Eight ways to grow your podcast’s audience and build your brand

With Canva you can grow your podcast’s listenership on social media quickly, and engage with those already tuning in.

Here are eight simple steps you can take to make an impact with your podcast online and grow your brand. Don’t forget to watch our video series on the topic⁠(opens in a new tab or window) too.

Social media will be a crucial part of promoting your podcast.

Your social channels will allow you to grow your brand awareness and give you insight into important metrics, like your demographic’s age, gender, and location. But more importantly, you can gather information on posts that generate a lot of attention and use these topics to form new episode ideas.

Your social media presence will also give new listeners an idea of your podcast’s personality and the type of content you make, and how it can benefit them. You could:

• Interact with listeners by going live on TikTok for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session
• Run a poll asking what topics listeners want to hear about on Twitter
• Post a countdown to your podcast’s launch on Instagram stories

There are so many things you can do to promote your podcast across social platforms.

The big three platforms you should set up before you launch your podcast are: a Facebook business page, an Instagram business account and a X (Twitter) profile.

Then, depending on your niche and audience, you can explore other platforms.

For example, if your podcast is about career changes and advice, LinkedIn would be an ideal platform for you to promote yourself. If your podcast is about wedding planning, Pinterest might be where you generate a lot of new leads.

With any platform, be sure to share your show notes with images that people can save for later and share with their friends. If you know your podcast’s target audience skews younger, look to platforms like TikTok to engage with millennial and Gen Z listeners.

Cross promotions and working with other podcasters is a huge part of growing your audience and creating long-term sustained engagement.

Twitter is a great place to meet other podcasters and gain a following. You can set up collaborations, like guest swaps, promo swaps and feed swaps — all from the comfort of your home studio. Think about joining the ‘Podcasting Community⁠(opens in a new tab or window)’ on X (Twitter). It’s a great place to build meaningful relationships.

Learning from someone who has been working in your genre longer will allow you to avoid any missteps they made, saving you valuable time and effort.

A media kit⁠(opens in a new tab or window), also known as a press kit, should be used when you’re reaching out to promote your podcast, requesting to be a guest on another show, or featured in a newsletter. Think of your media kit as a resume for your podcast. A short, easily digestible document that displays your show's personality. You can even reserve a slide in each pitch that is tailored for the person or publication you’re pitching to.

These Canva templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window) will give you a leg up.

Your media kit should include:

• A short description of your show, or “elevator pitch”
• A short biography of yourself and/or co-hosts
• Impressive stats, including the number of downloads on your episodes, how many social media followers you have, links to publications you’ve been featured in, etc.
• A description of your audience including details such as their age, gender, and location
  

Your cover art is the image that will show up next to your show in the podcasting apps, such as Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Besides the actual content of your podcast, the cover art is the most important piece of launching your podcast as a brand.

First of all, a cover image is a mandatory requirement for submitting your show to all major podcasting apps. If you don’t have cover art to go with your podcast, the show will be rejected. Second, your show art helps set the tone of your podcast and showcases your personality. This will go a long way in helping your podcast stand out from the crowd.

Your cover art should meet the following requirements:

• Your podcast cover art should be at least 1400 x 1400 pixels and no bigger than 3000 x 3000 pixels
• Next, you’ll need to save it as a JPEG or PNG file that has a resolution of at least 72 DPI

Learn how to design your own cover art in Canva below.

Along with creating your podcast’s cover art, don’t forget to design a X (Twitter) banner and profile images for various social channels, and generate your first post.

Canva has a lot of inspiring templates you can use to get started here⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

Canva’s Content Planner helps you take control of your social channels. With Canva, you can design social media posts and coordinate them across platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.

You’ll be able to choose the right post for the right time. For example, if you’re going to release episodes every Thursday, you can schedule your posts days, weeks, or even months ahead of time. If you need to pause a post, you have the ability to do so and you can edit a post without having to re-upload the file.

Content Planner allows you to track your impressions, clicks, likes, and comments with the social media performance analytics built into the planner.

Try a free Canva Pro trial here⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and give it a shot.

A website will improve your show’s discoverability, especially if you include SEO-friendly copy that will feed into popular search engines.

By having a website you can provide detailed show notes for your listeners and promote who will be coming on your podcast in the coming weeks, along with other relevant information.

Learn how to make your own website with Canva here⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

A website will improve your show’s discoverability, especially if you include SEO-friendly copy that will feed into popular search

Allowing listeners to subscribe to a newsletter means you can notify them about future guests, specials, promos, and products before the general public.

You can even use your newsletter in social media contests in order to gain more subscribers.

Trust us, your listeners will appreciate having a first glance at what’s coming next.

Ready to reveal your podcast to the world? Get started with these popular podcast templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window).