You've probably heard the advice to “be everywhere.” I think the first person I heard it from was Pat Flynn, and it's not bad advice. But it comes with some downsides, and for a lot of podcasters it comes with a lot of stress.
So my hope for this episode is that it does one of two things for you. Either it gives you the freedom to focus only on what you actually need to do to grow your podcast, or it inspires you to step things up just a little bit more.
Your potential audience is everywhere
Your potential audience is on Facebook. They're on X, Instagram, TikTok, Rumble, YouTube, and more. They'll be on platforms that haven't launched yet, and they were on platforms that already died. Remember Clubhouse? Blab? Periscope? Vine?
MySpace is even making a comeback. Could your potential audience be on MySpace? Yes.
That's the part of “be everywhere” that's true. No matter how narrow your topic is, there are potential listeners in nearly every online community and on nearly every platform. The opportunity really is there.
“Everywhere” can be overwhelming
Here's the unfortunate truth: trying to be everywhere gets overwhelming fast.
Think about it with the simplest possible content. Say all you want to do is post text. No images, no video, just text. You can do that on Facebook, X, Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn, and plenty of other places. Then most of those places also let you post images and video. Then there are the visual-first platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.
Even one video clip can become a decision tree. On YouTube alone, should it be a vertical Short or a widescreen clip? On Instagram, should it be a story or a reel? Square, tall, or wide? Then you start posting that same clip in multiple places where different aspect ratios work better, and now a five-minute task has eaten your afternoon.
I think there's an easy solution to this, and I'll get to it right after some special thanks. And honestly, those thanks lead right into the solution.
Special thanks
- Andy Lehman, host of Podcast Answers, interviewed me about podcast chapters. You can also watch us on YouTube.
- Steve Stewart, host of Podcast Editors Mastermind, invited Jenn Trepeck, Dave Jackson, Martin Lindeskog, and me to discuss best podcast app features.
- I wrote about podcast chapters for Podnews.
- Martin Lindeskog, ChadF, and Bryan Entzminger gave back a combined total of almost 4,000 satoshis (seeing the exact amounts is getting frustrating). Martin added a note, “We had fascinating interactions with our listeners for the podcast called Pen Meets Paper (Penna Möter Papper in Swedish). We had a few of our listeners as guests and special co-hosts for some of our episodes. We got plenty of interesting feedback on our show. I will look into your tool, Podgagement, in the future.”
Be where you can be well
So how do you balance this? Your potential audience really is everywhere, and being everywhere really is too much. Here's my advice: be where you can be well.
Yes, try to be everywhere if you can. But if you can't be there well, if it's a half attempt where you're not engaging, not reading replies, not thanking people, not participating in the community, then don't make that place a priority and don't stress about building engagement there.
Maybe “well” means one platform. Maybe it means one tool you actually enjoy using. If you're publishing video clips alongside your audio podcast, instead of asking how to format this for TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and everything else, just pick one. Where are you already familiar? Where have you learned enough to do it well? Start there.
Then build on it. Maybe you post short clips on YouTube for a while, you get the process down, and you decide it's time to add TikTok. Now you add TikTok. Growth on top of competence is sustainable. Growth on top of nothing is just stress.
Automate what you can
To help you do that one thing well, and eventually more than one thing, automate what you can.
Plenty of automation tools have existed for years, like simple cross-posting and cross-publishing systems. What AI can do now makes even more of it easier. So if you can't be fully present somewhere, automation might let you be there at least a little. Or it might let you be in your one main place much better.
For example, maybe you already record video of your episodes and you're happy with the production quality. You just don't have time to hunt for clips. That's a great job for a tool like Opus Clip, Descript, or Riverside. I may have affiliate links for some of those in the notes.
And automation doesn't obligate you to publish everything it produces. If the tool finds ten clips and you only like two, publish two. The whole point of automation and AI is to make your work easier, faster, and better, not to hand you a bigger quota.
Point your audience to where you engage most
Now, which platform should you actually promote? Point your audience to where you engage most.
Even if you have accounts everywhere, don't send people to places where you don't show up. Don't tell them to follow you on TikTok if you're not on TikTok. I have a TikTok account. I don't think I've ever published a single thing there, which is exactly why you never hear me mention it.
It's fine to list every platform on your website. But whatever you personally recommend, or feature most prominently in your show notes or in your podcast app listing, should be the place where you actually engage. Even if some of your audience says they don't like that platform, if it's where you enjoy being, that's still where you should point them.
For me, that's X. It's the platform I enjoy most, the tools work the way I like, and the algorithm has gotten really good at feeding me content and conversation I enjoy. It's almost becoming an addiction. So if you want to engage with me on a social network, find me as @theDanielJLewis.
Compare that to Instagram. I post the image for each new episode and promote the latest episode there. Every now and then I'll post something visual about podcasting, maybe a meme that will make podcasters laugh. But I rarely open the Instagram app, so I don't engage much there, so I don't ask you to follow me there.
I'm not going to judge which platform is right for you. The question is what you enjoy. Maybe you like a platform's constraints, or its audience, or its culture. That's totally okay. Reserve your name everywhere, cross-publish where automation makes it easy, and then point your audience to the one place where you'll actually talk with them.
Ask your audience for help
My last suggestion may be your greatest untapped resource: your own audience.
If you publish full videos on YouTube, some of your listeners are capable of making clips from them, sharing those clips, and handing you something you can reshare. Look at the top podcasters who publish video. A lot of the clips circulating from their shows weren't made by the show at all. An audience member thought, “This is a great excerpt,” and clipped it.
And the people who really want to do that will figure out how. There are tools that make it easy, and those tools come and go. I've seen many of them, and I literally own a t-shirt from one that no longer exists.
So ask for that help. If you're publishing audio or video and you'd love short clips or audiograms, invite your audience to make them. Say something like, “If you found something helpful here, you have my permission to clip it and share it. Just let me know, because I'd enjoy resharing what you make.”
Your audience enjoys what you're sharing, and a lot of them want to share that joy with others. So ask them. Equip them. Give them permission. You might end up enjoying their clips more than your own.
The biggest takeaway
Pick where you can be well, and focus there. That's where you point your audience, and that's where you invest your time until you're genuinely good at it.
I joke that I have entrepreneurial ADHD, because it's so easy to get distracted. I want to do this, I want to grow that, I have an idea over here. If that sounds like you, the cure is picking one platform, one tool, one skill, and getting really good at it first.
Then build on it, because skills transfer. My education is in music composition, not multimedia production or most of what I do today. But the principles I learned there, like contrast and harmony, apply to almost everything I create now.
So what's your one thing? What platform, what tool, what skill are you going to do well before you chase the next shiny object?
If you love The Audacity to Podcast and value the podcasting inspiration and education I provide, would you please consider giving back what it's worth to you?
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Disclosure
This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship. I may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.
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