Using a Website to Grow Your Podcast (Coaching Call)
Intro: Real quick before we get started. I wanna tell you about an upcoming free webinar I have on November 2nd, 2022 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. If you've been thinking about launching a podcast, but you're worried it's gonna take too much time, or your current podcast is taking too much time, then I have a better way for you. It's called Mini Podcasting. These are 20-minute or fewer solo shows, and I'm going to be doing a free hour-long webinar on how to launch, stay consistent, and monetize your mini-podcast.
So here's what you'll learn in this free 60-minute webinar:
1. Why a mini-podcast is easier than most other formats.
2. How to define the mission of your mini-podcast.
3. How to come up with episode ideas,
4. Staying consistent through batching and monetizing
Plus, there will be a Q&A session where you can ask me any questions you'd like of me. I will stay on as long as you need to. You can register for free at [makemoneypod.com/webinar]. It'll also be in the show notes for this episode. That's [makemoneypod.com/webinar]. Join me on November 2nd at 1:00 PM Eastern Time for this free webinar on how to make a mini-podcast.
Hey everybody, This week's episode is a little bit different. It's a coaching call I did with a client named Scott. Scott Cowan. He runs a podcast called Explore Washington State. It's part of a greater website about Washington. The podcast publishes three to four times per week. And he wants to grow his audience and potentially increase his output to five times a week. So I'm trying this new format where I make a coaching call live, with permission, of course.
So listen in as I give Scott advice about SEO website improvements and how to point his enormous Instagram following to the show. The top takeaways as you'll listen and hear are that you should have a good website with an easy-to-speak URL. You should optimize the title and descriptions. And you should, instead of growing your podcast directly, which we've talked about on this podcast how to kind of do growing your newsletter and social media followings, and sharing the show with those audiences. I think that advice works especially well for Scott because of how big his Instagram following is. That might not work for everybody.
And one more thing before we get into the interview is I'm doing a lot more podcast or podcaster coaching. Now, I have a 12-week program designed to help podcasters get their first $10,000. So if you are interested in that, check your app or the show notes over at [makemoneypod.com/215]. There will be an application to see if we might potentially be able to work together. So if you like what you hear and you think that I could help you out, head on over to [makemoneypod.com/215]. But for now, let's get to the intro and then the interview.
Hello, and welcome to Make Money Podcasting where I teach you how to make your first $10,000 with your podcast. On this show, you'll learn tried and true methods to increase your revenue and turn your podcast from a money pit into a moneymaker.
Joe Casabona: Hi, I'm your host, Joe Casabona. And my podcasts have been making money from day one without a lot of downloads. I'll share everything I know with you here on Make Money Podcasting.
Scott, why don't you tell us a little bit about your podcast, the target audience, and how long you've been doing it? And then we can get into some of the things that you're struggling with.
Scott Cowan: Great. Thanks, Joe. So the Exploring Washington Podcast, Washington State Podcast, I can't even say my own show (what the heck). Anyway, we started the show back in May of 2020. Initially, we started doing one episode a week. And then in early 2021, we started with two, and now we're up to three to four a week. We just released our 185th episode.
Joe Casabona: Wow!
Scott Cowan: So currently the way it's set up is that we have, Mondays we talk to people in the music business. Wednesdays are a kind of catch-all for businesses, authors, hikers, and things like that. And then on Fridays, food, and drink.
So our audience is people who are interested in hearing about interesting people doing things in Washington state, finding out places to go, things to see new music to listen to. So if you're interested in learning more about what's happening around the state, that's our target audience.
Joe Casabona: Nice. I like that. Especially because… I mean Washington State is kind of prolific for putting out popular bands, at least when I came of age. Right. A lot of bands that I listened to came from the Seattle area.
Scott Cowan: There's been a handful of them.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. That's awesome. And it's kind…it's cool that you have them themed Right? to like Music Mondays, then business on Tuesdays and Fridays, Food and drink. People are looking to find something fun to do on a Friday evening. So I like that a lot.
Now you're up to three to four per week. That is a lot of content, and kudos to you for doing that. I usually recommend… ell, I do two episodes per week and I might go to three episodes per week. People who are members of, I guess as we record this, maybe by the time this comes out, I will be at three episodes per week, but members of the Creator Crew know what I'm thinking about there.
So, let's…So, okay. So this keeps you very busy. What made you start the show? I guess. Let's talk about that for a hot minute.
Sure. So the show is a spinoff of our website, Explore Washington State, which is a website full of content mirroring what the podcast does, just in written format. And I thought it would be more interesting for me than writing articles to sit down and have conversations with people. That for me is a better use of my abilities.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: And so it was to supplement the written content on the website and covid. Cause we weren't getting out to go see things.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: So we could sit remotely like you and I are doing and have a conversation.
Joe Casabona: Nice. That's really cool. And is this a full-time gig for you? Is this a side hustle? Is it a hobby?
Scott Cowan: It is my full-time non-paying job.
Joe Casabona: Nice.
Scott Cowan: I have another business that I run that keeps the lights on for everything. We've been doing explorer since…in some capacity, since 2010. So this is more than a decade now. It's morphed over that time. My interest, my focus is really the podcast. My daughter handles the website in our social channels and all that. And then I am the person who does the guest outreach, recording the shows. We have somebody that does light editing, and then I'm also the one that's supposed to be promoting the show. And well, honestly, I don't do a very good job of that.
Joe Casabona: Gotcha. Yeah. I mean that's of the tougher things, right, is when you have a podcast, so much effort goes into getting an episode out like you kind of wanna move on to the next one once it's published. But as we were talking about in the pre-show, it sounds like your biggest struggle is audience growth. Is that right?
Scott Cowan: Yes. I mean, I think it isn't there’s probably not a podcaster who doesn't want more listeners. Right?
Joe Casabona: Right, right. Yeah.
Scott Cowan: You know, that stat seems to be the holy grail, at least. But I don't want it to be the north star of what we're doing. But I do want it to expose our content to more people because I think given the variety of con in. So, Hmm. Let me ask you this question before I go further.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Since we have these siloed categories, so you might really be interested in what we're talking about on Mondays. Like, you want to hear me talk to, you know, Mark Pickerel of the screaming trees. You're like, “That's cool. I wanna listen to that.” But you could care less that we're talking to an author on Wednesday. And then Friday's food and drink and you're like, “Yeah, me. Okay, whatever.” So are we hurting ourselves by having such a wide variety of topics?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So that's really interesting. That's a really interesting question. I don't if this kind of goes back to why did you start the podcast, right? So if I'm talking to people who wanna start a podcast, I always think, Why? What problem are you solving, Right?
Scott Cowan: Mm-hmm.
Joe Casabona: And then that is the guiding light for your content and how you're gonna monetize and how you're gonna grow. And If why you started the podcast is to get people interested in Washington state and learn about things that are going on there, ‘No’. I don't think you're shooting yourself in the foot because the thing is right, like, I mean like the stuff you should know is a huge podcast, but they put out four episodes a week, or five episodes a week. They do their two main episodes. They do two short episodes. And then on Saturdays, they resurface old episodes and stuff you should select. So if people are subscribed, they can choose whether or not they want to listen to a particular episode. So I think more content is probably a variety, like a good variety. Where do you host the podcast?
Scott Cowan: Its host is BuzzSprout.
Joe Casabona: Okay, cool. So, one thing that I've kind of experimented with doing is on Castos. You can create these series, like you can create like a podcast network, sort of. And you can have these discrete feeds for each category that then I'll filter into a main feed like the incomparable does this too.
So like you could have, Explore Washington State Music Mondays as a separate feed, and then food and drink Fridays as a separate feed. But then they both go to your main feed. That's an infrastructural change. I don't think that'll help you get more listeners. It's just kind of more things to manage. But if you are worried about…
Scott Cowan: May I ask you about that though?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: So if somebody listens to Music Monday, and somebody listens to, and two people listen to Food Friday. Does that mean that the show would show three listeners?
Joe Casabona: So the way Castos does it, yes. You could see an aggregated listener download, like listener or download numbers.
Scott Cowan: Okay.
Joe Casabona: And then you could break it down by feed and by episode.
Scott Cowan: That's intriguing actually.
Joe Casabona: Right. So… Yeah, it's interesting. It feels…I podcast networks in general probably don't work for most people, but in this case, you know, if you wanted, if you are putting this time and effort into a bunch of these kinds of discrete categories that serve as in like this overall show, then I think like a “network could work.”
But as far as audience growth, I think there are probably a few things that might help a little bit more. So first of all, you use BuzzSprout. Are you publishing the episodes on the website?
Scott Cowan: This is where I have to admit that we are falling down 80% of the time. We are super, the intention is yes. And the intention is that each episode gets its own post, you know, [explorewashingtonstate/episode131].
Joe Casabona: Mm-hmm.
Scott Cowan: And content there. I accomplish that if I'm lucky 20% of the time.
Joe Casabona: Okay. So I think that could be a main driver of growth for you. And I know it's a lot of work and I know this because I don't do it myself. I have a VA who does it. So basically, once I record these episodes, I write the description and the title. I might have to give my editor some notes, but after that, I don't touch these episodes again. They go to my editor, my editor uploads it back to Dropbox. My VA takes it from there and she uploads it to the website. Now the way I have it set up right is, I have to publish on my website in order for the new feed in order for a new episode to go public, right?
So I'm using WordPress and I'm using Castos. And I'm using Castos WordPress plugin. And so when I publish a new episode in WordPress, that is how my feed is updated. But I think having this canonical link for people to go to makes it shareable, right? Cause otherwise, people are just trying to share in whatever app they use. And if they're sharing it through Apple Podcasts, right now you're alienating like slightly less than half of the United States. But like 70% of the world who don't use Apple devices or even worse, like if I share using Overcast, like that's probably 10% of podcast listeners at best.
Whereas if you say, “Yeah. Go to explore [washingtonstate.com/164] and then you could share the episode, and get the show notes. Now, people are maybe looking at other episodes that they wanna check out, or you have the subscribe buttons right on the episode page. So I think that's always the number one thing I recommend people do. And if you don't do that at the very least, you can have a.. So you have slash podcasts, right?
Scott Cowan: Yes.
Joe Casabona: But maybe…I'm not sure if Buzzsprout. I'm gonna assume they do cuz they're like a pretty modern, they're pretty modern and in fact, I recently interviewed, A.L. Brooks, who is the head of marketing, over there, so you can check that episode out as well. We talk about starting a podcast. But so Buzzsprout is like pretty on top of things. Do they have a playlist widget, like a playlist thing that you can embed on your website?
Scott Cowan: No, they do not.
Joe Casabona: No, they do not. Interesting.
Scott Cowan: At least let me re-answer that. Yeah. I am not aware that they do, and I believe I would've found it if it was an option.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. If you were looking for it. I imagine that'd,
Scott Cowan: I'd like to ask you a question though.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Cowan: So you said, you know, explore Washington State slash 164, right? Or whatever. I have heard in the past though that for SEO purposes, wouldn't it be, so what's the, am I trading off here? So I do like the way on your show, you're like, you know, ‘/001’, you know, 1, 2, 5, or whatever. It's super easy to remember. We've named ours Episode Dash 1, 2, 5.
Joe Casabona: Mm-hmm.
Scott Cowan: Doesn't that mean I can't go in and rename 'em all?
Joe Casabona: Right.
Scott Cowan: So, but to me, am I losing something in SEO?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So this is important, right? People will be able to go to [howibuil.it/208] for the show notes, but that is going to redirect people to something that says like [howibuilt.it/live-coaching/grow-podcast. So I have a redirect in place for the number that will then take you to something that is more SEO-friendly for the URL.
But That's a great question because you're right. The URL does need to have like your… the keywords that you're trying to jam on and rank for. And a number won't do that. But the number serves. So, the number is driven by a redirect. So let me ask you this, what are you using for the website?
Scott Cowan: WordPress.
Joe Casabona: Okay, cool. So there are a few plugins that you can use for Redirect. My favorite is Redirection. It's free. It's very simple. And you can…Gosh! so that's the one that I use most of the time.
There's another one that I think is called Quick Redirects where you can actually create the redirect on the page. But Redirection is a good one, right? Because it has its own page In the WordPress admin, you grab the full link, right? The permalink for the post or the episode or even write if we're doing this, you can get like the Buzzsprout page, right? Cuz that's creating a page for each. Those for each episode…
Scott Cowan: Very limited though with what you can do with them.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna recommend that you create the page on the WordPress site.
Scott Cowan: I'd like to ask you another question though, and this is SEO related too. So we do our show differently than how you described it. You said you publish it and then that's what pushes out the syndication.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: We, our episodes go live at midnight on the data publication, and so that Buzzsprout page that's created for each episode is technically Google would think that was the original content versus a show page we created. Am I overthinking that? Is that…am I getting in?…
Joe Casabona: A little bit? Okay. I mean..so I'll just straight up say I'm not an SEO expert here, but if you, in this case, the canonical link is whatever you're going to want it to be because they're not exactly the same, right?
Scott Cowan: Mm-hmm
Joe Casabona: The Buzzsprout page basically serves as a way to push your episodes to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all the other podcast directories. Right?
Scott Cowan: Right.
Joe Casabona: If you're creating this page on [explorewashingtonstate.com] and that's where you are sending people, that's canonical. And there's a lot more content, right? You've got the show notes, you've got a transcript…
Scott Cowan: Transcripts, yes.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. In a transcript section. Then if you send people there, then that's going to be the canonical link for the episode.
All right. So I think transcripts too are helpful. They are expensive. I have them for my episode. But you know, they're gonna help with the SEO juice as well. Right. Cause some things that are stated, I mean, this is really good though. Your show notes are very good. There's basically a blog post. And so that's providing good content as well. So that's something you're doing very well that a lot of podcasters don't do. And I think that's really good.
So, okay. So first of all, definitely get a page on [explorewashingtonstate.com] for each episode. There are a few ways you can automate this but you're also like doing the writing. So I would recommend if you're gonna put time somewhere, definitely do that. There are services too. I mean, again, if this is like, this is your full-time not paid job, I don't know what kind of budget you have, but, I use a service called PodReacher to turn some of my episodes into blog posts.
Scott Cowan: Was that PodReacher?
Joe Casabona: PodReacher, Yeah. I'll, yeah. P-O-D-R-E-A-C-H-E-R.com. I'll put it in the show notes. I'll send that to you separately, but…
Scott Cowan: All right. Thank you.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I'll put that link in the show notes for everybody else. So, yeah. So, they do a really nice job. The other thing I would do here is, so you have, I'm looking at episode 164, Monica Guzman, Seattle author, episode 164.
Scott Cowan: Mm-hmm.
I would absolutely make this title something different, and more clickable. Maybe you talked…Let's see. She's a mother of two. I never thought of it that way. How to have fearlessly curious conversations. Okay. So, I would probably have something like this, right? Where it's How to Have Curious Conversations In a… (Gosh! What's the word I'm looking for?) In a polarized time with Seattle author Monica Guzman. Right. Okay. Because now you're putting the problem that you're talking about in the front of the title. Right. And then that's also gonna help with maybe people who are just browsing podcast apps. Maybe they don't know who Monica Guzman is. But yeah. I totally wanna know like I’m afraid to talk about whatever. I'm afraid to talk about polarizing topic of the day.
Scott Cowan: The Yankees.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I'm afraid to talk about the Yankees with my close friends because I'm afraid they're Red Sox fans or whatever. Right. So yeah. That's a problem that's solved. And then you're still highlighting that she's a Seattle author, Right? That she's a Washington State author.
So those are a couple of things that I could do. And then I don't know what your descriptions look like for what you put into Buzzsprout.
Scott Cowan: So here's the honest truth because anybody who’s listening to this is, you know, looking to improve themselves so I can, you know, open myself up. I typically write those. Write before I fall asleep. The night that the episode's gonna go live at midnight in a dead panic. And I truly. I don't like when I'm writing. I don't. The fact that I'm.... you're looking at them and I'm not cringing is sheer willpower. Power on my part. And I understand logically though that that's something that somebody who's stumbling across the podcast is gonna read and go. Or maybe they, you know, or maybe they're listening to it. So I know that we need to spend more time crafting a more compelling reason to listen to the show because I think the shows are better than the descriptions in most cases.
Joe Casabona: Okay. Yeah.
Scott Cowan: I'm not trying to say the show's amazing. But I think the show is more informative and entertaining than what I'm writing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And I mean, that's like, that's an art form. Like it's really hard. Right? And I struggle with it too. I don't think I do a very good job a lot of times. But I mean the description you have here, just like reworking it a little bit. Right. Guzman transparent. Am I…first of all, am I saying her last name right?
Scott Cowan: You are.
Joe Casabona: Great.
Scott Cowan: Or at least you're pronouncing it like I would pronounce it so we're both wrong together or…
Joe Casabona: Perfect.
Scott Cowan: Correct. Okay,
Joe Casabona: Perfect. Transparently left-leaning was raised by two Mexican immigrants. I voted for Trump, right? So, you could say, you know, you can put that as the first line. This and then this inspired her to write a book about how to have conversations in these dangerously divided times. Because that, I mean, especially like Trump is a very polarizing character, so this is going to get people intrigued and interested straight away. Right? And then it's like, oh, but like he wants to build a wall and these Mexican immigrants voted for him. And then how did they raise? Like a left-leaning daughter, like why is she left-leaning when they're so MAGA or whatever. So like, you know, just a little something to spark that curiosity. I think as people are, are scrolling, or searching, then they'll find, you know, there they'll be more likely to click on that.
So those are optimizations that you can make to your episode titles, descriptions, et cetera.
All right. That's not the whole thing though, right? Because you still need to get it in front of other people. And the best advice, which is timely because I just saw it recently, is, don't necessarily try to grow your podcast. Grow your newsletter. Grow your Facebook group. Grow your Instagram or Twitter or TikTok following. And then promote your podcast to those audiences who have opted into following you in those places. And I think that's really good advice because people might not always listen, but you have an audience where you could put the show in front of them when a new episode comes out.
Scott Cowan: Are you aware of any ways to track conversions from, let's say, Instagram to listening to a podcast episode?
Joe Casabona: The best way to do it probably is to create a short link with they're called UTM codes. Is that the right word? Yeah? It's like basically stuff at the end of the URL that's like right source Instagram or whatever, Right? Instagram, like, Twitter automatically adds these, right? This is why they convert everything to their short link because they wanna know where people are going and why people are clicking. I wouldn't be surprised if Instagram…Well, Instagram's a little different, right? Because they're not putting links in places. You can do it in your stories now. But yeah. Like using those UTM metrics would be the best way to do it. And then you would go to Google Analytics and see. Okay, Instagram is just killing it. Or like TikTok is killing it, or Facebook is not. Even though they're kind of, are they…do they have a place in Washington? No. I'm thinking of Amazon and or Microsoft.
Scott Cowan: Well, Facebook has a small campus in Washington.
Joe Casabona: Oh, okay. Okay, cool. That's so interesting. Right? Like I feel like Washington is like the Silicon Valley outside of Silicon Valley.
Scott Cowan: I think it was. I think we have a nickname like of the Silicon Forest or something like that, you know? like that. Because when you think about it, Amazon's here, Microsoft is here, Nintendo…
Joe Casabona: I did not know Nintendo was there. Wow!
Scott Cowan: Fun fact. I used to be a game counselor for Nintendo back in the day when this…the Super [Inaudible 28:13.27] first came out to the shores of the United States. Yes. That's how old I am.
Joe Casabona: That's awesome.
Scott Cowan: And yeah. We have a…you know, King County where Seattle's based. Do you know that that region's tech workers galore?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: In fact, tech and I saw a stat last year that there were more people with the title of Software Engineer and worked in retail.
Joe Casabona: Oh, wow! Wow! That's really cool. That's a fun fact.
Okay. So here's another thing, right? That you could do, I think, to try to grow your audience. Interviews are fun. People also like short-form content. Like short-form tidbits. Take-away content. Things like that. I had a coaching client that had a recipe of the day podcast. And she would…basically, it was a short-form podcast and she was repurposing her blog content. So because she had a recipe blog. So she would pick one of those recipes, and publish it as a blog, as a podcast episode. Then she would put the player on that recipe page so she'd have like, listen or read on, right?
So this is, especially because like the other thing you told me you might wanna do is try to do more episodes per week. These shorter-form podcasts, maybe that's just you are easier content for a lot of people, right? Because then you don't have to book and do the scheduled dance and do more editing.
And maybe you can repurpose old blog posts and then embed the podcast episode on an already well-ranking page with subscribe buttons. Because I mean, you've got your…if the domain is over 10 years old, you've got good domain authority, right? Do you get good website traffic?
Scott Cowan: 30,000 sessions a month.
Joe Casabona: Okay. So that's, I mean, it's better than my personal site. Guess that's better than any of my sites get, actually.
This podcast is the most popular content that I make. And so, yeah. So that's really good, right? So you wanna leverage that, right? And, I know we're like bleeding into this other struggle that you have, but repurposing that content could be a good way to surface old content, and get people to listen maybe instead of read. Because people do prefer to listen instead of read, especially when they're commuting. And then get to more episodes.
So, let's see. I half lost my train of thought in there, but we were talking about repurposing how you can grow, getting in front of Repurposing that content to get in front of different audiences.
Scott Cowan: I have a question.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: It's something we're not doing. Something I hear people talk about and basically, you know, the intro, you know, we have no calls to action on the podcast.
Joe Casabona: Mm-hmm.
Scott Cowan: There are no calls to subscribe. There are no calls to sign up for the newsletter. There's nothing. We have a newsletter that we send out to about 2,500 people once a week that talks that basically references the podcast episodes that we published that week in reference to articles that we've published that week. Or every now and then I pull something out that's relevant, that's, you know, timely, you know, more evergreen. Would you recommend a second newsletter for just podcast listeners? And if so, what would be the reason that they would want that newsletter?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I think if you are asking that, then probably No. But I don't know what you're using for your newsletter provider.
Scott Cowan: Convertkit.
Joe Casabona: Okay, great. So what you could do is have a call to action that is, “Hey, do you not wanna miss an episode? Do you wanna get a digest of everything that we put out and pick the favorite thing that you wanna listen to or read? Sign up for our newsletter. It goes out every Monday, Sunday, and Friday. But yeah, it goes out every Friday. It tells you everything that we covered this week. You can sign up over…” And then have like a, I would say subscribe is probably a good one, right? So explorewashingtonstate.com/subscribe. Have the form there, and tag them as podcast listener. Or even like, make a separate form that you'll know if they signed up from that form because they're a podcast listener. And then you could also on that page have your subscribe buttons, right? So, “Hey, while you're here why don't you give us a little subscribe in whatever your podcast player is.” But that's a really clear call to action. It promotes the website and then it gets people on your mailing list which then because here's the thing. Either people aren't checking their podcast player every day, or they are skipping titles that maybe don't sound enticing to them.
But no matter what you're…they're gonna see you at least in their inbox. Right? And then if you say, “Hey, in this episode, like we talked about like a very liberal woman who has two Mexican immigrant parents who voted for Trump”, this is a story that you absolutely wanna hear, right? (and so I said liberal, but it said left-leaning. I don't…that's not me editorializing. That's just the word I grabbed.) So again, this is a way you're getting people into a place where you are seeing them and understanding them a little bit better. And then you can also reach out to them and get feedback. “Hey, what do you want to hear about?” because podcasting feels like a very one-way street. And any way to make that a two-way street is going to give you an advantage. Cool.
Scott Cowan: So, do we have time for me to ask you one question?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I was just gonna say we're coming up on time. Why don't we do one more question?
Scott Cowan: Perfect. All right. Do you have any recommendations on how to get the guest to share the content that they were on?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is tough. This is tough because not everybody's going to wanna be inclined to do it. People who are sharing a lot probably have their schedules, like very, their social sharing schedules very tight and curated or manicured, I guess. But here's what I do, right? Everybody who comes on my show, you'll see this, right? Because you Signed up with my calendar link. When my show publishes, you automatically get an email saying, “Hey, Scott. Just want to let you know your episode is out. You can find it at [howibuilt.it/280]. I would love and appreciate it if you shared that.” So there's one nudge, usually, people are, I mean, some people are super generous. Like, they're like, “Yeah. I'll totally share it.”
The other thing I do is the same day, I use an app called Tweet Hunter to schedule all of my tweets and on publish days at 11:26 to make it look real. I have a three-tweet thread. “Hey, a new episode of the podcast is out this week. I talked to (I tag guest name) like their Twitter handle, right? I asked for that too, right? We talked about whatever, whatever. You can listen here.” And then I have like in the members-only special, we talked a portion, we talked about this. Thanks to our sponsors. This is good if they're tagged. The very least they'll do is retweet it, right? And the same thing like if you tag them on Instagram or something like that, the very least somebody will be willing to do is share it to their story because that's like a one-button push for them. Right?
And then similarly, my sponsors will also usually like or retweet that tweet. Okay. Which, that's not advice I usually give out because usually, I'm putting the cart before the horse. Well, if you get sponsors they'll share it. But like, that's not always the case and usually needed to be.
Scott Cowan: But the point is that you're showing the sponsors that you're appreciating them for sponsoring you. I like that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, totally. So, those are the two things that I do. What I've seen done where I could be better is also sending the graphics. Because my VA also creates a couple of graphics, attach them, (Hey, like here's some artwork that you could share on social media if you want.) but that's gonna require them to create a post. Right? I would sooner create the post myself and tag them in it, and then they could share it that way.
Scott Cowan: So the email that you send out when the episode goes, is that through Calendly?
Joe Casabona: No. That is a little about how the sausage gets made, right? I'm a developer so I wrote a plugin that sends the email when the episode publishes.
Scott Cowan: Nice.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So that's more automated for me. But, let's see. If you know that you will always publish exactly whatever you do 10 days after the interview, then you could set it up through Calendly, right? Because Calendly does send those follow-ups. Otherwise, what I would probably do is just create a reminder on publish day, like publish post email person. And then use like a TextExpander snippet. Full disclosure. TextExpander is a sponsor of this podcast.
Scott Cowan: This is an unsolicited plug. I use TextExpander and I do love it.
Joe Casabona: Nice. I do love it. So great. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so, you know, have a TextExpander snippet that has just kinda like the stuff I just said. Right? I mean like if you use like some email, clients will have like templates too. But I generally like TextExpander the best.
Scott Cowan: Okay.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So, usually, you ask for it and that will increase your chances.
For me, I've heard like 25%. For me, it's closer to half probably because again, I'm like already giving them the link and I'm sharing like, and I'm tagging them on Twitter or whatever social media they're on. And so that makes the share a little bit easier for them.
So if you're, for example, let's just use this conversation, if, when you publish it, you're gonna tag us on Twitter. But would you do you tag on all social channels? Or do you just do…
Joe Casabona: I don't post the show that often on other social channels. So for me, it's Twitter. That's where most of my audience is. I'm on Instagram, but like, that's mostly like me sharing pictures of cigars and my kids. You know, two things that go hand in hand, I guess.
Scott Cowan: Well, these are photos of your kids with cigars, right?
Joe Casabona: No, definitely not that. Each photo is discreetly a cigar or a child.
Scott Cowan: Okay. All right. Just clarifying a question there.
Joe Casabona: Yes. So Twitter is definitely the place for me. That's where my biggest following is. And that's like...
Scott Cowan: Should you recommend we do this where our biggest following is?
Joe Casabona: A hundred percent.
Scott Cowan: Yeah. Okay.
Joe Casabona: And if you know, and if you have like, so reels like maybe Instagram is that for you or would it be Facebook?
Scott Cowan: We have like 86,000 followers on Instagram and 20,000 on Facebook.
Joe Casabona: That's so many. Yes, both places definitely do that. And I mean, like…
Scott Cowan: So like Twitter, we have like 500. Right?
Joe Casabona: Okay. So Instagram for sure. And then Instagram allows you to automatically post over to Facebook, right? Because they're the same company.
Scott Cowan: Correct.
Joe Casabona: And if you convert to a business account if you haven't done that already.
Scott Cowan: We do. We have.
Joe Casabona: Okay. So you can do advanced scheduling. Okay. So like if you're batching episodes, right, you can use like Buffer or Publer or one of the other million.
Scott Cowan: Tailwind, I think.
Joe Casabona: Tailwind, Yeah. to schedule those out. And that's exactly what I do. On podcast batching days, I'll record these episodes, I'll put them in folders, and then I will write the titles and the intros like it's usually Thursdays. I'll write the titles and the intro. I'll record the bumpers, I'll write the social media and I'll put it in tweet hunter. So I'm like kind of in that mode doing it, churning through that. And then all of that goes out to either the robots that will publish it or the people, my team, who will do it. So totally recommend that because with Instagram, I mean, I don't know how effective audiograms really are. The only stats I've heard about audiograms, which are like those video clips…the only real stats I've heard from them come from companies that specialize in making audiograms. So like that's a…Yeah. Like five out of four out of five doctors say smoke or whatever. You know, like, so, but what you could do instead is record a quick video, right? And say like, “Hey, I just…Or if you're using Riverside, ask your guest, “Hey, is it okay if I record the video and release part of this on Instagram?”
Scott Cowan: All right.
Joe Casabona: Right. Because that's not extra work, right? The thing I just said is extra work. But if you just like…and River, because you use Riverside, right? Is that what you said?
Scott Cowan: Yes. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So Riverside. Okay. Again, also full disclosure, they have sponsored this podcast in the past. I swear I own like most of them when I do this, it's because I already use the tools. Right? So but they're pretty effective at like picking good clips or screenshots, right? So, I would ask...
Scott Cowan: I don't agree with you. I don't agree with that. Everyone just looks awful.
Joe Casabona: Oh really?
Scott Cowan: It's like the screenshot will be, You look great. I'm staring into space. I look okay. You're staring into space. It's like, can we cut and paste together?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Scott Cowan: Then we got one.
Joe Casabona: Right. Totally. But like, I don't. So, but they also make it pretty easy to clip the interview.
Scott Cowan: Yeah. I haven't played with that.
Joe Casabona: I haven't extensively tried it out a little bit. But, it's like built-in now, right? So, when you're done, you know, I like to keep a pen and paper next to me. So like, I look at the time. If someone says something prolific and I'm like I write down the time.
Scott Cowan: And, I've noticed your hand hasn't moved this entire episode, so nothing prolific has been said. I apologize.
Joe Casabona: No, that's, you said something I wrote down. but, this is so, this is me like doling out advice, right? usually my… I thought, “Oh, yes! That was a good thought that I had.” That doesn't feel very good to me. But that might be again, this is a little bit extra work, but if you're gonna leverage 86,000 followers on Instagram, even if we play like the 1% role, that's like a good chunk of people who are, who might come over.
Scott Cowan: But see. Here's the thing that's not even close to what we're converting over. It's if we put something on Instagram for the podcast, we're lucky to get like two people.
Joe Casabona: So what are you putting over on Instagram?
Scott Cowan: I'm not allowed to go to Instagram. That's my daughter's job. So she…I'm too old. So she says she can't have a look, so we'd have to go.
Joe Casabona: I also feel too old for Instagram.
Scott Cowan: Yeah. Anyway, and that might be also part of it though, is the audience on Instagram different than the audience for the podcast?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Maybe. And you know, Facebook's audience skews older. So I might experiment a little bit more over there. Right? Cuz you have quite a following over there too. But it probably depends. Instagram has straight up said they're favoring video now. So if you at least experiment here and there with video, right? Either like a 32nd thing that you or your daughter records and puts in reels saying like “Hey, just had this great interview. Keep an eye out for it, blah, blah, blah.” Or a clip that you're lifting from Riverside. Try it a couple of times and see what it does because sure, we’re all sleeves to the algorithm on these sites. And Instagram has capriciously decided that they want to do videos. More video now
But, and then here's something that I'm going to work on this summer especially vertical short-form video that I can share everywhere. So like TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Instagram reels. Because again, this is something that if I carve out an hour and I either bring a change of shirt or just always wear the same shirt in these things, I can record a bunch of those and then schedule them out for a while. And so the short-form video is YouTubers will like long-time YouTubers like CGP Grey has said, like, this doesn't work for him. By and large, I've heard that this is a great way to get yourself in front of new eyeballs, especially on TikTok. TikTok like really works with getting you in front of new people.
So, this is a thing that I have thought about because I don't like TikTok for a number of reasons. But as I try to grow my audience and take this show and my podcast services to the next level, it's at least something I'm willing to invest three months in, we'll say. So couple of hours. Record short-form videos. Send them over to TikTok.
Scott Cowan: I might try to put 'em on AOL because that's my situation.
Joe Casabona: Nice. AOL. Very good. Get those discs for free hours. I think.
Scott Cowan: I still have some.
Joe Casabona: I had…I was using them as coasters for a little while, you know, of…
I think everybody was, right? You know, I think that at least, my circle of friends we'd go over to their house and “Hey, coaster.”
Scott Cowan: Oh, look at that free coaster. Very cool.
Joe Casabona: Well, Scott, I hope this was helpful. Did you…
Scott Cowan: There are great takeaways. Thank you.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. I will…I took some notes here in Notion, so I will summarize if you're listening to this part, you've heard the summary at the top of the show already. But, Scott, Goodluck. I'll keep an eye on your socials and I'll subscribe to your show. I appreciate you coming on the show to do this live coaching session with me.
Scott Cowan: Joe, thank you so much for taking the time. This was great. There are some great takeaways for me and I really appreciate your insight.
Joe Casabona: All right. Thanks for listening to my live coaching call with Scott. I hope you liked that. If you did, let me know. Leave us a rating and a review in Apple podcasts. And again, check the link in the description if you think I can help you on your journey to your first $10,000 with your podcast.
Thanks again so much for listening.
And until next time. I can't wait to see what you make.
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