Episode 286

Grow a Podcast by Leveraging Your Community

4 Tips for Leveraging Your Podcast Community

Grow a Podcast Organically

There’s nothing wrong with paid advertising and using external resources to grow a podcast. But, the power of using your current audience to help scale your podcast makes for great strategy as well.

Here are the 4 tips you need to leverage the community of listeners you already have – whether that’s 10 or 10,000, the strategies are the same.

1. Email List

“How often are you sending an email to the people on your list?” For most podcasters, it’s the cringe-worthy question they don’t want to hear.

Answers I usually get are…

• What list? I don’t have one.
• I did that, like 6 months ago.
• I don’t even know here to get started, so I haven’t done it.

If that’s you, here is my advice: Send an email to your list. It doesn’t matter if it’s your very first email in 6 months or of all time. Start getting in the habit of sending a weekly email to your list.

And if you’ve been emailing your list regularly, but you’re wondering, “What can I talk about for my podcast?” It’s as simple as telling them what your latest episode is about (take highlights from your podcast description) and telling them what value they’d get from listening to your show.

To learn more about growing your email list with a podcast, check this training I did for PodHouston in 2019 about growing an email list with a podcast:

You can also listen to the podcast episode here – Ep 115: “How to Grow an Email List with a Podcast”

2. Online Community

Even though I reference my online community as a Facebook group in this episode, don’t feel like that’s the only place to create a community around your podcast.

Wherever your community is located online, it’s important to ask the question, “How to can I offer value to this community while also leveraging the audience I already have to continue to grow a podcast?”

Here are some resources to check out for growing a podcast community and why it’s important:

• Facebook Group for Your Podcast
• Podcast Community, How to Find Yours
• How to Create a Thriving Podcast Community

3. Live Streams

I’ve fallen in love with live streaming over the last 3 years. (Don’t get me wrong, I was terrified when I did my very first live video on Periscope back in 2015! I didn’t realize I could sweat that much in my own office holding my phone and going live.)

And leveraging live streams to grow a podcast is a must try strategy!

Whether you decide to go live once a week or once a month, having that connection with your audience is irreplaceable. Plus, when you go live you’re setting yourself to be able to repurpose that content for future episodes or videos.

Here are a few resources about live streaming and video podcasts:

• How to Use Video for Your Podcast with Patricia Kelikani
• Should You Be Live Streaming Your Podcast? (Video Podcast)

4. Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Don’t be afraid to talk about your podcast. It’s the marketing basics 101 principle that most podcasters either forget or were never taught. 

Don’t be afraid to talk about your podcast!

And because I know most of you will say, “But I’m not sure what to talk about…” I have some specific scripts for you to follow to get your community into action and share more about your podcast. See below:

SCREENSHOT SHARE

“It would really help me If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, if you could take a screenshot wherever you’re listening, and share it on IG stories, tag me and I’ll reshare it from my account.”

(This is routinely how and why I share stories from our podcast friends Belinda & Brandon on a regular basis. It’s as simple as they tag me on IG and I reshare it.)

 TEXT SHARE

“Do you know someone who’d be interested in today’s topic? Then text this episode to them. Most podcast players, wherever you’re listening to the show, you can share a link directly from the app. So copy that link and text it to a friend who could benefit from this episode.”

Don’t be afraid to make the ask of your community in order to grow a podcast – your podcast.