Why Social Media Marketing is a Waste for 90% of Podcasters

I hear it over and over again - the first “real marketing” that a podcaster does is social media marketing. Then after spending a whole lot of money, they look around and start scrutinizing their stats and then scratch their heads because they aren’t sure whether it made any difference at all in their podcast.I am asked about this often and I see questions in the podcast Facebook groups about it, so I wanted to take some time today and explain to you why I am so against social media marketing for the majority of podcasters.So first, let’s define what social media marketing is:This is where you run paid ads on social media platforms in order to try to get people to listen to your podcast.Facebook has made it so easy to “boost a post” that almost every podcaster I’ve ever talked to has fallen for it at least once.I am NOT talking about posting on social media platforms or sharing your episodes with followers. I always think that’s a good idea, but I also think it is not impactful enough for most podcasters to justify hiring a social media manager to manage this.So the bottom line I am trying to help you avoid today is spending money on ads and social media management that will yield very little ROI, so that you can put your money into things that can actually bring you a legitimate return on your investment.So, let me explain why this is an activity that most of you shouldn’t participate in, and then I’ll tackle the real question of what you should do instead of social media marketing.In strict marketing terms, the vast majority of ad campaigns that a podcaster would run would be considered an AWARENESS Campaign. This means that there isn’t really something an audience member can buy from the ad, and the ad is just being run to make you aware of a podcast.Let me just explain to you quickly why awareness campaigns are not something you should aspire to:They are incredibly expensive to run, since all your ad spend is going into educating the marketplace that you exist, and not to buy your products or services.Most of the time awareness campaigns are exclusively done by huge multi-national corporations who want to be remembered favorably by the audience.You can never really determine the ROI from an awareness campaign, so you are most often lighting your money on fire.Awareness campaigns are not targeted, so of all the people you have the potential to reach, only a fraction of them will be your target avatar.Ok, so now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, this is where we start getting real about this conversation.WHY are you really wanting to run social media ads?I mean what is the real end goal?To get more downloads, right?And what does getting more downloads mean for most podcasters?Well, of course it means you have more listeners, but what do you as a podcaster get out of having 1000 downloads rather than 200 downloads?I mean, how much more money will you make when you have 1000 downloads vs. 200 downloads?For the vast majority of podcasters, and maybe even you, it means absolutely nothing. There is a zero dollar difference in those 2 numbers.Why?Because the average podcaster does not have an offer that their podcast listeners can buy.So this means that most podcasters aren’t selling anything.And yet, when I talk to those podcasters, almost all of them will tell me that one of their goals is to earn some income from their...