How to Promote a Podcast on Social Media: 9 Useful Tips

Podcasting is a fast-growing industry. There are millions of podcast episodes and hundreds of thousands of shows in the world that cover every single topic under the sun and there’s still room for more!

You may create an epic podcast but how do you get your target audience listening? ​​You need to learn how to promote a podcast on social media. Follow our guide to social media for podcasts to get that podcast audience bigger.

Why is podcasting so popular?

• The start-up costs are relatively low. All you need is a few key pieces of equipment and a topic.
• They can be extremely lucrative - if you want them to be.
• They don’t have to be time-consuming. You don’t have to become a podcasting mogul if you just love sharing about your favorite topics on a regular basis.
• Finally, there is space for everyone.

That last point might be the best thing about podcasting! The market is huge. You can create a podcast about absolutely anything, as long as you think there’s some type of audience for it. Don’t believe us? Check out The Pen Addict podcast, which is a podcast about, you guessed it - pens!

So if you love baking bread while singing to your cats, you can create The Cat Serenading, Bread Baking Show and no one can stop you.

Of course, if you do start a podcast then you probably want people to listen to it, other than your parents and your best friend, right?!There are many different ways that you can market your podcast but one of the best is social media because as it turns out, podcast listeners are avid social media users. 94% of monthly podcast listeners are active on at least one social media channel.

‍Of course, much like podcasting, social media is crowded so you want to be smart and strategic with the way you use social media to promote your podcast. Develop a robust social media strategy that includes regular posts, engaging visuals, and interactive content. Tailor your strategy to the platforms where your audience is most active to maximize your reach.

How to promote a podcast on social media: 9 hacks

Here are nine useful ways for promoting podcasts on social media that can help you promote your podcast and grow your community.

1. Find your audience and choose your platforms wisely

You have plenty of choices for social media platforms but there is a perfect one for you. Which one is it?

It’s the one your audience uses! Before you launch your podcast or when you are first getting started, consider where your audience is and how they use social media.

What’s the topic of your podcast? Who are you speaking to? Is your audience younger? They probably use Instagram or Snapchat. Are you starting a professional podcast for senior leaders? Try LinkedIn.

If you don’t know where your audience hangs out, ask them! In your next episode, ask them to share with you their favorite social media platform.

It’s most likely that your audience is on several different platforms but you want to find the one where they are most active. This way you can avoid wasting time and energy posting social media updates that your audience won’t see.We recommend focusing on one or two platforms. This will maximize your efforts and ensure you’re reaching your audience.

2. Use hashtags

If you choose to promote your podcast on Instagram, Twitter or even LinkedIn, then you absolutely need to use podcast hashtags in your posts. Hashtags will help you reach a bigger audience and serve your content to those who are interested in that specific hashtag.

Find a few general hashtags that describe the content of your podcast, like #catlover or #bakingfun and also create a branded hashtag for your podcast. A branded hashtag can help start building your community (more on that later) and while no one may use it at first, it can become a powerful brand-building tool for your podcast.

During your podcast ask your audience to share with you using the hashtag. For example, if you are hosting The Cat Serenading, Bread Baking Show then you can ask your listeners to share their latest baked creation with the #catserenadingbreadbaking tag.

3. Use pull quotes to create images

Social media was made for images! Even though your podcast is audio, you can still use visuals to the best of your advantage.

The easiest way to do this is to pull quotes from your episode and create quote-based images. Quotes should help identify what the episode is about and pique curiosity for your listeners. If you are creating great content, then those quotes will be easy to find!

You can use Canva or WordSwag to easily create quote graphics that you can share on social media.

4. Use sound bites

Sharing podcasts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn has never been easier!

As a podcaster, you have tons of audio content and that audio is a huge benefit because it’s content and not only that, it’s engaging content.

You can’t just drop an audio file into your social media because social platforms don’t accept MP3s and because, well, let’s face it - that’s really boring!You can, however, convert your audio into a video using animation.

This way you can incorporate branding elements and it can autoplay on social media.

You can do this yourself using a video tool, like Wavve. Wavve is software that easily transforms audio into video with images, text, waveform animations and more so you can share it on social media.

5. Create video

You might have created a podcast and not a YouTube channel but you can and should still use videos to market your podcast on social media!

‍Social media videos generate 1,200% more social shares than images and text. If you want people consuming and sharing your content, then creating videos is your best bet!

There are many different ways podcasters can use video. You can record quick videos of you and your guest to help promote their episode or you can use videos to share behind the scenes content. You can host Facebook Lives to promote episodes or to do Q&A’s after episodes have aired. You can even host a Facebook live during your episode as you record it.

6. Use social media to build your community

Social media is not just about pushing people to listen to your latest episode. It’s about being social and building a community around your podcast topic. You want to engage with your audience and make them feel like that are connected to you -- not just your podcast.

The easiest way to do this is to share yourself on your social media channels. Remember, your listeners have various podcast options available to them. They listen to yours because they like you! Give them a glimpse into your world by sharing your personality, your life and yourself through your social media pages.

7. Leverage social media to connect with influencers

Do you want to have some super popular guests on your show or do you want an influencer will start listening?  Cross promote your podcast by collaborating with other podcast hosts or influencers in your niche. This strategy helps you tap into new audiences and grow your listener base effectively. Tag them on social media!

Of course, you can’t spam them in everything you post but you can be strategic about how you tag them. If you mention that you made one of Ina Garten’s recipes or you’ve been speeding your way through Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, then you can mention it in your social media and tag them. As a bonus, this is a great way to share your personality and a little bit about who you are on your podcast and on your social media.

8. Promote your old episodes

We cannot stress this tip enough! You must promote your old episodes consistently! Your older podcast episodes are perfect examples of “evergreen content.” Evergreen content is just content that is still relevant and valuable to your audience, even if some time has passed since you originally published it.

Social media is like a jungle. It’s loud, it’s crowded and there’s always vine swinging in your face… Ok, there are no vines but there are pieces of content flying by your feed. There is a short shelf life on your social media posts.

Your audience may have missed an episode or your newer followers might not have been around when the episode aired. Resharing these posts offer your audience more of an opportunity to listen to your show.

9. Create a schedule

We’ve shared many effective tips that will have your social media pages and your podcast thriving but social media can quickly become overwhelming. To stay on top of it and consistent with it, create a schedule that you can easily follow.

For example, Mondays are new episodes, Tuesdays are personal shares, Wednesdays are quotes from the latest episode, Thursdays are questions for your community, Fridays are evergreen content or older episodes. By following a simple schedule, you can easily and quickly fill up your social media calendar for the entire month!

If you use MeetEdgar, you can create your calendar and Edgar can recycle your content for you so that you don’t have to worry about setting it up on a regular basis.

For podcast hosts looking to grow their audience, implementing these actionable tips can make a significant difference. Start by engaging with your listeners on social media and utilizing cross-promotion opportunities.

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See? Social media and podcasting can be two little happy peas in a pod! So whether you are creating the next big marketing podcast or you’re just trying to grow your bakers and cat serenaders community, try these tips for some social media success for your podcast.