The Future of Podcasting: How to Use Podcasts in Social Media Marketing

Podcast advertising is an industry that keeps showing steady growth rates of  7.76% a year, according to Statista. Still, podcasting is one of these marketing niches that flourish primarily because it’s not about ‘classic advertising.’ It is about telling stories, engaging people, and educating your audience — all of which transform into increased brand visibility and reputation. And, while podcasts do not result in direct sales (few modern marketing channels do, to be fair), the industry’s potential is enormous. Some market estimates even predict it will reach $130+ billion before the end of this decade. 

Be that as it may, podcasts offer plenty of marketing opportunities even today — especially in the UK. The Guardian refers to the UK podcasting industry as the means of an ‘affordable togetherness’ — that is, establishing a meaningful connection with your followers, which is the main building block of modern marketing. Podcasts are a great way to enhance your advertising efforts across different channels. The top reasons to use podcasts in marketing, along with a few practical tips on how to do it right, are explained below. 

Boosting SEO Rankings through Voice Searches

If that’s not reason enough to start podcasting, what is? The number of voice searches is growing yearly, and Google’s algorithms are getting increasingly better at recognising speech. Every podcast you create and publish is another useful addition to your SEO strategy that increases brand visibility — mainly if you also publish them on the company website, not just on major podcasting platforms like Spotify and iTunes. These platforms should be covered, too — that is where you will find most of your initial audience. But uploading the same files to a relevant landing page of your website is an excellent (and often underestimated) SEO strategy.  

A good marketing tip, however, is not to rely on voice searches and speed recognition alone. Add subtitles to your audio files to boost your SEO rankings — this will make indexing even more accessible for Google crawlers, thus increasing the website ranking. Turning your podcast script into subtitles takes minutes, and the SEO rewards are worth this little extra effort.

Diversifying Content Marketing Strategies

SEO and content marketing go hand in hand, and podcasts can become a valuable addition to both. Besides offering brands a unique opportunity to engage with audiences on the go, podcasting sprues up your overall content marketing strategy. Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify already increase your online coverage. And you can also repurpose some information from podcasts to work on other sites. 

But be careful! Before you decide to re-form your podcast into other content types, you need to consider your target audience. Mobile-native generations of users, GenZ and late millennials, do not use social media like previous generations did. They are regularly active on multiple social networks, but they expect to see different content on each site. For example, they come to Twitter for news, TikTok for a bit of fun, and LinkedIn for industry-related updates. 

Still, there is a smart way to repurpose podcasts, even if GenZ is part of your target audience. First, you will need to add visuals if you plan to post podcasts on social media (which you should). By default, most feeds mute audio content, so a post without visuals will not attract much attention.

You can choose the leading podcast highlights to post as text with a link to a complete file, of course. But two versions, with and without video, are better because video is a very powerful marketing tool, too. Besides, upgrading podcasts into videos will cover more networks, including YouTube and TikTok. This is definitely an opportunity worth grasping.  

No doubt, filming videos is a lot of extra effort and a completely different marketing strategy. But you can at least use picture slideshows as attention-grabbers to make your podcasts discoverable on social media. That’s a good start for promoting a new podcast series and your brand along with it. 

Interacting with Influencers & Industry Experts

Podcasts offer a perfect opportunity to get in touch with influencers and industry experts, which continuously spreads your brand message to new audiences. Engage with other business owners to cover the latest industry developments, reach out to brands working on innovative products, search for professionals who can contribute their expertise to your series, or even go to Instagram to interview influencers — the opportunities are limitless and depend on the type of podcast you are promoting. 

Finding brands and influencers to collaborate on your podcast series should not turn into an impossible quest. The best way is to do it naturally – as you network (that’s why it is so important to post about your podcast series on social media). You can find contacts of people on LinkedIn or any other social site suitable for your audience — by messaging them on the platform you’ve engaged on, checking out their profile contact info, or even pulling this data with special contact-finding software. 

The main thing is — discovering people interested in working with you and sharing their knowledge on your podcast series. You can also contact other podcasters in relevant niches, but using social media is a better strategy because it expands your reach and offers an opportunity to reach audiences who don’t usually search for new podcasts themselves. 

Do Not Ignore Paid Ads When Promoting Podcasts

We all want our content to appear in the search results naturally — and the above tips should eventually help you get there. But those are long-term strategies for increasing your brand visibility and podcast popularity. Apple, Google Podcasts, and Spotify — the three major podcasting platforms with the most interested users — all feature paid promotions to help podcasters cover more ground when they are just getting started. 

The same is true for social media sites — you can run ads and campaigns to gain more followers before the natural content spread gains the necessary momentum. And, of course, there are always Google PPC Ads if you include podcast materials on your website, too.

Another important advertising tip is to start running your campaigns only when you have at least three podcasts ready — especially with a shorter, 15-30-minute podcast format. You do not want to disappoint people who have just started to develop an interest in your content by offering them just one audio to listen to. 

Actually, this last tip applies to any new podcast series — it’s better to postpone the launch day a little but post at least three files at once. Who knows? Someone might discover you without any ads — even in this significant digital noise from all over. 

Takeaway on Podcasting Future

No matter which marketing channels you choose for podcast promotion, the potential for increasing brand visibility with engaging audio content is enormous. No wonder podcasts are the perfect means of reaching people as they commute, do sports, or even handle routine chores. And that’s quite a lot of ‘attention’ hours in today’s hectic lifestyles when looking at the screen is not an option. 

This is the best part about podcasts — audio series offer a way to interact with audiences even if people cannot spare their complete visual attention. In this, podcasts open up a unique market opportunity no other content type can compete with. And if your series is engaging enough, people will return for more — and might even activate a few more sensory organs besides their ears.