Making your podcast accessible to the widest audience possible might be challenging: for that to happen, you need to understand how listeners discover podcasts.

This knowledge will help you boost your visibility and create a winning strategy to be easily found on sharing platforms.

According to a study conducted in 2024:

• 25% of podcast listeners discovered the show through word of mouth. This percentage rises to 32% when it comes to Gen Z listeners.

• 27% discover podcasts via social media.

• 21% through the podcast hosts themselves (mentions, interviews, sponsorships) or through sharing platforms.

• The remaining 27% find podcasts through search engines (websites, mentions on other sites), direct promotion (newsletters), or other channels.

Most of these listeners turn to major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, while a smaller portion also uses YouTube. Only 7% of users exclusively chose to listen to podcasts on YouTube.

From now on, it should be clear that to get noticed by your target audience, you need to implement a winning strategy that helps the users find your podcast.

This means taking advantage of all the tools at your disposal to achieve the maximum visibility.

How to Get Your Podcast Discovered

We can all agree that the survival of a podcast doesn't strictly depend on the number of listens.

It depends on factors like audience engagement, consistency, content quality, and many more.

However, the main goal is to be discovered and engage listeners while attracting a satisfying number of listeners.

If you've read my other articles, you probably know by now that the ideal number of downloads to start monetizing your podcast is around 500 per episode.

Therefore, it's crucial to create a promotion strategy focused on getting noticed among the many podcast options available, aiming at that number as a starting point.

For a podcast to reach the right audience and be naturally boosted by platforms, it usually takes some time.

That is why starting soon is vital to building momentum and establishing a presence that will help you stand out from the competition.

Here's how to do it:

Boost Your Presence on Social Media

Social media is the primary tool today to help people discover your podcast or any other type of content.

Just like search engines, social media can’t scan or index video and audio files. However, they can read file names.

Therefore, name your files according to your podcast title or add some relevant keywords for better visibility.

If your podcast is audio only and want to keep it that way, but you are wondering how are I going to stand out in all of these videos, don't sweat it, it is really not that difficult.

Even audio podcasts could develop visual content that you might put in video format: images, icons, text, or graphics explaining things. Think infographics.

Let’s look at a practical example:

Imagine pulling the key points from your episode titled "How to Improve Personal Productivity".

You'd love to share those and post them on your favorite social media platform, but you don’t have any video available. How do you go about it?

You create a specific infographic for those segments, using images to craft a visual story.

Infographic Structure (example)

• Top Title: "5 Ways to Boost Daily Productivity"

• Image: A person working efficiently at a desk.

• Section 1: Create a daily to-do list each morning

• Icon: Checklist with a pen

• Short Text: "Organize your daily tasks and prioritize what's most important."

• Section 2: Take regular breaks

• Icon: Coffee cup or a person stretching

• Short Text: "Breaks improve focus. Take a break every 90 minutes."

• Section 3: Limit digital distractions

• Icon: Smartphone with a mute symbol

• Short Text: "Set specific times to check emails and social media."

• Section 4: Use the Pomodoro technique

• Icon: Timer

• Short Text: "Work in 25-minute blocks, followed by a 5-minute break."

• Section 5: Get enough sleep

• Icon: Person sleeping

• Short Text: "Productivity starts with a good night's sleep of at least 7-8 hours."

  

At the bottom: Invitation to listen to the podcast episode.

"Want to learn more about improving your productivity? Check out our latest episode!"Include icons for podcast players (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.) with a link or QR code to listen.

This way, you can create visual content for your audio podcast without needing to appear on video.

If you’re comfortable showing yourself to the public, you can also create behind-the-scenes videos to post as shorts or reels.

Your audience will definitely want to see how you create a podcast and what challenges come with being behind the mic.

Remember, a podcast wouldn’t exist without its host. Your personality and ability to engage the audience are just as important as the content itself.

The audience wants to know you too. They want to see you vulnerable and human side. They want to know who you are in your private life as well as your public one.

Humor and personal experiences can resonate with social media audiences more than re-sharing content from the podcast itself, so get creative!

You can also post images and quotes, or create polls. You could even ask users to submit their questions and create short videos where you answer them.

It’s essential to understand which type of content works best on each social media platform.

For example, Facebook videos are generally longer than those on Instagram. Additionally, you need to identify the type of audience you want to target.

For example, Facebook caters to a wide user base but is especially popular with Boomers and Gen X.

On the other hand, Millennials and Gen Z tend to prefer Instagram, while TikTok is favored by younger Gen Z and Alpha users.

Optimize for Search Engines

Transcribing your podcast content can greatly help in making it discoverable to the public.

Podcast transcripts are useful not just for those with hearing impairments or language barriers, but when properly structured, they can also boost your podcast's visibility when you add relevant keywords in the text.

That is why it’s essential to apply a winning SEO strategy to your transcriptions.

To do this, it's important to define in advance the keywords that will work to your advantage and naturally integrate them into the storytelling. 

When the audio file is transcribed, those keywords will be included in the text.

If needed, you can review the transcript and enhance the presence of relevant keywords.

Don't forget to include the main ones in the title to give your content a stronger boost.

If you don’t have a website yet or have neglected it, is the time to start working on creating a web-friendly site.

Search engines favor clean websites with color combinations that make reading easy for everyone.

Content should load quickly on both desktop computers and mobile devices to improve the visitor experience.

And just like your podcast content, your website content should add value for your visitors.

When it comes to producing video clips, there are now many software options available to help you create content for social media.

If you have an audio podcast and are looking for software with integrated AI features, you can try PodcastAi.

It's highly innovative and comprehensive, handling almost the entire post-production phase of your podcast.

It can extract viral moments, transcribe your content, translate it into multiple languages, and much more.

But most importantly, it allows you to focus on the content without spending days and night on editing.

Give it a try! It offers great advantages and comes at an affordable price, even for beginner podcasters who want to make a big impact!

Last thing: don’t forget to use the right hashtags:no need for dozens, but just using the most relevant ones for your content would work.

Create a Newsletter

Building a newsletter is laborious, especially when you are building it from scratch; you have to gather a good amount of email addresses to build any mailing list.

Never let an opportunity slip to collect the email addresses of your users, as email is still one of the best and most effective ways of running targeted promotional campaigns.Use it to ask your audience to share your podcast, helping friends discover valuable content in areas of interest to them.

Collaborate with Colleagues

Becoming popular among peers and influencers by exchanging favors can significantly boost your podcast's promotion.

Participate in events and organize interviews, either as the host or guest, exchange mentions, and encourage the promotion of other creators' content.

This kind of cross-promotion can be very effective in helping your podcast get noticed.

Leverage All the Major Platforms

Some of the platforms have already been mentioned, but there are many more. Make sure you choose the right ones for you.

Read the terms of service and take full advantage of their potential, including monetization strategies and tracking analytical data.

Use Paid Ads

If you're in a hurry to get your podcast known and have a budget for promotion, you can run paid ads.

While they come at a cost, paid ads are designed to target a specific audience that's really interested in your niche.

They provide consistent, fast results that are delivered quickly and easy to measure.

By leveraging platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or even specific podcast advertising platforms, you can tailor your campaign to gain higher engagement and more meaningful connections with your audience.

Build a Community

Word of mouth doesn’t just happen spontaneously. It’s the direct result of a successful promotion strategy.

When this strategy works, your audience starts talking about your podcast, promoting it on their own.

Word of mouth also happens when you create a solid and interested community.

That’s why keeping your audience engaged is crucial: involve your listeners with Q&A episodes, reply to comments, make polls.

The more your audience feels attached to you, the better chance they will share your podcast with others.

Conclusion

Now you know how to help people discover your podcast. As you can see, it’s not difficult, but a winning strategy for promoting your content requires time, effort, and creativity.

By developing the points we’ve outlined, you’ll be able to attract an active and engaged audience, and your podcast will gain a prime spot on distribution platforms.