3 Alternatives to Social Media for Growing Your Podcast

While social media can help from a word of mouth perspective, and I've seen some podcasters have great success with it, I find it generally isn't very effective at growth for your podcast.

It’s great for building a community around you and your show, but harder to actually drive listens (with the exception of Twitter, since their oEmbed is pretty good so your podcast player can be played directly on Twitter, making less hoops for listeners to jump through).

For more effective techniques, I've found the following much better.

Trailer swaps with podcasts in your niche

Reach out to podcasters similar to your niche, and ask if they want to run a trailer swap (they play your trailer on their show, and vice versa). Because the audience is similar, and listeners will generally be on an app already when listening, it's easier to click open your show from that episode’s show notes (or search for it directly on that app) and follow.

You can either reach out directly to your favourite podcaster or use something like the Podcast Promo Swap List from Tink Media, which is a great resource for finding shows to partner with.

Or, submit your trailer to be featured on the podcast industry show I co-host with Mark Asquith, In & Around Podcasting, where we add as a mid-roll.

Pitch your podcast to industry newsletters

One of the best ways to grow awareness and listeners around your show is to submit it to industry newsletters in your niche. This can be for any events you’re creating/attending, special episodes, new season launch, etc.

I've had great success by being featured in the likes of Podnews, Podbam, Pocket Casts, and more.

For my One Minute Podcast Tips show, for example, these newsletters are all followed or used by podcasters / people interested in the podcast industry, so the audience was much warmer than a random follower on social media. For the 5 Random Questions podcast highlighted above, it helped the show get off and running with a good-sized audience from day one.

Find industry newsletters in your niche, and find out how to submit a story - usually the editors are great at wanting to support indie podcasters, and gain content for their own publication at the same time, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Start your own newsletter

There’s a reason newsletters have been around so long - they’re one of the most effective ways at growing an audience that wants to hear from you, and what you have to offer, whether that’s content, a course, a service, etc.

Because newsletter subscribers have given you permission to send updates directly to them, and allowed you into their email inbox which is a massive sign of trust, this means they’re giving you a sign of intent and engagement. This can then be transferred to your podcast.

• exclusive subscriber content

• behind the scenes information

• invites to exclusive events, etc

• expand on topics from your podcast episodes

This offers value to your subscribers, and also keeps your podcast front and centre down to the integration between the two formats. I see this myself with this newsletter, and how topics can be driven by questions raised from previous episodes of One Minute Podcast Tips, as an example.

These are just some of the ways I've found to be pretty effective, and the added bonus is there's little to zero cost involved except your time. Which is always nice. 😊

Until the next time, happy podcasting.