How to Get More Views of Your Podcast on Social Media
The content creation game; its a struggle that many of us as podcasters face. We do an awesome interview; it should speak for itself right?
Well, in someways it should but you can’t just put out a piece of content and expect it to catch like wildfire.
There’s a bit more to it than that. However, it doesn’t involve crazy amounts of content either. In Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuk outlines the idea of native content and what works well.
Understand that social platforms that you are using and how they are different from the others. It’s not that you have to create 50 pieces of unique content, but rather it’s a different way in position content for each platform.
Most Platforms Hate Links
Most social media algorithms hate links. Why is that? Well, if you click a link, then you are leaving there platform, and I can see why they would not like that That being said, you have to be creative with how you share. For me, most posts start on LinkedIn and I use that as my starting point.
I find that long form, narrative copy seems to do well. It has to tell a story and engage the reader.
I post the link at the bottom of my post but remove the link preview, so it appears to be a plain text post (The algorithm likes that), but the link is actually still clickable.
For LinkedIn, I have found that sharing episodes without images have done better, unless there is something especially engaging about a post.
For this interview I did with Mark Struczewski, the photo of him was very engaging, and thus I was able to rely on it a bit more, and the copy references that.
I point out important points in my interview with Mark, also using relevant emoji’s as they grab the eye quickly. Numbers were not crazy, but dressing this one up a bit, and also remembering to tag mark brought in 796 views of the post.
Whereas, had this post just been put up as a link, the algorithm would have crushed it, and it most likely wouldn’t have gotten more than one like.
It’s not that posting content like this is a magic bullet but its understanding how the platform works and dressing up the post so that it creates attention on the platform.
It’s also about sharing posts consistently in this way; my first posts of episodes in this fashion did not create a lot of attention, but later ones did create that attention.
Not every post will crush it like you think it should, but remember: always write emotionally grabbing long-form content, if an image is relevant use it, remove link previews so it ranks like plain text and consistently share episodes in this fashion.
The above post with AJ Mihrzad of Online Super Coach, generated 258 views in only a few hours, whereas sharing only a link would have generated very little interest. Not to mention, AJ also livestreamed our interview on Facebook, which created even more attention.
Sharing Episodes on Facebook
When sharing episodes on Facebook, I have found that images usually rank substantially better than other types of content.
However, we want people to listen to the show and thus go to our show link.
I’ve experimented with several different ways of doing this and have found both equally effective.
For podcast episodes, I have a template that gets changed in Photoshop for each episode with the guest’s name and photo, great from a branding stand point point as the guest is sharing out the name. Its the same photo I use on my WordPress site that would populate for a link preview so its a seamless option to use [The dimensions I use are 1400 x 900 FYI].
The first was I did this is by taking the long form post from LinkedIn and adding at the top “[NEW PODCAST | LINK IN COMMENTS],” however, this created a sharability issue.
As guests and their followers shared the post, if they or myself did not post the link in the comments it may not have generated new listens to the episode.
It only generated the “Wow! Great Job [Guest Name],” effect; that took me to a similar format to what I used on LinkedIn, only not it has an image as well. As shown above, i use the link in the long form copy, with the preview removed and the photoshopped image to replace it.
This has fixed the sharibility issue, especially since now I primarily post to my fan page and share the episodes to my personal page and Facebook group. In addition, I still place the episode link in the comments incase the “link below” at the end of the copy could mean the comments to the user.
I have found long form copy to even combat the algorithm’s need to crush links from ranking, but as a self bet, when possible, always rely on images or video to grab the initial attention.
As a side note, also tag people in the post that it may be relevant to, but if you are tagging individuals that you just want to view the post tage them in the comments. People tagged in the post get a notification every time it is shared (and may want to end your life for doing so), were as people in comments get notified only once, hopefully taking the glance you desire.
Use of Video in Episode Marketing
Video usually ranks higher than images on most social platforms, especially if it is less than 60 seconds.
However, with producing episodes 3 days a week, it can be a bit of a task to be able to grab a video for each episode.
When using this method, the clip should be something powerful, and it may help to place emotional music behind the clip, since even when great content, spoken audio is not always the most engaging
Image overly with animated wave forms on top seem to be the way to go with this; Justin Schenck, host of The Growth Now Movement uses this method on Instagram and also shares the post to Facebook.