Last week we made the case that video podcasting is not right for every show, and that the industry pressure to add video is being driven largely by platforms and tools with a financial interest in your adoption. If you read that piece and your honest answer to the four questions at the end was mostly encouraging, this post is for you.
podcast growth
So You Want to Add Video to Your Podcast
It seems everyone is adding video to their podcast right now. YouTube is the number one platform for podcast discovery. Clips are driving listeners. The algorithm rewards video. The data is clear. The pressure is real.
And a lot of podcasters are about to make a significant mistake.
38 Ways to Promote Your Podcast Without Being Annoying About It
The internet does not need another list of podcast promotion tips that starts with “post on social media” and ends with “be consistent.” You already know that. What you may not have is a clear, organized picture of all the levers available to you, and a realistic sense of which ones are worth pulling first. Here’s 38 ways to promote your podcast without being annoying about it.
What “Engagement” Actually Means
I think it’s a word that’s lost its meaning. A few weeks ago I made the case that download numbers are a noisy, often misleading proxy for whether your podcast is actually working. The same skepticism deserves to be pointed at another word podcasters throw around constantly: engagement. Here’s what Engagement actually means…
Your Download Numbers Are Lying to You
Every podcaster knows the ritual. You publish an episode, wait a few days, and then open your hosting dashboard to see how it performed. Your download numbers stare back at you. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s disappointing. Either way, you treat it like a verdict.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: that number is not telling you what you think it is.
Cross-Promoting With Guests Is Mostly a Myth
I recently read something that most of us know but nobody wants to admit: guest cross-promotion doesn’t really work as a growth strategy. And it’s worth saying clearly, because almost no podcast blog will.
Build Your Podcast Like It Could Be Taken Away Tomorrow
There is a quiet assumption that underpins much of the podcasting world, and it is rarely questioned until something breaks. Your podcast? It could be taken away tomorrow.
You Don’t Have a Podcast Problem. You Have a Positioning Problem.
January is when podcasters misdiagnose themselves. Downloads plateau, motivation wobbles, and the conclusion arrives: I need to do more. More episodes. More clips. More guests. More promotion. More tools. But most stalled podcasts don’t suffer from a production problem or a marketing problem. They suffer from a positioning problem, and no amount of activity fixes that. If your show feels like it’s working hard without going anywhere, this is likely why.
Why Your Podcast Isn’t Growing Yet (And Why Your Numbers Are Normal)
Every week, someone new launches a passion-driven podcast and immediately has the same fear: “I published 5, 8, 12 episodes… and barely anyone is listening. What am I doing wrong?” If that’s you, take a breath. You are not failing. You are not unusual. And you certainly aren’t alone. Your numbers are normal.
Podcast Analytics That Matter: Balancing Subscribers and Downloads
When podcasters talk about growth, two numbers come up again and again: subscribers and downloads. Both are valuable, but it’s not enough to look at them in isolation. To truly understand your show’s health, and where you should focus your energy, you need to track these metrics together.