Everyone’s trying to crack the social media nut for podcasting, no matter the platform. And while there is no magic bullet, there are some foundational aspects and practices you can put in place to make social media work for you.
This is why we’re bringing you some Share Your Genius best practices and tips for how to grow your podcast community, specifically using Instagram. We’ll cover what to use, how to use it, and help you figure out if Instagram is the right social promotion platform for your podcast.
First of all — what kind of account should you have?
There are three types of pages you can choose from.
- Business
- Personal
- Podcast
Business pages are those you see out there for brands. They’re pages for companies and organizations to showcase whatever they want about their brand. This includes, but is not limited to: employees, company announcements, product updates, event advertisements, and relevant content for their audience. Having podcast content on the business account can be a good option if your organization has a large following, the downside is that your podcast content could get lost in the shuffle of other posts.
Personal pages are the most common type of Instagram account. These are typically showcasing the content of one, individual person. The type of content ranges depending on personality and interests, but a great way to leverage a personal page for your podcast is if the host has a large following.
Podcast pages are not exactly an Instagram term, but this might be a personal or business account dedicated to only podcast content. While business and personal pages might already have followers, creating a podcast page means you’ll likely have to build an audience from scratch. The pro here is that you build an audience solely around your podcast (not just the host or the brand). The beauty about a podcast is that it can be your entire content strategy, and ultimately, the most brand-building piece of your marketing–but that’s an article for another day.
Okay, now that you’ve chosen what kind of page your podcast content will live on, now it’s time to decide what kind of content you share. Before we dive in, let’s be clear about one thing: there is no right or wrong content to share on your feed. Whatever you choose should be relevant to your brand voice, and it can be done in many different ways. For Instagram, that’s utilizing Reels, Posts, Stories, and Highlights.
Here are our recommendations on how to use each of these features, for whichever tools you decide are best for your content strategy.
Recommendations for Reels
You can capitalize on Reels if you want to use video, which first begs the question: why would you want to use video?
First off, it’s the most engaging type of content on the platform. Video posts get 48% more views than any other kind of content. More video means more opportunities for personalization and brand-building. And above all else, video is the way of the future.
If you think Reels are right for you, here are some recommendations for the kind of content you should create.
Your Reels should be:
- ~10–60 seconds long. Your audience will dictate what the right length is for you. We recommend starting with reels that are 10s, 30s, and 60s in length.
- Lasting, evergreen content — not something that will be irrelevant the next day.
- Intriguing to make people listen to the entire piece of content (i.e. the full podcast episode)
Reels can also be boosted (new as of July 2022). This means you can put ad dollars behind your videos for more eyes and engagement to help with your specific marketing goals.
And just a friendly reminder: all Reels should be vertical! This means 1080×1920 in size. Here’s a wonderful resource to help you size your social posts just right.
Recommendations for Posts
Where Reels are suggested for more evergreen content, posts are the opportunity for you to mix it up.
Have timely news or content you’d like to share? Posts are great to utilize since these typically stay in feeds for 24–48 hours.
This is also the opportunity for you to capitalize on brand vibes and/or personality easily displayed graphically or with photos. These can be refined and polished or more casual. It just depends on what personality you’re trying to go for.
If you go the graphics route, they could be:
- Title card displaying all the information about the episode
- Intriguing quote from the episode
- Audiogram, or a sound byte to entice your followers to listen
- Videogram, a short video to grab your followers’ attention
Graphic size should be portrait-sized, 1080×1350, or square, 1080×1080. And keep in mind that Instagram allows for multiple graphics to be posted at the same time. This is what we call “carousel content.”
Struggling with image ideas outside of quote graphics or episode title cards? Here are some things we think about when we help curate content.
Not everything you share has to be a clip, a quote, or a title card. We encourage you to share anything that adds context, education, and relevancy to the podcast and brand narrative. For example:
- An insightful statistic from the episode
- Key takeaways or usable information from the episode
- Pictures of a story that was mentioned
- Behind-the-scenes shots for context
But what about hashtags?
Well, it depends on what your goal is. Here are a few things we’ve found useful when deciding whether to use hashtags or not.
The hashtags you use will depend on your audience, topic, and industry. Here’s a tip on how to work smarter before you work harder. Check out the hashtags your desired audience uses. Look at the podcasts and brands you admire or aspire to be like.
People can not only follow Instagram accounts, but they can follow specific hashtags. The more you use those same hashtags, the more likely you are to be found if someone isn’t following your account.
Instagram “rewards” accounts with more visibility if you have 25 hashtags on your post, but we really recommend less — anywhere from 3 to 12 is perfectly acceptable.
Recommendations for Stories
Stories are a key feature on Instagram. They stay on the platform for 24 hours and allow for quick engagement with your followers. But why use them if they go away so quickly? Well, 86.6% of Instagram’s 5 BILLION users engage with stories. Here are some ways you can utilize them within your podcast content strategy:
Stories allow for timely alerts for new content. You can share the day before and day of new podcast episode releases to make sure your followers know an episode has dropped or share a teaser of an upcoming exciting episode. Instagram has a countdown feature as well that will remind users when the countdown is over. This could be used for each episode drop or for a series drop.
Who doesn’t want to see behind-the-scenes? We know authenticity is rewarded on this platform, both by the algorithm and by the users — so be authentic! Give your followers a peek behind the curtain at how you make the magic.
Use the stuff you’re already sharing. Just like your feed, you can share the videograms, audiograms, and graphics on stories. Your most engaged followers will see these and can help get them excited for your content.
And last but not least, you can gauge your community. The easiest way to engage is to use polls, question boxes, and multiple choice questions to gauge your audience on topics, opinions, and other topics about your podcast. You can also engage in conversations in Direct Messages that originate in your stories. This is a valuable tool to gather feedback on what your audience finds value in and what they don’t. You can then update your content accordingly.
Pro tip: You can even use these tools to source stories for your podcast. If community-building is a goal, this is a great way to make your audience feel more connected and integrated into what you are doing.
Recommendations for Highlights
It might be obvious, but highlights are the stories you highlight on your profile so people can see them forever (not just for 24 hours). This is a great place to put information for those who are checking your profile for the first time.
We’d recommend including at least one of these on your profile:
About the podcast
- Give them the basics — short, sweet, and to the point, with a CTA of where to listen (hint: include a link like bitly!). This includes things like:
- Where to find it
- What it’s about
- Who is the host
- Guest examples and highlight clips
About the host
- This is a great way to spotlight how awesome your host is. Don’t just share their resume. Share little audio or video clips from episodes to make your following want to listen to them. And if they want to do an “about me” video, include that, too!
Podcast Content
- If you post about your podcast frequently, have a catch-all highlight for the best content. You don’t need to save every post, but definitely save the content that best represents your brand.
How to engage meaningfully on IG to grow your community? (and give these practices a shot at working on the platform)
The only way you will see any success on Instagram (or any social platform, really) is to engage with your audience and other accounts. Social media was built to be social, and engagement is the #1 way to be successful on Instagram. Instagram rewards people for quality content, meaningful engagement, as well as the amount of time spent on the app. What does that mean?
Responding to comments and messages in a timely manner. If you want to give your content the best shot at reaching far and wide, respond to your followers’ comments within 90 minutes. BUT if you cannot respond that quickly, still respond, even if it’s 24 hours or two weeks later.
Engage with your following and other pages that have similar audiences. Interacting with other content, not just your own, is how you start to truly build community. The algorithm also notices that you aren’t just there to promote your own content.
Have your hosts engage as well (if the podcast isn’t being leveraged from their own platforms). Being able to engage directly with the hosts is very meaningful to your listeners!
And most importantly, people are on Instagram for three reasons: entertainment, connection, and education. If your content isn’t contributing to these buckets, your community won’t grow. You know your current and target audience — create things they want to engage with. When you start treating social media like the connection platform it is meant to be, you’ll find more success than treating it like an advertising platform.
How do you know if these recommendations are working?
Test, test, test! Keep track of your insights consistently. Take note of your best-performing content, and take a deep dive into what is working and what isn’t on a monthly basis.
That means checking on insights like accounts reached, accounts engaged, replies, and comments. Your posting cadence will influence your ability to reflect on data, but checking your insights once a week and doing an in-depth analysis once a month is a great place to start. This way you can evaluate things that could be tweaked to garner more engagement (and in turn, downloads).
Here are some examples of how you can test specific strategies:
- Video — test length (10s, 30s, 60s) and see what your audience responds to best
- Posts — track what kind of content gets the most likes, comments, and shares
- Stories — which type of story gets the most responses?
- Highlights — are views increasing over time?
- Is there a content push that correlates with an increase in podcast listens?
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Anything we missed? Anything you have a different opinion on? We’d love to chat — find us on LinkedIn here.
