Should Podcasters Hire A Social Media Manager?

Should you hire a social media manager to promote your podcast?

This is a question that gets asked quite a bit on my YouTube channel. Hiring a social media manager is not a bad idea when it comes down to your podcast, but you have to understand when the time is right to hire your social media manager. Hiring someone will take more off of your plate so that you're not struggling with content development.

The beginning of your journey is likely going to require you to do most of the work. If you're doing it for yourself, then you certainly understand the amount of work it takes to get all that content pushed to social media.

But if you streamline a lot of that work with a social media manager, then we can go ahead and say that your promotional efforts are worthy because they should be getting traction online.

Let's go over a couple of scenarios where a social media manager might be for you (or not).

SCENARIO: DO YOU HAVE CAPITAL?

You produce a podcast, but you really don't have time to create the materials to promote your podcast. This means you don't have time to create the audiograms,blog posts, Instagram posts and more. In fact, you may just want to be focused on creating the podcast itself.

This is very common for a lot of content creators and podcasters. Even though it's not impossible, but there is an actual system that you can utilize where you create one big piece of content and then break it down to smaller pieces of content. We'll talk about that shortly.

First, let's start talking about the things that you have to consider if you're the person that is creating the podcast, but don't want to do all that additional promotional work.

Do you have the ability to actually hire someone like a social media manager? In other words, do you have the money?

Do you have the capital to pay this person in order to help you promote your podcast via social media?

Will you have some form of recurring income that will help pay for that person?

Freelancers will do all the work you want them to do, but it can be a serious dent in your pocket if you don't have a plan set up.

You just can't throw money at them and then expect to get great results. There needs to be a plan set in place before you hire them.

It's important to understand that you should know whether or not you have the money to be paying some of these freelancers.

Some freelancers may be affordable while other freelancers may not be that affordable depending on where you're hiring. If you're getting someone from Fiverr, Upwork, someone from the Philippines or wherever--do you have the money to spend for that freelancer?

GETTING THE RIGHT FREELANCER

A second thing you should consider whether you have the time to vet your freelancer.

You'll discover that not all freelancers are hard workers and not all freelancers will do the work the way that you want it to be done. They'll do it the way they think it should be done if you don't give them direction--and this could give you no results. It's important that you find the time to look for the right freelancer.

You want to find someone who can promote your podcast content diligently and intelligently over the course of time.

DO YOU HAVE A DEFINED GOAL FOR YOUR PODCAST THAT WILL PROMPT A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER?

And the third thing that you have to ask yourself is: Why do you need a social media marketing manager for your podcast.

Do you really need someone to promote your podcast? Or can you just do it all on your own?

You should be jump into some of these questions and analyze the ultimate purpose for your podcast.

Ask yourself, "What are the specific goals for my podcast?"

Are the goals for your podcast to get more subscribers?

Are the goals to get more email subscribers onto your email list?

Maybe your goal is all about monetizing your podcast.

What is your end game?

When people jump into this podcast game, I think they think, "Oh, I'm just going to be able to crack a mic open and I'll be able to talk whatever I want. I'll get all kinds of listeners and I'll make thousands of dollars."

That's not exactly how it works.

Before any of that happens, you have to build up interest by putting strategies in place for people to deepen the relationship with you.

If you haven't defined the ultimate goal for your podcast, maybe you need to reevaluate your business income situation before you start hiring out for a social media manager. But if you have money, I say, "Go ahead and do it! Just have a strategy in place."

QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Here's an example of what to expect when hiring a really good social media manager.

When you hire someone, you're going to want to look for these qualities:

• Someone who has the knowledge to drive traffic back to your podcast and website.

• Someone who understands email markering and promotion.

• Someone who knows what a lead magnet is and how it can help grow a podcast.

How much would someone like this cost?

Well, freelancers can cost anywhere between $700 to $1,000 a month if they have this knowledge. Please don't underestimate their knowledge because inside those basic skills and knowledge, there are far deeper concepts they know than what you are actually seeing. They will make every effort to drive traffic where it needs to go based on your goals. That's why they have higher price tags.

If you think you can hire someone out for $25 or $50 per week, you might get a couple of posts into the internet that are effective, but aren't going to do much for you as far as traffic is concerned.

This is why you have to really start thinking about the investment that is going to take to get someone to help you get eyes on your content.

I don't want to discourage you from the idea of hiring out a social media manager, because it's really varies. Sometimes you can find some really great social media managers that do a really great job for very little money.

Sometimes you might be lucky if you get someone like that, but after working for a social media agency, doing social media at the radio station and helping my clients with social media, it does cost a lot of money.

Sometimes that price includes the time it takes to create the content and publish it. As you area already well-aware, building promotional content can be time-consuming.

WHAT ARE THE ASSETS YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER CAN USE TO PROMOTE YOUR PODCAST?

The fourth thing to consider is whether you have a place for your listeners to capitalize on your social media managers work or the ROI? In other words, do you have a place for listeners get on an email list? Do you have a place for them to join a membership area? Do you have a Patreon?

Will all of these assets be in place before you hire a social media manager?

If not, your social media manager is going to ask you if you have those assets and advise you to set them up--which will cost you more money.

Another thing to consider is whether you have products or services that you want to promote? Will you need to tell your social media manager about those products and services?

This is important information you need to have available if you're turning your podcast into lead generating machine that will help you get business.

So let me jump into what my steps are for promoting my content myself.

DIY PODCAST PROMOTION: EMAIL SERVICE PROVIERS

When it comes down to my own social media marketing and promotion, I have had to figure out what my main goal would be for my YouTube channel and blog.

For me, it's all about helping podcasters achieve success with their podcast and open lines of income for myself in case people want to take the relationship deeper.

I have my own website and have made it a point to incorporate an email service provider that can help with an automated response for helping customers.

I'm not talking about Gmail, MSN or a Yahoo email account. I'm talking about email marketing service providers like MailChimp, Constant Contact, Aweber and the countless email service providers that are out there.

The one that I use is called Kajabi.

DIY PODCAST PROMOTION: WEBSITE PLATFORM

Secondly, do you have a website?

I've talked about this so much on this channel that anytime a podcaster comes in and watches one of my YouTube videos, they say, "I don't have a website. I just don't have the money." If you're looking to invest in your podcast, you have to invest in the website because that's where people get to learn more about you and your services/products.

When you tie a website with an email service provider, that provider is meant to assist you in deepening the relationship on automation. This means you help people while collecting data that can help other people who come across your content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

So you see why it is important to have an email service provider that is connected directly to your website.

DIY PODCAST PROMOTION: LEAD MAGNETS

Next, how do we get these people to stay invested with us? Your website should have an area where someone is opting in through something called a lead magnet. You can do a Google search on lead magnets and get a clearer answer, but I personally use lead magnets to help people start their podcasting journey. Think about the journey your listener is on and how you can help them out. What does that lead magnet look like?

What you're going to realize is that your podcast has turned from something "fun to do" into an actual business. . Whether you are doing entertainment or a business podcast where you educate your audience, your podcast, is all about getting results. And those results are either more podcast listeners or more email subscribers.

DIY PODCAST PROMOTION: PODCAST TRANSCRIPTIONS

Thirdly, you will want to get transcriptions for your podcast and put them on your blog. I've talked about this in the past and transcriptions are still relevant to this day.

There are services that will provide transcriptions for your podcasts such as Rev.com or Descript. There are even hosting providers like Buzzsprout that provide an add-on for having your podcast transcribed.

Once you get your transcription, you will want to clean it up and put it on your website under the blog section. The reason this is done is because the blog will serve as content that Google can crawl when someone searches a specific inquiry.

When someone does a search for a particular keyword or a phrase that when you have that content or those transcripts on your website, people can get directed to your website because you've put that content on your website.

So the transcriptions of your podcast are going to be so valuable.

Sometimes podcasters will tell me, "Shannon, the podcast was over an hour long. No one is going to read 20,000 words." To them, I say that I agree with the, but it's not the full reason why we are putting that many words on a blog page. You're putting that extended content there for search visibility inside of Google.

So, when people discover your blog, it will have been done through a Google Search because of the content on your site. When they click on the result inside a Google Search, they come across your blog with a podcast player and hopefully some calls-to-action to subscribe to your podcast and email list.

USING QUOTES FOR PODCAST PROMOTION

Also, the content that you are putting on that blog can serve as an additional purpose when it comes to promoting your podcast. Because you have dense content inside that blog post, I can imagine there are some pretty profound quotes you can find in that blog. At this point, I would go through and capture some of the best quotes (at least 3 or 4) and utilize them for tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram posts with a context that tells people to listen to the podcast on your website.

To make this process more simple, you can use a scheduling software like Agorapulse, Hootsuite or even Tweetdeck. Then I would pull those quotes and recycle them into a schedule every week or every other week. I can't stress enough that you should have opt-in boxes and pop-ups on your site to maximize the opportunity to have someone join your email list.

Lastly, repeat this process over and over. The key do doing all of this stuff is consistency. It can be difficult in the beginning, but you don't have to do it all at once.