How to use social media to grow your podcast?

Using social media to promote ones podcast is more than just recommended to any podcaster. Social channels can help you leverage your content, post new episodes or re-post some old episodes if relevant. It’s a great way to get new listeners to know about your podcast.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest or even YouTube.. Where do you even start? Do you need to use them all or just focus on 1-2? What kind of content should you post? And in what frequency? We’ll answer these questions and more in this blog post.

The advantages of using social media for your podcast

Some social media platforms are more viral than others, but all in all, they have the potential to help you reach out to new audiences. When you use hashtags or follow specific topics and comment on relevant threads, your potential audience might come across those posts and interact with your account. This could lead to some engagement and/or potential new listeners/followers to your show.

Additionally, interacting with your current followers and listeners is a great way to make sure they are engaged and come back to your future episodes. It can also increase exposure to the followers of your own followers to your comments and posts when they interact with your content.

Finally, you can also use social media to interact with other podcasters, ask questions, find recommendations for gear or techniques, and basically not feel alone in this journey. You can learn a lot just by watching how other podcasters are managing their social channels, and get in touch with them if you feel it can help. One group that you can use to ask questions, learn and get updates is the Podcast Movement Community For Podcasters on Facebook.

When do you need to start using social media for your podcast?

As soon as possible. You don’t need to have any episode published yet in order to start working on your follower base. Start early, secure your handle on different social media platforms, and share what you can about the upcoming podcast. Share some teasers, clips or previews of your upcoming episodes and get people excited about the podcast early on.

But even if you already have a podcast and have not yet started using social media, now is the best time to start.

Which social media platform should you use?

Each social media platform has its own unique set of features and audience. At the end of the day, you should stick to platforms and communities that you feel comfortable with and are relevant enough to your podcast audience. Let’s look at the platforms and see what is the difference between them so you could decide with which one to go:

1. Facebook – Facebook allows you to create a dedicated page for your podcast, form a group for a topic/brand or just post links, status updates etc. A page is like a regular Facebook profile, where you can share details about the podcast (description, image, contact details), and also share content through posts. These posts can include text, image, video, and links. The disadvantage here is that Facebook is less viral from other platforms. Only the people that follow your page will most likely by exposed to your content. FB has recently announced that they are building in-app features for listening to podcasts. This is still relatively new, so most features are still invite-only and are just dripping into the main platform now.
   
2. Instagram – Instagram is a bit more suitable for discovery. You can add hashtags to your posts or search for topics, then follow and comment on relevant profiles. Add images and videos, stories and reels to attract your potential listeners.
   
3. Twitter – Twitter makes it easy to be exposed to content from people you are not directly following. Be active, comment on tweets, create interesting threads and get new followers. You can also use Tweetdeck to follow specific topics or terms – and then you won’t miss relevant content to comment on. Twitter is among the most popular social platforms for podcasters, as you can easily create a separate profile for your show and post there.
   
4. TikTok – TikTok is currently one of the more viral platforms. It includes short video clips around a ton of different subject. You do need to be very creative and share interesting video clips in order to shine on TikTok.
   
5. Pinterest – Pinterest is known as a social media platform that you should use if your fan base is mostly female (women make up more than 60% of Pinterest’s global audience). Pinterest is photo centered, so you can share beautiful images that will catch the eyes of your potential listeners. You can create boards with “collections” of images around the same subjects, so it’s easy to put your content out there.
   
6. Reddit – Reddit is a great platform if you have a dedicated group of followers who need a place to discuss your show. It’s easy to use and you can create a subreddit for your podcast. Your audience can then discuss your show over there, and you can also pin certain posts to the top, or send updates of new episodes etc.
   
7. YouTube – last but not least, you should definitely consider using YouTube as a podcaster. Over 2 billion users login to YouTube each month. When you record your podcast you can use video and not audio-only and then repurpose the content easily. Additionally, YouTube is a great way to increase your organic reach. People are looking for videos about specific topics, so you just need to add the right video title and some description to make it easier for them to find your content.

What should you post on these platforms?

1. Audiograms – these short clips include a snippet from your episode – audio, transcription, and some animation or audio wave to get the viewer’s attention. It’s great to share the audiogram as a teaser before the episode is released.
2. Episode link – share your latest episode link (if you have a website it’s better to direct your followers to your website, so they can pick if to listen to your episode there or using their favorite app). It’s better to promote your own brand rather than other brands. But if you don’t have a website yet, just share a link to one of the podcast apps or your podcast host link. At Podcastpage we enable you to automatically post a tweet when a new episode is published. So you don’t even need to work hard to make it happen.
3. Podcast website in your bio – make it as easy as possible to find your podcast. Add your podcast website link to your social media profile bio. Don’t just put a domain that belongs to another company – use your own!
4. Questions to ask your guest – you can use social media to create engagement with your episodes. Share the name of the guest before they join you. Try to get your followers to ask the questions they are interested in. It will have 2 benefits – first, they will feel involved in the process, and second, they will find the content more interesting as you answer their questions.
5. Share quotes from your podcast – if there is a noteworthy sentence you can take out of your podcast, you can definitely share it on social media. It’s easy to like or share a short sentence that you agree with or sounds good.
6. Share lessons from the podcast as threads– threads on Twitter are a big thing in the past year. Some might already be over them. But they are the best way to learn about something quickly. If you can summarize the episode into few interesting tweets, do it.
7. Just socialize and engage with other users. Don’t always try to “sell” your podcast. Truly try to connect and share valuable content and the rest should follow.

Other tips for promoting your podcast

Try to share content every day. It shouldn’t be full blown blog post every day. Some days it can be just one sentence quote or an image. Other times it can be the episode link or summary of the episode in a thread.

Additionally, you don’t need to tackle every social media platform. Pick 1-2 and focus on those. It’s hard enough to share content every day. Try to make it easier and more sustainable and share content only on 1 or two platforms.

Finally, share content that you would like to get as a user. Don’t use gimmicks too much. An occasional meme could help, but if all you do is memes, people might get tired with it already. Leverage your own network, and try to share both from your personal account and from your podcast account.

Promoting your podcast involves a ton of trial and error. Experiment different channels, platforms and ways to increase your exposure and stick to the ones you love best.

Conclusion

Using social media as a podcaster can be a headache, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel the same. Only do what you love and enjoy doing, and pick the platforms and marketing strategy wisely. Try to use just a few platforms where your audience might be and add value. Share your podcast links, and involve your audience in the process when you can.