The Podcast Accelerator: How to Grow Your Podcast

Each social channel has its nuances, benefits and flaws. Twitter is my personal favourite for podcast growth so today I'm sharing a few simple strategies that I employ to build my podcast audience using the platform. Welcome to The Podcast Accelerator, the thrice-weekly show that brings you podcast education, industry insights and straight-talking reactions to podcasting news. I’m your host Mark A...

We all want more "engagement" on our podcasts but the word itself poses some challenges and leaves us fighting for broad strokes of interaction that we just can't scale. But we can fix it. About The Podcast Accelerator Welcome to The Podcast Accelerator, the thrice-weekly show that brings you podcast education, industry insights and straight-talking reactions to podcasting news. I’m your host Mark...

Black Friday just rolled around once more and, as ever, my inbox was flooded with sales from all sorts of people including podcast "gurus". I'm sure that you had the same emails. With January about to roll around again, the emails will just keep on coming with offers that are too good to be true, time-bound (" Act now! ") and at a huge discount ( "Down from $997 to $297, today only!" ). It means y...

As a serious independent podcast creator, it’s important that you have a  full toolkit available to you  to help you to grow your podcast’s audience and to monetize your show(s) in diverse ways. There are so many options available to audio influencers and podcast creators that it can be hard to figure out which range of options to incorporate into your monetization strategy but, inevitab...

You'd be forgiven for thinking I've been lazy over the last month. My podcast publishing has been slower than usual - dropping from once per week to once every two weeks - but, it hasn't been due to laziness. It's been due to experimentation. Honestly. Promise. But why? A few weeks ago I had a planned week off from publishing. I had a family holiday booked and, as usual, I let my audience know not...

There's an old adage that every entrepreneur claims that they coined but that Jeff Bezos, he of space, is widely credited as saying first: "Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room." What do people say about your podcast when you're not in the room? What do they tell friends about your podcast and how, if you aren't in that proverbial room, can you have any influenc...

I owe you an apology. Last week I didn't get my usual Monday content out because we had a crazy week with two Captivate mega feature releases . My bad, I thought I had time to get it done but Monday got away from me and it's my fault - I'm sorry. But, here I am this week! Last time, I talked to you about how to cope with podcasting overwhelm and gave you a rule of thumb to start implementing...

The more you strive to grow your podcast, the more your plate fills up with things you need to do and eventually, you end up with more and more plates to the point that you could enter the world plate spinning championships. The point is: there are a lot of people giving you advice on how to grow your podcast and most of it is decent advice (except those dodgy LinkedIn "podcast promoters") and so...

Podcasting isn't easy. There's so much that goes into a quality podcast episode and that's before we even talk about the launch process, the marketing requirements and all of the pesky business "stuff" that goes into finding and managing sponsors, listener support and any other legal obligations you may have as you start to generate revenue. It's why Captivate creates  so much free educationa...

You don't need big numbers to monetise your audio influence. You just need a plan. Try this one. Last week  Captivate launched professional podcast network features and cross-promotional feed drops to all podcasters using the platform. It's a world-first innovation in podcasting but it's more than just a feature-set, it's part of a methodology for creating your own podcast ecosystem that...

For the full Captivate cross-promotional feed drops and network product release notes, check out the blog post here: https://www.captivate.fm/product-releases/network-features/ Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/captivatepodcasting Learn how to launch your...

This week is Captivate's second birthday and to celebrate we're running our annual three-hour growth summit over on our YouTube channel . Entitled Ready, Set, Grow!, the event will feature three amazing speakers and during the summit, I'll be announcing and demo-ing a huge new range of Captivate features to help you, the indie podcast creator and audio influencer, to grow and monetize your audienc...

Last week I spoke to you about the three big "sins" of podcast coaching; the three red flags that you should look out for when hiring or working with a podcast coach. When it comes to coaching, there are inevitably the very bad ones, but there are also the very good ones, too. After I'd told you my views on how to spot the bad ones last week, Steph Fuccio asked me to do a "good list" - so her...

At least four times per week someone emails me asking why their podcast audience isn't growing. I always reply and ask for a little more info and usually refer them to the free Captivate Podcast Growth Labs  because their reply typically frustrates me. They're usually paying a "podcast coach" to help with their growth.  And that makes me think: if they're paying someone to help, why are...

When I was younger I could work for a lot longer without breaks. Now I get tired. It's not so much a physical thing as it is a mental thing - my ideas get a little slower to form and my ability to focus on learning and developing is hindered. That's hardly surprising - rest is vital to a successful and happy lifestyle - but the challenge that I often find personally is knowing what to do in order...

Now I'm no expert on LinkedIn, but when my long-time friend Jonathan Baillie-Strong asked me what types of posts I've seen work best on LinkedIn for podcast marketing, I had to dive in. For me, it comes down to what type of media you publish and how you title it... Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tu...

Michael Herst asked me during our Podcast Launch Accelerator office hours on Facebook how to handle it when a guest drops out, both from a content perspective and whether you should re-publish an old episode, plus from a guest management perspective. Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouT...

A quick update on the format of The Podcast Accelerator. Moving to longer-form Monday episodes from July 12th :) This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Do you feel like you don't know what to do or when to do it when it comes to growing your podcast audience and generating revenue from your show? You're not alone -after all, you didn't become a podcaster to learn about marketing, promotion and monetization! That's why today, we're launching Captivate Growth Labs. Captivate Growth Labs is a safe place to learn all of the skills that no one told yo...

Long-time friend Steph Fuccio asked this insightful question during one of our Podcast Launch Accelerator office hours sessions on Facebook - and I have a few thoughts on it. Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/rebelbasemedia Learn how to launch your own pod...

I'm a huge fan of transferrable skills. When I ran my digital agency I was the person who knew plenty about plenty and could talk knowledgeably enough on marketing or design or coding or user experience or app development to be able to 1. sell those things and 2. manage them successfully. I'm no specialist in any of them, product marketing seems to be my specialism, but I have enoug...

This is a superb question from Michael Rodriguez! I'm a fan of social marketing but only when it fits our plans, our schedules and our goals. So, here's what I'd choose... Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/rebelbasemedia Learn how to launch your own podcas...

How do you write your episode titles? Serious question. It sounds easy, right? It is, you just choose something descriptive and evocative. But does that guarantee a click? A few weeks ago I authored a podcast growth thread on Twitter containing five things that I see podcasters doing wrong every day and quick ways to fix them . Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going deeper into each of...

Taruna asked me during our Podcast Launch Accelerator office hours on Facebook whether it was wise to relaunch her podcast because she's not promoted her show much and had a little time off. Let's dig into that! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-polic...

This week we released Captivate 2.0 to podcasters across the globe. Let me be your personal changelog right here and update you on the whole list of new features! Your next steps I teach podcasting a lot, and usually for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next: Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/rebelbasemedia Learn how to launch your own podcast the rig...