Thank people publicly when they help you grow your podcast audience

When someone does something nice for you, you thank them, right? Sometimes you do it in public so many people can know the good work they do. Well, this simple gesture can be done online as well. Not in a gross, manipulative way but in a "wow, look at them" kind of way. I won't lie, you'll get some exposure too but if you follow how I do it, it can be a genuine gesture of "hey thanks". 

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. 

Transcript

A lot of people only talk about the content of their podcast in their social media presence. And let me tell you, there's so much more than that. And today we're going to go into what I like to call process posts.

Hi, I'm Steph from Coffeelike media, and I live online. I have had a strong, vocal online presence ever since I had first access to the Internet in my, whoa, early, late twenties, a gazillion years ago. From the beginning, early adopter, obsessed with connecting with people globally.

I'm also the owner of Coffeelike Media, where I'm obsessed with helping you get your message, your voice, your stories out into the world so that you can find your people. And remember, I'm doing eight of these episodes this month in celebration of the podcast growth month that we're having, including the four free podcast audits that we're doing this month to help you find your people. Here's the deal.

I love thanking people. And thanking people is one kind of social media post that you can use. Now, that sounds really weird and gross.

And it's not by use, I mean used so that people can see a part of you, can see what you think and feel and how you navigate the world and who you're connected to and how that explains to blame your place in the content space that you're in. I do not mean use like manipulate or something gross like that. I never mean the gross version of the words that I am using because that's not how I navigate this world.

And this is one type of process post. By process post, I mean using something that's kind of behind the scenes. It could be before the episode is made.

It could be while you're editing or preparing your messaging for your social media posts afterwards, while you're writing a blog post, what you're thinking after the episode. It's any of the things that are not in the episode themselves. And this kind of thank you post is one kind that you can share with the world so they know more about you.

And since podcasting is a personality medium, this makes sense that they know more about you. So today, this is just today, this is just like half an hour ago, I finally found a post that I was looking at, and I show you examples from my life not to say, look what happened to me, I'm so amazing. No, because oftentimes when I tell people, hey, do a process post, or hey, thank them online, they're like, that's weird.

Why would I do that? How can I do that? It's usually one of the two either. There's the reaction of oh, that sounds interesting, but how? So I'm showing you examples from my life to show you how I do it. By all means, do it in a way that feels not gross for you.

And I'm laughing because the marketing to not feel gross is coming from next season's episode that we're creating right now. I'm working with April from the Door Key Podcast, and it's the phrase that she used the most in episode one of that season, season three, where she said, I just don't like marketing to feel gross. I don't want to be gross.

So it's just, I keep thinking it in my head every time I say that word. Okay, so this is the original post from Mike Russell from Creator Magic, which is his new project. You might know him more from when he did stuff with Adobe Audition on YouTube and whatnot.

So he said, looking for content creators using AI in interesting ways to come on my new podcast. Do you know anyone? And this did not show up in my feed because algorithms are broken. Even though I do follow him, I probably follow too many people.

But what did show up in my feed is when Jason Caffrey said, Stephanie Fuccio and he tagged me, has been doing a lot of work with ChatGPT. And I was like, wait a minute, what? That's so cool. So of course I jumped on it and said, hey, blah blah blah.

And long story short, Mike did contact me. We recorded the episode last week. Again, not saying this so that you'll listen to the episode, but hey, you might want to.

So I have to provide the information. So here's the thing. It finally took me a while to find that original post because during the week things are very busy.

But I made a note. I was like, I need to, at minimum, when the episode comes out on Tuesday, I need to make sure to find out that person that referred me because I couldn't remember who it was. So I finally had time this morning.

On Saturday morning, I went through LinkedIn. I went through Mike's posts, and I found the original post and I reshared, reposted whatever it's called on LinkedIn, this post where I added my thoughts and I said, super duper special thanks to Jason Caffrey for recommending me for this podcast. Apologies for not mentioning this sooner.

The week was fast paced and it took me a moment to find the original post. I put a link to the original post so people could go back. I said, appreciate Jason so much, Jason, and this is the original post.

That I made after Mike and I recorded the conversation this week. So I wanted to attach it to that because there were quite a bit of 500 or so impressions so far from when we recorded it on Thursday. So Thursday to Saturday, there were like 500 or so impressions on this particular post.

And I wanted to make sure that Jason, who recommended me for that, got part of that attention. Now I miss the moment of having him in the original post. Life, life happens.

I'll be sure to tag him again on Tuesday when the actual episode comes out, but I wanted to make sure to give him props because this is amazing. None of this would have happened, literally none of this would have happened without him tagging me in the first place. So I wanted to highlight that, even if it is a little bit too late.

So that's one example of it. And it doesn't have to be a lot. That's the thing.

A lot of people think you need to write really long, very detailed, very specific, very blah blah blah posts on social media. You really don't. I mean, how many sentences is this? One? Two? It's two friggin three sentences.

And honestly, I could probably do without the apology. I could just say super duper, thanks for recommending me. That would even be fine.

In fact, I'm pretty sure in this day and age, most people would read short posts and skip longer posts. Now, I'm saying this while I show you this very long post that I did earlier in the week about recording the episode with Mike. So, I mean, there's that.

I did another thank you post earlier this week because we're doing free audits on the first four Mondays this month, and I requested that the free audit winners announcement be listed in Pod news. And James has the ability to yay or nay all of that. There's a lot of things going on, and he is the person that organizes all of it and all of that.

So, I mean, it's not, it's not a guarantee that it will show up. So I'm always very appreciative when it does. He did post it last week, and I always like thanking him for his work because of how he navigates pod news all the time and even when he travels to all the conferences and everything, it just blows my mind.

Okay, so here it is. And it's very quick. I did this one from the ko fi like media account saying thanks again to Pod news for listing our podcast audience growth audit giveaway.

Boom. And there it is. And so I highlighted it.

That's the thing. It's good to show, you know, that you're part of the community that you're in and all of these folks that have different podcasting events, that's part of the podcasting community. But you do want to draw attention to your particular project as well, even if you are thanking and wanting to give credit to somebody who does an amazing job, similar to what I'm doing here.

To James at Pod News, not that he needs my thanks. Thanks, but whatever, you know what I mean? So highlight it. Like, do a little bit of work on the screenshot before you post it and definitely include the title so people know where it is.

And of course, I don't think I need to say that this is the pod news events section because it's pod news here and events are here. So, yeah, there's that. So that's another example of a thank you post that you can do.

I can't state this strongly enough. When you do this, highlight the person that's done the thing that you're thankful for. Don't overemphasize your project.

Like if you saw in those posts, I didn't have any links to my podcasts. None. It was always stuff to them.

In the post, after the recording with Mike, I actually put the link to his podcast. Even though my episode isn't out yet, people can still listen to his other episodes. So I put that link.

I didn't put my link, I didn't put my website, I didn't put anything. Now, if people really want to know, they can go into my profile. But the main point of these thank you posts is to thank the person.

I mean, that seems obvious. It's to highlight what they've done so other people can, you know, benefit from. And if they're interested in that topic or that project or that content area, they can connect with them.

So it's very connective, warm, and fuzzy. Warm, fuzzy feeling. Connective, momentous.

You still get some attention from your project. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, we're doing this publicly for a reason.

It's not just to thank you. But that's like, if I knew we're doing a percentage, I would say 90% is to thank the person and to get attention on them. And then 10% is, hey, this project is here in case you're interested.

But personally, I don't tend to drop many links of my own. When I do that, I drop links of the person that I'm highlighting and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's just one way to show the connectivity of you in space , to thank the person for what they've done, and to create a warm, fuzzy online presence.

If you are that type of person, if you are not that person in real life, if you wouldn't do this in person, if it was a real life environment instead of a virtual environment, then don't do this. Do other kinds of process posts, and let me know if you want to hear more. I can detail so many of these out because I love doing these so much.

Then do other kinds of process posts. If this feels weird or fake or just not, you don't do it. But if you are someone that sends someone an email going, oh my gosh, thank you so much, consider doing it in public on a social media platform like LinkedIn or Instagram or what have you, wherever you are, if you want to do that there, how open can I make this? So this is the type of process post that I personally really like to do.

Yeah. So if you look at my LinkedIn, my Instagram, or what have you more so my LinkedIn, you'll see quite a few of these. Because honestly, the podcasting space, the indie space, the business podcasting space, the creator space within podcasting, is very, very friendly and very community, very helping each other out.

And that is one of the reasons why I have been in it so long. I've tried a few different creative endeavors in my life, and I have never been in a community like this. So there's that.

This is Steph from Coffeelike Media. And, uh, you know, stephfuccio.com. s t e p h f u c c I dash.

O.com is where you can find all the information about my services, my podcasts, my blog, all kinds of stuff. You can consume any of that at your will.

All right. Until the second episode of the week. I will see you then.

Bye.