When it comes to growing your podcast, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to identify yourself as a Podcaster.
This identity might be something you promote publicly or something you cherish personally. In either case, holding onto this conception of yourself and what you bring to the table often has the unintended side effect of severely limiting your ability to reach new people, grow your audience, and achieve the impact you’re seeking to make.
The Problem with “Podcasters”
Self-identified Podcasters pour their resources into developing their shows, and sometimes end up creating something truly wonderful. But in the process, they often neglect developing their other skills and platforms which could actually help grow the podcast.
Podcasters are often overly concerned with the medium and the industry around it, when in the end, podcasting is simply one tool among many for communicating, building relationships, and fostering community.
It happens to be a fantastic tool–especially when it comes to building trust with your audience–but it’s far from the only one, and it’s not without its limitations.
Podcasters measure their success in podcast download numbers, and as such, do everything in their power to drive people to their podcasts, teasing their show’s content with their promotion while hoarding and burying the real meat in the middle of their shows.
Ask most Podcasters how well this strategy works in pulling people back to their shows, and they’ll tell you… Well, it doesn’t.
So what’s the antidote to the Podcaster-First method of identifying yourself?
Podcasting Is A Tool For Spreading Ideas
Instead of thinking of yourself as a Podcaster, think of yourself as someone with ideas worth sharing, that happens to use podcasting as one way to do that.
Podcasting has clear limitations, and will surely one day become irrelevant. But your ideas won’t.
If you want to build an audience and make an impact through your work, it’s essential for your ideas and your content to transcend any one medium.
Rather than aiming to have people follow you because you have a podcast worth listening to, aim to position yourself as someone to follow because you have ideas worth hearing, regardless of which medium is used to convey–and consume–them.
Don’t Hoard Your Ideas
When you’re able to move past the idea that your podcast is the all-important pillar of your content ecosystem and that everything should be done to drive people back to it, you’re able to loosen up with the content you share elsewhere.
Rather than simply teasing your latest podcast’s gold nugget on social, you can give away the lesson in its entirety, knowing that the idea is more valuable than the medium.
When your ideas are out in public, free to be stumbled upon and consumed in bite-sized pieces, you open those ideas up to a larger audience. Sure they may not all become podcast listeners, in fact, probably only a fraction of them ever will. But more people will engage with the ideas, be changed by them, and become part of your tribe than if the only way to access them was through your show.
There are dozens of people I follow on Twitter who inspire me on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Many of them have podcasts that I’ve never listened to and have no interest in ever doing so. But I truly value their small bits of insight and wisdom and know for a fact that at some point I’m going to open my wallet and buy their course, or their book, or join their paid community.
These are people whose ideas I resonate with regardless of the medium, and I’m beyond grateful that they give them away so freely.
The same concept can prove true for you. If you believe you have something of value in your podcast, it’s likely valuable beyond your podcast as well.
There are people in your network, your community, your social feeds, and beyond who would benefit from hearing what you have to say. Many of them will never listen to any podcast, let alone yours. But that doesn’t mean that your ideas don’t have the potential to impact them and even turn them into a raving fan who spreads the word about you and your show to others.
Think bigger than podcasting. Think about sharing your ideas in any way you can.
The broader you share, the quicker they spread.
And when they spread, your entire content ecosystem thrives. Including your podcast.
Hit me up on Twitter @iamjeremyenns and let me know how you think about sharing and spreading your ideas across multiple platforms. I’d love to connect.
If you’d like to go deep on how to spread your ideas and grow your show by building out your podcast’s marketing foundation from the ground up, consider signing up for an upcoming cohort of Podcast Marketing Academy.
Jeremy travels full-time, loves long-distance cycle touring, and will always look back on the day he finally saved up enough money to buy the Millennium Falcon Lego set as one of his proudest achievements. He believes that the way to grow sustainable businesses is by leading with heart, vulnerability, and helping your people be and become their best selves.
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