Networking as a Podcasting Tool: Tips for Building Meaningful Connections

Published in

Podcast Clubhouse

6 min readMay 10, 2024

Your podcast is a great tool for learning and getting to know you better, but it’s also a great way to help build your network in a meaningful way from guests to listeners.

This is important not just to keep your podcast going but if you have a business (especially online) you need to make connections and build relationships to continue to grow. You never know who you might meet and what opportunities can come from it.

Continue reading to learn how to use networking as a podcasting tool and tips to build meaningful connections.

Define Your Networking Goals

Before you get started with networking, you need to set clear networking goals for your podcast — what are you trying to achieve by building these connections?

It may be guest collaborations, audience growth, industry recognition or even building your business.

Knowing your specific goals will help you not aimlessly run around and stay consistent with your networking.

Here are some examples from a couple of potential goals and how they can help you:

Finding podcast guests. You may want to expand your reach and build additional knowledge and perspectives you may not be able to provide for your show. Plus, building up your guest network can help you gather more guests for your show, build up relationships for future partnerships/other professional opportunities, and expand your reach as a whole.
Audience Growth. You may be looking to expand your audience reach for your show. As you build relationships that way you may want to increase your social media presence, have an increase in word of mouth for your show, build your email, your paid podcast subscriptions, and more. With this goal, you may benefit from increased visibility, more networking opportunities, community building, and even business growth to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

No matter what you pick, figure out what you want to achieve and stick with it. Remember you can always change your goals to fit where you and your show are at over time.

Offer Value to Your Network

Now, you’ve figured out what you want to focus on when it comes to networking but you don’t want to be thinking only about building those goals. You want to provide value to these connections and build meaningful relationships. It’s more than just what you’ll get out of it but how you can also provide support for these potential new connections.

Some ways that you can offer value is by sharing your knowledge, resources, and even opportunities that you think would be valuable to them (or their audience) as well.

Again, it’s a collaborative effort — together you succeed, you aren’t looking to just gain from them and you certainly don’t want to feel sleazy.

Ways to network

You’ve set your goals and figured out ways that you can do more than just take from networking. But where can you network? Here are some ideas -

Attend Podcasting Events and Conferences

Podcasting events and conferences are a great way to do some in-person networking. Of course, the online space is great but nothing beats some good face-to-face interaction.

Here are some tips to help you effectively network at these events:

Prepare your pitch. We always think we know what we’ll say but especially in “higher stakes” situations it can be easy to forget what you do and to make it quick. So, don’t forget to prepare what you’ll say about your podcast and you.
Don’t forget to exchange your contact information. When you are connecting with a lot of people it can be hard to remember who you talked to and how to get in touch. Don’t forget to gather their information. Additionally, make notes about the person in your phone notes for example of the contacts you gathered from above that way when you go to connect after the event you’ll remember what you chatted about.
Follow up! I know it might sound obvious but for many, this is the one thing that many people forget to do. You’ve made all these connections but you have to remember to follow up to continue to build those relationships. Don’t be over the top but make it a priority to reach back out to those new relationships.

Here are some events to get you started in the podcasting space:

Engage with Guests and Listeners

Connect and engage with the guests and listeners you already have! You may have a goal to find more guests/listeners but don’t undervalue the ones you already have. You may be surprised by the opportunities and connections that can come from those you already know and have started to build relationships with, in the first place.

You want to be continuously communicating with these folks whether that’s through social media, email, or podcast communities.

Here are some examples of how you can foster engagement and dialogue with your guests/audience:

Interact on your social media in your comments and other posts comments. Plus, don’t forget to respond to DMs!
Gather feedback! Both from guests and listeners — create different avenues for both to submit feedback, suggestions, add questions, and keep an open door for their thoughts to better improve your show as well as connect with them that way.

Collaborate with Other Podcasters

Collaboration over competition always. Whether in the same niche, related areas, or even from a different perspective building relationships with others who get it can be a great way to not feel alone.

There are many ways you can collaborate with others such as cross-promoting, guest appearances, or even partnerships.

Here are some tips for nurturing those relationships:

Attend podcasting events to meet other podcasters
Connect and partake in discussions with them on social media, online forums, and communities.
Make it personal and about them! When you are connecting with others, make it known what you love about their podcast, why you together would be a great fit, and how it can be mutually beneficial.

Follow Up and Nurture Relationships

As mentioned above, following up and continuing to nurture these relationships will help maintain your connections and build genuine relationships in the long run. You don’t want to just connect once and never talk again.

Here are some tips to help stay in touch with contacts regularly and have meaningful interactions:

Set reminders and schedule regular follow-ups! It may seem like you’ll easily remember to reach back out to so and so, but that just isn’t the case especially when you have so much going on. So, prioritizing time within your schedule each month to follow back up is a great way to remember you are still maintaining connection.
Again make your messages valuable and personalized. One way to make friends and build relationships is by providing value, offering support, remembering important dates (like their birthdays or podcast/business anniversaries), reconnecting on old conversations, and showing that you want more than to get something out of it for yourself but you care about them as well. Remember, you are aiming for authentic and genuine not sleazy!

No matter why you are building your network, it’s important to build genuine connections to help with your long-term success and be able to use it as a networking tool. But one of the first ways to do it is just start!

Remember to set a goal, figure out how you can offer value, and then set out to build those relationships.

Let me know in the comments a tip you would add that helped your podcast networking experience!

Aleea