5 Creative Ways To Repurpose Your Content To Increase Podcast Downloads
Everyone wants to know how to promote their podcast to increase downloads.
Unfortunately, growing the number of people who listen to your podcast isn’t as easy as slapping a nice graphic or audiogram up in your social media feed.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t clever ways to get more people interested in tuning in.
In this article, I explain why “promoting your podcast” is the wrong approach to increasing your downloads and why repurposing your podcast content will reap more results. Plus, I share 5 unique ways to repurpose your content to increase your downloads.
Is promoting your podcast a waste of time?
Many podcasters spend an inordinate amount of time promoting new podcast episodes to their audience on other platforms. They might post an audiogram to Facebook, a pull quote to Instagram, and a video version to YouTube.
But no matter what action they take, it doesn’t seem to increase their downloads or grow the number of people listening to their podcast.
Now, I’ve written before about the #1 misconception about podcast marketing strategy and also of the futility of using downloads as a metric of success for your podcast.
But here’s the bottom line: you can’t increase your podcast downloads by sharing new episodes with people who are already familiar with your show.
Spending time and energy on promoting your episodes may not be a complete waste, but it’s probably not a good use of time or energy, either.
The drive to “promote” content is, in my opinion, a bit outdated.
Once social media marketing really went mainstream, marketers realized that they could create all the social media content they wanted. But that didn’t mean it was getting any results.
They also realized that social media was not as effective for sales as email marketing or advertising was.
So instead of creating content specifically for a particular social media platform, like Instagram or Twitter, they reasoned that what they really needed to do was promote other content and drive traffic back to their websites.
Once someone landed on the website, they could then be cajoled into giving up their email address. And now that person was much more likely to become a customer at some point.
Fine, okay. This wasn’t a bad set of tactics—and there is no doubt that when it works, it works.
But what happened is that our social media feeds got flooded with content that amounted to little more than advertising. It didn’t matter that it was advertising something free, like a podcast episode or a workbook. It was still just an ad.
Promotional content isn’t engaging. Ads don’t generally drive conversations. And it doesn’t matter how many times you put “link in bio” if I have no idea what you stand for or have to offer me because you’re always just promoting your latest blog post.
So while this method might still be the main topic of conversation in expensive marketing courses, it doesn’t really reflect what’s working today in terms of building an audience on social media—or how that audience can carry over into your podcast audience or email list.
What’s working for sharing content online today (including your latest podcast episode)
What’s really working when it comes to building an audience and sharing your content is 3Rs:
Respect the medium
Respect the audience
Redistribute the idea
Instead of trying to promote your content or drive traffic to your website, what works today is redistributing ideas across different kinds of media and geared for different kinds of audiences.
In this way, you create valuable pieces of content for each place your brand shows up online. Those pieces of content—unlike a promotional post—end up getting shared and engaged with. While any individual piece of content might not do much to get someone to listen to your podcast, the accumulation of interest in your content will move people to give it a try.
Again, check out our article on podcast marketing strategy to find out why this approach is key to the nature of podcasting.
So let’s dig into the 3Rs.
1. Respect the medium
Each content distribution channel (i.e. your blog, your Instagram feed, your podcast, etc) is suited for a different content medium (i.e. essays or articles, images, audio, etc).
In order to get the most from the distribution channels we use, we need to make sure that what we’re sharing on those channels is in the medium best-suited for that channel. And we likely need to make adjustments to our content in order for it to work in that medium.
If I want to share the same content I put in my podcast on Instagram, I need to turn it into visual communication. If I want to share an article I wrote on my podcast, I need to turn it into a script that works for audio delivery.
It’s never as simple as copying and pasting.
But it doesn’t have to be difficult. Simply thinking about what kind of content you engage with on a particular channel will help you form guidelines for how to repurpose your content in that medium.
2. Respect the audience
Yes, you should be respectful. But that’s not really what I mean here! In this case, “respecting the audience” means really taking into account who you’re talking to depending on how you’re distributing your content.
When you distribute an idea on a podcast, you’re overwhelmingly talking to an audience who is familiar enough with what you have to say that they’re willing to spend 30+ minutes with you.
When you distribute content on social media, there’s a very good chance that a significant portion of the people who come across that content has very little point of reference for who you are and what you’re about.
Depending on what kind of audience I’m creating a piece of content for (super familiar, kind of familiar, total stranger), I’ll make different choices in how I present that content. I might choose a different way to lead into an idea, explain a concept more thoroughly, or use different examples.
When you respect the audience for your content, you consider who they are and what they know right now depending on what channel they’re coming across your content in.
3. Redistribute the idea
Repurposing your content is changing it up depending on the medium you’re working in and the audience you’re creating for. Redistributing your idea, on the other hand, means actually sharing it across multiple distribution channels.
This is different from promoting the content.
When I redistribute an idea, my goal isn’t to get someone to go to a different app or website. My goal is to get them to engage with a useful or insightful piece of content where they already are.
Instead of trying to steal their attention away from what they’re doing, I try to earn & hold their attention where they’re already spending it.
Yes, that might mean that I put the best idea from my podcast episode into a fresh piece of content for Instagram instead of just announcing the new episode. Or, it might mean that create a Twitter thread with the best bits of a lengthy article instead of just tweeting out the link.
When I redistribute content, my ultimate goal is to create a remarkable, standalone piece of content for each channel I distribute it in.
Now that you know the 3Rs of repurposing content, let’s get into 5 creative ways to do it for your podcast so you can increase your downloads and earn the loyalty of new listeners!
Instagram Carousel Post
The method I’m most excited about right now when it comes to repurposing and redistributing a podcast episode is an Instagram carousel post. Check out an example of one of mine here.
Once I’ve produced an episode, I look back over how I framed up a conversation in the intro, what gets talked about in the interview or the body of a solo episode, and how I close things out in the outro.
From there, I choose how I want to distill my 45 minutes of content into 10 slides (the limit that Instagram allows in a carousel).
When I’m choosing what to share, I typically opt to explain one idea in depth rather than trying to give a full overview of the episode. If there is more than one idea I could go into depth on, then I could always make more than one carousel!
I do reference the podcast episode in the carousel but I don’t hold out on the meat of the post just to get someone to listen or click through.
Article That Connects The Dots
One of the first discoveries I made when I first started podcasting was the way that a series of interviews can all dance around the same thread of an idea—whether I planned it that way or not.
I might notice 3 conversations that all reference a particular mental habit. Or I might spot that 4 guests all had a similar experience with setting their prices.
Once I’ve noticed that pattern, I can weave those interviews together to create an in-depth article that draws that pattern out.
This gives me a chance to demonstrate my own expertise and insight to the reader.
I start by figuring out what I’m trying to say—a thesis statement. And then I pick out the moments or ideas from the interviews I’m connecting to illustrate that thesis and make my argument.
Then, I fill in with my own writing to construct the article, using quotes from the interviews and my guests as examples in order to really flesh it out. Of course, each time I mention my guest or quote someone, I’m going to also mention and link back to the podcast episode I’m referencing.
You could even drop in a podcast player for that episode right into the article!
And while you’re connecting the dots in an article, why not also produce this as a bonus episode for your show?
Screenshare Video
Look, I know video isn’t for everyone! But I’ve found that making a screenshare video is something that most people feel pretty comfortable with—on or off-camera.
Using software like Loom, you can easily record a video of your desktop screen (with an optional view of you, too!). Why would you do this to repurpose your podcast content?
I find that often my guest and I are talking about something that has a visual component or can be demonstrated visually. Sure, we do our best to describe it in our audio-only medium. But that doesn’t mean I can’t turn around and create a video that shows an example.
That video could then be shared to social media, embedded into a blog post, or added to a YouTube channel.
Email Newsletter
I love listening to podcasts and purposefully devote quite a bit of time to it. But not everyone has the time or inclination.
So instead of coming up with yet another piece of content to use as your email newsletter, you can create a written version of your podcast episode that works well in an email.
One thing to keep in mind here is that interviews (and often even solo episodes) tend to be very organic and free-flowing. Written content, by and large, needs to be linear in order to work well.
To repurpose an episode into a newsletter format, you’ll want to look for the key topics you want to cover in the article and the thesis they support. Then, instead of keeping them in the same order you covered them in the episode, consider the best logical order for those points to go to prove your point.
Don’t worry about sharing all the juicy bits from your episode in your newsletter. Most people find a lot of value in both reading and listening to ideas. But for those who aren’t regular podcast listeners, they’ll appreciate having access to the content in a written form and they find themselves curious to take a listen in the future!
(Bonus: newsletters can be redistributed as blog posts, too!)
Livestream Event
You can make your podcast more interactive by repurposing your content into livestream events and inviting your listeners to participate.
This could take the form of a short workshop based on a podcast episode. It could also take the form of a Q&A session reflecting on the episode. Or it could be an event with a guest where you get an update on their story or present some additional ideas.
The beauty of repurposing your podcast episode as a livestream event is that you can turn around and repurpose the livestream as a bonus podcast episode!
Your Next Steps
Imagine how your social media marketing would be different if you thought less about how to promote your podcast and more about how to share what you cover on the podcast in your feed. How many more shares and comments would you earn? How many more people would find out you even have a podcast?
The benefits of repurposing and redistributing your podcast content are huge—and yes, increasing your podcast downloads or listeners can be one of those benefits.
Repurposing content is often one of those “nice to haves” on our lists, though. We think we’ll do it when we have some extra time. But it can actually become a part of your podcast rhythm if you make careful choices and don’t try to do too much at once!
Choose one distribution channel to focus on sharing your podcast content on (a social media platform, your email newsletter, your blog, etc...) and get creative with how you adapt your content for the medium best-suited to that channel.
Start small. Make it a habit.
Looking for more ways to get the most from your podcast?
We take the guesswork out of producing a great podcast that’s great for business in the Standout Podcast Club. It’s full of the resources we use with the podcasters we work with every day, plus coaching and support to really make your show stand out.