One of the biggest stories of 2022 thus far is the agreement reached for the acquisition of social media juggernaut Twitter by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk. Musk has some ideas about how he would change Twitter but, until the deal is finalized, all remains the same.
Twitter, then, is still one of the world’s top ten most visited websites¹. With millions of potential listeners, Twitter should be a key area of focus when it comes to you promoting your podcast.
So, how should you go about marketing your podcast on Twitter? Is it the same plug-and-play solution that you use for advertising on other social media platforms?
The short answer is: No. Twitter has its own unique rules of engagement that make it stand alone from the likes of Instagram and Facebook.
As such, we have come up with 12 strategies that will help you to promote your podcast on Twitter to gain more avid listeners and grow your podcast as a business.
Related read: 8 Great Ways to Advertise Your Podcast in 2022.
1. Know Your Identity
The first step to having a successful Twitter marketing strategy is knowing your identity. That means having a clear understanding of your brand image, knowing your podcast’s ultimate goals, and ascertaining your podcast’s voice.
Twitter is host to many individuals and businesses, all trying to make their mark on the millions that use the platform. Subsequently, your podcast needs to stand apart from all the rest and have its own unique way of communicating with your intended audience.
Your brand’s image will add personality to the way you market your podcast on Twitter, simultaneously attracting potential listeners to your personal style and your authentic perspective.
Goals
Knowing your identity comes with having a clear vision of what you wish to achieve through your marketing campaign. Be it gaining more listeners or increasing your podcast’s revenue, you need to ascertain your goals and promote your podcast in a way that aims at achieving them.
The final piece to knowing your identity is finding your voice. This is the style and manner in which you communicate with your intended audience. Your content needs to be fresh and original whilst conveying your brand’s message. This will allow you to share your podcast’s core values and connect with your audience in a personal way.
Related read: Want to Build a Strong Podcast Brand? Here Are 8 Key Strategies.
2. Setting Up Your Profile
An important part of a successful Twitter marketing campaign is setting up your profile correctly. The right profile will have an engaging bio, profile photo, and header image with a catchy, easy-to-remember handle.
A Twitter bio is short and sweet. It is usually one or two punchy sentences that explain who you are and what your podcast is all about. If you need to say more, send the extra information out in your first tweet and pin that tweet to your profile. It will be the first thing users see as they visit your profile.
Be sure to include links to your website and/or podcast in your pinned tweet. This will make it easier for people to go to your podcast without having to scroll through your entire history to find the right links.
Next is your profile photo, which can be as simple as using your podcast’s logo. Let’s hope your logo is smart and intriguing and is easily imprinted on the memory of any viewer.
Show Some Personality
Now, your header image is an opportunity for you to showcase a bit of your podcast’s personality. Keeping your header image light and fun is a good way to attract people to your profile. Another option would be to have something motivational as your header image.
In any event, your header image needs to be of value to anyone who might see it whilst showing them exactly who you are as a brand.
Finally, let’s take a look at your handle. Your handle is how Twitter users will recognize you and also how they will share your profile and content. It needs to be easy to remember and short enough for people to easily tag you. Character limitations on Twitter mean that users are less likely to tag you if your handle is too long.
Try and keep your handle as close to your podcast’s name as possible. It will also be beneficial to you if your handle is the same as or similar to your name on other social media platforms. This will make it easier for people to identify you and avoid any confusion.
If you take the time to carefully construct your Twitter profile then you will add one more valuable link to your chain of Twitter marketing success.
3. Create a Content Calendar
The third Twitter marketing tip that we have for you may take up a bit of your time upfront. But creating a content calendar for your podcast’s Twitter account will save you time in the long run and could be a key differentiator in your marketing campaign’s success.
A comprehensive content calendar will keep you prepared for upcoming events whilst ensuring you always have content planned in advance.
A content calendar will also help you to schedule posts for the right times, making use of Twitter’s optimal publishing times. You may not always be able to click ‘publish’ when the right time comes. A content calendar with scheduled posts will lift this burden of stress from your shoulders.
Don’t Forget What’s Important
That being said, make sure that you follow up on your scheduled tweets. Don’t schedule a tweet and forget about it. Stay connected with your audience by interacting with those who engage with your tweets.
Having a content calendar will also make it easier for you to be consistent across all social media platforms. You will be able to create one post that can be published across all mediums, tweaking it where necessary for optimal performance on each platform.
4. Inspired Content
Whilst creating your content calendar, you need to make sure that it is filled with inspiring content. Twitter is different from other forms of social media so it is imperative that your content is suited for Twitter users.
Related read: Content That Engages: How to Improve Your Content Creation Skills.
The first thing to remember is to use the right hashtags. You should only use hashtags that add context to your tweets, are aligned with your brand, and are popular among searchers. Use sites like Hashtagify to test out the strength of your hashtags before tweeting them out. And for Twitter: Two hashtags are enough.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Twitter has one of the shortest character limitations (280) across the various social media platforms³. So choose your words carefully and make every letter count!
The best way to round off your content and ensure maximum value added is to include a visual element in your posts. With such a low character limit, an emoji, image or video will help you to say so much more with each post. Not to mention that images and videos offer you three and ten times more audience engagement respectively⁴.
What Content to Share
Now that you know how to write your Twitter content, let’s take a look at what you should be sharing. Send out a tweet whenever you release a new episode with a link to your podcast. You can also share audiograms, previews, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes. Promote upcoming guest interviews and encourage the guests to do the same on their Twitter accounts.
Your content does not always have to be directly linked to your podcast. Retweet the things you like that echo the values of your podcast. Share information on other interesting podcasts or helpful tips for fellow podcasters. This will further cement your unique Twitter personality.
5. Join Twitter’s Public Forums
Twitter Chats are scheduled, recurring, conversations surrounding a particular topic, and they are designated by their own unique hashtag. Subtopics are chosen on the day of the chat and chats could be from 30 minutes to 1 hour long. Think of it as a live event in a public group.
Twitter Chats allow you to rally members around a shared interest and topic of conversation. So you will be able to engage with those that find value in the topic you present. And the fact that everyone has to use your chosen hashtag to participate, your name and indeed profile picture will show up in every related search.
Similar to Twitter Chats but relatively new to the platform is Twitter Spaces. They operate much like Twitter Chats but are rooted in audio (like podcasting, yay!) rather than being text-based.
Twitter Chats and Spaces have both evolved into places that foster long-lasting connections. So once a common interest has been identified, you are likely to have those same people sharing your content and coming back for more.
Podcasting Benefits
As a podcaster, you can use the public forums to propose new topics. If you’re undecided on an idea, you can use Chats and Spaces to gauge public perception. You can also use them to promote new episodes. Add your guests to the Chat/Space and your followers could get a sneak peek of your new episode.
You could also invite fellow podcasters and have critical debates on topical issues, deepening your knowledge of your compatriots in the industry and indeed finding inspiration for new episodes. You may even find future guests on these public forums and hedge their followers against your own.
There is much for a podcaster to gain in Twitter’s public forums, so go and explore and find the spaces that help you grow.
6. Use Advanced Search
We’re at the midpoint of our list here’s a sneaky little Twitter offering that many forget to use. Advanced search gives you the opportunity to search for specific topics of conversation. Any tweets relating to those topics will appear in your search and you can see who is interested in the themes surrounding your podcast.
Once you have found users interested in your podcast’s themes, you can engage with them by following them and inviting them to your Twitter Chats. You can see who they follow and get a better understanding of your target audience’s Twitter habits. That will allow you to further refine your content for their needs.
7. Assess the Competition
There is no shame in learning from others who got it right. Find fellow podcasters on Twitter who are in a similar genre to yours and see what has worked for them.
Firstly, you will be able to get a better understanding of what motivates your target audience. If your competitors have captured their attention then you will ascertain why and how. That will give you leverage to do something similar and grow your own following as a result.
The other advantage to researching your competitors is knowing what they have done so that you can do it differently. You will be able to gather information to position your podcast’s Twitter profile in a way that is unique to whatever your competitors may be offering.
8. Run Twitter Polls
Creating a Twitter poll is a sure way of increasing activity on your Twitter page. It is a way to initiate engaging conversations with your followers.
Twitter polls can also be used to gain valuable insights into your podcast’s audience, as a form of market research. You can ask questions to find out what your audience would like to hear more about or what they are not interested in.
You can also get feedback on your podcast and its Twitter profile and find more ways to improve.
9. Don’t Sell
We’ve almost reached the end of our list but there’s still some valuable information that we need to give. Picture me standing at the top of a mountain with a megaphone in hand as I tell you: “DON’T USE TWITTER TO SELL!”
Twitter’s main purpose is to generate meaningful conversations around any given topic. The idea then is to engage and interact rather than to promote. Now, it’s okay for your intention to be to promote your podcast. But that should not be blatantly obvious in the content that you produce.
Take the time to truly connect with your audience by staying true to your niche (remember the type of content you should be sharing that we mentioned earlier?). Your incredible content should be enough to garner interest. From there, the way you engage with your followers will determine the overall growth of your audience.
10. Twitter Ads
As I put my megaphone down, it may sound like I’m about to contradict myself. Whilst Twitter is not a platform for sellers, it does offer advertising opportunities in the form of Twitter ads.
However, the sentiment remains the same. Your ads on Twitter should not be to sell your podcast, but rather to increase your visibility and spark interest in your podcast. Twitter ads are great in providing extra reach and exposing your podcast to a much wider audience.
The best way to advertise on Twitter is by promoting a tweet that gives more information on your podcast or that has links to your website or new episodes. Instead of creating a whole ad, promote a specific tweet to bolster engagement on that tweet. This helps you avoid coming across as a ‘sales person’ whilst still boosting the engagement of your post when you need it most.
11. Connect With Your Followers
The penultimate piece of advice that we can offer you for promoting your podcast is to connect with your Twitter followers. At the end of the day, your podcast is made for your listeners, so take the time to engage with them and pay attention to everything they say.
Reply to and retweet comments made on your tweets. Retweet your followers’ posts if they are interesting and align with your brand. Make sure that you tweet like a “real person”, using your Twitter voice to relay your podcast’s personality.
It helps to put the needs of your audience first by keeping your content relevant and useful for them. Your followers are more likely to engage with and share your content if they can find some value in it.
Lastly, tweet regularly and be active on Twitter, constantly engaging with your followers. This will give your followers something to look forward to as they open the app in anticipation of your most recent tweet.
12. Experiment, Adapt, Change
All good things must come to an end, and so it is with our list of the best ways to market your podcast on Twitter. When it comes to promoting your podcast on Twitter you must be willing to experiment, adapt, and change.
Experiment with the way you tweet and the type of content that you put out. Twitter is not a one-size-fits-all medium so you need to find what works best for you and your podcast. That means trying out new things to find what is most effective for you.
Don’t shy away from change. Twitter is ever-changing. Elon Musk’s imminent acquisition of the platform is proof of exactly that. Stay active on Twitter and engage with your audience and make the changes necessary to ensure your podcast’s marketing success.
Keep it Personal
Twitter is all about bringing your authentic self and finding those whom you relate with. Successful podcast promotion on Twitter requires that you know and celebrate your wonderfully unique identity and really connect with your audience in meaningful ways.
By staying true to your brand and consistently engaging with your audience, your podcast has the potential to reach millions of people who have been waiting for what only you can offer.
And, soon enough, you’ll be tweeting to a plethora of Twitter users who love your podcast for being exactly what it is.
Sources
- Statista: Most Popular Websites Worldwide as of November 2021, by Total Visits(In Billions): https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201880/most-visited-websites-worldwide/
- Buffer: 10 Surprising New Twitter Stats to Help You Reach More Followers: https://buffer.com/resources/10-new-twitter-stats-twitter-statistics-to-help-you-reach-your-followers/
- Twitter: Developer Platform: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/counting-characters#:~:text=In%20most%20cases%2C%20the%20text,as%20more%20than%20one%20character.
- AdExpresso: 23 Strategies to Increase Your Twitter Engagement: https://adespresso.com/blog/23-strategies-increase-twitter-engagement/
