Publish, schedule and promote
Get your podcast out there on to hosting platforms and start building your audience
WITH YOUR PODCAST now created, you need to get it out to the world to be heard. The easiest way to do this is to use a podcast hosting service. There are many of these, all with different feature sets and costs, but one that does get great reviews is Buzzsprout.
Services like this take care of the technical stuff for you, so your first step is to create an account with them, choosing the account type that best serves your needs. Then you “create” your show on the site, complete with text, pictures and all the information your listeners and potential listeners will need. After this, you upload your audio files—the podcast episodes—to your account, as many as you want to broadcast, and they are stored on the company’s servers.
You can host them yourself, but this is a much easier way to do things.
The host then organizes your files into a podcast feed that both you and them can supply to podcast directories like those from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and other places people go to look for and listen to podcasts. Smaller podcast streaming services tend to take their feeds from the larger ones anyway, so you probably only need to submit to the top five or so and it should filter down.
When it comes to promoting your podcast, you’ll need to do some legwork—having a social media presence and trying to engage with people and groups that are likely to be interested in your subject is a good way to start. You can use metrics supplied by your hosting company to see where your listeners are based and what kinds of devices they are using, and use this to help to target your promotion efforts.
It’s also well worth having a decent website to go with the podcast instead of just relying on a Twitter account or podcast description. This way, people can see a bit more detail about who you are and what you do, maybe including some photo and video content.
Monetizing your podcast is connected with listener numbers and that’s tied in to targeting
the right listeners. Advertisers will be more likely to sponsor your episode (it can be more common to get weekly sponsors than permanent ones) if you can show them that your listeners are a demographic that they will also want to target. Random, YouTube–style “forced” ads are much less popular with listeners who may be minded to skip through them. A more personalized ad approach, maybe with the hosts discussing the advertised product or service, will make the listeners more likely to pay attention.
There’s no guaranteed trick to having a successful podcast, but the key is to be passionate about your subject, and there will likely be an equally passionate audience out there for it. Listen to existing podcasts and break down how they are made—how long is an episode, how many guests do they have, do they use music? You can quickly work out how a successful show is put together. And if you love your subject, there’s a good chance your audience will too.