Every podcaster who's ever had a guest on has felt it. You do the edit, write the show notes, create the clips, tag them everywhere — and hear absolutely nothing back. No share. No repost. Not even a like.
So is it you? Is it them? Is this just how guests are?
In this episode, I'm getting into why podcast guest cross-promotion is one of the most persistent myths in indie podcasting.
If you're booking guests to borrow their audience, this episode is going to save you a lot of disappointment.
Free 7-day podcast makeover: head to podmastery.co and sign up — one practical tip per day, straight to your inbox.
Transcripts
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All right, let me save you some time with your next guest episode,
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because your podcast guest is not gonna share your episode.
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I'm gonna tell you that right now.
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They're not gonna post any clips, they're not gonna tag you back on social media,
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and they're absolutely not gonna write their own caption on your content.
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You're gonna have to do all of that yourself for an episode that, if we're
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being completely honest, probably benefits them more than it benefits you.
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Don't worry, I'll say more.
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Welcome along to Podmastery Podcasting Insights, the podcast for indie
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creators that helps you get more from your podcasting efforts on your
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journey towards attaining podmastery.
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The idea that having guests on a podcast episode is a growth strategy is one of
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the most enduring myths in podcasting.
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I mean, the pitch sounds almost elegant.
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You interview someone with an audience.
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They then share the episode.
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Their followers discover you.
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Everyone wins.
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Simple, logical, and almost entirely fictional.
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Let's start with the sharing problem, because this is where
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most people fall down first.
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Got a case in point on this.
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Last week, I got a voicemail on my other podcast, B2B Podcasting
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Insights, from listener Dominic.
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He runs a B2B podcast up in Norwich.
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Dominic's doing everything right on paper.
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Every time he has a guest on, he shares the episode absolutely everywhere.
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He sends them the link.
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He tags them on LinkedIn and Facebook and X and all the other places.
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He even puts together a clip that highlights them and sends
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it over to them ready to post.
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He doesn't even feature in those clips himself.
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And guess what?
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He gets absolutely nothing for those efforts.
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The guest literally ghosts him, ignores him, pretends he doesn't exist.
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Now, Dominic wants to know if he's doing something wrong, and that's
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what he asked on the episode last week . You can go and listen to it
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for yourself, podknows.co.uk/b2bpi.
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It's the latest episode on there.
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But the TLDR of all this is that I said to Dominic, "Dominic, buddy, it's not
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you, but it's also not really them." It's the problem with the very incentive
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structure which is broken by design.
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Think about it from the guest's perspective.
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Now, they showed up to do the recording.
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They did that with you, and it went fine,
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and they've got their own content to post, their own newsletter to
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write, their own algorithm to manage.
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And so your episode that went fine is just one more item added onto their
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content marketing to-do list, and it's the one item that they think benefits you
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significantly more than it benefits them.
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So the clip Dominic sent to his guest requires a little bit of effort to repost,
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even though it highlights them, makes them look like some kind of social media god,
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at least from Dominic's point of view.
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As for the tag on social media, now they have to engage or they look rude.
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The follow-up message that Dominic has been sending, now they feel a bit guilty.
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He's essentially sent them homework, unpaid, with an implied deadline, and
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people do not tend to rush to complete unpaid homework with implied deadlines.
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Funny that.
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And if you call them out on it, they tend to feel a bit of shame.
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But here's the deeper problem, and this is the one that none of the podcast
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gurus ever talk about or acknowledge because it's an inconvenient truth.
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Even when a guest does share, who are you as the host actually reaching?
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Their audience.
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It's people who already follow them, who already have a podcast queue that looks a
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bit like a Netflix watchlist that they're never gonna get through anyway, and
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they're not in the market for a new show.
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They clicked because their favorite person was in it.
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They might have even listened, and then they went straight back to
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what they were already listening to before your episode came into their
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stratosphere, into their awareness.
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you didn't necessarily gain a follower, you just gave your
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guest another content asset.
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And to be fair to them, that's probably why they said yes.
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Now, this is the part the grow-your-show-with-guests crowd
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consistently glosses over All of those pitch for guests websites and PR
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agencies and people who have courses on growing podcasts using interviews,
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none of them acknowledge this.
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Cross-promotion only works when both parties have broadly equivalent
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audiences, equivalent incentives, and audiences that genuinely overlap.
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The odds of all three being true for most indie podcasters are not great.
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What usually happens instead is you book a guest because the topic
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fits, or they said yes, and you happen to have a gap in schedule.
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So you record a decent conversation, you do your bit, and then you spend the
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following week refreshing your stats, wondering why nothing has changed.
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Now, I'm not saying don't have guests.
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Guests can make for brilliant content.
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They can bring fresh perspective, fresh energy, stories that you
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couldn't possibly tell yourself.
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But if the primary reason you're booking someone is that they've got a
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large social media following and you want a piece of that, you're gonna
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be disappointed every single time.
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The listeners who are gonna follow and stick around and then tell someone else
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about your podcast, they found you because of you, your voice, your take, your angle,
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not because someone they already follow had a chat with you for forty minutes.
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So what should Dominic have done, and what should you be doing?
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Well, first of all, stop measuring your guest episodes by whether
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the guest actually shares them.
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Start asking whether the episode is strong enough to stand out on its own, whether
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it gives your existing audience something genuinely worth forwarding to people that
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they think might find it interesting.
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Whether someone stumbling on it cold would find enough reason to follow your
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show based purely on the content of that conversation, not on who the guest is,
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but on what the episode actually does for them, the transformation it offers.
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And if the answer to that last one is no, the problem isn't the
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guest's sharing behavior or lack of, it's the episode content.
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If this episode's got you thinking about where your podcast actually
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sits in terms of your entire strategy, then I've got good news for you.
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I've put together a free seven-day podcast makeover course.
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It offers one practical tip per day straight to your inbox.
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Head over to podmastery.co and sign up It's right there on the homepage.
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Seven days free and every tip is something you can actually use.
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If you found this episode useful, please do share it with somebody else you know
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who is an indie podcaster, indie creator who wants to get closer to pod mastery.
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Until the next episode, good luck with attaining pod mastery.
