From the 102k-follower content creator, Travis Brown
Everyone has their own unique experiences that, I think, they could easily share if they just look at it through that lens of ‘I’m just sharing cool stuff with the world.’ – Travis Brown
Content creation might seem intimidating, but all we are doing when we create content is sharing cool stuff. You’re just sharing something that you love with other people. It could be a tip. It could be a story. It could be a lesson. It could be the do’s and don’ts that keep people from being harmed. Everyone has their own unique experiences that I think they could easily share if they just look at it through that lens of, “I’m just sharing cool stuff with the world.” Then content creation doesn’t seem so intimidating!
Why should podcasters leverage social media to grow their shows?
- Discoverability. I think that podcasters are at a big disadvantage from discoverability simply because people wake up in the morning and check their emails and social media, not necessarily a podcast app first. So podcasters need to be on social media because it’s where the eyeballs are. Any platforms that are high-traffic areas, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, any of which is another opportunity to get discovered and gain more listeners.
- Building your community. I would say that it’s probably the biggest opportunity for everybody is to start a ‘tribe’ or build a club, something that helps you attract the people that are gonna be your biggest supporters, future collaborators, future employees, etc.When I was at a recent podcast conference, I noticed how much the community is really such a big part of podcasting, and how much of a community we need to build around ourselves. I think that that’s where social media can tie into your podcast. Because, again, it’s a one way street! I talk through this mic, it goes to your ears. You can’t talk back to me. Right? Where can you do that? Well, you can do that on social media. So now we have this two-way conversation and we’re building community, we’re building relationships with our audience.
Any tips on choosing a social media platform? Should people be active on one or multiple channels?
What burns people out is that they try to be everywhere all the time. I have tried that and it didn’t work for me because you’d find yourself constantly trying to do this, that and the other thing. So my recommendation is just go to your favorite platform, whatever you like to use, and start there and just build out that platform.
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You should also think about your audience too. If your audience is 70+-year-old men and you’re trying to teach them to lift weights for example, then you might want to leverage where they might be on Facebook. There are different platforms for different target audiences. So you need to ask your audience and do a bit of research. But if you don’t like using the platform, you’re not gonna go on it. Despite all of the above, the key to social media is being active, being a part of the community. It’s you using the platform. I’ve spent the last two years building my Instagram account up to over a hundred thousand followers. And I do believe that if I would’ve been trying to do all the platforms at once that I wouldn’t be as far as I am now that I have that right.
Plus, make it easy on people so they can find you. When your audience asks where they could find you, and you say you can find me on Instagram, it’s super easy for them. But if you say you can find me on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and whatever the next app is, they might be overwhelmed. Worse, they might not take action either. Don’t overwhelm them and paralyze them with too many options.
We’re just trying to really get good at being a member of a community somewhere. And I think it’d be great for podcasters to keep that in mind, since they already have to keep themselves busy, get things done with content planning, preparing the show notes and inviting guests to their show.
What kind of content do you recommend podcasters to create?
The most successful accounts are typically the value-led ones and the really-entertaining ones.
If you can combine that, and sprinkle on some moments that are personal and relatable to your audience, you’ll start connecting with people on social media.
I can tell you that video is king right now. Instagram’s pushing video. TikTok is all video. YouTube’s doing short form videos. Twitter is a little different since it’s more conversational. Twitter is the easiest kind of content that you could create in my opinion.
It’s easy because we are just holding up your phone and talking to it on a video. We do that on FaceTime and we talk to people all the time, but for some reason when it comes to creating content, people don’t wanna do it. And that leads us to the next question.
What if podcasters don’t like to be on video?
If you don’t like being on video, I would consider doing something like carousel posts on Instagram, which are a series of posts that contain infographics and you can just write text on it. So let’s say your podcast is about cooking. You could create a recipe on a bunch of different slides taking them step by step on how to make risotto for example. And that becomes valuable! Maybe you talked about risotto on your last podcast episode, so you can make sure that people know that you reviewed the world’s No. 1 risotto restaurant, and they’ll be more likely to go over to actually listen to the podcast.
However, a podcast is like sitting at the table with the host(s), except that you don’t see them and the room is pitch black. So at some point, your listeners would love to have a clue of who they’re hanging out with. And I think that’s where social media comes to where you can show people who you are. I mean, I’ve done this a million times. I’ll hear someone on a podcast and I go Google image them. I just wanna see what they look like.
We are the guide. And our job is to give as much value as we can to our audience, you know, share some cool stuff with our audience and, you know, sprinkle in ourselves. I think that curiosity at some point peaks in every podcast fan. What does this guy look like? What does this lady look like? And it gives us a better internal representation of them. So by putting yourself out on social media, I think you give people some context clues to where they can get a little closer to you.
More pro tips
- Interact with other accounts and your fans on social media
- Create value in your posts
- Ask people questions to keep them engaged
- Send audio messages to new followers
- Introduce yourself and start a conversation
- Create names for your “squad”
A big thanks to Travis Brown for joining us this time to share his social media wisdom.