This week we’re talking about getting your podcast discovered. This is a hard topic for a lot of people. I know most of us want a bigger audience. We are creating this great content and we are hoping the right people can find it.
PODCASTERS GET DISCOVERED LIKE ARTISTS
The way I see it, podcasters (like a lot of other people that are out there building something from scratch) are artists. Just like someone would do with a paintbrush or with their voice, your art is the content you create on your podcast.
It is how you are using your voice. It’s the ideas coming out of your head. It is the words you are speaking into existence. This is your art. This is your craft.
Unfortunately, getting discovered as a podcaster is not easy. Guess what? It’s not easy for anyone these days that is in art. I’m talking music, artists, actors, all these other things. A lot of these industries no longer have people out there discovering you.
ARTISTS CREATE THEIR OWN PATH
I’m sure there are still a few that get found that way, but a lot of artists have realized that if they truly want to make it in this business, they’ve got to create that path themselves. I’d give you that same advice as a podcaster. You cannot wait to be discovered. No one is coming to find you.
We don’t have podcasts agents that are looking for the next best podcaster out there to put you on the stage in front of a billion people. That’s not happening. No one coming to discover you and discover your show.
Apple is certainly not helping. They’re not putting your show as Number One on their front page every week. That’s reserved for the top fifty to a hundred shows out there. For the rest of you, the other couple of million podcasts out there that trying to make it, you don’t have that luxury. It’s up to you.
DISCOVERY COMMUNITY
Now, what I thought I could do is give you some examples of how this is happening in other industries to help you get the right mindset to get there. If you want more specific tactics, keep following me on the show.
Also, if you want to work one-on-one with me or within a group of other podcasters, look out for what I’m building for 2022, which I’m calling the Podcast Branding Academy.
If you are interested in building your brand beyond your podcast, getting advice and tips along the way, and working with a group of other people that are also doing the same thing, make sure to go to brandsonbrands.com/PBA. Join the waitlist and you’ll be the first one to find out more information about when this is going live.
HOW MUSICIANS GET DISCOVERED
That’s going to give you specific tactics, but today we’re talking about higher-level concepts. One example that I want to put out there for you is to think about music artists. Musicians, unfortunately, are just like podcasters. There are a lot of them. There are a lot of people with musical talent.
Getting discovered no longer means being found in a bar and having someone put your song on the radio. New artists who are out there hustling and making it work have figured out that if they keep on trying different media channels and learning the channels, they might have an opportunity to get discovered in those channels.
As an artist, you can’t just be a creator. You also have to be someone who studies media, who studies marketing, and who studies branding, because most of you are not going to be able to afford some fancy PR agency or branding agency to help do that for you. You have to build that yourself.
STUDY DIFFERENT MEDIA
One of the skill sets you’re going to have to develop (by listening to shows like or finding other people out there that can help) is going to have to be branding, marketing, and understanding new media environments.
For example, environments like social media channels and environments are the places where people’s attention is and where they spend most of their time.
What happened in the music industry? Well, artists, dancers, and voice music artists out there have found a way with TikTok to get discovered. That’s the first example. TikTok was a place for people to mimic dances. Some people got discovered for their dancing, started to move up in popularity, and now have huge personal brands.
Other people realized that there were these song clips that the dancers were dancing to. If they could somehow embed themselves as one of those clips and be discovered as one of those clips that got used the most often, it gave them a chance for the rest of their music to also get attention.
GETTING DISCOVERED DOESN’T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT
You know that didn’t happen by accident. That took people actively watching and studying how these tools work. Yes, they’re artists, but they also have to be good at understanding the marketing and media side. That’s music. Now think about it. That’s not unique. This also happened for video artists.
There are a lot of independent, very skilled directors out there who are putting together independent films and putting together creative video content. They weren’t making it with the independent film festivals and weren’t making it in the traditional way where a studio is discovering them.
They weren’t working their way up in that way. However, they figured out that if they could understand a media tool like YouTube and leverage how that works in terms of building an audience, they can be discovered in a different way.
STUDY AND EXPERIMENT
What that took was their understanding and studying and experimenting and testing tools like YouTube and even tools like Instagram that are also video-based but in a shorter clip format.
They had to play with these environments to build attention. I’ll say this, these weren’t short-term viral discoveries. Not everyone blew up overnight in either of these spaces. A lot of them had to keep on putting in the time and trying different things, getting better and better, and building an audience over time.
Patience is obviously a huge component of this, but it’s patience while learning and growing with these different tools and continuing to add to your education on how these things work.
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
HOW SPEAKERS GET DISCOVERED
Another example for you to inspire you is people who speak on stage. Getting a speaking gig and getting that skill of speaking developed is a task in itself.
What a lot of speakers had done is look for stages that were starting to get media coverage, stages like the TED Talk stage, and even the micro version of that, which is the TEDx stage. They would give a talk, which actually is an environment for them to really practice their speech in a way that creates impact.
These things were being videotaped, served up, and attention was brought to those. If their talk had the right cadence, the right moment, and the right topic that people were looking for, they were then pulled out of that and highlighted in different places.
Those things did get discovered, but it wasn’t because they put something out there and saw if it stuck. They had to practice and work at it, and apply to and get on these stages. For a lot of people, this is after practicing these speeches in other places. You have to try lots of environments to figure out what’s going to work for you.
GET DISCOVERED SO YOU CAN HAVE AN AUDIENCE
Some of these speakers actually ended up making it in podcasting because they had those skills. What I would say is, as a podcaster, one of our disadvantages is you don’t get discovered in podcasting just because you’re good at podcasting.
Just because your podcast has good guests or you have a great voice, or even that your topics are interesting, podcasts happen to have an audience component. If you don’t already have that built in, you’re being buried. If you don’t have any other way of getting attention for your podcast, you’re not being shown to anyone.
No one is helping you build an audience on your podcast. That is up to you to study not just podcasts, but also other media channels that your podcast content can really work in.
HOW VISUAL ARTISTS GET DISCOVERED
Another example is visual artists. Their natural creative space is on the canvas. Some of them had translated that into digital. Some people have gotten into creating digital art and have been doing that for years. It is their specialty. That is where their art is and where they most naturally are inclined to create.
A new environment was created in this blockchain and NFT space that said, “We’re going to take art and we’re going to find a new way to create attention for it.” The Non-Fungible Token, (which is NFT) is huge right now.
Everyone is researching the NFT space and saying, “What can I do in this space to understand the marketplace and make some money? What’s out there that is the new-new, the hot of the hot?”
Artists were able to take advantage of that and say, “What if I give out the digital rights to my visuals and sell that?” Create and take advantage of the marketplaces that is starting in this space. The people that got in and were paying attention and studying it now have another place for their art to be discovered and have a value associated with that.
BECOME KNOWLEDGEABLE IN ALL THINGS NEW
My point is, all of this is new. It’s the wild west. In some of these places, when TikTok came out, it was new. When NFTs came out and NFT marketplaces came out, it was new. You have to make sure that you are studying the marketing environments to find a way to put yourself out there.
What’s great is some of the environments have become more established. There’s more information out there on how to succeed. For something like a podcast, if you are looking at the blog, YouTube, or the social media environment, you can find ways to take where you create the most natural and push your content to these spaces to be discovered.
However, you have to be a student of the game. You have to study different places, one at a time to understand how they can work for you to understand how they can help you get your content discovered one piece at a time.
GETTING DISCOVERED TAKES TIME AND PATIENCE
Not every episode is going to be a big hit, but it’s up to you to figure out what has the most potential out of the things that you’re creating. Continue to drive attention to those most highly potential attention-generating items.
You give yourself a chance to get discovered. Keep working at it, keep studying and educating yourself to figure out how will marketing work for you.
Those are my examples for today. I’m a huge fan of the artist. I’m a huge fan of content, creators, and creators in general. I love that there are opportunities out there for marketing and creativity to come together to really put people on stage. It’s an advantage.
People aren’t being discovered by agents anymore, but if you put in the work, you can create your own discoverability by using these tools that are out there today. It just takes a little bit of studying and understanding. I’m glad you guys have found this podcast today.
I hope these lessons start you down the road of doing that extra research. If nothing else, I hope you keep listening for little tidbits that might help you along the way. If you don’t want to do this alone but in a community, check out what we have going on at brandsonbrands.com/PBA for the Podcast Branding Academy.
It doesn’t have to be someone who already has a podcast. If you are hoping to build one, we’ve got some courses that you can take to get you to where the rest of us are. If you’ve got content and you’re creating it, I’m here for you. Let’s do this together.
CONNECT WITH BRANDON
Free Guide: Convert 1 Hour into 1 Month of Content
Instagram: @brandonbirkmeyer
MORE ADVICE AND INTERVIEWS
If you’d like more content about how to build your personal brand, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
- Don’t want to miss the next thought leader interview? Subscribe to the free B-team Insider Newsletter! And don’t forget to leave a rating and review on iTunes.
Talk soon!
4 Ways To Build Your Podcast Brand
Start Building Your Reputation Today. Take your knowledge out of your head and turn it into an influential podcast brand. Dramatically increase your industry reputation, reach a global audience, gain a passive income and impact people’s lives all over the world. Let me help you create and launch your podcast, grow your audience, and build a highly influential personal brand – the easy way!
Here are 4 ways that I can help you become a known leader in your industry:
