Turn your episode’s audio into dynamic social content to engage more listeners and promote your content.
Marketing on social media is a great way to promote your podcast, grow your audience and engage with listeners. Advertising an audio-based product on these platforms, however, can be difficult, especially since most social media users tend to favor engaging, visual content, like photos and videos. But an answer to that problem has arrived – audiograms.
Audiograms can help you marry the best of your audio content with stylish photos and scrolling captions to draw listeners in and give them a taste of what your show is all about.
Audiograms combine the best of your promotional materials
From a technical standpoint, an audiogram consists of visual art, an animated sound wave and an audio track – the perfect recipe for podcast promotion. Often, you will want to identify an engaging clip or section from your episode to tease the listener and generate interest in the show. Below is an example of a simple audiogram we created for our podcast, Brandcasting.
Use audiograms to promote your podcast
Audiograms are a highly effective way to promote individual podcast episodes on social media, especially Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
This visually engaging content gives viewers a chance to sample your content and get a feeling for what your podcast is about. By animating the sound waves of a short snippet of your podcast on top of a promotional photo, you can fully engage followers with easily-shareable content. This animated soundwave is also a quick and easy way to indicate to viewers that they can turn on their sound to hear your audio clip.
New York Public Radio found that on Twitter alone, audiograms were clicked on eight times more than their non-audiogram tweets. This kind of engaging content will drive listeners to your website landing page to hear the full episode, and perhaps just as importantly, to learn more about your brand.
Audiograms even work for full-length episodes
Beyond shorter audiogram promos, we also recommend creating audiograms of your full-length podcast episodes. These audiograms allow you to upload your show to YouTube without spending the time or budget on recording full video episodes. You can find examples of this on our Brandcasting YouTube channel.
Being on YouTube has the potential to increase your audience. YouTube is the primary media player for a huge segment of the population – and if your target audience is there, you need to be there, too. Research shows that just behind Spotify and Apple Podcasts, YouTube is the third most popular platform for podcast consumption, the first choice of nearly a fifth of all podcast listeners.
The video platform is also known for doing a great job of cross-promoting content. That means there’s a bigger potential for audience discovery than only publishing your show on audio platforms. By placing your audiogram episodes on YouTube, you could attract a whole new audience.
Here’s what to include when creating an audiogram
Audiograms can be a vital way to promote a podcast and grow your audience, but make sure to be strategic in your creation and sharing. You want to create something engaging, consistent and visually appealing.
Include the following elements for your basic audiogram promo:
- A cover image to catch and orient attention
- A waveform to indicate that sound is available
- Open captions to accommodate situations where the viewer isn’t able to listen
- A “gold moment” audio clip from the episode to catch the viewer’s attention and illustrate what the episode is about
For a full-length audiogram episode, you’ll need:
- A cover image to catch and orient attention
- A waveform to indicate that sound is available
- Closed captions to accommodate situations where the viewer isn’t able to listen
- The full audio from the episode to deliver the content right in the player
The combination of these elements will grab the attention of viewers and keep them engaged. You’ll also want to make sure the image you use is eye-catching and interesting in order to draw viewers in.
By pairing your image with a waveform, you’ll signal to audiences that there is an audio element and they should turn their volume up. But, if for some reason the viewer isn’t able to listen, it’s imperative to provide captions. That way, your content – whether it be a full episode or a golden moment – is still accessible to viewers.
Build a successful strategy for sharing audiograms
In order to successfully reach more listeners and drive brand engagement, we recommend creating a short audiogram promo and a full-length audiogram for every episode of your podcast.
When posting your audiograms on social media, don’t forget to link to the episode landing page on your website. This drives people directly to a place where they can hear the episode, complete calls to action, and discover other content on your website – making it easier for them to engage with your content and easier for you to track their engagement.
Let Relationary create audiograms to promote your podcast
If you’re not sure where to start, Relationary can help. As part of our services, we offer both audiogram promos and audiogram episodes. You can purchase audiograms in packs of 12, which aligns with the number of episodes we usually produce for each season of a show, at $50 each.
Our clients can purchase both audiogram promos and audiogram episodes. These are sold in packs of 12, the number of episodes we usually produce for each season of a show, at $50-165 each depending on the format and design.
Different shows may benefit from different types of audiograms, so we offer three formats of audiogram promos:
- Standard Audiogram Promos: These videos are 15-60 seconds in length, since 60 seconds is the maximum length for a standard Instagram post. They include a gold moment audio clip, a call to action voice over, a standard cover image, a waveform and open captions that show up for everyone regardless of user settings on the platform.
- Enhanced Audiogram Promos: These videos are also 15-60 seconds in length, but they include up to three gold moment audio clips and a CTA voiceover. They can include a mix of text, graphics, photos, along with the standard waveform and open captions.
- Video Promos: For podcasts that also shoot video during the recording, we offer 15-60 second audiograms that include up to three video clips and a CTA voiceover. Like the enhanced promos, they can include a mix of text, graphics, and photos, as well as a waveform and open captions.
We also offer two different types of audiogram episodes:
- Standard Audiogram Episodes: These audiograms are 25-50 minutes in length, depending on the length of the episode. They include the full-length episode audio with a static cover image, a waveform, and closed captions that show up when the feature is turned on in the player.
- Enhanced Audiogram Episodes: These audiograms also include the full-length episode audio, but they also feature a mixture of text, graphics, and photos. They also include a waveform and closed captions.
Add audiograms to your podcast promotion strategy today
Audiograms are an excellent way to make your branded podcast stand out to viewers on all social media platforms.
Whether you use audiogram promos or full audiogram episodes, you’re making your content more accessible and engaging for listeners. This simple podcast promotional tool is an easy way to elevate your podcast to a new level.
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