Find new podcast listeners with Headliner
Audio is such a rich, intimate and immersive medium and yet promoting what we create on social is anything but. How do we share an amazing scene from our latest episode? Do we just write a post with a link to our website? Do we include a still image? And to what end?
We end up with something like the image above. Ugh. I wouldn’t click on that link and I’m the show creator!
Headliner flipped a switch in our brains at Fable and Folly. We could create dynamic 60 second (or longer) videos of actual excepts from our show. They were highly sharable and people could listen to them on their commute or while scrolling through social media. And we could even enable in-video transcription so we could snag people with the sound off on Facebook.
Headliner allows us to create a dynamic video out of a still image and an MP3 or WAV file. These videos can be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo, but because we have the video file, we can also take advantage of the lift we get from uploading a Facebook or LinkedIn native video.
And it never fails. When we take the time to promote a video of a Patreon-only bonus episode, we get new patrons. We’re only sharing a 60 second snippet, but it’s enough to let people who were on the fence know what they can get on the other side of the “pay wall.”
Headliner is a key part of our arsenal for promoting all of our content, including what we are trying to do with the Fable and Folly Network. It allows us to showcase what is possible with podcast sponsorship beyond overdone bullet point reads.
The above Headliner video is a spec spot for Function of Beauty that was created for our dark comedy sci-fi show Civilized. The character Suit has become a fan favorite and so we try to bring her back for most mid-roll sponsorships.
From advertising to promotions, Headliner has changed the way we grow our audience and reach new listeners, which is why I’m writing this article. And it’s free for up to 10 videos a month, so there’s no reason for any podcaster or content creator out there to not give it a try.
It almost sounds like I’m being paid to write this article, but I’m not. The Headliner team did reach out to find out if I would share with them what I though about the service. I agreed but decided to do so publicly, because their product is the best thing to happen to podcast promotion.
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Sean is the co-founder of The Fable and Folly Network and a co-creator of Alba Salix, Royal Physician and Civilized. He can be reached via Twitter or email.
