A Few Do’s & Don’ts of Podcast Promotion on Social Media
What to Do & What Not To Do When Promoting Your Podcast on Social Media
For most of us, long gone are the days when you can launch a new podcast, get featured on iTunes, and quickly rack up large of amounts of listeners. With more and more new podcasts being launched daily, it is becoming increasingly important to take control of your podcast marketing and figure out what does & doesn’t work. One of the best ways to drive attention to your podcast is by promoting it on social media.
In over the last 9 months (since our launch), over 7,000 podcast teaser videos have been created with Wavve and shared on social media. As a result, we keep a close eye on how podcasters promote & talk about their podcast episodes on social. We have seen a lot of different tactics used to promote podcasts on social media (some that work better than others.)
While the strategy that works best for your show will be unique, we wanted to share a few basic guidelines that can help you get off to the right start when promoting your podcast on social media.
Below are a few do’s & don’ts to follow when promoting your podcast on social media. To get some fresh ideas, we enlisted the help of our favorite podcast marketing experts using the following tweet:
^ Feel free to reply to this Tweet and we may add/feature your response to the blog post!
DON’T
Major 🔑 From Mathew Passy, of The Podcast Consultant & PodtoPod.com
If you are going to follow one rule when promoting your show on social, it’s this one
Your prospective listener has limited time, probably subscribes to (at least) a half-dozen podcasts, and is being flooded with thousands of other marketing messages at any given time. Not to mention, there are (at least) dozens of other podcasts vying for their attention.
Why should someone take the time & effort to listen to your podcast?
This is the question that you need to answer with every tweet, Facebook post, and Instagram image/video that you post. Did you cover a specific topic they may be interested in? Did you bring on a guest that they would be interested in hearing? Each episode that you release should have at least a few “selling points”. Write these selling points down and weave them into the copy of each social media post.
DO
Jason Marlowe & the team at Market House know a thing or two about marketing a podcast. They recently started The Lunch Break Marketing Podcast and had 200%+ growth in listens over the last month.
If you are creating great content, there should be plenty of quotable moments from your episode that could grab potential listeners attention. Heads up, finding the best quotes is more of an art than a science.
These quotes should embody the discussion of your podcast episode but not give away the main point. It should pique the interest just enough to encourage someone to click the link and want more. Find those few quotable moments that occurred just before you or your guest dropped that knowledge bomb.
Need help creating an image template to feature these quotes? We recommend checking out Stencil & Canva as the best apps to get started creating images. Need a deep dive on creating podcast episode images? We wrote another post on the topic recently. Check it out here.
DO
Jason Marlowe is back at it again with a few great tips. Let’s talk about scheduling first:
Just like every other marketing strategy, there is no silver bullet and the only way to figure out what works is to try it. The same goes for deciding on when to post your social media posts. It can differ based on your target audience and what platform you are posting to. Luckily, there are a few guidelines that will help:
- Be consistent. Don’t just post on a whim or it will be very difficult to reach and engage with a consistent audience.
- Use your social analytics and see what is working. Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram all make it really easy to see your top tweets and activity over time
- Get scheduling tool. We use Buffer but hear great things about Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, & CoSchedule.
Need a deep dive on schedule? CoSchedule did all the research you could ever want and you can view the infographic here.
Use those Hashtags!
One of the best ways to get discovered and reach new audiences on social media is to use hashtags. If you cover specific topics, talk about brands, or are discussing current events, find the appropriate hashtags to include in your post. We LOVE IQta.gs, an easy web product that generates hashtag ideas for you based on a keyword. Click the image below to try it out:
DON’T
Introducing Yann Ilunga🎙, podcaster extraordinaire! Yann is the host of the 360 Entrepreneur Podcast & Founder of The Podcast Success Summit. His advice on experimenting is right on point.
Great marketers are like scientists. They experiment. You don’t have to be a master marketer but you have to be willing to try new things and take a few chances. But most importantly, track what does & doesn’t work.
If you need ideas, Jayson DeMers, an Online Marketer & Forbes Contributor, put together 101 ideas for promoting your podcast on social media which you can read here. *Spoiler Alert* It’s a lot to take in. Also, all 101 ideas won’t be a good fit for you. Pick 5 that look promising and write them down on your to-do list for testing!
What else do you have for us Yann Ilunga🎙?
DO
Unfortunately, Social Media now moves at such a frantic pace that it’s impossible to keep up. Did you know that, on average, only about 6% of your followers will see a social post on Twitter or Facebook? Around 70% of your Instagram followers most likely won’t see your latest selfie either (stat). AKA… One post ain’t enough.
While the post you are drafting now is about to send your latest episode to the top of the iTunes charts, don’t forget about all of the previous episodes you have recorded! As Yann mentioned in his Tweet, podcasts are “evergreen content”. This means they aren’t going anywhere, so share them regularly.
DO
I promise we didn’t pay for this Tweet… but big thanks to Jason Marlowe for the shout-out.
As a podcaster you have a massive, unfair advantage… Loads of audio. Regardless of what tool you use, Jason has a great point: You should be repurposing your audio content on social media.
As you well know, you can’t upload an mp3 file directly to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. To be heard on social media it needs to be converted to a media embed or converted to video.
In our opinion, the best way to get your audio heard on social media is to turn it into a video. This allows you to include visual cues (like an audio animation) and auto-plays the video within the social media feed. If you are the DIY type, there are plenty of free ways to accomplish this (it may not be the prettiest thing in the world).
Here at Wavve, we specialize in making it easy to turn clips of your podcast into shareable videos. Wavve transforms audio into video complete with images, text, waveform animations, and more. It’s a great way to promote your podcast on social media. Check out a sample on Instagramgram:
Repurposing your audio on social media as video is a perfect way to promote your audio content with all of the benefits of video marketing. Include a link to your podcast within the post, and your followers will be able to hear a quick teaser and directly access your episode. #Winning!
Ready to promote your podcast on social media in style by turning your audio into social video content? Visit our website to see how Wavve makes it easy to turn audio into custom-branded, animated videos for social sharing. Create a free account or get started with a custom template using a Premium Plan.
Have questions, ideas, or want to chat? Drop us an email or find us on Facebook or Twitter @wavve.
Keep Talking,
The Wavve Team