Recording and publishing a podcast is the easy part, you sit down and talk about something you know and are passionate about. The hard part is establishing your brand and getting people to listen.
6 weeks after I launched the Southern Summers and Northern Winters podcast with my friend in Germany, I have tried to surround it with social signals and supporting website articles. I want to create an ecosystem where there are multiple avenues for people to find the podcasts and listen to them.
Southern Summers & Northern Winters website
I set about building the website myself using the GeneratePress theme and layouts. I have created a simple site that highlights the podcast episodes in both audio and a text version. I wanted to incorporate a text version as people may read part of an episode and then think, I might listen to it now.
I have put embedded versions of the podcast all through the transcript article to make it easy to click through to the audio version of the podcast.
It will be interesting to see if it attracts any traffic from Google searches. The transcripts of the episodes, which are often around 5000 words and offer personal opinions, are something that Google searches prioritize in search results these days.
I use a program called Transcript that analyzes the podcast and makes a full transcript from it for me to then publish on the website. It will also create social posts, quotes, quizzes and much more from a single episode. Try Transcript for yourself and get a 10% discount when using code TRY10
@ssnwpodcast YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/@ssnwpodcasts
The podcast is recorded in video format via Zoom. Then, Anders strips the audio to upload to Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and more. This means we also have a full episode in video format to use.
I have a program called Videotap that I use. With this program, I can upload the video footage from the recording and it will break it down into highlight sections that I use on YouTube. The sections are usually short, between 1-3 minutes.
I have a premium license for Videotap that allows me to convert 500 minutes a month of footage into highlights. If Videotap sounds like something that would be useful for your social media creation, you can find Videotap here.
I use CapCut to break down the video for highlights and use it in a 16:9 ratio for YouTube Shorts. CapCut allows you to convert 1 hour of footage a month for free. In my opinion, CapCut does a great job of this.
Video plays a big part in social media and promotion these days, so a presence on YouTube is imperative. A YouTube channel also gives us the option going forward of putting full episodes online.
https://www.instagram.com/ssnwpodcasts
I started with a specific plan for Instagram. The plan was to publish 2-3 times a week in the same format and theme.
We picked a colour palette that included 4 different colours. We would rotate through as background colours, which we have used on the website.
We would use images of ourselves and stock images of podcasting-related topics. Then, we would turn the opacity down to 20% so you could still see the image but the colour scheme was more prominent.
Then I chose some text that the Transcript program had generated, text that I thought would resonate with viewers. I take that text and paste it over the middle section of the image.
I write a description that supports the text on the image and add some relevant hashtags.
Read More from Mark & Bec
https://www.facebook.com/ssnwpodcasts
I use Facebook to do both, where YouTube has me just doing videos and Instagram has me just doing pictures (yes, I know you can do videos as well).
It’s easy to use some of the shorts I have created for YouTube on Facebook and even talk about what Anders and I are doing in our lives on Facebook.
I am trying to create engaging content for Facebook that allows readers to also share their experiences. This will be through a mix of podcast highlights, interactive posts and travel stories.
All this is just trial and error; it may work and drive people to listen to or watch on YouTube. The two most obvious ways to monetize the podcast are these two options. We may attract sponsors to mention in the podcast or if the YouTube channel takes off we may be able to join the YouTube Partner Program.
I have put in a lot of work to try and give the podcast the best chance of being noticed. As they say, Go Big or Go Home.