Promoting Your Guests’ Appearance on Your Podcast
This is part of a four-part series exploring how podcast guests have huge value to you and your show, and how properly leveraging that means you need to ensure they perceive value in having appeared on your podcast. These are tips on what left podcast guests feeling positive about their appearances… and what didn’t. We’re sharing these findings as a free resource to help you be the best podcaster you can be – for your guests.
One of the biggest strengths of podcasting is its reciprocal nature. By inviting a guest onto your podcast they gain access to your audience, and if you handle your social media promotion right you gain access to their audience as well.
You’re likely already posting announcements to your social media feeds when your episodes release (and if you aren’t, you should be) and by tagging your guests in those posts you provide them additional exposure to your audience including followers who might not be active listeners of your podcast. Plus, depending on your guest’s privacy settings on platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn, tagging them on social media can grant you access to their followers without your guest needing to take any additional actions. This does of course require you to track down or request the appropriate social media URLs for your guests as we’ve mentioned earlier. You can take this a step further however…
Enter the micro-press kit. In conducting our survey calls a remarkably low number of podcast guests reported that they’d been provided with any assets or direction on how to promote their own appearances on the podcasts they’d spoken on. Those who did were thankful for how easy this was and perceived increased credibility and professionalism from the podcaster. For newer or small-scale podcasters the idea of a micro-press kit might seem intimidating, but we’ll help make it easy. Here’s what you should include:
- The date the episode is to publish, and when you’d like the guest to post on social media about it
- Suggested text for the post with a brief summary of what you discussed, including your own social media handles
- Links to your podcast on Apple and Spotify (or wherever your audience most commonly listens)
- A copy of your podcast logo (or episode cover image if you prepare images for each episode)
- Up to three hashtags relevant to your podcast and/or episode
- Most importantly, thank your guest again for their appearance and thank them for promoting it on their own social media feeds
This little bit of extra effort doesn’t just show your appreciation and professionalism to your guest, but it also more effectively communicates to your guest’s followers an endorsement of their appearance on your podcast compared to them simply liking, sharing, or retweeting the announcement you’ve posted to your own feed. (Though it is also helpful to do all of the above so your guest’s followers see multiple mentions of your podcast on their timelines.) Leveraging the micro-press kit is simple, easy, and an effective way to further harness the reciprocal nature of podcasting.
How Well Are You Doing?
Curious about how well you’re doing at providing a great podcasting experience for your guests? Book a consultation or reach out to us by email to discuss a potential audit of your podcasting practices and how you could take your podcast to the next level.
