February 27, 2024 • 54 mins
What everyone gets wrong about using social media to grow your podcast, and what you should be doing instead.
There might be no more common question in podcasting than: “How do I get more listeners”. And there might be no more common answer than, “Be active on social media.”
The result is that social media is by far the most popular marketing channel used by podcasters to (at least try to) get more listeners and grow their shows.
But does it actually work?
And if it does, how, exactly?
In this episode, we explore the potential benefits of social media for podcasters, how to use it effectively to grow your show and your brand, and why social media might actually be a more effective growth channel than it appears on the surface.
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Topics Covered
0:00 Intro
01:02 How many podcast listeners does 40,000 X (Twitter) followers get you in 2024?
05:57 Non-podcast-growth reasons to be active on social media
08:06 Understand why you're using each platform
17:47 Which platform should you be on to promote your podcast?
26:34 The "Buyer's Journey" of Podcast Listener Acquisition
27:24 Why social media is probably getting you listeners without you even knowing
35:10 The double-edge sword of building your platform reputation
38:45 Non-social media growth channels
47:09 Key takeaways from this episode
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
Darknet Diaries
How I Write Podcast
Jay Clouse
Never Post Podcast
Derek Sivers
Complete the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Survey
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin (00:02):
I've put so much work into Twitter. I've been on it
since 2008 or something. I justmade an episode I was really
proud of, and I posted itmultiple times on my Twitter
account. And I think each tweetgot 3 clicks. Thousands of
impressions, lots of people sawit, but there could be 0 people
(00:24):
that actually went through andlistened to the episode.
Jeremy (00:29):
Welcome to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained. I'm
Jeremy Enns from PodcastMarketing Academy.
Justin (00:34):
And I'm Justin Jackson from transistor.fm. And
together, we're digging into thedata behind the podcast
marketing trends 2023 report tohelp you understand what it
means for you and your show.
Jeremy (00:47):
Our goal is to help you make better informed decisions
about the way you create andmarket your show so you can
spend more time on what actuallymatters for growth and
accelerate your results.
Justin (00:56):
Let's get into it.
Jeremy (01:01):
Justin, you've got something close to around 40,000
followers on Twitter right now.You've you've done pretty well
for yourself. Most peoplelooking at this, 40,000
followers is something that youthink, okay, if I had that many
followers, like, promoting mypodcast would just be a piece of
cake. I'd be able to move somany people over to the show.
All my problems would be solved.
And I'm curious based on yourperspective as somebody who has
(01:22):
a decent sized social audienceto be sure and a long history in
podcasting, what is your opinionon the overlap between social
media and podcasting? Is itworth it to build that audience?
Justin (01:35):
Oh, man. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I've put so
much work into Twitter. I'vebeen on it since 2,008 or
something.
I just made an episode I wasreally proud of. I I did this
interview with David fromAcquired, and I posted it
multiple times on my Twitteraccount. And I think each tweet
(01:57):
got 3 clicks. So, like,thousands of impressions, lots
of people saw it. But in termsof people actually going to the
podcast and becoming a listener,there could be 0 people that
actually went through andlistened to the episode.
So I don't know. And I honestly,I think a lot of people are
(02:18):
feeling this. Social media justfeels like a lot of work to
build up an audience. And, mostfolks have a smaller audience on
social media. And it's like, isit even worth it to post my
podcast and my link and my reelsand my clips to all these
different platforms.
(02:39):
But on the other hand, whereelse can we promote our show?
Like, if you look on Reddit,people are always like, how do I
promote my show? And the numberone answer is always like, be
active on all the social mediaplatforms. And it's like, is it
worth it? I don't know.
I I think we should talk aboutit because it doesn't feel like
anyone has a good answer to thisyet.
Jeremy (03:01):
Yeah. I think in that statement that you just made,
there's a lot that we can unpackand dig into in this episode
here. And I think to first kindof set the scene, like you
mentioned, with Reddit, you yougo to anywhere where people are
asking for podcast growthadvice, and this is basically
the number one thing. And a lotof times, it's be active on
social media. And I think that,for 1, this is a true statement,
(03:21):
and it's very generic.
It doesn't give you muchguidance on, like, what does be
active mean? Does that just meanpost links of my podcast every
single day, you know, 20 times aday? Or you see this a lot of
times too going in a Facebookgroup and just spamming the
group with links to your show.Both of these are probably not
the best options on how to usesocial media. But I remember
back to the first time when I,produced a song.
(03:44):
And so I'd recorded and producedthe song I'd written in myself.
I was this is something I wasreally proud of. And I got to
the end of this. This is backin, like, 2012, 2013 and
Facebook was fairly new on thescene at the time. And I was
like, okay.
Time to market it. And I waslike, okay. Social media, this
is what it's for. I just, youknow, make my little Facebook
page. I post my song, and,Facebook is gonna do the rest
(04:04):
for me.
And I think, you know, herewe're more than 10 years later
from that, but I think that thisis still the impression that a
lot of people who are creativesgetting into creating something
for the first time think like,oh, social media marketing, it's
just post the thing and theplatform will take care of the
rest of it for me. Is thissomething that you've kind of
experienced yourself?
Justin (04:23):
Yeah. I understand it because podcasting is hard. By
the time you've produced theepisode, you're tired. You're,
like, just glad that you got outthat week's episode. And so the
idea of then repurposing thatcontent and, you know, going to
all the platforms and doing allthis work to promote it is
(04:45):
exhausting.
And so I I understand why peoplejust, like, auto tweet the
episode or auto post onFacebook. Here's a link to my
latest episode. You know, that'scommon. But I also get it
because it's it's hard work,podcasting. Yeah.
But I think there are thingspeople can do, and you've kind
of articulated the tension,which is, on one hand, social
(05:10):
media is maybe not worth it, butit's simultaneously worth it at
the same time. And so I think wecan figure out a way to use it
appropriately, to leverage it,and also to have realistic
expectations about what it'sgonna do
Jeremy (05:28):
for us. Yeah. I I think that that idea of expectations
is we've talked about that backin episode 1 as well. It's
probably gonna come up in inbasically every episode of this
series. But you kinda mentionedthat there may be some reasons
why, you do want to engage onsocial media, how that can be
beneficial, and also some wayswhere maybe if you're
approaching it a certain way, itmay not be beneficial.
And I think there's alsosomething that we can talk about
(05:49):
here that especially the waythings are at right now. We have
more people moving away fromsocial media, both in podcasting
and business and in kind ofevery aspect of life. And there
are still ways to be successfulwithout social media. So why
might you want to be active onsocial media? So let's maybe put
one of the first things on thetable is like, okay.
Sure. There is some ways that wecan use this to grow the podcast
(06:10):
potentially. We'll talk moreabout that in a second, but
outside of pure podcast growth,what are some additional reasons
why somebody might want to putin the effort to be active and
build a following on socialmedia?
Justin (06:22):
For me, listener engagement was way easier.
Listener feedback. Especiallybecause for my podcast, most of
my listeners were on Twitter fora long time. And so it was just
so easy to say, hey. If youwanna respond to this episode,
just reach out to me on Twitteror DM me on Twitter or here's a
(06:43):
tweet that you can respond toand let's generate some
discussion on this episode.
And that was very, very helpfulto have this place where people
are kinda congregating. And thenwhen the conversation started
happening, if if someone like,everyone's, like, responding to
an episode, you do kinda getthis natural, like, promotion
(07:05):
engine where other people areseeing us talk about it. And
they're, like, curious. Oh, whatare they talking about? And then
might go check out the episode.
Sharing clips, sharinghighlights, sharing quotes. It
does give you more exposure andit doesn't always work every
post, but I can think of, like,we interviewed this one person
and posted a clip on Twitter andit did get a lot of people
(07:28):
interested in that episode. Itwas one of our top episodes. So
sometimes it works. Being ableto engage with listeners and
sometimes have that conversationbe amplified, I found really
helpful.
Jeremy (07:41):
Yeah. I would say it goes back. I think we talked
about this in episode 1 before,this idea of discovery platforms
versus nurture platforms. Andthere's other platforms as well.
Like, I think about salesplatforms even where that's not
gonna be social media, and it'sactually not really the podcast
either.
And I think about that more aslike email is a great sales
platform. So that's kind of alittle outside social media, but
it's still this idea of lookingto expand your audience beyond
(08:02):
just the podcast. And I thinkfor me, having a clear idea of
what each platform is for, thisis something we can both nerd
out a lot on is this idea ofjobs to be done. So, like, what
job is the platform doing foryou and your larger kind of
content ecosystem or business?And I really like like, I agree
with you a 100% that the bigbenefit for me of social media
(08:24):
is engagement with both myexisting audience, but also
other creators in the space whomight become collaborators at
some point.
And like I I think of almostevery single person who I've
ever collaborated with, we firstwere introduced in some way on
social media and we wouldcomment on the same threads,
things like that. Eventually,we'd move to the DMs. We'd get
on a Zoom call and pretty soon,like, I've had some of my best
(08:46):
friends came from Twitter. Yeah.Which can happen through a
podcast where, like, somebodylistens to you for a long time
and then they they still needsome way to get in touch with
you.
And that's where it's, like,either email or social. The one
thing that I liked that youmentioned is Twitter was your
one real platform. And so peopleknew where to engage with you.
It wasn't that you were on 6different platforms, splitting
(09:08):
your time across all of them.And there was no central hub.
And the fact that you had oneplace it's like, that's where
the conversation was happeningaround everything you were
doing. And I think that that isa huge benefit of social media
is, like, not promotional and,like, pure engagement oriented.
Justin (09:22):
Totally. Totally. Social media is a natural extender for
the podcast relationship. Sosomebody's listening and they
wanna engage with you, well,it's easy for them to reach out
on Instagram. Or maybe, like,they listened in their car, and
then later they saw a clip fromthe show on Instagram.
And it's like, oh, yeah. I meantto say something about this
(09:44):
episode. So to reply to thatpost is just already a part of
their life. They're alreadyscrolling. And so to have
another opportunity to engagewith you, it's just a nice
relationship extender.
And if your purpose for yourpodcast is to build
relationships with the audience,like real relationships, it's
the one place where people canactually talk back to you. It's
(10:07):
the one place where people canengage back with you. I think
it's also helpful promotionally.Jay Clouse talks about this a
lot. Like, he is reallydedicated to YouTube this year
because it's a discoveryplatform.
People Yes. Are finding him onYouTube. And then he likes to
(10:28):
bring them into his relationshipplatforms. Podcasting, email,
RSS, writing. I think havingthat sense of, like, okay.
I do need to get reach a wideraudience. Then, okay, this is
one channel for doing so thatmight help me reach people that
I would normally never be ableto reach just because Yeah.
(10:50):
They're on YouTube. They're onTwitter, they're on Instagram,
they're on all these places. Andif something about that clip or
my tweet or my post engagesthem, they might be like, oh,
man.
I'm interested in going deeperwith this person, going to check
out the podcast. You know,that's the next step.
Jeremy (11:10):
Yeah. So there are some some real compelling reasons why
you might wanna spend timeattention on social media, and
we're going to dig into some ofthe ideas behind how to do that
well, which are usually not theways that we kind of naturally
start to use social media in thefirst place. And so we're going
to talk about that in a minute,but before we get to that, I
wanna dig into some of the datafrom the podcast marketing
(11:32):
trends report, because this wassomething I was really curious
about was comparing the averageshow size to how big were their
platforms, on, on otherplatforms or how big were their
audiences on other platforms.And so here, if we look at the
data, I was surprised and maybethis is because a lot of the
audience who submitted responsesfor this first report was a
(11:54):
little bit more in the businessside of things. LinkedIn was
actually the biggest platformwhere, the average, follower
count on LinkedIn of therespondents of the survey was
1260.
And so this was the only oneover a1000. And as a reminder to
everyone, the average or themedian podcast download, per
episode was 421. So this is, youknow, 3 times that, quote,
(12:18):
unquote, audience size.Obviously, it's a little bit
hard to compare on LinkedIn. Andthen as we looked at some of the
the other platforms, Instagram,around 800 on x or Twitter was
around 750.
The average email list wasaround 700. And then TikTok and
YouTube. This was reallysurprising to me. TikTok, a 179
and YouTube, only 75subscribers. So some of the
(12:40):
more, like, discovery orientedplatforms that you think of were
actually some of the lowestaudiences, which
Justin (12:46):
was fascinating. Lower. All these numbers are honestly
lower than I would have thought.
Jeremy (12:50):
Well, I'm curious to hear why would you have expected
them to be higher?
Justin (12:54):
I mean, I think because everyone everyone feels like
that's where podcast promotionhappens. Like, if you're growing
your audience and some of thepeople in this survey we know
have big audiences. And so partof me is like, where are they
getting their audience if it'snot from one of these social
platforms? I would have expectedto see bigger media numbers.
(13:17):
It's surprising that most folkshaven't even hit a 1,000.
So maybe there's somethinghopeful about this too. It's
like, wow. You can build apodcast audience, and not
everybody has a big social mediafollowing. Like, that is maybe a
myth.
Jeremy (13:35):
Yeah. Now I I think there is some optimism maybe in
these numbers. I think also wewanna go back to this idea that
we've talked about previously oflooking at probably if you're
looking to be successful ingrowing an audience, you're not
looking to be average becausethe average is actually really
low and that potentially youknow, like, we looked at that
421 downloads an episode. A lotof people aspire to be higher
(13:55):
than that. Probably a lot ofpeople aspire to be similarly
higher in terms of LinkedIn,Instagram, Twitter, TikTok,
YouTube, email, all of theseplatforms they would like to be
higher as well.
And probably a lot of the bigshows are. The one other kind of
counterpoint that I'll also sayto this is that it could be that
these numbers, these smallerthan expected numbers are
actually indicative of howpodcasters typically approach
(14:18):
social media, which from myperspective is a very
promotional first approach andnot a lot of maybe on platform
value delivery first approach.Is this something that you see,
with podcasters?
Justin (14:32):
Yeah. I mean, and honestly with myself, because
there's it's it's hard sittingdown and writing a good tweet.
It actually takes a lot of work.There's this new podcast called
Never Post, and they call thisposter's disease where where all
you're thinking about is thenext post, and they they're
like, this is a disease. Like,oh, that could be a post.
(14:53):
Oh, that could be a good tweet.Oh, that would make a good
TikTok. It's kind of like a asickness. So it's a lot of work,
and it also takes a lot oftries. And it's frustrating
because you have to stay onplatform.
They want like, on Twitter, theywant it to be text or images or
video. On YouTube, they want itto be video. And what
(15:14):
universally, what nobody wantsis links. And Right. It's that's
difficult.
The other thing that's difficultis I wanna promote my stuff.
Like, I put a lot of work intomaking that podcast episode, and
I want more people to hear it.And so when I switch over in my
(15:35):
tabs to LinkedIn or Twitter orwherever, I'm kinda like, what
do I feel like posting? Well,I'm actually really fired up
about this thing I just made.And so I understand the tension,
but I do know what works onsocial media or what works on
platforms like YouTube.
All of these platforms have atype of content, native content
(15:58):
we use sometimes call it, thatworks well on that platform. And
it changes too. On Twitter, fora while, it was threads.
Everyone was making all thesethreads. On YouTube, it used to
be, like, 5 minute videos werekilling it.
And now it's, like, 15 minutevideos are killing it. On
LinkedIn, when they launchedtheir video feature, all of a
(16:19):
sudden, LinkedIn wanted all ofus to upload video. You're
always to have to kind of thinkabout that audience.
Jeremy (16:25):
Yeah.
Justin (16:25):
Like, I think a lot of my stuff doesn't do well on
LinkedIn because I'm just crossposting it from other places.
And I'm not thinking about okay.LinkedIn, like, these are career
people. They're here for work.They're here to, like, maybe get
a win at the office.
They're here to get a win intheir career. I need to target
the content that way. You know?Yep. So, yeah, I think the the
(16:51):
reason most people are maybe notdoing well when it comes to
social media engagement is, a,we've made something else that's
really good and we wanna promoteit, and these these platforms
are, like, not naturally builtfor that.
And, b, to get good at postingcontent and getting engagement
(17:12):
on a given platform, it justtakes a lot of focused time and
effort focusing just on thatthing, producing things that are
valuable to the folks there. Youknow? Producing something and
posting something that isactually just like, oh, wow.
(17:32):
Like, I'm gonna share that witha friend or, oh, wow. Like, that
was a really good, quote.
I'm gonna keep that for later.That's what creates engagement
on these platforms, and it'sjust a different headspace than
promotion.
Jeremy (17:48):
Yeah. And I think that that ties into another question
that kind of similar to this,you know, should I be on social
media is the next question isoften, you know, which platform
should I be on? And I think thatpeople want to hear that there's
some specific platform where allpodcasters are successful. And
if you I'm just on thatplatform, like, that's where my
audience is gonna be and that,you know, I'll I'll just do the
(18:10):
same posting that I do anywhereelse and all of a sudden I'm
gonna get better results. And Ithink that this is, you know,
some kind of magical thinkingthat we would all like to be
true.
And I think that what you werekind of hinting at a little bit
here, with this idea of needingto understand an audience on a
platform, whenever people ask meabout, you know, which platform
(18:30):
should I be on, I think thefirst question here is, like,
where do I actually enjoy, ifanywhere, engaging content as a
consumer? And I think that whatthis does for you is, like, you
don't have to think about whattype of content is going to do
well on this platform becauseyou're already, you know, that
you're any content you createbecause you spend so much time
consuming content on thisplatform, you already kind of
(18:52):
get the norms of the platformand you know what kind of
content does well. You're kindof being influenced by
everything else that is going onthere and so you it kind of
comes across really effortlesslywhich does not always happen if
you are just trying to I don'twanna say like game the system
but if you're purely using aplatform to promote your own
stuff but you're not reallycontributing to that platform,
you're not an active kind oflike citizen of the platform,
(19:15):
it's really hard to effectivelymake use of it.
And so I think starting withthat that question of, like,
okay, what content do I likeconsuming? And, you know, maybe
I'm more of a, like a writer orsomething like that and so I'm
gonna be on Twitter or LinkedInor something like that. If it's
more visual, maybe you're onInstagram. It could be, you
know, TikTok or or YouTube aswell if it's more video
oriented. But really startingwith that, like, where do I just
(19:37):
have fun?
And I think for both of us for along time, that was was Twitter
where, like, we built networksand we knew a lot of people. We
just like felt like the stuffthat we like posting about.
There were other people postingabout that and I think that
that's where you start. That'slike the necessary starting
point for having success on anysocial media platform is that
it's not a chore. It's like, Iactually do wanna spend some
time here.
(19:57):
And maybe this is like one ofthose inside jokes on Twitter
where, like, everybody complainshow much time they spend on
Twitter. And like, part of it isthat everybody kinda wants to
grow their audience, but alsolike a lot of people just have
friends on Twitter and are kindaconstantly checking in
throughout the day all day everyday.
Justin (20:12):
Yeah. That's such a good point. If posting anywhere is a
chore, it's like, oh, I gotta gointo LinkedIn and make my posts.
That's not gonna be nearly aseffective as somebody who's,
like, just fired up about beingon Twitter all day. And the
person who's on Twitter all dayis more likely to understand how
(20:32):
the platform works, understandthe relationships there, and
actually just genuinely enjoybeing there.
And, honestly, where you do getyourself in trouble is when you
start just treating it like apromotional platform. Because
Yeah. People can sense that.It's like it it just instantly
(20:53):
for most platforms, it feelswrong. It's like, what are you
doing?
Like, come on. Like, we're here.We're having a conversation or
we're here and these are thekinds of things we post. In some
ways, this is, like, sad, butit's also just the truth that to
get good at Twitter, LinkedIn,Instagram, TikTok, you have to
(21:14):
spend a lot of time consumingand creating on those platforms.
And you're probably going toneed to enjoy it if it's gonna
be a long term thing.
If you're forcing yourself towake up every day and post your
clips to whatever platform andit's just a drag, I it's
(21:35):
probably just not gonna producevery much results.
Jeremy (21:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I always think of it as, this kind of,
like, there's a this dialect.It's almost like a different
language, a bit of a differentdialect on each platform. And as
an outsider, you aren't aware ofthat dialect, but everybody else
can sense an outsider.
As soon as you show up, you'relike the traveling salesperson
coming through to, like, hawkyour wares but you're not
actually, like, rooted in thatplace. And it's so clear to
everyone else but you don't knowas an outsider that it's that
(21:58):
clear that you kinda stick outlike a sore thumb. And I think
that this is something thatbecomes obvious once you
actually embed yourself in oneof these platforms and you see
other people doing it and you'relike, ugh. You shake your head
and you're like, man, thisperson doesn't get it. They're
so clueless and this looks sobad on them right now.
Justin (22:13):
Yeah. And you know who actually is a good example of
doing social media right is JackRiesider Yeah. The fellow behind
Darknet Diaries.
Jeremy (22:22):
Yep.
Justin (22:23):
Because if you look at his account, he does promote his
his episodes. But part of hisinteractions on Twitter just
goes along with the the broadertopic that he's focused on,
which is, you know,cybersecurity and hacking and
all these things. So if that'sthe audience you're building on
(22:46):
Twitter, it's like I'm buildingan audience that is really
excited and interested in thesetopics. And my podcast is also
about that. So on Twitter, I'mgonna talk about these topics as
passionately as I do on mypodcast.
And then it also just makes anatural fit between hey. If you
(23:06):
if you like this, then you'regonna go check this out. And I I
think it's almost like if yourpodcast is about puppies, then
you just also have to be all inon puppies on Twitter and TikTok
and everything else. Because theyou're just trying to be known
for one thing, basically. Right?
Yeah. Having that that singletopic or that single thing is
(23:31):
gonna make this a lot easier. Ifit's like you know, on Twitter,
I mostly talk about business andbootstrapping. My podcast is
also about business andbootstrapping. And so there's
gonna be tons of interactionbetween those two mediums.
Jeremy (23:44):
Yeah. I think that the the trick here is to detach a
little bit of your identity as,like, podcaster and think of
yourself like I am building abrand here, and there's a core
idea behind the brand. And solet's say it's that
cybersecurity and you're goingto say, okay, on the podcast,
we're going to cover this aspector we're gonna explore
cybersecurity in a certain waythat can only be done through
(24:05):
podcasting or is best donethrough podcasting. And then on
Twitter, we're gonna talk aboutcybersecurity in a very
different way. And I think thatthis is the trick to, like,
finding a way to present thesame or similar ideas in a way
that fits with how people engagewith content on a certain
platform.
And there's an interesting kindof tension here with this idea
(24:26):
as well is a lot of people, alot of podcasters want to move
their social media followersover to the podcast. But you
could take this alternativeapproach and say, really, I want
to build an audience and I don'treally care so much on what
platform it is, but I wannabuild an audience around this
idea. And I'm gonna build aTwitter account about
cybersecurity that people followbecause they're they care about
cybersecurity and they don'tneed to go to the podcast
(24:48):
because I share all the samethings. We have the same
discussion here, and it almostmakes the podcast to some extent
obsolete. That's one view thatyou could take.
The other one is you could say,okay. I wanna build this larger
brand and I've got all thesedifferent media properties and
I'm gonna give these peopledifferent experiences in a way
that almost compels them to goto move to different platforms
because you can only get thisthing over here which fits with
(25:11):
this platform, but you actuallyget this Yeah. Very different
thing over here on the podcastand you get this different thing
on my email newsletter and itactually encourages you to move
throughout the contentecosystem.
Justin (25:20):
And there's an interplay between these things, like,
sometimes you'll say somethingon the podcast, and you'll be
like, that's that would make anamazing tweet, and you'll note
it, and then you'll tweet it.And sometimes you'll be tweeting
about something and you'll belike, oh my gosh. Like, I this
happens all the time. I get intoa conversation on Twitter and
I'll reach out to the person andsay, we gotta bring this to the
(25:43):
podcast because this needs along form conversation. So
maybe, yes, seeing these less asa pure promotional channel.
And this is just an ecosystemyou play in, and there's an
interplay between all of theseelements, which is like
sometimes it gives to thepodcast, sometimes it leads to
the podcast, sometimes thepodcast leads to it. And there's
(26:05):
just this natural interplaywhere you're trying to almost
not actually trying at all.You're effortlessly just
engaging with these things forwhat they are and enjoying it,
hopefully. I think that's thethe the one key component of
this is you have to enjoy it. Ifyou don't enjoy it, it's
(26:27):
probably not worth your time.
And Yeah. Again, there's lots ofpodcasts that do fine without a
social media presence.
Jeremy (26:34):
Yeah. Now there is one thing I wanna touch on with
like, we we've kind of come outhere and been kinda anti
promotion of the podcast andtalking about, like, create
platform, native content, thingslike that. In my opinion, I
think you still should bepromoting your podcast on social
media. I think your expectationsshould just be low of how many
people will actually follow itin the short term. And, like,
(26:55):
one of the things that I thinkabout a lot is the traditional
kind of, like, buyer's journeythat somebody would go through
before like, all of us gothrough before buying a product.
And so we first have to becomeaware of it. And so there's this
awareness phase. Then there'sthis consideration. Maybe we're
looking at other alternatives.And then there's this decision
point where it's like, am I youknow, I'm getting off the fence
at some point.
And then you make the purchaseand then you kind of assess
after the fact, like, was thisworth it or do I need to go look
(27:17):
for something else? And I thinkthat this plays out with
podcasting too. And I think thatthe awareness phase is often
much longer than we think itshould be. Even with the free
podcast. Here's an example of ashow that I've recently started
listening to called, How IWrite.
It's by David Perrell, thefounder of, Rite of Passage. And
it's about writing and it's ashow where he interviews kind of
(27:40):
famous writers, people who arewell known in the writing, very
much in the kind of tech Twitterspace, which is David's circle.
Most of these I'm I'm sure hemet through Twitter to some
extent. And I heard about theshow 3 months ago, something
like that. I've known Davidwell, not known him personally
but known of him for multipleyears.
Been on his newsletter. Saw thepromotions come through about
the new show and I was like, notfor me for whatever reason or it
(28:02):
wasn't even a consideration. Andthen I heard, we're just gonna
see how many times we can shoutout Jay Klaus here. I heard him
mention it in his community, TheLab, and I was like, oh Jay's
listening to the show.Interesting.
And then I heard somebody elsewho I respect and admire and
like their taste and I was like,oh they're listening to it as
well. And then I heard a thirdperson and I was like, oh maybe
I should like move this up myqueue. I should at least
(28:23):
consider this now. And at somepoint, I finished binging
through the previous show that Iwas on and I was looking for
something new and it's likefinally now, the time was right.
I heard a bunch of like signals,kind of social proof from people
that I respected, that I knewhad good taste, that aligned
with mine and I had space in mycalendar where it was kind of
like, oh, now is the time tolisten to the show.
(28:43):
I think it's been like 6 or 9months since it's been out. I
already like David. I alreadylike his content. And it still
took that that long to get me inas a listener.
Justin (28:51):
Yeah. And I'm familiar with that show because of the
clips he posts on social media.And I haven't actually
subscribed yet, but I'm veryclose. Like, I keep hearing it
getting mentioned. And each ofthese interactions, whether it's
seeing a clip on social media orhearing a recommendation,
(29:13):
they're nudging me towardsbecoming a subscriber follower
of that show.
I'm close. I'm I'm close totaking out my my, iPhone,
opening up Pocket Casts,searching for the show, and then
clicking subscribe. And youthink about that that moment,
(29:34):
that's what it takes. That'swhat it takes. It takes, like,
multiple interactions, multipletouch points, and then all of a
sudden someone's doing this highfriction activity, which is
taking their phone out of theirpocket and going, you know what?
I'm going to listen to this inmy podcast player. I've also
(29:55):
heard of people doing this withlong YouTube episodes. So
they'll start watching a podcastepisode on YouTube, and they'll
be like, okay. I'm into this.I'm gonna switch over to my
podcast player and listen to therest as an audio podcast.
So these things are happening,but it the chances of you
(30:18):
saying, check out my latestepisode and having a link, and
then 100 or thousands of peoplefollowing that and then becoming
a listener is just unlikely. Andit's one reason to keep
mentioning it. Like, thatacquired episode that I'm really
proud of, where I interviewedDavid, I keep mentioning it. I'm
(30:40):
gonna mention it in mynewsletter. I'm gonna mention on
Twitter multiple times.
I'm gonna bring it up inLinkedIn comments. I'm gonna
keep talking about it because Iknow it's gonna take multiple
impressions, multiple touchpoints before people end up
listening.
Jeremy (30:56):
And I think the other thing like, you mentioned a
little bit of your stats beforewhere you you had this post.
You've got thousands ofimpressions. It got, like, 3
clicks. The other thing that youmentioned related to YouTube but
also social media is I can thinkof very few times when I have
ever seen a podcast advertisedon social media, and I've
clicked through and I'velistened right then and there
(31:16):
because I know that usually I'mmostly on my computer. I don't
really spend that much timescrolling social on my phone and
so I know, like, oh, this showsounds interesting.
I'm gonna make a mental note.Maybe I'm actually gonna pull up
my phone right now and I'm gonnasubscribe. Maybe I don't
download any episodes. Sothere's no download that comes
in from that. There's notrackable link, but I'm like,
oh, I've got this in my queuenow.
I know for whenever time opensup that now it's in my feed. And
(31:39):
at some point, maybe, you know,in David's case, I'd heard about
the show. I never subscribed.Maybe 3 months later, I actually
added it to my queue. And Yeah.
Then it was like another 3months later before it ever
registered a download on hisdevice because I didn't download
any episodes and it was like,this is here. This is my mental
bookmark for me to, like, when Ihave time, I'm gonna come back
to this. It's gotta move up thequeue. I gotta clear some other
things out of the way. And thenlater, now I've, like now he's
(32:02):
got, like, 15 downloads for mein a week because I'm, like,
binging through his episodes.
And I think that this is ispretty indicative of how I think
a lot of listener behavior is,where there's such a time span
that it takes place over.
Justin (32:13):
Yeah. And, I I mean, along with this, I think you do
kind of everywhere becausethere's so much content. The
challenge really is you have tomake something that's compelling
for the audience. And if yourpodcast episodes aren't
compelling yet I know wementioned this all the time. But
(32:36):
if they're not compelling yet,you just don't have a chance.
Like Yeah. Whatever that is, ithas to be good when people get
there and give you the shot.Still with podcasting, the best
form of promotion isword-of-mouth. Yeah. And so I
think for most folks, they wouldbe better served, really getting
(32:57):
creative, and putting way moreenergy into thinking how can I
increase word-of-mouth asopposed to how can I get more
interactions on Twitter?
How can I get my TikTok to goviral? How can I because you say
those things? If you want viralTikToks, then post viral
(33:17):
TikToks. But if you're saying, Iwant viral TikToks so that my
podcast gets more downloads, I Ithink you would be better served
optimizing for having peoplerefer the show to other people.
And you can't do that unless theproduct is great.
You can't do that unless theproduct is awesome. The product
(33:40):
here being your episodes, yourpodcast. And then just remember,
this also needs to be true forevery social platform you're
gonna engage on. So if you'regonna go all in on LinkedIn,
it's gotta be awesome for thatplatform. It's gotta be great
because it it follows the samerules, which is if I'm gonna
(34:04):
share it to my friends, itbetter be awesome.
It better be share worthy. Andthere's a bunch of studies on
this, fascinating studies wherethis actually happens fairly
quickly. As soon as someoneengages with a piece of media,
podcast, YouTube, article,tweet, they've already decided
(34:25):
whether it's shareable, like,whether it is worth sharing. And
you're creating an impression atthe beginning, and then you have
to carry that through. Andpeople are making that decision
very almost immediately.
It has to be great. It has to beso good that people are like,
you know what? I gotta sharethis right now. I gotta I gotta
(34:46):
tell someone about this.
Jeremy (34:48):
Yeah. We get so this opens up something that's really
interesting because I'veobserved this countless times
myself where there are certainpeople who, to your point, I
already know I don't even needto read a single word. And I
already know I'm gonna share itbecause I have a level of
respect and admiration for thatperson. And I know that they
post stuff that I agree withthat is always good, that is
(35:09):
refreshing. And there's a doubleedged sword here, I think.
And I think it's a reason toengage on social media, but I
think that you have to engagemindfully. And if you're
thinking if all you do ispromote, that's probably
decreasing your on platformreputation. Whereas if you are
somebody who contributesvaluable posts that are not a
100% promotion, you can do thatoccasionally but there is
they're balanced out by a kindof generosity on the platform.
(35:31):
You're building your reputationand so people are
subconsciously, their opinion ofyou is going up. And so when
that promotion comes, whensomething really connects with
them, it's almost like you'vebeen making these investments in
their account and now it's timethat that they're gonna pay that
out kind of and they're going tobe like, oh this one just really
landed with me for some reasonand now I'm gonna share Justin's
post about this this episodethat he's really proud of
(35:53):
because he just gives so muchgood value on here all the time.
And social media is not the onlyway to build your reputation,
but it's certainly one way to doit in small doses over time.
Justin (36:02):
Yeah. Who who is it that said, people come for the topic,
but they stay for the host?
Jeremy (36:08):
Well, I say that a lot.
Justin (36:09):
That's is that did you coin that term?
Jeremy (36:13):
I might have. I I certainly, I say that quite a
bit. I don't I don't know that Iborrowed it from anyone. So,
Justin (36:19):
Okay. Okay.
Jeremy (36:19):
I'll take credit.
Justin (36:20):
That's that's funny because I was like, I I don't
know who said that, but maybe Iheard it from you. Regardless of
who originated it, I think thereis something about that. Is with
podcasting, maybe the topic ofyour show is cybersecurity and
hacking, and people are justlooking for shows like that. Or
maybe you do a fiction show andpeople are just, like, searching
(36:43):
for other fiction shows like theother ones they like. But often,
people will stay for thecreator, the person behind the
show, and then they'll seek outother things by that person.
And so this can work as if youare trying to play the long game
and you're, like, trying toproduce a podcast or a series of
(37:06):
shows that, you know, you wantpeople to engage with. I can't
remember the fellow who'sbehind, the Missing Crypto Queen
podcast, but I've listened tomultiple shows. I've sought out
multiple shows by this personbecause I originally came for
the topic, but then I stayed forthe creator, the person making
(37:27):
the show. And now I'm just like,can't wait till they put out a
new series. I'm just waiting forthem to put out a new series.
It depends on what game you'replaying and if it's a long term
game. And what you said aboutreputation, man, I again, it's
not what people wanna hear. Theythey just really what they want
(37:47):
is more downloads for the mostrecent episode. Yeah. But,
really, the game you gotta beplaying is this long term
reputation as a creator.
Yeah. Like, for me, DerekSivers.
Jeremy (37:59):
Oh, yeah.
Justin (38:00):
He comes out with something. He's interviewed on a
podcast. I'm listening. Doesn'tmatter. I he's built up a
reputation.
I will seek that out. If hestarted a podcast, I I would
subscribe for sure because he'sbuilt up a reputation with me,
and I wanna hear what he has tosay.
Jeremy (38:19):
Yep. He was actually I was listening to his episode on,
How I Write last night. Sothere's your, intro episode.
Justin (38:25):
Oh, that might that might get me. That might get me.
Jeremy (38:28):
So let's move on then to talking about because we've said
multiple times here that socialmedia is not the only way to
grow. I know personally, and Iknow that you know as well, many
podcast creators who areentirely absent from social
media and have actually grownhuge shows. So let's talk a
little bit about this and, like,what are some of the
alternatives? Because people I Ithink you get into podcasting
(38:48):
like we mentioned earlier andyou're just like, this is the
only marketing channel. Like,what else can I do?
Justin (38:53):
One example I think about all the time is Tim Ferris
when he launched his podcast. Hedid 2 things that were
interesting at the time. Number1 is he bought a lot of ads in
front of podcasts that had anaudience that he thought would
work for his show.
Jeremy (39:11):
Yep.
Justin (39:12):
And I remember hearing, like, just ads all the time for
his show. And the way he did itwas interesting. He would often
get the host to read a littlebit and say, hey, you know, Tim
Ferriss is an interestingauthor. He reached out, see if
we could advertise on the show.And, he's just got a new podcast
and here's his pitch for it.
And, I think that worked reallywell for him. The just lots of
(39:36):
folks ended up hearing those adsand acting on it. And the the
other thing he did was that'skind of the same ballpark is
lots of guesting on other shows,lots of, like, going on other
popular podcasts and saying,hey. I'm watching a show and,
talking about it. So those twoapproaches, underrated in a lot
(40:00):
of ways.
And I've seen other peoplereplicate that strategy, some
very big shows. It turns outthat getting more podcast
listeners, you need to go towhere the podcast listeners are
already. And that might meanadvertising or guesting on the
shows they're already listeningto.
Jeremy (40:19):
Yeah. I think that this is one thing that you hear again
and again is, like, podcastguesting and cross promotions
collaborations with otherpodcasters. This you look at
like big network shows like thisis they do spend money on
advertising. But if you look atthe ROI on that, so many people
that I've talked to, it justdoesn't make sense. Even when
you have advertisers already inplace, the economics just don't
(40:42):
really work out that wellespecially if you're doing like
a CPM model.
We could have a whole otherdiscussion if you're doing
higher ticket sponsorship typestuff but that's kind of a
another point. That is actuallyto me really encouraging that a
lot of times people are likewell I can't grow because I
don't have the budget and it'slike actually even the people
who do have a budget aren'tspending it on advertising.
They're looking at how do webring in more people to make the
shows better and also probablyoutsourcing some of that
(41:05):
connection and and outreach topeople for collaborations and
things like that. So I thinkthat's something that, you know,
collaborations are free. They'reaccessible to everyone.
And I think that that going backthat idea before of using social
media to network, I think thisis a huge hidden benefit there
is saying, I'm not gonna promotemy show at all. I'm going to
make friends with otherpodcasters in my space and
(41:25):
adjacent spaces, and then we'regonna do the actual promotion on
each other's shows.
Justin (41:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And there is a like, if if you're looking
for, cold outreachopportunities, there's ways of
doing that. Like, there'sproducts that do that. One
simple way is just to look upyour show in Apple Podcasts and
scroll to the bottom Yep.
And see what similar showsthey're recommending. But the
approach you're recommending isactually better, which is just
(41:52):
become friends with the kinds ofpeople that are talking about
the things you're talking abouton the show. And then this will
just come up organically. It'slike, hey, why don't we just be
a guest on each other's show? OrYeah.
Why don't we, like, trypromoting each other's show? You
know, maybe we'll do a pre rollfor the next 6 weeks and just
(42:12):
see what happens. Yeah. So I Ithink that's a great approach.
And it comes back to, yeah,relationship building, finding
your your group of people,building a network.
There's lots of opportunitiesthere.
Jeremy (42:25):
Yeah. I actually just talked with, a podcaster. He has
a a pretty big show yesterday.And so he's getting around 17 to
25,000 downloads an episode. Ithink he said at this point,
he's been doing the show 6years, and it took him 4 years
to get a big break wheninterestingly, he was stuck at
around I think he was, like,5,000 downloads, 4000 downloads
an episode.
And a show that he didn'tactually know the host, they
(42:45):
just gave him a shout out. Itwas a bigger show in his space.
They gave him a shout out on theshow. He was totally surprised
and it doubled his audienceovernight. And that kinda got
him up to the next level.
And he had this goal to get, a1,000,000 impressions for his
show in 1 month. And so he hadthis goal, going in. And so this
was all cross promotion, adimpression, that type thing, all
unpaid. And so they're trackingthis through, dynamic ad
(43:08):
insertion to see theimpressions. But he had this
goal.
He knew like a year in advance.Okay. This month, next year, I'm
gonna get a million impressionsof my show on other shows. And
so what he did was he startedjust building up favors
throughout the year. And so hebrought other people on as
guests to his show.
He ran ads for other people'sshows every single episode in
the post role, in everything. Hewas like, I was kinda
(43:30):
indiscriminate. I was like,okay. If your show is even
vaguely aligned with mine, I'llput it in the post role at
least. And if it's even reallyaligned, I'll put it in Emmett
role as well.
And he did feed drops. He didall this stuff kind of building
up favors and kind of tellingpeople like, okay. I would love
to do this. I have this goal ofgetting a 1,000,000 impressions
for my show in this month. Andhe actually he did it, and he
hit the, like, number 15, rankedshow in all of the US in his
(43:54):
category, in the the main it'sin the history category.
And, I thought, like, this isthis is a fascinating
intentional approach tomarketing as a whole and also,
like, some long term planning oflike, okay, I have this goal and
I'm gonna work for it for like 9to 12 months to to build up to
that. And he showed me hisactual chart and he he brought
(44:14):
in something like 2,000 newfollowers in just Apple
Podcasts. And so that's notlistens. That's followers in
just Apple Podcasts. And so youcan think about Spotify, the
other platforms as well in thatone month.
I think it it really paid offfor him. You can imagine that
that type of exposure would.But, again, he's been doing the
show 6 years. He spends a ton oftime scripting, writing, doing
(44:34):
all the research and I thinkthat at that that's the point at
which that type of exposureactually will pay off for you.
And so, like, paying your duesupfront, building a compelling
show where it's good enough tolike, this point where this
other show randomly without across promotion, they just
shouted them out to all of theirtens of thousands of listeners,
and it's, like, that's when whenthat starts to happen, you know
(44:56):
my show is good enough to reallystart ramping up the exposure.
Justin (44:59):
Yeah. You gotta pay your dues. That's the thing. It takes
a long time sometimes. I thinkto summarize a lot of our
thoughts here, something thatjust came to mind is something I
call slot machine marketingversus snowball marketing.
And so slot machine marketing tome is just like posting on
Facebook, posting on Instagram,posting on Twitter. It's like
you're just, you know, hopingthat the next poll is gonna get
(45:23):
you a jackpot. Whereas snowballmarketing is, like, where you
roll a little snowball down ahill, and it picks up more and
more momentum and more and moresnow, and it grows over time.
The thing with slot machinemarketing is you never know.
Like, you could pull that leverand you could get a post that
(45:44):
got a 1000000 views Yeah.
And no new listeners. Yep.Whereas having a snowball that
gains momentum is like, today,I'm just gonna go out there, and
I'm gonna be helpful on all theplatforms. I'm going to not be
thinking about promoting at all.I'm just gonna be there adding
(46:06):
value.
People say that all the time.But adding value, being a
positive person, and that overtime, reputation, word-of-mouth,
the virtuous cycle of that willgain more and more momentum and
hopefully get bigger over time.And I think that's where more
folks need to dedicate theirenergy is forget the slot
(46:31):
machine, just focus on thesnowball. And if you do this
every day, if you just wake upand you're just pushing the
snowball a little bit more, andtimes it can feel like you're
pushing the snowball up thehill. It's like, man, when's
this thing gonna actually startrolling on its own?
You just every day, you'repushing it a little bit more, a
little bit more. And if you keepdoing that, eventually, you will
(46:54):
see the rewards of thatinvestment. It just takes time.
Jeremy (46:57):
That's a perfect analogy. I love it that, you
know, the slot machine, we allknow the odds are stacked
against you. And with thesnowball, you know, that
actually the laws of physics arein your favor, that you keep
pushing it. You get it to thatedge and it starts rolling like
it is going to start rollingfaster. So I think that's a a
perfect analogy to lead peoplewith.
If we are thinking about some ofthe takeaways here, we've talked
about, you know, the podcast andbuilding audiences on other
(47:19):
platforms. What would you saywould be your top takeaways for
somebody who's listening to thisand how can they kind of
tomorrow start, actually, youknow, making better use of other
platforms? Or maybe, you know,leaving those other platforms
behind and looking at other waysto grow their show?
Justin (47:32):
Yeah. I I think for most folks, you need to start by
really evaluating your content.Is this remarkable? Is this
compelling? Is there somethinghere that would make folks wanna
share it?
Focus on that first. The nextthing I would do is just be
trying to figure out how you cancultivate word-of-mouth,
(47:55):
referrals, people telling otherpeople about the show and
encouraging that. Like, I thinkit would be better for you to
leverage your listeners' socialaudiences than trying to build
your own. And so even again, ifyou have 5 listeners and they're
all fans, what you're doing isjust so good for them. If they
(48:16):
all have social media accounts,you could do one episode.
You could say, hey, everybody.We're trying to grow the show.
Could you just take a moment andpost it on your preferred social
network with, like, one thingyou liked about this episode,
one thing you think peopleshould think about or talk
about? I would really appreciateit. And then just mention me and
I'll, you know, I'll give a freehat to who to to one person that
(48:39):
does that.
I think doing those kinds ofexperiments will, lead to better
results for most folks.
Jeremy (48:46):
Yeah. I would say for mine, I think it's being clear
on what you're using eachplatform for. And so if you're
thinking, well, this is mydiscovery platform as maybe my
brand discovery platform. Ifthat's the goal, need to create
content that has a chance ofspreading on this platform, and
that's not gonna be promotionalcontent. Or you could say, this
is my platform for buildingrelationships.
And I think to your point aboutthe you know, creating
(49:08):
remarkable content takes time,probably years. And some people
have already built up thatmuscle through other projects
and platforms and creative workin, you know, decades past and
now they're just applying it tothe podcast and the podcast is
immediately great. Other people,they're starting from scratch.
This is one of their firstcreative projects and it's gonna
take a couple years or 3 years,5 years, however long it is to
get to that point where likethis is something special. But
(49:29):
what I like to think about withsocial media is saying like,
okay, maybe the show is where itneeds to be and maybe it's not,
but I can cultivate a communityand a network of people here so
that when the show is at thatpoint, I've already developed
that goodwill and thatreputation of maybe I don't have
the reputation of being a greatpodcast host or having a great
show.
I have the reputation of beingsomebody who is worthy of help
(49:52):
and who has given me a lotthroughout the years and who now
I'm really excited to do thatwhen things click into place.
And so I would say that keepingthose two things in mind as well
as this idea that like it justeverything takes longer than you
think. And a lot of times withpodcasting, we just don't have
the data to see like this posthad this result. I think you
have to kind of just let go andtrust in the process that if you
(50:13):
show up kind of generously dayafter day and give value to
people, like, eventually thatwill pay off over time.
Justin (50:20):
Mhmm. Yeah. And we haven't talked a lot about
YouTube, but I would say ifyou're the kind of person that
likes making video, I think youshould be on YouTube. I think
you should be posting some clipsor full length episodes. I would
also just give yourself thefreedom to experiment too.
I think it's fine to start, youknow hey. I'm curious about
(50:41):
TikTok. Why don't you just startposting? And if you like it,
keep going. If you're interestedin it, go try it.
I think it's worth trying forsure.
Jeremy (50:50):
Yes. That kind of through line of experimentation
for everything podcasting andelsewhere is kind of always the
the bedrock of all kind ofeventually successful marketing.
It all kind of starts from thisexperimental, like, we don't
know if this is gonna work, butwe're gonna give it a try, and,
we'll see what happens.
Justin (51:04):
Totally.
Jeremy (51:04):
Yeah. Alright. So I think, the YouTube discussion
will save that for anotherepisode. We can probably spend
many hours talking about that,but, hopefully, folks have found
this helpful, in terms of socialmedia. And we would love to know
I would love to know what isyour relationship with social
media as a podcaster.
As you're thinking about some ofthe things we talked about here,
which camp have you fallen into?Have you kind of been in the
just like pure promotionalphase? And I I like I said, I
(51:26):
have certainly been there. Ithink you mentioned that you've
been there as well. And and alsomaybe I would actually be
curious to know for for peoplelistening to this, who are your
favorite people to follow onsocial media and what do they
do?
Like, why do you like followingthem and is that just promoting
their other stuff or is theresomething else that they're
doing? And, I'm always lookingfor new people to follow as
well. So so hit us up with yourrecommendations.
Justin (51:46):
And as always, we have a feedback link in the show
description. You can leave us avoicemail on there. You can
record us a video or give ussome just write out some text.
We would love to get yourresponses. If you've had the
inclination to talk back to uswhile we've been talking, click
that link that says feedback inthe show notes and, leave us a
(52:07):
message.
Jeremy (52:07):
Perfect. Well, Justin, a pleasure as always. And, we'll
talk to you again in the nextepisode.
I've put so much work into Twitter. I've been on it
since 2008 or something. I justmade an episode I was really
proud of, and I posted itmultiple times on my Twitter
account. And I think each tweetgot 3 clicks. Thousands of
impressions, lots of people sawit, but there could be 0 people
(00:24):
that actually went through andlistened to the episode.
Jeremy (00:29):
Welcome to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained. I'm
Jeremy Enns from PodcastMarketing Academy.
Justin (00:34):
And I'm Justin Jackson from transistor.fm. And
together, we're digging into thedata behind the podcast
marketing trends 2023 report tohelp you understand what it
means for you and your show.
Jeremy (00:47):
Our goal is to help you make better informed decisions
about the way you create andmarket your show so you can
spend more time on what actuallymatters for growth and
accelerate your results.
Justin (00:56):
Let's get into it.
Jeremy (01:01):
Justin, you've got something close to around 40,000
followers on Twitter right now.You've you've done pretty well
for yourself. Most peoplelooking at this, 40,000
followers is something that youthink, okay, if I had that many
followers, like, promoting mypodcast would just be a piece of
cake. I'd be able to move somany people over to the show.
All my problems would be solved.
And I'm curious based on yourperspective as somebody who has
(01:22):
a decent sized social audienceto be sure and a long history in
podcasting, what is your opinionon the overlap between social
media and podcasting? Is itworth it to build that audience?
Justin (01:35):
Oh, man. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I've put so
much work into Twitter. I'vebeen on it since 2,008 or
something.
I just made an episode I wasreally proud of. I I did this
interview with David fromAcquired, and I posted it
multiple times on my Twitteraccount. And I think each tweet
(01:57):
got 3 clicks. So, like,thousands of impressions, lots
of people saw it. But in termsof people actually going to the
podcast and becoming a listener,there could be 0 people that
actually went through andlistened to the episode.
So I don't know. And I honestly,I think a lot of people are
(02:18):
feeling this. Social media justfeels like a lot of work to
build up an audience. And, mostfolks have a smaller audience on
social media. And it's like, isit even worth it to post my
podcast and my link and my reelsand my clips to all these
different platforms.
(02:39):
But on the other hand, whereelse can we promote our show?
Like, if you look on Reddit,people are always like, how do I
promote my show? And the numberone answer is always like, be
active on all the social mediaplatforms. And it's like, is it
worth it? I don't know.
I I think we should talk aboutit because it doesn't feel like
anyone has a good answer to thisyet.
Jeremy (03:01):
Yeah. I think in that statement that you just made,
there's a lot that we can unpackand dig into in this episode
here. And I think to first kindof set the scene, like you
mentioned, with Reddit, you yougo to anywhere where people are
asking for podcast growthadvice, and this is basically
the number one thing. And a lotof times, it's be active on
social media. And I think that,for 1, this is a true statement,
(03:21):
and it's very generic.
It doesn't give you muchguidance on, like, what does be
active mean? Does that just meanpost links of my podcast every
single day, you know, 20 times aday? Or you see this a lot of
times too going in a Facebookgroup and just spamming the
group with links to your show.Both of these are probably not
the best options on how to usesocial media. But I remember
back to the first time when I,produced a song.
(03:44):
And so I'd recorded and producedthe song I'd written in myself.
I was this is something I wasreally proud of. And I got to
the end of this. This is backin, like, 2012, 2013 and
Facebook was fairly new on thescene at the time. And I was
like, okay.
Time to market it. And I waslike, okay. Social media, this
is what it's for. I just, youknow, make my little Facebook
page. I post my song, and,Facebook is gonna do the rest
(04:04):
for me.
And I think, you know, herewe're more than 10 years later
from that, but I think that thisis still the impression that a
lot of people who are creativesgetting into creating something
for the first time think like,oh, social media marketing, it's
just post the thing and theplatform will take care of the
rest of it for me. Is thissomething that you've kind of
experienced yourself?
Justin (04:23):
Yeah. I understand it because podcasting is hard. By
the time you've produced theepisode, you're tired. You're,
like, just glad that you got outthat week's episode. And so the
idea of then repurposing thatcontent and, you know, going to
all the platforms and doing allthis work to promote it is
(04:45):
exhausting.
And so I I understand why peoplejust, like, auto tweet the
episode or auto post onFacebook. Here's a link to my
latest episode. You know, that'scommon. But I also get it
because it's it's hard work,podcasting. Yeah.
But I think there are thingspeople can do, and you've kind
of articulated the tension,which is, on one hand, social
(05:10):
media is maybe not worth it, butit's simultaneously worth it at
the same time. And so I think wecan figure out a way to use it
appropriately, to leverage it,and also to have realistic
expectations about what it'sgonna do
Jeremy (05:28):
for us. Yeah. I I think that that idea of expectations
is we've talked about that backin episode 1 as well. It's
probably gonna come up in inbasically every episode of this
series. But you kinda mentionedthat there may be some reasons
why, you do want to engage onsocial media, how that can be
beneficial, and also some wayswhere maybe if you're
approaching it a certain way, itmay not be beneficial.
And I think there's alsosomething that we can talk about
(05:49):
here that especially the waythings are at right now. We have
more people moving away fromsocial media, both in podcasting
and business and in kind ofevery aspect of life. And there
are still ways to be successfulwithout social media. So why
might you want to be active onsocial media? So let's maybe put
one of the first things on thetable is like, okay.
Sure. There is some ways that wecan use this to grow the podcast
(06:10):
potentially. We'll talk moreabout that in a second, but
outside of pure podcast growth,what are some additional reasons
why somebody might want to putin the effort to be active and
build a following on socialmedia?
Justin (06:22):
For me, listener engagement was way easier.
Listener feedback. Especiallybecause for my podcast, most of
my listeners were on Twitter fora long time. And so it was just
so easy to say, hey. If youwanna respond to this episode,
just reach out to me on Twitteror DM me on Twitter or here's a
(06:43):
tweet that you can respond toand let's generate some
discussion on this episode.
And that was very, very helpfulto have this place where people
are kinda congregating. And thenwhen the conversation started
happening, if if someone like,everyone's, like, responding to
an episode, you do kinda getthis natural, like, promotion
(07:05):
engine where other people areseeing us talk about it. And
they're, like, curious. Oh, whatare they talking about? And then
might go check out the episode.
Sharing clips, sharinghighlights, sharing quotes. It
does give you more exposure andit doesn't always work every
post, but I can think of, like,we interviewed this one person
and posted a clip on Twitter andit did get a lot of people
(07:28):
interested in that episode. Itwas one of our top episodes. So
sometimes it works. Being ableto engage with listeners and
sometimes have that conversationbe amplified, I found really
helpful.
Jeremy (07:41):
Yeah. I would say it goes back. I think we talked
about this in episode 1 before,this idea of discovery platforms
versus nurture platforms. Andthere's other platforms as well.
Like, I think about salesplatforms even where that's not
gonna be social media, and it'sactually not really the podcast
either.
And I think about that more aslike email is a great sales
platform. So that's kind of alittle outside social media, but
it's still this idea of lookingto expand your audience beyond
(08:02):
just the podcast. And I thinkfor me, having a clear idea of
what each platform is for, thisis something we can both nerd
out a lot on is this idea ofjobs to be done. So, like, what
job is the platform doing foryou and your larger kind of
content ecosystem or business?And I really like like, I agree
with you a 100% that the bigbenefit for me of social media
(08:24):
is engagement with both myexisting audience, but also
other creators in the space whomight become collaborators at
some point.
And like I I think of almostevery single person who I've
ever collaborated with, we firstwere introduced in some way on
social media and we wouldcomment on the same threads,
things like that. Eventually,we'd move to the DMs. We'd get
on a Zoom call and pretty soon,like, I've had some of my best
(08:46):
friends came from Twitter. Yeah.Which can happen through a
podcast where, like, somebodylistens to you for a long time
and then they they still needsome way to get in touch with
you.
And that's where it's, like,either email or social. The one
thing that I liked that youmentioned is Twitter was your
one real platform. And so peopleknew where to engage with you.
It wasn't that you were on 6different platforms, splitting
(09:08):
your time across all of them.And there was no central hub.
And the fact that you had oneplace it's like, that's where
the conversation was happeningaround everything you were
doing. And I think that that isa huge benefit of social media
is, like, not promotional and,like, pure engagement oriented.
Justin (09:22):
Totally. Totally. Social media is a natural extender for
the podcast relationship. Sosomebody's listening and they
wanna engage with you, well,it's easy for them to reach out
on Instagram. Or maybe, like,they listened in their car, and
then later they saw a clip fromthe show on Instagram.
And it's like, oh, yeah. I meantto say something about this
(09:44):
episode. So to reply to thatpost is just already a part of
their life. They're alreadyscrolling. And so to have
another opportunity to engagewith you, it's just a nice
relationship extender.
And if your purpose for yourpodcast is to build
relationships with the audience,like real relationships, it's
the one place where people canactually talk back to you. It's
(10:07):
the one place where people canengage back with you. I think
it's also helpful promotionally.Jay Clouse talks about this a
lot. Like, he is reallydedicated to YouTube this year
because it's a discoveryplatform.
People Yes. Are finding him onYouTube. And then he likes to
(10:28):
bring them into his relationshipplatforms. Podcasting, email,
RSS, writing. I think havingthat sense of, like, okay.
I do need to get reach a wideraudience. Then, okay, this is
one channel for doing so thatmight help me reach people that
I would normally never be ableto reach just because Yeah.
(10:50):
They're on YouTube. They're onTwitter, they're on Instagram,
they're on all these places. Andif something about that clip or
my tweet or my post engagesthem, they might be like, oh,
man.
I'm interested in going deeperwith this person, going to check
out the podcast. You know,that's the next step.
Jeremy (11:10):
Yeah. So there are some some real compelling reasons why
you might wanna spend timeattention on social media, and
we're going to dig into some ofthe ideas behind how to do that
well, which are usually not theways that we kind of naturally
start to use social media in thefirst place. And so we're going
to talk about that in a minute,but before we get to that, I
wanna dig into some of the datafrom the podcast marketing
(11:32):
trends report, because this wassomething I was really curious
about was comparing the averageshow size to how big were their
platforms, on, on otherplatforms or how big were their
audiences on other platforms.And so here, if we look at the
data, I was surprised and maybethis is because a lot of the
audience who submitted responsesfor this first report was a
(11:54):
little bit more in the businessside of things. LinkedIn was
actually the biggest platformwhere, the average, follower
count on LinkedIn of therespondents of the survey was
1260.
And so this was the only oneover a1000. And as a reminder to
everyone, the average or themedian podcast download, per
episode was 421. So this is, youknow, 3 times that, quote,
(12:18):
unquote, audience size.Obviously, it's a little bit
hard to compare on LinkedIn. Andthen as we looked at some of the
the other platforms, Instagram,around 800 on x or Twitter was
around 750.
The average email list wasaround 700. And then TikTok and
YouTube. This was reallysurprising to me. TikTok, a 179
and YouTube, only 75subscribers. So some of the
(12:40):
more, like, discovery orientedplatforms that you think of were
actually some of the lowestaudiences, which
Justin (12:46):
was fascinating. Lower. All these numbers are honestly
lower than I would have thought.
Jeremy (12:50):
Well, I'm curious to hear why would you have expected
them to be higher?
Justin (12:54):
I mean, I think because everyone everyone feels like
that's where podcast promotionhappens. Like, if you're growing
your audience and some of thepeople in this survey we know
have big audiences. And so partof me is like, where are they
getting their audience if it'snot from one of these social
platforms? I would have expectedto see bigger media numbers.
(13:17):
It's surprising that most folkshaven't even hit a 1,000.
So maybe there's somethinghopeful about this too. It's
like, wow. You can build apodcast audience, and not
everybody has a big social mediafollowing. Like, that is maybe a
myth.
Jeremy (13:35):
Yeah. Now I I think there is some optimism maybe in
these numbers. I think also wewanna go back to this idea that
we've talked about previously oflooking at probably if you're
looking to be successful ingrowing an audience, you're not
looking to be average becausethe average is actually really
low and that potentially youknow, like, we looked at that
421 downloads an episode. A lotof people aspire to be higher
(13:55):
than that. Probably a lot ofpeople aspire to be similarly
higher in terms of LinkedIn,Instagram, Twitter, TikTok,
YouTube, email, all of theseplatforms they would like to be
higher as well.
And probably a lot of the bigshows are. The one other kind of
counterpoint that I'll also sayto this is that it could be that
these numbers, these smallerthan expected numbers are
actually indicative of howpodcasters typically approach
(14:18):
social media, which from myperspective is a very
promotional first approach andnot a lot of maybe on platform
value delivery first approach.Is this something that you see,
with podcasters?
Justin (14:32):
Yeah. I mean, and honestly with myself, because
there's it's it's hard sittingdown and writing a good tweet.
It actually takes a lot of work.There's this new podcast called
Never Post, and they call thisposter's disease where where all
you're thinking about is thenext post, and they they're
like, this is a disease. Like,oh, that could be a post.
(14:53):
Oh, that could be a good tweet.Oh, that would make a good
TikTok. It's kind of like a asickness. So it's a lot of work,
and it also takes a lot oftries. And it's frustrating
because you have to stay onplatform.
They want like, on Twitter, theywant it to be text or images or
video. On YouTube, they want itto be video. And what
(15:14):
universally, what nobody wantsis links. And Right. It's that's
difficult.
The other thing that's difficultis I wanna promote my stuff.
Like, I put a lot of work intomaking that podcast episode, and
I want more people to hear it.And so when I switch over in my
(15:35):
tabs to LinkedIn or Twitter orwherever, I'm kinda like, what
do I feel like posting? Well,I'm actually really fired up
about this thing I just made.And so I understand the tension,
but I do know what works onsocial media or what works on
platforms like YouTube.
All of these platforms have atype of content, native content
(15:58):
we use sometimes call it, thatworks well on that platform. And
it changes too. On Twitter, fora while, it was threads.
Everyone was making all thesethreads. On YouTube, it used to
be, like, 5 minute videos werekilling it.
And now it's, like, 15 minutevideos are killing it. On
LinkedIn, when they launchedtheir video feature, all of a
(16:19):
sudden, LinkedIn wanted all ofus to upload video. You're
always to have to kind of thinkabout that audience.
Jeremy (16:25):
Yeah.
Justin (16:25):
Like, I think a lot of my stuff doesn't do well on
LinkedIn because I'm just crossposting it from other places.
And I'm not thinking about okay.LinkedIn, like, these are career
people. They're here for work.They're here to, like, maybe get
a win at the office.
They're here to get a win intheir career. I need to target
the content that way. You know?Yep. So, yeah, I think the the
(16:51):
reason most people are maybe notdoing well when it comes to
social media engagement is, a,we've made something else that's
really good and we wanna promoteit, and these these platforms
are, like, not naturally builtfor that.
And, b, to get good at postingcontent and getting engagement
(17:12):
on a given platform, it justtakes a lot of focused time and
effort focusing just on thatthing, producing things that are
valuable to the folks there. Youknow? Producing something and
posting something that isactually just like, oh, wow.
(17:32):
Like, I'm gonna share that witha friend or, oh, wow. Like, that
was a really good, quote.
I'm gonna keep that for later.That's what creates engagement
on these platforms, and it'sjust a different headspace than
promotion.
Jeremy (17:48):
Yeah. And I think that that ties into another question
that kind of similar to this,you know, should I be on social
media is the next question isoften, you know, which platform
should I be on? And I think thatpeople want to hear that there's
some specific platform where allpodcasters are successful. And
if you I'm just on thatplatform, like, that's where my
audience is gonna be and that,you know, I'll I'll just do the
(18:10):
same posting that I do anywhereelse and all of a sudden I'm
gonna get better results. And Ithink that this is, you know,
some kind of magical thinkingthat we would all like to be
true.
And I think that what you werekind of hinting at a little bit
here, with this idea of needingto understand an audience on a
platform, whenever people ask meabout, you know, which platform
(18:30):
should I be on, I think thefirst question here is, like,
where do I actually enjoy, ifanywhere, engaging content as a
consumer? And I think that whatthis does for you is, like, you
don't have to think about whattype of content is going to do
well on this platform becauseyou're already, you know, that
you're any content you createbecause you spend so much time
consuming content on thisplatform, you already kind of
(18:52):
get the norms of the platformand you know what kind of
content does well. You're kindof being influenced by
everything else that is going onthere and so you it kind of
comes across really effortlesslywhich does not always happen if
you are just trying to I don'twanna say like game the system
but if you're purely using aplatform to promote your own
stuff but you're not reallycontributing to that platform,
you're not an active kind oflike citizen of the platform,
(19:15):
it's really hard to effectivelymake use of it.
And so I think starting withthat that question of, like,
okay, what content do I likeconsuming? And, you know, maybe
I'm more of a, like a writer orsomething like that and so I'm
gonna be on Twitter or LinkedInor something like that. If it's
more visual, maybe you're onInstagram. It could be, you
know, TikTok or or YouTube aswell if it's more video
oriented. But really startingwith that, like, where do I just
(19:37):
have fun?
And I think for both of us for along time, that was was Twitter
where, like, we built networksand we knew a lot of people. We
just like felt like the stuffthat we like posting about.
There were other people postingabout that and I think that
that's where you start. That'slike the necessary starting
point for having success on anysocial media platform is that
it's not a chore. It's like, Iactually do wanna spend some
time here.
(19:57):
And maybe this is like one ofthose inside jokes on Twitter
where, like, everybody complainshow much time they spend on
Twitter. And like, part of it isthat everybody kinda wants to
grow their audience, but alsolike a lot of people just have
friends on Twitter and are kindaconstantly checking in
throughout the day all day everyday.
Justin (20:12):
Yeah. That's such a good point. If posting anywhere is a
chore, it's like, oh, I gotta gointo LinkedIn and make my posts.
That's not gonna be nearly aseffective as somebody who's,
like, just fired up about beingon Twitter all day. And the
person who's on Twitter all dayis more likely to understand how
(20:32):
the platform works, understandthe relationships there, and
actually just genuinely enjoybeing there.
And, honestly, where you do getyourself in trouble is when you
start just treating it like apromotional platform. Because
Yeah. People can sense that.It's like it it just instantly
(20:53):
for most platforms, it feelswrong. It's like, what are you
doing?
Like, come on. Like, we're here.We're having a conversation or
we're here and these are thekinds of things we post. In some
ways, this is, like, sad, butit's also just the truth that to
get good at Twitter, LinkedIn,Instagram, TikTok, you have to
(21:14):
spend a lot of time consumingand creating on those platforms.
And you're probably going toneed to enjoy it if it's gonna
be a long term thing.
If you're forcing yourself towake up every day and post your
clips to whatever platform andit's just a drag, I it's
(21:35):
probably just not gonna producevery much results.
Jeremy (21:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I always think of it as, this kind of,
like, there's a this dialect.It's almost like a different
language, a bit of a differentdialect on each platform. And as
an outsider, you aren't aware ofthat dialect, but everybody else
can sense an outsider.
As soon as you show up, you'relike the traveling salesperson
coming through to, like, hawkyour wares but you're not
actually, like, rooted in thatplace. And it's so clear to
everyone else but you don't knowas an outsider that it's that
(21:58):
clear that you kinda stick outlike a sore thumb. And I think
that this is something thatbecomes obvious once you
actually embed yourself in oneof these platforms and you see
other people doing it and you'relike, ugh. You shake your head
and you're like, man, thisperson doesn't get it. They're
so clueless and this looks sobad on them right now.
Justin (22:13):
Yeah. And you know who actually is a good example of
doing social media right is JackRiesider Yeah. The fellow behind
Darknet Diaries.
Jeremy (22:22):
Yep.
Justin (22:23):
Because if you look at his account, he does promote his
his episodes. But part of hisinteractions on Twitter just
goes along with the the broadertopic that he's focused on,
which is, you know,cybersecurity and hacking and
all these things. So if that'sthe audience you're building on
(22:46):
Twitter, it's like I'm buildingan audience that is really
excited and interested in thesetopics. And my podcast is also
about that. So on Twitter, I'mgonna talk about these topics as
passionately as I do on mypodcast.
And then it also just makes anatural fit between hey. If you
(23:06):
if you like this, then you'regonna go check this out. And I I
think it's almost like if yourpodcast is about puppies, then
you just also have to be all inon puppies on Twitter and TikTok
and everything else. Because theyou're just trying to be known
for one thing, basically. Right?
Yeah. Having that that singletopic or that single thing is
(23:31):
gonna make this a lot easier. Ifit's like you know, on Twitter,
I mostly talk about business andbootstrapping. My podcast is
also about business andbootstrapping. And so there's
gonna be tons of interactionbetween those two mediums.
Jeremy (23:44):
Yeah. I think that the the trick here is to detach a
little bit of your identity as,like, podcaster and think of
yourself like I am building abrand here, and there's a core
idea behind the brand. And solet's say it's that
cybersecurity and you're goingto say, okay, on the podcast,
we're going to cover this aspector we're gonna explore
cybersecurity in a certain waythat can only be done through
(24:05):
podcasting or is best donethrough podcasting. And then on
Twitter, we're gonna talk aboutcybersecurity in a very
different way. And I think thatthis is the trick to, like,
finding a way to present thesame or similar ideas in a way
that fits with how people engagewith content on a certain
platform.
And there's an interesting kindof tension here with this idea
(24:26):
as well is a lot of people, alot of podcasters want to move
their social media followersover to the podcast. But you
could take this alternativeapproach and say, really, I want
to build an audience and I don'treally care so much on what
platform it is, but I wannabuild an audience around this
idea. And I'm gonna build aTwitter account about
cybersecurity that people followbecause they're they care about
cybersecurity and they don'tneed to go to the podcast
(24:48):
because I share all the samethings. We have the same
discussion here, and it almostmakes the podcast to some extent
obsolete. That's one view thatyou could take.
The other one is you could say,okay. I wanna build this larger
brand and I've got all thesedifferent media properties and
I'm gonna give these peopledifferent experiences in a way
that almost compels them to goto move to different platforms
because you can only get thisthing over here which fits with
(25:11):
this platform, but you actuallyget this Yeah. Very different
thing over here on the podcastand you get this different thing
on my email newsletter and itactually encourages you to move
throughout the contentecosystem.
Justin (25:20):
And there's an interplay between these things, like,
sometimes you'll say somethingon the podcast, and you'll be
like, that's that would make anamazing tweet, and you'll note
it, and then you'll tweet it.And sometimes you'll be tweeting
about something and you'll belike, oh my gosh. Like, I this
happens all the time. I get intoa conversation on Twitter and
I'll reach out to the person andsay, we gotta bring this to the
(25:43):
podcast because this needs along form conversation. So
maybe, yes, seeing these less asa pure promotional channel.
And this is just an ecosystemyou play in, and there's an
interplay between all of theseelements, which is like
sometimes it gives to thepodcast, sometimes it leads to
the podcast, sometimes thepodcast leads to it. And there's
(26:05):
just this natural interplaywhere you're trying to almost
not actually trying at all.You're effortlessly just
engaging with these things forwhat they are and enjoying it,
hopefully. I think that's thethe the one key component of
this is you have to enjoy it. Ifyou don't enjoy it, it's
(26:27):
probably not worth your time.
And Yeah. Again, there's lots ofpodcasts that do fine without a
social media presence.
Jeremy (26:34):
Yeah. Now there is one thing I wanna touch on with
like, we we've kind of come outhere and been kinda anti
promotion of the podcast andtalking about, like, create
platform, native content, thingslike that. In my opinion, I
think you still should bepromoting your podcast on social
media. I think your expectationsshould just be low of how many
people will actually follow itin the short term. And, like,
(26:55):
one of the things that I thinkabout a lot is the traditional
kind of, like, buyer's journeythat somebody would go through
before like, all of us gothrough before buying a product.
And so we first have to becomeaware of it. And so there's this
awareness phase. Then there'sthis consideration. Maybe we're
looking at other alternatives.And then there's this decision
point where it's like, am I youknow, I'm getting off the fence
at some point.
And then you make the purchaseand then you kind of assess
after the fact, like, was thisworth it or do I need to go look
(27:17):
for something else? And I thinkthat this plays out with
podcasting too. And I think thatthe awareness phase is often
much longer than we think itshould be. Even with the free
podcast. Here's an example of ashow that I've recently started
listening to called, How IWrite.
It's by David Perrell, thefounder of, Rite of Passage. And
it's about writing and it's ashow where he interviews kind of
(27:40):
famous writers, people who arewell known in the writing, very
much in the kind of tech Twitterspace, which is David's circle.
Most of these I'm I'm sure hemet through Twitter to some
extent. And I heard about theshow 3 months ago, something
like that. I've known Davidwell, not known him personally
but known of him for multipleyears.
Been on his newsletter. Saw thepromotions come through about
the new show and I was like, notfor me for whatever reason or it
(28:02):
wasn't even a consideration. Andthen I heard, we're just gonna
see how many times we can shoutout Jay Klaus here. I heard him
mention it in his community, TheLab, and I was like, oh Jay's
listening to the show.Interesting.
And then I heard somebody elsewho I respect and admire and
like their taste and I was like,oh they're listening to it as
well. And then I heard a thirdperson and I was like, oh maybe
I should like move this up myqueue. I should at least
(28:23):
consider this now. And at somepoint, I finished binging
through the previous show that Iwas on and I was looking for
something new and it's likefinally now, the time was right.
I heard a bunch of like signals,kind of social proof from people
that I respected, that I knewhad good taste, that aligned
with mine and I had space in mycalendar where it was kind of
like, oh, now is the time tolisten to the show.
(28:43):
I think it's been like 6 or 9months since it's been out. I
already like David. I alreadylike his content. And it still
took that that long to get me inas a listener.
Justin (28:51):
Yeah. And I'm familiar with that show because of the
clips he posts on social media.And I haven't actually
subscribed yet, but I'm veryclose. Like, I keep hearing it
getting mentioned. And each ofthese interactions, whether it's
seeing a clip on social media orhearing a recommendation,
(29:13):
they're nudging me towardsbecoming a subscriber follower
of that show.
I'm close. I'm I'm close totaking out my my, iPhone,
opening up Pocket Casts,searching for the show, and then
clicking subscribe. And youthink about that that moment,
(29:34):
that's what it takes. That'swhat it takes. It takes, like,
multiple interactions, multipletouch points, and then all of a
sudden someone's doing this highfriction activity, which is
taking their phone out of theirpocket and going, you know what?
I'm going to listen to this inmy podcast player. I've also
(29:55):
heard of people doing this withlong YouTube episodes. So
they'll start watching a podcastepisode on YouTube, and they'll
be like, okay. I'm into this.I'm gonna switch over to my
podcast player and listen to therest as an audio podcast.
So these things are happening,but it the chances of you
(30:18):
saying, check out my latestepisode and having a link, and
then 100 or thousands of peoplefollowing that and then becoming
a listener is just unlikely. Andit's one reason to keep
mentioning it. Like, thatacquired episode that I'm really
proud of, where I interviewedDavid, I keep mentioning it. I'm
(30:40):
gonna mention it in mynewsletter. I'm gonna mention on
Twitter multiple times.
I'm gonna bring it up inLinkedIn comments. I'm gonna
keep talking about it because Iknow it's gonna take multiple
impressions, multiple touchpoints before people end up
listening.
Jeremy (30:56):
And I think the other thing like, you mentioned a
little bit of your stats beforewhere you you had this post.
You've got thousands ofimpressions. It got, like, 3
clicks. The other thing that youmentioned related to YouTube but
also social media is I can thinkof very few times when I have
ever seen a podcast advertisedon social media, and I've
clicked through and I'velistened right then and there
(31:16):
because I know that usually I'mmostly on my computer. I don't
really spend that much timescrolling social on my phone and
so I know, like, oh, this showsounds interesting.
I'm gonna make a mental note.Maybe I'm actually gonna pull up
my phone right now and I'm gonnasubscribe. Maybe I don't
download any episodes. Sothere's no download that comes
in from that. There's notrackable link, but I'm like,
oh, I've got this in my queuenow.
I know for whenever time opensup that now it's in my feed. And
(31:39):
at some point, maybe, you know,in David's case, I'd heard about
the show. I never subscribed.Maybe 3 months later, I actually
added it to my queue. And Yeah.
Then it was like another 3months later before it ever
registered a download on hisdevice because I didn't download
any episodes and it was like,this is here. This is my mental
bookmark for me to, like, when Ihave time, I'm gonna come back
to this. It's gotta move up thequeue. I gotta clear some other
things out of the way. And thenlater, now I've, like now he's
(32:02):
got, like, 15 downloads for mein a week because I'm, like,
binging through his episodes.
And I think that this is ispretty indicative of how I think
a lot of listener behavior is,where there's such a time span
that it takes place over.
Justin (32:13):
Yeah. And, I I mean, along with this, I think you do
kind of everywhere becausethere's so much content. The
challenge really is you have tomake something that's compelling
for the audience. And if yourpodcast episodes aren't
compelling yet I know wementioned this all the time. But
(32:36):
if they're not compelling yet,you just don't have a chance.
Like Yeah. Whatever that is, ithas to be good when people get
there and give you the shot.Still with podcasting, the best
form of promotion isword-of-mouth. Yeah. And so I
think for most folks, they wouldbe better served, really getting
(32:57):
creative, and putting way moreenergy into thinking how can I
increase word-of-mouth asopposed to how can I get more
interactions on Twitter?
How can I get my TikTok to goviral? How can I because you say
those things? If you want viralTikToks, then post viral
(33:17):
TikToks. But if you're saying, Iwant viral TikToks so that my
podcast gets more downloads, I Ithink you would be better served
optimizing for having peoplerefer the show to other people.
And you can't do that unless theproduct is great.
You can't do that unless theproduct is awesome. The product
(33:40):
here being your episodes, yourpodcast. And then just remember,
this also needs to be true forevery social platform you're
gonna engage on. So if you'regonna go all in on LinkedIn,
it's gotta be awesome for thatplatform. It's gotta be great
because it it follows the samerules, which is if I'm gonna
(34:04):
share it to my friends, itbetter be awesome.
It better be share worthy. Andthere's a bunch of studies on
this, fascinating studies wherethis actually happens fairly
quickly. As soon as someoneengages with a piece of media,
podcast, YouTube, article,tweet, they've already decided
(34:25):
whether it's shareable, like,whether it is worth sharing. And
you're creating an impression atthe beginning, and then you have
to carry that through. Andpeople are making that decision
very almost immediately.
It has to be great. It has to beso good that people are like,
you know what? I gotta sharethis right now. I gotta I gotta
(34:46):
tell someone about this.
Jeremy (34:48):
Yeah. We get so this opens up something that's really
interesting because I'veobserved this countless times
myself where there are certainpeople who, to your point, I
already know I don't even needto read a single word. And I
already know I'm gonna share itbecause I have a level of
respect and admiration for thatperson. And I know that they
post stuff that I agree withthat is always good, that is
(35:09):
refreshing. And there's a doubleedged sword here, I think.
And I think it's a reason toengage on social media, but I
think that you have to engagemindfully. And if you're
thinking if all you do ispromote, that's probably
decreasing your on platformreputation. Whereas if you are
somebody who contributesvaluable posts that are not a
100% promotion, you can do thatoccasionally but there is
they're balanced out by a kindof generosity on the platform.
(35:31):
You're building your reputationand so people are
subconsciously, their opinion ofyou is going up. And so when
that promotion comes, whensomething really connects with
them, it's almost like you'vebeen making these investments in
their account and now it's timethat that they're gonna pay that
out kind of and they're going tobe like, oh this one just really
landed with me for some reasonand now I'm gonna share Justin's
post about this this episodethat he's really proud of
(35:53):
because he just gives so muchgood value on here all the time.
And social media is not the onlyway to build your reputation,
but it's certainly one way to doit in small doses over time.
Justin (36:02):
Yeah. Who who is it that said, people come for the topic,
but they stay for the host?
Jeremy (36:08):
Well, I say that a lot.
Justin (36:09):
That's is that did you coin that term?
Jeremy (36:13):
I might have. I I certainly, I say that quite a
bit. I don't I don't know that Iborrowed it from anyone. So,
Justin (36:19):
Okay. Okay.
Jeremy (36:19):
I'll take credit.
Justin (36:20):
That's that's funny because I was like, I I don't
know who said that, but maybe Iheard it from you. Regardless of
who originated it, I think thereis something about that. Is with
podcasting, maybe the topic ofyour show is cybersecurity and
hacking, and people are justlooking for shows like that. Or
maybe you do a fiction show andpeople are just, like, searching
(36:43):
for other fiction shows like theother ones they like. But often,
people will stay for thecreator, the person behind the
show, and then they'll seek outother things by that person.
And so this can work as if youare trying to play the long game
and you're, like, trying toproduce a podcast or a series of
(37:06):
shows that, you know, you wantpeople to engage with. I can't
remember the fellow who'sbehind, the Missing Crypto Queen
podcast, but I've listened tomultiple shows. I've sought out
multiple shows by this personbecause I originally came for
the topic, but then I stayed forthe creator, the person making
(37:27):
the show. And now I'm just like,can't wait till they put out a
new series. I'm just waiting forthem to put out a new series.
It depends on what game you'replaying and if it's a long term
game. And what you said aboutreputation, man, I again, it's
not what people wanna hear. Theythey just really what they want
(37:47):
is more downloads for the mostrecent episode. Yeah. But,
really, the game you gotta beplaying is this long term
reputation as a creator.
Yeah. Like, for me, DerekSivers.
Jeremy (37:59):
Oh, yeah.
Justin (38:00):
He comes out with something. He's interviewed on a
podcast. I'm listening. Doesn'tmatter. I he's built up a
reputation.
I will seek that out. If hestarted a podcast, I I would
subscribe for sure because he'sbuilt up a reputation with me,
and I wanna hear what he has tosay.
Jeremy (38:19):
Yep. He was actually I was listening to his episode on,
How I Write last night. Sothere's your, intro episode.
Justin (38:25):
Oh, that might that might get me. That might get me.
Jeremy (38:28):
So let's move on then to talking about because we've said
multiple times here that socialmedia is not the only way to
grow. I know personally, and Iknow that you know as well, many
podcast creators who areentirely absent from social
media and have actually grownhuge shows. So let's talk a
little bit about this and, like,what are some of the
alternatives? Because people I Ithink you get into podcasting
(38:48):
like we mentioned earlier andyou're just like, this is the
only marketing channel. Like,what else can I do?
Justin (38:53):
One example I think about all the time is Tim Ferris
when he launched his podcast. Hedid 2 things that were
interesting at the time. Number1 is he bought a lot of ads in
front of podcasts that had anaudience that he thought would
work for his show.
Jeremy (39:11):
Yep.
Justin (39:12):
And I remember hearing, like, just ads all the time for
his show. And the way he did itwas interesting. He would often
get the host to read a littlebit and say, hey, you know, Tim
Ferriss is an interestingauthor. He reached out, see if
we could advertise on the show.And, he's just got a new podcast
and here's his pitch for it.
And, I think that worked reallywell for him. The just lots of
(39:36):
folks ended up hearing those adsand acting on it. And the the
other thing he did was that'skind of the same ballpark is
lots of guesting on other shows,lots of, like, going on other
popular podcasts and saying,hey. I'm watching a show and,
talking about it. So those twoapproaches, underrated in a lot
(40:00):
of ways.
And I've seen other peoplereplicate that strategy, some
very big shows. It turns outthat getting more podcast
listeners, you need to go towhere the podcast listeners are
already. And that might meanadvertising or guesting on the
shows they're already listeningto.
Jeremy (40:19):
Yeah. I think that this is one thing that you hear again
and again is, like, podcastguesting and cross promotions
collaborations with otherpodcasters. This you look at
like big network shows like thisis they do spend money on
advertising. But if you look atthe ROI on that, so many people
that I've talked to, it justdoesn't make sense. Even when
you have advertisers already inplace, the economics just don't
(40:42):
really work out that wellespecially if you're doing like
a CPM model.
We could have a whole otherdiscussion if you're doing
higher ticket sponsorship typestuff but that's kind of a
another point. That is actuallyto me really encouraging that a
lot of times people are likewell I can't grow because I
don't have the budget and it'slike actually even the people
who do have a budget aren'tspending it on advertising.
They're looking at how do webring in more people to make the
shows better and also probablyoutsourcing some of that
(41:05):
connection and and outreach topeople for collaborations and
things like that. So I thinkthat's something that, you know,
collaborations are free. They'reaccessible to everyone.
And I think that that going backthat idea before of using social
media to network, I think thisis a huge hidden benefit there
is saying, I'm not gonna promotemy show at all. I'm going to
make friends with otherpodcasters in my space and
(41:25):
adjacent spaces, and then we'regonna do the actual promotion on
each other's shows.
Justin (41:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And there is a like, if if you're looking
for, cold outreachopportunities, there's ways of
doing that. Like, there'sproducts that do that. One
simple way is just to look upyour show in Apple Podcasts and
scroll to the bottom Yep.
And see what similar showsthey're recommending. But the
approach you're recommending isactually better, which is just
(41:52):
become friends with the kinds ofpeople that are talking about
the things you're talking abouton the show. And then this will
just come up organically. It'slike, hey, why don't we just be
a guest on each other's show? OrYeah.
Why don't we, like, trypromoting each other's show? You
know, maybe we'll do a pre rollfor the next 6 weeks and just
(42:12):
see what happens. Yeah. So I Ithink that's a great approach.
And it comes back to, yeah,relationship building, finding
your your group of people,building a network.
There's lots of opportunitiesthere.
Jeremy (42:25):
Yeah. I actually just talked with, a podcaster. He has
a a pretty big show yesterday.And so he's getting around 17 to
25,000 downloads an episode. Ithink he said at this point,
he's been doing the show 6years, and it took him 4 years
to get a big break wheninterestingly, he was stuck at
around I think he was, like,5,000 downloads, 4000 downloads
an episode.
And a show that he didn'tactually know the host, they
(42:45):
just gave him a shout out. Itwas a bigger show in his space.
They gave him a shout out on theshow. He was totally surprised
and it doubled his audienceovernight. And that kinda got
him up to the next level.
And he had this goal to get, a1,000,000 impressions for his
show in 1 month. And so he hadthis goal, going in. And so this
was all cross promotion, adimpression, that type thing, all
unpaid. And so they're trackingthis through, dynamic ad
(43:08):
insertion to see theimpressions. But he had this
goal.
He knew like a year in advance.Okay. This month, next year, I'm
gonna get a million impressionsof my show on other shows. And
so what he did was he startedjust building up favors
throughout the year. And so hebrought other people on as
guests to his show.
He ran ads for other people'sshows every single episode in
the post role, in everything. Hewas like, I was kinda
(43:30):
indiscriminate. I was like,okay. If your show is even
vaguely aligned with mine, I'llput it in the post role at
least. And if it's even reallyaligned, I'll put it in Emmett
role as well.
And he did feed drops. He didall this stuff kind of building
up favors and kind of tellingpeople like, okay. I would love
to do this. I have this goal ofgetting a 1,000,000 impressions
for my show in this month. Andhe actually he did it, and he
hit the, like, number 15, rankedshow in all of the US in his
(43:54):
category, in the the main it'sin the history category.
And, I thought, like, this isthis is a fascinating
intentional approach tomarketing as a whole and also,
like, some long term planning oflike, okay, I have this goal and
I'm gonna work for it for like 9to 12 months to to build up to
that. And he showed me hisactual chart and he he brought
(44:14):
in something like 2,000 newfollowers in just Apple
Podcasts. And so that's notlistens. That's followers in
just Apple Podcasts. And so youcan think about Spotify, the
other platforms as well in thatone month.
I think it it really paid offfor him. You can imagine that
that type of exposure would.But, again, he's been doing the
show 6 years. He spends a ton oftime scripting, writing, doing
(44:34):
all the research and I thinkthat at that that's the point at
which that type of exposureactually will pay off for you.
And so, like, paying your duesupfront, building a compelling
show where it's good enough tolike, this point where this
other show randomly without across promotion, they just
shouted them out to all of theirtens of thousands of listeners,
and it's, like, that's when whenthat starts to happen, you know
(44:56):
my show is good enough to reallystart ramping up the exposure.
Justin (44:59):
Yeah. You gotta pay your dues. That's the thing. It takes
a long time sometimes. I thinkto summarize a lot of our
thoughts here, something thatjust came to mind is something I
call slot machine marketingversus snowball marketing.
And so slot machine marketing tome is just like posting on
Facebook, posting on Instagram,posting on Twitter. It's like
you're just, you know, hopingthat the next poll is gonna get
(45:23):
you a jackpot. Whereas snowballmarketing is, like, where you
roll a little snowball down ahill, and it picks up more and
more momentum and more and moresnow, and it grows over time.
The thing with slot machinemarketing is you never know.
Like, you could pull that leverand you could get a post that
(45:44):
got a 1000000 views Yeah.
And no new listeners. Yep.Whereas having a snowball that
gains momentum is like, today,I'm just gonna go out there, and
I'm gonna be helpful on all theplatforms. I'm going to not be
thinking about promoting at all.I'm just gonna be there adding
(46:06):
value.
People say that all the time.But adding value, being a
positive person, and that overtime, reputation, word-of-mouth,
the virtuous cycle of that willgain more and more momentum and
hopefully get bigger over time.And I think that's where more
folks need to dedicate theirenergy is forget the slot
(46:31):
machine, just focus on thesnowball. And if you do this
every day, if you just wake upand you're just pushing the
snowball a little bit more, andtimes it can feel like you're
pushing the snowball up thehill. It's like, man, when's
this thing gonna actually startrolling on its own?
You just every day, you'repushing it a little bit more, a
little bit more. And if you keepdoing that, eventually, you will
(46:54):
see the rewards of thatinvestment. It just takes time.
Jeremy (46:57):
That's a perfect analogy. I love it that, you
know, the slot machine, we allknow the odds are stacked
against you. And with thesnowball, you know, that
actually the laws of physics arein your favor, that you keep
pushing it. You get it to thatedge and it starts rolling like
it is going to start rollingfaster. So I think that's a a
perfect analogy to lead peoplewith.
If we are thinking about some ofthe takeaways here, we've talked
about, you know, the podcast andbuilding audiences on other
(47:19):
platforms. What would you saywould be your top takeaways for
somebody who's listening to thisand how can they kind of
tomorrow start, actually, youknow, making better use of other
platforms? Or maybe, you know,leaving those other platforms
behind and looking at other waysto grow their show?
Justin (47:32):
Yeah. I I think for most folks, you need to start by
really evaluating your content.Is this remarkable? Is this
compelling? Is there somethinghere that would make folks wanna
share it?
Focus on that first. The nextthing I would do is just be
trying to figure out how you cancultivate word-of-mouth,
(47:55):
referrals, people telling otherpeople about the show and
encouraging that. Like, I thinkit would be better for you to
leverage your listeners' socialaudiences than trying to build
your own. And so even again, ifyou have 5 listeners and they're
all fans, what you're doing isjust so good for them. If they
(48:16):
all have social media accounts,you could do one episode.
You could say, hey, everybody.We're trying to grow the show.
Could you just take a moment andpost it on your preferred social
network with, like, one thingyou liked about this episode,
one thing you think peopleshould think about or talk
about? I would really appreciateit. And then just mention me and
I'll, you know, I'll give a freehat to who to to one person that
(48:39):
does that.
I think doing those kinds ofexperiments will, lead to better
results for most folks.
Jeremy (48:46):
Yeah. I would say for mine, I think it's being clear
on what you're using eachplatform for. And so if you're
thinking, well, this is mydiscovery platform as maybe my
brand discovery platform. Ifthat's the goal, need to create
content that has a chance ofspreading on this platform, and
that's not gonna be promotionalcontent. Or you could say, this
is my platform for buildingrelationships.
And I think to your point aboutthe you know, creating
(49:08):
remarkable content takes time,probably years. And some people
have already built up thatmuscle through other projects
and platforms and creative workin, you know, decades past and
now they're just applying it tothe podcast and the podcast is
immediately great. Other people,they're starting from scratch.
This is one of their firstcreative projects and it's gonna
take a couple years or 3 years,5 years, however long it is to
get to that point where likethis is something special. But
(49:29):
what I like to think about withsocial media is saying like,
okay, maybe the show is where itneeds to be and maybe it's not,
but I can cultivate a communityand a network of people here so
that when the show is at thatpoint, I've already developed
that goodwill and thatreputation of maybe I don't have
the reputation of being a greatpodcast host or having a great
show.
I have the reputation of beingsomebody who is worthy of help
(49:52):
and who has given me a lotthroughout the years and who now
I'm really excited to do thatwhen things click into place.
And so I would say that keepingthose two things in mind as well
as this idea that like it justeverything takes longer than you
think. And a lot of times withpodcasting, we just don't have
the data to see like this posthad this result. I think you
have to kind of just let go andtrust in the process that if you
(50:13):
show up kind of generously dayafter day and give value to
people, like, eventually thatwill pay off over time.
Justin (50:20):
Mhmm. Yeah. And we haven't talked a lot about
YouTube, but I would say ifyou're the kind of person that
likes making video, I think youshould be on YouTube. I think
you should be posting some clipsor full length episodes. I would
also just give yourself thefreedom to experiment too.
I think it's fine to start, youknow hey. I'm curious about
(50:41):
TikTok. Why don't you just startposting? And if you like it,
keep going. If you're interestedin it, go try it.
I think it's worth trying forsure.
Jeremy (50:50):
Yes. That kind of through line of experimentation
for everything podcasting andelsewhere is kind of always the
the bedrock of all kind ofeventually successful marketing.
It all kind of starts from thisexperimental, like, we don't
know if this is gonna work, butwe're gonna give it a try, and,
we'll see what happens.
Justin (51:04):
Totally.
Jeremy (51:04):
Yeah. Alright. So I think, the YouTube discussion
will save that for anotherepisode. We can probably spend
many hours talking about that,but, hopefully, folks have found
this helpful, in terms of socialmedia. And we would love to know
I would love to know what isyour relationship with social
media as a podcaster.
As you're thinking about some ofthe things we talked about here,
which camp have you fallen into?Have you kind of been in the
just like pure promotionalphase? And I I like I said, I
(51:26):
have certainly been there. Ithink you mentioned that you've
been there as well. And and alsomaybe I would actually be
curious to know for for peoplelistening to this, who are your
favorite people to follow onsocial media and what do they
do?
Like, why do you like followingthem and is that just promoting
their other stuff or is theresomething else that they're
doing? And, I'm always lookingfor new people to follow as
well. So so hit us up with yourrecommendations.
Justin (51:46):
And as always, we have a feedback link in the show
description. You can leave us avoicemail on there. You can
record us a video or give ussome just write out some text.
We would love to get yourresponses. If you've had the
inclination to talk back to uswhile we've been talking, click
that link that says feedback inthe show notes and, leave us a
(52:07):
message.
Jeremy (52:07):
Perfect. Well, Justin, a pleasure as always. And, we'll
talk to you again in the nextepisode.
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