The Top 6 Ways to Promote Your Podcast

Growing your podcast’s audience takes time. Don’t be discouraged if your numbers don’t grow rapidly right away. Instead, take a methodical approach to promotion as laid out in this article.

If you’ve taken the time, money, and effort to finally start producing your podcast, chances are you want to get it out in the world. As if recording and mixing your podcast wasn’t challenging enough, your next task requires an entirely different skillset: content marketing.

In a world with dwindling attention spans and a highly saturated audio streaming market, getting your podcast to stand out is an uphill battle, one that requires a fair deal of trial and error. With the right approach and plenty of perseverance, however, you can get your podcast in front of more and more people, growing your audience from there. Here are six powerful ways to promote your podcast.

1. Get Your Show On the Major Streaming Platforms

Your podcast won’t make a blip on anyone’s radar if it’s not in all the places people are regularly looking. The most popular platforms for podcasts these days include Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, and more. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed when faced with so many places to put your podcast. The good news is that online services like Buzzsprout, Libsyn, and Transistor can do the legwork for you, acting as your distributor. Take advantage of these distribution platforms to quickly get your show anywhere and everywhere people are tuned into.

2. Spread the Word on Social Media

We don’t all have millions of followers on the big social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. That said, most people have a built-in online social network of at least a couple hundred people, if not more. Plus, social media platforms make it easy to interact with new people. Get the word out about your podcast by promoting it on your social media profiles. Be sure to post consistently and reply to any comments you receive – doing so will boost your posts and profile in the various algorithms.

3. Get Visual with Audiograms

While it’s true that many people enjoy the longform nature of audio podcasts, our attention spans are growing shorter by the day, in no small part because there’s just so much to pay attention to. As such, it’s difficult to get new listeners on board without offering some sort of visual flair that immediately grabs people’s attention. Audiograms are a great way to turn recorded audio into short, text-based video clips designed for social media engagement. Audiograms are highly customizable, too, so you can hone in on the precise branding you’re going for when promoting your podcast this way.

4. Record Video and Create Highlights

Audiograms are great tools for showing off bits and pieces of your podcast. However, you can go even further in the visual department by recording not just audio but video as well – yes, for your entire podcast. Adding a video component to your show is certainly an additional expense that requires high-end cameras, significant storage capacity, and a strong internet connection for large uploads (especially if your shows exceed an hour in length). But when you consider the possibilities of reaching new audiences on platforms like YouTube (Spotify also features video for podcasts) and creating highly engaging promotion content via video highlights, this investment begins to reveal its potential. Even if the majority of your audience sticks to audio, the video-based promotion might be what piqued their interest in the first place.

5. Invite Engaging Guests

People listen to podcasts for a whole host of reasons, but most people enjoy hearing from interesting guests. Having engaging guests on your show is a great way to draw in their built-in audience – this is mutually beneficial, too, as you can introduce your audience to people they’ve never heard of before. Moreover, having guests on opens the door for you to get on their podcast (if they have one) in the future, further amplifying your podcast promotion. For more detailed advice on this matter, check out our previous article, “7 Ways to Book Amazing Guests onto Your Podcast.”

6. Make Your Podcast a Place for Community

Once your podcast starts gaining traction, you might find that a snowball effect starts to occur, wherein your audience boosts your show’s recognition for you. This is the power of community, and it’s important to nurture it as much as possible. Create official spaces for fans to leave comments, discuss episodes, and recommend future guests and topics. And don’t forget to engage with these groups by replying to comments, creating surveys, running AMAs (ask-me-anythings), etc. Subreddits (Reddit groups and threads), Facebook groups, and even LinkedIn are all great platforms for these community-building efforts.

The Proper Approach to Podcast Promotion

Growing your podcast’s audience takes time. Don’t be discouraged if your numbers don’t grow rapidly right away. Instead, take a methodical approach to promotion by following the points laid out above. And if you need more advice on podcast promotion, or could use a helping hand in this regard, please get in touch with us.