Whether you're a marketer, pro podcaster, or an agency, you’re likely familiar with social media marketing. Using social media is among the most well-known and common ways to reach and engage with target audiences.

However, it’s no longer enough to just be posting on social media and calling it a day. Consumers have become increasingly wary of sales tactics and marketing grabs on social platforms. This is especially true when it comes to promoting podcasts, whose audiences aren’t turning to audio to learn about a product, but rather to be educated and entertained. 

If you want to be successful at connecting with your audience off of listening apps, you need to change tactics. Whether you have dedicated accounts for your podcast or promote it on your brands existing accounts, keeping the following tips in mind will allow you to connect with your podcast audience in a meaningful way on social media.

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Don’t see socials only as a lead generator 

The biggest way to turn your audience away in the current marketing climate is to be continually selling to them. If you see your audience only as potential leads, they’ll quickly pick up on it and go elsewhere because no one wants to be sold to 24/7. 

Today's consumers are savvy to traditional marketing tactics and don’t want to see a feed of posts pushing products at them. 

Your socials should support the content that you’re creating for your podcast. Social media  is an amazing way to recycle or create bite-sized content from episodes t that’s easily shareable. 

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A few ways to create meaningful content from your podcast includes: 

• Pulling key quotes from the episode that are attention-grabbing and provide value
• Sharinginsights or learnings that you took from the episode 
• Giving audiences a peek behind the scenes, this can be you prepping for the episode or discussing your workflow 
• A teaser Q&A or introduction to the episode with your guest, typically done in a video format
• Blogs or episode recaps that dive deeper into the topics discussed in each episode

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All of this content ideas can be done in a written, audio, or video format. You can even test out different mediums to se which ones your audience prefers on social media. 

This type of content also makes it easy for your audience to share. Making content that your audience wants to share is key to boosting engagement- and no one wants to share an ad. 

Remember: Your podcast is your product!

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Use call to actions (CTAs) and interactive elements

Providing interesting content is great, but you need to encourage and incentivize audiences to engage with it. 

Luckily social media platforms have a variety of interactive elements you can take advantage of. Polls, Q&As, and the ability to go live are all great resources to add podcast additional value to your audience. Start encouraging  listeners to head over to your socials for additional information, updates, and resources from an episode. This clearly lays out the actions that you want them to take after listening to an episode. 

For example, at the end of your most recent episode, you could let listeners know that you’ll be going live on your Instagram story to answer additional questions the next day. This both drives listeners to your socials and also allows them to interact with you and your content in a new and exciting way. 

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Stay authentic to your brand

One of the driving forces of social media today is trends. Trends can help brands go viral and reach new audiences, but it's important not to hop on a trend simply because it's there. Staying authentic to your brand and message is important for audience retention. If you’re jumping on trends without thinking critically about why, you might get more engagement on that particular post but that doesn’t necessarily result in conversions. If your content has nothing to do with your podcast or doesn't resonate with your target audience, the chances of  converting audiences to new listeners is low. Most of them will move on once they realize your content isn't for them. 

Deciding what trends to engage with really comes down to your brand. If your podcast is targeting Gen Z listeners, it makes sense to transform your podcast into TikTok content. 

But if your podcast is targeting an older demographic who isn’t traditionally on TikTok, it’s likely not a good investment of time or resources. Ultimately it's up to you to know what your audience likes and wants from you, and what type of content they would engage with. 

Quick Tip: Create listener personas to help you discover what platforms your audience is active on and what trends they would respond well to. 

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Create zero-click content

An emerging trend in marketing that we’ve been hearing more and more about lately is zero-click content. The premise of zero-click content is that someone engaging with it doesn’t need to click a link or give any of their information to get access to information.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you interview a guest on your podcast, and want to encourage your audience on your socials to listen to the episode. Instead of creating a post on Instagram telling them to listen and go hear what the guest has to say, round up the most important insights and put them all in the post. 

It might seem counterintuitive to provide all the content up-front, but in the long run, you’ll get more engagement by providing deeper value. This type of content takes the place of a post that simply tells people to go and listen. 

Zero-click content can work for your podcast by providing key insights from the episode, powerful quotes, or complete recaps. Test sharing zero-click content and see how it stacks up against posts that encourage audiences to click. Although you won’t have clicks, you might see your audience become more engaged with your content. 

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Use Social Media to Connect with Your Podcast Audience

While using social media to connect with your podcast audience, it's important to keep in mind that you should be employing an omnichannel approach. 

All your various platforms, including your podcast should be working in tandem to create an efficient strategy. This allows your brand to create clear and consistent messaging across all of your marketing channels.