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We always say that social media can be a powerful tool for growing your podcast audience.
But why is that?
Right off the bat, over 5 billion people use social media in 2024 with 3 billion on Facebook alone closely followed by YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The numbers alone represent a massive opportunity to expand your podcast’s reach and visibility.
Plus, social media is a (largely) free promotion and discovery tool that allows podcasters to directly connect with their audience in a two-way conversation. Unlike podcast listening apps, social media allows you to interact with your listeners through comments, threads, reactions, and more. This opens the door to real-time feedback and community building.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Continue reading to learn about 7 different ways that social media can help to grow your podcast audience and how to track that these efforts are paying off.
CoHost Tip: One thing that we’ll quickly note is that it’s important to be consistent with your social media and audience engagement strategy. While there are scheduling tools to streamline the process, if you know that you don’t have the time, we suggest waiting until you have the resources to dedicate to a great podcast social media strategy.
1. Community building
As we touched on above, social media is wonderful at building communities because it allows for dialogue – between you and your listeners and amongst your listeners themselves.
Podcasts are an incredibly intimate medium but at the end of the day it’s a one-sided conversation – you’re speaking to your listeners. But when it comes to social media, you can interact with your audience, talk to them, engage with their posts, etc.
You can even label your audience to create a greater sense of community. For example, John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire calls his community “Fire Nation” and Alex Cooper from Call Her Daddy refers to her fans as the “Daddy Gang.”
Leveraging engagement features like polls, Q&As, and threads is a great way to instill a sense of community. Not to mention, having your listeners vote on guests or topics also provides you with meaningful audience insights that you can apply to better guide the direction of your content.
2. Enhance the listener experience
Your listener’s podcast experience doesn’t end when the episode is finished.
You want to find other ways that you can engage with them and entice them to come back for another episode. Plus, if you’re taking a break between seasons, social media is an awesome way to keep up with your audience while you’re not actively releasing episodes.
Once your episode or season is over, we suggest adding a brief CTA to tell your listeners to share their thoughts and perspectives on your social media platform of choice.
However, you’ll want to make sure that when your listeners get to your social pages, they’re met with a great experience.
Here are a few ways you can enhance your listeners’ experience on social media:
- Share insightful and valuable content: For example, behind-the-scenes footage, bonus interview questions that didn’t make it into the episode, or thought-provoking parts of past episodes.
- Engage with your audience: There’s nothing podcast fans love more than being recognized by one of their favorite hosts. You likely won’t be able to respond to every person, but even engaging with a few of your followers each time you post will make a measurable impact.
- Keep a consistent posting schedule: If you’re directing your listeners to your social media, you’ll want to make sure they’re greeted with timely, relevant content. Even if you’re on your off-season, you can still post highlights from past episodes,
3. Increase discoverability
One of the most remarkable advantages of leveraging social media for your podcast lies in its ability to boost discoverability – especially for growing podcasts.
When it comes to gaining visibility for your podcast, social media is a cost-effective champion. In fact, it allows you to kickstart your promotional efforts without spending a dime.
Instead of allocating ad budget, creating engaging posts, initiating conversations, and establishing your presence across major platforms is what it takes to get your podcast out there.
Plus, no other marketing channel can match the organic surfacing of relevant content to captivate users' interests quite like social media. Take TikTok, for example. Its algorithm delivers a constant stream of engaging, surprising, and topical content to users, allowing them to stumble upon new and exciting things all the time.
To help maximize your discoverability, make sure to follow platform-specific best practices for post frequency, hashtags, mentions, links, and media assets.
4. Increase searchability
Social media platforms have transformed into more than just virtual gathering spaces. They now wield the power of search engines.
Consider this: YouTube, the second-largest search engine globally, ranks just behind Google. Moreover, a recent buzz surrounds TikTok as it emerges as a go-to search engine for the younger generation.
By establishing and maintaining a strong social media presence, leveraging relevant hashtags and keywords, and consistently sharing engaging content, you can significantly enhance your chances of being discovered by your target listeners where they already live online.
5. Provide podcast updates
Is there something happening with your show that you weren’t able to discuss within your podcast episode? Social media is a great place to share the news.
Some important updates to share could include:
- An update on your podcast frequency (i.e. if you’re ever taking a vacation)
- Any PR your podcast has gotten
- Tease out guests
- Industry news relevant to your show
- Events you’ll be attending
- Podcast awards you’ve won
By keeping your audience in the loop, you’re building a deeper connection with them since they feel more involved in your content.
6. Share new episodes
One thing about podcast fans is that they’re loyal. 71% of total weekly consumers tune into episodes within 24 hours of release.
To make it as easy as possible for listeners to consume your latest episode, we suggest having a promotion strategy around every episode launch. Alongside blog posts and newsletter features, a key part of this promotion strategy is social media posts.
Some creative ways to spotlight your latest episode on social media include:
- Audiograms: Use a tool like Headliner to easily create engaging audiograms to highlight stand-out segments in your latest episode.
- Carousels: Create a swipe-through episode on a design tool like Canva to highlight key discussion points.
- Guest spotlights: Expand your show’s reach by leveraging your guest’s network. Remember to send your guest personalized promotional assets to share the episode on their profile too!
- Video teasers: If you have a video podcast, edit some of the clips for social media using a tool like Riverside. Remember social posts that include videos get up to 10x more engagement.
Regardless of how you choose to promote your new episode, if you have followers who aren’t subscribed to your show but still tune in, having those reminders will encourage them to check it out.
The goal of these posts should be to make your followers want to listen to the full episode to either hear the full story, find the answer, or learn a new perspective.
7. Cater to diverse consumption preferences
Last but not least, leveraging social media helps you cater to diverse consumption preferences.
Some followers won’t have the time to tune into full episodes; they’d rather listen to 1-2 minute video clips or audiograms for the most thought-provoking or entertaining segments. Alternatively, some audiences will want to read through carousels to digest the main points.
Even if your followers do tune into your entire podcast episodes, they may want to tune into behind-the-scenes footage on Instagram, learn more about the guest on LinkedIn, or check out a live stream on TikTok. All of the above contribute to extending the lifespan of your episodes and creating a top-tier experience for your audience.
How should you be promoting your podcast on social media?
There is no “one size fits all” approach to social media promotion, so we recommend considering the following questions before starting your social media strategy:
What social media platforms lend themselves to the content you want to produce?
When it comes to selecting a social media platform for podcast promotion, it's essential to consider your personal preferences and what kind of content you want to produce.
If you want to post polls, Q&As, and stories, you’ll likely want to start on Instagram. If you’re more interested in live streams and sharing video snippets, maybe make your debut on TikTok. If you plan to lean into your guests’ networks and put forward more professional content, head over to LinkedIn.
When your content matches the platform, it makes the process more enjoyable and authentic. Plus, your posts will fit into the algorithm better, increasing the odds of reaching new audiences.
Where is your target audience the most active?
Understanding your target audience is paramount to effectively promoting your podcast. After all, what’s the use of creating engaging content if it won’t reach the right people?
To get your podcast in front of the right eyes and ears, it’s important to take the time to identify the social media platforms where your listeners are most active.
Generally, Gen Z'ers flock to TikTok, Millennials hang out the most on Instagram, while Gen X and Boomers tend to gravitate toward Facebook or LinkedIn. If your podcast caters to empty-nesters or soon-to-be child-free parents, Facebook would likely be your best bet for engagement.
For more precise insights, we suggest using a tool like CoHost’s Audience Advanced Demographics to see which social media platforms your audience prefers and how they behave on them.
You’ll also gain access to other critical information including your listeners’ age, income, family members, pets, and lifestyle data. These insights will help you cater both your social media strategy and your podcast content to your listeners' preferences and interests.
By harnessing the power of the platforms preferred by your target demographic, you can maximize your podcast's exposure and connect with those who matter most.
Bring your social media plan into action
Competitive research
After reflecting on your answers to these questions, conduct some research within your podcasting niche. Identify successful podcasts that maintain active social media accounts and draw inspiration from their strategies.
Once you've identified your podcasting role models, it's time to perform an audit of their social media accounts. Dive into the specifics of their posting habits and engagement techniques.
- How often do they post?
- Which hashtags do they use?
- What platforms do they use most?
- What type of content do they share?
- What type of content gets the most engagement? What about the least?
Pay attention to the formats they use to interact with their followers, such as comments, live sessions, polls, or stories.
Create a content calendar
We suggest working up a content calendar to plan and organize your posts strategically. Start by determining the optimal posting frequency that suits your podcast's goals.
Then, brainstorm compelling content ideas that resonate with your target audience. This could include teaser videos, engaging questions as text overlays, or behind-the-scenes footage shared through stories.
To help stay on top of your social strategy, download our podcast social media calendar.
Remember, your content calendar is a flexible blueprint, enabling you to streamline your efforts and save time. Dedicate a few hours to develop a monthly plan, and you'll reap the benefits in the long run.
Monitor your social media performance
Once you’ve started posting consistently and gaining some traction on social media, it’s time to monitor how your posts are performing.
We suggest reviewing your social media analytics monthly and keeping track of platform-specific metrics like impressions, engagement rate, followers, comments, reposts, custom clicks, visitors, and any other data points you find valuable.
You can do this in a Google Sheet or even use a platform like Buffer or Hootsuite that will create these reports for you.
CoHost Tracking Links
As explained above, you can use social media analytics to find out how your platform-specific posts are performing within the site – but how can you find out which platforms are actually driving podcast downloads?
To help you validate that your podcast marketing efforts are converting, you can use CoHost Tracking Links. This tool allows you to see which sources your podcast downloads are coming from, so you know which channels to nurture and which to place on the back burner.
Have you enhanced your podcast marketing strategy with social media?
While it may be tempting to view social media as a megaphone for broadcasting your podcast's content, it's essential to embrace its interactive nature fully. Rather than merely disseminating information, view social networks as an opportunity to forge deeper connections with your existing audience and entice new listeners.
You can build these connections through authentic engagement, conversations, and making audiences feel as if they are along for the journey with you. Because at the end of the day, your listeners are the backbone behind your show.
By leveraging the power of social media platforms, you can build communities, create a better listener experience, increase discoverability and searchability, establish a stronger connection with your audience, and so much more.
To learn more about podcast growth, chat with our team of audio experts.
