How to promote a podcast: every channel that works

Promotion has two jobs: reaching people who don't know the show yet, and bringing back the ones who do. No single channel does both. Here's how they compare for a weekly show doing its own promotion. The effort and cost are our rough judgments, not measurements:

If you can only do two things, post clips of every episode and make every title say what the episode is. Clips bring strangers; clear titles tell them what they've found. Everything else builds on those two.

An episode reaches people who already follow the show. A clip reaches people who don't: the short-video feeds show clips by what people watch, not who they follow, so forty seconds of a great answer can put the show in front of strangers every day of the week. That's why clips are the cheapest steady promotion a podcast has: the material is already recorded, and every episode holds a week of it.

The full plan (what to clip, framing two people in a vertical frame, linking each Short to its episode, and a rhythm you can keep) is in how to grow a podcast with clips, and finding the moments is in how to clip a podcast. In short:

• Post a clip a day from each episode: the best story, the strongest take, the funniest exchange.
• Point each one back. On YouTube, make the episode the Short's related video; everywhere, name the show in the caption.
• Not filming? The free audiogram maker turns an audio moment into a video with your cover, a moving waveform and captions.

By hand, a week of clips means rewatching the episode for the moments, cutting each one, reframing two or three people into 9:16 and captioning every word. Clyper does that from the episode's YouTube link or video file: it picks the moments that stand on their own, cuts each on whole sentences, frames whoever's talking and captions every word, up to 30 clips from an hour-long episode. Posting them stays with you. More in podcast clips with Clyper.

YouTube says more than 1 billion people a month watch podcasts there (as of January 2025). On YouTube, a podcast is a playlist and each episode is a full-length video in it. Create one in YouTube Studio (Create, then New podcast) with a title, a description and a square thumbnail (1280 × 1280 recommended). Podcasts may then be eligible for:

• A podcast badge on watch and playlist pages.
• YouTube Music, where people can listen in the background and download most podcasts without Premium.
• A spotlight on youtube.com/podcasts.
• Recommendations to new listeners with similar interests, and better search features.

YouTube's own tips for being found: one public podcast per show, holding only full-length episodes in the order they should be watched; no clips, other shows or other channels' uploads mixed in; the show's own name as the podcast's title (without adding “podcast” unless it's part of the name); and a detailed description, so new listeners can find it by searching. Your Shorts stay on YouTube: Shorts made to support a podcast don't appear in YouTube Music.

Audio-only show? Each episode needs a picture on YouTube, such as a still image or an audiogram; the audiogram maker can also put a whole episode over its cover. Filming the show is covered in how to start a video podcast, and what YouTube pays podcasters in how to make money podcasting.

Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts for Creators has free marketing tools: search for your show and you get a marketing kit with social posts (about guests, trailers, new seasons and fan favorites), embeddable players for your website, links and short links that open the show in Apple Podcasts, QR codes, and the official “Listen on Apple Podcasts” badges (follow Apple's identity guidelines when you use them).

Apple's editors also hand-pick shows for Home, New and category pages in Search, and you can pitch yours through its feature request form. Your feed has to be live on Apple Podcasts, a new show needs a trailer in its feed, and a pitch goes in at least 2 weeks before the date you want. If you're not picked, pitch again after six to eight weeks. Apple doesn't tell you when you're featured, and because placements are personalized, you may not see it in your own app.

Spotify. In Spotify for Creators:

• Clips: one short video per episode, 15 to 90 seconds, shown on your show page, and Spotify may recommend it in the Home and Podcast feeds. Spotify recommends vertical video with captions, so the week's best clip works here too.
• Episode previews: 60-second teasers that play as people scroll Spotify's podcast feeds. Spotify makes them from the start of the episode or from the section its tool picks as most engaging, and you can choose your own section on the web (Spotify is still rolling that out to every show).
• Your show page: set a “best place to start” for new listeners, and use host recommendations to point at another podcast or a playlist of your favorite episodes.
• Follows: Spotify saves new episodes to followers' libraries, so ask for the follow, embed a Spotify player on your site, and put links in the episode description.

Spotify's comments and polls are covered under community, below.

Each app searches differently, but they agree on titles: specific, distinct and honest.

• Episode titles. Apple suggests leading with the most eye-catching information, like the topic or a big-name guest, keeping a consistent layout, and leaving the show's name, the upload date and episode numbers out of the title (numbers go in your feed's episode tags). Apple Podcasts search reads show names, channel names and episode titles, ranks shows people follow and play higher, and Apple asks for titles that are specific and unique, without emoji or repeats.
• Descriptions and show notes. Apple suggests putting the words your audience would search for in your show's description, and YouTube's podcast tips ask for a detailed description. Say what the episode covers and who's on it in the first lines, then add the links. Apple's guidelines forbid trying to influence search with inaccurate or inappropriate terms, so describe what's really in the episode.
• Chapters. YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify all read chapters from timestamps in the description: start at 0:00 and list at least 3 in order (YouTube also needs each to be 10 seconds or longer). Apple, and Spotify for some shows, can generate chapters for English episodes when you don't add your own. Chapters let a listener jump to the part they came for, and on YouTube they show on the progress bar.

The free YouTube timestamp generator makes the chapter list as the episode plays, or from a transcript made on your device, and checks it against YouTube's rules; the same list works in your show notes.

The people most likely to try a new podcast are people who already listen to shows like it. Reach them through the hosts they trust:

• Be a guest. Pitch shows whose listeners would like yours, with one specific story or topic you'd bring, not “I'd love to come on”. Mention your own show once, naturally, near the end.
• Book guests with audiences. A guest who shares their episode brings their followers with them, if they share it.
• Swap promos. Trade a 30-second read or your trailer with a show of a similar size, each played in the other's episode.
• Recommend each other on Spotify. Host recommendations on your show page can point at another podcast, and theirs at yours.
• Make a crossover episode with a show in a neighboring topic, and publish it in both feeds.

Followers on an app are borrowed: the app decides who sees your posts. An email list is yours, and it reaches people on the day you choose.

• Start the list early. A sign-up link in every episode's description, on your website and in your bio, with a reason to join: the episode's links, a bonus, a note from behind the scenes.
• Send one email per episode with something only the email has: what didn't make the edit, one clip, a question for next week. “New episode out” on its own gets ignored.
• Swap mentions with newsletters in your niche: the email version of a promo swap.

Community turns listeners into people who tell their friends:

• Spotify comments and polls. Listeners can comment on episodes in the Spotify mobile app; you can approve, like and reply, and pin a comment of your own to the top. Each episode can have one poll with 2 to 7 answers, and Spotify suggests mentioning it in the episode's intro or outro and sharing the results.
• YouTube posts and comments. Posts share polls, quizzes, images, text and videos with your viewers, on your channel and sometimes in their home and Subscriptions feeds (not on channels set as made for kids). Answer comments in the first hours after an episode goes up.
• A space of your own, like a Discord server or a group chat, once listeners want to talk to each other and not just to you. Read their questions on air: it rewards the people who show up.

Paid promotion buys reach for as long as you pay. These are ad products for promoting your own show or videos, as their makers describe them:

Promote what already works: boost a clip that did well on its own, or the episode new listeners finish most. Paid reach stops when the budget does, so it suits a launch, a new season or testing a new audience.

Measuring what works. Each app shows a different piece:

• Apple Podcasts Connect shows followers, listeners, engaged listeners (people who played at least 20 minutes or 40% of an episode), plays and time listened, and compares an episode with your others at 7, 14, 30 or 60 days. It shows data once at least 5 people have listened in the period.
• Spotify for Creators shows discovery: how often your show was shown on Spotify, where (Home, Library or Search) and what share of those turned into plays, plus how long people stay in each episode.
• YouTube Studio shows how viewers found each video (Shorts, search, suggested videos, external sites) and the search terms they used, and where they stop watching.
• Ask. A line in the episode, a poll or a question in your email: “How did you find the show?” Analytics miss word of mouth.

Change one thing at a time, give it a few weeks, and compare the same numbers before and after. Keep what moves them, and drop what doesn't.