What's your social presence?
Episode Show Notes
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In this PodOn episode, Julian and TJ talk about a very important topic that can help you maximize your show’s exposure: social media presence. It’s true, getting on social media is not that easy and it can be time-consuming BUT it is still the best way to find a bigger audience while building a community for your podcast. Is it necessary to have a handle specifically for my show? Should I go on Instagram or LinkedIn first? What type of content works better?
Listen to this episode to get some tips and tricks from Julian and TJ on how to get started using social media, the do’s and don'ts of each platform plus strategies to get your guests to share your content.
Jump straight into:
(00:54) - Should your podcast have a social media presence? - “If your goal is to get maximum exposure and really get audience growth, it is pretty critical to have a social media presence.”
(03:21) - Leverage the benefits of social media - “Don't just promote with the goal of getting people to listen, promote with the goal of starting a conversation around the topic of your podcast and getting feedback”.
(4:48) - The do’s and don'ts for each platform: LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook - “Make sure that where you're hosting your platform, they have social-friendly links.”
(11:37) - Other useful platforms: Reddit, Twitter and Pinterest - “I think there are great platforms for you to listen and hear what conversations are related to your topic and then do a podcast on those and then potentially bring that value back.”
(12:47) - What content should you create? - “Figure out which platforms you're good or great at, in the beginning, focus there, and then as you get better, go on to the next platform.”
(14:54) - Tips & tricks to work with your guests’ social media - “Make it as easy as possible for them, write the copy for them, give them something that they can literally just copy and paste.”
PodOn is hosted by TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis, founders of the full-service podcast company based in San Francisco, StudioPod. If you want more details on how to fully record and produce your podcast with our services, you can reach us at http://studiopodsf.com, send us an email at info@studiopodsf.com or contact us through our social media channels as @studiopodmedia
Episode Transcript (via Rev.com)
Julian Lewis:
If you have micro content from your podcast that you've created, whether in the form of quotes in little snippets or whatever it might be, it's a great way to then drive traffic back to your website or to your podcast, and it's content that makes sure it's more evergreen than daily news updates, but you will see over time that more and more people will discover it and it'll be a nice little long tail growth of the platform that you have. This is the Podon podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
We're your host, TJ Bonaventura, that's me, and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So join us each episode as we and our guests drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
Julian Lewis:
Welcome back to another episode of the Podon podcast. He's TJ, I'm Julian, and we are the dynamic duo that is Studio Pod. For this week I get to choose the dynamic duo and I'm going to throw a curve ball, it's baseball related. Michael Jordan and Terry Francona. What you know about that?
TJ Bonaventura:
Oh wow, you went old school. I don't think half our audience is going to have any idea who Francona is. But I love it. I love it. As a baseball fan, I dig it so I would think ...
Julian Lewis:
Like a player coach, Francona ended up winning some championships in Boston. Jordan is Jordan, switch it up, when he was on the Sox. But for this episode, this is not what we're talking about, this is not a baseball podcast. We are talking about social media tips and tricks as it relates to your podcast. I guess, first and foremost, should you have a media presence if you have a podcast or should you just have a podcast?
TJ Bonaventura:
Well, the answer to that is yes, you should definitely have a social media presence, which I think a lot of people out there, that is kind of cringe worthy. I know I have a lot of people in my inner circle who are like, "I don't want to do anything in regards to social media." But if your goal is to get maximum exposure and really get audience growth, it is pretty critical to have a social media presence. Now what that means can be a lot of different things. For example, we have the Podon podcast and we have Studio Pod, and a lot of our promotion happens through our Studio Pod channel versus our individual handles.
Julian Lewis:
Yes, indeed. And so with us, because it's a part of the Studio Pod umbrella, we want to promote it there versus having a separate ... Because the conversation is the same. It's not like we're interjecting something that has does nothing to do with the curious and scrappy podcaster because you are our focus and we want to make sure that we're delivering you with that content.
Julian Lewis:
But I think one of the other things that you should think about is okay, you have this piece of content, this maybe 30 to hour long piece of content that's recorded. Why do you need social media? One of the reasons why is because you have the ability to cut up that content into micro content and then amplify it on those channels to tease out your episodes. And so I think that's one important thing to do. We're not telling you to upload your full podcast onto Instagram Stories or Instagram Live. What we're telling you is use it to drive people to listen to the full content.
TJ Bonaventura:
It also is a great way to leverage the benefits of social media. I think myself, and I will speak for myself here. Julian, I'll let you chime in here in just a second. I think there is a negative stigmatism with social media. What has happened over the last couple years, how people are using it, this whole idea of cancel culture, and just a lot of negativity that just exists on social media. But when you use it appropriately, it is a great way to connect with people and find people of like-minded interests. And so if your podcast is about a super niche topic, it is awesome to find people that way. And whether you're going to promote it through a handle that you developed yourself or your own personal one, it is a great way to connect with people and find those who really enjoy the content or your subject matter
Julian Lewis:
Exactly. Community. See it as an opportunity to build a community. And I, for one, somebody who worked at a platform that was labeled as a social media platform, I worked there for four and a half years, I have a love/hate relationship. I took a year off of Instagram once just because I needed to be away from it. I don't technically have a Facebook either but it is such a valuable resource to build a community around the topic and get feedback. I think that's key too. Don't just promote with the goal of getting people to listen, promote with the goal of starting a conversation around the topic of your podcast and getting feedback on how you can improve it, and that's an easy way to get information on how you can grow your show over time.
TJ Bonaventura:
So let's go into the dos and don'ts for each platform, and we don't have to go into specifics here, Julian. And if anybody wants to know information, you guys can always reach out to us. We say it at the end of each podcast but studiopodsf.com, and you can set a time with us and we can help develop these in a little more specificity. So let's talk about the types of content. So Julian, I'm going to name a platform and I want you to give me an example of what you would do for that.
Julian Lewis:
Is this going to be a rapid fire?
TJ Bonaventura:
It's going to be a rapid fire sort of.
Julian Lewis:
Okay.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right, so let's talk about nice and easy, your favorite platform, LinkedIn.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. LinkedIn, I think, is great because you can take from your show notes and add a little bit more context on what that episode is. The one thing that I will say before we get into specific platforms actually, TJ is make sure that where you're hosting your platform, they have social friendly links. So for example, we use Captivate. Captivate has a link that is specifically for embedding your content so it drives directly to where people can listen so make sure that they have those social friendly links.
Julian Lewis:
But to LinkedIn, what I'll say is you have the ability to write a little bit more because people are more apt to reading on that platform about who your guest was, why you had them on, what your podcast is all about, and/or you can also post video. Now video can come in two forms. It can come in the form of you getting on your phone and being like, "Hey, today or this week I have this guest. We talked about X, Y, and Z. Please tune in." Or it could be taking a snippet of audio and creating an audiogram. So essentially you're marrying the audio file with an image, you put them together, it creates a video, and then people can hear and see your guest that you had on, or hear and see you, and get a taste of what the episode is about.
TJ Bonaventura:
LinkedIn is also really great for obviously, organizations and those who are doing branded pieces of content. We've talked about it many times in past episodes. Developing a podcast for your organization to drive new clients is awesome, so if you're going to be able to take a snippet and tease that within LinkedIn and then link it back to your website, it's a great way to understand how much ROI your podcast is generating.
Julian Lewis:
And TJ, what I ... Exactly to that point. The one thing that I would encourage you to do is it's going to take a little bit for your brand on LinkedIn to gain a following where you're going to get enough reach when you post something. Right now I think we have about 50 followers of Studio Pod, but each you and I, we have a lot more connections and so as long as it's relevant to our connections, you should encourage your employees, or in this case, the founders of Studio Pod to amplify that content on their own channels and hopefully, it'll get more people to see what your company is doing and be aware of that.
TJ Bonaventura:
So let's go to the next platform here, and we're only going to do three. We're going to do the three main ones. The next one is Instagram, your personal favorite.
Julian Lewis:
Love. Hate. Audiograms all day. I think it was Headliner that had some stat where they saw like a 1,200% increase on video versus static, and so Headliner is a platform that you can use to create audiograms. They have a direct actually integration with [inaudible 00:08:01]. We like to use a platform called Vid.io. But again, going back to that audiogram, marrying that image with that audio and allowing for people to get a taste of what the episode is about and try to pull out the most intriguing pieces of content so that people are like, "Ooh, I enjoyed hearing this snippet. I want to hear more."
Julian Lewis:
And so I would say that on Instagram. Also, leveraging it for quotes. Create a static quote from that episode. I think that's another great way as well that people are going to engage with, and then it's a great way also to preview like who you had on. So for example, Becca, from Dating in the Bay, she had on the original founder of Match.com, and she beforehand teased that he was going to be on and had her community that she built send her questions that she can then ask on the podcast. And so love/hate, but Instagram is a great platform for doing just that.
TJ Bonaventura:
In the Instagram, I'm going to chime in here too because Instagram has some other features that you can leverage including IG Live, so if you want to do some promotion or maybe doing a post interview that's a little bit more unfiltered and a little bit more just real, it's something that Julian and I are going to be participating in with one of our partners, but it's a great way just to gain a little bit more interest into your show. Additionally, there's IGTV which allows you to post longer content. So we haven't done this ourselves but there is a way where you can go in and just post your entire episode on IGTV, if that's something you wanted to do and someone could go listen to that directly from that channel.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I would caution from that only because my whole thing with Instagram and YouTube, anything with Instagram TV and YouTube, where people are expecting video. Unless you have video, that is going to be initially it could be like, "Wait, what is this?" But you made a great point when you talked about leveraging Instagram Lives because I do want to highlight Lisa and [inaudible 00:10:00] is a sneaky B word because she has an hour plus long episode with an amazing person, and then the week the episode drops, she does exactly what TJ says, she does an IG Live. And so people, her community, could then ask live questions and it just extends the content and she saves it to her profile, so then now it's evergreen and people can go back and know that oh, this is what she does. Let me listen to this or watch this after I've already listened to that. So it's a great compliment to your podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
The final platform here is Facebook. Tell me about Facebook. What do you think the benefits there are for your podcast?
Julian Lewis:
Facebook groups. I think joining groups that are relevant to your podcast and inserting yourself in a way where you're adding value to that community is a great way to get people to engage with your content, let you know what type of content you should potentially seek out that they're interested in. That's where I would go in terms of how you promote your podcast, get into those groups, have those conversations, add that value. Now don't go in there and say like, "Hey, I have a podcast. Listen to my podcast." If a topic of the conversation is something that you've had on your podcast before, be like, "Hey, this is what I think about this. I also did an interview with X, Y, and Z on this. You should listen to it." That's how you add value. Don't just sell your podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
Exactly. It's a great way to build a community so find people that are interested in whatever your topic is, maybe create a group yourself, build that community. I think that's going to be the real benefit there. Other platforms we don't need to go in too much detail on, but maybe just a good way to share links to your show or that episode is Reddit, is Twitter. Those are obviously the two other big ones, I would say. There's subgroups, there's subreddits, there's topics or hashtags or trends that you can follow on Twitter. Those are great ways just to ... If you did want to just share the link of what you're going to be talking about on that show, that's a great opportunity to do those on those channels.
Julian Lewis:
I know we're not going to go deep, but especially with those two, I think they're great platforms for you to listen and hear what conversations are related to your topic, and then do a podcast on those and then potentially bring that value back. I'm going to highlight Pinterest. I worked at that platform for four and a half years. I don't classify it as social per se, however, if you have micro content from your podcast that you've created, whether in the form of quotes, in little snippets, or whatever it might be, it's a great way to then drive traffic back to your website or to your podcast, and it's content that makes sure it's more evergreen than daily news updates. But you will see over time that more and more people will discover it, and it'll be a nice little long tail growth of the platform that you have.
TJ Bonaventura:
So talk to me about how many pieces of content you should be creating per episode.
Julian Lewis:
I mean, if you're a weekly podcast, minimum, I would say five. Every other day, say something about it.
TJ Bonaventura:
So that's five across all your platforms?
Julian Lewis:
Five per platform, I would say.
TJ Bonaventura:
Five per platform, so that's 25, you're saying?
Julian Lewis:
Yes, it's a lot. And I'll be honest with you, that's not enough. It's not enough in terms of how you can amplify. And I just want to be clear though, five per platform, meaning that there's some platforms that have different specs, right? So you can take almost the exact same thing and then put it on there. Obviously, Twitter has a 280 character limit, but LinkedIn, you can write the whole long story, right? So there's going to be limitations on characters and dimensions, and so you can take one piece of content and you can make it work for all the different platforms, but you should at least probably have five pieces of content that then you'd extract out to almost 25 against 25 platforms.
Julian Lewis:
Even saying that makes me feel so overwhelmed that I imagine that you are too, so what I would say is figure out which platforms you're good or great at in the beginning, focus there, and then as you get better, go on to the next platform, go on to the next platform from there. Don't try to do it all at once because after the second episode, you're going to be like I can't do all this and then you're going to stop doing it altogether.
TJ Bonaventura:
And if you're an organization, think about how you can create employee friendly content that could be shared out. For example, we'll go back to LinkedIn really quick. It's a great way if you're creating a podcast that's sales related to give to your sales people that they can then share on LinkedIn to hopefully drive some more business or some top of the funnel pipeline into top of the funnel interest from the podcast itself.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, and not just LinkedIn, tell them to put it in the signature of their email. If there's something that is relevant to the sales funnel or experience of your company, a topic that you talk about that you know is going to resonate with, or has already resonated with, your customers, have them put it in their signature. That's another way to expose it. That's not social media but it's amplifying that content in that way.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the last thing that we're going to talk about here is how could you make it very, very easy for your guest if you have an interview style podcast to share that they were on the show? What tactics would you offer to our listeners that they can just allow their guests to just really simply push something out there so that they can help in audience growth?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So we mentioned it in the Cover Art podcast where we talked about asking for a headshot and a bio upfront. Make sure you get that, no matter what, whether you think you're going to use it or not, make sure you get both of those things. But what you can do is you can get that and tell them, "Hey, what I do is I create content for my guests. I'm going to send you a link to this thing, to this content, and you can post it on your channels." I think what a lot of people do instead is that they create the content and then they tag the person and cross their fingers that they're going to post it. They're not necessarily going to post it if you send it to them, but if you give content and make it easier like a layup, then they're going to do it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Exactly. Make it as easy as possible for them. Even like you talked about, write the copy for them, give them something that they can just literally just copy and paste into LinkedIn, to Instagram, to any of the platforms we talked about, whatever is biggest for them. Make sure that you're creating content that is best suited for that platform that they have the largest reach on, that way they could just take it, copy it, post it there, and we're good to go.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, exactly that. And the one thing that you might think is like, "Ooh, let me do this as far in advance as possible." What we've learned is you might tell them in advance when their episode is launching but give it to them the day of, because if they get it a week before, they're going to be like, "Oh yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. I'll do something with it." But then they won't because they don't have it, they don't remember on that day. So on that day be like, "Hey, your episode is live. Here are five pieces of content." And that's what we do for From Woke to Work. We send two audiograms, one for Stories, ones for their feed, and then we send a quote as well as kind of an announcement card. I think I said five, but that works. So we send each person four or five pieces of content that they can amplify on the day of if they choose to and they don't have to wait to be tagged and then do it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, and included in that five pieces of content, maybe instead of doing all five for you, two of them are for your guest. Make sure you're spending your time wisely here.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, exactly.
TJ Bonaventura:
Well, well as always, he's Julian, I'm TJ. Thank you guys for joining today as we talked about social media tips and tricks. If you want to learn more about Studio Pod and our work and our starter pack, which will give you an education session and four fully produced episodes, please reach out to us info@StudioPodSF.com, or any of our social handles StudioPodSF across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, you name it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Podon.
Julian Lewis:
Every episode of the Podon podcast is produced and edited by Studio Pod Media. For more information about our work and our clients, go to StudioPodSF.com.
TJ Bonaventura:
Shout out to Gary Oakland for the fire track.
Julian Lewis:
Gary O.
If you have micro content from your podcast that you've created, whether in the form of quotes in little snippets or whatever it might be, it's a great way to then drive traffic back to your website or to your podcast, and it's content that makes sure it's more evergreen than daily news updates, but you will see over time that more and more people will discover it and it'll be a nice little long tail growth of the platform that you have. This is the Podon podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
We're your host, TJ Bonaventura, that's me, and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So join us each episode as we and our guests drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
Julian Lewis:
Welcome back to another episode of the Podon podcast. He's TJ, I'm Julian, and we are the dynamic duo that is Studio Pod. For this week I get to choose the dynamic duo and I'm going to throw a curve ball, it's baseball related. Michael Jordan and Terry Francona. What you know about that?
TJ Bonaventura:
Oh wow, you went old school. I don't think half our audience is going to have any idea who Francona is. But I love it. I love it. As a baseball fan, I dig it so I would think ...
Julian Lewis:
Like a player coach, Francona ended up winning some championships in Boston. Jordan is Jordan, switch it up, when he was on the Sox. But for this episode, this is not what we're talking about, this is not a baseball podcast. We are talking about social media tips and tricks as it relates to your podcast. I guess, first and foremost, should you have a media presence if you have a podcast or should you just have a podcast?
TJ Bonaventura:
Well, the answer to that is yes, you should definitely have a social media presence, which I think a lot of people out there, that is kind of cringe worthy. I know I have a lot of people in my inner circle who are like, "I don't want to do anything in regards to social media." But if your goal is to get maximum exposure and really get audience growth, it is pretty critical to have a social media presence. Now what that means can be a lot of different things. For example, we have the Podon podcast and we have Studio Pod, and a lot of our promotion happens through our Studio Pod channel versus our individual handles.
Julian Lewis:
Yes, indeed. And so with us, because it's a part of the Studio Pod umbrella, we want to promote it there versus having a separate ... Because the conversation is the same. It's not like we're interjecting something that has does nothing to do with the curious and scrappy podcaster because you are our focus and we want to make sure that we're delivering you with that content.
Julian Lewis:
But I think one of the other things that you should think about is okay, you have this piece of content, this maybe 30 to hour long piece of content that's recorded. Why do you need social media? One of the reasons why is because you have the ability to cut up that content into micro content and then amplify it on those channels to tease out your episodes. And so I think that's one important thing to do. We're not telling you to upload your full podcast onto Instagram Stories or Instagram Live. What we're telling you is use it to drive people to listen to the full content.
TJ Bonaventura:
It also is a great way to leverage the benefits of social media. I think myself, and I will speak for myself here. Julian, I'll let you chime in here in just a second. I think there is a negative stigmatism with social media. What has happened over the last couple years, how people are using it, this whole idea of cancel culture, and just a lot of negativity that just exists on social media. But when you use it appropriately, it is a great way to connect with people and find people of like-minded interests. And so if your podcast is about a super niche topic, it is awesome to find people that way. And whether you're going to promote it through a handle that you developed yourself or your own personal one, it is a great way to connect with people and find those who really enjoy the content or your subject matter
Julian Lewis:
Exactly. Community. See it as an opportunity to build a community. And I, for one, somebody who worked at a platform that was labeled as a social media platform, I worked there for four and a half years, I have a love/hate relationship. I took a year off of Instagram once just because I needed to be away from it. I don't technically have a Facebook either but it is such a valuable resource to build a community around the topic and get feedback. I think that's key too. Don't just promote with the goal of getting people to listen, promote with the goal of starting a conversation around the topic of your podcast and getting feedback on how you can improve it, and that's an easy way to get information on how you can grow your show over time.
TJ Bonaventura:
So let's go into the dos and don'ts for each platform, and we don't have to go into specifics here, Julian. And if anybody wants to know information, you guys can always reach out to us. We say it at the end of each podcast but studiopodsf.com, and you can set a time with us and we can help develop these in a little more specificity. So let's talk about the types of content. So Julian, I'm going to name a platform and I want you to give me an example of what you would do for that.
Julian Lewis:
Is this going to be a rapid fire?
TJ Bonaventura:
It's going to be a rapid fire sort of.
Julian Lewis:
Okay.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right, so let's talk about nice and easy, your favorite platform, LinkedIn.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. LinkedIn, I think, is great because you can take from your show notes and add a little bit more context on what that episode is. The one thing that I will say before we get into specific platforms actually, TJ is make sure that where you're hosting your platform, they have social friendly links. So for example, we use Captivate. Captivate has a link that is specifically for embedding your content so it drives directly to where people can listen so make sure that they have those social friendly links.
Julian Lewis:
But to LinkedIn, what I'll say is you have the ability to write a little bit more because people are more apt to reading on that platform about who your guest was, why you had them on, what your podcast is all about, and/or you can also post video. Now video can come in two forms. It can come in the form of you getting on your phone and being like, "Hey, today or this week I have this guest. We talked about X, Y, and Z. Please tune in." Or it could be taking a snippet of audio and creating an audiogram. So essentially you're marrying the audio file with an image, you put them together, it creates a video, and then people can hear and see your guest that you had on, or hear and see you, and get a taste of what the episode is about.
TJ Bonaventura:
LinkedIn is also really great for obviously, organizations and those who are doing branded pieces of content. We've talked about it many times in past episodes. Developing a podcast for your organization to drive new clients is awesome, so if you're going to be able to take a snippet and tease that within LinkedIn and then link it back to your website, it's a great way to understand how much ROI your podcast is generating.
Julian Lewis:
And TJ, what I ... Exactly to that point. The one thing that I would encourage you to do is it's going to take a little bit for your brand on LinkedIn to gain a following where you're going to get enough reach when you post something. Right now I think we have about 50 followers of Studio Pod, but each you and I, we have a lot more connections and so as long as it's relevant to our connections, you should encourage your employees, or in this case, the founders of Studio Pod to amplify that content on their own channels and hopefully, it'll get more people to see what your company is doing and be aware of that.
TJ Bonaventura:
So let's go to the next platform here, and we're only going to do three. We're going to do the three main ones. The next one is Instagram, your personal favorite.
Julian Lewis:
Love. Hate. Audiograms all day. I think it was Headliner that had some stat where they saw like a 1,200% increase on video versus static, and so Headliner is a platform that you can use to create audiograms. They have a direct actually integration with [inaudible 00:08:01]. We like to use a platform called Vid.io. But again, going back to that audiogram, marrying that image with that audio and allowing for people to get a taste of what the episode is about and try to pull out the most intriguing pieces of content so that people are like, "Ooh, I enjoyed hearing this snippet. I want to hear more."
Julian Lewis:
And so I would say that on Instagram. Also, leveraging it for quotes. Create a static quote from that episode. I think that's another great way as well that people are going to engage with, and then it's a great way also to preview like who you had on. So for example, Becca, from Dating in the Bay, she had on the original founder of Match.com, and she beforehand teased that he was going to be on and had her community that she built send her questions that she can then ask on the podcast. And so love/hate, but Instagram is a great platform for doing just that.
TJ Bonaventura:
In the Instagram, I'm going to chime in here too because Instagram has some other features that you can leverage including IG Live, so if you want to do some promotion or maybe doing a post interview that's a little bit more unfiltered and a little bit more just real, it's something that Julian and I are going to be participating in with one of our partners, but it's a great way just to gain a little bit more interest into your show. Additionally, there's IGTV which allows you to post longer content. So we haven't done this ourselves but there is a way where you can go in and just post your entire episode on IGTV, if that's something you wanted to do and someone could go listen to that directly from that channel.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I would caution from that only because my whole thing with Instagram and YouTube, anything with Instagram TV and YouTube, where people are expecting video. Unless you have video, that is going to be initially it could be like, "Wait, what is this?" But you made a great point when you talked about leveraging Instagram Lives because I do want to highlight Lisa and [inaudible 00:10:00] is a sneaky B word because she has an hour plus long episode with an amazing person, and then the week the episode drops, she does exactly what TJ says, she does an IG Live. And so people, her community, could then ask live questions and it just extends the content and she saves it to her profile, so then now it's evergreen and people can go back and know that oh, this is what she does. Let me listen to this or watch this after I've already listened to that. So it's a great compliment to your podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
The final platform here is Facebook. Tell me about Facebook. What do you think the benefits there are for your podcast?
Julian Lewis:
Facebook groups. I think joining groups that are relevant to your podcast and inserting yourself in a way where you're adding value to that community is a great way to get people to engage with your content, let you know what type of content you should potentially seek out that they're interested in. That's where I would go in terms of how you promote your podcast, get into those groups, have those conversations, add that value. Now don't go in there and say like, "Hey, I have a podcast. Listen to my podcast." If a topic of the conversation is something that you've had on your podcast before, be like, "Hey, this is what I think about this. I also did an interview with X, Y, and Z on this. You should listen to it." That's how you add value. Don't just sell your podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
Exactly. It's a great way to build a community so find people that are interested in whatever your topic is, maybe create a group yourself, build that community. I think that's going to be the real benefit there. Other platforms we don't need to go in too much detail on, but maybe just a good way to share links to your show or that episode is Reddit, is Twitter. Those are obviously the two other big ones, I would say. There's subgroups, there's subreddits, there's topics or hashtags or trends that you can follow on Twitter. Those are great ways just to ... If you did want to just share the link of what you're going to be talking about on that show, that's a great opportunity to do those on those channels.
Julian Lewis:
I know we're not going to go deep, but especially with those two, I think they're great platforms for you to listen and hear what conversations are related to your topic, and then do a podcast on those and then potentially bring that value back. I'm going to highlight Pinterest. I worked at that platform for four and a half years. I don't classify it as social per se, however, if you have micro content from your podcast that you've created, whether in the form of quotes, in little snippets, or whatever it might be, it's a great way to then drive traffic back to your website or to your podcast, and it's content that makes sure it's more evergreen than daily news updates. But you will see over time that more and more people will discover it, and it'll be a nice little long tail growth of the platform that you have.
TJ Bonaventura:
So talk to me about how many pieces of content you should be creating per episode.
Julian Lewis:
I mean, if you're a weekly podcast, minimum, I would say five. Every other day, say something about it.
TJ Bonaventura:
So that's five across all your platforms?
Julian Lewis:
Five per platform, I would say.
TJ Bonaventura:
Five per platform, so that's 25, you're saying?
Julian Lewis:
Yes, it's a lot. And I'll be honest with you, that's not enough. It's not enough in terms of how you can amplify. And I just want to be clear though, five per platform, meaning that there's some platforms that have different specs, right? So you can take almost the exact same thing and then put it on there. Obviously, Twitter has a 280 character limit, but LinkedIn, you can write the whole long story, right? So there's going to be limitations on characters and dimensions, and so you can take one piece of content and you can make it work for all the different platforms, but you should at least probably have five pieces of content that then you'd extract out to almost 25 against 25 platforms.
Julian Lewis:
Even saying that makes me feel so overwhelmed that I imagine that you are too, so what I would say is figure out which platforms you're good or great at in the beginning, focus there, and then as you get better, go on to the next platform, go on to the next platform from there. Don't try to do it all at once because after the second episode, you're going to be like I can't do all this and then you're going to stop doing it altogether.
TJ Bonaventura:
And if you're an organization, think about how you can create employee friendly content that could be shared out. For example, we'll go back to LinkedIn really quick. It's a great way if you're creating a podcast that's sales related to give to your sales people that they can then share on LinkedIn to hopefully drive some more business or some top of the funnel pipeline into top of the funnel interest from the podcast itself.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, and not just LinkedIn, tell them to put it in the signature of their email. If there's something that is relevant to the sales funnel or experience of your company, a topic that you talk about that you know is going to resonate with, or has already resonated with, your customers, have them put it in their signature. That's another way to expose it. That's not social media but it's amplifying that content in that way.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the last thing that we're going to talk about here is how could you make it very, very easy for your guest if you have an interview style podcast to share that they were on the show? What tactics would you offer to our listeners that they can just allow their guests to just really simply push something out there so that they can help in audience growth?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So we mentioned it in the Cover Art podcast where we talked about asking for a headshot and a bio upfront. Make sure you get that, no matter what, whether you think you're going to use it or not, make sure you get both of those things. But what you can do is you can get that and tell them, "Hey, what I do is I create content for my guests. I'm going to send you a link to this thing, to this content, and you can post it on your channels." I think what a lot of people do instead is that they create the content and then they tag the person and cross their fingers that they're going to post it. They're not necessarily going to post it if you send it to them, but if you give content and make it easier like a layup, then they're going to do it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Exactly. Make it as easy as possible for them. Even like you talked about, write the copy for them, give them something that they can just literally just copy and paste into LinkedIn, to Instagram, to any of the platforms we talked about, whatever is biggest for them. Make sure that you're creating content that is best suited for that platform that they have the largest reach on, that way they could just take it, copy it, post it there, and we're good to go.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, exactly that. And the one thing that you might think is like, "Ooh, let me do this as far in advance as possible." What we've learned is you might tell them in advance when their episode is launching but give it to them the day of, because if they get it a week before, they're going to be like, "Oh yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. I'll do something with it." But then they won't because they don't have it, they don't remember on that day. So on that day be like, "Hey, your episode is live. Here are five pieces of content." And that's what we do for From Woke to Work. We send two audiograms, one for Stories, ones for their feed, and then we send a quote as well as kind of an announcement card. I think I said five, but that works. So we send each person four or five pieces of content that they can amplify on the day of if they choose to and they don't have to wait to be tagged and then do it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, and included in that five pieces of content, maybe instead of doing all five for you, two of them are for your guest. Make sure you're spending your time wisely here.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, exactly.
TJ Bonaventura:
Well, well as always, he's Julian, I'm TJ. Thank you guys for joining today as we talked about social media tips and tricks. If you want to learn more about Studio Pod and our work and our starter pack, which will give you an education session and four fully produced episodes, please reach out to us info@StudioPodSF.com, or any of our social handles StudioPodSF across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, you name it.
TJ Bonaventura:
Podon.
Julian Lewis:
Every episode of the Podon podcast is produced and edited by Studio Pod Media. For more information about our work and our clients, go to StudioPodSF.com.
TJ Bonaventura:
Shout out to Gary Oakland for the fire track.
Julian Lewis:
Gary O.