Quick Daily Podcasting Tips by Alitu

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about finding conferences in your niche. No matter what topic you podcast about, there’s probably a decent-sized annual event that takes place around it. This could be anything from a Comicon or board game convention, to a conference of surgeons or physicists. It might seem like a hassle or expense to travel to something like this, but it can be well worth your while. There’s nothing more powerful than real-life in-person interactions. Obviously, you’ll want to behave like a human, rather than a walking billboard for your show. But do take things like business cards or any other appropriate merch to help make your podcast known. This is more about finding long-term friends and relationships rather than a sheer new listeners numbers game. But, you never know what opportunities can arise from these events, and they can lead to massive podcast growth further down the line. Thanks for listening to Pocket-Sized Podcasting. And remember, you can leave feedback for us quickly and easily over at [thepodcasthost.com/psp](http://thepodcasthost.com/psp)

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about reaching out to a handful of your dedicated fans. If you can find 3-5 people who you know listen to every single word of every single episode you put out, then it’s well worth your time asking them to get on a call with you. You can almost use this as a sort of focus group for your content. The info you get from them can be gold when it comes to growing your podcast, too. You’ll want to ask them questions like how they discovered the show, why they initially hit play, why they subscribed, and what keeps them listening. Identifying what you’re doing well means you can really zone in on that, going forward. And, you can also get some critical feedback, too. Is there anything they’re not keen on, or would like to see added or removed from the show? This stuff can all be invaluable when it comes to planning the future direction of your show. Thanks for listening to Pocket-Sized Podcasting. And remember, you can leave feedback for us quickly and easily over at [thepodcasthost.com/psp](http://thepodcasthost.com/psp)

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about writing a guest post. A popular way to promote your podcast is to do a guest post on a site with a similar target audience. With a guest post, you're creating insightful and helpful content for their readers, and in turn, are able to link back to your own content. So, have a think about some sites that create good content in your niche. What topics do they cover? And how might you be uniquely placed to write something useful and interesting for their readers? A lot of websites have guidelines around guest posts, but if not, they’ll at least have a contact page. Remember, make your pitch all about *them* and their audience. This is all about delivering value. You’ll get your link back, and you’ll get to mention your show, but that isn’t something you want to lead with. Thanks for listening to Pocket-Sized Podcasting. And remember, you can leave feedback for us quickly and easily over at [thepodcasthost.com/psp](http://thepodcasthost.com/psp)

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating a sponsored resource. Podcast sponsorship doesn’t always involve money changing hands. Instead, you can have a “content partnership” with a company where visibility is more important than cash. A sponsored resource is basically something you can create for a business. It should be something that their customers will find useful, or enjoy. In exchange, the resource - and the business itself - will promote your podcast and send new listeners your way. A couple of examples might be; - An outdoors podcast who create a PDF resource for a popular walking boot company - “The Top 20 Walking Trails in Scotland” - Or, A ketogenic diet podcast that creates a PDF resource or infographic, for a cheese or butter company, with 20 exciting recipes to try. So can you think of any companies you’d love to partner with? If so, reach out to their marketing department with your proposal and media kit. It could be the start of a fruitful relationship for both. Thanks for listening to Pocket-Sized Podcasting. And remember, you can leave feedback for us quickly and easily over at [thepodcasthost.com/psp](http://thepodcasthost.com/psp)

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating a montage episode. A montage episode is a piece of audio content, made up of clips from different contributors. A tried and tested way of creating one is to build the episode around a single topic or question. Here, each participant records their answer to the question, and sends over their audio to the creator. You can collect clips from anyone from the general public, to your podcast listeners. In this particular instance, we want to create one with fellow podcasters in our niche. Some examples of montage episodes could include An episode of a travel podcast, where contributors talk about their favourite holiday destination An episode of a sound design podcast, where contributors talk about their favourite audio production software Or, an episode of a health podcast, where contributors talk about their morning routines When you’ve published a montage episode, be sure to reach out to everyone involved and ask them to share it with their own listeners. Everyone’s podcast can grow with this strategy, on top of it being great content for the collective audience. Everyone wins! For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/montage

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about contributing constructively to an existing community. Whether or not you run your own community, there’s no harm in getting involved in others within your topic, too. This doesn’t mean going around spamming everywhere about your podcast. It’s about being a positive, pro-active, and helpful person. For example, you can offer answers to questions, or you could even ask some of your own. Kicking off an ongoing weekly conversation can be a great idea too. For example “hey fellow writers, what’s everyone been working on this week?”, or, “alright photographer pals, let’s see your best shot from the past seven days”. This positive community involvement means people get to know you - and, by default - your podcast. Some will become listeners, but even those who don’t will appreciate the positive contribution you’re making in your space. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/buildingcommunity

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating memorable and immortal links. As podcasters, we’ll usually try to send the listener to some link or resource at least once per episode. By the way, have you taken our feedback survey yet at [thepodcasthost.com/psp](http://thepodcasthost.com/psp) ? But see, that type of link’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s short and memorable. And you can always change where it points to, further down the line. A classic example of this is a podcaster sending folks to their Patreon for 100 episodes, then, moving to a new funding platform. They now have this back catalogue full of out-of-date links. If they’d instead used a shortlink like their podcast dot com slash support, they could’ve just updated where that points to. If you use WordPress, then PrettyLinks is a great plugin for this. And Podpage has its own version too, if you’re using that. So, again, that link is http://thepodcasthost.com/psp - and, when you click on that, which of course you will, look at the URL it actually goes to, and imagine me trying to read that out. Maybe that could be a review prize incentive, actually…

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking, again, about podcast review incentives. This time around, though, you’re incentivising the content. So how does that look? Well, you might announce that when you hit a certain number of reviews - let’s say, 25 - you’ll do something a bit out of the ordinary. That could be a unique, highly-produced episode, an interview with a top-tier guest, or a live broadcast from somewhere that resonates. Depending on your niche or topic you could even vow to personally do something like run a marathon, do a parachute jump, or fast for a week. Your audience will also feel like they’re part of something, chipping in their own reviews to edge forwards towards a collective goal. This isn’t just a great way of getting more reviews, it’s also a way of building community and engagement too. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about podcast review competitions. Here, you’d ask each person who’s reviewed your podcast to email you a screenshot of that review, and enter them into a prize draw. It’s perfectly legit to incentivise reviews this way. The big caveat, though, is that this is open to your listening audience only. Not the general public. How do you ensure that? You only mention it on your episodes. That way, only your listeners will hear it. Yes you could potentially get more if you splashed it all over the internet - especially if you’re offering a lucrative prize. But any extra reviews you get here are going to be low value. Who wants a “great show, five stars” comment from someone who’s never even listened before? For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about how to encourage podcast reviews. As we mentioned on the last episode, podcast reviews can be great “social proof” that you can use in your marketing and promotion. There are a few approaches and angles here, so we’d like to spend the next few episodes running through them. But the starting point is, of course, to ask your audience. Ask them at the end of each episode, in your Call to Action. Send them to a link or page on your website where you list all the platforms they can leave a review. For example, Podchaser, Apple Podcasts, and Castbox. You might even create a few wee tutorial videos to show them how, too. This is the low-hanging fruit of getting more reviews, but there’s more you can do too, and we’re going to talk about them next week. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about growing your podcast audience. On Pocket-Sized Podcasting so far, we’ve covered everything you need to plan and create your show. We’ve also made sure that your podcast is optimised for growth. But now that you’ve launched a podcast on solid foundations, how can we take things to the next level? Despite what the internet might have you believe, there’s no “one simple trick” to growing a podcast audience. And it’s certainly not the sort of thing that happens overnight. Instead, it’s a cumulative effect of doing multiple small things over a period of time - in conjunction with the most important factor of all - creating great content. As we switch over to growth mode over the next few months, you’re going to get one quick podcast promotion tip every day of the week. So please do make sure you’re subscribed or following Pocket-Sized Podcasting on your listening app of choice. And, remember, we always love to hear your feedback and suggestions, which you can leave for us at http://thepodcasthost.com/psp

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about adding social sharing buttons to your website. If you’re using a WordPress website, then it’s worth installing a social media sharing plugin. There are plenty of good ones out there, and you can browse through them all in your ‘Add New Plugins’ section. When you’ve installed and activated one of these plugins, you’ll see a wee row of social media icons at the bottom of each post and page, and they’ll make it easy for anyone to share your episodes to places like Twitter and Facebook with one single click. It’s worth mentioning, too, that if you’re using a Podpage website, these buttons will appear on your posts automatically. Whatever route you go down, though, the main thing is that you’re making it easy for your listeners to share your show with others. Over time, this word-of-mouth marketing can have a great impact on your overall podcast growth. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips