Are you looking to use podcasting to increase your brand influence? or perhaps increase the number of potential leads coming to your company?
Podcasts have been around for 10+ years and it’s now a huge aspect of marketing that entrepreneurs all around the world are tapping into. Over the past 3 months, I’ve been experimenting with steps to land podcast interviews with Twitter and I’ve arrived at a proven set of steps that have gotten me onto over 25 podcasts. The podcast interviews have already started to:
(1) drive new clients to one of my businesses, FreeeUp.com.
(2) increase high quality back links to my set of business websites, ConnorGillivan.com and FreeeUp.com.
(3) improve my influence as an entrepreneur in networking and relationship building
I’ve seen the same happen with my business partner, Nathan Hirsch, over the past year as we’ve been building FreeeUp together. He’s been on over 50 podcasts which has led to hundreds of new clients and handfuls of amazing relationships with podcast hosts that are now educating their listeners on the power of the FreeeUp network.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the proven steps that I’ve created to land podcast interviews with Twitter. There are many podcast PR companies out there that will pitch your story to podcast hosts looking for new guests, but I’ve created a strategy that you can work on 1 hour per day that will be sure to land you podcast interviews. Continue reading to learn how you can become a podcast interviewee and drive more customers to your business.
Proven Steps to Land Podcast Interviews with Twitter
Step 1: Know your story and expertise
Before you can start pitching podcast hosts or podcast channels on Twitter, you need to understand your story and the content that you can use to add real value to listeners. At the core of landing new podcast interviews are these two aspects. Podcast hosts are not going to give you the time of day if you don’t understand your story and have the knowledge to teach their community something new.
Creating your personal story
When crafting your story, focus on the events in your life that have been pivotal to your growth and the most accomplished experiences from your journey. If you are an entrepreneur, start with your first step into entrepreneurship and lead it into the events that led you to where you are today. After thinking about your story and identifying the core events within it, turn it into a 1-3 paragraph bio about you written in the first person.
Here is an example of my story for your reference…
My name is Connor Gillivan and I am a 27 year old serial entrepreneur. I co-founded my first eCommerce company out of my college dorm room in 2010 buying and selling textbooks on Amazon.com. After becoming experts at selling on Amazon, we expanded the business to drop ship relationships and followed Amazon into the new product categories they were beginning to offer. Over a 4 year span, we built over 1,000 drop ship supplier relationships, were representing over 500,000 products through our Amazon store, and sold a cumulative of over $20 million on Amazon.
After hiring hundreds of workers through Upwork and other online hiring marketplaces, my business partner and I were frustrated with the current solutions and wanted to create something new for eCommerce business owners. In late 2015, I co-founded FreeeUp.com, an online hiring platform specialized for the eCommerce industry. The company has been growing at over 1,000% YoY and now services over 2,000 online businesses around the world.
In addition to my entrepreneurial endeavors, I am an avid writer. I’ve self published a best selling book, Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrap Million Dollar Companies, and write regularly on my own website, ConnorGillivan.com.
Do you see how that could make the podcast host’s decision simpler? Instead of having to research me all over the Internet (which they still may do), they get a clear picture of who I am and what I’ve accomplished.
Determining your expertise content
Second, understand the content that you will focus on for the podcast interview. Most podcast interviews follow a similar structure. First, discuss the story of the podcast guest. Second, go in depth on their expertise. Third, wrap it up with rapid fire questions.
For your content that you’ll use on the show, think of what you are an absolute expert in and craft that in some way to help the audience of listeners. Here is an example from my expertise.
Content topic: How to Build an Outsourced Team So You Stay Focused on Growth of your Company.
Short description: I will teach listeners how to recruit, interview, and hire the right people for their online business. I will walk listeners through proven steps that I’ve created from hiring hundreds of remote freelancers to properly integrate the into your team and make sure that communication is a priority.
Once you have these two aspects down, it is time to start hustling with Twitter to land some new podcast opportunities.
Step 2: Search “your niche + podcast” or “your niche + podcast host” in Twitter search bar
Sign into your Twitter account and head to the search bar. Type into the search bar one of the following:
“your niche + ‘podcast'” –> example: “eCommerce podcast”
“your niche + ‘podcast host'” –> example: “eCommerce podcast host”
After entering your search term, make sure to select “People” from the Twitter filter. You’ll then be presented with a list of results from Twitter that you want to sift through looking for the best matches for podcasts or podcast hosts where your content and story would be most relevant.
In order to do this, look at the short bio of each Twitter account that is in the results to see if it looks like it would be relevant. If it appears to be relevant, open the account in a new tab. Go to the new tab and look deeper into the account. Does this person actually host a podcast that would fit your niche? Is this actually a podcast you would want to be on? If the answer is yes, move onto Step #3! If the answer is no, head back to the search results and continue looking for the best fits.
If you want to take it a step further in your research, you can search the podcast name in Google. Find the itunes link for the podcast, click on it, and check out how many episodes they have had and how many reviews they have gotten. This will give you a better idea of the size of the podcast.
Step 3: Follow and Tweet direct to the podcast or podcast host Twitter page
Once you’ve found a podcast or a podcast host that looks like a good fit for your niche content and story, follow their account (showing interest in what they are doing), and click the “Tweet to” button just under their profile.
You’ve now reached the most important part of this strategy: pitching the podcast or podcast host. In this step, your goal is to catch their attention, get a response, and find out how you can apply to be a guest. Most podcasts will have a certain way that they like podcast guests to apply: a form, an email, etc.
Here’s a few examples of a Tweet that you may send:
“@2xeCommerce Would love to be a guest on your podcast! How do I apply? Sold over $20 mil on Amazon. Now @FreeeUp. Great entrepreneur stories”
“@2xeCommerce Is there an application to be a guest? Would love to share my story. $20+ mil on Amazon. Now @FreeeUp. Best selling author. LMK”
You want the person monitoring the Twitter account to understand what you want (to apply to be a guest) and why you are an interesting candidate that they should consider.
As with anything in entrepreneurship, it is all about trial and error. I have changed my direct Tweet over the past two months hundreds of times in order to pinpoint a handful that have gotten responses and landed me new podcast guest opportunities. The two above have had high response rates thus far.
Step 4: Follow up via email with your biography and content topics
Now that you have their attention on Twitter, you want to follow up to the email or contact form provided on the podcast website. Navigate to the podcast website and search for contact information. Once found, send them an email that simply states the following:
“Hey. My name is Connor Gillivan and I just reached out to you via Twitter. I would love to be a guest on your podcast and I am confident that I can provide real value to your listeners. I’m extremely passionate about teaching others the lessons that I’ve learned from 7+ years of entrepreneurship. I’ve provided additional information about me and content for the show below. Please let me know how I can schedule a time for the podcast.
Insert short biography and expertise content (that we created in step 1). See how Step 1 has to be perfected before moving on?
By following up via email, it is another touch point where the podcast or host can see that you are serious about making this happen. It also provides them more information about you hence making their job easier. If they saw your tweet and like the content that you sent along via email, it makes it easier for them to make a decision and send you a calendar invite.
Step 5: Schedule the podcast and send podcast show notes
The final step to land podcast interviews with Twitter is to actually get the podcast interview in the books. As you saw in my mock email, you want to ask how you can get the podcast scheduled. That is the final and most important step: get the interview in the podcast host’s books. When it is there, it’s finalized and you can mark it as a win.
On top of sharing your expertise content with a new group of listeners and making a new relationship with a potentially amazing podcast host, being a guest on podcasts is a huge opportunity to build high quality back links to your website. To optimize this aspect of being a podcast guest, you want to send the podcast host information for the podcast show notes that you would like included.
All podcasts have separate web pages for each of their podcast episodes. On this page, you want to have the links to your business so that once it is published, you have another quality back link pointing to your site. In the world of SEO, these back links will help to improve your search rankings and further drive traffic to your website.
Here’s an example of an email that you may send to the podcast host for the show notes:
“Hey podcast host. Thanks again for having me on the show. I’m super excited to chat and share my expertise with your audience. To make things easy, I’ve included information about me and my expertise below for the podcast show notes. Feel free to use it as you may wish and let me know if there is any additional content that you need from me before publishing.
Insert short biography with links, content expertise, and list of most important links.
Thanks,
Connor ”
Now you have your podcast interview scheduled and you are setting yourself up to maximize the SEO benefits of being on a podcast. By the time you finish interviewing for this podcast, you will have reached a new audience, made a new business relationship, and improved the SEO of your business or personal brand. I bet you didn’t think you could do all of that with a simple Twitter outreach strategy!
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Started
I was nervous when I first started to reach out to podcasts and share my story, but it has turned into an aspect of the ConnorGillivan.com and FreeeUp marketing strategy that is now second nature. As with anything that you run into as an entrepreneur, there will be a short learning curve, but you can always fight through with persistence and the right strategy.
Don’t be afraid to craft your story and start reaching out to podcast hosts where your content is relevant. The most important parts of landing podcast interviews is making your outreach consistent so that you are pitching enough podcast hosts and making it as simple as possible for the podcast host to say yes. Podcast hosts are busy people. If you provide them all of the information for them to realize that having you on their show will provide real value to their listeners then your chances of landing that podcast are much, much higher.
Get out there and start sharing your story and expertise.
You May Also Like:
4 Steps to Use Podcasts to Master Anything in 2 Weeks – I break down how I use podcasts to educate myself on new topics and enhance my inner knowledge bank.
How to Create Your Personal Brand as an Entrepreneur – I dive into the strategies I’ve been using to build my personal brand since 2016. Perfect for someone getting started in personal branding.
