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