This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
I was excited to receive today's question from a young listener who started a podcast about a year ago. Our listener Camille is in high school. She has been consistent with the podcast. She wants to grow it without using social media. Good for her.
So let's see if we can be somewhat helpful. And by the way, welcome to Setisle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. One of my favorite things about working on this podcast for you every single day is the chance to connect with other people who are doing interesting things, especially those who are getting started, who have a vision and want to grow something and are just looking for some tips, maybe a little bit of guidance, or just kind of some encouragement along the way. Sometimes that's all we need.
Someone to look at what we're doing and say, this is awesome. Keep it going, right? 'Cause it may not be huge at first. You may not feel like you're reaching a lot of people, but if you're doing something meaningful, there are all kinds of reasons why you should keep going. But it's also good to reach more people.
I agree with that too. So let's talk about it. In the question, you're gonna hear more about Camille's show, her vision. In my answer, I'm gonna mention where to find it so that you can check it out if you'd like. And also how can new podcasts reach more people in general with or without social media?
That's our topic for today, coming at you in just 30 seconds. [Music]
- Hi, my name is Camille and I'm a high school student. I started listening to this show after my teacher recommended it and I've been hooked ever since. I'm the host of the What About Us podcast. I've had my podcast for a year now and I started it to provide Generation Z with an outlet and safe space to speak the truth while listening to and encouraging others in my generation.
Currently, I work in fast food most of the time and my show has became my side hustle. My question is, how can I grow and promote my show? It's really small because I have strict parents who feel like I'm not ready to use social media but are fully supportive of my show and encourage me to start it. My target audience is teenagers and youth so how can I appeal to them and steal this into my parents? Thanks, Chris.
Camille, what's up? Thank you so much for the question. Congratulations on this podcast. I'm so glad you're doing it. My first advice, don't listen to your parents.
Okay, just kidding. Mostly, mostly just kidding. But let's talk about the actual question of how do people learn of new podcasts? It really is different from other forms of media. So the not using social media is not necessarily a handicap.
Most people learn of new podcasts from other podcasts. Just keep that in mind or directly from people they know. So of course, social can help with that but it's not necessarily the primary driver, okay? So maybe let's start by welcoming Camille. You can check out Camille's podcast yourself at anchor.fm/whataboutus, whataboutus.
You should be able to search for it on different networks as well but that's a direct link. I encourage you to go and download a few episodes. I just did that myself and Camille didn't ask for my opinion on the actual show but I did just want to note that I really liked it. The way she describes the show is also really great. It says, what about our mental health?
What about our future? What about our feelings? What about our purpose and what about us? So again, it's all about Gen Z as she mentioned. So strong voice there, I love it.
Keep sharing those strong opinions. So getting back to discoverability, a couple of things you can do. Definitely submit your podcast to Apple and Spotify for promotion. There are forms for this. If you just search, submit podcast to Apple Music for promotion specifically.
So not just for inclusion, but actually for promotion. Obviously a lot of people do that but that can sometimes help get on their radar. If they feature it in one of the categories or something, that brings a lot of listeners for sure. There are also podcast directories. Just Google podcast directories to submit my podcast to or something like that.
You're gonna find a bunch of them. Most of them probably won't do much for you but it should be free. It should take just a moment to add it. Anything could help. And then also my last thought is trades with other shows.
Mention other shows in your podcast, in your episodes. Like give them shout outs and then write to that person, the podcast, and say, "Hey, you know, got this show I've been working on, "really liked yours. "And I mentioned it here on this episode." You're just kind of like building a relationship there. And for this, you specifically want to find other shows with the same market, potentially shows that have a bit more audience than yours. So not necessarily the biggest shows, but ones that are reaching a pretty good amount of people.
Shows that you aspire to be like, essentially. If you do something like that once or twice per episode, you reach out, like over time, you're just kind of establishing lots of connections and hopefully some of them will mention yours. But even if not, hopefully you've kind of built a little bit of a connection that can help with something else. I really think in the longterm with podcasting, like organic marketing, word of mouth is truly the most effective. More than any kind of advertising spend or anything else that's, I don't wanna say manufactured, but let's say planned or strategic.
I think just kind of making good content and continuing to improve and trying to reach your audience, trying to speak their language and connect with them as Camila's already doing, that is the way. All right, so that's what I think about that. Again, good work. I'm excited to follow along. Listeners, if you've got a question, something you're working on, something that we can shout out here as well, I'd love to do that.
Come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch and grow their projects. Hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are in the world. Hope you'll listen again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
