adopters of your content enjoy your podcast but only have 1 episode to listen they may become frustrated that there is a lack of content and could possibly lose interest by the time the next episode is released.
By having several episodes done ahead of time you won't need to worry about getting new episodes recorded soon, therefore you will have more time to focus on creating high-quality supporting content and engaging with your audience. You will also be able to take the time to more effectively analyze the data of your early episodes and posts to see what you need to change in the future.
Leverage Your Guests' Audiences
If your podcast uses an interview format then it is important that you encourage your guests to share the podcast once it goes live. This can be done by having them repost, or share the content promoting the new episode. To encourage this sharing you should email, or message the guest either the day of the episode's release or sometime before. This email could include different images and pre-made graphics that make it much easier for the guest to make a post of their own. But make sure to word your email so the guest does not feel like they are pressured to share the episode on their social media pages.
If using Instagram you could also ask if the guest wants to do a collaborative post. This allows for the post to not only be seen by the followers of your page but the followers of your guest as well. All you need to do is go into the tagging section during the creation of the post and you should see an option to "Invite Collaborator", then you will type in the guest's Instagram handle and post the content. Then the guest will get a notification to accept or deny the collaboration. Once they accept the post will then be shown to all of their followers as well as your own.
If the guest no longer wants to have the post on their page they can easily remove themselves as a collaborator. This allows guests to help promote the episode but still allows them to maintain a clean and concise social media feed. By leveraging your guest's audience you will be exposed to a wider user base and be able to more quickly gain engagement and new listeners.
Publish Your Content During the Peak Active Time of Your Users
While it is important to post high-quality, and engaging content frequently, if you post at inactive times amongst your user base then you can get severely decreased interaction with your posts. Each platform will have different peak activity hours for their users so it is important to post at the appropriate times on each platform you use. While many of these platforms have tools that allow you to see when your followers are most active, if you are first starting your podcast, or still have a small following then you may not have access to these features. In that case, you should use guides such as Sprout Social's Instagram Global Engagement Guide.
These more generalized guides will help you better determine when users are most using each platform. While these general guides can be helpful it is still important that you do your own testing by posting your content on different days and times. Then analyze the data you gather to better determine when your listener base is most active.
If you already had a decent size following then you may have access to this data already. For example, to access this data on Instagram you will go to your Insights Tab, and then click on Total Followers once you scroll to the bottom of the page you will see a chart that allows you to see the the peak activity times of your followers. It also allows you to break down this data by day, or hour to more accurately gauge activity. Using this information to post at the most appropriate time can help greatly boost your current engagement.
Add a Video Element to your Podcast
While many of the top podcasts in the world are audio-only, adding a video element to your podcast is a great way to help it stand out from others. Adding video can help consumers better connect with you, and allows you to easily show visual aids when talking about specific items on the podcast. It is important that the added video be of at least a decent quality or it will likely have a negative impact on your performance.
Now that you have a video aspect to your podcast you can easily find 1 - 3 minute short segments that you can turn into clips. These clips are a great way to market your podcast, especially on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok where short-form video content is most popular. You can use these clips to better generate interest amongst your followers, and they can easily be shared by your followers which can greatly impact their reach and overall performance. For example, maybe you have a guest that only a small number of your followers were aware of beforehand so they aren't very interested in listening. But if they see one or more of the clips you posted from the episode and enjoy them, they will be much more likely to listen to the full interview.
It is also important to note that posting short-form content varies slightly depending on the website you post on. For example, TikTok recently changed the maximum length of videos users could post up to ten minutes. In contrast, YouTube only allows users to post their content as a YouTube Short (YouTube's version of short-form vertical content), only if it is 60 seconds or less. It is also important to know the best practices for how much to write in the description, and how to effectively use hashtags. So before you post any short-form content make sure that you are posting in the most effective way possible to better ensure that your content is seen by consumers.
This article covered several different tips and techniques that podcast hosts and marketers can use to help increase their following and engagement. There are still many other methods not mentioned so make sure to take the time to study what other popular podcasts and podcasts that are similar to yours are doing so that you can learn what is and isn't working for them. The podcast marketing process is trial and error so make sure to experiment and have patience when trying to figure out what works best for your podcast and its audience.
Make Use of your Previous Releases
When making a podcast you are often thinking of future episodes and content that you wish to make. While this is a good practice to help you stay consistent with content it is important to remember that after several months of uploading consistently, you will have a good-sized back catalog of episodes and posts that you can reference and use to make new content. For example, you can encourage users to listen to previous episodes by giving a brief overview of them, and maybe what listeners have said about them. You can also edit past episodes and clips in new ways that help the content feel fresh.
While remixing previously released content can be a great way to revitalize past episodes, and allow you to post more often, it is important that you only reutilize content that is at least a few months old. If you are reposting content from only a few weeks prior your followers who already saw that content will likely still remember it and be less interested in engaging with the post, even if it is edited in a new way.
Encourage your Followers to Rate, Like, and Subscribe
It may seem common knowledge to encourage your followers to engage with your content but reminding them to do so at the beginning or end of each episode, and when new content is posted can drastically increase your interaction. While there is more to judging the success of your podcast than, how many reviews you have, and how many likes you get on each episode. These numbers are greatly beneficial in letting the algorithms on each social platform understand that users enjoy your content, therefore it will be more likely to promote it. This can lead to a huge push in the organic reach of your podcast.
Learn More
If you want to learn more tips and tricks on how to use social media, then make sure to check out some of our other articles:
- Marko Minic
"Tips on How to Optimize Content for TikTok" - Ondreaa Lovee
- Mengchan(Mike) Chen
Resources
Brooke, A. (2022, June 10). Podcast Marketing: 100 podcasters share tactics they used to grow their shows. Buzzsprout. https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/podcast-marketing
Guzman, S., Husen, A., McGuire, J., & Deziel, K. (2023, August 22). Podcast Promotion: How to Promote a Podcast. Podcast Marketing Guide. Castos. https://castos.com/how-to-promote-a-podcast/#don’t-forget
Lee, K. (2023, March 20). How to Promote Your New Podcast: 10 Effective Strategies to Try. Buffer Library. https://buffer.com/library/promote-a-podcast/#3-release-at-least-3-episodes-on-launch-day
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