How to promote a podcast when nobody can see it
Apple says ratings and reviews are not factored into its charts. The median Buzzsprout episode gets 27 downloads in its first week. Here is what actually moves a podcast, and what is theatre.
8 minute read
The structural problem: an audio show is invisible
A podcast starts with a disadvantage no amount of effort removes. It is invisible in a feed. Every other format on a phone screen competes with motion, a face and a first second; an audio episode competes with a static square and a title. That is a large part of why discovery has quietly moved onto a video platform. Edison Research's Podcast Metrics has YouTube as the service used most by 31% of US weekly podcast listeners aged 13 and over, ahead of Spotify at 27% and Apple Podcasts at 15%. The audience itself is enormous — Edison's Infinite Dial 2026 puts monthly podcast listening at 58% of Americans aged 12 and over, roughly 167 million people — but they are scrolling, not browsing a directory. Something has to appear in that scroll for you.
Clips are the advertisement, the episode is the product
The unit that travels is one complete idea, usually 30 to 90 seconds, framed vertically with burned-in captions, because most of those views begin muted. Choose moments that stand alone without setup: a specific claim, a disagreement, a number, a story with a turn in it. Do not cut the best-sounding minute — cut the minute someone could repeat to a friend. Three to five clips per episode is a sustainable rate for one person and gives you something to post on the days you are not releasing. A clip does not have to sell the show or end with a call to action. It has to be good enough on its own that some fraction of the people who finish it go looking for where it came from.
Guesting and cross-promotion, honestly assessed
Guesting is the one growth lever most small shows can pull repeatedly, and it is worth admitting that nobody has published a controlled study of what an appearance is worth. What is defensible is the mechanism: you borrow an audience that has already proved it will sit through an hour of conversation, which is a much higher bar than a follow. Overlap matters more than size. An appearance on a show a tenth of your size but pointed squarely at your subject usually beats a bigger, vaguer one. The same logic covers promo swaps and feed drops between shows at a similar stage. Ask after you have actually listened and can say something specific, because every host already receives the templated version of that email.
Show notes, transcripts, and what search really does
Search is the weakest and most misunderstood part of podcasting. Apple introduced transcripts in March 2024 with iOS 17.4 and they are genuinely useful, but searching a transcript finds a phrase inside an episode you already have open. It is not a directory-wide index that surfaces you to strangers. The searchable asset you control is a page per episode on your own site: a plain title, a summary written for someone who has not heard it, the full transcript, timestamps, and links to everything mentioned. That page can rank in an ordinary web search; a directory listing largely cannot. Write episode titles for a person scanning a list of unfamiliar shows, not for a running joke only regular listeners will understand.
Submitting to directories, done once and done properly
Submission is a one-time job that people repeatedly get wrong. Your RSS feed is the master record — title, artwork, category, description and explicit flag all propagate from it, so correct them there rather than app by app. Submit the feed once through Apple Podcasts Connect and once through Spotify; most other apps index from those or from the open Podcast Index rather than requiring separate applications. Then add YouTube on purpose. YouTube Studio has an RSS ingestion tool that builds a video per episode from your show art, uploads new episodes automatically and notifies subscribers, though it is only available in some countries. Given where listening actually happens now, keeping the feed audio-only is a decision with a measurable cost.
Asking for reviews, and what reviews actually do
Asking for reviews is the most repeated advice in podcasting, and Apple's own documentation undercuts it. Apple states that ratings, reviews and shares are not factored into the algorithm behind Top Shows and Trending Episodes. What the charts measure is listening, follows and completion rate, and Apple adds that automatic downloads are excluded and that rankings cannot be bought or sold. So the ask that changes anything is 'follow the show', not 'leave a five-star review'. Reviews are not worthless — they sit on your show page as social proof for someone deciding whether to press play, and they tell you which episodes landed. Just stop treating them as a lever on the charts, because the company running the charts has said they are not.
Downloads are the wrong scoreboard
The other habit worth dropping is grading yourself on downloads. A download is a file request, not a person listening, which is why Edison measures listening rather than downloads and Apple ranks on completion. It also helps to know what normal looks like. Buzzsprout publishes live benchmarks across the 112,701 active podcasts it hosts, and in July 2026 an episode with 27 downloads in its first seven days sat at the median, 97 put it in the top quarter, 409 in the top ten percent and 4,579 in the top one percent. If your show does two hundred in a week you are already ahead of roughly nine in ten podcasts, which is encouraging or sobering depending on what you were promised.
A routine you can actually keep, and a realistic timescale
The workable version is unglamorous. Publish on a fixed day, cut three to five clips from each episode and space them across the week, pitch one guest appearance a month, and keep the episode page current. Then wait longer than feels reasonable. Podcast growth compounds through recommendation and a back catalogue that keeps being found, so the honest unit of measurement is quarters rather than weeks, and most shows that look like they grew quickly had published consistently for a year first. The step that breaks is almost always the clipping, because it is the only part that needs an editor every single week. FrameOS turns a recorded episode into captioned vertical clips so that stops being the reason you skip it — 300 credits for 3 days · no card.
FAQ
Does asking for reviews actually help a podcast grow?
Not in the way it is usually sold. Apple's own documentation says ratings, reviews and shares are not factored into the rankings for Top Shows or Trending Episodes; listening, follows and completion rate are what the charts measure. Reviews still work as social proof on your show page, but if you are going to ask listeners for one thing, ask them to follow the show.
How many downloads is good for a new podcast?
Lower than most people expect. Buzzsprout's July 2026 benchmarks, drawn from the 112,701 active shows it hosts, put the median episode at 27 downloads in its first seven days. Ninety-seven downloads puts you in the top quarter and 409 in the top ten percent. A few hundred a week is genuinely above average rather than a sign of failure.
Should I put my podcast on YouTube?
Probably. Edison Research found YouTube is the service used most by 31% of US weekly podcast listeners, ahead of Spotify and Apple Podcasts. YouTube Studio has an RSS ingestion tool that turns each episode into a video using your show artwork and publishes new ones automatically in supported countries, so the ongoing effort after setup is close to nothing.
How long does it take to grow a podcast?
Longer than most guides imply. Growth comes from recommendation and from a back catalogue that keeps being discovered, and both accumulate slowly. Plan in quarters rather than weeks, hold a fixed publishing day, and judge the show on follows and completion rather than on a download chart that moves for reasons you cannot see or influence.
Sources
- Buzzsprout Podcast Stats · Buzzsprout
- Apple Podcasts Charts - Top Shows · Apple Podcasts for Creators
- YouTube is the Preferred Podcast Listening Service · Edison Research
- The Infinite Dial 2026 · Edison Research
- Deliver podcasts using an RSS feed · YouTube Help
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