If there’s one thing I’ve learned about podcasts, it’s that it’s really easy to launch a podcast, but really difficult to grow a podcast.
If you’ve launched your own show, you definitely know what I mean. It’s SO easy to hit a plateau in listenership. This is because a lot of podcasters base their whole growth strategy on HOPE. They hope that their audience spreads the word and hoping guests share their episodes on social media.
It turns out hoping doesn’t really work. I should know— I was one of those podcasters relying on hope when I launched my first show, Philly Who. I discovered the strategy I’ll talk about in this post while I struggling and hoping. I realized that hope just wasn’t working for me.
To successfully grow your show, you need to play an active role in your podcast growth. This probably sounds like it could be difficult and time consuming. But, what if I told you that there’s a way for you to see your numbers go up just by spending 15 minutes per day on social media.
Probably sounds too good to be true, but I guarantee this will work. In this post, I’ll teach you one of the most common social media mistakes that podcasters make, and walk you through the framework for my top social media strategy.
The Social Media Mistake
We tend to use social media in three different ways. First, we consume content when we scroll through our feeds. The second way we use social media is to publish our own content. This is how most people try to grow their audiences— through consistent, high-quality posts. The problem with this is that posting doesn’t necessarily get you new followers because it’s meant for the people who already follow you.
So, how do you leverage social media to gain followers, downloads and make connections in your niche?
Pro Tip: Set up your social media profile to direct followers to your podcast quickly and easily. Include one link, and a few words about yourself as a podcast host.
That question brings us to the third and most effective use for social media growth, which is engagement, or commenting and interacting with other users. More specifically, you should be spending time on what I call Targeted Daily Engagement (TDE). This is what attracts new followers.
And, the best part is that you only need to spend 15 minutes per day on meaningful interaction. If you treat those 15 minutes like a can’t-miss meeting, you will see up to a 25% monthly increase in your following. It’s that simple.
The Four Parts of TDE
To get the most out of your TDE, there are four targets you should focus on: watering holes, hashtags, your dream collaborators, and journalists.
1. Watering Holes
This is a concept that was developed by Alex Hillman and Amy Hoy of Stacking the Bricks. A watering hole is anywhere online where your future listeners are already interacting with each other. This could be Facebook groups, Subreddits, Discord channels, or other online gathering spots.
It would be nice if you could just copy and paste a post advertising your show into these groups, but most have rules against self-promotion. If you do it anyway, people usually get angry and you risk getting kicked out.
Instead of self-promotion you should join the communities and participate in the group’s discussion. You can ask and answer questions, celebrate their wins, and share your opinion. If you do this a few minutes per day without asking for anything in return, people will check out your profile and see that you’re the host of an awesome podcast about their favorite subject.
Pro tip: Make sure you have clearly defined your target audience in order to get the most from your TDE. If your target is something like “people who like coffee” then you need to get more specific!
Group members will start to collaborate with you. People will start to check out your podcast without you asking them to all by being an active community member. The best part is, you will probably get a lot of added value from networking with people with the same interest as you.
2. Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to find your tribe because their entire purpose is to categorize posts for people to more easily find what interests them.
Using hashtags in your TDE will work similarly to using watering holes. All you have to do is identify 10 hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites where your future listeners identify themselves.
Visit those hashtags once per day and find 10 interesting posts to leave a thoughtful comment on. When the poster sees your comment, they’ll check out your profile and the podcast you have linked.
This is based on the $1.80 method that Gary Vaynerchuk invented. He says to pick 90 posts and leave your 2 cents. I think that’s a lot, so I say just do 10. Pick 10 posts, leave your 2 cents comments– something thoughtful and non-generic. Those people whose posts you commented on are going to check out your profile and podcast.
So far, we’ve worked on building relationships with our future listeners. Next, we have to look to engage with people who have already assembled our future audience.
3. Dream Collaborators
Dream collaborators are the 50 to 100 people who it would be a dream for us to have on our podcast. Russell Brunson calls this your Dream 100, but no worries if 100 is too high to start out.
To leverage this part of TDE, begin by making a list of the people who you would collaborate with on your podcast in your wildest dreams, and then follow them on social media.
Again, you’re going to take a few minutes each day to interact thoughtfully and genuinely with their posts on social media. If you do this day in and day out, they’re going to start to recognize your name and recognize you as a member of their community. They’ll probably also start to interact with you. Do this for a while and get to know them WITHOUT asking for anything from them.
When the day comes that you do want to pitch them to be on your podcast, they’ll be much more likely to say yes because they already know that you’re super cool, and because you’ve shown you care about them beyond just caring about what they can do for you.
4. Journalists
Journalists, bloggers, editors and producers who work around your niche have access to your future listeners en masse. Because of this, we are going to do the same thing with them that we do with our Dream 100.
Make a list, follow them on social media, and interact. If you read a reporter’s article on your subject, tweet it out, tag them and let them know that you enjoyed it. Make sure you tag the actual creator, not the news outlet that published the work.
When they see you’re a regular reader they’ll check out your profile and see that you’re an expert on the subject that they write or produce content about.
You might be wondering why you should be interacting with journalists in the first place. I talk about this in detail in Grow the Show episode 6 with Damona Hoffman, but the short version is that journalists need experts. They need sources to cite in their articles. If you’re on their radar as someone who knows a lot about your niche, journalists will ask to interview you for their articles, which is pretty much free advertising for you!
In Conclusion…
The engagement piece of social media is what the vast majority of business owners and podcasters skip, and yet it is the most effective for growing your show. I’ve built my podcasting philosophy on TDE, and have helped my accelerator students grow their own shows using this strategy
If you engage for 15 minutes a day for even one week, I guarantee you you’re going to start to see your followership and download numbers go up.
Listen to the latest episode to learn more of my top social media tips, plus the biggest TDE mistakes to avoid.