Podcasts are hugely popular, with 37 percent of people in the U.S. listening to podcasts every month.
There are many reasons why podcasts are so popular, such as that they provide entertainment, and valuable information, and they’re accessible because you can listen to them on your device wherever you are.
How can you make your podcast popular? There are many ways to boost your podcast popularity, such as by focusing on topics you’re passionate about and marketing your podcast on social media to the right people.
If you’re not sure where to start with making your podcast popular, don’t worry. We provide you with all the tips you need to know.
How To Make Your Podcast Popular
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you try to find listeners for your podcast, you should think about why you want to start a podcast to begin with. Think about the topics you’re passionate about and try to find niche topics instead of broader ones. This will help you to find your target audience.
For example, stating that you’re going to talk about gardening on your podcast is too general. Narrow down what specifics of gardening you’ll focus on. Maybe you want to focus on beginner gardening tips for indoor gardens.
Your audience would therefore be people who want to start gardening but only have access to indoor gardens.
Once you start finding listeners, think about what they have in common, such as what they like and what they dislike, or the issues they experience in their lives.
This will help you when trying to increase your audience numbers. It’s also a good idea to conduct podcast surveys to get more information about your listeners once you start accumulating an audience.
Other tips to identify and find your audience:
- Connect With Other Podcasters: If someone else’s podcast is dealing with similar topics to yours, you could connect with them and collaborate, such as by appearing on each other’s podcast. It’s even better if that person’s podcast has a large audience as this could help you to gain more listeners.
- Make Use Of SEO: Once you know who your target audience is, use SEO when writing podcast episode descriptions and titles by including keywords that your audience will be searching for so that they’ll find your podcast. For increased impact, use these keywords on other platforms, such as all your social media accounts. You can also use the services of the best podcast promotion services to help you with keyword-rich content.
Create High-Quality Content
Your podcast should have quality content that will make listeners stay tuned for future episodes. Here are some tips to bear in mind to provide engaging content that makes your audience stick with you.
- Invite Guests To Your Podcast: Although listeners will be interested in your funny or interesting stories, it helps to add color to your episodes by inviting guests to your podcast. For example, if you’re doing a podcast about indoor gardening, invite a gardening expert who will be able to give your listeners valuable information they can use. Similarly, if you’re talking about spooky stories in New Orleans, inviting guests who have their own ghost or paranormal stories will be entertaining for listeners.
- Give Listeners A Practical Takeaway: If you’re not famous or you don’t have a large following, you need to provide actionable content for your listeners to give them a reason to tune into your podcast. Keep this simple, such as by asking yourself what your listeners can do right now to make themselves happier or to improve their lives. For example, if you’re doing a gardening podcast, think about what takeaway your episode has for indoor gardeners so that they could do one thing to improve their gardening experience today, such as purchasing the correct pots for their plants or setting up a quick and easy balcony herb garden.
- Be Open To Feedback: Check in with your listeners regularly to find out what they think of your podcast and what they would improve if they could. This can help you to produce more engaging content that appeals to more people Consider asking your listeners to get in touch via email and give you their opinions on your podcast. You could also ask them to fill out listener surveys.
- Have A Plot For Every Episode: In the same way that a story has to have a plot, it can help you to follow this guideline when planning your podcast episodes. Think about what story you’re telling your listeners, such as a struggle that’s overcome or a problem that gets resolved by the end of the episode. This is more successful than if you just waffle your way through the podcast episode, as that can be alienating to listeners who won’t feel engaged.
Choose Your Guests Well
Earlier, we talked about the value of inviting guests to your podcast. There are important tips to bear in mind when choosing the right guests. Here are some to consider.
- Start With Your Social Circle: Start searching for podcast guests in your social circles. You might have someone in your social circle who’s knowledgeable about a topic you want to talk about on your podcast. The benefit of bringing someone you know on your podcast is that you will already engage with each other well, and this will provide flow to your conversation.
- Reach Out To Popular Guests: If you want to broaden your horizon by reaching out to more popular guests, it’s always a good idea to chat to them a bit before having them on your podcast. This will give you a chance to get to know them, explore how they speak and communicate, see if they’re easy to understand, and gauge how well they keep the conversation flowing, all of which will prevent issues during your podcast and make it more engaging for your listeners.
- Choose A Balance Of Experts And Regular People: This ensures that your content won’t be limited to being informative or inspirational. Rather, you’ll have a good mix of both qualities to keep your listeners engaged. You’ll also prevent boring them by always having the same types of guests on your podcast.
Ensure Publishing Consistency
If you listen to podcasts regularly, you’ll know how frustrating it can be when your favorite podcasts don’t stick to a regular publishing schedule.
Inconsistent podcast publishing makes listeners lose interest and find other podcasts that give them content on a more regular basis. If you’ve committed to publishing content every week and you’re breaking that promise, this can also put your listeners off.
Think about your schedule and how regularly you’ll realistically be able to publish a podcast episode. It’s better to provide an episode every week or two instead of committing to a daily podcast that you never get done.
It’s also a good idea to plan ahead for your podcast. For example, perhaps on Mondays, you can conduct research for your podcast episode, then on Wednesdays, you can write up the episode and start recording it, and on Saturdays, you can work on publishing it. Having a podcast schedule written down can help you to stick to it.
Make Use Of YouTube
An essential element of increasing your podcast popularity is submitting it to social media platforms such as YouTube.
What’s great about getting your podcast on YouTube is that you can record yourself doing the podcast, which can help you better connect to your audience. It provides them with visual content that can bolster interest in your podcast.
Just make sure that your video is polished, as this will ensure you give your listeners a high-quality experience. Consider using a video editor like Veed.io.
It has a range of tools to help you create professional podcast videos, such as subtitles, filters, emojis, and background-noise removal.
If you don’t want to upload full podcast episodes to YouTube, you can still make use of this social media platform to boost your popularity. An idea is to put a smaller segment of your podcast episode on YouTube. See more in our Podcast vs Youtube article.
This is especially useful if the segment answers an important question, as you can use it on social media to attract listeners to your podcast.
Promote Your Podcast Through Social Media Platforms
Using YouTube is one way of promoting your podcast on social media, but you should also use other platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Here are important tips to bear in mind.
- Ask your listeners what social media platforms they use. This will ensure you can provide them with interesting information and updates about your podcast on the platform they prefer. They won’t miss out on your pod updates!
- Use hashtags. Popular hashtags on social media can help you to reach new listeners, but you should also use your own branded hashtags that will help you to stand out.
- Share pull quotes. If you don’t have images or videos from your podcast to share with your listeners on social media, you can use pull quotes from episodes to attract people to your podcast episode. A good example is to use an interesting pull quote from a guest.
- Turn audio files into videos. With the use of animation, you can turn audio files into videos that will be interesting to your social media followers. A great product to use is Wavve, which helps you to promote your episodes and share podcast highlights by creating videos with background images, animations, text, audio, and captions.
Collaborate With Other Podcasters
Collaborations are essential to help you attract new listeners and get the word out about your podcast. There are many different ways in which you can collaborate with other podcasters. Here are some ideas.
- Do a shout-out: This is a simple way to collaborate. During a podcast episode, give a shout-out to another podcast, such as by saying, “If you’re enjoying our gardening podcast, make sure you check out this other one by [insert podcast name]” and then tell your listeners a bit about it. Reach out to a podcaster who’s in the same niche as you and ask them to exchange shoutouts.
- Be a guest on another podcast: A great way to get word out about your podcast is to promote it when you’re a guest on someone else’s podcast. You don’t have to focus on podcasts that deal with similar topics to yours. Get onto social media and connect with podcasters in your area, or get in touch with a friend who runs a podcast.
- Connect with other podcasters online: Conduct a search on social media to find other podcasts that are similar to yours. By following them, you can connect with the podcasters and talk about collaborating on an episode or giving each other shout-outs.
Other tips for podcast collaborations:
- Don’t limit yourself to collaborating with fellow podcasters. You can collaborate with many other people who could help you get news about your podcast out there, such as experts in your niche, YouTube creators, or someone who’s running a blog that focuses on your niche.
- Think about what you want to gain from the collaborations, and how they can add value to your listeners’ experience. For example, collaborating with an expert in your niche will give your listeners much more in-depth information about a certain topic.
Related Questions
Why is your podcast not growing in popularity?
One of the most common reasons why your podcast isn’t becoming more popular is that you’re tackling topics that are too vague instead of offering listeners a specific niche.
What are some podcast mistakes to avoid?
Make sure your podcast is free of common mistakes, such as poor audio quality, too many ads, or rambling on about topics without giving your listeners a valuable takeaway.
Conclusion
You have a podcast that you love making every week, but now you need to think about how to boost its popularity.
In this article, we’ve looked at the most important things to consider if you want to enlarge your audience, such as how to create quality content and collaborate with other podcasters.
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