The Ultimate Guide For Creating Podcast Clips That Go Viral

Most podcasts do a bad job marketing their content. What differs between mediocrity and the top 1% is a thought out podcast marketing strategy for how content is pushed out. And execution towards that. Here are several aspects to keep in mind.

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Gary Vee is known for the king of social media. His repurposing strategy shows why. It starts by taking "anchor" content (such as his popular long-form YouTube videos or podcasts) and repurposing it into other forms of content, such as blog posts, clips, and social media posts. This allows him to reach a wider audience and get his message out to more people. Gary’s strategy is focused on maximizing the value of his content by making it as widely available as possible, and he often encourages his followers to do the same with their own content. By constantly repurposing and sharing his content, Gary is able to build his brand and connect with his audience in a scaleable way.
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For podcasts, the ideal strategy to maximize ROI on content is the same:

1. Document podcast full episodes (record 3-5 episodes a month)
2. Create short-form video clips derivatives (3-5 clips made from each episode)
3. Distribute to all relevant platforms platforms (publish to 3 platforms)

If done correctly, this would result in 75 video clips being published onto 3 platforms each month. While many of them may not end up reaching many viewers, some of them may do better or go viral resulting in unexpected returns

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Each platform you add can expose your content to more people, but also adds more complexity / as each platforms has it’s own rules and best practices. Here is a cheatsheet to help you determine which platforms to focus on:

Data compiled in January 2023 according to data in 2022

**Our recommendation for most podcasts:

Must-have: TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels

Nice-to-have: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook

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A hook is critically important in a space like short-form video where there is an abundance of content to scroll through. You only have a few seconds to entice the viewer to stick around, so it’s important to make it count.

A good hook can take many forms. Here are several types of hooks that we’ve seen work best for podcasts clips:

#1 Thought provoking insights that challenge popular opinion

‍Sharing a new light or opinion on a common topic

First 5 seconds: “Something you may not know about Rolex is that they make over a million Rolex a year. The reason they hide this number is to keep a sense of scarcity.”

First 5 seconds: "They never really knew that Mailchimp was that successful. They just knew I was helpful to my customers. It was their classmates, one day one of them brought a magazine with my face on the cover.”

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#2 Personal stories which are easy to identify with

‍These include: how-to, growth, investments, fundraising, selling

First 5 seconds: What's the craziest thing you've done to get a girl to like you. I had convinced this chick I was dying. I was like in 9th grade and convinced 4-5 people I had cancer. All her friends. It took me two years to accomplish.”

First 5 seconds: “I'm in prison. I'm the third ranking gang member in the state. I wake up in my cell and I'm hungry. As a prison boss you get benefits. I get up and walk up out of my cell. Give the guard a nod and he opens the gate. Head to the kitchen.”

You’ve made some podcast clips! Nice. Now you need to publish them in the best way to maximize the amount of views it can get.

First time posting on YouTube? Jump to the end of this section for instructions on how to setup your account.

Posting on YouTube Shorts

TLDR: clips need to be under 60 seconds, use hashtags, web uploads offers more options

YouTube Shorts can be published either via the YouTube website or the mobile app. The web version has more video options to customize. This guide assumes you are uploading a clip made externally and not within YouTube’s interface.

How to post:

1. From the YouTube menu > Upload Video
2. Select your clip (must be under 60 seconds)
3. Add basic details (title, description with caption and hashtags)
4. Leave the rest of the options as-is, select Public access and publish

Do's and Don'ts for YouTube Shorts:

• Do: Write engaging title hook - what is the essence of the video?
• Do: Include at least 2 lines explaining what the video is about using the keywords mentioned
• Do: Include #hashtags. Use the autocomplete feature to find the most relevant/popular ones.
• Do: Thumbnail is an important feature, yet at the moment is set automatically by YouTube
• Do: In addition to hashtags, you can define “tags” in the advanced area to get more visibility.
• Don’t: Upload a clip longer than 60 seconds. It won’t be a Short. It will be a “regular” video.
• Don’t: Add too many hashtags as it will dilute your existing ones
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Once your clip is published, it will enter the YouTube algorithm and start to be exposed to users. This could take minutes, hours or days for a video to start getting views (depends on number of subscribers). Views often come in “waves” as the algo determines who should see this content.

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In terms of frequency, there are no official guidelines. We’ve seen popular channels publish no less than 3 videos a week, so at least once every other day. There is no cap and many channels are publishing 3-4 a day.

First time posting onYouTube?

First time posting on YouTube? You’ll need to open an account. We usually recommend opening the account under the podcast name, as that is the name listeners will most recognise. In some cases when a podcast is directly affiliated with a company, those clips could be published from the company social accounts.

Official link: Open a YouTube account

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