‍

In this episode of Confessions of a B2B Marketer, I jumped on The Giraffe Social Media Podcast hosted by Chloe Belchamber. Chloe and I explain how businesses can repurpose podcast content to create engaging social media content, the benefits of podcasting for B2B companies, offer tips on repurposing content based on objectives, and provides out-of-the-box content ideas. I also address the value of capturing video, and the evergreen nature of repurposed podcast content, and identify social media platforms where podcasting thrives. I conclude with recommendations for making podcasting as smooth as possible.

Podcasts have become an increasingly popular way for businesses to reach their target audiences. With the rise of streaming services, podcasts are now more accessible than ever before and offer a great opportunity for B2B companies to engage with potential customers and build relationships. However, creating a successful podcast is no easy task. It requires careful planning, content creation, repurposing and social media strategies in order to maximize its potential.

In this article, we’ll explore how you can leverage podcasts to grow your B2B business by providing tips on content creation, repurposing and social media strategies. Content Creation Tips Creating compelling content is key when it comes to podcasting success.

Here are some tips for creating engaging podcast content:

• Choose a topic that resonates with your target audience – Make sure the topics you choose are relevant to your industry and will be of interest to your target audience.
• Research thoroughly – Before recording each episode, make sure you do thorough research on the topic so that you can provide valuable insights and information during the podcast.

• Invite guests – Inviting guests onto your show can help add variety and bring in new perspectives from different industries or backgrounds. This will also help keep listeners engaged as they hear from different people each episode.
• Keep it short – Aim for episodes that are around 30 minutes long as this is usually enough time for listeners to get all the information they need without getting bored or overwhelmed by too much detail.

Repurposing Tips Once you’ve created an episode of your podcast, there are several ways you can repurpose it in order to reach more people:

• Create blog posts – Take snippets from each episode and create blog posts around them so that readers who may not have listened can still get value from the content in written form.

• Share audio clips on social media – Share audio clips of key points or quotes from each episode on social media platforms such as Twitter or Instagram so that followers who may not have time to listen can still get value from them quickly and easily.

• Create video versions – Create video versions of each episode using tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro X so that viewers who prefer watching videos over listening can still access the same content in a different format.

Social Media Strategies Social media is an important tool when it comes to promoting podcasts as it allows businesses to reach their target audiences quickly and easily through platforms like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram:

• Engage with followers - Engaging with followers on social media helps build relationships with potential customers which could lead them back towards listening/watching/reading your podcasts later down the line if they find value in what you post online firstly .

• Share regularly - Regularly sharing snippets of episodes across multiple platforms helps keep listeners engaged while also increasing visibility among new audiences who may not have heard about your show before .

• Use hashtags - Using relevant hashtags when posting about episodes helps increase visibility among those searching for topics related to yours .

Conclusion Podcasts offer great opportunities for B2B companies looking to engage with their target audiences but creating successful shows requires careful planning along with effective content creation, repurposing and social media strategies . By following these tips , businesses should be able to leverage podcasts effectively in order grow their business .

Thanks for listening and hit me up if you have any questions!

Episode transcript

So our business is called fame because the result of running a B2B podcast well is that your host and your business become famous. Hello team and welcome to this episode of a Confessions of a B2B marketer podcast. And we're going to be jumping in with another guest interview I did focusing on you guessed it B2B businesses and how they can leverage a podcast to help grow.

But then also because this show was specifically focused around social media, we dig into how the podcast can drive a B2B businesses full social campaign or various campaigns on different platforms.

Now, before we jump into that, I have a very special announcement to make. This show has a brand new sponsor. They are called Hockey Stack. So go to hockey stack dot com right now. Check them out.

How I met these guys essentially was that Amir came on the show about five episodes back and we did a great kind of deep dive into how he he's the founder is also responsible for I believe the growth of the business. And so we did a deep dive into the cool stuff they're doing to grow. So I'd recommend going and checking out that episode first.

But then after that, we got chatting and really from that episode as well. I saw that Amir was like a pure grinder, like just doing everything, like jumping on the latest things you can do in B2B and then implementing them to the extreme. I also interestingly learned that Amir and his co-founder used to read the SaaS market to case studies, specifically the Veed one back in the day.

And so that is also a good sign that these guys know how to grind. Now in terms of what hockey stack actually does, I haven't actually been in the product yet. I'm going to get into it and we're going to learn more about what the product does and how can help you at B2B marketer attribute more effectively. And we're going to do that over the journey of this sponsorship.

So every other episode, I'll be jumping on and sharing a little bit more about either what Amir is doing to grow hockey stack or either what hockey stack can do to help you attribute and therefore grow your B2B business. So let's jump into this episode now, but of course, a massive thank you to hockey stack. Welcome to the podcast, Tom.

Hi, Claire. Thank you so much for having me. Absolute pleasure. There's something always satisfying about interviewing podcast experts on our podcast. It's very meta. And also typically they have a good sound or you would have always good sound. They always outdo me when it comes to sound. So something for me to pick up my game there, but sounding very crisp today. Thank you.

Well, before we jump into things, why don't you start by telling us a little bit more about fame and all the work you do over there?

Yes. The fame started because I was a head of marketing at a B2B software company. I really owe this company because I'm a B2B marketing manager. I started a podcast because I was like, there's, there are these people that I think we should learn from to sell to, et cetera, long story short, podcasts like went really well. I like saw the power of a B2B show.

And so after a year or so left and then ask them if they'd like to be our first client, and then they became the first client. I then hosted that show for a further 200 episodes. I got kicked off being a host a couple of months ago, but it's all good. They're still a client.

And then, so then all fame is really is we've taken that process that we built and then have iterated on that over time to essentially help B2B companies start and grow podcasts.

Well, I love that you kind of left this one job that had a good enough relationship that you bought them on to your, to your new agency. That's awesome. Yeah.

I mean, credit, credit to ABSTA.com for allowing me to do that. Yeah.

Well, Tom, we're here to talk about using podcasts to create engaging social content.

But before we do, I want to know why should B2Bs be investing in podcasts in the first place?

Great question. Really good question. I think there's probably two good reasons. Reason number one, reason number one is that a really good way to like network in an industry is to like do stuff with people. If you ever noticed, if you like go traveling with someone, just one person, you get really bonded to them.

Have you been traveling before, Chloe?

Yes.

Yes, I have. Cool. Okay. And you probably went with a person or multiple people and after you're like really bonded with them or just sick of them, but yes, or sick of them. Exactly.

But traveling is a little bit more extreme, but so going back to the point, it's really good to like, if you're trying to grow your company in an area, it's really good to network within the area, right?

And the best way to build relationships with people is to do things with them, do like slightly scary, like things together. And so a really good way of doing that is by creating content together, specifically audio slash video content, because it's a little bit more scary than like co-creating a blog post on Google docs where you're not even speaking to each other.

And so let's say you're entering this new industry and you start a show and then you do a hundred episodes, each with influencers or potential customers in your niche, then after the hundred episodes, let's say it's a weekly show and it's two years, you've done a hundred episodes, then you're going to have a hundred strong relationships with players in that niche.

And that probably means that with through the audiences of those people, you're going to be able to like get through to most people in the niche, depending on the size of the niche, obviously.

So that's number one is like going through like this emotional journey of creating content together forms really good relationships, not that you're trying to just sell to the people you've been on show, but you're going to build relationships with them. They're going to like you. So in the future, they're going to refer your business or they may even become a customer.

That's step number one, step number two, or point number two here is actually why we call our business fame. So our business is called fame because the result of running a B2B podcast well, if your host and your business become famous, there's a two step formula for getting famous.

If you think about Taylor Swift, my favorite example, all she's done in country music first, and then in pop music second is two things.

First, she just creates like a lot of really, really good content in a specific niche, eg country music. Now step one, step two is that she just seen around other famous people in the niche. So she'll go onto like other country music songs. She'll like do albums collaborating with famous country music people. She did that in both country music and pop music. So that's the formula.

Step one, create a lot of really good content that to seen around other famous people in the niche. And so going back to the B2B podcasting example, you saw a show, let's say we're going to start a show about email marketing, we do a hundred episodes. Every email marketing expert in the world has been on the show. So we get exposure to their audiences.

We're getting slightly better at creating that content. So after a hundred episodes, we produce the best email marketing podcast in the world, and we've been seen around the other hundred famous people in email marketing. After that, your host of the show and your business should be famous in the world of email marketing. So that's why I think people should do B2B podcasts. Totally.

I mean, it sounds like a winning formula. If Taylor Swift can do it, so can we. Exactly. Moving into the content side of things now, though, from what I understand, there are three main benefits to repurposing your podcast. The first is to reach a wider audience. The second to drive traffic to your website. And then the third is to position yourself as a bit of an expert.

So how would this content differ depending on each objective?

Good question.

So drive traffic to a website position as expert and what was the other one?

The third one is to reach a wider audience. So we should write audience.

Yeah, I think reaching a wider audience and driving traffic to a website, like two alternate polls. They're like, if you're trying to do one, you're not going to be able to do the other. And there's a big trend. So we'll start on these two and then we'll move to the other one. There's a big trend on social networks to like really avoid sending people off of their platform.

And it makes sense, right?

LinkedIn does not make money from ads if someone makes a post and it sends a shedload of traffic off their platform. And so I would actually or the big trend that I'm trying to jump on the bandwagon now is to actually stop putting content on our own domain at all and only just pumping it into the places where your ideal listeners are mainly social like platforms like Reddit, Quora, etc.

And so just almost without a thought for your website traffic stats, how can we get as much engagement on the social platforms as we can?

Because if someone really wants to like know who you are or like come and buy your stuff, they're going to check out your profile and see that you work for or at this place. So I would actually try to devalue sending traffic to the website for now because that will come if you help and educate enough people through pushing the content onto the social platforms.

And the other one with like, be safe, be safe, be safe, be safe, be safe, be seen as a thought leader.

Again, I think that's optimized by just like getting as much attention on the content within the platforms themselves.

First, that like reflects good on you. And it also will build the audience for the show, because if you're like adding enough value there, people Google either your site or your show. So that's how I probably approach that.

Yeah, perfect.

And so what's the best format to repurpose your episode highlights?

Is it video?

Obviously we know video really just outperforms everything at the moment.

But is text the way to go?

Maybe just static imagery.

Does one stand out from the other in your opinion?

It's a good question. I think it really depends on the, you're like ideal listener or ideal audience member, because maybe in some niches and trying to think off the top of my head, like there may be one specific niche. We have one client podcast. It's called knowledge-based ninjas. And it's just about technical writing and how to build an effective knowledge base.

And what we see there is so for that show, obviously we're pulling out the full length video, we're putting out the video clips, we're making images, we're making key takeaways and transcripts for their blog. That actually the written either social posts or blog posts perform the best.

And that could just be chance, or it could be because the people who are ideal listeners prefer consuming written content versus image, audio, or even video. So I think it really depends on who your ideal customers are.

But the way you find out is either by asking them, if you have listeners, I always like recommend to like try and get a listener on like a 10 minute call, just ask them what they like or dislike about the show or just send a survey. The other way to do that is by just creating them all and then seeing what performs the best. Definitely, definitely.

And what sort of, I mean, you've mentioned a few that we can do blog posts, key takeaways, little video snapshots. So there any kind of out of the box content ideas, and perhaps we'll get into this a bit later that really kind of helped your podcast shine.

Yeah, I think so. You pretty much listed them all. That's like the carousel on the link on LinkedIn. There isn't anything, I mean, we haven't done it yet, but I'm sure like you could, if you really spend a lot of time, like do TikTok style videos and just like smash it, I know a couple of shows that have done that, but we haven't done it. Like my first million is a podcast.

I've done that really well. The all in podcast is a podcast. I've done that really well. So I think there's like, essentially is like pulling out image, writing video or audio from the show and so in all those different, like mini formats, that's what you can do, but we may be talking about this later, but I'm actually quite excited about something else.

Should we talk about that now?

Tell us. Okay. So if your show has like a consistent structure, if every episode has a consistent structure, let's say you have these five questions that you ask every guest or let's say for every episode, you to focus on one specific thing and then ask the same questions. An example of this is a podcast called metrics and chill.

All they do is they focus on a specific metric and then they just like ask the same five questions about the metric, like how are you doing with the metric?

How do you improve it?

Why is the metric important, for example?

And then if you do this, let's say you do 50 episodes, this means you're going to have a database of 50 metrics and then like standard, like data points, right?

And so what you're really building there is a valuable database of proprietary data that no one else has. So if you like Google Nathan Latka or go to like get latka.com, which is all he's done with his show, like 500 episodes, maybe more. He just asked SAS founders about like how they build a company, what their churn rates are, et cetera.

And then he sells the data, right?

If he's building his database through the podcast and he sells access to the database or metrics and chill, or actually the reason I'm talking about it now is because when you have that database, you can do really cool things with other content.

So let's say we go back to the email marketing example and we always have like a list of people and we all we're doing is we're getting people with email lists and we're saying, asking them, how many times do you send messages to your lift?

What is your favorite subject line?

What's your average open rate?

Do that for 50 times over a year.

At the end of the year, we can say we have like the 2022 ultimate email marketing roundup, like ebook, right?

Which is like 50 pages of like pure data that no one else has. So that's why I think it's quite interesting and exciting. I love that idea. We have a rapid recommendation segment coming up at the end of the show. So maybe there's an idea there. We can get all of our marketing experts favorite recommendations and round them up. There we go.

Thank you, Tom. Now we're currently not sat in the same room.

We are, you know, at different ends of the country recording this episode. So we have a lovely podcasting platform that allows us to do a video call at the same time as recording our audio.

But for podcast hosts who maybe share the same space as their co-hosts or their guests, or maybe they just, you know, host alone, is it worth them setting up some sort of camera so that they can capture this extra content if they're not using a platform like we are?

Yeah, we have seen that because there's two types of video snippets, there's like audio form and live audio form is just like with the image and the wave. We do typically see live snippets perform better, probably by like 10 to 20%. So that's the reason to do it.

Also, like just putting the long form video on YouTube, you can do it with just like an image and maybe some audio form waves, but we always see the actual faces do better. So I probably would recommend doing that for like that slight uplift on YouTube views and social engagement, but then it depends. Like I probably wouldn't turn them on your budget as well.

Like if it's a view talking to the camera, then maybe I would just get like a hundred dollar webcam. Sure. If you have a studio and you're like going to be doing this for a couple of years and you have big budgets, then maybe you like spend a bit more. Absolutely.

And then once we've created, you know, we've made this podcast, we've recorded our episode and now we're looking to create this endless stream of content.

Is there an expiration date on that?

So if we, you know, we post this clip from today that we've recorded in six months time, is it going to be less impactful or is it kind of this evergreen content that helps sort of drive traffic back to your podcast?

Kind of a return on investment almost.

Yeah, I think.

Yes, I know. It depends on the questions that you ask.

So if you think back to the questions in this interview, I don't think like what we've spoken about today with like the state of social platforms, this content probably is going to be relevant for like six months, though you may have asked me a question like, what if you're like in the month of April, what are you working on now that's effective?

And maybe that question wouldn't be so effective. And so the strategy I would take is either just with all of the questions that you ask on the show, try not to make them time sensitive or like at least within a month. And then you just don't have to think about it.

If you are going to add more like time sensitive questions, then you just would not repurpose that stuff or you just wouldn't post that in six months time. But I think it's probably easier just to like make no time sensitive questions at all.

Yeah, no, that's a good shout. Cause I think, you know, sometimes we want to be topical when we're putting our podcast, you know, get more listeners in at the time, but thinking ahead, maybe it's best to kind of stray away from that stuff so that you can sort of come back and repurpose it as and when you see fit. Yeah. Awesome.

So speaking kind of of the social platforms, is there a particular social media platform where podcast content tends to thrive?

So for me to be, which is where I focus on, I would say LinkedIn right now is like the place to be. And it has been since like 2019 that could change. I know you're like a lot of people are moving to TikTok. I don't have much experience there, but I think that it could be big in the future.

But right now I would like just focus all efforts on LinkedIn and going back to what I said, I think it's super important to like try to avoid even like sending people back to a website. So I would just, if it were the video or written or image, I'll just try and pack all the value into the post.

And then if you want to just in the comments, say, check out the full episode here, that is like what will actually work right now. If you just write a post with like a couple of lines and saying, go and listen to the show, it's very unlikely that that is going to work.

Yeah, totally. That's a really good point actually.

And then so with these posts, who should we be targeting?

Should we be trying to reach people who are already listening to your podcast or are we trying to encourage new listeners to tune in?

Yeah. So I would like with the post, what I'm trying to do is I'm really trying to just speak about something like controversial, valuable, exciting in the post that's going out to like potential listeners and existing listeners, but get them interested in that thing in the post and get them to think, oh yeah, that's interesting.

Check the comments, listen to the show and not even like almost not mentioning the show in like the, in the post itself, right?

It's just like, can we make this person stop scrolling?

Can we make them think for a little bit and can we like improve their lives in some little way?

If we do that, they're going to come and find the show. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No, that's great.

And we've, you've kind of touched on a few really great podcasts that you listen to and that are sort of setting an example of what you should be doing.

But I want to know what are some of the best cases where your clients have been able to create unlimited, engaging content for their socials?

Yeah. So we going back to the example of the ebook, we've done that with a couple of clients with a technical writing one, actually, I think we're doing like a quarterly ebook, just summarizing the insights. Cause most of the questions were the same. So each chapter was a question and then we just put in the insights. Obviously like we're, there's like 11 guests or something in there.

So then we can post that, tag all the guests and then that, that like, you're guaranteed a bit of distribution there. Cause you'll get some likes, maybe even a share from the guest. So that has worked pretty well.

I'm trying to think our best like content, like distribution example is I think there's one client where we create like 13 videos for every episode and these videos are put on Instagram, tick tock, though they're posting on tick tock. I'm not doing it myself. So I don't know about yet. So it's like Instagram, tick tock, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blog post on their blog.

And so that's probably the one like where we're getting the most value. And it's like a big operation, like, but it's a lot of work, but once you have the process nailed down and everybody in the process knows exactly what to do and when it does happen seamlessly.

So you, as the marketing manager or you as the CEO of the company can kind of step back once the process is working. So I think that's probably the best example where we're first about 13 videos, blog post transcript, a few images, obviously the audio. So we're probably getting like 16 pieces of content from the episode. And so that's like the most we've got to so far.

And then as you mentioned, like we're probably not posting them all within the week of the episode that they'll just get filtered through the social distribution of that company over time. Yeah.

And I guess, you know, for the most part, you're working with B2B companies and they're working with an agency in turn, but for individuals or small businesses who kind of don't have the capacity to work with an agency and are running the whole, you know, cog of a podcast by themselves.

What are your kind of top tips for making this really manageable and really easy in terms of, you know, doing these videos, creating the content?

Is there kind of a nice process or is it a bit touch and go learn as you go?

Yeah.

So this is basically our business, right?

So I'm happy to share secrets. So what you really want to happen is to when a new guest books onto the show, you want all of the tasks for the whole show, for the whole episode to be like created, assigned to the right person with the right due date. And so you can set us up.

We typically use Calendly for every client to book guests in, right?

Calendly has a nice integration with Zapier. They've got like a no code tool. So what happens when a guest book's in for any of our clients, they're like talks to Zapier and then Zapier is going to do about 20 things automatically. And so seven of those things is creating a Trello card, assigning it with the right due date to the right person who needs to do that thing immediately.

So they can see what work they have going on. Zapier is probably also going to send a message in Slack telling the team for that podcast that we've booked a new guest. Zapier is going to create Google Drive folders and documents. So we have everything life and organized in the same for every episode.

And it's going to, for example, we have an interview sheet, which is what we would type in questions, share with the guests. So it's going to actually create the, the interview sheet template from a Google doc template we have so that then the researcher who's just been assigned that task on Trello, that task on Trello links to the template we just created for them.

So then the researcher would just come in, research the guests, add the questions, tick it off, send it to the guests.

What else is Zapier doing?

It's like printing stuff into like a spreadsheet master tracker so we can see what's going on.

So I recommend anybody with a show that's trying to like, fifth am I, this thing should use something similar to that so that all of like the project management headache is almost like eradicated and then you or your marketing manager who's essentially going to be the project manager for this can just like oversee it and just ensure that this system works fine as opposed to just being like a complete shambles for each episode.

Definitely. There's a lot of organization that goes into it. We couldn't do it either without, you know, we use assigner to assign everyone's task. So that is a double endorsement there from the both of us.

Well, Tom, before we wrap things up, I did, you know, promise you we're going to be doing a new rapid recommendation segment where we find out what our guests have been loving and what they can't live without. I've got three questions for you.

If you'll, if you'll have me, are you ready?

Yeah, I'm ready. Fabulous.

My first question for you is what is one app or tool that you simply can't work without?

This one is a new one is called mono snap and it's just a screenshotting tool. It's very easy to use. You can add little arrows, little boxes. And I think, especially when working with a remote team, like sometimes a screenshot can just like cut a conversation by like 80%.

So that's, that's what I'm talking about. 80%.

So that's, that's what I would say. Okay. That's a good one. I have to look that up.

My second question for you is who is one brand or persona that you think is getting social right at the moment?

And this could be podcast or an individual. Yeah. It has to be Chris Walker from refined labs. He basically built the new model for demand generation and hit him. And if the whole company now just crush LinkedIn. So just go search Chris Walker and find out what he's doing. Amazing.

And finally, what is one valuable resource, event or group that you think our listeners should know about?

Good question.

I mean, I might have to show, I have a Facebook group called SaaS marketer. It's got 11,000 people in. It's about SAS marketing. I don't know if that's relevant for the audience. It's a good one though.

I, I put my, my wisdom in there, so I don't know if that's appealing to people. Aside from that, so it's event, group or resource. And I think we're going to have to stick with that. That's perfect. I'm the best of this episode alone.