I frequent many podcasting communities and without a doubt, the biggest question (and the biggest question for the last decade) is "How do I grow my podcast?".

I've spoken before about why this isn't an easy task and why that might even be the wrong question to ask. The truth is that running a podcast as an independent creator is really hard, it's really time-consuming and by the time we've produced our episode, we often don't have the mental bandwidth or the physical time to properly market our show and thus, we simply end up in a constant "promo cycle" that consists of lots of "promotional tactics" that don't move the needle but that make us feel like they should.

We repeat this with diminishing results and end up back at the same question: "How do I grow my podcast?!"; if we aren't careful, this can then lead us to consider quitting because no matter what we do, we don't see any meaningful change.

I think about this like fitness and muscle growth. If we aren't seeing any results, then we have to change things up and shock the system. The famous quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” applies to our podcast growth too.

But what should you do? Let me give you three ways to shock your podcast growth into moving in the right direction!

These are not common things that people talk about, the normal things like:

• Guesting on shows
• Trailer swaps and feed drops
• Co-hosting

They all work - we know that if people repeatedly hear you or your show on other shows that there's a better chance of them trying your show than if you don't do any of that. You're going where your audience is.

We also know that you should be thinking about podcast marketing as just that, marketing - with defined & strategic campaigns, targets, and channel tactics - but that no indie creator really does because we're all really busy and most of us don't know how to be a marketer - we didn't get into podcasting for that.

Try these three things alongside what you're already doing and focus on long-term, steady growth:

1. Focus on your podcast SEO, both for web discovery and in-app podcast discovery.
2. Do something newsworthy in your niche - this could be covering an event, development, or similar, but get there first and early.
3. Start doing something in-person within your niche community - meetups, events, live recordings, etc. They cost very little and your show can "sponsor" the event!

Just like growing anything, there is no one method of growing your podcast audience and there surely is no silver bullet. Imagination, planning, and long-term focus are key to all marketing campaigns but these three things will help you to break out of your comfort zone and shock the marketing system that you have in place.

Fan of the show? Find it helpful?

You can become a supporter of the show via a one-off tip that I'll use to buy a beer at this link: Support The Podcast Accelerator: How to Grow Your Podcast.

Your next steps

I teach podcasting a lot and for free. So, here's what I'd recommend you do next:

• Watch my free podcasting tutorials on YouTube: YouTube (Captivate)
• Ask me anything at all about podcasting over on Twitter: Twitter

If you need help with anything at all regarding your podcast, get me on Twitter (Twitter ) and I promise to respond.