How to Use Podcasts to Grow Your Personal Brand

As podcasts continue to be on the rise with no intention of slowing down, we see plenty of individuals hopping on the audio bandwagon in hopes to boost their personal brand. And although there are lots of people doing it, we have to say… it’s proven to be an effective strategy. 

Before we get into some of the ways that you can use podcasts to grow your personal brand, we have to make a note that when it comes to marketing and growth, whether it’s for your personal brand or podcast in general, it takes time

Don’t expect to be an overnight audio star but with time, consistency, and well-thought-out strategies, you can start to enjoy the fruits of one’s labour. 

1. Increase Awareness & Reach

Among one of the most popular goals of a podcast is awareness. 

As a medium, podcasts can allow you to reach mass audiences on a consistent basis. While building your personal brand, podcasts are a powerful marketing medium to use to spread the word about yourself, your offerings, and why you’re unique. 

But make sure to use it wisely. You’ll want to carve out your niche in the podcast world since mass audiences and awareness is great, but if the listener’s finding you discover that your content isn’t relevant to them, then they won’t retain it. Build awareness in relevant podcast genres to make sure that this marketing medium is having a positive effect on your personal brand.  

Podcast Tip: There are endless podcast discovery directories and platforms. Whether you already have released a podcast or are thinking about creating one, ensure that your show is on all major listening apps (i.e. Apple, Spotify, and Google) but also don’t forget about platforms like Stitcher, Castbox, Podcast Addict, etc. There are also resources like Podchaser and Discover Pods where you can have your show reviewed or featured. 

2. Build Credibility & Thought Leadership

Next up we have credibility and thought leadership, another popular podcast goal. 

If you’re working hard to strengthen and grow your personal brand, being viewed as a credible resource in your field is an incredibly valuable achievement that will continue to yield positive dividends for months and years to come. 

Luckily, podcasts provide the opportunity to, in some cases, spend over an hour sharing your insights on a specific topic to your audience. This is a difficult feat to achieve in any other marketing medium such as blogging or video for this length of time and consumption rate. 

Podcast Tip: When you’re selecting your podcast topic and format, try to go the route of a discussion-style series. With this format, it opens the floor for you to share your knowledge and expertise on the topic you’re covering. If you do an interview series where you’re asking the questions and the guest is answering, you’re giving them the power of sharing their knowledge and expertise. 

So even if you are bringing on guests, try to ensure that it flows more like a conversation versus a formal Q&A so you have a chance to shine to your audience. 

3. Relationship Building 

As we all know, relationships are key when it comes to growing any brand – whether personal or corporate. 

Podcasts open the door to establishing key relationships with potential partners, industry leaders, customers, clients, or any other stakeholders. Invite these individuals to your podcast and interview them about their experiences, insights, or expertise on whatever your topic is. This way, you’re providing them with value upfront and a warm way to connect with them versus the alternative, which might be a cold outreach. 

Depending on the individual and their authority in whatever domain you’re in, it’s rare that people will say no to an interview since, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? 

Podcast Tip: Inviting your lead onto your podcast is only the beginning. To truly build a fruitful relationship, you should be connecting and pitching on whatever your end game is with them either after the podcast has ended or in another meeting. 

Never corner them in your podcast and ask for exactly what value you’d get from the relationship while recording, this immediately puts them in an awkward situation and most likely will not result in a positive outcome for either of you. 

4. Community Building 

After relationship building, we have community building. 

Community has become a keyword for organizations everywhere as they realize the value and power in communities. Although your podcast audience isn’t immediately a community, you need to put in the work to create one and entice your listeners to participate in it. 

There are a number of ways that you can build a thriving community. For podcasts, in particular, focus on speaking to your audience as if you’re having a one on one conversation with each of them, making them feel involved in the discussions that you have. By adding a sense of inclusion, they’re more likely to engage with a community that you build outside of the podcast. 

Podcast Tip: There are plenty of community apps and platforms out there for you to try out such as Slack, Discord, Facebook, Meetup, and more. If you don’t know which platform is best for you to build your community on, ask! 

Provide a survey link in your show notes and encourage your audience to vote, that way, it takes the guessing out of the decision-making process. 

5. Cross-Marketing Channel

And lastly, podcasts are helpful for cross-channel marketing. 

CTAs (call-to-action) are important, we know this. But for some reason, podcasters forget to add CTAs to their podcast episodes. Make sure that you’re telling your listeners what to do or where to go next. And of course, this is a great opportunity to share some of the channels that you’re using to grow your personal brand. 

For example, encourage your listeners to sign up for your newsletter, follow you on social media, sign up for an event that you’re hosting, or download your latest e-book. By doing this, you’re also contributing to the creation of your podcast community as well (we love some good multi-tasking)! 

Podcast Tip: Make a list of all the different marketing channels you use such as social media, newsletters, community groups, etc., and see how they can all connect and promote one another in an authentic and valuable way for your listeners (the authentic and valuable are key here). You don’t want to spam them with useless and unnecessary information just to grow your other channels, this can result in a loss of following across multiple avenues.