If I record it, will they come?
That’s the first question on many a prospective podcast host’s lips, but unless you already have an established, content-hungry audience, there’ll be more to it than uploading your first episode and waiting for the subscriptions to roll in.
The good news is that there’s no shortage of ways to promote your podcast, nor types of videos that you can create to do so. In this post, we’ll take you through a series of video categories, as well as our best practices for how to promote a podcast with video.
There are a number of kinds of social-ready videos that lend themselves to podcast promotion, which we’ll cover here. Podcasts also have the advantage of themselves being a source of content, so you won’t be starting from a blank slate when you’re creating your videos.
Episode on the way? Build anticipation by grabbing a particularly intriguing soundbite from your discussion, and making it the centerpiece of a short teaser video. Our quote-based storyboards are a good place to start. Find out more about our quote block and storyboards in our Resource Center piece. If you have any video clips from your recording session, feel free to include them here, but the idea is to keep it simple. Get those points across, and consider your work complete. Here’s an example we created using the Motivational Quote storyboard:
Once you have a few episodes under your belt, you’ll have more content to work with, and should have a better idea of what’s resonating well with your audience. Create a video that paints a picture of the personality and perspective that they can expect to get from your show. Choose quotes, and video clips if you have them, that provide a clear snapshot of the listening experience for potential listeners. That could include an area of expertise, an atmosphere, or even just a particularly funny or charming moment.
If you have a photo or video clip you can use, by all means do so, but it isn’t strictly necessary. You can create a video with just text. 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound so you’ll want to make sure your video is visually interesting and informative enough to catch the eye of the tough-to-entice social audience. Again, our quote block is tailor-made for this sort of situation. With or without a background visual, your text will be clearly emphasized.
Operate under the assumption that people watching your video have never listened to your podcast, and have no understanding of who you are or why they should dedicate a block of their time to listening to you talk. What are you doing that will improve their day? That’s the crux of your highlight video.
When you release an episode, tell the world, or at least your social audience, with a reminder to download and listen in. For existing subscribers, this’ll be a secondary reminder to listen in, but the more content you push out, the more likely you are to catch the eye of someone in your network who has yet to hear what you have to say.
Podcasts are a highly intimate format in which listeners often feel as if they’ve gotten to know the host that they listen to on a regular basis. That said, podcasts are generally confined to the headphones, and video gives you the opportunity to bring listeners even further into the fold. Visual content peels back the curtain on how you go about creating your show, how you and other hosts and guests interact, and generally gives people something that they don’t get in a regular podcast episode.
A live recording of your podcast can also help you attract new listeners while simultaneously giving your existing fans a different look at your recording process. The idea of going live with a free-flowing conversation might be a little nerve-racking, but but once you get comfortable in the podcaster’s chair, A Facebook Live session makes an excellent platform from which to share an episode, or perhaps a behind-the-scenes session with a guest. And once you’re done, you can download the live stream to repurpose for any of the other video types on this list! Click here to get the scoop on downloading and utilizing your Facebook Lives.
Now that we’ve gone over the the sorts of videos that you could use in any podcast promotion, we’ll talk about the rules to live by to make sure you’re getting the most out of the videos you create.
If you’re bringing on a guest, don’t let their unique audience go to waste. Make sure you’re creating videos that highlight them and incentivize them to share the announcement on their social networks. If you’re sponsored by any brands or you just happen to mention them, tag them too. Chase that free publicity wherever you can!
Most social posts have a relatively short shelf-life before they’re pushed down the feed or become outdated. The pinned post is immune to those concerns, or at least resistant to them. Allow us to explain: These posts are remain “pinned” to the top of your page, so it will be the first thing that people see when they visit your page. On Facebook, you can pin a post by clicking the three horizontal dots in the upper-righthand corner of the post, and selecting, “Pin to Top of Page.”
If you have an evergreen post that encapsulates all the wonderful things that your podcast has to offer, it could make sense as a pinned post, but you could also cycle it out every time you release a new episode with one of the teasers that we discussed earlier in this post.
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but if you miss it, the rest of your efforts could be wasted. Include a link to your podcast page within any posts to make the subscription process as simple as possible for anyone who’s convinced by your video. If you use a link shortener like bitly, you’ll also be able to track which of your posts are performing the best for you, and you can make more content like that in the future. As with most content types, experimentation is key here. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, but the more you put out there, the quicker you’ll be able to establish a picture of what works and what doesn’t.
If you’ve ever listened to a podcast, you’ve probably been asked to subscribe, as well as leave a rating and a review. This is not without reason. Podcast platforms take these metrics into account, and the better a podcast performs in those areas, the more discoverable it’ll be for new listeners. You also can’t rely on your listeners to take these actions, particularly the reviews, unprompted. You’ll certainly want to make mention of these things in the podcast itself, but it can make for a valuable endnote to your promotional videos too.
Whether or not you have a camera recording of your podcast, uploading the episode to YouTube, and taking advantage of their automatic transcription, can improve your SEO. It also gives you a direct link to the podcast episode to share on your other social channels.
Whether you’re an experienced podcast pro or you’re just dipping your toes in the water, these tips and video ideas should put you in a position to attract a new listening audience. If you have any suggestions that you’ve found work for you, join our Facebook group, the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community, and share your tips with fellow video creators!
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