Email List & Social Media Strategies to Build a Podcast Community

As we’ll often tell you, you don’t need to use social media at all for your podcast.

But many do. And if you want Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or any other platform to be part of your podcasting strategy, then it makes sense to be as smart about it as possible. On this episode, we’ll find out more about our Indiepod Legends’ experience with social media, what they’ve learned over the years, and any tips or advice they have for us.

We’re also going to learn about running an email list. A few of our podcasters are having brilliant results with email, and this is a great opportunity to get some tactics and takeaways for our own email strategies.

Finally, many podcasters run interview shows, and this is another big overlap between content creation and podcast growth. On this episode, you’ll learn about running an impactful interview podcast, as well as how you can still present yourself as a thought leader on your topic, even though your focus is usually on an expert guest.

Transcript: Email List & Social Media Strategies to Build a Podcast Community

Meet Our Indiepod Legends

“Funny enough, my email list is my largest community. So I have more people on my email list than any of my social channels combined. And so my email list is a huge part of my marketing. It serves as a reminder for when new episodes come out. I have a weekly newsletter that I send out every Tuesday. I usually share some things that I’m thinking about, some strategies, some tips, and then I always have a little call out for the podcast in those emails, so it really serves as a great reminder to folks.”

Andrea – The Savvy Social Podcast

“I always ask guests for pictures of what they’re selling so I can include those in the email as well because I think that’s actually just also quite nice. I’ve always linked to the website, but if I can actually put a visual in, I think that might encourage more people to click through if they can get a sense of what products look like. Because I guess my goal with those emails isn’t just for people to listen to the episode. Obviously I want them to listen to the episode, but I also really want them to go and take a look at who I’ve spoken to and find out more about the business.”

Vicki – Bring Your Product Idea to Life

“So let’s say I have a guest who has a huge following on Instagram. I can do a post on Instagram talking about my upcoming episode with this guest, and if the guest is agreeable, I can select them as a collaborator. So what that means is – in addition to the post going out to my followers, which is not huge – it’ll go out to their followers. So it looks like the two of you put out the post together.”

Paul – The Joy of Cruising

“If they are promoting a book, which they usually are, they’re gonna want to talk about the book. But since I’m trying to encourage new writers with my show, I like to talk about their process and what problems they come up against while writing, to let the listeners know that there are people having the same problems they are, but they manage to get published.”

Mur – I Should Be Writing

“But now, whenever we do an interview with an artist or a guest, or maybe we’re an event, we will make sure that we are also filming that as well. It might be as simple as just using the video from Zoom, which sometimes isn’t great, but sometimes can be pretty decent. That means that we can put that content on a different platform, and again, it helps us reach a new audience as well.”

Rob – The Euro Trip

“Instagram is by far my most favorite platform to use to promote the podcast. And because it has that combination of visual and audio with reels and stories, I think for us at the moment, that’s the most impactful one as well. A lot of our listeners find us through Instagram, which I know through comments and emails, so it definitely does its job.”

Kathi – Wild for Scotland

“The newsletter is my bread and butter. It’s this slow burn, and it allows me to pivot from the podcast and do what I also love doing, which is writing. So my blogs end up allowing me to kind of flex that writing muscle and skill that I have, and that keeps the stickiness, because not everyone’s gonna listen to that episode. They might just read the blog post about it. So I try to meet everyone where they are.”

Daren – The One Percent Better Runner

“I think just speaking in your own voice is really important. And also I think it’s important you’re not always asking your email list to do stuff or buy stuff. Also, I prefer to keep mine free. Again, that’s more content I would have to create. I feel that I know some of them personally as well. I don’t mind giving all my information for free because I love that they’re on my email list.”

Susan – Lush Life

“I was already active. I was already commenting and trying to help people, asking questions and trying to get them to help me on different games and projects and things I was working on. So I was already a known person, not very well known, but known enough where people are like, oh, this is not just some, some completely random dude.”

Gabe – Board Game Design Lab