Top tips to supercharge your podcast discovery on social media

As a creator, you’ve got a lot on your plate. But we’ve got you covered. We have the top insights on social media podcast promotion that will help you grow your audience ‍and grab your fans’ attention, all while managing your workflow. ‍

Tap into the full spectrum of content types and formats

Creating compelling content for social media is both an art and a science. You need to strike a balance between what users want to see and what you want to communicate about your show. And while the content should attract attention, you also want it to encourage shares and discussions to foster a feeling of community around your show.

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Sharing different content types and formats will help you achieve all of these things. New episode announcements are important, but think about how you can add value for the audience and really connect with them. What would stop their thumbs mid-scroll? What do they want to learn? And how can you convey these messages in a funny, fresh, and interesting way?

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Let’s explore a few ideas to help diversify your content portfolio.

Episode snippets

Be a tease—literally. What better way to entice someone to listen to your full episodes than offering a snippet of what they can expect? Short, intriguing video or audio clips are perfect to spark curiosity and give audiences a taste of what you have to offer.

Audio snippets

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If your show is audio only, experiment with audiograms. These are still images that are adapted into a video file using elements like voice, dynamic graphics, transcriptions, and audio waveform. Audiograms are usually between 30-60 seconds to emphasize key moments from episodes and entice viewers to tune in. ‍To make the most of your audiograms, follow these tips:

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• Include a picture of whoever is speaking, or use your episode cover art as the visual asset.

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• Tease your audience with cliffhangers and key quotes from the episode, or promote past episodes with important insights.

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• Make it playful by posing a question that's answered in your episode with a short timer, and then play the quote from your episode once the timer is up. Posts that have longer viewer retention tend to have better reach. ‍

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Looking for a tool to get started? Headliner offers a simple solution for creators looking to create audiograms and promote their podcast across their social channels.  

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Video snippets

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If you already jumped on the video podcast bandwagon, good news—you have a wealth of promotional material at your disposal. And even more good news, using videos to promote your podcast may help you gain more traction than static visuals, as social platforms really push this type of content to the top of “Explore” and “For You” pages.

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Steven Barlett, host of “The Diary Of A CEO,” highlights compelling moments from his show on Instagram.

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Just like with audiograms, you can share the most intriguing or hilarious bits of your episodes through video snippets. Here are a few extra tips to help break down your episodes into enticing clips:

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• During the editing process, mark the time stamps of the moments with the most potential to make the clipping process for social smoother.

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• Make sure each clip can stand on its own. Viewers should be able to understand the shorter videos without the context of the full episode.

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• Don’t be afraid to vary the lengths of your videos. TikTok and Instagram tend to thrive on quick, snappy clips, but audiences on LinkedIn and YouTube are open to longer videos.

Behind-the-scenes sneak peeks

What goes on behind the microphone? Who is the creator (or team) that makes the magic happen? Sharing behind-the-scenes content can be your golden ticket to connecting with your audience on a deeper, more personal level:

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• Show your fans what the making of an episode looks like. Share insights into how you choose topics, research content, and plan your episodes. This could include brainstorming sessions, scriptwriting, or your reaction to finally booking a dream guest.

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• You can also give your audience a glimpse of your recording environment. Whether it’s a professional studio or a makeshift setup in your living room, showing your workspace adds a relatable and authentic touch.

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• If you have co-hosts or a production team, create a social media segment dedicated to introducing them to your followers. Share fun facts, roles, and how each person contributes to the podcast. Even if you’re a one-person show, this is still a great strategy to connect with fans.

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• 'A day in the life' content showing the routine tasks of podcasting, like editing audio, selecting music, or managing social media, is another way to keep content fresh and authentic.

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• Don’t be afraid to let fans be privy to the highs and lows of being a creator. Sharing the challenges you face in podcasting and how you overcome them can be a source of inspiration for them, and celebrating your achievements, whether it's hitting a certain number of downloads, receiving an award, or celebrating an anniversary, helps your audience feel like they are part of your journey.

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Wendy Zuckerman, host of “Science Vs,” took a moment to thank all of her listeners for tuning in and making the show possible.

Guest features

Guests can breathe new life into your show, but why keep the magic contained to the episode itself? Featuring them on your social media is a fantastic way to add variety to your content and broaden the reach of your podcast. Here’s how:

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• Create buzz around the episode in the days leading up to its release. Post headshots, bios,  videos, or other materials the guest shared with you. You can also share what they will be discussing on your podcast.

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The “Call Her Daddy” Instagram account teases her guests days before an episode goes live with a combination of video clips, static images, and trailers.

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• Encourage guests to share the episode on their social media channels so you can tap into their audience — it’s symbiosis at its finest. Provide them with all the necessary links and promotional materials to make the sharing process a breeze.

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• Sometimes, the best stuff happens just before or after you are officially recording — but you catch it on tape. Social media can be a great place to share the bloopers or funny and authentic anecdotes that come out of these low-pressure moments.

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• Create eye-catching graphics or short video clips that feature your guest (like memorable quotes) and share them both before and after the episode airs to maintain interest.

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The “Leave Looking Up” TikTok account shares profound and impactful quotes from guests against visually appealing backdrops.

Capitalize on trending topics and viral content

Trends and virality are the lifeblood of social media. And while you don’t have to (nor should you) jump on every single trend that pops up, doing so here and there helps increase your visibility and engagement.

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By aligning your content with what's currently capturing the public's attention, you can tap into a larger conversation and draw new listeners to your podcast:

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• Stay informed on the topics and trends taking social media by storm. Spending some time on these channels every day is a good place to start. You can also look at Google Trends and set up Google Alerts for topics that are relevant to your podcast. Channel-specific tools, like the YouTube trending tab, and TikTok’s Trend Discovery center, are also great resources.

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• When considering which trends to hop on, remember to stay authentic. Craft posts that relate your podcast to a trending topic and make sense within the broader context of your podcast branding.

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The “Good Children” hosts jumped on the Cool Kids trend on TikTok, perfectly merging authenticity, relevance, and virality.

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• To maximize the impact of this type of content, take a beat to find and use relevant hashtags associated with the trend. This increases the visibility of your posts to those who are actively following it.

Build a system to stay organized

Consistency is key when it comes to promoting your podcast on social media. You want to produce a steady drumbeat of content to keep your current followers engaged and attract new ones. ‍

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When you’re busy with podcast production tasks like booking guests, scripting, and editing, it’s easy to lose track of your social media strategy. To keep your momentum going:

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• Create templates for social content, so you’re not always working from scratch. ‍For example, you could create a standardized cover art graphic, and then all you have to do is swap out the text for new episode titles.

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• Craft content ahead of time to avoid falling behind schedule. If you can, block off periods of time dedicated solely to working on batches of social media posts so you don’t have to think about creating assets—only posting.

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• ‍To make sure you don’t forget about a single post, set calendar reminders on the days you’re meant to share them. You can also schedule posts in advance with a social media tool or ‍use an Excel calendar sheet to plan when, where, and what you’ll post.

Channel-specific tips to promote your podcast

All social media platforms have the potential to drive new fans to your podcast, but each one has nuances. Let’s break down some best practices creators like you can apply on five of the most popular platforms. ‍

Spotify

We’ve heard from creators that a viral clip on social media doesn’t always lead to an increase in streams of that episode. So that’s why we’re now allowing creators to upload the clips they are already making directly through Spotify for Creators. Those clips can then be recommended across various places on the Spotify app, where your audience is already tuning in, so they can immediately listen or watch your full length episode. 

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To make the most of your clips, keep in mind some of these best practices on Spotify:

• Clips must be tied to an episode and you can only upload one clip per episode. That’s why we recommend that the clip you choose previews the content of that episode in some way 
• Clips should be vertical, in the 9:16 format to fit our various recommendation surfaces on Home, the Podcast & Shows feed, and Browse
• Clips must be under 90 seconds so keep them short and sweet! You can add a short description to help potential viewers understand
• Not recording video episodes? Short video clips are a great way to start testing with video or you can also upload any audiograms you create as clips. 

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Clips are now available in beta in select markets. To upload your clips head to any episode in Spotify for Creators and look for the clips tab to get started.

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On Social Media

Instagram

Instagram's visual-centric platform offers unique opportunities for you to connect with your audience, share content, and grow your listener base.

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First, tackle the basics: Succinctly describe your podcast in your bio and include a call-to-action (CTA), such as “Listen to the latest episode” with a link to your podcast. With Linktree, you can direct followers to your Spotify profile, other social media platforms, and website.

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You can leverage story highlights to categorize and archive important content like episode snippets, season trailers, guest features, and fan reviews.

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The three main features of Instagram are feed posts, Reels, and Stories. Here’s how you can unlock the full potential of each one:

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• Feed posts. Share high-quality images, quotes from episodes, and guest features. Remember the snippets we mentioned earlier? Put them to good use and populate your feed with a variety of them, whether it’s video or audio-only. With carousel posts, you can share multiple related images or quotes in a single post.

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• Reels. This feature is all about engaging video content. Sneak peeks, recaps, episode or season trailers, and teasers for upcoming content are just some of the types of content you can share here. Reels can go up to 15 minutes, so they give you a lot of wiggle room.

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• Stories. Unless you pin them to your highlights, Stories disappear within a day. They also have a limited runtime of 60 seconds, so they’re perfect for more casual, behind-the-scenes content, quick updates, or building up momentum for upcoming launches with teaser content.

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Meta recently launched Instagram Threads, a platform very similar to X (Twitter) in nature. Videos can be up to five minutes long, and there’s a 500-character limit, but all the best practices that apply to X also apply to Threads — and we’ll give you the full details below.

X (Twitter)

X (or the blue bird formerly known as Twitter) is useful for podcast promotion because you can showcase your point of view with written text as well as images and videos. Here’s the rundown:

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• Pin a tweet to the top of your profile that best represents your podcast. This could be a clip from your latest episode or an enticing description of your show with a link to your Spotify show page.

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• To keep your feed alive, tweet regularly. Due to its fast-paced nature and limited character count, you can keep it short and sweet with updates, episode releases, and relevant content that aligns with your podcast's theme.

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• You can incorporate images, videos, and audiograms to make your tweets more engaging. With threads, you can tell stories, share insights, or provide episode summaries in more detail.

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• Actively retweet and respond to mentions, comments, and messages. You can also live tweet during podcast recordings, events, or while listening to your new episodes to create real-time engagement and excitement around your content.

TikTok

‍TikTok isn’t just for the kids who love to dance (though Gen Z does adore the app.) With over one billion active users, TikTok is the place to be for brands and creators everywhere — especially if you have a video podcast.

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The beauty of TikTok is that people don’t even have to follow you to come across your content, since most users scroll through the “For You” page. Videos can run up to 10 minutes, but most content on the app tends to be shorter, snappier, and able to hook the viewer from the get-go.

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Much like Instagram’s Reels, TikTok is the ideal platform to share the most engaging bits of your episodes, trailers, behind-the-scenes content— in essence, the most compelling portions of your show that entice users to check out your full profile and, eventually, your full episodes.

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For the full briefing on how to make the most of TikTok for podcast promotion, read our article featuring the “JustTheNobodys” creators and TikTok’s North American Head of Entertainment.

Facebook

Unless your personal network is super relevant to your show, the best way to take advantage of Facebook is by creating a dedicated page for your podcast. This will be your own community, where you’re free to share anything related to your podcast with people who want to hear from you. Here are our top tips:

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• The content you create for other platforms, mainly TikTok and Instagram, will work just as well for Facebook. The platform supports images and videos up to 240 seconds long, so you don’t have to spend extra time producing content specifically for Facebook. Just remember to establish a consistent posting cadence with a good mix of formats.

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• You can easily share your show or an individual episode, directly from the Spotify app. Just tap the sharing menu, select the platform you want, and you’ll get a link to direct followers to your content.

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• For special occasions that you want to create a lot of hype around (like new season premieres, a live tour, or an interview with a special guest), you can create a dedicated Facebook Event to help build momentum and rally your audience.

LinkedIn‍

LinkedIn is a bit of a different beast from the other channels we discussed. You might think its business-like nature doesn’t lend itself to podcast promotion, but don’t let that stop you. With the right approach, LinkedIn becomes an incredibly powerful marketing tool for your podcast.

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The real strength of LinkedIn is community. It doesn’t reward virality, but rather encourages users to have genuine conversations. Whether you use a personal profile or create a dedicated page for your show, LinkedIn is the ideal platform to share the main takeaways of your episodes, extended interviews, downloadable content related to your niche, and more.

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Along with videos and images, you can also publish long-form articles or even create a newsletter. LinkedIn’s features allow the audience to dive deeper into the topics you discuss and provide a space for fans to have valuable discussions with you and amongst themselves.

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Learn more about LinkedIn as a promotional vehicle in our article, featuring the host of “The Anxious Achiever” and the Head of Original Programming at LinkedIn.

Keep an eye on your performance with analytics

There’s only one way to know whether your social media strategy is bearing fruits—tracking the performance of your content.

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Analytics offer invaluable insights into what resonates with your audience, which platforms are most effective for your content, and how you can optimize your social media presence for maximum engagement and growth.

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Use each channel’s analytics features to monitor engagement, reach, and conversion metrics regularly and tweak your approach, content types, and posting cadence until you find the sweet spot.

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Happy posting!

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