Some podcasters and video content creators rely on the content to do it’s own thing. Must marketing your content isn’t just about getting your views up on your core content.
You need to look at podcast and video content marketing holistically. In this post, I just want to share some quick simple marketing channels you can use to help you grow your podcast (and build a larger audience base).
🔥 How to Distribute Your Content For FREE
Setup your personal social media page (they are little hard to grow now a days). But start inviting people into it. Post regularly, not just your own content, but small snippets of content, text posts, image posts and anything relating to your industry/niche/topics. Share content from users and encourage your followers to post as well.
Facebook groups – find groups relating to your niche. Have conversations in there. This is time consuming, but you’ll learn a lot about your audience, and you might discover new connections, topics, and things to talk about!
Join our online community that can help, support and provide feedback on your podcast or video content:
Twitter – start sharing, following others and contributing. You can easily start getting on the radar by sharing other people’s content! Yes, you’ll actually build a larger audience by NOT sharing your own content all the time!
Instagram – do the same as above, but remember it needs to have entertaining content, that people can just like and share quickly. Use stories/reels to showcase your work in snippets. You can convert or repurpose your podcast (or video podcast) into multiple bite size content (e.g. sound bites, audio grams) and
YouTube – record your podcasts as videos. Or you can turn your podcasts into videos (personally I like to see the host interact with an interviewee and see their expressions as the speak). But for a closed podcast that only shows the host, you may opt not to show the host. Instead an audio gram, image or b-roll can work well. Some people actually end up with more views than podcast downloads – so you never know!
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a great medium to help you build authority in the B2B space. If your target market is the business world, then it’s a great medium to be building your audience.
TikTok – this is a relatively new growing medium. If you think your audience hangs out here, then you should definitely spread your message here. Remember you really need to focus on the ‘entertainment’ factor here if you want to increase your reach. Don’t put dull content up there. You can use TikToks inbuilt video editing to spruce up your content.
Reddit – you can start engaging with Reddit users. Overt promotions don’t generally work well on Reddit – instead relationships and authentic communication does. Search for subs that relate to your content. For example, if you’re doing podcasts then r/podcast and similar searches will reveal this. Also search for subreddits in your niche to interact with ideal audience.
Other mentions – Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitch, Tumblr
Look, there are a gazillion other channels you can start promoting your content for free or next to nothing. Time will be your biggest cost. So there are two things I’d suggest.
🥺 Some Common Mistakes You Can Make as a Content Creator
Mistake #1 – not building your own audience
You should be building your own audience! Regardless of where you promote and spread your message, I’d urge you to always build your audience on your own websites. You MUST collect emails – this is the only true asset that you will have because you can then market directly to your audience. There have been countless horror stories of people losing access to their audience on any given social media channel – so don’t become part of that metric.
Mistake #2 – doing too much and getting too little of a result
Half-arsed distribution and promotion or ‘sort-of’ trying stuff doesn’t really work. Test all your channels, then find one that is working well. You really need to hone in and try different messaging, styles, targeting – there are a gazillion variable that you could potentially change when it comes to each channel. Really try and exhaust the channel, if it gets traction, then double down on the one that works.
Most entrepreneurs and content creators find something that ‘sorta works’, do a bit more of it, then move onto something else. You really need to squeeze as much juice out of one channel, automate it if possible, then move onto the next.
Mistake #3 – don’t too little and getting even worse results
Opposite to the above, a lot of podcasters just put up their audio onto their favourite podcast host or streaming service and maybe stretch it as far as YouTube to organically increase their downloads and views. These guys are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow their reach (and potentially monetize their content). Don’t be one of these peeps.
Mistake #3 – being boring
You’re a content creator, in fact you’re an amazing content creator, but maybe your marketing message sucks! Really look at your content and post that you’re sharing on social media. Does it do enough to capture your audiences attention? Is it enticing enough where users are clicking on it and watching it? Does it hold your audiences attention for long?
What doesn’t work well:
- Putting long form content on Instagram
- Putting long form content on Facebook feeds
- In fact, putting long form content anywhere besides where it belongs – ideally on your website, podcast host or streaming service, YouTube Channel – where users are happy to hang out for longer periods of time on the one piece of content
- Talking about your brand ALL the time – a good rule of thumb is to squeeze in a maximum of 1 post that showcases your brand for every 4 posts that add direct value to users
- Not mixing it up – is your content on repeat? do you watch and listen to the same stuff again, and again…. and again? are you expecting your audience to?